As the man lay stunned, Dr. Revuelta rushed along the docks, trying to unlock the handcuffs with the tiny key he had rummaged from the first man's pockets.
He was looking for Spanish names on the ships. When he came to the Santander, he smiled broadly and started up the gangplank.
Halfway up, the handcuffs finally came loose and he flung them with all his might into the filthy water by the bow.
The sound brought all hands to the bow rail in search of stowaways. This was distraction enough for Dr. Revuelta to slip aboard and find a place to hide.
When the Santander docked in Pernambuco, Brazil, Dr. Revuelta walked off the boat as he did everything: boldly. No one questioned him.
In Pernambuco he continued his work, certain that he would not be criticized for his continued counterrevolutionary activities by the United States government, which was altogether too sensitive about these matters.
He learned different when the Cubana Airlines jet exploded over the Gulf of Mexico and seventy-three Cubans died. The United States denounced it as a terrorist action.
"Terrorista!" Dr. Revuelta had screamed from his palatial seaside hacienda. "It is counterrevolution! How can they call me terrorista?"
Dr. Revuelta happened to ask this question in a Pernambuco bistro, and soon the Brazilian security police were knocking on his door.
Fortunately, he spotted them from his bedroom window. Dr. Revuelta slipped out the back and hurried down to the docks. This time he stowed away on the freighter Garaucan. It took him back to Miami where, now white-haired and thin, he picked up where he had left off.
This was in 1984, and Miami had changed. Little Havana was no longer strung along Southwest 8th Street, but spread out over virtually all of Miami. This was after the Mariel boat lift. The Marielitos had swollen the Cuban population until Miami was virtually Cuban.
And in that rich environment, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta began to recruit for Ultima Hora-the antiFidel guerilleros who would be his instrument of terror.
They trained in the swamps. They set out for Cuba in boats. Sometimes they landed and blew up power lines and telephone poles. Other times they simply released propaganda messages in bottles.
Sometimes they did not return.
Dr. Revuelta never went with them. He was a soldier of the Americas, but more, he was a leader of soldiers of the Americas. Leaders who did not come back from battle did not live to lead.
Emboldened by the new spirit of Miami, where the minorities had become the majority and Spanish was the lingua franca-despite the nervous referendum that had established English as the official language of Dade County-Dr. Revuelta began to boast once more.
It was another mistake. He loudly claimed credit for the Cubana bombing, believing that sympathies had shifted, and overlooked but one minor detaiclass="underline" that the passengers of the flight had had relatives and the relatives-or some of these-had come to Miami to escape oppression. He was reported to the FBI. This time by fellow Cubans.
On this occasion, the government tried Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta in the courts and sentenced him to jail. The Justice Department had wanted to deport him as an undesirable alien, but no country would take Dr. Revuelta.
Except Cuba. Havana let it be known that Dr. Revuelta was very much desired in Havana.
This time, Dr. Revuelta did not attempt escape. He knew Cuban justice. Besides, the judge had given him but five years. As it turned out, he served only two. Political pressures forced his early release.
But it had been a humiliating early release. The U.S. government had demanded he sign a letter renouncing terrorism.
"What foolishness is this?" he demanded of his Cuban lawyer. "A man who was determined enough to blow up a civilian airliner would not hesitate to renege on a written pledge such as this."
"Perhaps they wish only to cover their asses," the lawyer had suggested.
"Que?"
"Their colitos. "
"Ah, yes," said Dr. Revuelta, promptly signing the renunciation in his cell. He laid down his pen and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Okay, make them let me go. I have much to catch up on."
"There is more," the lawyer informed him.
Dr. Revuelta's face fell.
"What more?" he inquired suspiciously.
"You will be placed under house arrest, and made to wear an electronic monitor."
"I cannot leave my home?"
"Only between the hours of eleven A.m. and two P.m., to do necessary things."
Dr. Revuelta's sun-browned brow gathered into deep wrinkles. "Ah, a loophole," he said, thinking he understood now. "They are giving me a loophole, these canny norteamericanos. "
"You must keep a daily log of visitors, and submit to polygraph tests and random searches," the lawyer went on doggedly. "Your phone will be tapped."
"Let them tap," Dr. Revuelta said haughtily. "During my three hours, I will accomplish all that I wish to do."
"They are very serious about this, Revuelta."
"If they were serious, they would not release me," Dr. Revuelta countered. "This is a farce and I will play along. Now, hurry. I have two years of catching up to do."
Immediately upon returning to his palatial Biscayne Bay home, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta fired his Nicaraguan caretaker staff and replaced them with guerrilleros of his Ultima Hora.
"This is loco, Revuelta," complained his lawyer. "You are not to consort with terrorists."
Dr. Revuelta drew himself up indignantly. "Are jou mad? These are not terrorists. These are freedom fighters. Besides, I will tell the snoopers that they are Nicaraguans. These Anglo FBI, they know only that a man looks Hispanic or he does not. They will never know the difference."
"What about their guns?"
"The weapons of my soldados will never enter this house. They will patrol outside only, to protect me from the agents provocateurs of Fidel."
"I think," said the lawyer of Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta, "that you will be returning to jail very soon now."
But Dr. Revuelta did not return to jail. Oh, he was closely watched, polygraphed every few months, and subject to searches that turned up nothing worse than his growing collection of pornographic magazines. But during his three-hour period each day, he drilled his Ultima Hora for their forays into Cuba.
Every time men did not return, it was easy enough to recruit more. Ultima Hora grew, gained adherents and patrons of great resources.
While supposedly languishing through two years of house arrest, Osvaldo Revuelta was in fact running a paramilitary organization large enough to establish a major beachhead on the island of his birth. And he was convinced that his success was due entirely to U.S. financial assistance, regardless of what the Justice Department might say in public.
So it came as a total surprise when the two mysterious U.S. agents came to visit Osvaldo Revuelta late one night, as he was studying topographical maps of Cuba.
They were not announced. They were simply there. In his den.
"Que?" he said, turning. "Que pasa?"
"Got a minute, pal?" said the tall one. He was an Anglo. Lean. With thick wrists, and a casual insolence that reminded Revuelta of the DGI-the Cuba security police.
Dr. Revuelta would have shot the man right then and there, but he had no weapons on the premises.
"Quien?" he asked.
"He asked 'Who?' " said the other one, the short one. This second person was as fantastic in appearance as the other was ordinary. He was Asian, and wore a black silken garment that made Revuelta think of the Viet Cong. That was a bad sign. But the fact that the little Asian had to translate for the Anglo meant that he at least was not DGI. And he appeared very, very old.
"You speak English?" asked the Anglo, in a voice definitely gringo.
"Si. I mean, yes. Of course. Who are jou, that jou enter my humble home unannounced?"