Havana

'Now we walk and climb.'

'Where?'

'Up there,' he said, and pointed. The hills rose steeply, though blanketed in forest. Earl consulted the map, upon which he'd made many notes, read the lines of the peaks a mile beyond and several thousand feet up, made further examinations through binoculars, wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his arm, pulled the hat back low over his eyes.

'There, I'd say,' he said, pointing to a certain gap in the crests that seemed no different from any other gap.

'Okay.'

'We shoot a compass reading and take off.'

'He'll come that way?'

'That's the gamble.'

'But just so I can explain to the board that ends my career, why? I mean, they'll need a good laugh.'

'Well, he's looking at the same hills right now, but from about six miles inland. And he's probably seen the trucks arrive by this time, seen them soldiers get out and form up and move out. So he knows he's being pursued. He'll track a way over the crest, but it won't be the most obvious, the lowest. He's too smart for that. He'll stay away. But he won't do the highest either, 'cause he'd lose too much time and he's got a schedule to meet. He's already made his arrangements. They can't be changed at this time, 'cause he don't have no walkie-talkie. Whatever they set up, that's what they're committed to.'

'Yeah, well, fine, but still I count at least five gaps up there, and that's discounting the highest and the lowest. So it'll be one of those gaps? And you know which one.'

'Yeah. See, he has no recon, so he doesn't know what's on this side. You have to see it as he sees it, and interpret it from the knowledge that he has. He has no idea that one, over there, leads to a natural fold in the earth, and that going down it would be much easier. The vegetation ain't so heavy either. No, way he's looking, he'll take the one that's the closest thing to a straight line from where he is, yet ain't obviously, outstandingly low. So that would be the one I have selected.'

'Man, I hope you're right.'

'Oh, I'm right. The question is, are you tough enough to make it? We've got a climb to make, double- time.'

'Yeah, I'm fine. You know why? All that goddamn tennis. I'm in the best shape of my life. Boola-boola. Let's go make a big noise.'

Chapter 43

First came the difficulty of unloading. It seemed that several of the sergeants had not recovered from drunken celebration after the attack on the barracks, and had disappeared, which left the squads in command of corporals. But the men resented the corporals, who had no power to grant leaves or promotions, and who therefore need not be obeyed. So the unloading went slowly and imperfectly. Upon at last exiting the vehicles, the men would not stay formed up in squad units. Instead, this fellow saw a friend from that squad and that fellow saw a friend from this squad, and soon it wasn't a formation at all, it was just a large group of men standing around in a sugarcane field near a village, a crowd actually, with no place to go.

Captain Latavistada screamed himself hoarse trying to get them to obey his orders. But he was not regular army; he was the ranking Servicio Intelligencio Militar officer on the spot, and so he had inherited command by virtue of SIM's predominence over the regular army. Its officers, in protest, had refused to accompany the men in the field. Not even Latavistada's threats of investigations could move the aristocratic officers-one of them, Morales, was after all the hero of the attack! — to cooperate with the differently connected and cultured Latavistada, more of a middle-class striver who had succeeded merely by excellence at torture, which was any fool's path to the top.

But ultimately, Latavistada bullied the men into some kind of rough obedience, primarily by finding the largest of them and beating him severely with a riding crop. Latavistada was many things, most of them horrible, but he was not and never would be a coward.

At last, hammered into some semblance of order, the men began to trudge out in the hot sun, across the sugarcane fields, to the Sierra Maestra that loomed ahead, led by a squad of barking, yapping dogs and their handlers. In a short time they came to the village, where several elders were rounded up and questioned.

No, they had seen no fleeing men.

No, they knew nothing about tracks.

No, they had no food to share.

A sergeant looked to Captain Latavistada in frustration. This was going nowhere and the men were losing interest, beginning to peel off in twos and threes to find a shady spot in which to rest, laying down their rifles, drinking too much from their canteens. The operational edifice of the thing was on the verge of teetering into chaos.

It was at this moment, fortunately, that the dogs picked up a scent. Latavistada could tell by the changed pitch in the barking, and his enthusiasm inspired most of the men to reassemble. In time a corporal came running over.

'Sir, we have a good spoor. The dog man, he says the dogs have the scent of the wild one, Greaseball, and we've found tracks and broken foliage; we can track them.'

'Excellent.'

He turned, gave a quick burst of orders to his corporals, and the men reassembled sluggishly. But he sensed it was time to get a little respect from all of them.

He gestured and an old man was brought over.

'I thought, old sir, you said no one had been through here.'

'No, sir,' said the man. 'What I said was, I had not seen anyone come through here. I cannot be held responsible for what I have not seen. Such would not be fair at all.'

'But then,' said the captain, 'life itself is not always fair, is it?'

He pulled out his Star automatic and shot the old fellow squarely between the eyes. It was a magnificent shot, and the old man collapsed into a pile in a split second, dead long before he hit the ground.

Captain Latavistada felt the need to further explain the day's lesson to the villagers.

'Do you now understand? When an important official requests your cooperation in the pursuance of his duties, it is the duty of all Cubans to help immediately. We do not have time for cleverness and games. I understand you easterners far out here in the provinces are backwards in your ways, but that is not an excuse. We require immediate obedience. That is what we do in Havana and that is what you owe your country and your president.'

The villagers quavered in the fiery presence of such a man, and could not meet his gaze. It occurred to Latavistada to order his men to burn the village, for they would certainly love that, most of them being from villages just like it and therefore hating it passionately, but he elected instead to move out to track the fugitives, believing he had accomplished enough of an educational nature that day.

'What was that?' said Castro.

They were halfway up a hill, thistly and brambly, ten miles east of Santiago; the hill was the only thing that lay between themselves and the sea. But it was not an easy climb; they had a long way yet to go.

'I suspect they have just shot somebody,' said the Russian.

'Oh, god. They got here so fast.'

'Not actually. In any decent police state, they'd be a lot more efficient. In Red Spain, for example, toward the end, the discipline we had achieved was phenomenal. The Spaniards made excellent secret policemen. They had a gift, though I must say it surprises me to find it so lacking in you or in any of the president's crew.'

The closeness of danger increased his loquacity exponentially, while the wild fear in the young man annoyed him. He could not help but notice it. A twitch about the dry lips had started up, really repellent. Ugh, the whole left side of the mouth jerked upward spastically. The eyes were unable to focus, the face had turned gray, the breathing