The red menace 1, p.2
The Red Menace #1, page 2
“I guess you just don’t want it bad enough,” the Menace said, and the infuriating smile threatened to stretch from ear to ear.
A feral sound rose from Strankov’s constricted throat. When he spoke, he could only manage a hoarse whisper. “If you are going to kill me, do it. I do not fear to die.”
“Well, Sunshine, ain’t that just a stroke of luck on an otherwise gloomy day, because I do not fear to kill you,” the Menace said. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to take a rain check. This trip’s just to let your Politburo puppet masters know that I can reach anyone anywhere, even the director of Motherland. On a personal side note, I’m keeping fingers crossed that I’m ruining your career in the bargain, but you can leave that out of your official report. That’s just between us old friends, Strankov.”
Pounding at the heavy door. There was a chair propped up against the doorknob. How the American had managed to place it there in silence directly under Strankov’s own nose, the colonel had no idea. The shouting on the other side of the door increased. There were many more there than just the three soldiers Strankov had banished from the laboratory. The pounding grew more focused. The walls shook and clouds of dust rose from the rattling frame.
The Red Menace stood. “This has been fun, but I think that’s my cue.”
“You might escape today, you may ruin me, but it does not matter. You will ultimately fail,” Strankov rasped. “You cannot stop march of progress.”
“Don’t want to. Progress is going along just fine on the fun side of the Iron Curtain. I just want to stop you reds from undermining it.” His voice steeled. “You were in Washington again last month, Strankov. I don’t want you or any other Motherland goons anywhere near the U.S. again. This is your last warning. It gets bloody after this.”
Vicious hammering at the door. The wood frame creaked and the chair legs slowly squeaked across the floor, a quarter inch, then an inch. The door opened a crack and the muffled Russian voices grew loud.
“Comrade colonel!” someone unseen shouted. The chair skipped a few more inches.
The Red Menace winked at Strankov. “See you in the funny papers, comrade cabbagehead.” And he was across the room, red costume turning black as he ran.
A small desk was piled high with Plassko’s paperwork. The Menace tipped the desk and the mountain of papers cascaded in an avalanche to the floor; documents dumped crazily from fat folders and pencils scattered and rolled in every direction. Beakers from a jostled nearby table wobbled then fell, shattering on the concrete.
A rifle barrel appeared through the crack in the door. It fired blindly, narrowly missing Strankov’s head. Pulped wood exploded from the wall an inch away from the Soviet colonel’s right ear. “Stop shooting, you fools,” the colonel tried to shout, but the paralytic kept his voice a whisper. Another blind shot from a trigger-happy soldier, this one two feet above Strankov’s head. Shards of wood fell in the colonel’s hair.
The Red Menace swept to the center of the laboratory and lifted the small desk lightly in the air, swinging it high—
Strankov’s eyes grew wide. “No,” he wheezed.
—and brought the full force of the desk down on top of Nikolai Lenin’s rejuvenated face.
The dead dictator’s head collapsed with a hollow crunch. A cloud of dust shot out in every direction as if from a stomped-on clod of dry earth. With a bound, the figure in black was up on the lab table, black boots dancing on the bottom of the overturned desk. A hard twist of his heels and the sandwiched head of Lenin made a satisfying crunch.
Across the room, the chair at last wobbled, skidded and fell, sliding across the cement. The door sprang open and two armed soldiers stumbled into the room.
The Red Menace was ready. When the chair fell, his hand was already raised, the fat barrel of an odd-shaped gun pointed across the room. A soft pop and a small object zipped across the room.
The tiny bomb struck the floor before the soldiers and the ensuing explosion launched them back into the hallway like scarecrows. Choking smoke flooded the area around the door and spilled into the hall.
With a nimble leap, the Red Menace was up in the rafters. He swung across the high ceiling from beam to beam and slipped like a wraith through the open transom to the adjoining room just as the entire Red Army piled into the Plassko’s lab.
There was much shouting. Men choked on the smoke as they stomped into the room, weapons at the ready. Soldiers rushed to Strankov’s side.
