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office quarters.”
    The guard immediately ushered them into a barren office that contained only a desk and two chairs. A photo of Castro, taken when he was a young man, hung alone on one wall.
    â€œWho is the officer in command here?” asked Seng.
    â€œCaptain Juan Lopez.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œHe has a girlfriend with a house in the city. He will be back at nine o’clock tomorrow.”
    â€œHow very convenient,” Seng said as if bored. “What is your name?”
    â€œLieutenant Gabriel Sanchez, sir.”
    â€œAnd the name of the other guard on duty in the cells?”
    â€œSergeant Ignez Macco.”
    â€œPlease check the documents so we can get on with it.”
    The guard sat down at the desk and pulled some paper out of the envelope. Seng moved behind and removed a small gun from his pocket as Sanchez stared blankly at a pair of comic books. He looked up. “Colonel, I don’t under—”
    That was as far as he got before Seng shot a tiny dart filled with a tranquilizer into the nape of his neck. Sanchez looked at Seng oddly before slumping unconscious over the table.
    Seng threw a roll of duct tape to one of his team. Every move was so well rehearsed that he did not have to give orders. Two men took the tape, bound the unconscious guard, searched his pockets—finding an unusual round key—and then stuffed him in a closet. Another man went to work carefully rendering the security alarms and communications equipment inoperable.
    As they rushed through the passageways and tunnels and down stone steps to the cells below, Seng knew where he was within a foot, thanks to the holographic image of the fortress that he had committed to memory.
    There was no desperate hurry, but they could not afford to throw away time. He could see now why only a few men guarded the entire facility. The walls were massively thick, and there was only one entrance in and out of the dungeon cells far below street level. The only way a prisoner could escape was the way the team from the Oregon had come—from the outside. A string of lightbulbs lit the passageway. The ceiling was very high, but the space between the walls was very narrow. The steps finally ended at an enormous steel door with the thickness of a bank vault. A TV camera stared ominously at Seng and his men. This was the tricky part, he thought, as he inserted the odd-looking key into the steel lock. Seng prayed that the key would do the job without a code being demanded.
    His fear was confirmed when he turned the key and a buzzer could be heard from the other side of the door. A minute later a voice called through a nearby loudspeaker, “Who goes there?”
    â€œColonel Antonio Yarayo, State Security, with an interrogation team to question the traitors.”
    There was a pause. Seng didn’t wait for a reply.
    â€œOpen up. I have the authority and necessary documents. Lieutenant Sanchez would have accompanied us, but he said he was not allowed to leave the front gate unguarded. Sergeant Ignez Macco, is it?” Seng held up the envelope. “If you have any questions, I have your service record in my hands.”
    â€œBut sir,” the voice of Macco pleaded, “if the door is opened before eight o’clock in the morning, alarms will go off in the state security office at Fort Canovar.”
    â€œI ordered Lieutenant Sanchez to turn off the dungeon alarm,” Seng bluffed.
    â€œBut sir, he cannot do that. The door is on a separate system that is wired to the security commandant’s office in the city. It cannot be opened until eight o’clock in the morning.”
    It was one more obstacle to overcome, but not totally unexpected. Seng was betting that the security officers would think the alarms were malfunctioning and call the fort to check it out before sending a squad of security police.
    Macco fell for it. A few seconds later, the big steel lock clacked and the bolts that