Havana Bay

The doors opened and O'Brien peeked through to say, 'Come on. It's too lovely a night to miss.'

Arkady marched up. This far out the cockpit sat under a canopy of stars. Walls steered parallel to the shore, running at dead slow. Besides his cigar O'Brien also held, casually but not negligently, a pistol with a barrel extended by a silencer. The marina had passed from sight, but approaching on the Miramar shore was a far brighter nexus of excitement and music. Arkady recognized the Havana Yacht Club brilliant in floodlights. On the patio leading down to the beach a crowd surrounded a stage and reviewing stand.

Along with floodlights the Yacht Club displayed the colored lights of carnival, although the club's twin docks were empty and only a black patrol boat had tied up to enjoy the spectacle. As the Gavilan drew closer Walls slipped forward to snap covers over the running lights and John O'Brien dropped his cigar into the water.

'Quite a show.' He handed Arkady a set of heavy binoculars.» Now your trip to Cuba is complete.'

The glasses were 20x Zeiss with a matte metal body, and through them the scene at the Yacht Club meters leaped into view. Spectators filled two levels of the patio. A troupe of women in yellow scarves and skirts ascended the stage while a band filled the time with a percussive rhythm, whistles, bells clearly audible even from the Gavilan. Arkady zoomed in on the reviewing stand, on a tall man with aviator glasses, Erasmo's friend, the same man who had raised a toast to the Havana Yacht Club at the Angola paladar the night before. Arkady ran the glasses along the other seated guests. In the front row's places of honor were an empty chair and a man with a gray beard who looked as if he had been big once but had since shrunk into a stiff green shell of ironed fatigues. He had the abstracted expression of an old man regarding a thousand grandchildren whose names he could no longer keep track of.

Arkady went back to the patrol boat. By now, Ofelia ought to have communicated with someone, and although the Gavilan ran low in the water Arkady assumed it appeared on the patrol boat's radar. Whether or not Ofelia had made contact, the Gavilan was within four hundred meters of the stage. Either the patrol boat at the dock would come out to inspect the Gavilan or another patrol boat was closing from a different direction. Arkady was surprised that the Gavilan hadn't been challenged already by radio.

O'Brien said, 'The marvelous thing about you, Arkady, is that you're both suicidal and insatiably curious. 'What' isn't good enough for you, you have to know the 'why.' When you came out to the boat you had to know something like this was going to happen, but you had to see.'

'And then maybe fuck us up,' Walls said.» Go out in a blaze of glory.'

'Or leave a message behind,' O'Brien said.» Look on the beach to the left of the stage.'

Arkady swung his glasses and saw Ofelia work her way from the spectators. He'd missed her when she was in the crowd. A PNR shield was pinned to her white halter. He waited for her to move toward the patrol boat or the stage. Instead, she moved in the opposite direction. At her side, being helpful, was Mostovoi, a camera bag swinging from his shoulder.

'What do you want?' Arkady asked.

'I have what I want,' O'Brien said.

Walls nudged Arkady.» You're missing the show.'

Arkady swung his glasses to the reviewing stand and saw the man in aviator glasses carry a man-sized doll with a cane and a red bandanna down to the chair in the front row, where a drummer helped make the doll sit up, its face turned toward the man on its right. Change and the Comandante. Arkady focused on the doll's bandanna and walking stick, different from the ones he had left on a doll's body at the Rosita. The Comandante returned the doll's gaze at first, then looked up and joked with his friend in the aviator glasses, who laughed and retreated from the stage to the side of the stands, where he was joined in the crowd by Dr. Bias, too energetic to stay in the shadows any longer. Arkady refocused on Change, on the doll's roughly molded head, patched and repainted, with the same glittering eyes.

'This is murder,' Arkady said.

'Not just murder, please,' O'Brien begged, 'This is the elimination of an individual who has survived more assassination attempts than anyone else in history.'

'That demands respect right there,' said Walls.

'And let's admit it,' O'Brien said, 'the death of this man is the only crime down here of any interest. You can steal five dollars or a million, it's still petty crime while he's alive. Because you can't leave with it and essentially it's all his.'

'You can stop,' Arkady said.» You haven't done anything violent with your own hands yet. I know Pribluda's death was an accident.'

'See, we told you we never touched him,' Walls said.» We had no idea where Sergei disappeared to.' 'But we couldn't stop now,' said O'Brien.» In the last forty years only one generation of Cubans has tasted S independent thought, one group has experienced command on the battlefield and operated in the greater world. There are two hundred forty generals in the Cuban army, and the army is getting smaller and smaller. Where do you think they're going to go, what do you think they're going to do? This is their prime, their window of opportunity.'

'Their time to throw the dice?'

'Yes.'

'And they all ordered lobster.'

O'Brien gave Arkady an appreciative smile and lifted his own pair of binoculars.» That's right, very good. That was the vote. They all wanted in.'

The pageant had begun again. Golden skirts and brown legs obscured the guest of honor in his front-row seat. His green cap seemed to weigh as heavily on him as a bishop's miter. Change's roughly molded face was slightly cocked, glass eyes bright in the lights. At the side of the stage the man in aviator glasses reached down to shake someone's hand. Erasmo. Appearing gravely pale and weary, the mechanic lifted his eyes toward the Gavilan, although Arkady knew the boat had to be invisible from shore.

More figures slipped out of the back rows of the reviewing stand; Arkady recognized them all from the paladar Angola. The front rows appeared mesmerized by swirling skirts, the insinuating pace of the drums booming from speakers, echoing off the clubhouse. Change's head listed heavily to the bearded man on his right.» This Side to Enemy,' Arkady thought. No doubt the man's uniform fit as badly as it did in part because of an armored vest, which would stop a small-caliber bullet but not a shaped charge of dynamite. No shards or ball bearings, Arkady guessed. They didn't want a general slaughter, just an effective circle of impact, and who more expert with explosions than Erasmo?

He swung the glasses and found Ofelia and Mostovoi going in a completely different direction, working their way far from the stage and along the sand to a white wall that separated the grounds of the Havana Yacht Club from the neighboring beach. Arkady saw Mostovoi check his watch.

'It's La Concha, the old casino,' Mostovoi said.» I consider it one of the most romantic settings in Havana. I've shot here daytime, nighttime, it's got that exotic feel that women love.'

He ran his hand up a column. For all the police and military presence on the other side of the beach wall, Ofelia and Mostovoi had this area entirely to themselves. It was now the social center for a catering union, but she remembered that before the Revolution it had been not only a casino but a Moorish fantasy, with a minaret, date palms and orange trees, tiled roof. Ofelia and the Russian stood in the long shadow of a colonnade of horseshoe arches. The fact that she had followed Mostovoi didn't mean she trusted him. For all his assurances there was a shiftiness about him. His beret shifted, his hair shifted and his eyes seemed to be over everything, especially her. She wouldn't have spent a minute with him except for the fact that he claimed to know where Arkady wanted to meet her.

'First one place, then another? Why would he come here?'

'You'll have to ask him that. Do you mind if I take a picture of you?'

'Now?'

'While we're waiting. I think that Cuban women are nature's children. The eyes, the warm color, a lushness that can be almost too overripe at times. Not you, though.'

'Where and when exactly is Arkady coming?'