“Put a bullet in his brain!” the colonel commanded. The men glanced at one another, unsure why the head of Motherland appeared to be strangling himself. “There!” Strankov growled. He motioned with his eyes to the adjacent laboratory’s locked door. A few bullets around the lock and the men kicked the door open and raced into the next room. More gunshots and another broken door into a dusty, seldom-used corridor. Strankov heard their shouts fade and knew that they had gone up the hall, knew that the Red Menace had escaped, knew that his career was at an end.
At the start of the crisis, someone had roused a general from an office upstairs. The old man with the great, bushy mustache swept into the center of the maelstrom.
The general regarded Strankov with contempt as he soaked in the chaos with ancient, watery eyes. Bullet holes in the wall, the lab in shambles, Dr. Plassko being hauled, shaken and pale, from his ignominious hiding place, and the young wunderkind Colonel Ivan Strankov seated on his backside on the floor, refusing to stand for a superior officer. Soldiers pulled Strankov’s hands from around the colonel’s own throat.
“What is all this, Strankov?” the general demanded. “Get up, man.”
“I believe, comrade general, the colonel has been paralyzed,” one of the squatting Red Army soldiers offered.
“Ah, yes, yes! I have something for this!” Oleg Plassko announced.
The little scientist flounced to a row of cupboards behind the tank of rotted plants and pulled down a leather valise. He fumbled with the snaps and began pawing through tiny vials, some of which contained leaf samples, others different colored liquids. When he found the vial he was after, he drew some yellow liquid into a syringe and brought the needle to Strankov’s forearm. The colonel’s racing heart delivered the substance with a single beat and he began to feel a rejuvenating tingle in his fingertips.
And the last words of Colonel Ivan Strankov before he was hauled to his feet, before he was dragged off to a panel of superiors, before the public condemnation that would land him for years in an icy gulag, were a loud proclamation.
“I will kill him!”
1
July 1972
The cliff was a hundred twenty-eight foot drop to jagged basalt rock and froth-churned ocean. A flock of gulls, mere white specks in the vast blue Caribbean sky, swooped and rose and swooped again on violently erratic pockets of salty air. Sharks had been spotted a mile offshore two days before. A fisherman had caught one in his net and nearly capsized his small boat before he could cut it loose. Jeb Wilson hoped that when they threw him off the cliff, the powerful Atlantic wind that kept the gulls aloft would be strong enough to fling him back against the rocks. He wanted to be dead before he hit the water. Jeb couldn’t bear the thought of being a living feast for hungry sharks.
“Do you pray to God, gringo? Because now would be a good time to ask for wings,” said the Cuban captain with the thin mustache and the aviator sunglasses. In Spanish, Captain Esteban Suarez repeated his joke to the men who held Jeb’s arms, and the soldiers dutifully laughed.
“You’re making a mistake,” Wilson said. His face was bruised and swollen. It was difficult to form words with his split and bleeding lips. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m just a naval salvage hobbiest. I’m Canadian. From Winnipeg. I’ve only been to the States two times in my whole life.”
“So you have said many times,” Captain Suarez said.
“Me?” The Cuban shrugged. “I do not care one way or the other. I just like to throw people off of cliffs.” He smiled, and the large silver filling in his front tooth glinted in the sunlight. “And it seems you have forgotten your confession already. What a shame. Betrayal of one’s country should matter more to men like us, eh?”
“Betrayal?” Wilson said. “I don’t know what …”
Memories swirled through his addled brain like the leaves of wind-whipped palms in the little grove where Suarez had stopped his jeep.
It was difficult to remember what he’d said during the hours of torture. There was the basement cell with the moldy walls and the rusty bars. One chair, crude leather straps for wrists and ankles. And Captain Suarez. The silver tooth glinting in the harsh hundred watt bulb that hung down from the middle of the ceiling. The electric shocks, the broken fingers and toes, the torn-out fingernails.
And a perfect white carnation.
Carnation?
