many attempts to destroy the man over the decades, by the U.S.
government and others, but none had ever come close to succeeding.
It’s tempting to take a shot at him myself, he thought. After all, I’m here, and it would be the one thing no one would expect. I don’t think the home office would be pleased, however.
The bus ground to a stop at the main Havana station, and everyone piled out. Marcus took it all in for a moment, the buses arriving and departing, crowds of people swarming around them. Marcus had no desire to pack himself in like cattle on a city bus, but he knew his final destination was still several miles away.
A familiar if rough-pitched rumble echoed through the station, and Marcus turned to watch a vintage Harley- Davidson Electra Glide rumble up. Its passenger, a long-limbed young woman, got off and gave the driver a long hug and kiss before picking up a small bag and disappearing into the station. Marcus walked over to the bike.
“Very nice,” he said, checking out the motorcyle. Every painted surface of the bike gleamed. “And your friend isn’t bad, either.”
The rider polished his Ray-Ban sunglasses on his shirt-tail. “She’s not my friend—she’s my sister, asshole.”
“And she’s lucky to have a brother like you to look out for her.” Marcus let his gaze stray to the bike again. “The reason I came over is that I don’t feel like sardining it in the buses, but I have to get downtown. Could I pay you for a lift?”
“Sure, sixty pesos.”
“Whoa, man, if you’re going to rob me, then at least take me to a dark alley first. All I got is twenty,” Marcus said.
“Man, that won’t even cover my gas.”
“Yeah, but you’re already out here anyway. If you head back in alone, that doesn’t get you anything.”
The biker watched two slender women stroll by, their colorful skirts swirling around their legs. “Yeah, but I could find a fine lady who wouldn’t mind the wind in her hair as she rode on the back of my hog, either. I might not even charge her, and she’d be a damn sight better looking than you!” The stranger smiled as he spoke.
Marcus laughed with him. “All right, all right, I can do thirty pesos, but that’s it.”
The biker looked him up and down. “You got a ride.
Now, where to?”
“Take me to the Plaza de la Revolucion, please.”
Damason drove through the streets in a rusty Lada, the car he was forced to use after Castro had ordered all of the more modern cars—anything European and made in the past twenty-five years—confiscated for the state’s use. He thought the faded, red, 1970s Soviet-built car he was crammed into was horrible. It puttered along on a wheezing, seventy-five horsepower engine, bald tires and no air-conditioning. Damason’s head brushed the ceiling, even when he hunched over the steering wheel, and driving on the inner city’s rougher roads, he often found himself taking more than one knock as he jounced over scattered potholes.
But none of that mattered. The message he had received told him to go to a building on the corner of Placencio and Maloja Streets. On the second floor he would find a package crucial to his upcoming mission. Damason wiped his sweating forehead on his shirtsleeve. Although his army uniform would command more respect from the local populace, it would also attract attention, and that was the last thing he wanted.
As usual, traffic was light except for the buses, and he had no problem reaching the address. Like most other inner-city neighborhoods, this one had seen better days about half a century earlier. The rows of two- and three- story buildings were barren, empty shells of their former magnificence.
Damason locked the car and crossed the street, looking up and down to make sure no one was watching him.
Checking the address again, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to get to the second floor. He was impressed that the building was still standing, as its bottom walls leaned in different directions, half the roof was missing and the entire structure looked as if it was about to collapse the moment anyone touched it. Damason crossed the street and pushed aside a rotting sheet of plywood blocking the crumbling doorway. It fell with a damp thud on the litter-and-brick-strewed ground.
Sunlight streamed in through empty window frames, revealing what had been a large open room, perhaps a cantina or restaurant once. Now, there were just piles of mortar, broken rocks and moldy, rotting wood. A large portion of the ceiling was missing, and he saw more wreckage on the second floor. Spotting an open doorway at the back of the room, Damason walked over to find a narrow, gloomy staircase leading up. Kneeling, he saw footsteps in the dust on the steps. He cocked his head and listened, but heard nothing upstairs save the cooing of mourning doves. Selecting a fist-sized rock from the floor, he started up, testing each step before putting his full weight on it.
It looked as if the second floor had been an apartment before time and the elements had ravaged it. The remains of an iron-framed bed rusted in one corner under an ancient, ragged bullfighting poster. The hole he had seen from below had devoured a full third of the floor, leaving a yawning pit behind. The remaining boards creaked ominously when Damason stepped on them, and he knew he’d have to get what he came for and get out before the whole place came down on his head.
Edging around the perimeter, he scanned the floor and walls, looking for a loose board, a broken section of wall, anything that would give a clue as to where the package was hidden. Other than a crumbling, weakened wall above the staircase, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He searched to the lip of the hole on one side, then went back and examined the other side, as well, to no avail.
It has to be here somewhere he thought nervously.
Damason walked back to the doorway and looked around the room again. Nothing looked any different this time around, the collapsed bed, the poster—
His questing fingers pushed past spiderwebs and flaking plaster to touch a narrow, cloth-wrapped package. After some maneuvering, he extracted the long, heavy parcel from the hole, and knew he was holding some kind of firearm.
A shout from the street brought Damason’s head up, and a burst of answering laughter confirmed his suspicion.
Creeping to the window, he peeked out to see three young men approaching his car, the only one parked on this street.
He cursed his luck under his breath. The message had been very specific, warning him that he shouldn’t be seen by anyone when he went to retrieve the package. He waited in the shadows, hoping they were just walking by, but the three circled the vehicle, peering into the windows and testing the hubcaps, prying one off with a twist and more laughter.
Damason didn’t think they’d steal the car—that was a major crime, and would send them to prison for years if they were caught—but he didn’t want to sit around and wait for them to become bored, either. He hefted the package in his hands, immediately dismissing the thought of using it as a deterrent. Glancing around the room again, he saw a long crack on the wall facing the street, running parallel to what remained of the roof. It gave him an idea.
Grabbing one of the bed frame’s iron bars, Damason worked it free and made his way over to the wall. He braced it against the crack and pushed with all his might. At first nothing happened, but then the entire section groaned, split and toppled to the street with a crash that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
Damason ducked behind the wall until the noise of the destruction had died away, then peeked over the wreckage.
Instead of chasing the three youths off, the collapsed wall seemed to have piqued their interest in the building. They were walking toward the entrance. Scowling, he watched them skulk around the doorway. Their laughter and boasts carried up to him as each dared the others to go farther inside. Another inspiration came to him, and Damason grabbed a pebble and tossed it through the back doorway, the rock rattling down the stairway. The trio fell silent, then all of them crept through the room. Lying next to the hole in the floor, Damason poked his head through, trying to see where they were.
The three young men were clustered around the doorway.
