Cigarettes for Two: A Lee Thomas Novel (Spy Dreams Book 3) Read online

  I climbed out of the boat which was just below dock level with the current tide. The tide was starting in about the time we arrived. Jacob handed me the duffle. The young man knew what we had delivered before and so thought he knew what was in the bag. He watched me and did not see Jacob behind him with the chloroform soaked cloth. When Jacob was in place I grabbed the boy’s arms and held him until the drug hit his system. Jacob threw the cloth into the water and picked up the AK. Our four companions then came out of the cabin and onto the dock. All of them were dressed in dark Russian camouflage and heavily armed with Soviet weapons. If someone saw us they might assume it was the Russians taking care of one of their own. One of them went to the shore end of the dock and disappeared into shadow. The other three followed us to the doorway into the beat up looking building. There was no camera at the door. Being in a third world country did have some advantages on some operations.

  Setting the duffle bag down I removed a silenced .22 pistol from the top of the bag and closed the duffle back up. I held the gun in my right hand and put the hand behind my back. I hefted the duffle bag back onto my left shoulder and stepped up to the door, where I stood right in the center. My position would help limit the field of view of the peephole. Jacob stood beside me. Our companions were pressed up against the wall on either side of the door. Jacob stepped past me and pounded on the wooden appearing door. The sound of a fist on metal echoed from the impact. The peephole opened and you could see an eye moving around. Everything looked fine so the door swung open.

  We stepped through and into a dimly light hallway. Even in the dim light you could see from the inside that the building was much more substantial than it appeared from the outside. The hinges of the door were to my left, the side where Jacob stood. He stepped in just far enough to be in the building but not far enough to clear the door. This was so the door could not be closed behind us. He made the move look like a natural mistake. There were only the usual two men inside the doorway and since they were expecting us to arrive they were not very vigilant. I let the duffle slip off of my shoulder as if it had slipped. The man in front of me watched the bag slip and suddenly found the business end of the silenced pistol pointed between his eyes. The other man also watched the bag slide down and found himself also staring into the barrel of a pistol. Both men did the sensible thing and raised their hands. The three men outside came boiling noiselessly through the door. The two guards quickly found themselves relieved of their weapons, hands zipped tied behind their backs, feet taped together and sitting on the floor with their mouths taped shut. Maybe thirty seconds had elapsed since we had entered. It is always nice to be working with professionals.

  The hallway we were in ran the length of the building. On one end was an office that had a door leading into what had originally been a factory of some sort before the Communists took over. That area also had an entrance at the other end of the hall and through at least one door on the shoreward side. I knew from having done some recon of the site that the outside door on the shore side was locked and chained from the outside. They were trying to keep people in, not keep people out. I pointed down the hallway in the direction away from the office. One of the men in the Russian camo went that way quietly. The rest of us went to the office door.

  The door was locked and we could hear noises of someone banging around and moving rapidly. I could not help but feel that Yuri was getting ready to go somewhere. Could he have been expecting us? Probably not but I think he was expecting someone and was leaving before they got there. I motioned to one of my commando team, his name was Bill, and mouthed the words “Blow It” as I pointed at the door. With a nod he reached into a pouch on his belt and took out a small bundle. We all moved until we were not in the doorway. He removed a wrapper from the bundle and uncoiled a thin rope of plastic explosive. Pressing gently against the door so as to take the play out of the hinges without making any noise he pressed the rope of explosive into the hinge side of the door. By blowing the hinge side the door would be propelled into the room and not just fly open. One small blob of explosive was left after he pressed the rope into the door frame. The blob was pressed into the lock. This small bit of explosive was attached to the rest of the charge by a very fine strand of det cord.

  The charge was in place and the clacker to trigger it was in his hand we all moved about ten feet back down the hallway and hugged the outside wall. I had set down the duffle bag and had the .45 from my belt in my right hand. The silenced weapon was in my left hand. With all of our guns at the ready I nodded to the man with the detonator. “Fire in the Hole” he yelled once instead of the usual multiple times and then there was a blast and flash as the explosive fired. The door flew into the office as the hinges and lock ceased to exist. The door flew into the room and banged hard into some solid object. That door was still vibrating on the floor when the four of us went through the shattered doorway. One man, who was definitely not Cuban, had been between the desk and the door when the charge exploded. He was kind of flattened. One other man who also was not Cuban was glassy eyed and blinking against one wall. His hands were over his ringing ears. The third man was the object of our affection. Yuri Andropov Leonid was lying on the floor between the floor and a large and open safe that was full of cash in several currencies. He was more than a bit addled from the blast wave that had propagated into the room.

