Gomez laughed again and reached for her. She stepped backwards, almost stumbling. He was only a few yards away and was becoming impatient. He had to end this soon before the others came back. He slung his weapon over his shoulder. He was that contemptuous of her defenses.
"Get over here, you stupid cunt!" he snarled.
His words finally penetrated her consciousness. She screamed in animal fury, raised her weapon and fired on full automatic. Most of her shots went wild, but a line of bullets exploded across Gomez's chest and belly. He flew backwards and flopped onto the ground. A few seconds later, he stopped flopping and lay still. Cathy threw down the AK47 and dropped to her knees, sobbing.
A moment later, a badly limping Romanski lurched by. "You okay, Cathy?"
"I think so."
Romanski continued on and looked at the mutilated corpse. He had heard only the last comment the dead Cuban had made, but he thought he understood. "Tell me, was this someone you knew?"
She managed a wan smile. She was now used to the stench of death, and along with the blood, Gomez had messily evacuated his bowels and bladder as he died. She thought it was fitting that had died in his own filth.
"You could say it was."
He smiled knowingly. "Is this chapter closed?"
She reached for the weapon she'd dropped. "Damned right."
Ross crawled through the grass and the bushes. There had been a burst of gunfire from behind him and he wondered if that meant that the Cubans were in his rear or what. Regardless, the situation called for extreme caution. He knew that he was finally getting very close to the launcher and its nuclear warhead.
And finally, there it was, tucked neatly into a very small clearing less than a hundred yards away. Its rocket was in an upright position, like an obscene erection, and it was pointed south towards the ocean where everyone expected that the marines would soon be landing.
Guevara was hunched over in the vehicle, probably working the controls and two Cubans were on the ground, checking things over.
Ross looked around as best he could without exposing himself. Where were the others? The unexpected firing behind him had stopped, but Cullen, Morton, and the others were nowhere to be seen, and where the devil was Cathy? Had the firing distracted them or had they gotten separated in the underbrush? It didn't matter. He was on his own and it looked like Guevara was going to try and fire the thing at any moment.
Ross moved forward in a running crouch. About halfway there, the two Cubans on the ground spotted him. He opened fire and one of them fell while the second ran away. Guevara looked up, stunned. He recovered quickly and pulled his pistol out of its holster.
Ross aimed and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. His clip was empty. He struggled to replace it and Guevara fired several rounds at nearly point-blank range.
Ross was hit in the chest with enough force to knock him backwards and stun him. It took all his strength to roll over. Even if he could have reached it, his carbine was smashed. One of Guevara's bullets had hit it. His world began to spin and he thought he would black out.
Guevara laughed and went back to work.
A wraith in a gray uniform silently emerged from behind the launcher and jumped up and behind an unsuspecting Che Guevara. A large knife flashed and blood began to gush wildly from the Cuban's throat. The wraith pushed Guevara out and onto the ground where he lay still.
Additional gray clad wraiths leaped onto the launcher and lowered the rocket. With swift, practiced motions, they removed the warhead and laid it on a sledge which they then proceeded to drag away into the underbrush.
Andrew's mind finally accepted the fact that they were men and not phantoms and that they wore uniforms, but ones he didn't recognize.
The first one, the man with the knife, stood over Andrew. He was clearly in charge of the group. He knelt and wiped the blade on some grass.
"There is no blood, so you will live, I think," he said in heavily accented English.
"You're Russian?" Andrew managed to say.
"Spetsnaz," Captain Pyotr Dragan answered. "Tell your superiors that we have done nothing more than retrieved stolen property along with taking care of some human garbage we've been tracking for some time."
Dragan signaled and his fellow Russians disappeared like they'd never existed. The sledge with the warhead was already out of sight. All that remained was a missile launcher without a warhead. A Russian ran back and threw a grenade into the launcher’s command area. The explosion started a fire that resulted in the fuel tank catching fire. The launcher was history and the Luna was gone.
Ross lay back and tried to figure out whether the Russian was right and that he would indeed live. He checked himself over and, miraculously, found no evidence of a bullet hole. Something had hit him hard in the chest, but it wasn't a bullet and it wasn't going to kill him. His ribs hurt like hell and he thought at least one was broken.
Morton and Cullen ran to him and checked him over. A moment later, Cathy did the same thing, except that she was crying. The verdict was unanimous. He would live. Romanski finally limped up. Once again he was using a tree limb for a crutch. He looked at the launcher and the dead bodies.
"Is that what I think it is?" the colonel asked.
"Yes, sir," Ross said. "That's what we've been chasing."
"Then where the hell is the warhead," Romanski said as he looked around, deeply concerned. The marines had commenced landing a few miles south at Gitmo and east near the town of Siboney.
Ross tried to laugh, but it hurt too hard. "Colonel, let's just say that the real owners came and got it."
Chapter Twenty-two
One more thing spinning out of my control, JFK lamented silently. Worse, there was no way of containing the problem. That fool, Emilio Esteban, had been broadcasting from Cuba for nearly two hours now, proclaiming the resurgence of a free Cuba and urging the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro.
"We will not help them," Kennedy said softly but firmly. "Any attempt at air support would be too close to Russian positions. The fact that this Esteban's people have already killed two Russians is bad enough. We will not further complicate matters."
General Taylor reluctantly agreed. "Their effort is doomed. Thousands of Cuban militia and armed civilians are already converging on the area. The pro-Castro forces aren't using air or sending in tanks. They're afraid our air forces would clobber them. Instead, they are just going to overwhelm the exile forces with numbers. Cuban civilians are even hindering Esteban's attackers, just like they did when we landed north of Guantanamo."
"Are we still in touch with Esteban?" the president asked.
"Yes sir."
"Then tell the stupid bastard what his situation is and that he'd better cut bait and get the hell out of there while the getting is good."
This would hurt him politically, as if he hadn't been hurt badly already. As a result of Emilio Esteban's invasion of Cuba, there'd been demonstrations and celebrations in many cities. Miami, of course, had the lion's share. Too bad none of the celebrants yet realized Esteban’s effort was even more flawed and more doomed then the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Kennedy turned to his secretary of state. "Mr. Rusk, are the Russians on board with this? Will they stay out of it?"
Rusk nodded. "They will. The loss of a couple of men is of no consequence to them if they can get out of this Cuban debacle without any loss of prestige. I am convinced they do not want any more confrontations with us as long as we don't do anything directly against Castro."
Kennedy sighed. He was getting skewered by his political opposition once more who were asking a litany of questions. Where were the American planes needed to support the attack, they asked? Why weren't more marines landing near Havana? Not only were the assaults on him coming from his political enemies, but now they were being aided by former air force chief of staff, Curtis LeMay. His resignation had been offered and immediately accepted, and the man had almost immediately gone on radio and television to proclaim that, in effect, the president of the United States was a gutless fool.