Letter from Havana: Tensions are running high in the Cuban capital. The city is crawling with police. Paired officers stand guard on every block in the tourist quarter of Havana Vieja. Their radios crackle while the black batons dangling from their belt holsters gleam in the midday sun.
But, away from the holidaymaker bubble where the police are little more than security guards who keep would- be beggars away from western tourists, the real action is taking place.
At the opposite end of the city's coast road, the US Special Interests Section in the west end of town is under siege. Dozens of po-faced officers line the perimeter of the narrow building.
The US's stepped-up efforts to depose the Castro government in light of Fidel's ill-health has not naturally gone down well with the Cuban authorities. America's $80 million package to fund political opposition in the one-party state when Castro eventually passes on has sent shivers up the Communist Party's spine.
To the front of the quasi-embassy, construction workers pushing wheelbarrows and carrying bricks beaver away. They are adding the finishing touches to a monument of 138 sky-high poles bearing black flags with white stars which flutter in the wind.
The monument is a snub to the US. Havana chiefs say it is a tribute to the 3,400 or so Cubans who died in US- backed attacks on the island since the 1959 revolution. Its real purpose, however, is to block out the human rights messages the US had been illuminating on the front of the monolith building since January.
A short stroll away in the grand colonial Hotel Nacional, there's no sign of this propagandist war upsetting holidaymakers. Western tourists relax in the foyer seated in wicker chairs. They sip on mojitos to the strains of a trio of musicians singing Guantanamera.
Further west across town in the suburb of Miramar, the traffic slows to a halt on either side of a palm-tree studded avenue. A beige sedan flanked by two motorcycle cops rolls through the cleared junction past whitewashed colonial houses. Seated in a taxi, I wonder what all the fuss is about and query the driver. "El presidente, Raul," he says, pointing to the sedan which seats Fidel's 75-year-old brother and now provisional president.
While America's recent measures to push the island towards multiparty democracy when the commander-in- chief croaks are diplomatic, your average Cuban who consumes the state-controlled media is convinced they're ready to invade.
In University of Havana, English lecturer Rinaldo Rahilly is heated up for war with America. "The US, they're gonna bomb us," the academic (46) says. And should the state need his help, he's ready to join in. "If they come, I'll be getting my AK, the government will give it to me," he says.
He admits many Cubans are hoping for change in light of Fidel's ill-health, but argues that the "the good people, honestly, they want him to get better".
This university is Castro's alma mater, where in between law lectures he drummed up ways to topple dictator Batista. While universities are traditionally the heart of protest, few students here seem worried about the current spat with the US.
But away from the middle-class environs of the university in the slums of Havana's old quarter, dissent is brewing, but at Castro rather than America. Lismal, who declines to give his surname, is tired of living under Fidel.
"Before I die I'd like to live another life than under Castro," he says, speaking freely on condition that we talk off the street away from the patrolling police.
He also believes the US is poised to invade after news that Fidel is apparently on his last legs was made public. But Lismal (24), who is jobless and says he hasn't eaten in three days, won't be charging at the 'enemy'.
"I don't care if they come and make the war," he says. "If they come I'll put on their uniform and help them kill the [ Cuban] army."
On the fringes of old Havana in Bar Monsaratte, a stone's throw from Hemingway's favourite Havana watering hole Floridita, musician Hector Frances (36) says that while many Cubans are secretly calling for change, the country's youth are at the forefront.
"The young people: they want the freedom to travel [ abroad], to have a computer, to have everything the western people have," he says.
"I want a big change. Many here in Cuba want the same. You can't even get a room in a hotel or buy a mobile phone here as a Cuban."
But the cry for freedom is hardly shouted from the rooftops of Havana. Ivan (30), who doesn't want to give his surname, says no one here openly criticises Castro lest they want the wrath of the law.
"They don't want to have problems with the police," says the cigar factory worker. "They'll talk about it, but only quietly."
He adds that there was rejoicing among the people on hearing of their leader's illness. "Many people were very happy. Some of them were like this," he says, clasping his hands as if in prayer. "They want change."