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raids from secret bases in the Keys. But the evidence, thin, sketchy, incidental, was too far-reaching in principle to be convincingly denied by a man in his condition. It was easier to believe than to deny. They’d deciphered his notes, read his typewriter ribbons. Could he tell them he loved Cuba, knew the language and the literature? They had the contents of his burn bags. How could he make them see there was nothing to his scheme but the marginal notes of a diehard and fool?
    He took off his jacket, folded it lengthwise and then top to bottom and dropped it on the seat next to him. He tapped his shirt pocket for a cigarette.
    They went along a farm-to-market road and crossed the Old Alton Bridge, over Hickory Creek. Win indicated a right turn. They went down a red dirt road that ran a quarter of a mile under a thick canopy of post oaks and hickories. Woods on one side, pasture on the other. Larry eased the car to a stop alongside the rail fence. Win lit a cigarette, leaning forward from the middle of the seat. The two men up front sat with their heads tilted slightly toward him, although neither turned at any time to look back.
    “When my daughter tells me a secret,” Win said, “her hands get very busy. She takes my arm, grabs me by the shirt collar, pulls me close, pulls me into her life. She knows how intimate secrets are. She likes to tell me things before she goes to sleep. Secrets are an exalted state, almost a dream state. They’re a way of arresting motion, stopping the world so we can see ourselves in it. This is why you’re here. All I had to do was provide a place and time. You came without asking why. You didn’t consider the risks to your careers, associating with Walter Everett Jr. after what’s happened. You’re here because there’s something vitalizing in a secret. My little girl is generous with secrets. I wish she weren’t, frankly. Don’t secrets sustain her, keep her separate, make her self-aware? How can she know who she is if she gives away her secrets?”
    The two men waited.
    “The invasion failed because high officials didn’t examine the basic assumptions. They got caught up in a spirit of compelling action. They were eager to accept other men’s perceptions. There was safety in this. The plan was never clear. No one was ever responsible. Some of them knew a disaster was in the works. They let it ride. They put themselves out of reach. They wanted it over and done. There was pressure to get all those armed exiles out of Florida and into goddamn Cuba. I’m not sure anybody thought about what happens to them after we drop them off at the beach. That’s where we came in. We were on the airfields or the ships or we were locked in barracks with the exile leaders. They had brothers and sons among the dead and there were armed American soldiers keeping them from leaving the barracks at Opa-Locka. What could I tell those men? I felt like a messenger of plague and death. Then the long slow fall. I wanted to sanctify the failure, make it everlasting. If we couldn’t have success, let’s make the most of our failure. That’s what we were doing at the end when we tried to keep things going. Just an empty exercise.”
    They waited. They were patient and attentive.
    “The movement needs to be brought back to life. These operations the Agency is running out of the Keys are strictly pinpricks. We need an electrifying event. JFK is moving toward a settling of differences with Castro. On the one hand he believes the revolution is a disease that could spread through Latin America. On the other hand he’s denouncing guerrilla raids and trying to get brigade members to join the U. S. Army, where someone can keep an eye on them. If we want a second invasion, a full-bore attempt this time, without restrictions or conditions, we have to do something soon. We have to move the Cuban matter past the edge of all these sweet maneuverings. We need an event that will excite and shock the exile community,