Castro's Bomb (54 page)

Hartford thought that was just too fucking bad.
 
Ortega was the enemy and who cared if he was kind to puppies and bunnies or had a wife and kids.
 
The man headed the Cuban army in the area and had to go.
 
Hartford's only problem was that he couldn't go with Skronski and the two dozen men who would be riding in the trucks.
 
Thanks to his bad feet he just wasn't agile enough to function when the shit hit the fan.

They waited for night to fall.
 
The guard shack was only twenty feet from the main gate and, during their time in the camp, a tunnel had been carefully dug to it from a nearby prisoner tent.
 
The men slithered through and captured the pair of guards and the lieutenant commanding them without a fuss.
 
The Cubans were bound and gagged.
 
The lieutenant glared at them ferociously, but Skronski had the feeling it was all show.
 
When he winked at the man, the lieutenant shrugged.

The drive through Santiago was uneventful.
 
Their main concern was that American planes might find the three truck convoy a juicy target, so they departed at two minute intervals.
 
Maybe an American pilot wouldn't want to waste a bomb on one truck.

Hide in plain sight was the plan.
 
Skronski got his men out of their trucks two blocks from the entrance to the bunker.
 
Ruiz, who looked and sounded Cuban because he was Cuban, was designated to "command" the column of men in Cuban uniforms.
 
When they got to the entry point, a guard inside the bolted door asked what the hell was going on and Ruiz, with total confidence, loudly told him that the detachment was additional security against American Special Forces, and if nobody had told the guard they were coming, well, what else was new?

The guard grunted and opened the door.
 
The Americans raced in, clubbing the Cubans in the room before they could get off any shots.
 
Skronski started to lead down the steps to the tunnel but Ruiz pulled him aside.

"I think you still need my unique skills, sir.
 
Nothing personal, but no fucking way you're gonna pass for Cuban and every second we fool them counts big."

Skronski agreed and settled for fourth spot behind Ruiz and the two other Hispanic Americans who'd also been prowling around Santiago.

"What is this?" someone asked as they entered the room.
 
The question was one of curiosity, not concern.
 
A dozen men sat behind desks or in front of radio sets.
 
Jesus, thought Skronski, and there's Ortega himself, on the telephone and not even looking in his direction.

A young officer finally saw that the "Cuban" soldiers had their weapons pointed at them.
 
"Treason!" he yelled and was cut down by automatic weapons fire that echoed through the room.
 
Other real Cubans grabbed their weapons and all the Americans opened fire.
 
The effect was shattering and deafening in the closed room.
 
Dust and debris flew as bullets chewed up men and equipment.
 
Cuban soldiers fell and screamed.
 
The Americans reloaded and looked around for more targets.
 
Dust and smoke obscured the room and people were groaning in pain and shock.

There were no more targets.
 
All the Cubans were down in tangled, bloody messes.
 
One American was seriously wounded and two slightly.
 
They'd surprised and overwhelmed the Cubans who probably weren't all that great combat soldiers in the first place.
 
Staff and communications pukes, Skronski thought.

Skronski checked the fallen Cubans for signs of life.
 
A couple of them were still breathing, and that included Ortega who'd been shot in the chest and the arm.

"Take him out and load him in the truck," he said of Ortega.
 
"Do first aid on the others and leave them in the tunnel."
 

With a little luck, Skronski hoped they'd survive and inform others that their attackers had been fellow Cubans.
 
Treason was what one man had cried out and let them believe that, at least for a little while.
 
As this was being done, others of his group were happily smashing the radio equipment and ripping out wires, letting loose a several month's worth of frustration.

Cautiously, they exited through the tunnel and went outside in the night.
 
Skronski couldn't help but grin.
 
The Cuban guards were where they left them and nobody outside the building had heard a thing.
 
The bunker's thick walls had muffled the sounds of the shootings and the killings.
 
Santiago had slept through it all.

"Now what sir?" Ruiz asked.
 
Even though he wasn't the most senior in rank, Skronski thought it was interesting how the others had deferred to the young man.
 
He would talk to Hartford and see if they could do something about that.
 
Ruiz was definitely officer material.

"We load up and go back to Disneyland," he said.
 
"And then we hope we get rescued before too long.
 
The Cubans are likely to get pissed when they finally figure out that it was really us who disabled their headquarters and kidnapped their commanding general.
 
Hey, he is still alive, isn't he?"

Ruiz assured him Ortega was still breathing and that his bleeding had been stabilized by one of the medics who'd accompanied them.
 
With a little decent medical care, the Cuban general should survive, and wouldn't that be interesting.

When they returned to their compound, Major Hartford was more than pleased.
 
Their prisoners from the guard shack were safely inside the camp as was General Ortega who’d begun getting medical help.
 
The medics agreed that he would live, but wouldn't be commanding an army for a long while.

Hartford hoped that, along with decapitating the Cuban command and communications structure, they'd sown enough confusion so that the remaining Cubans wouldn't know exactly where the attack had originated.
 
The Cubans had initially cried “treason,” and he hoped that possibility would confuse them.
 
He also hoped the missing guards from the guard shack would be considered deserters.
 
There had been a lot of desertions lately thanks to the bombings and the threat of an American invasion.

It occurred to him that he was hoping an awful lot.

Now, he thought, it was time to let the Pentagon know what had just gone down and he still didn't have a code to use.
 
