Rita Gomez was sitting in her kitchen crying when the front door bell rang.
The small pewter urn containing her late husband was sitting on top of the refrigerator where the kids couldn’t see it. Gomez’s will had stated he wished to be cremated, and the CO’s wife, Ginny, had made sure he got his wish. Twelve hours after his death in “No Man’s Land.”
When Rita had climbed up on the footstool to place it there, she’d seen about two years’ worth of dust coating the fridge top. Dust to dust. That’s what she thought, stepping down from the stool.
On the walk home from the small service at St. Mary’s, Amber and Tiffany kept demanding to know what she was carrying. Except for her two noisy daughters, the whole neighborhood seemed eerily quiet.
“What’s in there, Mommy, what’s in there?” they said over and over, skipping along the sidewalk beside her.
She couldn’t bring herself to say, “Daddy.”
The service had been small but painfully long. A few members of Gomez’s platoon sat in the first few pews just behind Rita and the two little girls. Angel, Rita’s hairdresser and best friend, was there. There was an organist. Some desultory flowers on either side of the urn. A few sputtering candles that expired halfway through the service.
Gomez’s best friend, Chief Petty Officer Sparky Rollins, made a brave attempt to eulogize Gomez, saying that he had been a man who had “died the way he lived, on the edge, living life to the fullest.”
It was about as kind a description of her husband’s death as anyone was going to come up with, Rita thought, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden seat. She was fanning herself with a church bulletin. Gomez would have leaned over and whispered that it was hot as Hades in here.
Father Menendez, who’d been counseling Gomez without any obvious success these last few months, gave a lengthy benediction and sermon, none of which Rita could remember. Something about a troubled soul now at peace. Not all warriors die a hero’s death, he said, some are lost in a battle for the soul.
Anyway it was over, but somehow she couldn’t stop crying. The handsome young sailor was gone. There’d been so much hope in her heart that rainy day inside the little chapel in Miami. He seemed like such a fine young man, standing so straight beside her in his brand-new uniform.
And then when they’d had their kids, she’d felt like all of her dreams were coming true. But something went wrong. It wasn’t just the drinking, although that was certainly part of it. It started back when Gomez’s mom first got sick in Havana. When he couldn’t get any medicine for her, and heard her screams on the phone. Finally watching her die in such pain. That’s when it started going seriously downhill. That’s when he started to—the front doorbell rang again.
“Sorry,” Rita called out, hurrying through the tiny living room. “I’m coming.”
She wiped away her tears on her apron and pulled the door open.
It was the commanding officer’s wife, Ginny Nettles, standing there with a big casserole dish in her hands.
“I’m so sorry about your husband, Rita,” Ginny said. “It’s just awful. May I come in?”
“Oh. Of course,” Rita said, standing aside for her and then following her inside. She was slightly stunned at having the base commander’s wife appear at her door. She had been to the Nettleses’ house for a birthday party and to play bridge a few times, of course, and said hello to Ginny at the Exchange or the beauty parlor, but still.
“I made this for you last night,” Ginny said, placing the casserole on the kitchen counter. “Shepherd’s pie. Now, of course, it looks like you won’t be needing it.”
“What do you mean?” Rita said, thoroughly confused now.
“You mean you don’t know?” Ginny said. “Oh—that’s right. You’ve been at St. Mary’s all morning. Well, it’s the most amazing thing. We’re all being evacuated.”
“What?” Rita said. “I don’t understand. We’re being—”
Ginny had walked into the living room and was bending over the TV, looking for a button. The kids had been watching Josie and the Pussycats before going out to play in the back. Josie was still on.
“Do you mind if I put on CNN?” Ginny asked. “I’ve been glued to it all morning. We’re all over the news.”
“No, of course not,” Rita said, feeling completely disoriented. She dug the remote out from under a cushion and switched channels to CNN. There was that big blue banner running across the screen that said “Special Report.” In Rita’s experience that always meant “Especially Bad News.” Both women sat down on the worn sofa and saw images of Guantanamo that seemed completely alien.
