Cuban Death-Lift

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Book: Read Cuban Death-Lift for Free Online
Authors: Randy Striker
have turned renegade, we’re afraid that they’re going for the biggest game of all. And if they succeed, it’ll mean there are going to be a hell of a lot of bodies floating around Mariel Harbor. American bodies. And maybe even a world war. Dusky, we’re afraid those agents have plans to assassinate Fidel Castro. . . .”

4
    I first got suspicious of the television film crew when they followed me from the fuel docks down to the old submarine base at Trumbo Annex.
    Two Cuban-looking guys. The one shouldering the camera pack was the bigger of the two. Black hair combed back. Open shirt with gold chains and unicorn horns curving through the thatch of black chest hair. A snappy dresser who didn’t spend enough time looking through his viewfinder. He spent too much time eyeing me as I topped off my tanks with diesel fuel and loaded on the big blocks of ice for the long trip to Mariel Harbor.
    So Fizer had finally convinced me.
    Three agents might have gone bad. They might have shelved their duties to get a chance at putting a bullet through Fidel’s beard. Or maybe there was just a rotten egg in the hallowed halls of the CIA.
    Either way, I had spent the afternoon after Norm buzzed off in his whirlybird battering myself with recriminations. Why in the hell had I given in so easily? I played with the idea of trying to back out; supported the idea with the rationale that I was letting Fizer’s little super-secret organization of troubleshooters run my life.
    After all, when had he called that I hadn’t jumped to answer?
    Not since the nasty job on Cuda Key—and that is never.
    So I had spent a tawny, late day in April getting the stilthouse squared away, storing this, locking that, bitching at myself all the while for giving in too easily.
    But finally, I had to admit it to myself. I was actually relieved.
    How many days could I have spent alone on my shack upon the sea?
    Maybe a week. Maybe two. But then I would have gotten antsy, anxious for another mission.
    So now I had one.
    Too early, maybe.
    But in the deepest part of me, I was glad. Because once you know the strange dark joy of a dangerous job, you can never be satisfied without it.
    And I had been hooked long ago. Maybe even as a kid, working the trapeze in the circus; knowing that the slightest mistake could mean death. And once you have lived in the deadly glimmer of the razor’s edge, everything else seems pallid in comparison.
    The only thing that really bothered me was having to work with a stranger—one Lieutenant Santarun, an unknown factor. Fizer didn’t know much about him—only that it was Santarun who had presented the theory that the three agents might have assassination in mind. Nothing concrete, Fizer had said. Just a hunch. But a hunch that had to be pursued. So I was to be the slightly stupid charterboat captain out to make a few quick bucks, and Santarun was to be a Cuban-American citizen in search of relatives.
    Unless things got rough. Too rough for Santarun. And then—and only then—could I come from the safe cover of anonymity. For me, it meant leaving at home the obvious offensive weapons of the professional killer: the brutal AK-47 Russian assault rifle I had smuggled back from Nam, and the Navy-issue .45 of my SEAL days. But as a SEAL I had been trained to recognize the options, and make those options damned deadly. And aboard, I carried options enough.
    At the fuel docks, it was the guy carrying the camera pack who first got me suspicious. As I said, he spent too much time watching me and not enough time looking through his viewfinder. Even so, he kept the lens of the remote unit trained on me—even while his partner, a stocky guy with the plastic grooming of an anchorman, seemed to be interviewing another charterboat captain fixing to leave for Mariel Harbor.
    So I ignored it at first. Just pulled on my aviator Polaroids and tugged my old khaki fishing cap with the long visor down

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