And then Wilson remembered. It was only yesterday. Or was it a week ago? Jeb Wilson’s memory could not seem to sort time properly any longer. But he remembered the carnation and the impeccably tailored blue suit. He remembered the starched white shirt, open at the collar, and the sunburned face above it. And he remembered the voice of Nigel Sinclair, a friend from the old days.
“I can’t tell you what it is, Jeb,” Sinclair said. “I only know that they almost shot us down when my pilot accidentally strayed near the area. Bananas. That’s what I’m here for in my dotage, can you believe it? Retired from a life in the service, survive all manner of beastly…well, you know, Jeb…and I nearly get shot down over bananas.”
They were in a little hidden café in downtown Havana. Although it was quiet down the side alley with its cobbled road lined with Spanish colonial buildings, Jeb could still glimpse the main drag where vintage 1950s Chryslers, Plymouths and Buicks prowled along as if the entire decade of the 1960s had been nothing more than a dream. A sleek powder blue Studebaker that looked as if it had just rolled off the assembly line roared by, flashing past a bright yellow taxi.
Sinclair took a pull on his rum and fanned his sweating face with a tattered menu.
“Lucky to be alive, that’s it. Only due to the fact that my pilot was quicker on the radio than those MiGs were with their rockets. Ghastly creatures, these Cubans. But what am I supposed to do? I won’t stare at the walls and wait for death or Her Majesty’s next government check, whichever comes first. I won’t do it, Jeb. Even if I have to accept the indignity of becoming a fruit peddler in my old age. Men like us do not take retirement well. Well, of course, I don’t have to tell you that.”
Jeb was only fifty-one yet he was self-aware enough that he did not take Sinclair’s observation as an insult. Jeb Wilson knew he looked old. He was reminded of that fact every time he looked in a mirror.
It was not so long ago that he had been in solid shape. One had to be when the stakes were so high. But after his field days ended, muscle had slowly turned to fat until Jeb scarcely recognized the wreck he had become. His arms were weak, his stomach flabby and he had recently noticed that his double chin was spawning a third. Not that Jeb was obese. He got a little winded climbing stairs, yes, but he could still see the tips of his shoes, which was more than a lot of his contemporaries could boast. He had simply grown old before his time and once the deterioration had started it became difficult to stop until all vestiges of youth were gone and he now no longer cared.
“What do you want me to do with this, Nigel?” Jeb asked, shaking his head wearily. He had ordered a beer but had not touched it. He tapped his finger on the table next to the glass and watched the foam bounce up and roll away from the center.
“Your backyard, not mine, Jeb,” Sinclair said. “You can do nothing, if that’s what you choose. But so you know, I already communicated all this to our man at the embassy. Insufferable little prig. Can’t stand Eton boys. He got the word back to sit tight. London’s burying it. Not worth investigating the ravings of a long-retired cold warrior like me. How many similar reports do they get every week from old soldiers all over the world? I’m sure they think I’ve gone potty from the heat or the boredom.”
“I don’t know, Nigel.” Jeb sighed and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. They came back dappled with sweat and he wiped his hand on his knee. “There’s no record of any base out there. What exactly do you think the reds are protecting?”
“Can’t say for sure, but there is definitely something there. The jungle is thick. Perfect for concealment. But I know there was at least one large building. I saw it from the side. Wouldn’t have seen it if we were directly above. Camouflage netting obscured it. Your spy planes would miss it, no doubt about that. After the MiGs broke off and we were allowed to turn back for Havana, I spotted Russian troops through a break in the trees. Aiming at us, the bastards. They quit as we turned and I lost them in the jungle. They couldn’t have mobilized that fast, they must have already been out there patrolling. Something is going on out there, Jeb. I’m not so decrepit that I’ve lost all my instincts for the game, no matter what Box 850 thinks. I thought America should know, and now it does through you and I am washing my hands of this whole messy business and going back to my blasted bananas.”
Sinclair polished off his rum, stood, fussed a moment at his white carnation, and offered his hand. Unlike Jeb’s sweating palms, Nigel Sinclair’s hand was dry and cool.
