"Ah, yes," said Dr. Revuelta, promptly signing the renunciation in his cell. He laid down his pen and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Okay, make them let me go. I have much to catch up on."
"There is more," the lawyer informed him.
Dr. Revuelta's face fell.
"What more?" he inquired suspiciously.
"You will be placed under house arrest, and made to wear an electronic monitor."
"I cannot leave my home?"
"Only between the hours of eleven A.m. and two P.m., to do necessary things."
Dr. Revuelta's sun-browned brow gathered into deep wrinkles. "Ah, a loophole," he said, thinking he understood now. "They are giving me a loophole, these canny norteamericanos. "
"You must keep a daily log of visitors, and submit to polygraph tests and random searches," the lawyer went on doggedly. "Your phone will be tapped."
"Let them tap," Dr. Revuelta said haughtily. "During my three hours, I will accomplish all that I wish to do."
"They are very serious about this, Revuelta."
"If they were serious, they would not release me," Dr. Revuelta countered. "This is a farce and I will play along. Now, hurry. I have two years of catching up to do."
Immediately upon returning to his palatial Biscayne Bay home, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta fired his Nicaraguan caretaker staff and replaced them with guerrilleros of his Ultima Hora.
"This is loco, Revuelta," complained his lawyer. "You are not to consort with terrorists."
Dr. Revuelta drew himself up indignantly. "Are jou mad? These are not terrorists. These are freedom fighters. Besides, I will tell the snoopers that they are Nicaraguans. These Anglo FBI, they know only that a man looks Hispanic or he does not. They will never know the difference."
"What about their guns?"
"The weapons of my soldados will never enter this house. They will patrol outside only, to protect me from the agents provocateurs of Fidel."
"I think," said the lawyer of Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta, "that you will be returning to jail very soon now."
But Dr. Revuelta did not return to jail. Oh, he was closely watched, polygraphed every few months, and subject to searches that turned up nothing worse than his growing collection of pornographic magazines. But during his three-hour period each day, he drilled his Ultima Hora for their forays into Cuba.
Every time men did not return, it was easy enough to recruit more. Ultima Hora grew, gained adherents and patrons of great resources.
While supposedly languishing through two years of house arrest, Osvaldo Revuelta was in fact running a paramilitary organization large enough to establish a major beachhead on the island of his birth. And he was convinced that his success was due entirely to U.S. financial assistance, regardless of what the Justice Department might say in public.
So it came as a total surprise when the two mysterious U.S. agents came to visit Osvaldo Revuelta late one night, as he was studying topographical maps of Cuba.
They were not announced. They were simply there. In his den.
"Que?" he said, turning. "Que pasa?"
"Got a minute, pal?" said the tall one. He was an Anglo. Lean. With thick wrists, and a casual insolence that reminded Revuelta of the DGI-the Cuba security police.
Dr. Revuelta would have shot the man right then and there, but he had no weapons on the premises.
"Quien?" he asked.
"He asked 'Who?' " said the other one, the short one. This second person was as fantastic in appearance as the other was ordinary. He was Asian, and wore a black silken garment that made Revuelta think of the Viet Cong. That was a bad sign. But the fact that the little Asian had to translate for the Anglo meant that he at least was not DGI. And he appeared very, very old.
"You speak English?" asked the Anglo, in a voice definitely gringo.
"Si. I mean, yes. Of course. Who are jou, that jou enter my humble home unannounced?"
The man flashed a card in a plastic holder. "Remo Ricardo, CIA."
"And jour friend, he is not CIA?" asked Dr. Revuelta, gesturing to the tiny old Asian.
"He's the backup interrogator," offered the Anglo.
"This mean jou are the foremost interrogator, no?"
"Something like that," said the tall Anglo, walking forward with absolutely no sound. He walked on the outsides of his feet. Clearly he was trained. Well trained. In something.
"Have jou signed in?" Dr. Revuelta asked nervously.
"Signed in?"
"Yes, it is the requirement of jour government. Jou must sign in."
The man looked blank.
"Here," Dr. Revuelta said, moving toward his desk, "allow me to summon a servant to bring the sign-in book."
A hand reached out before Dr. Revuelta could touch the bell button set on the side of his desk. The hand had moved with a direct, casual grace, but suddenly the bell button had become a blob of metal clinging forlornly to the desk rim.
There was no sound of a bell. There should have been. The man had struck it so ferociously that the button should have triggered the current.
Revuelta looked closer. The button stuck out like a gangrenous nipple from a flat metallic breastlet. It would never ring the downstairs bell again.
"Since this is a requirement of jour government, and jou represent the U.S.," Dr. Revuelta said sincerely, "I will assume the sign-in requirement has been waived. How may I assist jou fine yentlemen?"
"Somebody tried to invade Cuba this morning," said the Anglo.
"So?"
The other man, the Asian, had slipped up and around to stand near him. Revuelta began to sweat. He did not like this. This was not how U. S. agents ordinarily acted. Of course this was the CIA, not the FBI. So who could say?
"So everybody knows you run a training program for anti-Castro guerrillas," the Anglo said simply.
"I do not know this."