Men in bright yellow environmental suits were pouring from the rear of C-130s out at Leeward Point field. There were strange vehicles manned by similarly dressed men patrolling the streets, and bomb squad teams who looked like Martians. Somehow, life at Gitmo had turned upside down in the last two hours and Rita Gomez had missed the whole thing.
One of the famous old CNN guys from the Gulf War was standing under a palm tree outside the Gitmo HQ building with a microphone. Rita tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but she kept glancing over her shoulder at Gomez sitting up there on top of the fridge.
“In many cases,” the reporter was saying, “bacon was frying on the stove and the Monday wash was on the line when the order came to evacuate dependent women and children. Already, security guards protect empty houses and patrol now-quiet neighborhoods only yesterday filled with children’s noisy play.”
“What is—what in the world is going on, Ginny?” Rita asked, feeling suddenly frightened.
“Shhh, just listen.”
“The plans for the evacuation were announced and effected immediately. The base was divided into areas, and responsibility for notification and transportation to the awaiting ships and aircraft was given to the various commands.”
“Why are they wearing those suits?” Rita asked, but Ginny ignored her, intent upon the broadcast.
“The Navy Exchange is still open,” the CNN guy continued, “but it stands deserted. A battalion of Marines arrived during the early-morning hours, and their general attitude is one of calm watchfulness. Guantanamo is a changed place this morning. The base golf course is dotted with the temporary tents pitched by Marines who now bivouac on the fairways and greens.”
“Oh, my God,” Rita said.
“Along with the Marines, bomb squads, scientists, and doctors from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, all in their protective clothing, find no relief from the hot Cuban sun. No one will officially confirm why they’re here, but rumors are rampant.”
Ginny hit the mute button and turned to Rita. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’ve always seemed one of the few base wives who were nice because of who I was, not because of who my husband was.”
“Tell me, Ginny. The girls and I’ve been over at church since seven. We’ve missed the whole thing. Why in the world are we being evacuated?”
“There’s some kind of bomb hidden on the base. Joe says it’s either a nuclear or a biological weapon. Some kind of new laboratory-created bacteria, they’re guessing most likely. The ‘poor man’s atomic bomb,’ he called it. They haven’t been able to find it to defuse it or whatever they do. So, we’re all clearing out. Women and children, I mean. And civil servants, of course.”
“My God,” Rita said. “Who would do such a thing?”
“The new Cuban government,” Ginny said. “They’re nuts, Joe says. Certifiable looney-toons. Listen, I’ve got to run. We’ve only got a couple of hours before we have to be at the boarding stations. You’re only allowed to pack one suitcase for each family member.”
“Okay,” Rita said, her mind racing. She glanced back at the top of the fridge. There was a family member up there. Did Gomez still count for a suitcase?
“If you’ve got a dog, you’re supposed to tie him up in the backyard. And leave the keys to the house on the dining table.”
“We don’t have a dog.”
“Right. I’m sorry. This is a terrible time for you,” Ginny said. “Listen, you get the kids packed and ready to go. Then drive over to my house and we’ll go—”
“We don’t have a car. The MPs have it impounded.”
“Oh. Yes, that’s right. I forgot. Well, listen, Rita, I’ll pick you and the girls up here then. If you could be out front with your luggage?”
“Okay,” Rita said, looking around at the bravely decorated little rooms she and Gomez and the girls had called home for so long. She couldn’t stop herself from noticing just how dry the dried flowers looked. God, how she’d tried to make this house a home.
“Can you be ready in an hour? The streets are a mess. Packed all the way to Wharf Bravo. That’s where the JFK is berthed.”
“Sure. We, uh—whatever you say. I would think your husband would, you know, fly you and Cindy out? Something?”
“That’s what he wanted us to do. I said no way. I think the commanding officer’s wife’s place is shoulder to shoulder with the sailors’ families aboard the Kennedy.”
“We’ll be ready, Ginny. Right out front on the sidewalk.”
Rita followed Ginny out to her car. The sun was broiling now and she shielded her eyes, waving good-bye as Ginny pulled away from the curb. Just as she was about to turn and go back inside, another car pulled up by the mailbox. One of those gray Navy cars.
