So far, everything had gone according to Ornelas's master plan, the pieces falling into place as if by destiny. At the final hour, everything was ready. The money — most of it, at any rate — had already been deposited in Ornelas's clandestine bank account.

The thought of his employer only made Ornelas worry more. He had accepted payment, promised to perform... and now, he was beginning to have deadly second thoughts. Too late to call the operation off, of course; there would be no way to stop it. But for the first time in a long career of fighting for assorted causes, Ornelas had doubts about his own ability to pull a mission off.

And why had Toro's break come now, with Ornelas's biggest operation yet less than a day away? Toro might spoil everything — by bringing down the heat from his escape on Little Havana, or by himself, in his quest for revenge.

Ornelas knew that Toro blamed Raoul for Toro's time in jail. It had not taken the canny exile leader long to decide exactly who had fingered him. While he was in the lockup, Toro's rage was impotent, wasted on the walls that held him captive. Now he was free to track Ornelas, to take whatever action his enraged mind could conceive of.

Ornelas wondered who had helped his former friend escape. Someone was supporting him, at least with tactical assistance on the break itself — and that was what concerned Ornelas most of all. Alone, El Toro was a thorn in his side. But with support troops, a secret army of his own, he might turn out to be a dagger in the heart.

Ornelas felt his control slip another notch, knew that he was rapidly losing the battle to keep his wits about him. He knew what to expect if anything went wrong with the operation at this late date.

He decided to consult with his control on this one, brief him on what had been happening around Miami in the past twelve hours. If the man was dense enough to somehow miss the daily news, he had some shocks in store for him. And maybe he would have some ideas of how Ornelas could keep things from disintegrating into chaos.

Maybe.

There was a single heartbeat's tremor in his hand as he reached for the telephone receiver. At the last instant, he hesitated, deciding to try Julio Rivera one last time before he took the final step.

If he could reach Rivera, they could get together and work out something on their own without involving Ornelas's sponsors.

He started dialing slowly. But his mind was racing, checking out contingencies, alternatives. Beneath it all, he wondered where a man could hide himself when his world went up in smoke.

The Cuban embassy located in Miami is a minifortress, built to keep its occupants inside and all intruders out. Some ninety miles from home, surrounded by the hostile thousands of their countrymen, the members of the consulate do not take any chance with security.

The gardeners who tend the yard and flower gardens so solicitously are, in fact, armed guards. With darkness, more traditional uniformed sentries take their place, prepared to shoot first and ask questions later.

The ornate wrought-iron gates, watched by uniformed patrols and television cameras, are reinforced to stop — or at least slow down — most vehicles available to rank-and-file civilians.

The ten-foot wall of masonry around the compound is surmounted by a coil of razor wire, protected by electronic sensors. Strategically positioned trees screen the embassy from the view of sightseers — or snipers; its windows are of special bulletproof glass, incorporating wire mesh to deflect rifle grenades and contain the initial blast within a restricted area. Inside the Fidelista outpost, no one is ever really quite at ease.

In case of an attack on the embassy, no self-respecting terrorist would bother with Jorge Ybarra's office on the second floor. Ybarra was well-known around Miami as the cultural attache of the Cuban mission, a man attuned to finer things than politics — such as art, good literature, vintage wine.

But the FBI and CIA agents realized Ybarra was, in fact, Miami station chief for Castro's secret police, the DGI — Direction General de Inteligencia. It was a covert outfit infamous throughout the western hemisphere for its involvement in exporting Castro's revolution to reluctant customers. In many cases, the organization was little more than an extension of the Soviet KGB; at other times, its officers came up with plans and exercises of their own, inevitably aimed at weakening prestige of the United States, advancing communism in Latin America or the Caribbean.

And agents of the DGI had surfaced everywhere the Cubans had a military presence — in Grenada, once upon a time, in Africa, in Nicaragua.

An early Castroite, Jorge Ybarra chose the service like a careful shopper picking out a suit he knows will fit him for a lifetime. He took to the clandestine world at once, a natural. He fought beside Guevara in Bolivia, before the roof fell in and Che was sold into captivity and death by traitors. As a charter member of the DGI, he had done service for Fidel in Chile, in El Salvador and elsewhere, prior to his posting with the Miami consulate.

Ybarra's specialty was terrorism and insurgency. He had been schooled by masters in Havana, completed training at Patrice Lumumba University inside the Soviet Union. The people's revolution had a use for terrorists now, with victory hanging in the balance for a dozen Third World nations. And Ybarra was the man to see about arranging incidents, assassinations — anything and everything along the lines of raw guerrilla warfare in an urban setting.

As noon approached, the section chief of DGI was alone in his office, mulling over the final details for his greatest coup to date. Everything was in readiness; all had been running smoothly until very recently, and he was beginning to feel some small concern that something might be going wrong.

Jorge Ybarra never worried. He was sometimes puzzled, but never for long; he was occasionally concerned, but only until he could figure out a plan of action to remove the momentary inconvenience. At no time did he seriously consider failure as an option in his plans.

Ybarra was nothing if not effective. In his thinking, problems existed to be solved. They were tests of his native ingenuity and he welcomed them, most of the time.

But he did not welcome any of the things that he was hearing from his contacts on the streets of Miami. His agents in the exile community and in the syndicate were passing on disturbing news.

Another man might have been worried, even discouraged. As it was Ybarra felt concern.

There were some minor storm clouds building up on the horizon, true, but he felt confident that everything would go ahead on schedule.

The private phone on his desk was shrilling and the cultural attache frowned. He waited through three rings before he reached cautiously for the receiver.

Only a handful of men in the city knew this number, and he was not expecting calls from any of them at the moment. Unexpected news was often bad, and now Ybarra steeled himself for what would almost surely be another problem.

"Si?"

"This is Jose."

"I recognize your voice," he told the caller.

"Is this line safe?"

"Of course."

Ybarra had his people check the line each morning, scanning carefully for any sign of taps, any sort of interception that might indicate the FBI was listening in on his private phone. In times of crisis, as of late, he had the lines checked several times each day — and they were clean as of three hours ago.

"There may be trouble," his caller said cryptically.

"Oh?"

Ybarra kept his voice calm, noting a hesitation, a surprise at his reaction in the caller's own shaky tone.