North of Havana Page 16

  “It was one of the most important events in Cuban history, that ridiculous little bird choosing Fidel’s shoulder to land on. To Santería believers, doves are a messenger of Obatalá, the Son of God—the equivalent of Jesus. He’s the creator of human hopes and dreams. Imagine the reaction of an audience of Christians if Jesus descended and touched the shoulder of your president. That is not an exaggeration. Since that afternoon forty years ago, Fidel has been embraced by Santería as the holy man in power. The economy, health care, food shortages—nothing else matters. And he’ll remain in power as long as the priests allow him… or until Fidel finds a way to demonstrate to the Santería people that he is also a Babalao, a more powerful priest.”

  More powerful? That was no offhand comment. Valdes had thought this all through.

  He gave it another long pause before he said, “You are right, I’m very well educated. I’m too well educated to ignore the power of Santería.”

  I said, “Yes, but if the Santería colors are red and black, why does your guy, Taino, wear red and white beads? He had them everywhere.”

  “Because Taino follows a different god. He’s a follower of Changó—remember listening to him? When he was talking about performing the ceremony. Changó’s the god of fire and war; a very powerful god, they believe.” He hesitated a moment before he added, “The way you asked the question is not quite correct. Taino’s not my guy.”

  “So you don’t believe?” What I wanted to establish was that Valdes and I had something in common. If things really went bad, I might need him.

  He said, “With my mind… no. But there are things I’ve seen, things that have happened… like when your friend Tomlinson was tested by Taino—it’s a kind of ceremony. I sat through it expecting the same kinds of… dumb conviction? Yes, dumb conviction. But then I saw this man… this gringo, under Taino’s spell, touch a map and tell Taino things that a gringo could not possibly know. Cuba’s four Santería power places. I didn’t know where they are. Only the Babalaos know. But I watched this man Tomlinson touch them on the map, one by one.”

  I was tempted to point out that if Valdes didn’t know where these places were, how could he be certain Taino wasn’t just putting on a show?

  I remained quiet, as he said, “Then Taino asked him to touch the place where Taino was born. This was a test, you understand. And Tomlinson did that.”

  I said, “You already knew where?”

  “Yes, in an eastern province called Oriente, a village called Mayari in the Sierra Maestra. I watched him touch that place on the map. And then your friend said something strange but very convincing. Tomlinson began to smile and he said to Taino, ‘Ruz, your father’s name is Ruz, and… you two have…’ “Valdes had to think about it for a moment. “No, he said, ‘You and Ruz are duplicate spirits.’ Then your friend told Taino, ‘But your powers are greater.’ “

  Typical Tomlinson gibberish… still, something about the combination of places and names nagged at me: Ruz… Mayari… Sierra Maestra…

  Why?

  I thought about it while I asked Valdes, “How did Taino react to that?”

  Valdes said, “Taino became very excited. First, he sees the symbol of Ochoa burned into Tomlinson’s temple, then he speaks the name of Taino’s father; tells him his powers are greater. A Babalao like Taino, what’s he going to think? He is convinced that Tomlinson was sent by Changó.”

  I was thinking: Good…

  Tomlinson clearly had some leverage with Taino—no small consideration when dealing with a pompous, egocentric crank. And Valdes was a rational man. I could reason with Valdes.

  One way or the other, we should be able to work out a deal. I pay them X-amount of U.S. dollars, Tomlinson spends a few more hours—no more than that—pointing at places on a map, in exchange for which they use their contacts to free Tomlinson’s boat. Had already cleared it, Valdes said. By tomorrow evening, the next day at the latest, Dewey and I would be aboard No Más, sailing the twelve miles toward international waters and freedom. And if I had to drag Tomlinson aboard kicking and screaming, I’d do it.

  In fact, I’d kind of enjoy it, after what that emaciated little freak had put me through.

  As to Rita Santoya…? She could come with us or she could stay in Cuba and play her tough-guy role. Let her decide.

  I was feeling pretty good… even when we topped a ridge and I looked down into what I knew to be Mariel Harbor. A big lake of a harbor shaped a little like an upside-down dragon’s head. The eastern rim, where we now were, was forested highlands. Along the two-and-a-half-mile shoreline was an abandoned naval academy, near which was a sheer bluff said to be a favorite of Fidel’s firing squads.

  Snake the dissidents away in darkness, line them up on the bluff, shoot them, let them tumble-down rock and cactus two hundred feet into the water, and there wouldn’t be much evidence left when the fish and sharks were done.

  “In prison,” authorities would say. “Still in prison for their crimes.”

  All it took was Fidel, who was an insomniac, and a telephone beside his bed.

