Ai! Pedrito!: When Intelligence Goes Wrong

  Fats stumbled along behind the kneeling, rifle-holding Marines, worming his way forward until he could scramble over the barricade. From below. Smith climbed the last few stairs, his clumsy flippers slapping on the wet boards. He paused a moment to stuff the snorkel into his belt, then waddled out onto the flat dock. An FBI agent belched. Smith looked around cautiously. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

  He peered through his goggles as he scanned the too-quiet area in front of him. With a sigh, he reached to fumble in his wet-suit key pouch.

  The line of Marines and sailors behind the barricade instantly raised up a few inches higher. They slid their rifles out, ready for a firefight.

  Fats emerged from behind the barricade, nervous. "Ah, here's somebody." Smith extended a gold coin to Fats and pulled the goggles up off his face. "My man, could you give me some change so I can phone for a taxi?"

  Fats' eyes were riveted on the gold coin. "Russian gold! He's been paid off," he shouted. He looked up at Smith's face. "Identification positive—it's Smith!"

  Fats fumbled around his own girth to reach for his back belt holster. "Surrender now and you won't be hurt, you miserable traitor."

  Marines and sailors popped up along the barricade, rifles leveled. Smith stared and took a step forward, hands outstretched. "Wait a minute, there must be some mistake. This is my own country—"

  Fats finally managed to get his .357 Magnum out and poked it toward Smith hysterically, more to fend him off than to shoot him.

  With a loud roar, the FBI chopper swooped down to the dock and landed ten feet away, its pontoon skids just touching the planks. Reacting quickly, using the skills he had reluctantly practiced in the past couple of weeks, Smith grabbed Fats' gun wrist with one hand and with the other arm seized him around the wide body. He hustled the bloated agent sideways toward the helicopter, using him as a hostage. He switched the gun to his own hand as they moved.

  "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" Fats wailed.

  Smith covered himself with the agent's large body as he stepped onto the pontoon with one drooping flipper. He wrapped his gun arm around a strut, pointing the Magnum upward.

  "Take off!" Smith shouted to the helicopter pilot.

  The federal executive scrambled to the top of the dock barricade as all the soldiers leveled their weapons to blast the helicopter out of the sky. The executive screamed frantically, "Don't shoot! You'll hit the director of the FBI!"

  Smith and Fats both teetered on the helicopter's pontoon. The dapper FBI director gawked down at them through the passenger-side window. Smith pointed the gun straight at his head, and the director flinched back into the cabin in terror.

  The director's aide leaned out the open door, aiming his own gun down at Smith. "This'll teach you to betray your own country!"

  The director grabbed the aide's wrist. "Don't shoot! He's got me covered! Besides, look at all the TV cameras—the bureau can't stand the publicity."

  Smith held the pontoon and bared his teeth as he cocked the .357 Magnum, jabbing it meaningfully at the director. The director ducked hastily back in, to whatever shelter the cockpit might offer. "He means it!" he yelled to the pilot. "Take off! Do as he says."

  Down on the dock, the federal executive and a Navy admiral stood on the barricade, hands on their hips. The Marines and sailors milled around in confusion. They had been spoiling for a more rigorous fight.

  Back at a safe distance, the invited TV cameras and press photographers were getting it all, capturing every minute and broadcasting live. The federal executive looked at the TV cameras, thought of the publicity, and tore at his hair.

  The bureau chopper lifted into the air and sped out to sea, carrying Smith and Fats precariously balanced outside.

  Chapter 51

  AS THE HELICOPTER RACED above the ocean, Smith looked at Fats drooped over the pontoon. "Why, I think he fainted!" He tried to steady the bloated man, making sure he wouldn't get hurt.

  But Fats suddenly convulsed and fought against him in terror, slapping at Smith so violently that he slipped and fell off the pontoon. Smith tried to catch him, but Fats plummeted into the sea far below. "I hope he can swim," Smith said with a frown. "I think they teach that at Quantico." Then he stood upright on the pontoon and worked his way to the cockpit door with tiny steps in his big-flippered feet.

  "Throw out your guns!" he shouted.

  "Don't provoke him!" the FBI director said, cringing back into his seat. "You don't know all the terrible things this man has done!"

