Warren Murphy: Cold Warrior

"He's the backup interrogator," offered the Anglo.

"This mean jou are the foremost interrogator, no?"

"Something like that," said the tall Anglo, walking forward with absolutely no sound. He walked on the outsides of his feet. Clearly he was trained. Well trained. In something.

"Have jou signed in?" Dr. Revuelta asked nervously.

"Signed in?"

"Yes, it is the requirement of jour government. Jou must sign in."

The man looked blank.

"Here," Dr. Revuelta said, moving toward his desk, "allow me to summon a servant to bring the sign-in book."

A hand reached out before Dr. Revuelta could touch the bell button set on the side of his desk. The hand had moved with a direct, casual grace, but suddenly the bell button had become a blob of metal clinging forlornly to the desk rim.

There was no sound of a bell. There should have been. The man had struck it so ferociously that the button should have triggered the current.

Revuelta looked closer. The button stuck out like a gangrenous nipple from a flat metallic breastlet. It would never ring the downstairs bell again.

"Since this is a requirement of jour government, and jou represent the U.S.," Dr. Revuelta said sincerely, "I will assume the sign-in requirement has been waived. How may I assist jou fine yentlemen?"

"Somebody tried to invade Cuba this morning," said the Anglo.

"So?"

The other man, the Asian, had slipped up and around to stand near him. Revuelta began to sweat. He did not like this. This was not how U. S. agents ordinarily acted. Of course this was the CIA, not the FBI. So who could say?

"So everybody knows you run a training program for anti-Castro guerrillas," the Anglo said simply.

"I do not know this."

"Don't screw with us," said the Anglo. "Some of us missed supper because of you."

"Since when is it a crime to be anti-Castro?" Revuelta asked in an injured tone.

"Since Fidel started flying MIGs over Florida nuclear plants and jamming TV transmissions," said the Anglo.

"These are terrible things, but I think if jou have complaints jou should take them to Havana."

"Count on it," said the Anglo.

Revuelta smiled broadly then. "So we are on the same side?"

"Depends."

"I have always suspected the CIA of steering certain-how jou say?-assets my way."

"What assets?"

"Ah, but I am a good soldado. I do not reveal these things. If names are known to jou, there is no need to repeat them. If not, jou have no-what is the phrase?-no need to know."

"Remo, what is this idiot babbling about?" asked the Asian suddenly, his wizened face puckering.

"May I inquire jour name, senor?" Dr. Revuelta asked.

"You may not."

"Jou are not Vietnamese?"

"I am never Vietnamese! I am Korean!"

"Ah. South Korean, yes?"

"North."

At that, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta took an involuntary step backward. The North Koreans were among the last of Castro's close allies. What was transpiring here, that an Anglo CIA operative and a North Korean agent would come together to see him?

"I do not understand," he said carefully, backing away.

The others moved with him.

"You launch the Bay of Pigs operation?" demanded the Anglo.

"No."

"Liar!" snapped the North Korean. And suddenly the little old man was between Osvaldo Revuelta and the window he'd been planning to break, in a desperate effort to summon help in the form of his Cuban guards who patrolled outside, somehow unaware of this invasion.

"Speak the truth," the Korean demanded, and took hold of Osvaldo Revuelta's wrist.

There was strength in the little man's wrist. Great strength. It was like being seized by a tiny steam shovel powered by a dynamo of great size. Birdlike yellow fingers constricted, and things began popping out all over Osvaldo's body. Veins. Tendons. Sweat.

"The pain!" screamed Osvaldo Revuelta.

"The faster you come clean," the Anglo said coolly, "the sooner it goes away."

"I send no one!"

"We don't believe you."

"I only loan soldados!"

"What's a soldado?"

"A soldier," the tiny Korean said before Osvaldo could. But he said it anyway. Anything to lessen the fierce agony.

"Soldiers! I loaned my Ultima Hora soldiers to a man. A brave man."

"His name?" demanded the Korean, inflicting crushing force. Revuelta lowered himself to his knees, unaware that he was doing so. In his scarlet agony, he thought the tiny man was growing in strength and stature before his very eyes.

"He is Leopoldo Zorilla!" Revuelta shrieked.

"Who's Leopoldo Zorilla?" asked the Anglo, in a voice that seemed far, far from Osvaldo Revuelta's inflamed nervous system.

"How could jou not know?" he gasped.

"We're new in town. Haven't hit the night spots yet. Who's Leopoldo Zorilla?"

"A Cuban defector! He was former defense minister! He have been in Miami many months now! To him, I loan my best!"

"For what purpose?" asked the old Korean.

"I do not ask these questions! I am given money, and told to be prepared to return to Havana in triumph!"

The Anglo turned to the other and asked, "What do you think, Little Father?"

"He is telling the truth," the old one said disappointedly. The pain began to lessen, and the tears stopped flowing from Dr. Revuelta's eyes. He was able to see semi-clearly again.

"Why am I on my knees?" he asked wonderingly, noticing the nearness of the rug.

"Because we're here for information."

Dr. Revuelta looked up. "I do not understand. What difference would that make?"

"If we weren't, you'd be in the ground."

"Yo comprendo. "

"Where do we find Zorilla?"

The pain was still there. It was tolerable. Dr. Revuelta took a chance. He spoke two words very fast.

"Little Havana."

"Where in Little Havana?"

"I do not know. He moves around." This was the truth, and it seemed to work.

The tall Anglo noticed the clock on the wall and casually said, "It's about bedtime, isn't it?"

"Que?"

And so swift was the night that overcame his senses that Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta did not notice he had lost conciousness, until he opened his eyes many hours later to find himself drooling into the fine rug that had once graced his Havana office.

Upon regaining his senses, he called the contact number of Leopoldo Zorilla. The phone rang and rang and rang, and a feeling of dread came over him.

There was another number he had been given. He had not been told to whom this number belonged. Only that it should be resorted to in only the direst circumstances.

He dialed and waited ....

Chapter 7

Remo Williams used a pay phone to contact Harold W. Smith.

"Smitty? Remo. We got something."

"What is it?"

"His name is Leopoldo Zorilla. Name ring a Cuban bell?"

"Vaguely," said Smith, and the hollow clicking of fingers on a keyboard came through the phone wire.

"Yes, Remo. Leopoldo Zorilla is a Cuban defector, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service computer records. He was picked up in a raft floating in the Windward Passage."

"Where is he now?"

"Unclear. He was briefly detained by INS and then released."

"If he was that big, why wasn't he debriefed?"

"I do not know. I imagine because there has been such a flood of defectors that Washington saw no intelligence value in interrogating him."

"Well, according to Revuelta, he loaned some of his Ultima soldiers to Zorilla."

"For what purpose?" Smith asked.

"Claims he doesn't know. But he was told to stand by to go back to Havana in style."

"Interesting. You have your lead. Pursue it. Find Zorilla and learn all you can."

"What's the latest?"

"Castro is still speaking."

"This could go on for days," Remo remarked.

"Let us hope not."

"You and me both. If Chiun doesn't get his daily Cheeta fix, I wouldn't give odds on Castro's survivability"