“Good luck, old sport. Be safe.”
Sinclair left the café and headed down the alley. A moment later he had blended with foot traffic and disappeared around the corner.
Jeb sat alone at the table for another ten minutes before he finally got up and left.
For the next two hours he walked Havana’s streets as he tried to figure out what to do with Sinclair’s information.
Jeb was still an agent of the United States government, and was sworn to do all in his power to preserve the nation he loved. Although, granted, his was not exactly the most glamorous agency. No one wrote sexy spy novels about MIC, one of the worst kept secrets and most underfunded agencies in the spy game. Mention MIC at a D.C. cocktail party and the response was either jeers or surprise that the agency still existed.
MIC stood for Manpower and Intelligence Coordination. The agency had been set up in early 1950 in response to the first successful Russian nuclear test, First Lightning, in August of 1949. MIC was to be a cop directing traffic, facilitating the smooth flow of information as well as coordinating cooperation when necessary between the various domestic and international American espionage and police agencies. CIA, FBI, Army Intelligence and a dozen other agencies would supply the raw data and the boots on the ground and it was MIC’s job to sift through that data. It worked well for the first decade or so. But over the tumultuous previous decade came a bureaucratic shift. America’s other intelligence agencies seemed slowly to come to the conclusion that the greatest threat came not from America’s enemies but from bean counters, budget cutters and rival agencies. Invisible walls were constructed around the bureaus which MIC theoretically supervised; their staffs became misers hoarding gold.
Nothing ever went away in government, and even as its own budget was slashed and its agents were sent out to pasture, MIC limped on into the 1970s. There were not many MIC operatives left in the field these days and most, like Jeb Wilson, were holdovers from the old days.
Jeb came to Cuba through Canada for several weeks every few months, ostensibly as the owner of a small salvage business. He had made an arrangement with the Cuban government that allowed him to not only cover the costs of his various expeditions, but to turn a slight profit. In exchange, Jeb turned over a few salvaged baubles to the Cubans and greased the palms of a few Cuban officials. In the past six months his Cuban crew had found a pair of two-hundred-year-old wrecks off the coast of the island nation while Jeb supervised the action from a safe distance. Mostly from his favorite hotel bar. Technically he was in Cuba on assignment, but he hardly ever heard from headquarters these days. His MIC job was to keep his eyes and ears open and report back to Washington anything that might pose a threat to the nation.
It was a cozy arrangement, and most days Jeb forgot that he was technically a spy. Now Nigel Sinclair had dumped this thing in his lap and just like that he was out of the salvage business and back in the game.
Jeb’s wandering was not as aimless as it seemed. He eventually found himself near a dead-end street a half-mile from Havana Harbor. The very top of the lighthouse at Morro Castle peeked over the rooftops. Five old houses, their exteriors all well maintained, sat practically out on the street, two on either side, one facing out from the dead end.
Since his meeting with Sinclair, Jeb had made certain he wasn’t being followed. Once he had caught the eye of a curious constable, but Jeb had bought some fish at an open-air market and a doll from a sidewalk vendor and the officer had lost interest. When the cop wandered off, Jeb gave the fish to a beggar and the doll to a child. He checked for tails again before turning up the dead end.
The house at the end of the street, like the rest, had no front yard to speak of. Just some tropical greenery, a few colorful flowers and a low wrought iron fence. Jeb puffed as he climbed the three red-painted steps and knocked on the dark green door.
The man who answered was the same age as Jeb but in far better shape. Still, his hair was prematurely white, a stark contrast to his dark skin.
When he saw who was on his doorstep, the man did not smile or speak. He looked up and down his street and, seeing no one, grabbed Jeb’s arm and dragged him inside, quickly shutting the door behind his guest.
The foyer was hot. The home was clean but the white paint was peeling. Jeb heard a radio playing Spanish music deep in the house.
“What are you doing here?” the Cuban demanded, his flawless English clipped.
