Cold Warrior td-91 Read online

  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?"

  The man flashed a card in a plastic holder. "Remo Ricardo, CIA."

  "And jour friend, he is not CIA?" asked Dr. Revuelta, gesturing to the tiny old Asian.

  "He's the backup interrogator," offered the Anglo.

  "This mean jou are the foremost interrogator, no?"

  "Something like that," said the tall Anglo, walking forward with absolutely no sound. He walked on the outsides of his feet. Clearly he was trained. Well trained. In something.

  "Have jou signed in?" Dr. Revuelta asked nervously.

  "Signed in?"

  "Yes, it is the requirement of jour government. Jou must sign in."

  The man looked blank.

  "Here," Dr. Revuelta said, moving toward his desk, "allow me to summon a servant to bring the sign-in book."

  A hand reached out before Dr. Revuelta could touch the bell button set on the side of his desk. The hand had moved with a direct, casual grace, but suddenly the bell button had become a blob of metal clinging forlornly to the desk rim.

  There was no sound of a bell. There should have been. The man had struck it so ferociously that the button should have triggered the current.

  Revuelta looked closer. The button stuck out like a gangrenous nipple from a flat metallic breastlet. It would never ring the downstairs bell again.

  "Since this is a requirement of jour government, and jou represent the U.S.," Dr. Revuelta said sincerely, "I will assume the sign-in requirement has been waived. How may I assist jou fine yentlemen?"

  "Somebody tried to invade Cuba this morning," said the Anglo.

  "So?"

  The other man, the Asian, had slipped up and around to stand near him. Revuelta began to sweat. He did not like this. This was not how U. S. agents ordinarily acted. Of course this was the CIA, not the FBI. So who could say?

  "So everybody knows you run a training program for anti-Castro guerrillas," the Anglo said simply.

  "I do not know this."

  "Don't screw with us," said the Anglo. "Some of us missed supper because of you."

  "Since when is it a crime to be anti-Castro?" Revuelta asked in an injured tone.

  "Since Fidel started flying MIGs over Florida nuclear plants and jamming TV transmissions," said the Anglo.

  "These are terrible things, but I think if jou have complaints jou should take them to Havana."

  "Count on it," said the Anglo.

  Revuelta smiled broadly then. "So we are on the same side?"

  "Depends."

  "I have always suspected the CIA of steering certain-how jou say?-assets my way."

  "What assets?"

  "Ah, but I am a good soldado. I do not reveal these things. If names are known to jou, there is no need to repeat them. If not, jou have no-what is the phrase?-no need to know."

  "Remo, what is this idiot babbling about?" asked the Asian suddenly, his wizened face puckering.

  "May I inquire jour name, senor?" Dr. Revuelta asked.

  "You may not."

  "Jou are not Vietnamese?"

  "I am never Vietnamese! I am Korean!"

  "Ah. South Korean, yes?"

  "North."

  At that, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta took an involuntary step backward. The North Koreans were among the last of Castro's close allies. What was transpiring here, that an Anglo CIA operative and a North Korean agent would come together to see him?

  "I do not understand," he said carefully, backing away.

  The others moved with him.

  "You launch the Bay of Pigs operation?" demanded the Anglo.

  "No."

  "Liar!" snapped the North Korean. And suddenly the little old man was between
Osvaldo Revuelta and the window he'd been planning to break, in a desperate effort to summon help in the form of his Cuban guards who patrolled outside, somehow unaware of this invasion.

  "Speak the truth," the Korean demanded, and took hold of Osvaldo Revuelta's wrist.

  There was strength in the little man's wrist. Great strength. It was like being seized by a tiny steam shovel powered by a dynamo of great size. Birdlike yellow fingers constricted, and things began popping out all over Osvaldo's body. Veins. Tendons. Sweat.

  "The pain!" screamed Osvaldo Revuelta.

  "The faster you come clean," the Anglo said coolly, "the sooner it goes away."

  "I send no one!"

  "We don't believe you."

  "I only loan soldados!"

  "What's a soldado?"

  "A soldier," the tiny Korean said before Osvaldo could. But he said it anyway. Anything to lessen the fierce agony.

