chapter one Ernesto Salvador walked alone down an ink-dark street near the northern edge of Old Havana. In the right front pocket of his jeans was a single yellow cyanide tablet, half the size of his thumbnail, and when he saw the headlights wash across the buildings in front of him, and heard the bubbling sound of truck tires coming fast along the cobblestones, he found himself running his fingers along the outside of his pocket to make certain the pill was there. The truck was less than a hundred meters behind him. In as casual a way as he could, he turned right, down a narrow street, little more than an alley, where the darkness was almost unbroken. He looked for a doorway to duck into, a courtyard, a car bumper to hide behind, but the street was empty and the walls of the buildings offered him nothing but stone and darkness. He listened for the truck, hoping to hear it pass on. But then he saw the sweep of lights again as it made the corner, a flicker of National Police blue, and he heard the sound of the engine closing in, and the horrible squeal of brakes as the vehicle skidded to a stop next to him at the curb. He reached the tips of his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and then abruptly changed his mind. He thought of his daughters, Margarita and Ester, and of his wife waiting for him now only a few blocks away. He told himself it was possible to be questioned, even to be arrested, and still survive. The men were out of the truck before he could see the foolishness of this thought, and they came up from behind and roughly spun him around. There were three of them, none in uniform, bulging shoulders and square necks. "Salvador?" one of them said. "Ernesto?" Ernesto shook his head. He could not seem to speak. He could not make his hand move farther into the pocket. His legs trembled so violently he thought he would fall down at the feet of the nearest man, but before he could accomplish even that, the man reached out and slapped him hard across the right ear, knocking him sideways. "No soy--" he started to say, but the other men were upon him now like heavy dogs, pinning his shoulders against the stone of the building, pressing the skin of his cheek into the grit. He felt someone bring his wrists together and hold them in a fierce grip, and then the sharp metal cuffs against his skin. His captors jerked upward on his arms. The pain shot through his shoulders, and he screamed, and while he was screaming the men were opening the back doors of the truck. They threw him in like a sack. He screamed again when his shoulder struck the floor. The doors slammed closed. In a moment the truck jolted forward and made a tight circle so that his body went skidding sideways across the corrugated metal, and the legs of a bench slammed against the middle of his back. When the sharpest pain passed, when he could breathe in a more or less normal way again, when the truck was moving in a straight line, very fast now, the siren wailing like an urgent note sung out to his family six blocks away, Ernesto twisted his hips around so that he could get his right hand to the opening of his pants pocket. He bent his body and was able to get his fingers halfway down into the pocket, then farther. With the tip of his middle finger he could feel the yellow pill. He pushed farther, trapped the pill inside the first knuckle of that finger, and dragged it up the inside of his pocket. Margarita and Ester, he thought. He could see their faces, the innocence beaming from their eyes and mouths. Margarita and Ester. Just as he had pulled the tablet up to the hem of the pocket, the truck's brakes squealed and he went sliding forward, turning at the last moment so that he did not hit the front wall head-on but took the force of it against his side. He screamed out in pain again as the cuffs cut into the skin of his wrists. Excerpted from Fidel's Last Days: A Novel by Roland Merullo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
