28

IF I WAS FASCINATED BY FIDEL CASTRO, BY WHICH I SUPPOSE I MEAN attracted and repelled at once, I did not doubt my political feelings. I agreed with Cal. Fidel was dangerous and not to be trusted. Was it for this reason that my father and I, by early May, began to pass through what I can only call a highly controlled maniacality? If the description seems excessive, perhaps it is, but Cal was in full command of Special Affairs Staff (precisely the name to replace Task Force W), his office on the seventh floor at Langley was large, his chair impressive, light was begging to dance in his eye, and there was nothing innovative to do. Since he was also convinced that improved relations with Cuba were on the Kennedy agenda, the romance of the seashell and the manta ray, once wild as pig squeal, began to enter the manly zone of the necessary. If we did not quite believe it would work, we were nonetheless drawn to the possibility. When a piece of intelligence arrived that AM/LASH in late April had gone scuba diving with Castro, my father was convinced. We would give it a go. Since other tasks I was taking care of for him would bring me to Washington for a few weeks, I was there to shepherd the project through the labs at Technical Services.

I never had to wonder about the Hubbard family balance after a few hours at TSS. I knew I was sane. The personnel at TSS had such detectable differences from the rest of the Agency. I would not say that the slide-rule gang were more childlike than the rest of us, but mottoes were strung together out of paper cut-out letters to dangle in festoons from the ceiling: “When It Falls Apart, Don’t Scream,” is the one I remember. No, there was another: “Blastogenesis Is But One Form of Ingenuity”—whatever that meant. I did find the labs curious. While there was many another quarter in the Agency, particularly the Directorate of Intelligence, where half the men were bald and all wore glasses, here at TSS, people looked happy. Some walked the halls emitting larynx-bursts of opera; others kept their heads ensconced in a report.

I had been assigned a technician called “Doc” who was young, slim, potbellied, half bald, and wore glasses. It was not automatic to separate him from others when he was in a group, but then, he did not expect you to recognize him. His eyes were on the project. We were looking to develop a seashell with a manta ray for escort. I saw true happiness in Doc. “This one will stretch us in a couple of places we haven’t even flexed. Off the top, I would say we need input on whether to ship a couple of live specimens up to our tank here, or send some equipment down to Miami.” He put out his palm in apology. “I’m just thinking out loud. Forgive me, but the problems are nifty. We’ll have to think-tank it before we make a move because this one could put real distortions into the budget. I know we won’t have to run an obstacle course getting an okay from upstairs—after all, you come to us from upstairs!—but we ought to cook up some feasibility profiles. And, of course, check out the seashell. Can we pack it with enough soup to give appropriate payoff? Or should we install a mine underneath? But you better get ready for that. Mines can be touchy creatures.”

By my next visit, this question was resolved. “They can store enough soup in a whelk spiral,” said Doc, “to pop a black hole into space. Total obliteration through ten-foot radius.” The manta ray, however, was not free of kinky-kinks. Should they try using a live one? “Feasibility there is bound to be below the line,” said Doc. “We’d have to drug Mr. Manta, and then he’s likely not to react. Our understanding is that good old Ray has to be macho enough to attack and get himself spear-gunned.”

“Exactly.”

“With your concurrence, we’re all for constructing our own synthetic-fiber manta ray prototype. Provisionally, let’s refer to that as a mantoid. I won’t say yet whether such a facsimile can be built to function in off-setting modes.”

“That is, first alive, then mortally wounded?”

“Precisely. We will bury a watertight computer on-site with a lead into the facsimile. That way we can certainly program Señor Mantoid to activate his flippers so long as he is in idling mode. We might be able to work up a manta ray body language that will give every appearance of saying, ‘Hey there, Mr. Swimmer, please don’t come any nearer with your spear-gun. Not if you know what’s healthy.’ We can program the mantoid for that. But I have to consider your bold swimmer. Once he shoots at our facsimile—are we also to assume he will not miss?”

“Not this guy. He won’t miss.”

“Super. Just to be sure, we can put in an option. If there is no register of spear-entry, we can inhibit the death dance. Easily achieved within these parameters. But how are we to program Señor Mantoid’s behavior after the spear has missed? Should he still be programmed to attack, or does he merely say, ‘I’ve had enough, thank you very much,’ and decamp? We can’t option up for that without capacitating the computer up two orders of magnitude. Too much! It’s vastly better to assume bold swimmer doesn’t miss.”

“Project such assumption,” I said.

“All right, then,” said Doc, “we’ll try to locate some film on manta ray behavior during the first ten to twenty seconds after spear-gun entry wound. If Film Tracer Desk can’t come up with such footage, we just spear-gun a manta ray or two in our Florida tank with collateral cinematography. That should provide us with a carload of film data.” He held up one finger for caution. “All the same, should the work-up bring back a negative likelihood factor, we’ll have to hand you a no-no. None of us want that, but I have to tell you: Responsibility, around here, is king.”

“When will you know?”

“We should be out of parameters in two weeks.”

Through the interim, Cal was getting together our material. The link to AM/LASH, a gentleman christened AM/BLOOD, turned out to be a Cuban lawyer, a Communist, nicely in place in Havana; he had known Rolando Cubela since their days at the University. Now, per Cal’s instructions, another Cuban (who dropped into Cuba by parachute on a night flight) reached AM/BLOOD for preliminary talks; in turn, AM/BLOOD talked to AM/LASH, who, we now learned, was most unhappy in the Foreign Ministry, and ready to consider the seashell option.

Now Cal had to come to a decision. Did we alert Cubela to the full scope of his mission? It was Agency policy not to sacrifice agents knowingly, but at Cal’s level, you could take a shot at ignoring policy. AM/LASH, Cal decided, ought to be told no more than that he was to lure Castro to a specific place on the reef.

On the other hand, it would set a wretched precedent to sacrifice an agent in this manner. It would be doubly wretched if the tale got out. Cal said, “I’m drawn to the odds. That son of a bitch Castro was ready to use missiles on us. Hell, if I knew it would work, I believe I would trade my own life for his.”

“Does that answer the question?” I asked.

“Well, what do you say? Do we wit AM/LASH or label the guy expendable?”

“There’s no choice,” I said. “He can’t be such a fool as to lead Castro to a predesignated spot on a reef and think it’s all going to happen thereafter in slow motion.”

“Fellow, you are too inexperienced to know,” said Cal. “Give an agent too many specifics, and he will panic. The waiter that Roselli’s people hand-picked to deliver Castro his poison drink was told too much. A grave error. The waiter’s hand was shaking so badly that Castro invited the guy to taste the drink. In fact, that makes me wonder whether AM/LASH is the man for the scuba stunt. He is already asking for guarantees. He told AM/BLOOD that he does not love Castro so much that he wishes to jump into the hereafter with him. That sounds, dammit, like he’s going to ask for a sniper’s rifle with scope.”

“Why don’t we wait,” I said, “until we find out if TSS can build the manta ray?”

Cal nodded gloomily. “I have an old Hollywood friend who used to be an intimate of Irving Thalberg’s—you know, the great producer of the 1930s? Well, Thalberg once said to him, ‘Do you have any idea of how wasteful we are? Not one in twenty of our projects ever gets made into a film. Not one in twenty!’ Rick, I ask myself, do we do any better here?”