Passage by Night - Jack Higgins [55]
'They didn't need to,' she said, filled with that same unnatural calm. 'I work for the destiny of a nation. To achieve our end, any sacrifice is worthwhile.'
And then the combination of the rum and the closeness of the room was too much for Manning and everything seemed to move in, to lose definition, as if nothing were real. It was as if he were outside all this, looking in on a wild nightmare that had no sense to it, no beginning or end.
'My father was a good man,' she said. 'A lawyer. He helped the poor and defended political prisoners when no other defence counsel could be found. When I was thirteen years of age, Batista's secret police came for him one night. He never even reached police headquarters. They said he was shot trying to escape.'
'I'm not going to defend Batista's regime,' Manning said. 'No reasonable person would, from the President of the United States downwards.'
'Later on the same night, they returned to the house to look for documents,' she continued. 'Six of them took my mother into the garden. The soldier who had been left to guard me broke into the liquor cabinet. When he had reached a suitable state of drunkenness, he raped me.'
Her voice moved on, but Manning didn't hear. He closed his eyes and fought against an agony that was almost physically, a hard ball that rose in his throat, threatening to choke him. He lurched across to the side table, poured ice water into a glass and swallowed it quickly.
When he turned, there was a look that might almost have been compassion on her face. 'It's of no consequence, Harry. It happened a long time ago.'
He shook his head. 'It might be happening tonight. Do you think the DIER act any differently from Batista's secret police? Castro's kept everything that was rotten in the old regime and added to it.'
She jumped to her feet, her face flushed with anger. 'You will not say things like that. I refuse to allow it. I was in the mountains with Fidel. He is a great man.'
'The colonel refuses to allow it so that makes everything all right,' he said softly.
She went out through the French windows and, after a moment, he followed her. She was standing by the rail and he moved beside her. The immediate sensation was that they were floating in space. The darkness was perfumed with the scent of flowers and the great bowl of night dipped to meet the sea, stars glittering into infinity.
'What happens now?' he said.
'You will be returned to San Juan, all of you.'
'To stand our trial for crimes against the state?'
She shook her head. 'That will not be possible.'
'But of course,' he said. 'There's Orlov to consider. What a pity you can't have one of those really democratic trials they like so much in Havana these days. Set the court up in the ball park, just to let everyone see that justice is being done.'
'You will get your trial,' she said. 'There is justice for all in Cuba today.'
The fanaticism, the sincerity in her voice was something he couldn't fight. He sighed and shook his head. 'You win, Maria. When do we move?'
'Tomorrow evening. We will all be leaving together. Our task force will be done.'
'Not before time. From what Morrison tells me, you've been pushing the action a little hard lately. From now on I think you'll find that things warm up considerably.'
'By then it will be too late,' she said. 'Far too late.'
In spite of her calmness, there was an edge to her words, a deeper meaning that he couldn't ignore.
There's such a thing as taking the pitcher to the well too often.'
'The tracker stations?' She shook her head. 'This time we are after bigger game.'
'And what might that be?'
She smiled for the first time since he had entered the room that night. 'Dean Rusk and Lord Home.'
The whole world seemed to stop breathing. He stared down into that calm, resolute face and in a movement that was purely instinctive, his hands reached for her throat.
She made no move to defend herself, but there was a sharp click as a gun was cocked and a tall, swarthy Cuban in a seaman's jersey stepped out of the shadows carrying a machine pistol.
Manning dropped