  "Soldiers! I loaned my Ultima Hora soldiers to a man. A brave man."

  "His name?" demanded the Korean, inflicting crushing force. Revuelta lowered himself to his knees, unaware that he was doing so. In his scarlet agony, he thought the tiny man was growing in strength and stature before his very eyes.

  "He is Leopoldo Zorilla!" Revuelta shrieked.

  "Who's Leopoldo Zorilla?" asked the Anglo, in a voice that seemed far, far from Osvaldo Revuelta's inflamed nervous system.

  "How could jou not know?" he gasped.

  "We're new in town. Haven't hit the night spots yet. Who's Leopoldo Zorilla?"

  "A Cuban defector! He was former defense minister! He have been in Miami many months now! To him, I loan my best!"

  "For what purpose?" asked the old Korean.

  "I do not ask these questions! I am given money, and told to be prepared to return to Havana in triumph!"

  The Anglo turned to the other and asked, "What do you think, Little Father?"

  "He is telling the truth," the old one said disappointedly. The pain began to lessen, and the tears stopped flowing from Dr. Revuelta's eyes. He was able to see semi-clearly again.

  "Why am I on my knees?" he asked wonderingly, noticing the nearness of the rug.

  "Because we're here for information."

  Dr. Revuelta looked up. "I do not understand. What difference would that make?"

  "If we weren't, you'd be in the ground."

  "Yo comprendo. "

  "Where do we find Zorilla?"

  The pain was still there. It was tolerable. Dr. Revuelta took a chance. He spoke two words very fast.

  "Little Havana."

  "Where in Little Havana?"

  "I do not know. He moves around." This was the truth, and it seemed to work.

  The tall Anglo noticed the clock on the wall and casually said, "It's about bedtime, isn't it?"

  "Que?"

  And so swift was the night that overcame his senses that Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta did not notice he had lost conciousness, until he opened his eyes many hours later to find himself drooling into the fine rug that had once graced his Havana office.

  Upon regaining his senses, he called the contact number of Leopoldo Zorilla. The phone rang and rang and rang, and a feeling of dread came over him.

  There was another number he had been given. He had not been told to whom this number belonged. Only that it should be resorted to in only the direst circumstances.

  He dialed and waited ....

  Chapter 7

  Remo Williams used a pay phone to contact Harold W. Smith.

  "Smitty? Remo. We got something."

  "What is it?"

  "His name is Leopoldo Zorilla. Name ring a Cuban bell?"

  "Vaguely," said Smith, and the hollow clicking of fingers on a keyboard came through the phone wire.

  "Yes, Remo. Leopoldo Zorilla is a Cuban defector, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service computer records. He was picked up in a raft floating in the Windward Passage."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Unclear. He was briefly detained by INS and then released."

  "If he was that big, why wasn't he debriefed?"

  "I do not know. I imagine because there has been such a flood of defectors that Washington saw no intelligence value in interrogating him."

  "Well, according to Revuelta, he loaned some of his Ultima soldiers to Zorilla."

  "For what purpose?" Smith asked.

  "Claims he doesn't know. But he was told to stand by to go back to Havana in style."

  "Interesting. You have your lead. Pursue it. Find Zorilla and learn all you can."

  "What's the latest?"

  "Castro is still speaking."

  "This could go on for days," Remo remarked.

  "Let us hope not."

  "You and me both. If Chiun doesn't get his daily Cheeta fix, I wouldn't give odds on Castro's survivability"

  Remo hung up and turned to the Master of Sinanju, who was patiently waiting some distance away, saying, "Smith says to chase down Zorilla."

  "Then let us begin."

  They returned to their rented car and drove off.

  Remo hadn't been to Miami in a number of years. It had changed. The palmettos still shook in the offshore breezes, the heat still soaked cloth to the skin, but the people were different. There were more Latin faces than Remo remembered.

  Off in the night, he heard a sporadic pop-pop-pop-pop of a sound. Machine pistols. His mouth went grim.

  Remo had been raised in a time when street gangs were considered unsalvageable if they carried zip guns. Now it seemed that the cheapest hood was better armed than the average Korean War-era soldier.

