She recognized Roland Violette first. Then her eyes shifted to the other man.
“Alex! Thank God!” came the male voice. Paul rushed to her and embraced her. Juanita in the uniform was close behind with a key to the handcuffs.
“What – ?” Alex began.
“We’re going home,” Guarneri said. “Back to the U.S. That’s if our plane gets here. If the Cuban army or air force stops them we’re all shafted.”
Violette said nothing. He only twitched and stared.
Juanita worked on the handcuffs and undid them. Behind Alex, the door opened and closed again. It was Major Mejias. He had taken his cargo down to the end of the pier where it waited. Alex had to fight back her emotions. The loneliness in solitary. The suicidal thoughts. The fear. The torment. She turned toward the major.
“Sorry,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I had to be rough. We had listeners. All the way. In prison.”
“Seville,” she said.
“Figaro,” he said with a nod and an awkward tip of his cap. “This is my wife,” he said, turning to Juanita, who now smiled. “Those boxes out there are for your employers. Everything I could copy for five years, plus a lot that I didn’t have time to copy. There are papers, discs, flash drives. Defense records, police, militia security. A few personal items as well.”
“Poison. Poison,” Violette said, making no more sense than ever. He moved over to the window and peered out.
“The CIA is bringing us to Miami,” said Major Mejias. “My wife is coming with me.”
“A seaplane’s coming in,” Guarneri said. “Should be here any moment.”
“I was told you’d already gone,” Alex said. “Along with Violette.”
“Without you?” Guarneri asked. “Don’t believe everything you hear. You should know that.”
“I should have known that, yes,” she said.
“Airplane,” said Violette. “Airplane, airplane, airplane.”
They all went to the window.
“That’s our exit,” said Guarneri.
Alex watched the Cessna drop low on its approach. The plane hit the water, kicked up a wake, and began to taxi toward the pier. It was an old craft, propeller driven, but had its own beauty.
“If the plane doesn’t lift off, none of us are going,” Alex said.
“I’m going. I’m going. I’m going,” Violette said. “Back to the U.S. of A.”
She looked at him and then looked at Major Mejias. There was no question which of them was the bigger prize. And things started to come into focus.
“Let’s get to the pier,” Guarneri said. Then they all froze. From somewhere there was the sound of a loud bang. Then several more. Someone was trying to crash through the outside gates.
“Army!” said Major Mejias. “Or police!”
“We need to move,” Paul said.
Perez waited. He perched his rifle in the second-story window.
He had a clear line of sight to the small house with the Brazilian flag. He could see the commotion at the other side of the wall too, army trucks unloading soldiers, probably from Cienfuegos. But they weren’t his concern. He was used to shooting under pressure.
He lowered his eye to rifle’s sight. The rear door of the building opened, and a limping man with a hickory cane emerged. Then a woman in a police uniform came out. He waited. Then the woman emerged whom he had missed in New York. He grinned. That tiny miss a few weeks back had created all these complications. The woman, Alex LaDuca, was followed by a man. They were moving quickly, all of them, everyone except the crazy-looking old guy with the cane. Alex and the younger man were holding hands. Well, so be it. Let the lovebirds have their moment.
Perez moved his rifle onto his intended target. The right side of the victim’s head was beneath the red dot of his laser. This was such an easy shot that he almost felt bad. Just as the first of the escapees reached the pier, and he prepared to pull the trigger, an explosion erupted at the gate. The army had blown the door inward. A wave of smoke rolled across the courtyard. Still, it wasn’t enough to distract Perez. His future with his family was at stake, and these CIA guys he had been dealing with would have to make good on their promise to get him and Nicoleta and the girls back together.
He swung the rifle around, put the red beam on the head of his victim, and pulled the trigger. There was nasty recoil to the rifle but a tremendous satisfaction. He knew a single-shot kill when he saw one, a human head blowing apart, a crimson mist of blood and brains exploding from the bullet’s impact. And that’s what he saw.
Alex never heard the rifle shot. But she heard the crack of the bullet on Roland Violette’s skull. She heard a strange guttural sound escape his lungs and mouth, and almost instantaneously, she heard his body hit the ground. His attache case landed nearby.
She pulled her hand free of Paul’s, turned, and stared. And at the same time, she could hear soldiers pushing through the wreckage of the iron gate.
For too long a moment, she stopped and stared at the fallen man. His last wish had been to return to the country he had disdained and be buried on American soil. But old grudges died hard. It was never meant to happen.
The noise of advancing soldiers grew louder.
“Alex! Alex!” Paul was back at her side, barking at her. “Come on! Now or never! We have to get out of here!”
He tried to pull her toward the aircraft, but she balked. She grabbed the attache case from the ground. There was a splattering of blood on it. Then she turned and ran toward the pier.
Major Mejias and his wife were already in the airplane. The propellers started up again, and the door was open. Alex and Paul reached the end of the pier, and the soldiers opened fire. Paul turned and brazenly drew a pistol. He fired wildly at the oncoming soldiers, but, as on the day of their arrival, his volleys only caused them to scatter.
Alex reached the aircraft and darted onto it, crouching into a far seat in the second row. The aircraft started to move from the pier, the door still open and Paul outside. Alex realized that without help, as the plane accelerated, he was in danger of being left behind. Alex bolted to the door and extended a hand as Paul turned toward the plane. A bullet punched the body of the plane and then a second. A third shot hit a few inches above her head. Paul jumped forward and Alex pulled. His foot slipped but he grabbed part of the door frame. She pulled him on board. The aircraft turned rapidly in the water and the passenger door closed. Then a bullet blew out a side window.
The pilot threw the throttle forward, and the plane fishtailed on the water. Facing away from the shore, it was a harder target to hit. But shots ripped past it and into the water. All four passengers kept their heads down. The navigator sat low in his seat, as did the pilot. The plane gained momentum as the first rays of sun started to streak across the sea.
They lifted off, and the Cessna rose above the water. The aircraft was a thousand meters from shore, then twelve hundred. A final shot pinged against its fuselage but didn’t penetrate. Then they were in the sky, getting as far from the island as possible before the pilot banked and turned to the southeast.
A palpable sense of relief flooded the passengers, tempered by the parting sight of Roland Violette lying dead on a Cuban beach. For several minutes no one spoke, aside from the pilot who checked in with air traffic controllers in the Cayman Islands. Alex muttered a silent prayer of thanks.
Finally, Paul broke the silence. He turned to Alex. “Communists,” he said. “Can’t do anything right. Can’t run a captive country and can’t even shoot straight.”
SIXTY-THREE
For the next week, Alex lived in limbo.
In New York, her employers insisted that she go for a physical at New York Hospital, where they had all the proper doctors lined up. Since she knew this was both protocol and a wise health decision anyway, she didn’t protest. So she spent her first three days back in the U.S. in a private hospital.