Chapter 42

Back at our headquarters I introduced my unwelcome guests. The men were presented with the business end of some M16s. Soon, they were walking around with their own guard and the shells from their revolvers in their pants pocket.

General Weever was able to take care of most details, while the guards made sure I stayed in the city. The guards had to rotate, though. This let Batista know that they were still alive and that I was still in Havana. At midnight the four newcomers were astonished when a large helicopter landed in the centre of our complex and a moment later another one did the same. Each of the machines were painted black and had the Cuban flag painted on both sides, as well as some small lettering in Spanish stating that we were working for the government.

From our barracks twenty men quickly came out. They had black uniforms that were my best effort at keeping them dry, cool and yet not be a large infrared source. Their faces were blackened and they wore kevlar helmets, vests and even the shoes had kevlar in the soles. Some wore digital cameras to let everyone see what they saw. All of them had the earphone and the boom mike to communicate. Even their suits were wired. It was easy to find out their respiration, heart rate and even blood pressure from the various sensors on their body.

In their arms they carried our latest weapon. It was a two-part rifle with the lower barrel firing 5.56 mm kinetic rounds, while the upper barrel fired 20 mm HEAT rounds. Above the upper barrel was a six-power low-light scope, a laser rangefinder and a video camera that fed its information up to the satellite and back to Calgary as well as to the soldier holding the weapon.

General Weever gave a short talk and the men split up and boarded the two machines. In only moments the machines were gone and it was even difficult to hear the noise of their departure.

One man excitedly said in Spanish, "I have never seen helicopters like those before. I have never seen weapons like those, either. Where are they going?"

"The first will take on the people who used the heavy guns to take Pinar del Rio and the other copter is going to take on the ones who attacked Camaguey."

"There were only ten fighters in each helicopter, Mr Kramer."

"That is more than enough. Soldiers, from now on, are going to have to be smart, extensively trained and, of course, have the best possible equipment. They will destroy the enemy as a fighting force, no matter who they are."

"With only ten men?" He asked incredulously.

"Those men are invisible in the night but can see in the dark themselves. Our enemy stands no chance at all."

Another enemy stood no chance. One of the ways around the Communist expropriation of property was to destroy the property first. Not many governments would take the time with quibbling over rubble.

At one o'clock in the morning explosions shook the city. Guests ran out to the street, only to find twenty hand-printed leaflets written in Spanish and bad English saying that in one hour the casinos would all be destroyed. The "Free Cuba" rebels were a band of men who had been active since we arrived and this was one of their biggest operations. I had to smile, for now I was a revolutionary.

I could not see the bedlam because of my unwelcome guests but by two oh five the buildings started to come down. We used dynamite. Men posing as contractors or guests had planted it a month ago. It was actually inside the walls, ceilings and ducts of the buildings.

My own hotel had not been targeted tonight, because it was not a casino but it would be destroyed tomorrow, along with the large mob-owned bars and whorehouses.

The soldiers with me heard the noise in the distance but were used to such activity at night.

My ear bud fed me info and I made a few suggestions of my own. I could only get away at odd moments to see the feed from Calgary showing what was important from where the action was. When five o'clock rolled around, one of the Black Hawks came back and dropped off only three men. They were happy and looked carefree.

The Cuban officers came up to ask questions as they accompanied me. My men looked at me and I nodded. One of the men said, "We captured two dozen trucks, six howitzers, a 155 millimetre field gun and even four tanks. We killed about ten men and captured eighty-six more. We had no losses and the only casualty was Private Fuller. He tripped over a root and cut his lip."

One of the Cubans said, "That is fantastic. I do not see how twenty men could do this."

"Oh, that was just us. The other team did even better." The man looked at me and then headed off to get cleaned up and to get some sleep. The helicopter lifted off before the sunrise.

This all seemed to be adding up better than expected, for I was allowed to keep all captured enemy equipment as my own property.

We went inside and the printer had finished printing out fifty-six pictures of what we had done tonight. I was careful to make sure that none of the uniforms were seen. It was indeed the Communists but this time I was dealing with East Germans. Their khaki was nondescript but that was what made their uniform theirs. Apparently, they got a request they could not refuse. Each one of the captured men had fought in the last war and knew what to expect.

