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Buried deep in the boiling turmoil, he felt strangely detached. It struck him as ludicrous that he was about to drown on a city street. His desire for life still clung tenaciously, but he did not struggle senselessly and waste precious oxygen. He went lax and vainly tried to peer through the froth, his mind somehow working with uncanny clarity. He knew that if the wave swept him against a concrete building the rushing tons of water would mash him into the same consistency as a watermelon dropped from an airplane.
His fear would have been heightened if he had seen the launch smash into the second story of an apartment building that housed Soviet technicians. The impact collapsed the hull as if the planking were no stronger than an eggshell. The four-cylinder diesel engine was tossed through a broken window by the cascade and ended up in a stairwell.
Mercifully, Pitt was swept into a narrow side street like a log through a chute. The flood carried everything before it in a great tumbling mass of wreckage. But even as it curled around the buildings strong enough to withstand the onslaught, the wave was already beginning to die. Within seconds the leading edge would reach its high mark and then recede, the retreating torrent sucking human bodies and loose debris back to the sea.
Pitt began to see stars as his brain starved for oxygen. His senses began to shut down one by one. He felt a jarring blow as his shoulder struck a fixed object. He whipped an arm around it, trying to hang on, but he was thrust forward by the force of the wave. He ran into another flat surface, and this time he reached out and clutched it in a death grip, not re
cognizing it as a sign over a jeweler's shop.
The thinking, feeling equipment of his body slowed and shut down as if its electrical current had switched off. His head was pounding and blackness was covering the stars bursting behind his eyes. He existed only on instinct, and soon even that would desert him.
The wave had reached its outer limit and began to fall in on itself, rushing back to the sea. It was too late for Pitt, he was slipping away from consciousness. His brain somehow managed to send out one last message. An arm clumsily jammed its way between the sign and its support shaft that protruded from the building, and wedged there.
Then his bursting lungs could take no more, and he began to drown.
The great rumble from the explosions echoed away into the hills and sea. There was no sunlight over the city, no real sunlight. It was hidden by a smoke-blackened pall of incredible density. The whole harbor seemed afire-- the docks, ships, storage tanks, and three square miles of oil-coated water were bristling with orange and blue flame that streaked up into the dark canopy.
The dreadfully wounded city began to shake off the shock and stagger to its feet. Sirens began to match the noisy intensity of the crackling fires. The tidal wave had flowed back into the Gulf of Mexico, dragging a great mass of splintered debris and bodies in its wake.
Survivors began to stumble dazed and injured into the streets, like bewildered sheep, shocked at the enormous devastation around them, wondering what had happened. Some wandered in shock, unfeeling of their wounds. Others stared dumbly at the huge piece of the Amy Bigalow's rudder that had crashed through the bus station and mashed four of the vehicles and several people who were waiting to board.
A piece of the Ozero Zaysan's forward mast was found embedded in the center of Havana Stadium's soccer field. A one-ton winch landed in a wing of University Hospital and squashed the only three beds not occupied in a forty-bed ward. It was to be widely talked about as only one of a hundred miracles that happened that day. A great boon to the Catholic Church and a small setback to Marxism.
Rescue parties began to form as firefighters and police converged on the waterfront. Army units were called out along with the militia. There was panic amid the chaos at first. The military forces turned their backs on rescue work and manned island defenses under the mistaken belief the United States was invading. The injured seemed to be everywhere, some screaming in pain, most hobbling or walking away from the flaming harbor.
The earthshaking quake died with the shock waves. The ceiling of Sloppy Joe's had fallen in, but the walls still stood. The barroom was a shambles. Wooden beams, fallen plaster, overturned furniture, and broken bottles lay scattered under a thick cloud of dust. The swinging door had been ripped from its hinges and hung at a crazy angle over Castro's bodyguards, who lay groaning under a small hill of bricks.
Ira Hagen hoisted himself painfully to his feet and shook his head to clear it from the ringing of the concussion. He wiped his eyes to penetrate the dust cloud and clutched a wall for support. He looked up through the now open ceiling and saw pictures still hanging on the walls of the floor above.
His first thought was of Jessie. She was lying partially under the table that still stood in the center of the room. Her body was crumpled in a curled position. Hagen knelt and gently turned her over.
She lay motionless, appearing lifeless under the coating of white plaster dust, but there was no blood or serious wounds. Her eyes were half open and she groaned. Hagen smiled with relief and removed his coat. He folded and placed it under her head.
She reached up and grasped his wrist more tightly than he believed possible and stared up at him.
"Dirk is dead," she whispered.
"He might have survived," said Hagen softly, but there was no optimism in his tone.
"Dirk is dead," she repeated.
"Don't move," he said. "Just lie easy while I check out the Castros."
Then he rose unsteadily and began searching through the fallen debris. The sound of coughing came from his left and he climbed over the rubble until he bumped into the bar.
Raul Castro was hanging on to the raised edge of the bar with both hands, dazed and in shock, hacking the dust from his throat. Blood was trickling from his nose and a nasty cut on his chin.
Hagen marveled at how close everyone had been sitting before the explosions and how scattered they were now. He uprighted a fallen chair and helped Raul to sit down.
"Are you all right, sir?" Hagen asked, genuinely concerned.
Raul nodded weakly. "I'm all right. Fidel? Where is Fidel?"
"Sit tight. I'll find him."
Hagen moved off through the rubble until he found Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader was on his stomach and twisted sideways, shoulders propped up by one arm. Hagen stared in fascination at the scene on the floor.
Castro's eyes were trained on an upturned face only a foot away. General Velikov was spread-eagled on his back, a large beam crushing his legs. The expression on his face was a mixture of defiance and apprehension. He stared up at Castro through eyes bitter with the taste of defeat.
