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"The decent thing to do on your part, Vince. Call it a repayment of sorts. You owe it to me to be in on the finish."
The President considered that. "You're right. It's the very least I can do."
Martin Brogan, director of the CIA, Sam Emmett of the FBI, and Secretary of State Douglas Oates came to their feet as the President entered the conference room with Dan Fawcett on his heels.
"Please be seated, gentlemen," the President said, smiling.
There were a few minutes of small talk until Alan Mercier, the national security adviser, entered.
"Sorry for being late," he said, quickly sliding into a chair. "I haven't even had time to think of a good excuse."
"An honest man," Brogan said, laughing. "How disgusting."
The President poised a pen above a note pad. "Where do we stand on the Cuban pact?" he asked, looking at Oates.
"Until we can open a secret dialogue with Castro, it's pretty much on the back burner."
"Is there a remote possibility Jessie LeBaron might have gotten through with our latest reply?"
Brogan shook his head. "I feel it's very doubtful she made contact. Our sources have had no word since the blimp was shot down. The consensus is she's dead."
"Any word at all from the Castros?"
"None."
"What do you hear from the Kremlin?"
"The internal struggle going on between Castro and Antonov is about to break out in the open," said Mercier. "Our people inside the Cuban war ministry say that Castro is going to pull his troops out of Afghanistan."
"That clinches it," said Fawcett. "Antonov won't stand idle and allow that to happen."
Emmett leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "It all goes back to four years ago when Castro begged off making even a token payment on the ten billion dollars owned to the Soviet Union on loans constantly `rolled over' since the nineteen-sixties. He painted himself into an economic corner and had to knuckle under when Antonov demanded he send troops to fight in Afghanistan. Not simply a few small companies, but nearly twenty thousand men."
"What estimate does the CIA have of casualties?" asked the President, turning to Brogan.
"Our figures show approximately sixteen hundred dead, two thousand wounded, and over five hundred missing."
"Good lord, that's better than twenty percent."
"Another reason the Cuban people detest the Russians," Brogan continued. "Castro is like a drowning man, sinking between a leaking rowboat whose crew is pointing a gun at him and a luxury yacht whose passengers are waving champagne bottles. If we throw him the rope, the crew in the Kremlin will blast him."
"Actually, they're planning on blasting him anyway," Emmett added.
"Do we have any idea how or when the assassination will take place?" asked the President.
Brogan shifted in his chair uneasily. "Our sources have been unable to turn up a timetable."
"Their security on the subject is as tight as anything I've ever seen," said Mercier. "Our computers have failed to decode any data from our space listening systems tuned to the operation. Only a few bits and pieces that fail to give us a concrete fix on their plans."
"Do you know who is in charge of it?" the President persisted.
"General Peter Velikov, GRU, considered something of a wizard at third-world government infiltration and manipulation. He was the architect of the Nigerian overthrow two years ago. Fortunately, the Marxist government he set up didn't last."
"Is he operating out of Havana?"
"He's secretive as hell," replied Brogan. "The perfect image of the man who isn't there. Velikov hasn't been seen in public in the past four years. We're dead certain he's directing the show from a hidden location."
The President's eyes seemed to darken. "All we have here is vague theory that the Kremlin plans to assassinate Fidel and Raul Castro, fix the blame on us, then take over the government using Cuban stooges who receive their orders straight from Moscow. Come now, gentlemen, I can't act on what-ifs. I need facts."