He would assume that the Cubans were listening to everything he said and would have to watch his words very, very carefully.
 
He didn't want Cubans trying to liberate Ortega or wreaking vengeance on his largely unarmed command.
 
Damn, he would have to be clever.

General Humberto Cordero thought the bunker was a charnel house. Blood in blackening pools congealed on the floor and the wall, and mangled bodies lay everywhere, stiffening as rigor mortis set in.
 
The handful of survivors, the guards topside and two men in the tunnel, were adamant that the attackers had all been Cubans.
 
They'd worn Cuban uniforms and had spoken Spanish, ergo, they were Cubans.
 

But why would other Cubans have shot and taken General Ortega?
 
The two wounded men in the tunnel thought he'd been carried out by the attackers, which made no sense.
 
If the idea was to wipe out Ortega's command structure, then why take him along when a bullet in the head would be more efficient.

This had all the earmarks of something Che Guevara would do, but Guevara was out in the countryside with his beloved Russian rocket.
 
Cordero shuddered.
 
That was something he wished his cousin, General Ortega, had never confided in him about.
 
The idea of that maniacal asshole Guevara with his hands on a nuke was frightening.

They had already contacted Havana via short wave and Cordero had even spoken to Fidel himself.
 
Cordero had told Fidel that the attackers had worn Cuban uniforms but he didn't think they were Cubans.
 
Either American Special Forces in disguise or, God help them all, some of the lunatic exiles from Miami.
 
Even Fidel had gone thoughtfully quiet on hearing that opinion.

But who was to command the army?
 
It was locked in mortal combat with the Americans a little more than a score of miles to the north and chaos would ensue if no one was in charge.
 
There were generals more senior and far more experienced in military matters than Cordero out in the field, but they were in no position to coordinate and command.
 
Fidel gave the order to Cordero.
 
First, he was to re-establish communications and then attempt to coordinate their efforts until a new general could be sent from Havana,

Cordero almost snorted on hearing Fidel say that.
 
It would take days, if not longer, for a new general to arrive thanks to American control of the air, and even he, with his limited military experience, knew the crisis point of the battle would have long passed.

He gave the orders to clean up the mess in the bunker and replace what they could of the equipment.
 
A new security detachment was on duty, even though he thought that a repeat of the attack was highly unlikely.
 
The survivors of the old security detachment were sent to the front lines for their collective stupidity.
 
They were told they could either be shot by the Cuban police or take their chances against the Americans. They chose the Americans.
 
Cordero thought they'd take maybe thirty seconds before attempting to surrender.

Without any way to communicate with units in the field, there was little Cordero could do to affect the fighting at the moment.
 
He walked and found himself a little ways from the POW camp.
 
He stared at the rows of tents as a thought grew.
 
He'd been told that yesterday there had been three trucks by the guard shack.
 
No one had thought to ask why the trucks had been parked there.
 
Today, though, the trucks were gone and so were the two men on night duty in the shack and the lieutenant who'd been officer of the guard.
 
Cordero had no idea who the enlisted men were, but the officer had been a young lieutenant who'd talked about his unproven bravery and seemed terrified at the thought of actually going into combat, which had made him a good choice to guard over the prisoners.

The two enlisted men might have deserted, but he had doubts about the lieutenant.
 
The young man had too much to lose, like his life, if he was caught.
 
As an officer he'd be shot and not sent to the front lines to take his chances.

Cordero stared at the sprawling POW camp.
 
The multitude of tents said nothing.
 
A few men were wandering around, but nothing out of the ordinary.
 
The Americans were always wandering around.

Cordero pulled out an old cigar and lit it.
 
He had the nagging feeling that the Americans in the camp were a lot less innocent than they appeared in this matter.
 

Should he confront Hartford?
 
About what?
 
Had the POWs attacked the bunker?
 
How the hell would they have accomplished that?
 
Had they hidden Special Forces in the camp?
 
A thought, but did he want to use scarce men to scour the camp?
 
Maybe Hartford and the others did know where Ortega was.
 
Would that matter?
 
Everyone said he was badly wounded, if not dead.
 
He would not be commanding the Cuban army for a very long time.

Cordero decided that he would wait.
 
His job was to re-establish communications with Ortega's forces and that would take time.
 
A lot of time.
 

The silence was deafening.
 
It was a trite phrase that Lieutenant Chris Mellor always thought was oxymoronic and amusing.
 
Today, however, it took on a very real meaning.
 
Where was the intermittent sniper fire?
 
What happened to the shouted obscenities?
 
There was nothing but silence from the close by Cuban lines and that was even more frightening then the hostile sounds that had been replaced by the humming of bugs and the chirping of birds trying to eat the bugs.
 
Cuba's wildlife was trying to return to normal.
 
Why?

Mellor looked at his companions.
 
"Well, I volunteered for this, didn't I?"

They said nothing.
 
A couple looked away.
 
There was only one way to find out why the Cubans were so silent and that was to go out and ask them.
 
Well, not actually ask them, but to crawl out and see what they were up to.
 
A couple of enlisted men had volunteered, but he would go.
 
He was the officer and he would lead.
 
Damn it, why hadn’t he stayed as a civilian until he’d been drafted into the army?
 
With any luck, he’d be a PFC in a supply center in New Jersey counting down the days until he got discharged.
 
No, he had to go and enlist in the Airborne.