  Jacob zip tied Uri’s hands and duct taped his mouth. Since there was no need of it I holstered my .45 and laid the silenced gun on the desk. With great care he opened the duffle and took out some packages of a similar size to the ones we had given the gunboat captain. These would not be near as much fun as the ones full of money. Well not unless you were a fan of very loud noises. The care Jacob used to unpack the bombs was not really necessary. I had been taught to build devices that usually would only go off when you wanted them to, but no one is perfect so it was okay with me that he was gentle. He and the two commandos opened the door into the factory area and seeing no armed men went through with the boxes. I used the duffle to contain a portion of the contents of the safe. I had packed up most of the foreign currency and a lot of US money. The bag was full and there was still a massive amount of currency in the safe. My team was in the factory area and they were busy releasing the workers, more like slaves, who were packaging drugs for transshipment to the US. The men were also planting the packages which would reduce the building and all of the drugs to ash. I stepped through the door into the factory.

  “Jacob, send them through here.” He waved a hand in acknowledgement and pointed toward the door way in which I stood. One of the other men shouted something in Spanish. Then he came into the office with me and went into the hallway. I guess it meant go that way because the people began to move toward me. The group was mostly women, none of them really young, with a few old men thrown into the mix. I handed each a packet of United States currency and pointed them out the door. They had been paid next to nothing and kept as virtual prisoners. They deserved the bonus pay. The man on my team kept them moving into the hallway and out onto the dock. Our man outside kept them moving up the dock and away from the building. All of them stared and thanked me profusely as I handed them the cash. I had probably given each of them enough to live like kings. I could only hope they would be smart enough to use it sparingly. When the last of the ‘workers’ had exited, Jacob and Matt, along with the remaining members of the team still in the building, came through the door.

  “Charges are planted and the building is empty.” He looked at the safe that was still not empty. His eyes got a bit bigger.

  “Fill your pockets, no sense in burning that much money.” Instead of filling pockets he grabbed a bag off of the floor and packed it as full as he could. The man with him just stood guard over our new traveling companion. They could divvy up later. Consider it a retirement account for special operators.

  “Take the duffel,” I said to Jacob. He nodded and shouldered the big bag. “Cut loose the guys in the hall. Make sure t
hey know not to hang around. I grabbed two bundles of bills. “Stick these in their pockets as severance pay. Their jobs are going up in smoke, literally.” Laughing at my own bad joke I shoved a bundle of bills into the pocket of the still only semiconscious thug type and told Matt to get him out of there.

  I took one last look at the safe and some bundles of foreign currency were still there. I put some of the European monies in my pockets. Untraceable walk around money was always useful when operating overseas. There was another bag lying on the desk. Leonid had been packing up to leave. I put two boxes of cigars from his desk in the bag. Against the wall was a small bar. I grabbed two unopened bottles of Russian vodka and a couple of bottles of Cuban rum put, it into the bag and covered it with as much of the remaining cash as it would hold. The bag had a shoulder strap and I hung it over my right shoulder. I picked up the silenced pistol and held it in my left hand. Before you ask, the cigars and liquor were taken as loot. One box of the cigars would be going to General Fleming. Most of the money in the duffle bag would be turned in to one agency or the other. Probably mostly to my agency, untraceable funds are useful in the world of covert operations. I lifted Yuri to his feet.

  “Time to go Yuri.” He was less addled now and tried to struggle. “This building is going to burn or go into orbit depending on how well the explosives work. I have orders to capture or kill you. I don’t really care which. Move or die.” He got wide eyed and quit fighting me. We went out into the hallway and then out onto the dock. All of the tied up men were long gone as was all of Uri’s slave labor.

  My team was all back on the boat and they hustled Yuri below. They put a black hood over his head as they tied him up and laid him on one of the bunks. Maybe he would think we were going to drop him overboard. I had some questions for him before we turned him over to the intelligence types. Matt had been the last man aboard and had released the bow line. Jacob had gotten the stern line right after I boarded with the prisoner. I fired up the engines and put the transmission into reverse and eased away from the dock. When I had enough space I swung the boat around and headed back out to sea. I took the remote control out of my pocket while still only about a hundred yards out and pressed one of the buttons. The packages my guys had planted became operational.

  My explosives instructor at the CIA Farm, a man named Bracken, and Sarge would have been proud of those. When the packages received the activation signal three things happened. Bags of kerosene, holding about a gallon, in each box were pierced by the mechanicals and began to leak out through holes in the bottom of each wooden box. A valve on a propane canister opened and gas began to flow out. Finally a timer started. After long enough for each gas canister to completely empty a capacitor would discharge through a thin wire and create a very hot spark as the current blew the wire apart. By this time the propane gas would be dispersed into a very explosive cloud. The resulting explosion of the six devices would be truly epic if they all went at once. Small FAE (Fuel Air Explosive) devices sitting in a pool of flammable liquid should light up the night. If I had gotten the amounts right the building should collapse from the over pressure and then burn and destroy all of the contents. If my calculations were off there would either be just a massive fire or Cuba’s first satellite depending on which direction I was off.