  "I just saw him throw our agent overboard in cold blood," the aide said. The aide and the director promptly tossed their guns out the window. The weapons tumbled in long arcs to splash into the blue Caribbean.

  Smith wrestled the cabin door open and climbed in, his wet suit dripping. He held the bloated agent's .357 Magnum before him. The director and aide quailed, while the nervous pilot tried to make himself look indispensable.

  Smith was wet and cold and tired and angry. He had hoped to sleep peacefully in his own bed tonight, and now dawn was just starting to break over the Caribbean. He made the other men move aside so he could squeeze into the cockpit. He slid the door shut behind him, muffling the chopper noise.

  Keeping his eye on the two cowering FBI men. Smith spoke to the pilot. "Since my own country keeps trying to kill me, you may as well fly me to the nearest point in Cuba. What have I got to lose?"

  "But this is an FBI chopper!" The pilot stared at Smith in terror. "With these markings they'd shoot us down on sight!"

  Smith said, "I wouldn't blame them, after the way the FBI is acting today."

  The dapper director mellowed his voice to wheel and deal. "Let's be reasonable, Smith. I can provide you with a false identity, just like we do for all major criminals. We can let you live in high style someplace you won't be recognized—entirely at government expense."

  "My hero. Nelson, would never make a deal like that," Smith said indignantly. "No honor in it."

  "Nelson?" the director said, baffled. "You mean Baby-Face Nelson? We didn't make a deal with him. We just shot him. But that was a long time ago. With today's FBI, you have a better opportunity than he did. What do you say, Smith?"

  "I say you guys are crazy," Smith said. "First the CIA and now the FBI. Come on, just take me to Cuba, where I'll be safe!"

  "Wait a minute," the FBI aide said. "I've just thought of a way for him to get to Cuba without us getting shot out of the sky." He covertly winked at the director. "There's a small island just on the edge of Cuban waters. It's called Pirate Key—disputed territory, totally uninhabited. We can fly over, circle slowly, and if Smith will just parachute—"

  "What?" Smith said. "If we're going to go all the way there, why don't you just land and let me off?"

  "That would be illegal without a landing permit." The aide casually reached into the rear of the cockpit cabin. "Here, let me get your emergency chest-pack parachute."

  Behind the passenger seats, boxes of smoke flares and tear gas had been stowed. The aide's arm clawed around, knocking over boxes of flares, getting hold of the parachute as he talked. "Besides, it wouldn't be wise to land the FBI director anywhere near Cuba. He's their number one most wanted man."

  The aide brought the emergency parachute out from behind the seat and extended it toward Smith. "Now, if you'll just put this on, we'll drop you off. Everybody's happy."

  "And I get to play Robinson Crusoe," Smith said sourly.

  "There's Pirate Key, right down there," the pilot said, pointing to a low patch of land about a mile ahead of them. Daybreak spilled over the waters. "Very close to Cuba. You can hunt for pearls in the oyster bays on your leisurely swim over. I promise, you'll be happy."

  Smith looked out the front windscreen at a yellow-sand island with a low hill in its center, surrounded by emerald water. "Doesn't look like too bad a place." He pursed his lips as he studied the beaches, the trees, the small hill.

  The aide elbowed the director and jerked his thumb toward the rear seats. The
director snaked his hand back and grabbed a tubular flare and hid it under his coat.

  "It looks a long way down, though," Smith said. "I'm a sailor, not a paratrooper. I've never done this before. Are you sure I can make the jump in these diving flippers?"

  Smith put the chest pack on, wrestling the straps around his gold-filled rucksack. "I'll do it," Smith said, "since I don't want to get you guys in trouble—no need for the pilot to land." He managed to keep the FBI men covered with his Magnum, though the aide helped him fuss over his heavy rucksack.

  "And we promise not to tell anybody on our side where you went," the aide said soothingly. "We'll say the FBI director here threw you out of the chopper. He'll look like a hero, and the rest of us can just forget about this little incident."

  "Word of honor?" Smith asked innocently.

  "On my honor as an FBI man."

  The aide's hands tugged the last strap in place, giving the lieutenant a pat on the shoulder. Smith diverted the gun by giving the last strap a tug. "All right. I don't want anybody to get hurt."