The East German army was all filled with volunteers and if you didn't volunteer when asked, you were told to join. The job, though, was better than most of the other jobs available to a potential recruit. They had attacked a provincial capital and handed it over to some revolutionaries. This was an act of war. They wore no uniforms and this meant that I could shoot them as spies. They had been careful when fighting, though and had limited most of their targets to Batista's supporters and the army. As soldiers went, they were really not that bad or unethical.

I had not signed the Geneva Convention, nor had the country I represented, so a drug I called thiopentide could be used. It was one of the drugs in my first life that we had made but only for the military. It was derived from thiopentone but was many times more efficient. The Germans were frightened enough; so that little urging had been needed to get what we wanted. If necessary, I was prepared to use an old Vietnam trick, where the person was held upside down at a thousand feet by his feet. It usually worked but sometimes the prisoner slipped.

The four Cuban officers were sent off with the papers and they didn't even wait for their replacements.

Before getting some sleep I looked in on the status of our teams. The East Germans were going to be kept in a fenced-in enclosure. This was in a secure base in the rugged Pico Turquino Mountains. Most of their interrogation had already been done from Calgary, with the locals only asking the questions. Their dead had been buried off the trail from where they fell. The way the things were going, it would be a day before they would even be able to make it to the camp with their captured equipment.

The prisoners were incredulous when our team demanded that they drive their own trucks. Being unarmed and in a slow truck was good enough to get them where we wanted. The threat of the Black Hawk was more than enough to keep them in line, after a demonstration of what one 30-mm M230 Chain Gun with 1,200 rounds could do. This was usually issued to the Apache but I was the one making the ships anyway.

There was not too much information available but it looked like the Soviet Union was just using these men as a way of distancing themselves from the fight if it went bad.

There was a goodly amount of equipment seized. The tanks, however, were American, from the Second World War. Many had been damaged and abandoned in battle during the war and it looked like the Russians would rather send these repaired units instead of their own. If the tanks were captured, it would look like American interference in Cuban affairs.

Tanks were very hard to keep in running order. Even in my own life it cost more to maintain a modern tank than it did a fighter plane. One was measured in kilometres, while the other was measured in hours flown.

After a few hours' sleep, I found my luggage in the next room. A team had paid my bill and recovered my property. This was nothing new, for everybody else was leaving the hotels in droves.

General Weever had a meal with me and we were both tired but happy. It was great when a team was sent out and they had done everything asked of them and returned successfully and with no casualties.

He told me about all the changes in the city since the activities of last night. Apparently, all the planes were booked solid and many people were just staying at the airport waiting to go home. I was told the mob owned some of the smaller planes and these seemed to have some extra cargo that would become active after reaching a thousand feet. I did not like the mob and was still angry at them for trying to move in on my companies in both lifetimes. The trouble they would cause the fledgling Cuba only gave me more incentive. One man fleeing was named Jack Ruby. He was more than just a small-time drug dealer but now I knew that he would not be around later to kill anybody.

Usually, when the mob had demanded things of me, I got the conversation on tape and exposed the information to the press. If things got serious, then I was not a good little choirboy who would do nothing about it. I had bodies to hide, too but only after a lot of provocation.

Most people saw life as black and white. In truth, humans are a nasty lot. To prove my point, all a person had to do was to think of recent events. There is the mob, some unscrupulous businessmen, some government agencies of any country and the usual psychopath who walks the streets where every one of us lives. We are brought up to believe that laws are the answer but in truth very few people follow all those rules and obligations.

To also be honest, a group of people running a country had to be nasty and do what was necessary to make it work. A group of kind grandmothers would lead us all into ruin in just a year if they were allowed to gain control.

Our ships would be getting into the harbour a bit before dawn tomorrow morning. These were my main forces to handle what I knew now was going to be a very tense situation. The unloading of the first of the Russian ships was about half done and a lot of activity was going on in three warehouses where their cargo was being taken. The area was now off limits to all but a few Cubans. The exception happened to be the Minister of Defence, two generals and two other ministers high in Batista's circle of friends. I could now guess what was happening and it looked very bad for Batista.

A coup d'etat was the only thing I could see. This would mean that the Russians were even more worried about the social and military changes I had made since I came to this time. I did not give Batista long to live, even with the ring of guards he kept around him all the time. The new rulers would sign some new agreements and ask officially for help, which, coincidentally, was either in the harbour, or on its way. All quite legal, if it was looked at on the world stage.

