Paul Christopher - Valley of the Templars

“There are eleven million people in Cuba. Of those, at least two million live in Havana-the real figure may be closer to three million, but no census taker has dared set foot in the baracoas , the slums, for more than a decade.” The doctor gave a hollow laugh. “Fidel says there are no slums in Havana, so that is that, I suppose.” He shook his head and took a long swallow of wine. “The birthrate in Cuba is almost nonexistent. The whole population grows older each year.

“The health care system is a bad joke. State-of-the-art hospitals and excellent doctors for those who can pay-tourists and members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, but for the rest, verminous bedding and black market drugs. Food is running out, but to fish in the rivers or the sea invites jail. Farmers without shoes or electricity eat, but the people of Havana and the other towns and cities starve. With Venezuela in an uproar, Cuba’s only supply of fuel is now in jeopardy. It is all coming to an end.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“When Fidel dies, there will be a demonstration by many dissidents. I could not tell you which groups, but there will be such a demonstration and someone will die at the hands of the Secret Police. That death will lead to anger and more demonstrations. Those demonstrations will lead to riots. All this will happen in one day or perhaps two at most and they will be riots the like of which you have never seen before.

“There are fewer than twenty thousand men and women in the Cuban armed forces. A few helicopters, perhaps a dozen. If called upon, at least half of those men and women in the Cuban armed forces will refuse to fire on their fellow Cubans.” The doctor laughed again and drank the last of his wine. “Especially with guns that have no bullets and tanks that have no fuel or lubricating oil.”

Selman-Housein smiled gently, his eyes behind his spectacles softening for a moment. Black even thought he saw tears welling up. “On New Year’s Eve in 1959, there were riots in Havana as Batista fled the city, but they were good riots, riots to cut the rot from the country’s core like a tumor in the brain.

“I know. I was seventeen years old then, and like everyone else we rioted with joy.” He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked up, blinking. “There will be no joy in the riots that will come. There will only be madness. It is the motto of our country come to pass- Patria o Muerte , Homeland or Death-and the people will choose death when Fidel dies and the revolution collapses. Everything will end in the Valle de la Muerte. ”

Carrie shrugged. “It all sounds very dramatic, Doctor, but when you get right down to it, what are you telling us? More nothing. Fidel Castro could live for years.”

“Fidel Castro will be dead in thirteen days,” the doctor answered. “And I have given the Brotherhood the means of killing him without leaving any trace. When the deed is done, they will begin their Operacion de Venganza and Cuba’s freedom shall be gone forever.”

“Operation Vengeance? What exactly is that?” Black asked.

“On the twelfth of April 1962, President John F. Kennedy promised that the United States would never intervene militarily in Cuba’s affairs. It is a promise that has been kept by every American president since that day. That promise is about to be broken.”

“How?” Carrie Pilkington queried, an urgent note in her voice.

“The Brotherhood is planning a terrorist attack on the United States that will make your nine-eleven pale into insignificance. Hundreds of thousands will die and there is no way to stop it.”

The Tiburon Blanco made her way slowly down the Caribbean coast of Cuba, every inch the hired sportfishing boat taking two well-heeled tourists onto the ocean waves in search of black marlin, tuna and mahi-mahi. The outriggers were extended, bait was cut and sometimes Holliday or Eddie would troll an empty line from the fighting chair just in case someone was paying too much attention.

Holliday was well aware that the U.S. intelligence community had a Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collector-a polite euphemism for spy satellite-dedicated to the Caribbean, and Cuba in particular. He also knew, despite public denials, that the Pentagon still carried on weekly U2 flights over Cuba in an upgraded version of the venerable old spy plane that had first uncovered the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The BASIC satellites were so good they could read the time on your wristwatch from fifty miles up, so Holliday wasn’t taking any chances; to keep his face from view he wore a long-billed New York Yankees ball cap whenever he went out on deck.

It was almost five hundred miles from Havana to La Boca at the mouth of the Rio Agabama, and it took them a week to get there. According to Montalvo Arango, to travel at night was dangerous. If there was any chance of being spotted by la guardia costera , it was after dark. The old fisherman told them it was more a matter of the coast guard being seen than the coast guard seeing them; a guardia costera ship-usually nothing more than a harbor patrol boat-spent more time ferrying people to Mexico for a price than guarding the sovereignty of the Cuban coast. When they weren’t smuggling people, they were usually smuggling drugs either in or out of the country, so as a rule it was best to keep out of their way.

At sunset the Tiburon Blanco would head into the shallows and find a small bay or cove where they could anchor for the night. Arango would use a hand line to catch enough fish for their dinner, open a jar of his own pickled mangoes for dessert and that and a few glasses of Ron Mulata would end their day. Holliday and Eddie occupied the two bunks in the forward cabin and Arango spread a blanket and slept under the worn canvas of the flying bridge. The whole cycle would begin again the following morning at dawn.

On the evening of the seventh day, they reached La Boca, the mouth of the Rio Agabama. Like most rivers in Cuba that ran down to the sea, the Agabama’s delta was a mangrove swamp that extended for more than three miles before they actually reached the river itself. The swamp smelled terrible.

“ Ay! Este sitio huele a huevos podridos! ” Eddie said.

“The rotten egg smell comes from the sulfur dioxide in the silt,” said Holliday.

“Sometimes you are like an encyclopedia, mi colonel . You know everything.”

“Blame my uncle Henry. He had a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition. Twenty-four volumes. He made me read one whole volume every summer. I reached the volume with mangrove swamp in it just after I got back from Vietnam.”

“Lotta good crab in there,” grunted Arango. The evening before, the old man had managed to catch them half a dozen spiny lobsters and they’d feasted on lobster tails and garlic butter as a change from their fish diet. According to Arango, catching one of the creatures illegally was good for five years in El Condesa. Six of the creatures would probably get you life.

The old man eased the boat carefully up the river, watching the color of the water and moving the wheel in tiny increments to avoid the thin gray lines of mud that lay like long, dangerous fingers out into the main stream. Go aground in the mud and you’d have to wait for the next high tide, and that wasn’t good at all; the mouth of the Rio Agabama wasn’t the safest place to be.

“Why?” Holliday asked, standing beside Arango in the wheelhouse. “What’s the problem?”

The old man lit the stub of his cigar with a kitchen match and pointed a bony brown finger. “ Por ahi ,” he said. “That is the problem.”