who cried each night and was too fat for sports. The boy disappeared one night, actually beating Frenchy out of the school, though Frenchy's crime wasn't melancholy and self-loathing but simple cheating. Castro had the same gray look of defeat, and the flesh through his face trembled at each step, loose and slack. His lips rose like a wave under the vibration as the foot struck the ground, and Frenchy saw not heroic intensity or worker's will to endure but simple, abject fear, a face bathed in sweat, a shirt translucent with the moisture it had captured, everywhere baby fat and terror at play on the big, clumsy, boy's body. He was infantile, a class goat picked on by the football captain.
Frenchy let the binocs slide left to see this mysterious Mr. X who was running the show. What he saw was a wiry European in a dark bandanna like a peasant, and a peasant's dirty smock and sandals, but something no peasant could ever have: intense and impenetrable dignity.
It occurred to Frenchy that here was the real thing, so rarely glimpsed, almost mythological in Agency culture: a high-ranking, superbly trained and motivated true Red agent. He couldn't help but be impressed, for even as he watched, he could tell the boy was lost in panic but the old goat was still clever and making shrewd decisions even as they reached the water.
'That guy looks like a Russian,' he hissed, so excited he could hardly stand it. A victory of immense proportions was just before him. Kill Castro, as Plans had decreed, and capture this guy! What a coup! What secrets he could unlock! Why, you could build a whole career out of one afternoon's work and bask in sheer glory forever.
'Kill the Cuban,' he said, 'wound the Russian. Hit him in the leg, the knee. We'll take him. He's unarmed. Jesus Christ, what a catch.'
The boy collapsed in the pond, and thrust his head into the water. But Speshnev grabbed him before he could gulp in the gallons.
'No. Don't lose control. Small, easy sips, wet your lips, let it hydrate your body. If you swallow everything, you'll bloat and your internal temperature will go out of balance and you'll collapse. I'm not carrying you.'
The boy fought him for just a second, bucking like a horse to get his snout into the wet, but then yielded. He dipped in demurely, and sipped.
'Excellent,' said Speshnev.
He himself at last bent to the surface and admitted the water, and felt the miracle of it as it spread hope through his body. The sheer pleasure of it was better than anything sexual.
But in a second he was back in the game, pulling the boy from the water, letting him rest on the bank, but at the same time looking around.
The boat was so close now. A line of trees cut the beach off from the creek, and then it was but a hundred yards or so until they cut across the nakedness of the sands. Speshnev looked back, at the crest of the hill. The dogs were still baying; the soldiers had not arrived yet and as the distance was over a half a mile, he knew he was too far for any kind of accurate shooting.
He took a quick scan about, and his senses saw nothing except the blend of forest and jungle that was Cuba, the palms jutting out among the pines, the odd bright flower, the singing of birds, the bright sun above, behind some clouds.
'Here, wrap this around your head, it'll keep you fresh for this last little bit. Hurry.'
He pulled off his dark bandanna, soaked it in the water, then handed it over.
Then he heard the shot.
Earl didn't like it. The problem was the intimacy. In battle, over iron sights, the enemy was a blur. You pressed, the gun fired, and down he went and you moved on. If you were close enough to see the bullets hit and blow holes in him, then the fight was desperate and crazed and horribly dangerous, so there was no time for thought, you operated on instinct alone. But the sniper's curse is his intimacy and now, the magnifications of the eight-power scope blew up the faces of the men who lay before him.
He saw not a Red politico but a fat boy with greasy hair and an unmolded, unformed look to his face. And he saw the man who'd twice saved his life, crafty and professional, almost on the verge of what appeared to be a great coup. This man was the enemy, he told himself, and tried to believe it desperately.
Earl had always followed his orders. That was the compass heading of his life.
The Winchester was set solid against his shoulder, supported by bone not muscle, his body itself solid against the ground, helped by the cupping effect of the slight rise against which he curled.
'You can hit one guy, throw the bolt and hit the other, say, in the knee?' Frenchy implored.
He didn't say a word.
'You want me to get set to move down there with the carbine? If you hit the old guy in the leg, I know we can take him alive. He's no dummy. If he doesn't go with us, the Cubans will pick his bones clean in a torture chamber. He'll see it.'
There was no waver in the crosshairs, so solidly was the instrument supported. He had examined each face and now set the reticule on the boy's neck, under his ear, in the softness just behind the jaw; the shot would blow out his spinal column and he would be a footnote in Cuban history. Earl knew the arc to target two was short and that he could flick the bolt in a second. He thought the Russian would be quick, but how quick? He guessed he'd roll right, and Earl could hit him in the fat part of the thigh, hoping to miss the femoral which would bleed him out in minutes. He had an image of the man squawking, his hands flown to the wound in his leg, trying to stanch the flow. He would know exactly who shot him.
He felt the trigger come back against the urging of his fingertip, as it drained the ounces out of the mechanism.
He put the rifle down.
'You know what? I ain't pulling your trigger.'
Frenchy looked at him.
'What?'
'Forget it. I don't do this kind of thing. It ain't my way. Do your own killing, junior.'
'I-You have to. For God's sake, Earl, this isn't a joke. This isn't a game. This is what it is, what we do, what our country needs. You have to, for God's sake.'
Earl just spat into the dust.
When he looked back, Frenchy had raised the carbine and pointed it at him.
'Earl, you will do what I say. You will do it. Do you get it? You don't have a choice. Now, fast, before they get away.'
Earl chuckled.
'There's another trigger ain't getting pulled, kid. Don't make me laugh.'
And Frenchy didn't. The rifle came down.
'This is so wrong,' he said.
'Let's let the Cubans decide what to do with this boy.'
He went back to the scope and put the crosshairs into the exact center of the distance between Castro and the Russian, on the shimmering surface of the water, so that each would feel the shockwave of the bullet as it roared past, and each would know that they were taken, and saw the Russian's hand dip into the water and come out with a soaked handkerchief. The boy reached to touch it and in that instant, as each man was connected to the handkerchief between them, he pressed the trigger.
When the scope cleared recoil and came back down, mist still hung in the air from the bullet smashing into the water, and the Cuban was running crazily toward the beach.
The Russian had disappeared already.
Chapter 46
Lieutenant Sarria dreamed of caramel-skinned beauties, with white teeth and flowers in their hair. He was fifty-four years old and much darker than caramel. His hair was salt and pepper, his body long and sinewy and his eyes sad. He dreamed of young ladies often. The way they walked, with music in their steps. The jiggle of their breasts under their blouses. Their behinds, proud and sassy. The magic in their smiles, their eyes. Their toes, long
