Randy White - North of Havana

I had to do something. I had to act. If I waited for him to attack, I was lost. He'd step away from the tree and shoot me. No muss, no fuss. No contest. I had to attack first. To surprise him was my only chance…

So why wouldn't my legs work? Why couldn't I move?

I heard another small thunk. Yes, he was on the other side of the tree. Probably leaning against it now, letting me sweat it out.

Then I heard something else: a distant voice… then the sound of splashing, like someone running through water.

Valdes and Santiago had reached the harbor; were giving up their position for no other reason than I had told them to do it.

So now my stalker would reassess. He would decide that he'd miscalculated; that we already had made it to the water, and he would sprint toward the sound to catch us…

But my stalker did not sprint. He did not move. He waited… and I knew that he was waiting for me. I had to move now or die.

I took a deep breath, released it silently. Took another… then I was moving without waiting to think it out… didn't have to think about it because I knew what to do, just as I've always known what to do, because it's in me, that instinct. The rock in my left hand, I tossed several feet out into the darkness. I waited until it hit, drawing his attention, and I was already moving the opposite way… arm back, hand cocked behind my ear… and I threw the rock as hard as I could, chest high, at a dark place on the tree's buttress where I knew he had to be. I was already rolling when the rock hit-waHAP-and came to my feet, crouched low, expecting to hear gunfire or the groan of a man in pain.

Instead I heard an echoing rain forest silence… water dripping, cicadas droning; the squawk of an outraged bird. Then… from behind me… a voice: "Good move, Ford. Wrong tree."

A man's voice speaking English. A voice that was familiar but that I did not immediately place.

I turned slowly, very slowly, and looked into the jungled void. No one there; the voice seemed to originate from darkness. In the pause that followed, I heard, thunk. Then heard it again: thunk. The noise that I had convinced myself was the sound of a rifle butt banging the tree.

"Palm nuts," the voice said. "Sounds like wood against wood, doesn't it? Same little trick you tried with the rock."

He left the obvious unspoken: I'd fallen for it, he hadn't.

It was Lenny Geis, the voice. Lenny Geis, the Canadian businessman, die cheerful tour guide, the man with the fiancee back home, the man who was troubled by prostitutes and loneliness, who had been vouched for by bellboys at the Havana Libre, the man who was none of the things he'd seemed to be, who had fooled me twice and was now going to shoot me.

I said, "You're a hell of an actor, Lenny. Or whatever your real name is."

Heard the voice say, "It's like one of those things, those Americanisms, they taught us up there at the training school. The one outside Montreal? The line that goes, 'It takes one to know one.' "

A beam of white light blinked on, blinding me. I used my hands to shield my eyes. The way the light panned across me, very steady, I realized it was one of those mini halogen flashlights that can be mounted beneath the barrel of some weapon. A semiauto pistol, perhaps, or an automatic rifle. What would Geis, a Russian, prefer? Same as everyone else, probably. A Beretta or the superior Sig Sauer-like the one I kept wrapped in oilcloth back in Dinkin's Bay and hadn't used since my last trip to Mariel.

Ludicrous that I should be standing there so calmly, the light now sighted on my chest, speculating on the specifics of hardware.

There was a rustling in the bushes. The flashlight nodded, coming closer. I could now see Geis. He was vaguely illuminated by light reflecting off vines and elephant ear leaves. His face was black. Cammo paint…? No. I watched him reach and strip a black balaclava off his head. Could see his rust-colored hair, one eye wide, looking at me over the sights of a short automatic rifle.

An H amp;K MP5?

Some ultimate high-tech weapon. Modern times…

Geis said, "So… the question is: Should I or shouldn't I?" Reflective; didn't seemed to be enjoying it, but didn't seem troubled by it either.

My legs felt weak, watery… but a surprising calm had come into my mind. I wondered clinically: In times of extreme fear, does the brain produce some kind of pheromone that acts as a natural sedative?

I said, "Before you do anything, there's something you need to believe-Dewey's just a friend of mine. She's not connected with this

… business in any way. You make sure she gets back to the States safely, there's some money in it for you."

I was surprised when he answered, "Considering who she's with, yeah, she's going to need a helping hand."

What the hell did that mean?

He stopped now, ten yards or more away, a careful professional distance, the beam of the light once again locked onto my chest.

"You'll see that she gets out of Cuba?"

"Sure. Nice gal. Way too classy for these Cuban goat killers."

"I've got your word on that?"

Taken aback, he didn't reply for a moment. "My word! Anybody else asked me that, I'd laugh in their face. But for you-yeah, you bet. You've got my word."

Even holding a gun on me, Geis had an ingratiating genuineness. I could hear him on the street saying, "Us Anglos, we've got to stick together." It was phony, all phony; a learned skill, but even knowing that it was an act, I still wanted to trust him. What choice did I have?

I took a deep breath, my whole body rigid; closed my eyes, expecting him to shoot. After several long seconds, I said, "If you're going to do it, do it."

Small burst of laughter. "You sound eager."

I opened my eyes. He had moved a pace or two closer. Was wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, nothing military except the night optics scope hanging on a lanyard around his neck. Or maybe an infrared thermal scope.

He'd known where I was the entire time.

I said, "It's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?"

"Is that a recommendation… or the voice of experience?"

"It's an evaluation. You missed me on the road, you caught me here. So finish the job."

"Missed you on the road?" It seemed to amuse him- why? And why was he still talking? "I'm curious about something, Ford. You don't want to answer, fine. But what I'm wondering is, say you were in my position. Would you do it? Right now I'm talking about. Would you shoot?"

"No."

"You seem pretty sure."

"I am."

"Why?"

"Because I wouldn't. Because I grew up."

"Ah…" Like he didn't believe me. "What about ten, fifteen years ago?"

"I think… I think we both know the answer to that. It's what this whole thing's about, isn't it?"

"Aledia Malinovsky, Nikolai Alekseev-those names ring a bell?"

I nodded. One woman, one man. The woman had been a horrible surprise.

"So you are the guy."

He didn't know already?

"You're holding the weapon. You want to ask something, ask."

"I'm asking if you regret it. What you did. That's what it sounds like you're telling me."

I was tempted to go along with him; tell him what he wanted to hear. Maybe he'd spare me. Take me in and have them put me in some hellhole prison… in which case maybe I could get word to Juan Rivera, have him ask Pilar to intercede. Would she do it? Did Pilar still care enough?

But no. I'd dealt with the memory of that one night far too long to diminish it all with a lie. I said, "I regret the… necessity of it."

"Which means you'd do it again."

"Yes."

"The night the sailboat exploded. The whole thing- that's what you're telling me."

The forty-two-foot Peregrine, built in Cuba to be sailed among a thousand other Freedom Flotilla boats across the Florida Straits, then anchored in a major U.S. port. The Soviet GRU's absurd and desperate solution to Star Wars: a test boat equipped with a leaded keel, a radio-detonated nuclear explosive therein, and more to follow if the Peregrine made it through undiscovered.