It looked like the mob was running scared. It was my intention that very few made it off the island alive. This would cut down on the opposition later and give the American taxpayers a break for a change.

At the end of the day I had one more thing to add to my list of firsts. Two men dressed in expensive suits and speaking Spanish got on a plane with the last of the mob. Five minutes after the craft left the tarmac one of my men placed his gun against the pilot's neck and said, "Take me to Cuba," this time it was to the Pinar del Rio airport. No radio message or intercom was sent and the mob was amazed to find themselves still in Cuba.

When an engine problem was mentioned and they were told of another plane being readied, the men and their girlfriends left. Heavily armed Cubans met the men in the terminal, where they were relieved of their weapons. It was comical for me to hear afterwards about the men demanding their rights, after they had spent a lifetime of denying it of others.

While the men were processed, the luggage was searched and much of the money dug out of the rubble of the casinos was recovered. After it was counted, I found that we had almost six million, which was a lot of money for now but not a lot when it came to rebuilding.

When the gangsters had been separated from the innocent, the men were led towards a bus but on the way a machine gun opened fire in front of a wall and twenty-seven men suddenly died. The gunmen and the guards were all locals that we had found and who had quite a few scores to settle with the mob and this was the best way, in my mind, to settle it. When the original two hijackers left, the restored town had to take care of the remaining mess. I hoped that everybody believed that some educated Cubans had been cleaning their own house. In many cases this was the case, for Batista had made many enemies in the many years he was in power.

What I had ordered done was actually legal. The papers signed by Batista in a time of martial law allowed me to perform summary justice to those accused of crimes under Cuban law: rape, murder and worst of all, large monetary movements without government approval. This particular statute had been instigated years ago to keep money in the country, instead of fleeing with the rich enemies of Batista.

At five o'clock the first of the planned explosions shook the hotel I had stayed at. Within minutes, it and a dozen more throughout the city started to crumble much like the World Trade Centre but this time the height was not nearly as great. Brothels and bars throughout the city were destroyed, even though people finding the explosives we had planted had saved a few.

One of our soldiers sent to observe the Presidential Palace reported lots of gunfire within the walls. Soldiers ran out and were shot in the back by others. It took over an hour before the shooting eventually stopped.

Within minutes, three Soviet cars and two troop trucks formed a convoy and started to leave the warehouse they had been in. General Weever and I looked at each other and prepared for the next development.

The two Black Hawks came back to the compound to pick up men. We waited just long enough to see which route the Russians would take. Orders came from Calgary and one machine settled to the ground and then moved on. Bystanders just gawked at the deadly machines and the troops had to get them off the street as quick as possible.

Cars were commandeered and the drivers sent packing. In four minutes the first of the Russian vehicles came by our first position. After the trucks passed, the escape route was blocked. When the lead car got to the front, it found two vehicles blocking its path. The horn was used but the blockage remained.

I had the hood up of one vehicle and my back to the approaching man. When he got close, he said in very poor Spanish, "Move car!"

I turned to the man and said in fluent Russian, "I can't do that comrade. You are all under arrest."

The man looked quickly around and saw that the street was now deserted. He replied, now in his own language, "We are here to see your president. We have diplomatic immunity from any arrest." He thought for a moment and then said, "You are not Cuban. Why are you trying to give us orders?" Half of the time he was looking at the glass lens on the video camera hanging from my neck or at the boom mike in front of my mouth.

I looked at his uniform a little closer and said, "Sergeant, there has been martial law in Cuba for months. I am enforcing that by order, with the full backing of the Cuban government."

The man did not know what to say so I said, "Take me to your leader," and had a small smile from the quote.

I approached the first automobile with the sergeant at my side. It was easy now for the occupants to see I was wearing a uniform with the Cuban flag on both of my shoulders. An older man of fifty-five or so stepped out of the car and said, "What is wrong sergeant?"

"This young man wants to put us all under arrest."

Both men smiled and the leader said in broken Spanish, "Do you know who I am?"

I replied in Russian, "I do not recognize you but I assume you to be a Russian general sent here to take over the island with the help of some people who have attempted, or have succeeded in a coup d'etat. You have no papers signed by a legitimate Cuban government, while I do. You are now going to be taken to the airport and I am going to send you home as quick as I can."

