and watch the spectacle of an American fighting pilot being dragged
through the streets of Cuba and tried for war crimes.” His voice got
louder and stronger. “It will not happen on my watch am I absolutely
clear about that?”
The chairman seemed to stiffen. New conviction and pride filled his
voice. “As you say, Mr. President not on my watch. On our watch,
sir.”
The President nodded sharply. “We understand one another. Thank you
for coming. General. I’d like to see you again later this afternoon
with answers, this time.”
“I’ll have them for you, Mr. President. You can count on that.” The
general saluted, executed a smart about-face, and left the room.
“The rest of you, start getting the other pieces of the packages
together. I want everything public affairs coordination, a conference
call with the governor of Florida . . .
no, Louisiana and Texas, as well and the rest of the staff immediately
available for the next forty-eight hours.”
And that’s all it should take: forty-eight hours.
2200 Local (+8 GMT) Caracas International Airport, Venezuela Aguillar
reached out and patted Pamela’s leg lightly above the knee. He let his
fingers linger a moment, feeling the smooth silk of the stockings rasp
against his well-manicured palm. He trailed his fingers up ever so
slightly, lifting them reluctantly away only when she glanced sharply
at him. The more he saw of her, the more he thought that the
possibilities might be … ah, well, perhaps another time. He sighed,
thinking what a waste it was that the woman’s mind could be so firmly
fixed on her job. “You are not nervous, I hope?” he inquired
politely.
“Of course not,” Pamela said calmly, anger barely edging her tones.
“I’ve been to Cuba before.”
Aguillar chuckled and leaned back in his chair. The aircraft was
already taxiing for departure. “Never this Cuba, Miss Drake. And
never with a native guide.” A nostalgic look crossed his face.
“There’s nothing like it, nothing in the world.” A strong wave of
homesickness shook him, still a surprise after so many years away.
He felt her eyes on his face, studying him, dissecting him in the
coldly calculating way he’d seen her operate before.
“Never this Cuba?” she inquired, letting the question trail off to
invite response.
“Oh, no, I’m sure you haven’t seen my Cuba. Not the one I grew up
in.”
“Under Castro?”
He nodded. “Castro was part of it, but hardly the thing I remember
most.” He fixed her with a stern look. “You must remember. Miss
Drake, for us, this is normal.”
“Assassinations? Purges? Genocide?”
“That’s not what I remember not what I miss,” he said, surprising
himself slightly. For all her brittle prickliness, there was something
about Pamela Drake that made him want to talk, to explain to her the
sheer luxuriant sensuality of his homeland. The rich, warm nights, the
endless beaches, the pure, clean water around her, though the latter
would change now, since the advent of heavy industry along the
coastline. “It was . . .” He searched for exactly the right words to
convey to her. “Paradise,” he concluded finally.
He saw her doubting look. “Oh, I know what you’ve been told. There’s
disease, poverty, and oppressive political regimes but really,
remember, we grew up with all that.
There was nothing unusual, nothing abnormal about it. Life went on.
We had families, we had children, and we had . . .”
Again, words failed him. It seemed impossible to convey to her the
simple rhythms of life in Cuba, the feeling of rightness and oneness
with nature. And the women ah, the women. He glanced over at her
again, contrasting her with Cuban women he’d known. Too many angles,
he decided, too many sharpened little edges poking out of her. A
classical beauty, yes, yes, every inch of her refined and somehow
pure.
But there was none of the raw sensuality he remembered from his island
days, none of the exuberant passion for life and making love that he
missed perhaps most of all. The American women, so far removed from
what was important in life that they were virtually sucked dry of all
of the joy of life now that, that joy, was what he missed. “I will