Velikov quickly pressed his slim advantage. "No, Senor Presidente, it is you who are mistaken. The sound of guns you heard a few moments ago came from a Soviet vessel stopping the ships and turning them back inside the harbor. They may explode too early for your celebration speech, but they will still accomplish the end results."
"You're lying," Fidel said uneasily.
"Your reign as the great father of the revolution is over," said Velikov, his voice sly and baiting. "I'll gladly die for the Russian motherland. Will you sacrifice your life for Cuba? Maybe when you were young and had nothing to lose, but you're soft now and too used to having others do your dirty work for you. You've got the good life and you're not about to let it slip away. But it's finished. Tomorrow you'll only be another photograph on a wall and a new president will sit in your place. One whose loyalties extend to the Kremlin."
Velikov stepped back a few paces and took out a small case from his pocket.
Hagen recognized it immediately. "An electronic transmitter. He can send a signal to detonate the explosives from here."
"Oh, God!" Jessie cried despairingly. "Oh, my God, he's going to do it, he's really going to do it."
"Don't bother to call your bodyguards," said Velikov. "They'll never react in time."
Fidel stared at him with cold bleak eyes. "Remember what I said."
Velikov stared back contemptuously. "Can you really picture me screaming in agony in one of your dirty prisons?"
"Give me the transmitter and you will be free to leave Cuba unharmed."
"And return to Moscow a cowardly figure? I think not."
"It's on your head," said Fidel, his expression a curious blend of anger and fear. "You know your fate if you detonate the explosives and live."
"Little chance of that," Velikov sneered. "This building sits less than five hundred yards from the harbor channel. There will be nothing left of us." He paused, his face as hard as a chiseled gargoyle. Then he said, "Goodbye, Senor Presidente."
"You bastard--" Hagen leaped over the table in an incredible display of agility for his huge bulk and was only inches away from Velikov when the Russian pressed the transmitter's Activate switch.
>
The Amy Bigalow vaporized.
The Ozero Zaysan waited only a fraction of a second longer before blowing herself out of existence.
The combined force of the volatile cargoes inside the two ships threw up a mountainous column of fiery debris and smoke that thrust five thousand feet into the tropical sky. A vast vortex opened in the sea as a gigantic geyser of maddened water and steam shot up into the smoke and then burst outward.
The brilliant red-white glare flashed across the water with the blinding intensity of ten suns, followed by a thunderous clap that lashed and flattened the wave tops.
The sight of the gallant little Pisto as the blast flung her two hundred feet into the air like a disintegrating skyrocket was locked forever in Pitt's mind. He watched stunned as her shredded remains along with Jack and his crew splattered into the maelstrom like burning hail.
Moe and his crew in the drifting launch simply vanished off the face of the sea.
The explosive fury blew the two helicopter gunships out of the air. Seagulls within two miles were crushed by the concussion. The propeller from the Ozero Zaysan whirled across the sea and smashed into the control castle of the Soviet destroyer, killing every man on the bridge. Twisted steel plates, rivets, chain links, and deck gear pelted the city, tearing through walls and roofs like cannon shells. Telephone poles and streetlights were lashed and broken off at the tease.
Hundreds of people perished in their beds while still asleep. Many were terribly gashed by flying glass or crushed by pancaked ceilings. Early-morning workers and pedestrians were picked up off their feet and crushed against buildings.
The shock wave struck the city with twice the force of any recorded hurricane, flattening wooden structures near the shore as though they were paper toys, collapsing storefronts, shattering a hundred thousand windows, and hurling parked automobiles into buildings.
Inside the harbor the monstrous Ozero Baykai went up.
At first, flames shot from her hull like blowtorches. Then the whole oil tanker burst open in a giant fireball. A surge of flaming oil swamped the surrounding waterfront structures and launched a chain reaction of explosions from combustible cargoes sitting on the docks. Fiery metal plunged into oil and gas storage tanks on the east side of the harbor. One after another they blew up like a time-sequence fireworks display, spewing gigantic black smoke clouds over the city.
An oil refinery exploded, then a chemical company blew, followed by blasts at a paint company and fertilizer plant. Two nearby freighters, under way and heading for sea, collided, caught fire, and began to blaze. A fiery hunk of steel from the destroyed tanker plummeted into one of ten railroad tank cars containing propane and sent them up like a string of firecrackers.
Another blast. . . then another. . . and another.
Four miles of waterfront were turned into a holocaust. Ashes and soot covered the city like a black snowfall. Few stevedores working the docks survived. Fortunately, the refineries and the chemical plant were nearly abandoned. Loss of life would have been many times higher if it had not been a national holiday.
The worst of the disaster inside the harbor was past, but the nightmare still facing the rest of the city had yet to arrive.
An immense fifty-foot tidal wave rose up out of the vortex and hurtled toward shore. Pitt and the others stared in awe as the green and white mountain roared after them. They sat there waiting, no panic, just staring and waiting for the frail little launch to become a shattered piece of wreckage and the water their tomb.
