“Who would they sell the stuff to?”
“Certainly not to Cubans. I would say to the negritos and the poor whites.”
Kemper nudged Fulo. “Is Mr. Pimentel a reliable informant?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Is he strongly anti-Castro?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Would you trust him not to betray us under any circumstances?”
“Well… that is hard to…”
Don Juan spat on the floor. “You are a coward not to ask such questions to my face.”
Kemper judo-chopped him. Don Juan clipped a doll rack and went down gagging for breath.
Nйstor dropped a pillow on his face. Kemper pulled his.45 and fired through it point-blank.
His silencer ate up the noise. Blood-soaked feathers billowed.
Nйstor and Fulo looked shocked. Kemper said, “I’ll explain later.”
REBELS RESCUE CUBA!
COMMIES PANDER POISON DOPE IN RAPACIOUS REVENGE!
DESPERATE DICTATOR IN EXILE! DOPE DEATH TOLL MOUNTS!
Kemper printed the headlines on a dispatch sheet. Tiger Kab swirled all around him-the midnight shift was just coming on.
He wrote a cover note.
Have Lenny Sands write up Hush-Hush articles to accompany the enclosed headlines. Tell him to expedite it and to check the Miami papers over the next week or so for background details and call me if necessary. This, of course, pertains to the invasion, and my feeling is that we’re very close to a godate. I can’t go into my plan in detail yet, but I think it’s something you’d appreciate. If Lenny finds my orders confusing, tell him to extrapolate off the headlines in the inimitable Hush-Hush style.
I know you’re somewhere in Nicaragua or Guatemala, and I’m hoping this pouch gets to you. And try to think of WJL as a colleague. Peaceful coexistence doesn’t always mean appeasement.
Kemper stamped the envelope: C. ROGERS/NEXT FLIGHT! URGENT. Fulo and Nйstor walked by, looking befuddled-he never explained why he killed Don Juan.
Santo Junior had a pet shark named Batista. They drove to Tampa and dumped Don Juan in his pool.
Kemper pulled a phone into the men’s room. He rehearsed his pitch three times, complete with pauses and asides.
He called Bobby’s secretary. He told her to turn on her tape recorder.
She jumped to it. She bought his perfectly honed urgency.
He lauded. He gushed. He praised exile morale and combat-readiness. The CIA had a brilliant plan. Their pre-invasion security was water-tight.
He raved like a skeptic newly converted. He inserted New Frontier rhetoric. His Tennessee drawl oozed convert righteousness.
The woman said she’d rush the tape to Bobby. Her voice quivered and broke.
Kemper hung up and walked out to the parking lot. Teo Paez swung by and passed him a note.
W. Littell called. Said all is well with CM. CM’s N.Y. lawyer says Justice Dept. agents are searching Louisiana for CM. W. Littell says CM should stay at Guat. camp or at least out of country for awhile.
Ward Littell in ascent-truly amazing.
A breeze kicked in. Kemper stretched out on a tiger-striped hood and looked at the sky.
The moon hovered close. Batista had bright white teeth the same color.
Kemper dozed. Chants woke him up. He heard GO GO GO GO GO-that one word and nothing else.
The shouts were ecstatic. The dispatch hut boomed like a giant echo chamber.
The invasion date was set. It coubdn’t be anything less than that.
Santo fed Batista steaks and fried chicken. His pool was an Olympic-sized grease spill.
Batista bit Don Juan’s head off. Nйstor and Fulo turned away.
He didn’t. He was starting to enjoy killing more than he should.
67
PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS!
Six hundred men chanted it. The staging site shook behind that one word.
The men jumped into trucks. The trucks locked in bumper-to-bumper and headed down to the launch dock.
Pete watched. John Stanton watched. They jeep-patrolled the site and watched everything click into on-go status.
On-GO at the dock: one insignia-deleted U.S. troop ship. On board: landing craft, mortars, grenades, rifles, machine guns, radio gear, medical gear, mosquito repellent, maps, ammo and six hundred Sheik prophylactics-a Langley shrink foresaw mass rape as a victory by-product.
On-GO: six hundred Benzedrine-blasted Cuban rebels.
On-GO at the air strip: sixteen B-26 bombers, set to hammer Castro’s standing air force. Dig their blacked-out U.S. insignia- this gig was non-imperialisto.
The abbreviation fit the destination. John Stanton got the chant going at reveille-that shrink said repetition built up courage.
Pete chased high-octane bennies with coffee. He coubd see it and feel it and smell it-
The planes neutralize Castro air power. The ships go out- staggered departures from a half-dozen launch sites. A second air strike kills militiamen en masse. Chaos spawns mass desertion.
Freedom fighters hit the beach.
They march. They kill. They defoliate. They link up with on-island dissidents and reclaim Cuba-weakened by dope and propaganda foreplay.
They were waiting for Bad-Back Jack to okay the first air strike. All the orders had to emanate from the Haircut.
PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS-
Pete and Stanton jeep-patrolled the site. They had a short-wave set rigged to the dashboard-site-to-site communication made easy.
They had direct feeds to Guatemala, Tiger Kab and Blessington. They were radio contained at that level-only Langley direct-channeled to the White House.
The order came down: Jack says to send six planes out.
Pete felt his dick go limp. The radio man said Jack wants to move real cautiously.
Six from sixteen was a big fucking reduction.
They kept circuiting the site. Pete chain-smoked. Stanton fretted a Saint Christopher medal.
Boyd pouched a message three days ago-some cryptic Hush-Hush orders for Lenny Sands. He forwarded the information. Lenny said he’d write the stuff up quick.
Lenny always delivered. Ward Littell always surprised.
That Teamster book hand-off was superb. Littell’s brown-nose job on Carlos was better.
Boyd had them lodged at the Guatemalan campsite. Marcello glommed a private phone line and ran his rackets biz longdistance.
Carlos liked fresh seafood. Carlos liked to throw big dinner parties. Littell had 500 Maine lobsters air-shipped to Guatemala daily.
Carlos turned crack troopers into salivating gluttons. Carlos turned said troopers into coolies-trained exile guerrillas shined his shoes and ran his errands.
Boyd was running the Marcello operation. Boyd gave Pete one direct order: LEAVE LITTELL ALONE.
The Bondurant-Littell truce was Boyd-enforced and temporary.
Pete chain-smoked. Cigarettes and bennies had him parched. His hands kept doing things he didn’t tell them to.
They kept circuiting. Stanton sweated his clothes wringing wet.