"One young man armed with an odd pistol is not likely to get us to do as you wish."

"Sir, if you will look at the windows around you and your convoy, you will find many weapons pointing at your troops. We have four machine guns and two mobile 30 mm chain guns. Most of the men have 20 mm high explosive rounds that will riddle anything you have here. You are a soldier with probably much experience. You are outgunned and outmanoeuvred. I do not want the deaths of any of your men but I am capable of taking all of them if necessary."

The man did look around and then yelled to his men, "Ambush," then tried to draw his automatic pistol from his holster.

A single silenced round went through his head and he fell before even drawing his weapon. The men in the car were speechless and they started to draw their own weapons. I had not done this, because each man was already covered by our own troops.

I said loudly, "Do not draw your guns. I want you to leave the island walking like men, not in a box."

The next in line, I guess, thought otherwise and four small noises were heard and the occupants of the car were dead. I turned to the sergeant and said, "I do not want to kill your men. May I take your pistol now?"

The man had fought in WW2, I think and was smarter than what he did next. He lunged for me with his hands but I had grown considerably in the last few years and had kept up with not only my exercises but continued with my martial arts training. The man went down as I sidestepped then slashed his neck. It was not an incapacitating blow and he came at me again but this time knew enough to be careful.

A small taser came to my hand and the two small darts flew to him. I had to move very quickly, or his thrashing body would have collided with mine and I, too, would have been shocked.

As I stood up, the other two cars opened their doors and men came out. I called out quickly, "Lower your weapons. You are under arrest."

This did not happen and only three loud shots rang out, while many small puffs were heard.

The two trucks erupted with men as the canvas was thrown back. I called out in German now, "You are all under arrest. No harm will come to you. I want you all just to be sent home."

The men had got out of the trucks and spread out but not far. They were looking for possible enemies but saw none. I did not want to see these men die for no reason. They had not shot at anybody yet, so I yelled out to them. "I am coming out now. Anybody who even points a gun at me dies." I just hoped they were seasoned troops and could think a bit when in a tight situation like this.

I talked on my radio to the men around me and they were ready. Some just called me stupid even though I was their employer. Perhaps they were right. General Weever seemed to be the most vocal. With my pistol in my holster I stood up and then walked over the bodies in the street toward the back where the trucks were.

I passed some men with rifles in their hands but they ignored me mainly because I had no gun in my own hands. "The Russians think you are stupid. I am afraid most of the Russians and your officers are now dead." I paused to let them think on this. "I want you off this island. That is all I want. Now, I want you to leave your rifles on the ground and form ranks. The sooner you are processed, the sooner you will be out of my hair."

I could hear approaching sirens and then the ominous sound of one of the Black Hawks approaching from a side street. It rose up and came to the intersection and turned, barely missing the sides with its 53 feet 8 inch main rotor. The East Germans tensed when the saw the 'copter appear and then relaxed a bit as it left.

I called out, "The Cuban army is coming. You will get much better treatment from me than they will give you. Think of how much better your brothers were when they were lucky enough to surrender to the Americans or the British."

Nobody moved but in a few seconds the 30 mm chain gun fired and then stopped. The sound was easily heard and understood by all. Guns started to fall and then more did. The first soldier stood up and walked to a clear section with his hands on his head. It took a minute but more followed. When half had surrendered, I knew I might have trouble with the rest.

I walked purposefully to the group of men and called out in my best sergeant voice. "Hands down, line up for inspection. " They just looked at me and then did as I asked. Two trucks like this would carry at least fifty men. I got a count in my ear bud when the ones to leave were tallied.

We were short seventeen men and whoever may be in the trucks still.

I called out in German loud enough for anybody inside the trucks to hear me, "We have a device that reads heat. There are three men in the last truck and two in the front. More are hiding in and around the other vehicles. Get out here now and bring your guns by the barrel. The Cuban army will just kill you as invaders. I would not risk my own life to do this if I did not think all of you were worth saving. Now, get out!"

The men did get out and their guns were placed on the ground in the pile. Before they could join us I said, "Strip the canvas from the truck. It is too hot to hide in." I turned to more of the men before me and ordered them to do the same.

When the canvas was pulled to the front and lashed down, we could see many cases in the back. I yelled for the drivers of the trucks to come forward. Four men came, so I guessed there was a spare. "Are there any more guns in the cabs of the trucks?"