Warren Murphy: Cold Warrior

"Not if we keep our wits about us," said Chiun, bending down to scoop out a long-buried mine. It was gray, and shaped like a soup can with antennae.

He threw it. The mine, tumbling, sailed toward a royal palm tree, where a lone sniper was perched.

It landed, plungers down, in the swaying fronds. The top of the palm jumped apart. Palm fronds, rifle fragments, and assorted human limbs and organs showered down. The stone-gray bole now sported arty red stripes.

"Good thinking," said Remo.

Together, they excavated mines and tossed them at muzzle flashes. Before long, they had decapitated every palm in sight and cleared a lot of brush.

When the firing had stopped completely, they picked their way through the mines. It was easy, this time. The snipers had cleared most of the mines for them.

They found a jeeplike Russian-made Gazik vehicle, keys still in the ignition, and commandeered it. No one stopped them.

"Okay, on to Zapata Swamp," Remo said grimly.

"I am not looking forward to this," Chiun said thinly.

"I know what you mean."

"I have no desire to be the one to slay the illustrious Uncle Sam Beasley."

Remo said nothing, but he was thinking the same thing himself.

And he knew that before the day was done, he might have to kill his childhood hero in the name of his country. The thought made him sick to his stomach.

Chapter 24

The President of Cuba puffed angrily as he stared out his office window. He had to be very angry, to puff in full view of the masses below. For he had sworn to them that he had given up his cherished cigars, as a token of the new Cuban smoking-prevention program he himself had inaugurated amid much fanfare.

He had said it was for the health and well-being of his beloved Cuba. It took him four hours of passionate speechmaking to get his point across, appealing to the people's pride, their patriotism, their concern for their precious Socialist lungs.

In fact, the program was a blind to cover the sad fact that the tobacco crop had failed miserably, leaving only enough for the people to smoke their cigarettes-or Fidel his magnificent cigars.

That had been an easy choice. He would never give up his cigars. He would sooner shave his beloved beard.

An adjutant came in, gasping.

"Another MIG has been shot down!"

"Bah! Send another!"

"But El Lider, we have no more petrol to fuel them!"

El Lider turned angrily, puffing like a steam shovel.

"Then siphon some from my personal helicopter, dolt!"

The man saluted smartly. "At once, El Lider!"

An orderly came in a moment later. Fidel knew it was an orderly, because they were required to call him El Presidente. Each rank of subordinates was restricted in the manner in which they could address him. His women invariably called him El Guapo Grosso.

"El Presidente!" gasped the orderly.

"What is it now?"

"A ship has been sighted bearing toward Havana Harbor."

The Maximum Leader turned from the window curiously. "What ship?"

"An American vessel."

"A warship?"

"No. A cruise ship. It bears the name Beasley Adventure."

"Beasley! El Sam Beasley?"

"Si, El Presidente."

The Maximum Leader of Cuba took his cigar from his bushy mouth and grinned fiercely. "He made mucho gusto cartoons in his day!"

"Si, El Presidente. I personally am a fan of Dingbat Duck."

"Bah! He is nothing beside the pure flame that is Monongahela Mouse. A mouse after my own heart, that one! Now, as for this matter: The stupid capitan must be lost. Capture that ship! We will ransom it."

"Si, El Presidente."

In the filthy waters off Havana Harbor, Cuban gunboats surrounded the Beasley Adventure, like minnows around a basking shark.

The captain of the flotilla lifted a megaphone to his mouth and shouted up.

"Prepare to be boarded, or jou will be blown out of the water!"

It was a colossal bluff. If a firing squad hadn't been the reward for disobedience, he would never have been so audacious as to risk it.

To his surprise, a white-uniformed captain leaned over the rail and shouted down through a megaphone of his own. It was quite powerful. It nearly blasted the Cuban captain's hat off his head with just two words.

"We surrender!"

"Jou will follow us to Habana Harbor!" the captain shouted back.

"Understood!"

And like a tamed and beaten Moby Dick, the leviathan cruise liner Beasley Adventure fell in behind the scooting gunboats.

All along the decks, Cuban naval guns fired into the air in joyous celebration.

The captain shared in none of it. He licked his lips in worriment, as the crumbling gray lines of Morro Castle loomed ahead.

"This is too easy," he muttered.

Chapter 25

The sun was setting in the turquoise expanse of The Bay of Pigs when the first low shapes appeared on the horizon.

First there was but one.

Faustino Barranca, of the Cuban Territorial Troops Militia, saw it through the crimson haze of the setting sun, as if in a dream. He had been grilling alligator meat for his dinner. Since Option Zero, Faustino had personally thinned the alligator population of Zapata Swamp, overlooking the historic Bay of Pigs. It wasn't particularly tasty, but it was better than banana-rat stew.

He had been told of the failed U.S. incursion. All Cuba knew of it. It worried the people greatly, because El Loco Fidel had used it as an excuse to attack Florida. Unsuccessfully, it was true. But the rumors were that he would not give up until he had struck the Colossus of the North a mortal blow.

Everyone knew that the result of this insanity was beyond question: a small crater in Florida-and all of Cuba an inferno.

No one doubted the rationale for this. Socialism was failing. Cuba was crumbling. Castro would fall one day. He was not a man to fall gracefully. Not with his monumental ego.

The Maximum Leader would rather see armageddon, the utter destruction of Cuba, than accept the humiliation of political defeat.

So when the barges began to appear in the dancing red reflections on the Caribbean, Faustino threw sand on his roasting fire to quench it and gathered up his Dragunov sniper's rifle. If these were the Americans, it could only mean that Fidel had succeeded-and Cuba was as good as toast. He wept silently.

The barges grew in number, until they were strung out along the Bay like dark bars of soap.

From low superstructures, dishlike shapes revolved. Their designs were familiar, yet not. As he watched, Faustino came to recognize the odd configuration of three joined discs.

He blinked. "Mongo?"

Then the uniformed figures seated low in their seats stood up in unison. In perfect synchronization, they turned as one.

Rifles snapped to bulky shoulders. It was perfect. Not a man was out of order.

And as if a single button had been pressed, the murderous automatic weapons fire began to rake Zapata Swamp.

Faustino flung himself into the mangroves. He had no choice now but to return fire. He was a sharpshooter. And he was good.

With his eye to the scope, he selected a soldier. The cross hairs lined up with the silhouette of his head, and Faustino squeezed the trigger.

The dark head exploded on its shoulders.

Faustino grinned through his sweat and fear. He had scored a direct hit with his first shot!

Then he laid his eyes against his scope again . . . and saw that the man he had shot, the headless man, was still firing. Firing without a head!

Faustino was so shocked by this sight that, unnerved, he jumped to his feet, the better to see this incredible thing.

A stitchery of bullets violently sewed his tunic to his chest and Faustino Barranca was flung into the mangrove tangle where the alligators would later find in him a tasty snack.

Mouse-eared radar dishes whirling, the amphibious barges came on. Firing relentlessly. Without mercy. Without surcease.