  We were three miles offshore when we saw the flash behind us and moments later felt the concussion of the explosion. I had actually managed to get them to go off at almost the same time. The glow off of our stern was impressive. I would want to see the satellite view of that one. A man has to take pride in his hobbies. We opened the throttles and headed northward to a rendezvous with a waiting United States Navy vessel.

  Chapter 31

  Interrogation at sea

  Off to our port side I could see the phosphorescent wake of a boat moving toward us at a fast clip. It was the patrol boat we had seen earlier. The tide was still mostly out so we had to pick our way to open water; in half an hour or so the water over the reefs would be high enough for us to rev up to a good turn of speed. So far no shot had been fired in our direction from the patrol boat. They had the advantage of not crossing reefs and so could put on more speed than us. I did not know if someone had sounded an alarm or they were just responding to the very loud explosion. Either way their being there was a bad thing for us. No shots had been fired but I could see the small deck gun pointed in our direction. We could outrun their boat but not their shell fire. They had us outgunned until I remembered that this boat was built for movie situations like this. What happens if you take a ‘spy boat’ from a movie and turn it over to people with twisted minds and access to real weapons instead of props? You guessed it.

  I opened the hidden panel that controlled what had originally been special effects devices. There were six forward firing rockets, three on each side of the bow. The launchers for the movie were sized for the old 2.75 inch rockets, something not uncommon at a Naval Air Station. I was loaded with two each of HE, flare and smoke. Even with the danger I almost felt like I had died and gone to Q branch heaven. I swung the bow to port and toward the approaching boat. As I came online of them I fired the flare rockets then the HE and finally the smoke. Unlike the movies I knew my chances of actually hitting them were small. With series of huge whooshing sounds the rockets left their tubes. The bow of the Wild Turkey was enveloped in flame and smoke. The discharge would cover the direction of our turn away

  Once the rockets were away I swung rapidly back to starboard and headed back toward the open ocean. Jacob and Matt came out of the cabin with puzzled looks.

  “What the fuck was that?” Matt was referring to the sound of the rockets launching. That sound must have been horrifying below deck with no warning of what was coming. Jacob was grinning. I think he knew exactly what had just happened when the maneuvers had been combined with that avalanche of sound.

  “We have company,” I yelled over the increasing sound of the engines as I pushed the throttles forward. I pointed to our left, “Patrol boat.”

  Just then the two flare bearing rockets detonated and lit up the area around the patrol boat with parachute flares. A second or so later the HE rockets detonated as they slammed down against the water’s surface. They went up on either side of the gunboat and in front of it. The boat began to turn away just as the smoke rockets threw out a dense cloud. There was orange flame on the bow of the gunboat as their 37MM cannon fired at us. The gun was a relic and manually aimed. The shot fell well behind us. Jacob stepped beside me and looked at the weapons panel. He pressed two buttons on the section marked aft and smoke canisters flew into the air. They were in jackets that would keep them afloat when they hit the water. He pressed a third button and smoke began to billow out the rear of our boat.

  “Hit it hard,” he said to me. I pushed the throttles to the firewall and the boat leapt forward as the turbo charger kicked in. He turned off the smoke generator. With no lights visible on our boat and a wall of smoke between us and our pursuer we could be trailed only by our wake. Very soon we had outdistanced the effective range of their gun. At balls to the wall speed they had no chance of catching us and I doubt that the Cuban Air Force would be called out on this one.

  “I love this boat,” Jacob was grinning like a sixteen year old boy in a nudie bar as he almost yelled over the sound of the big diesel. Even adults like really good toys. We turned on the IFF, IR blinkers and the radar. There was a large blip about 60 miles away, exactly where a destroyer was supposed to be meeting us.

  “Jacob, take the helm. I need to talk to Yuri.” He nodded and took over at the controls.

  I went into the cabin and sat down next to where Yuri was tied up. I pulled the hood off of his head. He was very confused and maybe still a bit addled by the blowing in of his office door. Nothing like a good concussion to rattle your brain.

  “Yuri, that horrible sound you heard was us firing on a Cuban gunboat.” He looked shocked. “If they think you came willingly, and by now they know you are not in the
ruins of your facility, then you are as good as dead to them. If they think you were kidnapped then you are as good as dead to them. So you can see that cooperation would probably be a good idea.” He nodded slowly and resignedly. “You were getting ready to leave. Why?”

  “Robertson was there not ten minutes before you arrived. He stopped by to warn me that you were law enforcement. He had not been able to get word out before then. He has been too paranoid to use anything but face to face communications. I told him that you were coming with a delivery and he told me to get out. He left and I started to grab as much cash as possible. The next thing I knew the door exploded.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He left by car with some government official. Other than that I have no idea.” He paused for a long moment before speaking again, “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No,” I laughed, “I am taking you to a Navy vessel. You are going to be our guest for a while. A lot of people got worried about someone with even possible access to nuclear weapons dealing with people with truckloads of money. You cooperate and you could come out of this okay.”