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very much alive in the mountains and took photographs to prove it . Very embarrassing for Batista. So, more soldiers on the streets, more late-night raids, fists pounding on doors, frightened men and women bundled into cars and taken to La Cabaña to discuss what they knew about the misguided rebels who were threatening everyone’s prosperity. More bodies leaking blood in the early-morning gutters, more corpses bumping with the tide against the seawall in the harbor.
    The big lobby of the Nacional was hushed and cool, the light golden and comforting under the massive beams of the ceiling. The thick walls shut out the city and the heat. The desk clerk was deferent and eager. Cassidy’s bag had arrived. It had been taken to a room overlooking the sea. Would that be all right? Perhaps he preferred the other side. Some were disturbed by the sound of the waves on the Malecón.
    No, he preferred the ocean side.
    Wonderful, anything he wanted. Any friend of Colonel Fuentes. But behind the smile and the eagerness was wariness. Who are you, friend of Colonel Fuentes? How much trouble do you bring? It was an indication of the colonel’s reputation and power.
    The elevator was already full when Cassidy entered. American tourists in bright resort clothes, three elegant silver-haired women conversing in Spanish, and two men who got off on Cassidy’s floor, men who sparked Cassidy’s cop radar. They both wore cheap tropical-weight suits, rayon shirts, and wide, hand-painted ties. They had the hard-eyed, lumpy faces of men who had been hit more than once and would probably get hit again. They weren’t tourists. Cassidy had seen men like this in holding tanks or waiting for the desk sergeant to fill out the booking slips. What were they doing here? He knew that one of the Hotel Nacional’s owners was the gangster Meyer Lansky. No surprise that some of his thugs would have rooms here. The hell with it. It was none of his business. He wasn’t on the job here. They stopped at a door down the corridor from his.
    Cassidy’s bag was in his room. There was a bucket of ice and a bottle of Bacardi rum and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label on a tray near the closet, anything for a friend of Colonel Fuentes. He poured rum over ice and stood looking out the open window. The air was warm and soft and smelled of tropical flowers, burning charcoal, salt, and diesel. The ocean crashed white on the breakwater of the Malecón. There was something familiar about the broad boulevard, the massive blocks of stone, and the spray that rose above them, something he should remember, but he could not get ahold of it.
    The sun was setting, and the western sky was a riot of orange and purple. He could see over the city and harbor to La Cabaña on the hill. The last rays of the sun turned the stone walls red.
    Red. Condemned.
    When? What had Lopato said? Tomorrow, the next day, who knows.
    No. That could not happen. He would have to think of something very smart to get her out of there, but if he could not think of something smart, he would do something anyway, wouldn’t he? What had he said to the Senator on the plane when he asked if Cassidy gambled? Not for money.
    He drank the rum and stood by the window and thought about the prison, about entrances and exits, about how far the cell block was below-ground, how thick the doors were, which cell she had entered. He tried to remember how many guards and warders he had seen and whether the warders had been armed with more than wooden batons. How would he get in? How would they get out? Evening turned to night. The rum went down in the bottle. Maybe a change of position would spark something. Maybe if he lay down on the bed.
    Something woke him. A thump. A bang. Something. He lay in the darkness and listened. Was that a scream from somewhere outside? He got up and went to the window. Cries rose from below. He opened the window wider and looked down. People milled outside