  "This town looks and sounds like it washed ashore from the Third World," he said bitterly.

  "I do not remember it this way," Chiun remarked, his narrow eyes reading the faces in the night.

  "Another present from Fidel. About ten years ago, he launched a little thing called the Mariel boat-lift. Dumped the contents of his prisons and mental institutions on Miami. As well as honest refugees. I guess both flavors stuck around. I hardly see any white faces."

  "This is acceptable," sniffed Chiun, arranging his kimono skirts absently.

  "Listen to you, Mr. Multicultural."

  "Pah! Do not speak that word."

  Remo smiled. He had scored a direct hit. A few months ago, the Master of Sinanju had joined the campaign of a darkhorse candidate for governor of California. The man-an Hispanic-had offered Chiun the post of treasurer. Chiun had tentatively accepted. Only after Chiun had nearly burned his bridges with Harold Smith did he learn that the candidate was actually a fugitive banana-republic dictator, with a face made media-friendly by plastic surgery.

  They had been forced to terminate the guy, and Chiun found himself in a ditch with Harold Smith. He was still digging out.

  The bewildering maze of Miami byways took Remo to what was supposed to be Little Havana. He slowed down and unrolled his window.

  "Hey, pal. This Little Havana?"

  The man turned, shrugged, and continued walking.

  "I just need a yes or no. Is it?"

  The man kept walking.

  "People are real friendly down here," he grumbled, driving on.

  Remo took the next right and cruised by a row of bars whose neon names were flowery and Spanish.

  This time he pulled over and asked a knot of people, "I'm looking for Little Havana."

  Swarthy faces turned. Eyes grew tight. No one spoke.

  "Anybody speak English here?"

  Apparently no one did.

  "Little Havana," Remo repeated in a loud voice, pointing around him. "This?"

  "No," a voice returned. "Little Haiti."

  "Where Little Havana?" Remo asked, thinking he was making progress.

  He got a chorus of "Quien sabes. " He didn't know what it meant, but he had seen enough Cisco Kid reruns to get the message.

  "This is ridiculous," he grumbled, sending the car screeching along.

  He found a well-lit gas station called Jose's and pulled
in.

  "Fill her up," he said, by way of breaking the ice.

  "Que?" asked the attendant, a brown-faced teenager with a mustache like a used paint brush.

  "I said fill her up. Comprende?"

  "No, senor."

  "No, you don't speak English, or no, you won't fill her up?" Remo wanted to know.

  "No, senor."

  There were others working on an exposed engine and Remo called over to them. "Anybody here speak English?"

  The men looked blank.

  "Habla ingles?" Remo asked.

  "No ingles!" one called back, returning to his engine.

  "What is this?" Remo demanded of no one in particular. "How can you run a gas station if no one speaks English?"

  The teenager shrugged. He didn't offer to fill Remo's tank, so Remo pulled out, tires caterwauling.

  "I'm here in Miami less than a day, and already I'm tired of it," Remo said bitterly.

  "It would be easier if you had learned the language," Chiun sniffed.

  "Language! This is America! The language of America is English!"

  "The language of North America is English," Chiun corrected. "The language of South America is Spanish."

  "So? We're in North America."

  "No, we are in South Florida."

  "Which, the last time I was in this town, was still part of the U.S.A."

  "None of this would be happening if you had learned Spanish."

  "Why should I learn Spanish?" Remo said hotly.

  "In case we ever have to work for Spain," Chiun said reasonably.

  "When was the last time that happened? Really."

  "The sun will not shine on this mongrel land forever. I will not be at your side forever. You must learn other tongues, so that the tradition can continue and you will not have to stoop to working for inferior nations, as have I in my declining years."

  "My ass," said Remo. He tapped the brake. The car stopped short.

  Remo and Chiun went forward and back, as if they were anchored to their seats by spring cables. It was a tribute to the total control they exercised over their bodies.

  "Wait a minute!" Remo said. "You speak Spanish."

  "Therefore, so should you."

  "That's not what I mean. Why am I wasting my time trying to communicate when you can interpret for me?"

  Chiun raised a wise finger. "Because you will never learn if I keep doing this for you."