Randy White - Dead Silence

Farfel had first learned of Myles from an American soldier at Hoa Lo Prison, downtown Hanoi. The POW’s name was Billy Sofvia, who said he had worked for Myles and helped him bury a girl the rich man had murdered.

The soldier Billy Sofvia had a higher pain tolerance than most Americans-that was the objective of the Cuban Program: chart the pain thresholds of different racial and social groups. But Farfel had finally broken Sofvia using a technique of his own invention. Hump’s late father, Angel Valencia Yanquez, an intelligent man, had also contributed, but it was Rene Navarro’s concept.

The method employed a low-voltage wire that was inserted up the urethra into the bladder, harmless in terms of the urinary tract and reproductive function but devastating psychologically. Inserting a low-voltage wire through the corner of a man’s eye into his frontal lobe did far more actual damage but wasn’t nearly as effective, as data had proven.

Fear, Farfel had learned early in his career, was a far more effective weapon than guns or bombs.

Sofvia had confessed to every sin he had committed and then moved on to the sins of people he knew in the U.S.

Farfel had kept careful notes during his years in Vietnam. He had continued keeping notes as an interrogator-for-hire in Panama and the Middle East. He had cataloged the sins of many prisoners but was particularly interested in the sins of wealthy employers the prisoners knew back home. Farfel had filed that information away, hoping it would be valuable when the politics of Cuba changed.

It had been a wise thing to do.

Nelson Myles was so incredibly wealthy that Farfel had decided to allow him to live. The man might be useful later if Farfel ever made it back to Cuba. But so much had gone wrong that he was beginning to have doubts.

It had seemed so easy in the beginning. As a scientist, he was now surprised by his own naivete. But he was even more surprised by their run of bad luck.

While living as a peasant in Havana, working as a common barber, Farfel had read about the famous Hamptons. He had often dreamed of visiting the place.

Farfel had imagined himself at expensive restaurants, chatting with famous artists or in bed with the daughter or wife of his eager host. Yet even though Myles had cooperated-with the exception of offering his wife-Farfel now felt a welling dread when he thought of the Hamptons, all because of the insane boy.

America, with its wealth, was no longer a dream. It had become a nightmare.

That will change soon. Be patient, be precise. Listen to the intellect, not the emotions.

Not easy to do when in the company of a moron. Hump, even though born from the seed of his late friend Angel Yanquez, was just another experiment. And that experiment had gone terribly wrong, as even Angel had conceded on his deathbed.

Farfel had now fulfilled his promise to Yanquez, so never again after this. All Farfel wanted to do was return safely to Cuba, which, unfortunately, required that he trust Hump to drive the boat while he navigated.

It’s only two hundred miles. Two hundred miles is nothing! The Gulf of Mexico is only a few kilometers from here.

Here was an island, a place identified as Tamarindo on the GPS in the boat that Myles had made available to them. Farfel had wrestled with the idea of simply killing the boy, using a razor on him, or an open flame perhaps, which might have provided interesting notes. But their run of bad luck worried the Cuban.

Instead of imagining expensive restaurants and sleeping with the daughters of his hosts, he was now envisioning an American courtroom with former POWs who would never fully appreciate the kindness Farfel had demonstrated by not killing them.

Fulfilling the obligations of the ransom note, the Cuban had decided, was the wisest course, although now, looking at his bloody hand, he was having doubts about that, too.

Farfel crossed the beach, hearing the sound of sand being shoveled. The sand made a water-saturated thump as it landed on the boy’s coffin. Finally, Hump was following orders and filling the hole.

Near the wooden dock, bayside, was a cabin hidden by palms and casuarina pines. Wind in the casuarinas imitated the wash of waves on a distant beach, as Farfel approached a path outlined with whelk shells. The shells were bone white on this breezy, blue tropical day.

It hadn’t been easy to break into the cabin. It was made of concrete block, and Myles’s construction people had installed a difficult lock system using steel rebar on every door and window. Hump, though, was so freakishly strong that he’d had no trouble ripping off one of the window shutters.

That by-product of Angel Valencia Yanquez’s experiment, his spawn’s extraordinary strength, had been the only part of the experiment that had gone right.

Farfel entered the cabin, taking comfort in the coolness of the open room. He washed his damaged hand in a bucket and soaked it in Betadine, which he found on a shelf. Then he lay down to rest on one of the bunks.

Farfel was exhausted. His ankle hurt, his hand throbbed and he had been suffering back spasms ever since he’d flinched, dodging the syringe the boy had thrown, and then had to scramble to avoid being crushed by the horse.

Shooting that elephant of a horse was the highlight of this miserable trip.

As Farfel lay resting, his eyes moved around the room. He’d taken a careful look earlier, but the decorations were still beyond his understanding. He was a scientist yet hadn’t settled on an explanation for the weird symbols on the walls, on the mantelpiece-everywhere he looked.

There were several prints of an all-seeing eye encased in a pyramid, as on the back of an American dollar bill. There was a pirate flag in one corner, a flag with a large yellow Y in another.

Pirate banners, showing death’s-heads of various designs, marked the entrance to the little kitchen area, where there was a propane stove and oil lanterns. There were skull-and-crossbones symbols on the mantelpiece and a row of Indian artifacts: flint arrowheads, a withered quiver of arrows, a flint knife, an unstrung bow and more than a dozen figurines-cast in plaster, carved from stone-of a dour, flat-faced Indian.

Nelson Myles may be wealthy, but he has bourgeois taste. Or… perhaps this is a clubhouse used by children.

Because there was a canoe, two kayaks and a basketball hoop outside, that seemed plausible until Farfel considered several paddles, not for boats but the sort college boys used to spank with. The paddles were covered with more cryptic symbols. There was also a row of beer mugs engraved with such things as MAGOG, SUPERMAN, GOG.

American children don’t use paddles or drink beer.

In a glass-sided box, near the fireplace, were bones, which most people couldn’t identify but Farfel could. He’d seen them earlier so didn’t bother to look. There were human femurs, a partial set of human ribs, carpal remnants and finger segments from a human hand. There were also two ancient-looking skulls.

A section of the parietal bone was missing from one of the skulls. Teeth were missing from the lower mandibles of both.

Myles is a serial killer-that explains it. The murdered girl was his first, and he enjoyed it. Only a ghoul would use bones as decorations.

Or a research scientist, Farfel reminded himself.

The Cuban lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. They would be in the boat soon headed for Havana. He hoped to cross the two hundred miles in less than twelve hours but feared it might take longer.

No matter. The deadline was less than twenty-four hours away. By tomorrow morning, they would surely be close enough to watch the American plane drop the crates of personal possessions that had been stolen from the Bearded One.

Farfel wanted to personally confirm that all records of the Cuban Program had been destroyed-his future depended on it. It also depended on the millions Castro was rumored to have in Spanish treasure.