Two men, one in civilian clothes and the other in Army fatigues, climbed out of the front, then the back door swung open and one of the yellow-suit guys climbed out.
“Are you Mrs. Gomez?” one of the civilian guys asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“We’d like to talk to you for a minute. Is it possible to step inside out of the sun?”
“Of course,” Rita said. “Please follow me.”
Rita showed them into the living room. The two coat-and-tie guys sat down. One had a large briefcase. The man from Mars guy stayed in the kitchen. Rita saw him reach up to the top of the fridge for Gomez’s urn.
“What is he doing?” she said. “That’s my husband!”
“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” the guy on the couch said. “We’re doing a house-to-house search. It’s his job. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”
“Who are you?” Rita said, remaining on her feet, twisting the folds of her navy blue skirt in her hands.
“I’m Brigadier General Darryl Elliot, and this is Mr. Chynsky,” Elliot said. “I’m from JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. Mr. Chynsky is counterterrorist director for the NSA. That gentleman in the kitchen is Dr. Ken Beer, a chief investigator from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He has presidential authority to search your house, ma’am.”
“Fine,” Rita said. “Let him.”
“Dr. Beer, I’d start upstairs and work down,” the one named Chynsky said. The guy in the spacesuit nodded at him and headed up the stairway.
“Mrs. Gomez,” General Elliot said, “I know this is a tough time for you. I’m sorry. But I have to talk to you regarding some things our investigators have turned up since your late husband’s death and cremation. We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“Whatever I can do to help.”
“Thank you. Did your husband exhibit any unusual behavior in the weeks leading up to his death?”
“He was drunk a lot. Nothing unusual about that.”
“Any strange new habits? Disappearances?”
“If he wasn’t sleeping he was over at the bar at the X pounding Budweisers.”
“Any new friends or associates recently?”
“He only had one friend. He wouldn’t know what an associate was.”
“Friend’s name?”
“Sparky. Sparky Rollins.”
“Yes. The guard posted on what used to be Tower 22.”
“That’s him.”
“Did you ever overhear any unusual conversations between the two of them?”
“Sparky never came here. Gomez always went over to Sparky’s apartment at the BOQ. So they could watch the Playboy Channel, I guess. He slept over there a lot, too.”
“Please try to think, Mrs. Gomez. Was there anything, anything at all, that struck you as different or unusual about your husband in the last month or so?”
“Well, Julio Iglesias did start calling here about a month ago. That was fairly unusual.”
“I beg your pardon? Julio Iglesias? You mean the singer?”
“Well, he called himself that. But he sure didn’t sound like any Julio Iglesias I’ve seen on TV, believe me.”
“What, exactly, did he sound like, Mrs. Gomez?”
“Cuban. Very strong Cuban accent. Tough guy.”
“How often would he call?”
“Every now and then. He’d call at all hours. I think there were two of them.”
“Two?”
“Two guys both pretending to be that singer. Their voices were different, you know?”
“Mrs. Gomez, this could be very important. Did you ever accidentally overhear or eavesdrop on any of those conversations?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, he always took the calls in another room.”
“Ira,” Elliot said to Chynsky, “we need the log on all incoming and outgoing calls from this number in the last two weeks. Thanks.”
Ira got up, went into the kitchen, and got on the phone. Elliot opened his leather bag and pulled out an object in some kind of freezer bag.
“Have you ever seen this object before, Mrs. Gomez?”
It was a metal box, about the size of a brick. Little buttons on it. Banged up. It looked like it had been dropped from a ten-story building.
“Mrs. Gomez?”
“No. I’ve never seen it before. What is it?”
“Did your husband have any hobbies? Like model airplanes or model boats?”
“I already told you. His hobbies were beer and the Playboy Channel.”
“This is a radio control device, Mrs. Gomez. You could use it to fly a remote control airplane. Or you could use it to, say, program a bomb.”
“Why are you showing it to me?”
“It was found in the mud, a hundred yards from your husband’s body.”
An hour later, Rita and her two daughters were standing on the sidewalk, waiting for Mrs. Nettles to pick them up. The girls had on their best dresses. They had four pieces of luggage. Three suitcases plus an old bowling ball bag for Gomez.