  The aide saw his opening and reacted with lightning speed, knocking the Magnum out of Smith's hand. The weapon clattered on the floor of the cockpit.

  "Now!" he screamed.

  Snarling, the director brought the tube flare out from under his coat. "I'll kill you, Smith!" He fumbled with the flare's firing tab.

  "No, no!" the aide said, urgently trying to grab the flare from the director.

  "I believe you're pointing the wrong end, sir," Smith said.

  With a squealing whoosh, the flare blasted like a comet into the pile of boxes behind the seats. A cloud of smoke hit Smith.

  "You guys are nuts!" he said, but his words were drowned out by the pop of exploding flares. Smith grabbed the cockpit door, swung it open to the fresh sea air and dived out, his swim flippers flopping in the air.

  As he turned somersaults. Smith grabbed at the rip cord, missing repeatedly. When he finally yanked the cord, his chest pack spilled out. The parachute opened with a jerk.

  Reorienting himself. Smith watched the helicopter flying like a drunken, blazing bumblebee as it receded northward. Huge clouds of black smoke poured from the cockpit and trailed after. Smith shook his head in amazement, glad to be away from the insanity.

  Pirate Key was about five hundred feet below him, but he had drifted off course, some distance off shore.

  Smith dunked into the water with a splash, and the parachute settled over his head like a fishnet. Falling into the sea didn't really matter to him, since he still hadn't changed out of his wet suit.

  "Mayday!" the director said, coughing and choking. His voice sounded Hke the yelp of a dog. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"

  "Sir," the aide said, "you need to use the radio."

  Back in Florida, the high-level brass gathered around a table, incredibly serious, jaws clenched, as if each one chewed on a particularly tough lump of gristle. A Coast Guard captain and a Navy admiral sat in the center of the group.

  "We should send out a flight to oversee the safe return of the FBI director," the captain said.

  "To hell with that boob," the admiral said. "We're after Smith! He's a traitor to the U.S. Navy, and I won't stand for that."

  He jabbed a ballpoint at the chart and circled a tiny dot, a small key close to the north coast of Cuba. Using the pen like a stiletto, he stabbed it. "Smith's gone down on Pirate Key. He must have some sort of secret rendezvous set up. But we can catch him if we move fast enough. Send out a missile frigate at once, flank speed to saturate bomb the whole island!"

  The ballpoint stabbed again, and this time the point went clear through the paper.

  Chapter 52

  WHEN HE FINALLY REACHED the shore of Pirate Key, Smith crawled along on his hands and knees. He still wore his sopping backpack, but he had cut away the parachute harness. Sloshing up along the beach, he got to dry sand and collapsed face-first. Small beach crabs scuttled out of the way. His swim goggles hung on a rubber strap around his neck, but the wet-suit hood still covered his red hair.

  Smith spat sand from his mouth. "Safe at last!" The muzzle of a rifle appeared with a sudden stab just in front of his face. He went cross-eyed, looking down the barrel hole. Finally, he raised his eyes to see a black Cuban soldier standing over him, more curious than hostile. A second guard with a complexion as smooth as a lemon stood nearby. Both carried outdated, but deadly, firearms.

  Smith pried himself slowly off the beach, leaving a wrinkled intaglio pressed into the sand. "This place is supposed to be uninhabited," he said with a sigh. "Just shows you can't trust a single thing the FBI tells you." He climbed to his feet, shaking his swim flippers as he looked at the black guard. He had gotten beyond fed up with all the problems dumped on him ever since his prize vacation had started. "So, who are you, anyway?" "Who are you?" the lemon-faced guard said. Gambling on his infamy, he said, "I'll show you who I am." With great assurance. Smith pulled back his wet-suit hood to display his famous red hair. "I am the great Pedrito Miraflores! Everyone has heard of my exploits."

  The two guards looked at each other and blinked. They both leveled their rifles and circled around behind him, weapons pointed at his back.

  "Wasn't that the right thing to say?" Smith asked. "I can be Lieutenant Tom Smith instead, if you like."

  "March!" the black guard said, nudging him with the rifle toward a rugged coral outcropping. Smith could make out a masked vertical door set into the dark rock.

