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a resounding failure. One of the two invading airplanes could not even fly the distance and returned to the island of Cozumel. The Catalina, carrying Horacio Julio Ornes and his companions, landed on the water near the muddy coast of Luperón, but before the expeditionary force could climb out, a Coast Guard cutter fired on the plane and destroyed it. In a few hours Army patrols captured the invaders. That permitted the kind of farcical show Trujillo liked so much. He granted amnesty to the prisoners, including Horacio Julio Ornes, and in a show of power and magnanimity allowed them to go into exile again. But as he was making this gesture of generosity for the outside world, the governor of Puerto Plata, Antonio Imbert, and his brother, Major Segundo Imbert, military commander of the province, were stripped of their rank, imprisoned, and beaten, and a merciless reprisal was carried out against supposed accomplices, who were arrested, tortured, and often shot in secret. “Accomplices who weren’t accomplices,” he thinks. “They thought everybody would rise up when they saw them land. In fact, nobody was with them.” Too many innocents had to pay for their fantasy.

How many innocents would have to pay if tonight’s plan failed? Antonio Imbert was not as optimistic as Amadito or Salvador Estrella Sadhalá when they learned from Antonio de la Maza that General José René (Pupo) Román, head of the Armed Forces, was involved in the plot, they became convinced that once Trujillo was dead, everything would go like clockwork: the military, obeying Román’s orders, would detain the Goat’s brothers, kill Johnny Abbes and the die-hard Trujillistas, and install a civilian-military junta. The people would take to the streets and, overjoyed at gaining their freedom, exterminate the caliés. Would things turn out that way? Disillusionment, ever since the stupid ambush to which Segundo fell victim, had made Antonio Imbert allergic to premature enthusiasm. He wanted to see Trujillo’s corpse lying at his feet; the rest of it mattered less to him. Ridding the country of that man was the main thing. When that obstacle was out of the way, even if things didn’t go so well at first, at least a door would be opened. And that justified what they were doing tonight, even if none of them survived.

No, Tony had not said a word about the conspiracy to his brother Segundo on his weekly visits to him at La Victoria. They talked about the family, about baseball and boxing, and Segundo told him stories about the prison routine, but they avoided the only important topic. On his last visit, as he was saying goodbye, Antonio whispered: “Things are going to change, Segundo.” A word to the wise. Had he guessed? After a series of crushing blows, Segundo, like Tony, had gone from enthusiastic Trujillista to a man disaffected with the regime to conspirator, and long ago had concluded that the only way to put an end to the tyranny was by killing the tyrant; everything else was useless. You had to eradicate the person in whom all the strands of the dread spiderweb converged.

“What would have happened if the bomb had exploded on Máximo Gómez when the Goat was taking his walk?” Amadito fantasized.

“Trujillista fireworks in the sky,” replied Imbert.

“I could have been one of the firecrackers if I had been on duty,” the lieutenant said with a laugh.

“I would have sent a huge wreath of roses to your funeral,” said Tony.

“What a plan,” Estrella Sadhalá remarked. “Blowing up the Goat and all his cronies. Heartless!”

“Well, I knew you wouldn’t be part of his escort,” said Imbert. “Besides, when that happened I hardly knew you, Amadito. Now I would have to give it a little more thought.”

“That’s a relief,” said the lieutenant, thanking him.

They had been waiting on the road to San Cristóbal for more than an hour, and had tried several times to have a conversation, or to joke, as they were doing now, but those efforts had petered out and each man enclosed himself again in his own torments, hopes, or memories. At one point Antonio de la Maza turned on the radio, but as soon