October's Ghost by Ryne Douglas Pearson Read Free Book Online Page B

the enemy, for any foe of this man was at a disadvantage simply by nature of his allegiance.
    Ojeda reached out and touched the American on the shoulder, leaving his hand there for a moment, conveying the gratitude that words would fumble over. Then he turned and went to his men, leaving Paredes to stand among the palms that towered like sheltering sentinels over him. Activity on the base was picking up, with more flashes, more sounds, and the beautiful scenes of confusion as soldiers loyal to the government struggled to comprehend what had happened and where the enemy had come from. Ten men, Antonio thought. And Ojeda has thirty thousand. He could only smile at the thought of what was still to come.
    The liberation of Cuba had begun.
    *  *  *
    Deputy Director, Intelligence, Greg Drummond hated the hour. The sun was barely up when his CIA driver arrived at his suburban Virginia home, the crisp beauty of an autumn morning not yet fully realized. And it wouldn’t be for the man who headed the Agency’s Intelligence directorate. He had missed a slew of sunrises and sunsets in his eighteen years at Langley, half of those in the past six months, and he had begun to wonder if life was anything more than work marked at both ends by meals from the Agency’s mess.
    The drive in took thirty minutes, a little more than usual because some knucklehead had tried a right-side pass on a big rig and ended up transforming his forty-thousand-dollar Beamer into a thirty-thousand-dollar Beamer with a ten-grand repair bill attached. Drummond was deposited in the VIP area of the CIA’s underground parking garage and took the VIP elevator directly to the seventh floor, the home of the VIPs. Being a VIP had its pluses.
    “Greg, hurry up,” one of the minuses said as he saw the DDI step off the elevator.
    “One minute, Anthony.” Drummond walked past Director of Central Intelligence Anthony Merriweather’s office, which, unfortunately, was but one from his, and checked the night dispatches on his desk. There was no reason to rush, despite the DCI’s urging. The DDI slid out of his overcoat and laid his soft leather case on the desk, which, to his chagrin, hadn’t magically swallowed the ponderous “to do” list, courtesy of his micromanager boss, that would pop up on his computer screen when he coded in for the day.
    He let out a breath and tried to convince himself that this day would pass quickly and productively, then picked up the Significant Events summary prepared by the night desk and felt his hopes of a second earlier fade away.
    “Damn,” he said softly, folding the single sheet in half and pulling the corresponding detail report that explained in depth the event of concern. He has to listen to this, Drummond thought, knowing that “has to” was a term that rarely applied to Merriweather. He was in the DCI’s office a minute later.
    “We have SNAPSHOT stuff coming in,” Merriweather reported.
    “Oh? This soon?” the DDI asked, only half-interested.
    “Healy’s guy gave me an eyeball description of what he saw. Very impressive,” the DCI commented, tearing the sheet of his notes on the conversation from the legal pad and sliding it into the shredder atop his wastebasket.
    “Christ, Anthony!” Drummond’s jaw would have dropped if he didn’t know the added emphasis would be wasted. “You should not be in direct contact with field officers when they are engaged in a mission. Especially this mission.”
    Merriweather made his disagreement clear with a look. There was a fine line between security and paranoia. “It is a secure communication link, Greg.”
    “Secure is a fantasy we all hope is true,” the DDI said. “We do not take risks with it when they are not necessary. Mike could have gotten the information.” Mike Healy, Drummond’s counterpart in Operations, ran the spooks in the field.
    “Hmm.” The DCI wasn’t sure he wanted Healy being the point of contact on something as big as SNAPSHOT. Like