Elaborations on the theme included questions as to whether Monatero had lost his mind or merely turned traitor. Was he trying to start a war between Cuba and Venezuela by his attack on that friend of the revolution and trusted Chavez hatchet man, Colonel Paz? Or for that matter, with the United States? Trust the gringos to find a way to exploit the street violence into a casus belli, a cause for war, to unleash their long-held dream of stamping out by force the Fidelista revolution!
The big picture had emerged from the fog of deception, and it wasn't pretty. Monatero had been played. Havana had never ordered the assassination attempt on Paz, was in fact totally in the dark about the motivation and meaning of the assault.
They blamed Monatero for the debacle, unaware that it was their favorite, Beltran the Generalissimo, who deserved all the blame.
Havana had yet to learn the worst of it, that Beltran had used a trio of Supremo cell action men to kidnap Raoul Garros. Monatero shuddered to think of the reaction that would follow when they discovered that bit of bad news.
It was all clear to him now — too late — that his suspicions had been right from the start. Beltran had gone into business for himself. Who knew? Maybe he'd gone even over to the arch-villains in Washington, selling out to them as part of a plot against Cuba.
He might easily have burned the Supremo cell, exposing it to his new paymasters, whoever they were. Which meant that the site was no longer even partially secure, but subject at any moment to raids by Federal agents.
The revelation of supreme treachery had temporarily caused Monatero to go into brain lock, the gears of his mind jamming and stalling.
Now, as the initial shock wore off, his mind started to unfreeze, thoughts and schemes beginning to percolate through his stunned psyche.
The end was not yet; it was not too late. All was not lost. There was still time for him to contact his three enforcers, Rubio, Torres, and Moreno, and alert them to Beltran's betrayal. They could free Raoul Garros, short- circuiting the plot and minimizing the worst of the damage.
Havana would be informed that Beltran had gone rogue, using his extraordinary position in the spy hierarchy to bend and warp the Supremo cell to his own sinister purposes, and that Monatero and the rest of his people were blameless.
Then the Supremo cell must shut down, destroying all potentially incriminating hardware, software, and documents, while the personnel scattered in all directions, each of them finding a hole to hide in to thwart the hunters that were sure to follow.
All this must be done, and quickly — but first Rubio, the leader of the action trio, must be contacted immediately to abort the mission and free Garros.
Monatero reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, clawing out the cell phone that would put him in touch with Rubio. His hands shook, causing him to fumble with the cell, nearly dropping it.
Recovering, he got a good hold on it and lifted the lid to initiate communication…
The world blew up in his face.
Colonel Paz divided his death squad into two groups. The first included him, Carrancha, Vasco, and Aguilar. The second was headed by his lieutenant, Fierro, sided by Septiembre, Sancho, and Ramon.
Paz and his group rode in the Explorer he'd had stashed in the Jiffy Pump safe house; the machine was armored and fitted with bulletproof glass. Fierro's group was in a second SUV, one lacking such hardened extras. Rank has its privileges.
The Explorer was driven by Vasco, a former taxi driver in Caracas, whose mad whirl of heedless, anarchic traffic was good training for a getaway car driver.
Paz wore a bulletproof vest and was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle complete with grenade launcher, plus a pair of pistols stuck in the hip pockets of his pants. He rode shotgun, sitting in the front passenger seat; Carrancha and Aguilar were in the backseat.
The second SUV was driven by Septiembre, he of the sad eyes and mournful face.
Fierro had declined the option of riding in the front passenger seat, relegating it to Ramon. With the vehicle unarmored, the backseat was perhaps marginally safer than the front. Fierro rode in the rear, along with Sancho.
All death squad members were heavily armed with assault rifles, machine pistols, and shotguns, as well as a multiplicity of handguns. Paz and Fierro, the respective leaders of their squads, were also each equipped with several hand grenades.
The vehicles stood idling on a side street, screened from the direct sightlines of the Supremo Hat Company building.
Now Paz gave the go-ahead hand signal, the two SUVs rounding a corner and entering the square opposite the Supremo site. Engines roared; wheels spun, burning rubber, as the murder machines lurched forward, charging the building.
Closing in on the site, the SUVs parted company, Paz's vehicle hurtling toward the front of the hat company building, the other whipping around toward the rear.
A Supremo sentry was posted on the corner in front of the building, armed with a couple of handguns hidden under his jacket. Looking like any other ordinary idler, standing there loafing and smoking a cigarette, he looked up to see the Explorer coming at him. His mouth fell open, the cigarette clinging to his lower lip. He pulled a pair of handguns out of the waistband of his pants.
Paz shouted, 'Get him!'
Vasco wrestled the steering wheel to one side, swerving the vehicle to put the sentry directly in its path. The sentry did some fancy high-stepping to try to get out of the way, but the Explorer clipped him with its right front fender.
A booming impact sent a shudder through the SUV, the sentry flying off into the air like he'd been dropkicked. The arc of his trajectory was interrupted by a lamppost; he flopped to the base of it, motionless.
There was a double bump as first the Explorer's front wheels and then the rear wheels hopped the curb as it plowed across the concrete apron fronting the building.
Vasco stomped the brake, slamming the vehicle to a halt. He and Paz were wearing seat belts; Carrancha and Aguilar were not, and the sudden stop bounced them around in the backseat.
Paz flung open his door and lunged sideways, in such a hurry to get into the fight that he'd forgotten to unfasten his seat belt, which caught him up short. Cursing, he hit the release, shrugged out of the harness, and hit the sidewalk with both feet at the same time, dropping into a crouch and bringing up the Kalash. The Kalash was fitted on the underside of the barrel with a loaded grenade launcher.
On the roof of the building, two riflemen popped up, showing themselves above the waist-high parapet, scrambling to draw a bead on Paz.
Paz beat them to the punch and let fly, lofting the grenade in a high arc that sent it plopping on the rooftop behind the riflemen.
It exploded in a booming fireball that filled the roof with red light, heat, and smoke.
A fragmentation grenade, it sieved the riflemen with shrapnel, the concussion picking up one of them and tossing him off the roof, to land with a splattery thud on the sidewalk in front of the building. The other staggered around for a few steps before flopping down out of sight behind the parapet.
On Paz's right, the second SUV had crashed through the locked gates of the chain-link fence surrounding the parking lot. They flew open as the vehicle bulled through.
A couple of armed men ran out from behind the back of the building into the lot, opening fire with handguns at the oncoming SUV.
Ramon leaned out of the passenger side front window, firing a machine pistol.
Sancho stuck his assault rifle barrel out of the left side window behind the driver's seat, shooting at the Supremo gunmen. He had a better line of fire on them than Ramon, since they were on the left side of the vehicle.
Incoming rounds racketed against the front of the SUV, punching into the grille, headlights, and engine block.
