The company: a novel of the CIA by Robert Littell

Author:Robert Littell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: International Relations, Espionage, Intelligence officers, Fiction - Espionage, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Central Intelligence Agency, Fiction, United States, Thriller, Audiobooks, Thrillers, General, Intrigue, Spy stories
ISBN: 9780142002629
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2003-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

The Mosquito Coast was little more than a memory on the horizon astern as the five dilapidated freighters, half a day out of Puerto Cabaezas, Nicaragua, steamed north in a line, one ship plodding through the silvery-gray wake of another, toward the island of Cuba. Sitting on the main deck of the lead ship, the Rio Escondido, his back propped against a tire of the communications van, Jack McAuliffe caught a glimpse through binoculars of the distinctive bedspring airsearch radar antenna atop the mast of an American destroyer, hull down off to starboard. The aircraft carrier Essex, loaded with AD-4 Skyhawk jet fighters, would be out there beyond the escorting destroyers. It was reassuring to think the US Navy was just over the horizon, shadowing the dilapidated freighters and the 1,453 Cuban freedom fighters crowded onto them. Overhead, on the flying bridge, a merchant officer was lining up the mirrors of his sextant on the first planet to appear in the evening sky. Around the deck, amid the drums of aviation fuel lashed with rusting steel belts to the deck, the hundred and eighty men of the sixth battalion of La Brigada lay around on sleeping sacks or army blankets. Some of them listened to Spanish music on a portable radio, others played cards, still others cleaned and oiled their weapons.

"D-day minus six," Roberto Escalona said, settling down next to Jack. ''

"So far, so good, pal."

Up on the fo'c's'le forward of the foremast, some of the Cubans were lobbing empty number ten cans into the water and blasting away at them with Browning automatic rifles or M-3 submachine guns. Shrieks of pleasure floated back whenever someone hit one of the targets. From a distance the Cubans looked like kids trying their luck at the rifle range of a county fair, not warriors headed into what the brigade priest had called, in the evening prayer, the valley of the shadow of death. "D-minus-six," Jack agreed. "So far, so bad."

"What's your problem, hombre?"

Shaking his head in disgust. Jack looked around. "The logistics, for starters, Roberto—logistically, this operation is a keg of gunpowder waiting to explode. When's the last time you heard of a troop ship going into combat crammed with a thousand tons of ammunition below decks and two hundred drums of aviation fuel on the main deck?"

"We've been over this a hundred times," Roberto said. "Castro has only sixteen operational warplanes. Our B-26s are going to destroy them on the ground long before we hit the beaches."

"They might miss one or two," Jack said. "Or Castro might have stashed a few more planes away for a rainy day."

Roberto groaned in exasperation. "We'll have an air umbrella over the Bahia de Cochinos," he said. "Any of Castro's planes that survive the initial strikes will be shot out of the skies by carrier jets flown by pilots who don't speak a word of Spanish."

"You still think Kennedy's going to unleash the Navy if things heat up," Jack said.

Roberto clenched his fingers into a fist and brought it to his heart.

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