The two suits from Washington and the CDC investigator had finally left, but not before the spaceman scared the kids half to death when he went out to the garage. They’d come running into the kitchen screaming their heads off. The yellow suit was right behind them, holding some old newspapers. Cuban newspapers, he said. And some moldy twine.
“Granma,” he said. “The Cuban daily, Havana edition. Dated five weeks ago. Heavily folded and imprinted. Looks like something cylindrical was wrapped in it.”
“Bag it,” Elliot said.
When Elliot started asking her questions about a bunch of old newspapers, that’s when she’d told them, hey, old newspapers, big effing deal, pal. B.F.D. She’d had enough. She’d spent all morning at her husband’s funeral. Now she only had half an hour to pack up all her family’s stuff and head to the Kennedy. Enough.
He thanked her for her time and tried to be nice. She guessed he was only doing his job. But if he thought Gomez had anything to do with anything at all that was a Special Report on CNN, he was flat crazy. Gomez wasn’t smart enough and certainly not sober enough to pull off anything as big as this big magilla thing seemed to be.
Lost in a jumble of thoughts, she was startled by the sound of a car horn. A big white Chevy Suburban cruised right up to the curb, flags flying from all four windows. The passenger side window slid down, and Cindy Nettles stuck her head right out. She had her blond hair in pigtails, with big red, white, and blue ribbons.
“Hop in, guys! C’mon! Mom says we’re gonna be late!” Cindy said.
Ginny Nettles was nice enough to climb out and help her stow their luggage in the back with all the rest. Then Rita and the kids climbed into the backseat, one on either side of her. Ginny got back behind the wheel, and they were off.
The traffic, once they got going, was a nightmare. MPs and marines wearing gas masks were at every intersection trying to keep the endless converging lines of private vehicles and buses full of evacuees moving. Rita was grateful that no one was honking or yelling, no one was trying to cut in front of them. If she had expected panic, she saw none. These were military families, Navy families, and they acted like it.
There was confusion at various checkpoints over who was going where. Ginny and Rita were headed for the Kennedy, berthed at Wharf Bravo, and Ginny knew how to get there. But there were also evacuation vessels at Northwest Pier Lima, Northwest Pier Victor, and Southwest Pier Lima. There were no directional signs, adding to the disorder and confusion.
At Wharf Bravo, there was a sense of barely controlled chaos on the pier. In the massive shadow of the famous warship, endless rivers of women, children, and the elderly were streaming up various gangplanks. Rita watched them disappearing with agonizing slowness into the many cavernous mouths in the Kennedy’s hull. Twice, various officers recognized the CO’s wife and tried to move them up in the line. Ginny refused both times, and it took another hour before they were out of the broiling sun and inside the Kennedy.
Seated behind a long table were six officers checking the evacuees’ identification before admitting them aboard. At either end of the table were Marines armed with machine guns. The six officers checked every piece of identification carefully, Rita noticed, even Ginny Nettles’s.
Little Cindy presented herself alongside her mother and handed the officer a pink plastic wallet. It matched the pink plastic suitcase she was carrying.
“Okay,” the officer said, opening the wallet. “Let’s see who you are, young lady.”
“Lucinda Nettles,” Cindy said. “My daddy is Admiral Nettles. Do you know him?”
“I certainly do,” the officer said, smiling. “Thank you, Lucinda. Next in line?”
“I hope it’s all right if I brought an extra suitcase,” Cindy said. “I had to because of my best friend.”
“Sweetheart,” Ginny said, bending down. “This nice officer is in a hurry. There are lots of people behind us. Let’s move along, darling.”
“Want to see him?” Cindy asked the officer, putting her suitcase on the table.
“Maybe later,” the officer said. “After we’ve—”
But Cindy had already popped the latches of her bright pink suitcase. A large white bear that had been crammed inside her extra bag exploded out onto the table.
“What’s his name?” the officer asked, with a smile of forced amusement.
“Mr. Teddy,” she said, hugging him tightly. “He’s my very best friend in the whole wide world!”
“Welcome to the Kennedy, Teddy,” the officer said with a smile.
Everyone got a big chuckle over that one.