“What does it do?”
“I’m still working on that, too, but what I have learned is the toilets have stopped working, and when the ship unloaded its passengers, a bunch of them had to be carried off on stretchers, and the rest, who had medical masks over their mouths, had to be helped off and into the buses waiting for them.”
“What’s the problem? Isn’t that good for us?”
“Quite the opposite. Our people have heard about it — actually they smelled it — and are terrified. They sent a workers’ delegation to see me, and they said everybody wants to go back to Havana now, even if that means they can’t go to New York and moon the cops from the roof window of a UN limousine. That’s what I meant when I said we have a morale problem.”
“Jesus, Jesus, don’t panic,” General Murov said. “Let me think about this. Hand me the bottle, please. We Russians always think better with a little boost from our friend Stoli.”
PART X
[ONE]
“Don Fernando’s House,” as the main residence of Hacienda Santa Maria was known, was a sprawling, red-tile-roofed house with a wide shaded veranda all around it sitting on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“I hate to mention this, Gringo,” Don Fernando Lopez, great-grandson of the man for whom the house was named, a heavyset, almost massive olive-skinned man in his late thirties, said from the wicker lounge on which he was sprawled on the veranda, “but the magic moment of ten hundred has come and gone.”
His cousin, Carlos Guillermo Castillo, gave him the finger.
“Fernando,” their grandmother, Doña Alicia Castillo, a trim woman who appeared to be in her fifties but was actually the far side of seventy, said, “don’t call Carlos ‘Gringo.’” And then she said, in awe, “Oh, my God!” and pointed out to sea.
Juan Carlos Pena, who was seated between Castillo and Doña Alicia, said, “I’ll be a sonofabitch!”
Doña Alicia said, “Watch your mouth, Juan Carlos. I haven’t forgotten how to wash your mouth out!”
“Sorry, Abuela,” Pena said, genuinely contrite.
“Great big son of a b— gun, isn’t she?” Castillo inquired admiringly.
The nuclear attack submarine USS San Juan (SSN-751) had just surfaced a thousand yards offshore. As the national colors were hoisted from her conning tower, hatches on her forward deck opened and lines of men in black rubber suits emerged. A davit then winched up black semi-rigid-hulled inflatable boats, which were quickly put over the side. The men in black rubber suits leapt into the sea and then climbed into the rubber boats. The hatches closed, the national colors were lowered, and the USS San Juan started to sink below the surface as the outboard-engine-powered rubber boats raced for the beach. The whole process had taken no more than four minutes.
“Fernando,” Castillo said, “I think that cheap watch of yours is running a little fast. Why don’t you get a real watch?”
Then he turned to Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC, and said, “Bradley, as the senior naval person on my staff — once a Marine, always a Marine — why don’t you go with Comandante Pena’s men to welcome our naval guests ashore?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Carry on, Gunnery Sergeant,” Castillo ordered.
About five minutes later, a very large man in a rubber suit and carrying a CAR-4 got out of one of the Policía Federal Suburbans and, looking more than a little uncomfortable, walked onto the veranda.
“Welcome to Hacienda Santa Maria,” Doña Alicia said.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. I’m looking for Colonel C. G. Castillo.”
“Congratulations, you have found Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, Retired. And you are?”
The man in the black rubber suit came to attention and saluted.
“Sir, Lieutenant Commander Edwin Bitter, SEAL Team Five, reporting as ordered to the colonel for hazardous duty.”
“Hello, Eddie,” Major H. Richard Miller, Junior, said. “Long time no see. How are you?”
“I will be goddamned!” Commander Bitter said.
“Probably,” Castillo said. “I have heard some really terrible things about you SEALs. But I must warn you, if you keep talking like that, my grandmother will wash your mouth out with soap.”
“And I know who you are, too!” Commander Bitter said excitedly.
“Indeed?”
“When Dick Miller dumped his Black Hawk in Afghanistan, with me and some other SEALs on it, you’re the crazy sonofabitch who stole another Black Hawk and came and got us off that mountain in the middle of a blizzard. The last I heard they were either going to court-martial you or give you the Medal of Honor.”
“In the end, wiser heads prevailed and they did neither,” Castillo said.
Sweaty came onto the veranda.
Commander Bitter’s face showed great surprise.
“Good morning,” Sweaty said, and offered Bitter her hand.
He took it and said, “A great honor, Miss Ravisher. I’m one of your biggest fans!”
Commander Bitter suddenly found himself flying through the air.
Castillo walked to the edge of the veranda and looked down at Bitter, who was now lying on his back on the hood of one of the Policía Federal Suburbans with his feet on the roof.
“If you think you can ever get off there, and make it back up here, Commander,” Castillo said, “and apologize nicely, I will ask the Widow Alekseeva to give you back your CAR-4, and then I will attempt to answer any questions you might have.”
“What he didn’t tell you, Commander,” Juan Carlos Pena said ten minutes later when Castillo had finished explaining the problem and what the role of the SEALs was to be in dealing with it, “is what at least three of the drug cartels want to do with him.”
“Which is?”
Pena looked uncomfortably at Doña Alicia.
“How do I say this delicately?” he asked.
“What they have announced they are going to do to Carlos, Commander,” Doña Alicia said, “is behead him, and then hang his head from a bridge over the highway in Acapulco.”
Juan Carlos Pena nodded. “They seem to feel Carlos had something to do with the untimely deaths of about a dozen of the drug cartel people who murdered—”
“Danny Salazar?” Bitter interrupted, and when Pena nodded again, said, “We heard about that.”
“He also didn’t tell you we are going to be married in Cozumel,” Sweaty said. “We would be pleased if you and your men were to come.”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Bitter said very respectfully, “but neither you nor this lady seem to be very concerned with this threat to Colonel Castillo.”
“You’ve heard of Pancho Villa, Commander?” Doña Alicia asked. “The famous Mexican bandito?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Villa announced to the world that after he cut the throat of Carlos’s great-grandfather Marcos Castillo — who was, of course, also Fernando’s great-grand-uncle Marcos — he intended to drag his corpse through the streets of Tampico behind his horse until there was nothing left but the rope.”
“Why did he want to do that, ma’am?” Bitter asked.
“In those days, this was a cattle ranch. Now we grow grapefruit, but in those days we raised cattle. Well, Señor Villa decided he needed some of our cattle, and helped himself. Great-grandfather Marcos did the only thing he could — he applied Texas law.”
“Which was?”
“He hung twenty-seven of Señor Villa’s banditos,” she said. “So, Señor Villa — he was something of a blowhard, truth to tell — announced he was going to drag Great-grandfather Marcos behind his horse. That didn’t happen. But it was necessary for Great-grandfather Marcos to hang another thirty-four banditos before Señor Villa understood that those sorts of threats were unacceptable.