A dramatic three-day memorial to victims of Fidel Castro's regime ends at 4:30 p.m today. A cross represents each of the 10,300 known victims of Castro's regime.

BY ROBERT L. STEINBACK

Juan Carlos Massuet went to Tamiami Park on Saturday to walk in a somber field of 10,300 white Styrofoam crosses -- each one bearing the name of someone who died at the hands of Fidel Castro's regime -- and to recall the life of one very special fallen friend.

An American friend.

''He worked for the CIA and went underground in Cuba,'' Massuet, 69, said of William Patten, a man he knew in the early 1960s. ``Seven times he infiltrated Cuba.''

Patten once had donated blood to him after Massuet, then a private pilot in Camaguey, Cuba, was injured in a crash-landing. But during his last mission inside Cuba, Patten was caught and executed, Massuet said.

The T-shirt Massuet wore Saturday bore Patten's picture, and the words ``Llevo tu sangre dentro de mí. Fidel lo fusiló.''

I carry your blood inside me. Fidel shot him.

Such were the memories stirred by a temporary memorial that will stand near the Miami-Dade County Fair grounds until 4:30 p.m. today. The crosses, lined up in perfect lateral and diagonal rows in the fashion of Arlington National Cemetery, were erected by Memorial Cubano, a group dedicated to maintaining the memory of Castro's victims since he seized power in 1959.

''Most of these crosses, their families have never been able to pray or put a flower'' at a grave site, said Eileen Goudi, director of Mar Por Cuba, an exile human rights group that helped arranged the weekend memorial, which began Friday.

In the center of the rows of mock three-foot-high headstones stood a large cross nearly 20 feet high -- the Cross of the Unknown Decedent -- representing victims whose time and manner of death are not entirely clear.

A series of speakers Saturday evening shared personal remembrances of those who did not survive Castro's revolution, with about 1,500 people who stood among the crosses, most holding candles, some standing in the distance to be next to a special individual's marker.

But even those who had not lost an immediate family member came to pay homage among the crosses.

''For me,'' said Marta Tamargo, who gave birth to her son Leopoldo in Havana just as Castro was consolidating power, ``they all are relatives.''