The boy was fearless. This afternoon when Jake explained to Ocho that there was a strong probability that the soldiers would refuse to fire on the civilians, might even disobey their officers if ordered to fire, Ocho merely nodded.
Perhaps the ordeal in the ocean had toughened Ocho, or perhaps he had always been impervious to fear. That emotion affected people in an extraordinary variety of ways, Jake knew.
Looking through the viewer it was difficult to be sure, but apparently soldiers were joining the crowd with Ocho as he walked along.
He wanted to let Hector accompany Ocho, but his better judgment told him no. A single sniper, one frightened soldier, and the last best hope of Cuba might be dead in the street. With the viruses still in that lab, that was a risk Jake Grafton was not yet prepared to take.
As he watched, he wished he were with Ocho. That walk must be sublime, he thought.
Ocho Sedano knew a great many people because he had spent years accompanying his brother to speeches, sitting in planning sessions, helped him dig holes to hide weapons.
Many more people, however, knew Ocho. Every Cuban between eight and eighty knew of the star pitcher who threw the sizzling fastballs and hit home runs when his turn came to bat. Many people recognized him, shouted to him as he walked along, then decided to shake his hand and join the throng behind him.
As the human river turned the corner onto the avenue that led to the university, a knot of soldiers left the shelter of a doorway and came toward Ocho. He didn’t stop, kept striding along the center of the street.
“Halt!” the senior officer shouted. He was a major. “You are entering a military area! You can go no farther!”
Ocho didn’t even slow his pace. The soldiers had to join the crowd to keep from being trampled.
“You! Stop these people! This is a secure area, by order of Alejo Vargas.”
“We will not stop.” Ocho laughed. “Do you think you can stop the sun from rising?”
The soldiers hurried along, trying to talk to Ocho, who refused to slow his pace.
“You are El Ocho?” one of the younger soldiers asked.
“The days of Vargas are over, my friend,” Ocho explained. “Give away your gun and come along with us.”
The sheer numbers and weight of the people pushing along frightened the major, who had a pistol in his hand. Even as his subordinates handed their weapons to the nearest people in civilian clothes, he placed himself in front of Ocho, who didn’t stop walking.
“I order you to stop, Sedano!” he shouted, and pointed the pistol at Ocho’s head.
“You would make me a martyr, would you?” Ocho asked the major, who was trying to match Ocho’s stride. “Look around you, man. No one can stop them.”
The major fired the pistol into the air. His face was drawn and pale, almost bloodless. “Stop or I shoot you down, as God is my witness.”
“Mi amigo,” said Ocho Sedano, “for days at sea I was ready to die; all the fear drained from me. There is none in my heart now. My death will not stop these people: nothing can stop the turning of the earth. Still, if you feel you must kill me, make your peace with God and pull the trigger.”
Then he smiled.
El Ocho was a madman, the major realized. Or a saint. The major wiped at the perspiration on his forehead, and handed Ocho the pistol.
Ocho passed the weapon on. He put his arm around the major’s shoulders. “Come,” he said. “We will walk to the promised land together.”
Like a wall of water rushing along a dry arroyo, the human river flowed along the avenue toward the university as airplanes droned through the darkness overhead.
In the foyer of the science building, Alejo Vargas heard the airplanes. He looked at the politicians and young soldiers who waited silently behind him, blocking the doors to the stairs and the elevator, and he looked at his aides, who were nervously looking out windows, trying not to fidget.
Where was Santana?
The man should be here: he was Alejo Vargas’s one loyal friend on this earth.
Vargas paced back and forth, stood in the doorway and listened to the airplanes, wondered if the troops he had hidden in the surrounding buildings were loyal, would still fight. Over two thousand heavily armed men were waiting for the Americans. This time the Yanquis would not escape: this time there would be prisoners to parade before the cameras, vanquished foes to kneel at his feet as Cuba cheered. This time …
A car rocketed up to the front of the building and a man leaped out, a uniformed colonel with the Department of State Security. He ran up the stairs, came running through the door, saw Vargas and ran toward him.
“The television,” he said breathlessly. “On the television, they are showing a tape of Fidel.”
“Yes?” said Vargas, his brows knitting.
“Fidel made the tape before he died. He wants Hector Sedano to be the president after him.”
“What?” Vargas didn’t believe a word of it.
“They run the tape, which takes about six minutes, then run it again, over and over and over.”
“That’s impossible,” Vargas said, turning toward the politicians, who had moved closer. “Fidel made no such tape before he died. He wanted to make a tape naming me as his successor, but his illness prevented it.”
“They are showing a tape on television,” the colonel insisted. “Fidel says the nation must change, and Hector Sedano is the man to lead that change.”
“It’s a trick!” Vargas roared. “The Yanqui CIA is playing a trick on us.”
Every face was openly skeptical.
“Fidel is dead! Don’t you people understand that?”
A rising symphony of babbling voices and helicopter noises came through the open door.
“What is happening?” Vargas demanded, turning in that direction. “Where are the soldiers?”
He saw heads climbing the stairs, many heads, then a mob of people in civilian clothes and army uniforms poured through the doorway, forcing their way in. The room filled rapidly.
People in the doorway stood aside for two men who walked through together, one a tall, rangy young man and the other of medium height, wearing a one-piece faded prison jumpsuit.
They stopped in front of Vargas.
Hector’s voice was plainly audible to every person in the room when he said, “Alejo Vargas, I arrest you in the name of the Cuban people for the murder of Raúl Castro.”
Vargas’s hand darted inside his jacket for a pistol, but before he could get it out a dozen hands reached for him, pulled him to the floor, and took the weapon from him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Maximo Sedano spent the night aboard his yacht in Havana Harbor. He heard the planes and the explosions of bombs falling around La Cabana Prison, but he didn’t go ashore. He had worked until night fell hunting for the gold that he was sure lay on the floor of Havana Harbor.
He found a great deal of junk and trash, but no gold.
As the bombs were falling he drank some rum, idly studied the skyline, thought about gold.
Thirty-seven tons of gold. My God, what a man could do with a fortune like that! Cars, yachts, women, all the good things in life.
He was filthy from the muck and pollution of the harbor. The water tank on the boat was not large, so he sponged off as best he could and resolved to take a shower ashore at the first opportunity.
The next morning he began diving as soon as the sun came up. Boats came and went and Maximo worked steadily. He changed tanks once.
The work was maddening. The most probable location for the gold was the marina anchorage, where Fidel and Che must have spent the nights they were anchored. Here is where they must have dumped the gold overboard!
Yet it wasn’t on the floor of the harbor. He thought mud and sediment might have covered the ingots, but even when he dug, he could find nothing.