They found a jeeplike Russian-made Gazik vehicle, keys still in the ignition, and commandeered it. No one stopped them.
"Okay, on to Zapata Swamp," Remo said grimly.
"I am not looking forward to this," Chiun said thinly.
"I know what you mean."
"I have no desire to be the one to slay the illustrious Uncle Sam Beasley."
Remo said nothing, but he was thinking the same thing himself.
And he knew that before the day was done, he might have to kill his childhood hero in the name of his country. The thought made him sick to his stomach.
Chapter 24
The President of Cuba puffed angrily as he stared out his office window. He had to be very angry, to puff in full view of the masses below. For he had sworn to them that he had given up his cherished cigars, as a token of the new Cuban smoking-prevention program he himself had inaugurated amid much fanfare.
He had said it was for the health and well-being of his beloved Cuba. It took him four hours of passionate speechmaking to get his point across, appealing to the people's pride, their patriotism, their concern for their precious Socialist lungs.
In fact, the program was a blind to cover the sad fact that the tobacco crop had failed miserably, leaving only enough for the people to smoke their cigarettes-or Fidel his magnificent cigars.
That had been an easy choice. He would never give up his cigars. He would sooner shave his beloved beard.
An adjutant came in, gasping.
"Another MIG has been shot down!"
"Bah! Send another!"
"But El Lider, we have no more petrol to fuel them!"
El Lider turned angrily, puffing like a steam shovel.
"Then siphon some from my personal helicopter, dolt!"
The man saluted smartly. "At once, El Lider!"
An orderly came in a moment later. Fidel knew it was an orderly, because they were required to call him El Presidente. Each rank of subordinates was restricted in the manner in which they could address him. His women invariably called him El Guapo Grosso.
"El Presidente!" gasped the orderly.
"What is it now?"
"A ship has been sighted bearing toward Havana Harbor."
The Maximum Leader turned from the window curiously. "What ship?"
"An American vessel."
"A warship?"
"No. A cruise ship. It bears the name Beasley Adventure."
"Beasley! El Sam Beasley?"
"Si, El Presidente."
The Maximum Leader of Cuba took his cigar from his bushy mouth and grinned fiercely. "He made mucho gusto cartoons in his day!"
"Si, El Presidente. I personally am a fan of Dingbat Duck."
"Bah! He is nothing beside the pure flame that is Monongahela Mouse. A mouse after my own heart, that one! Now, as for this matter: The stupid capitan must be lost. Capture that ship! We will ransom it."
"Si, El Presidente."
In the filthy waters off Havana Harbor, Cuban gunboats surrounded the Beasley Adventure, like minnows around a basking shark.
The captain of the flotilla lifted a megaphone to his mouth and shouted up.
"Prepare to be boarded, or jou will be blown out of the water!"
It was a colossal bluff. If a firing squad hadn't been the reward for disobedience, he would never have been so audacious as to risk it.
To his surprise, a white-uniformed captain leaned over the rail and shouted down through a megaphone of his own. It was quite powerful. It nearly blasted the Cuban captain's hat off his head with just two words.
"We surrender!"
"Jou will follow us to Habana Harbor!" the captain shouted back.
"Understood!"
And like a tamed and beaten Moby Dick, the leviathan cruise liner Beasley Adventure fell in behind the scooting gunboats.
All along the decks, Cuban naval guns fired into the air in joyous celebration.
The captain shared in none of it. He licked his lips in worriment, as the crumbling gray lines of Morro Castle loomed ahead.
"This is too easy," he muttered.
Chapter 25
The sun was setting in the turquoise expanse of The Bay of Pigs when the first low shapes appeared on the horizon.
First there was but one.
Faustino Barranca, of the Cuban Territorial Troops Militia, saw it through the crimson haze of the setting sun, as if in a dream. He had been grilling alligator meat for his dinner. Since Option Zero, Faustino had personally thinned the alligator population of Zapata Swamp, overlooking the historic Bay of Pigs. It wasn't particularly tasty, but it was better than banana-rat stew.