The seawall along the Malecon was only thirty yards away when the horizontal avalanche engulfed the launch. The crest curled and burst right over them. It tore Manny and three men from their seats, and Pitt watched them sail through the crashing spray like roof shingles in a tornado. The seawall rushed closer but the momentum of the wave lifted the launch over the top and slung it across the wide boulevard.
Pitt clutched the helm with such strength that it was torn away from its mounting and he was swept clear. He thought this was the end, but with a conscious effort of will he took a deep breath and held it as he was pulled under. As if in a dream he could look down through the strangely clear and demoniac water, seeing cars tumbling in crazy gyrations as if thrown by a giant hand.
Buried deep in the boiling turmoil, he felt strangely detached. It struck him as ludicrous that he was about to drown on a city street. His desire for life still clung tenaciously, but he did not struggle senselessly and waste precious oxygen. He went lax and vainly tried to peer through the froth, his mind somehow working with uncanny clarity. He knew that if the wave swept him against a concrete building the rushing tons of water would mash him into the same consistency as a watermelon dropped from an airplane.
His fear would have been heightened if he had seen the launch smash into the second story of an apartment building that housed Soviet technicians. The impact collapsed the hull as if the planking were no stronger than an eggshell. The four-cylinder diesel engine was tossed through a broken window by the cascade and ended up in a stairwell.
Mercifully, Pitt was swept into a narrow side street like a log through a chute. The flood carried everything before it in a great tumbling mass of wreckage. But even as it curled around the buildings strong enough to withstand the onslaught, the wave was already beginning to die. Within seconds the leading edge would reach its high mark and then recede, the retreating torrent sucking human bodies and loose debris back to the sea.
Pitt began to see stars as his brain starved for oxygen. His senses began to shut down one by one. He felt a jarring blow as his shoulder struck a fixed object. He whipped an arm around it, trying to hang on, but he was thrust forward by the force of the wave. He ran into another flat surface, and this time he reached out and clutched it in a death grip, not re
cognizing it as a sign over a jeweler's shop.
The thinking, feeling equipment of his body slowed and shut down as if its electrical current had switched off. His head was pounding and blackness was covering the stars bursting behind his eyes. He existed only on instinct, and soon even that would desert him.
The wave had reached its outer limit and began to fall in on itself, rushing back to the sea. It was too late for Pitt, he was slipping away from consciousness. His brain somehow managed to send out one last message. An arm clumsily jammed its way between the sign and its support shaft that protruded from the building, and wedged there.
Then his bursting lungs could take no more, and he began to drown.
The great rumble from the explosions echoed away into the hills and sea. There was no sunlight over the city, no real sunlight. It was hidden by a smoke-blackened pall of incredible density. The whole harbor seemed afire-- the docks, ships, storage tanks, and three square miles of oil-coated water were bristling with orange and blue flame that streaked up into the dark canopy.
The dreadfully wounded city began to shake off the shock and stagger to its feet. Sirens began to match the noisy intensity of the crackling fires. The tidal wave had flowed back into the Gulf of Mexico, dragging a great mass of splintered debris and bodies in its wake.
Survivors began to stumble dazed and injured into the streets, like bewildered sheep, shocked at the enormous devastation around them, wondering what had happened. Some wandered in shock, unfeeling of their wounds. Others stared dumbly at the huge piece of the Amy Bigalow's rudder that had crashed through the bus station and mashed four of the vehicles and several people who were waiting to board.
A piece of the Ozero Zaysan's forward mast was found embedded in the center of Havana Stadium's soccer field. A one-ton winch landed in a wing of University Hospital and squashed the only three beds not occupied in a forty-bed ward. It was to be widely talked about as only one of a hundred miracles that happened that day. A great boon to the Catholic Church and a small setback to Marxism.
Rescue parties began to form as firefighters and police converged on the waterfront. Army units were called out along with the militia. There was panic amid the chaos at first. The military forces turned their backs on rescue work and manned island defenses under the mistaken belief the United States was invading. The injured seemed to be everywhere, some screaming in pain, most hobbling or walking away from the flaming harbor.
The earthshaking quake died with the shock waves. The ceiling of Sloppy Joe's had fallen in, but the walls still stood. The barroom was a shambles. Wooden beams, fallen plaster, overturned furniture, and broken bottles lay scattered under a thick cloud of dust. The swinging door had been ripped from its hinges and hung at a crazy angle over Castro's bodyguards, who lay groaning under a small hill of bricks.
Ira Hagen hoisted himself painfully to his feet and shook his head to clear it from the ringing of the concussion. He wiped his eyes to penetrate the dust cloud and clutched a wall for support. He looked up through the now open ceiling and saw pictures still hanging on the walls of the floor above.
His first thought was of Jessie. She was lying partially under the table that still stood in the center of the room. Her body was crumpled in a curled position. Hagen knelt and gently turned her over.
She lay motionless, appearing lifeless under the coating of white plaster dust, but there was no blood or serious wounds. Her eyes were half open and she groaned. Hagen smiled with relief and removed his coat. He folded and placed it under her head.
She reached up and grasped his wrist more tightly than he believed possible and stared up at him.
"Dirk is dead," she whispered.
"He might have survived," said Hagen softly, but there was no optimism in his tone.
"Dirk is dead," she repeated.
