Cuba Read Online Free PDF Page B

The truth of the
    matter was that Castro was Cuban to the core and
    fiercely independent, and he had kept Cuba that
    way. His demagoguery played well to poor
    peasants who had nothing but their pride. The
    trickle of refugees across the Florida
    Straits acted as a safety valve to rid the
    regime of its worst enemies, the vociferous
    critics with the will and tenacity to cause serious
    problems. In the Latin tradition, the Cubans who
    remained submitted to Castro, even respected him
    for thumbing his nose at the world. A dictator he
    might be, but he was “our”…dictator.
    A new day was about to dawn in Cuba, a day
    without Castro and the baggage of communism, ballistic
    missiles, and invasion, a new day without bitter
    enmity with the United States. Just what that day would
    bring remained to be seen, but it was coming.
    The exiles wanted justice, and revenge; the
    peons who lived in the’exiles’ houses, now many
    families to a building, feared being dispossessed.
    The foreign corporations that Castro so cavalierly
    robbed wanted compensation. Everyone wanted food, and
    jobs, and a future. It seemed as if the bills for
    all the past mistakes were about to come due and payable
    at once.
    Hector Sedano would have a voice in that future,
    if he survived. He sat smoking, contemplating
    the coming storm.
    Mercedes was of course correct about the danger
    posed by Alejo Vargas. Mix Latin machismo
    and a willingness to do violence to gain one’s own ends,
    add generous dollops of vainglory, egotism, and
    paranoia, stir well, and you have the makings of a
    truly fine Latin American dictator,
    selfrighteous, suspicious, trigger-happy, and
    absolutely ruthless. Fidel Alejandro Castro
    Ruz came out of that mold: Alejo Vargas,
    Hector knew, was merely another. He
    could
    not make this observation to Mercedes, whom Hector
    suspected of loving Fidelhe needed her
    cooperation.
    Alfredo Garcia found a seat near the
    ticket-taker’s booth from where he could see the
    shadowy figure on the top row of the bleachers. He
    was so nervous he twitched.
    Like Hector Sedano, he too was in awe of the
    news he had just learned: Fidel Castro was dying.
    Alfredo Garcia trembled as he thought about it. That
    priest in the top row of the bleachers was one of the
    contenders for power in post-Castro Cuba. There were
    others of course, Alejo Vargas, the Minister of
    Interior and head of the secret police,
    prominently among them.
    Yes, Garcia talked to the secret police of
    Alejo Vargas he had to. No one could refuse
    the Department of State Security, least of all a
    fugitive from American justice seeking
    sanctuary.
    And of course he cooperated on an ongoing basis.
    Vargas’s spies were everywhere, witnessed every conversation,
    every meal, every waking moment… or so it seemed. One
    could never be certain what the secret police
    knew from other sources, what they were just guessing at,
    what he was their only source for. Garcia had handled
    this reality the only way he could: he answered
    direct questions with a bit of the truthif he knew itand
    volunteered nothing.
    If the secret police knew Alfredo had a
    CIA contact they had never let on. They did know
    Hector Sedano was a power in the underground although they
    seemed to think he was a small fish.
    Garcia thought otherwise. He thought Hector
    Sedano was the most powerful man in Cuba after
    Fidel Castro, even more powerful than Alejo
    Vargas.
    Why didn’t Hector understand the excruciating
    predicament that Alfredo Garcia found himself in?
    Certainly Hector knew what it was like to have few
    options, or none at all.
    Alfredo was a weak man. He had never been able
    to
    STEPHEN COONTS
    resist the temptations of the flesh. God had forgiven
    him, of that he was sure, but would Hector Sedano?
    As he sat in the darkness watching Hector,
    Alfredo Garcia smiled grimly. One of the
    contenders for power in po/castro Cuba would
    be Hector’s own brother, Maximo Lufs
    Sedano, the finance minister. Maximo