Mongoose, R.I.P. by William F. Buckley

Author:William F. Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504018562
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

His story was entirely plausible, and as he handed his papers to Major Gutierrez at the headquarters of Camp San Cristóbal, Gutierrez merely sighed (one more piece of visiting brass) and pressed a button for an orderly, to whom he gave instructions to come up with field-grade officer’s quarters that were empty and clean. To Tamayo he said that he, Gutiérrez, could very well understand the need for coordination, “with all those Russians running all over the place—if you threatened to shoot me dead, I wouldn’t be able right now to give you a count on how many of them are here, right now, within—twenty. Every day I ask Colonel Bilensky how many men he has here, and I have the impression he uses any pleasant figure that comes to mind to satisfy me. Sometimes he says two hundred and twenty, sometimes two hundred and seventy, sometimes one hundred and seventy. He seems to like round numbers. Of course, they live in their segregated section, they have their own mess hall, their own officers’ quarters. But—let us face it—every few days”—Major Gutiérrez pointed through the window at what looked, a kilometer away, like the mouth of an assembly plant on the distant plain, sheltered by a monstrous cave—“down from there, every few days, comes something for us. A truck. A tank. A fighter. An anti-aircraft battery. We mustn’t complain.”

Tamayo spoke cautiously now. “But surely, Major, you have your own men inside the Soviet compound?”

“Yes, yes, of course. It isn’t as it was during the days of the missiles. Last year, between mid-August and the crisis in October, no Cuban was permitted”—he stood, pointed again out the window, squinted, and finally sat down.

“No use. You can’t see it from here. But half a kilometer behind the assembly plant is a second one of those caves that abound in San Cristóbal. It was actually cordoned off with barbed wire while the missiles were here. And the understanding with Castro was that only Soviet technicians would be permitted in the area.

“But that is changed, now that the missiles are gone. Among other things, we provide the sentries at the gate. And then we have twenty, thirty men, officers and technicians, who are inside most of the time. They come back to their own quarters only to eat and sleep. Their job is to observe the assembly of the Soviet hardware and to learn. They will be the principal teachers of our own maintenance men. They are among our best men, many of them graduates of the engineering school at the University of Havana.”

The orderly came back with a key and a voucher, which Ingenio Tamayo signed, reminding himself to say “Thank you” first to the orderly, then to the Comandante.

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