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."
<6>EUREKA! THE LA DORADA
November 8, 1989
Washington, D.C.
<<75>>
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 your 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 heaven-sent 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.' "
<<76>>
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.
Injured people walked the streets bleeding, staring vacantly or searching desperately for loved ones. A clock on top of a building in Cathedral Square of old Havana sat frozen at 6:21. Some residents who had fled their homes during the havoc began to drift back. Others who had no homes to return to walked through the streets, picking their way around the bodies, carrying small bundles containing salvaged possessions.
Every fire unit for a hundred miles streamed into the city and vainly fought the fires spreading throughout the waterfront. A tank of chlorine gas exploded, adding its poison to the ravages of the blaze. Twice the hundreds of firefighters had to run for cover when a change of wind whipped the blistering heat in their faces.