CURSE THE MOON by Lee Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

window, motionless.
    Outside, the late afternoon had grown even more dark and ominous, with claps of thunder and jagged lightning. Atcho’s men kept a watchful eye through the windows.
    The wind moaned against the house, rattled windows, and howled through crevices. Still, Atcho made no move. More than two hours passed before he strode through the room, neither looking nor speaking to anyone. Flinging the door open, he walked into the stormy night. Two men started after him, but were restrained by another with a shake of his head.
    At the other end of the yard, Atcho leaned with his back against a wind-lashed oak tree. Rain fell in tempest-driven sheets drenching him to his bones, but he took no notice. Gusts whipped hair into his face and cold water poured down through his collar onto his back. Lightning stabbed roiling thunderclouds overhead. Then the storm hurled a shaft of flame down, striking the top of the tree. A large branch fell, landing next to him in a mass of drenched leaves.
    Atcho’s mind turned to cold calculation. Govorov! The words of the Russian’s note were engraved on his mind. And you, Atcho, belong to me!
    He went over the events of the last few hours. Obviously, his sister and her husband had been threatened, otherwise they would not have acted as they did. Whoever had been guarding his family had rushed away, with no attempt to trade Atcho’s freedom for that of his daughter. He feared that Isabel might be placed in hiding again. The question Juan had posed to him came to mind again: Where would you look? And what is the intent?
    No gunfire had been exchanged. And, as in the first encounter, there had been no attempt to pursue. Disrupting his resistance organization could be accomplished without involving a Soviet captain or kidnapping an innocent child. Something Govorov said the night of the firefight tugged at Atcho’s mind. What you look like is what we wanted to know.
    “But why?” he asked aloud. “What can possibly be so important about me to go to such lengths? And how did they connect Eduardo and Atcho in the first place? “Govorov,” he murmured. “Hijo de puta! What do you want from me?”
    Finally, the storm passed and with it, most of the clouds. Lifting his head, Atcho saw stars glimmering in the rain-washed night. He turned and looked at the house. It was dark. His men were still there, and one or two pairs of their eyes probably watched him closely.
    He walked toward a high knoll not far from where he stood. When he reached the top, starlight revealed the blackened ruins of his boyhood home. The mansion lay in desolation, bricks and timber scattered in ghostly piles.
    He looked beyond the house to the ruins of a long, low building that had once housed his father’s prize horses. Then his gaze swept over the weed-infested sugar cane fields where laborers had toiled and he had raced with his father on horseback.
    He remembered pride on his parents’ faces the day he left for West Point and the day four years later when he brought his future bride to this very house. Breathtakingly beautiful, Isabel Arteaga had bewitched him and enchanted his family. It was here that she died giving birth to Isabelita. Life without his family was no life at all.
    After several quiet moments, slowly, reluctantly, he turned and strode back down the hill to his sister’s house. He moved into the yard in front of the house. It was dim. As he passed the oak tree, a low voice called his name. It was Miguel, his deputy for this mission. “Atcho! We must hurry! The invasion has begun!”
    “What?” Foreboding gripped Atcho. “Where are the others?”
    “On the hill. They moved away from the house in case G-2 came back. I stayed here to wait for you.”
    “How do you know the invasion has begun?”
    “We heard it on the radio in your sister’s house. The Americans bombed Camp Columbia, the air base outside Havana! We have to go! Checkpoints are being set up to control highway traffic.”
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