  They escorted him through the doorway and along dank, sloping tunnels into the bowels of the small island, along wide passageways with overhead fluorescent lights and floors of solid concrete. This underground outpost looks much finer than that dumpy CIA place in Colodor, Smith mused. His flippers made wet slapping noises on the cement floor.

  Down a side passageway. Smith spotted the radio room. A Cuban operator sat at a sea-foam-green metal desk, surrounded by communication equipment. The operator glanced at the new prisoner without much interest, lowered his head back to the radio equipment, and snapped his gaze up in a double take. Smith waved at him, hoping to find a friend.

  The guards prodded Smith deeper into the secret compound. He glanced to the left and stared down a passage that ended in a barracks room. Ten Cuban soldiers lolled about, shooting dice, tossing playing cards into a garbage can, throwing knives at a dartboard. This was the most populous uninhabited island Smith had ever imagined.

  A sergeant near the barracks door looked up with no interest. He suddenly raised a finger, pointing aghast at Smith.

  "Nice welcome I'm receiving," Smith muttered.

  The two guards urged him toward a barred steel door at the end of the underground passage. The lemon-faced soldier stopped Smith while the black guard raised the bar and pushed the heavy door half open.

  "Come on out here, you!" the guard shouted into the room.

  Lieutenant Tom Smith's identical twin stepped from the half-opened door, dressed in the tatters of a naval officer's white uniform. The rank braid on the cuffs was torn, half the buttons were gone. His shirt was filthy, the collar awry, the black tie twisted to the side and over one shoulder. Somewhere along the line, he had lost the cap. His hair was rumpled.

  Smith stood there with his mouth open. "What... what have you done to my uniform? My career? My rank?"

  The real Pedrito Miraflores looked at Smith and pointed an accusing finger as well. "You! You did this to me! You've ruined my reputation. How am I ever going to get work as a revolutionary leader again?"

  Smith and Pedrito faced each other, glaring.

  The two guards looked from one to the other, confused. "The first one arrived at dawn," the black guard said.

  "And now we've got two," the lemon-faced soldier said, pointing his rifle from Smith to Pedrito and then back at Smith. "Must be one of those double agents I've heard about."

  "Yes, but which is which?" the first guard said. "We don't want to execute the wrong one."

  Chapter 53

&nbs
p; "OKAY, I'LL MAKE IT EASY for you. I'm Pedrito Miraflores!" Smith took the lead. He tilted his head under the fluorescent lights of the secret base, cocking an eyebrow and showing off his red hair.

  "Hey, I'm Pedrito Miraflores!" Pedrito said, outraged.

  The black guard looked from one redhead to the other. "We got orders to send only one Pedrito Miraflores to Havana to be shot as a traitor as soon as the gunboat arrives. We can't send two!"

  "Okay, then he's the real Pedrito," Pedrito said, pointing.

  Smith blinked. "Hah! Only the real Pedrito would think so fast to turn the tables on a situation."

  Both guards scratched their heads. Pedrito scowled, and his shoulders slumped. "All right, you'd better call your comandante," he said in a flat voice. "We wouldn't want such an important decision on your heads."

  "Good idea!" The black guard sighed with relief and turned to walk briskly away. As he brushed past, Smith seized the guard's rifle barrel and thrust it up toward the ceiling. The guard yelped, the rifle fired and the bullet ricocheted from the concrete ceiling. In the same instant, Pedrito grabbed the lemon-faced soldier around the neck and wrestled the man in front of him, relieving him of his weapon.

  Recovering from the firing of his rifle, the black guard snapped about and leveled his weapon. Pedrito threw the lemon-faced soldier at him, and the black guard instinctively fired. The rifle shot struck the soldier full in the chest and knocked him back against the wall.

  "Hey! That was self-defense!" the black guard cried. Smith, meanwhile, snatched the rifle from the fallen lemon-faced soldier and shot the black guard, who stumbled twice, then fell on top of his dead partner.

  His face flushed, Pedrito bent down to snatch up the black guard's rifle, chambering another round as he snarled at Smith. "I can't believe it! What did you do to get me condemned by my own side? Sentenced to death in Cuba! That wasn't supposed to happen."