Hawke

“The few remaining officers loyal to you will be imprisoned. My men are prepared to seize control of all telephone, television, and radio stations. It will happen as soon as you address the nation and a

Castro reddened. That particular song not only mocked him and his green fatigues, it said that though the mango was still green it was ripe and ready to fall down.

“And as for the hearts of our country,” Manso continued, “their hearts have too long been the prisoners of their stomachs. I will feed one and so win the other.”

“You are nothing. No one. I made you. I will unmake you. The country will spit you out. And then spit on your grave. Just as I spit on you now.” Castro unbuckled himself, leaned over, and spat on Manso again, square in the face.

“No,Comandante, they will not,” Manso said, ignoring the attack once more. “The entire country, like the army, is successfully brainwashed. You have erased cause and effect in the mind of the populace. You have achieved a magnificent success in that regard, no one will dispute. The result is a total lack of loyalty. Of values. Of beliefs. We could install an illiterate jinetera, a stupid whore, as presidente and the whole of the country would bow down.”

“It sounds like exactly what you intend to do, Colonel Manso de Herreras. It sounds as if it is you who is to be the new presidente.”

Manso knew better than to rise to the bait.

“After you have told the nation your decision, I will speak. I will tell the people that our new government has your blessings. That we remain united against the Americans. I will name the new presidente. We will then be giving the americanos exactly thirty hours to lift the paralyzing blockade and evacuate every last soul from Guantanamo Naval Station.”

“And why the hell should they listen to you, little pissant?”

“I have initiated certain reprisals if they do not.”

“Idiot! The americanos will take any provocation as a declaration of war. They will bomb our country into a fucking parking lot. Do you understand nothing? Does your pitiful memory not even stretch back to the year oh-two, when the Americans flattened what was left of Afghanistan? The Soviet traitors have left us completely exposed and vulnerable! The americanos have been praying for just such an excuse as yours!”

“The Americans will not touch us.”

“May I ask why not?”

“We have purchased a weapon that will prevent any thought of reprisal. Borzoi. The most lethal submarine ever built. It was constructed by the Russians in total secrecy in the last years of the Cold War. It utilizes the American stealth technology and is completely invisible to sonar and radar. Twice the size of conventional subs. She carries forty ballistic missiles.”

Castro was struck speechless.

“And we have cultivated new, powerful allies,” Manso added.

“My brother Raul’s trips to China?” Castro sputtered. “You are beyond stupid, Manso. You believe anything my brother says? The Chinese don’t give a rat’s ass about Cuba. Or Raul either.”

“How do you know the Americans would not prefer our new government, Comandante?”

“You have betrayed us to the Americans?”

“My brother Carlitos and I have many friends in America, from our days working for el doctor Escobar in Colombia. Carlitos is a very powerful player in that world, you know.”

“Carlitos is a drug-addled lunatic. Out of control. And Pablo Escobar’s Mafiosi friends in America, what’s left of them, are nothing but pitiful gangsters. Powerless, castrated eunuchs who sell their stories to the magazines and movies.”

“Ours will not be the first government to include a few sympathetic outlaws, Comandante. In fact, one of them has just purchased the Hotel Nacional. He intends to create a beautiful new casino like the one of Seсor Meyer Lansky. Our new government will welcome these investors with open arms.”

“Infidel! You will have no government because you won’t live long enough to preside, you filthy—”

Castro must have pulled his revolver from its holster because he now had it jammed into Manso’s temple.

“It is a fitting way to end the struggle, Manso,” Fidel said, his voice barely under control. “I kill the ignoble traitor who would murder our noble revoluciуn!”

He pressed the gun to Manso’s temple and pulled the trigger.

“The gun is empty, jefe,” Manso said. “Don’t waste your time.”

Castro heard the hammer’s harmless click five more times before he screamed in frustration and threw the useless weapon at Manso’s head, barely missing him.

“How?” he asked.

“Don Julio,” Manso said. “Your beloved manservant. This morning, very early, before we left for the dedication, he removed the cartridges while you were busy.

“Don Julio! No! He, of all men, would never betray—”

“You, of all men, should not be surprised at who any man will betray for the right amount of money, Comandante.”

Castro lunged for the control stick and wrested control of the cyclic from Manso. He shoved it forward.

“I will go down then, Manso. But we go down together!” Castro screamed over the jet turbine engine’s roar.

The helicopter instantly went into a precipitous dive. Manso screamed and fought for the cyclic. But Castro had a death grip on the control stick. The old man was ready to die, Manso could see it in his eyes. The green mountains rushed up to meet them as the chopper began its sickening death spiral.

24

Hawke was standing at the bar with a martini glass in his hand. The other hand was stuck in the pocket of his di

He looked pretty good in his tuxedo. Very Mel Gibson, she decided, with his black hair slicked back in waves from his forehead and the deep tan he’d acquired down in the Caribbean. He didn’t see her coming.

She planted a big wet one on his unsuspecting cheek.

“Hey, sailor,” Vicky said, taking the stool next to him, “buy a lady a drink?”

Hawke smiled, and said, “Name your poison, darling.”

“Yours looks lethal enough. My daddy called those ‘see-throughs.’ I’ll have one, too,” Vicky said. “Used to be, Daddy never would drink liquor he couldn’t see through. Now, all he drinks is bourbon. He says gin brings out unpleasant qualities in a man. ‘Loudmouth soup,’ he calls it. And when he flew on an airplane, he always took a flask.”

“Why?”

“He said he just plain didn’t trust airplane gin.”

“My beautiful girl.”

“Yes?”

“Did you come here with him very often?”

“Yes. All the time. It’s my most favorite place in Washington. That’s why I was so surprised when you suggested it.”

“I hoped you’d like it. Does your father get to Washington much?”

“I wish. Ever since he went back home to Seven Oaks, it’s been tough to get him out of his rocker on the front veranda. He’s got some old hunting dogs and he likes to stomp around his fields with them, looking for quail or pheasant. That’s about the extent of his current travels.”

“I’ve never been to Louisiana,” Hawke said. “Perhaps we could go down and visit him sometime.”

“I’d like that very much. You’d love Seven Oaks. It’s smack dab on the Mississippi River, on the River Road, about twenty miles south of Baton Rouge.”

“It all sounds very Scarlett O’Hara.”

“A whole lot of good things in the South have gone with the wind, but not Seven Oaks. I had a heavenly childhood. There’s a reason for all those stories about the Mississippi. It’s a storybook river. Daddy loved politics, but he hated living in Washington. He once said that if he owned Washington and Hell, he’d rent out Washington and live in Hell.”