"Don't move," he said. "Just lie easy while I check out the Castros."
Then he rose unsteadily and began searching through the fallen debris. The sound of coughing came from his left and he climbed over the rubble until he bumped into the bar.
Raul Castro was hanging on to the raised edge of the bar with both hands, dazed and in shock, hacking the dust from his throat. Blood was trickling from his nose and a nasty cut on his chin.
Hagen marveled at how close everyone had been sitting before the explosions and how scattered they were now. He uprighted a fallen chair and helped Raul to sit down.
"Are you all right, sir?" Hagen asked, genuinely concerned.
Raul nodded weakly. "I'm all right. Fidel? Where is Fidel?"
"Sit tight. I'll find him."
Hagen moved off through the rubble until he found Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader was on his stomach and twisted sideways, shoulders propped up by one arm. Hagen stared in fascination at the scene on the floor.
Castro's eyes were trained on an upturned face only a foot away. General Velikov was spread-eagled on his back, a large beam crushing his legs. The expression on his face was a mixture of defiance and apprehension. He stared up at Castro through eyes bitter with the taste of defeat.
There was not a flicker of emotion in Castro's expression. The plaster dust made him look as though he were sculpted in marble. The rigidity of the face, masklike, the total concentration, was almost inhuman.
"We live, General," he murmured triumphantly. "We both live."
"Not right," Velikov uttered through clenched teeth. "We should all be dead."
"Dirk Pitt and the others somehow got the ships through your naval units and out to sea," explained Hagen. "The destructive force of the explosion was only one-tenth of what it might have been if they remained in the harbor."
"You have failed," said Castro. "Cuba remains Cuba."
"So near and yet--" Velikov shook his head resignedly. "And now for the revenge you vowed to take on me."
"You will die for every one of my countrymen you murdered," Castro promised, in a voice as cold as an open grave. "If it takes a thousand deaths or a hundred thousand. You will suffer them all."
Velikov grinned crookedly. He seemed to have no nerves at all. "Another man, another time, and you will surely be killed, Fidel. I know. I helped create five alternative plans in case this one failed."
EUREKA! THE LA DORADA
November 8, 1989
Washington, D.C.
>
Martin Brogan walked into the early-morning cabinet meeting late. The President and the men seated around the large kidney-shaped table looked up expectantly.
"The ships were detonated four hours ahead of schedule," he informed them while still standing.
His announcement was greeted with solemn silence. Every man at the table had been told of the unbelievable plan by the Soviets to remove Castro, and the news struck them more as an inevitable tragedy than a shocking catastrophe.
"What are the latest reports on loss of life?" asked Douglas Oates.
"Too early to tell," replied Brogan. "The whole harbor area is in flames. The deaths could conceivably total in the thousands. The devastation, however, is not nearly as severe as we first projected. It appears our agents in Havana seized two of the ships and sailed them out of the harbor before they exploded."
As they listened in contemplative quiet, Brogan read from the initial reports sent from the Special Interests Section in Havana. He recounted the details of the plan to move the ships and the sketchy details of the actual operation. Before he had finished, one of his aides entered and slipped him an updated report. He scanned it silently and then read the first line.
"Fidel and Raul Castro are alive." He paused to gaze at the President. "Your man, Ira Hagen, says he is in direct contact with the Castros and they have requested any assistance we can offer in the way of disaster relief, including medical personnel and supplies, firefighting equipment, food and clothing, and also morgue and embalming experts."
The President looked at General Clayton Metcalf, chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff. "General?"
"After you
r call last night, I alerted Air Transport Command. We can begin the airlift as soon as the people and supplies arrive at the airfields and are loaded on board."
"Any approach by American military aircraft had better be coordinated or the Cubans will cut loose with their surface-to-air missiles," pointed out Secretary of Defense Simmons.
"I'll see to it a line of communication is opened with their Foreign Ministry," said Secretary of State Oates.
"Better make it clear to Castro that any relief we send is organized under the umbrella of the Red Cross," added Dan Fawcett. "We don't want to scare him into slamming the door."
"An angle we can't overlook," said the President.
"Almost a crime to take advantage of a terrible disaster," mused Oates. "Still, we can't deny it's a heavensent opportunity to cement relations with Cuba and defuse revolutionary fever throughout the Americas."
"I wonder if Castro has ever studied Simon Bolivar?" the President asked no one in particular.
"The Great Liberator of South America is one of Castro's idols," replied Brogan. "Why do you ask?"
"Then perhaps he's finally heeded one of Bolivar's quotations."
"Which quotation is that, Mr. President?"
The President looked from face to face around the table before answering. " " `He who serves a revolution plows the sea.' "
>
The chaos slowly subsided and the rescue work began as the population of Havana recovered from the shock. Hurricane emergency procedures were put into operation. Army and militia units along with paramedics sifted through the rubble, lifting the bodies of the living into ambulances and the dead into trucks.
The Santa Clara convent, dating from 1643, was taken over as a temporary hospital and quickly filled.
The wards and corridors of University Hospital soon overflowed. The elegant old Presidential Palace, now the museum of the revolution, was turned into a morgue.