“Sorry, sir, I only meant—”
“Relax, Tom,” Hawke said, smiling. “Just a bad joke. Why is everyone so bloody touchy lately? Even that aged party Congreve. Somebody pour a wee dram of rum down his gullet for this epic voyage, please? And let’s shove off, shall we? It’s getting late.”
Hawke turned to the Russians now seated in the stern. “You chaps ever done any snorkeling? Great fun. You’re going to love it. Everybody all buckled in?”
Hawke relieved his helmsman and leaned on the twin-chromed throttles. In a second, the launch was up on a plane and screaming out of the Staniel Cay Marina, bound straight for Thunderball Island.
“Look back there, Ambrose,” Hawke shouted, pointing at the two fellows huddled behind them in the stern. “Not the hardy outdoors type, are they? No wonder they lost the stomach for the bloody Cold War.”
Congreve looked back at them. And, indeed, they’d both gone pale as ghosts.
“White Russians, I’d say, by the looks of them,” Congreve said, and Hawke couldn’t help laughing.
6
Petty Officer Third Class Rafael Eduardo Gomez, United States Navy, Guantanamo, had the shakes so badly he had to duck into a bar. He ordered a double brandy, beer back, and downed the jigger of brandy in two gulps. Which was perfectly okay except that it wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning yet and he had the most important meeting of his life in fifteen minutes.
But the brandy calmed his nerves all right. Yes, sir, it did! He swallowed the ice-cold beer in one long, Adam’s apple–bobbing gulp and slammed the empty mug down on the bar. Yes! Breakfast of champions.
It was the last day of his family emergency leave from Gitmo. He’d wangled this second leave by using his mother’s death in Havana. Said he had to go to Miami to tie up some important family business. At the last minute, he decided it’d be a good idea to take his family. Make a little holiday out of the thing. Quality time, his wife, Rita, called it. Time to get Rita off his ass for a couple of days, anyway.
It had been raining in Miami for forty-eight straight hours. So, since it was sunny today, he was supposed to be taking Rita and their two daughters to South Beach this morning. He’d promised, she’d reminded him.
“Something has come up,” he told Rita in the kitchen of his Aunt Nina’s apartment in Little Havana.
“Like what?” Rita said.
“Like something,” he replied. “A business deal. I can’t talk about it. It’s an idea my cousin Pablito has. We could make a lot of money, baby.”
“Your cousin, he just got out of jail last week! He misses prison so much already? You know, honey, maybe your cousin, he’s not into crime for the money! Maybe he likes—”
“What you saying? You saying my beloved cousin, he is a—”
That’s when he’d lost it. Slapped her hard enough to hurt. So much for quality time. She was still yelling at him when he slammed the kitchen door behind him and made a beeline over to Calle Ocho. It was the main street of Miami’s Cuban barrio. The two men he was meeting had told him to be at the San Cristobal Cafe at eight sharp.
He walked in at one minute before, feeling good now, feeling the glow, baby. There was one old guy sitting at the counter sipping a cafe con leche and watching the waitress’s short skirt hike up as she bent over to fill an ice bucket; otherwise, the bodega was empty. So he was here first, which was good.
Basic military training. Do a little recon. Get the lay of the land. He was tempted to take a seat at the counter and recon the waitress bending over the ice machine. Incredible booty on this bitch and—no. This breakfast is strictly business, he had to remind himself. He took a seat at a table by the window where he could keep an eye on the door. He wanted to check out these two dudes before they checked him out.
He pulled out the folded Miami Herald he’d been told to bring and set it on the table open to the sports section, just like the guy had said. Frigging Dolphins. What were they, fourth in the division? Ever since Marino had retired—a large black shadow fell across his paper.
“Senor Gomez?” a big tall guy in a white guayabera said. Christ, he hadn’t even seen them walk in. So much for his recon and surveillance plan.
“That’s my name,” he said, trying to pull off a cocky grin but not too sure he had it working just right. Maybe the double brandy hadn’t been such a good idea. His teeth felt funny.
“Are you a Dolphin fan, senor?” asked the second guy, who was shorter than the first guy but way wider. This one was carrying a suitcase, a beat-up old gray Samsonite. Amazingly enough, it looked exactly like his own suitcase. Exactly. The guy put it on the floor very carefully and looked at Gomez, waiting for an answer.
Both of them badass, he could gather that much pretty quickly. Gooey hair. Big black sunglasses, heavy gold chains, Rolex watches with diamonds, all that Scarface shit.
“I used to be,” he said, trying to get it exactly right. “But now I root for the Yankees.”
The two Cuban badasses smiled and sat down across from him, and he knew he’d nailed the goddamn secret password thing. Nailed it. When you’re good, you’re good, that’s all there is to it.
“Your left hand. Show me,” Wideload said.
Gomez turned his palm up and showed him the two initials carved into his hand. Guy didn’t say anything, just nodded to the other guy.
“What does that stand for, anyway?” Gomez asked. “The MM? Is that Mao-Mao? Or is it, like, WW?”
They both looked at him like he was crazy.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and let us ask the questions, okay?” Wideload said. “We ask the questions. You answer the questions. Got that?”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. I was just wondering, you know, what it stood for. You guys have names, by any chance? Just curious.”
“Guy simply don’t understand English,” Wideload said, shaking his head.
“No. He speaks English okay. But he got the attention span of a fuckin’ moquito,” the tall guy said.
“Hey, wait a goddamn second,” Gomez said. “I don’t—”
“Shut up and listen. Okay?”
“Okay. Hey, I’m all ears.”
“That’s good. You want to do business? Shut your mouth for five seconds. It was us who spoke to you on the phone. I’m Julio. He’s Iglesias,” Tallboy said.
“Man,” Gomez said, slapping the table, “you guys are good. Code names and everything!”
“You believe this guy?” the tall one said.
“It’s not code, okay? Our names really are Julio and Iglesias,” the white guayabera said.
“Fine,” Gomez said, bobbing his head up and down. “Cool. Julio. Iglesias. Whatever. I’m down with that.”
“Give me a look at your newspaper,” Wideload said. Major Cuban accents here. Two heavy-duty hombres just off the boat from La Habana. A blind man could see that.
“All yours,” Gomez said, and slid the paper over to the guy.
The guy opened to the page where Gomez had stashed all the ID they’d asked for. His Navy papers, Florida driver’s license, Social Security. While one guy checked his ID, the other guy called the waitress over and ordered them all cafe con leches. Not that he’d do it, this was a business meeting, but a cold one at this point would really hit the spot.
She bent over to hand them all menus and gave everybody a perfect photo op of her lacy push-up Wonder Bra. Gomez almost came out of his seat. Perfect goddamn wonder breasts! Christ Jesus, he thought, how come this place was so empty? Forget the food, this waitress’s knockers alone ought to be packing them in. He was watching her rumba her ass on back to the kitchen when Wideload brought him back to reality.
“We were both saddened to hear of your mother’s passing,” the Cuban guy said, picking something out of his teeth with a gold toothpick.
“Yeah? How’d you know about that?” Gomez said. “Rodrigo tell you?”
“You’re smart, you never say that name again, senor. You’re not smart…well…”
Gomez just nodded, looking from one to the other, making sure they knew that he got the picture.
“Rodrigo?” he said, grinning. “Who the hell is Rodrigo?”