  Also along the eastern shore were several industrial-size loading quays, Piers One through Four, a cement factory that once cast a continual gray smog over the area, and a Special Forces training base run by the Russians, called Point Lenin. That, too, had probably been abandoned when the Soviets pulled out.

  Across the harbor, across water that was gray beneath starlight, the shoreline was lower but less uniform. There was mangrove and marshland. An arm of peninsula—I couldn’t remember the name of it—was an extended darkness, like an unfinished bridge. Two or three distant lights showing on the peninsula where there had once been a line of wooden barracks… looked like campfires, maybe, star-points bright as spider eyes.

  I wondered if there was still a small airfield there; wondered if, down by the water, there was still a ragged baseball diamond with its chicken-wire backstop. I was remembering it from 1980, the twelve days I’d spent in Mariel Harbor during the boat lift. A thousand American boats anchored in their own effluvium, tens of thousands of Cuban refugees crowded into holding fields near Pier Three, everyone waiting in the heat and the stink and the boredom, VHF radios and bullhorns blaring, searchlights scanning the harbor at night and the occasional clatter of automatic-weapons fire.

  Ten of those twelve days spent watching a forty-two-foot sailboat named Peregrine… the bright spot of each day being at lunch or late in the afternoon when the airstrip personnel carried their gear to the diamond and played baseball. Cubans, they loved the game…

  “That’s strange.” Valdes said it more to himself, looking in the rearview mirror.

  “What’s strange?”

  “To have traffic on the road at this hour. But… maybe it’s Taino. He drives so fast, though, he usually arrives long before I do.”

  I turned to look. Didn’t see any headlights. Kept watching until I saw a glimmer of windshield or bumper a mile or so back. Not so uncommon to drive in darkness in a country where a headlight cost a month’s salary. Still… I didn’t like it.

  “You mind telling me where we’re headed? Or is it some kind of revolutionary secret?”

  A brief smile from Valdes—Americans, what jokers they were. “The Santería have a retreat on the other side of the harbor; the government people won’t come near it. There are buildings where we can sleep. And Taino keeps a cook there. Pretty good food when they can get it. Angosta Airfield, that’s what it used to be called.”

  Angosta Peninsula—that was the name.

  I was still looking back at the distant vehicle. Was it getting closer?

  “Why is it off-limits to government people?”

  “It’s not off-limits, they just wouldn’t go there. It would displease the Santería gods, bring them bad luck because it’s been sanctified. Like a holy place, but one that’s guarded by… something, I can’t think of the name. Like evil spirits. One of Tain
o’s jokes is that Fidel couldn’t find a Cuban brave enough to follow us into Angosta. Unless he was first invited.”

  “Is there any other road to Angosta?”

  “No. This is the only one.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Of course I am.”

  I was liking it less and less. I was turning around to tell him to speed up, get to Angosta when, up ahead, I saw a brief strobe of brake lights… a vehicle turning. To block the narrow road? It was possible. I couldn’t tell.

  “Stop the car.”

  The tone of the voice startled Valdes. “What?”

  I put my hand on his arm and squeezed. “Stop the car now.”

  He was downshifting, pumping the brake. “But why?”

  I was already opening my door. I said, “I’m driving.”

  14

  Once behind the wheel, I switched off the lights and punched through the gears, trying to get the Nissan up to speed.

  Checked the rearview mirror—yeah, the car was still coming behind us. Not too fast, though.

  The road was straight here, visibility pretty good: the macadam was bleached gray by tropic sun, so it stood out nicely between elevated trees on our left and, on our right, rock and vegetation that sloped toward the harbor.

  “Why are you doing this?” Valdes was flustered; couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.

  “There’s a truck ahead.”

  “So? This is a public road. Cars, trucks… I’ve even seen tractors on this road. That’s why you’re driving so fast?” As if I’d suddenly gone berserk.

  I had the cheap little rental up to eighty and Valdes didn’t like it. Truth is, I didn’t like it either. I am, by habit, a slow and cautious driver. I’m the guy you see from the passing lane, hands relaxed on the wheel, matching the traffic flow, taking in the scenery; the one who slows for every intersection, every blind hill or curve. I never had an interest in that adolescent tangent which lures grown boys into hot-rod behavior… which is probably why I never felt comfortable at the driving school they put us through long, long ago, Tactical Escape and Evasion: an experience that still gives me the shakes when I think of it. Seven very intense days at a sequestered road track at Summit Point, West Virginia, only a couple of hours from Langley. I learned to take curves at outrageous speeds. Learned how to escape, how to flee, how to use a vehicle as a weapon. Learned what it was like to be pursued at high speed by experts—real experts—who actually enjoyed banging bumpers while doing one-ten, one-twenty, heading into a hairpin turn at night, the blanks in their handguns blazing.

  In a class of twelve, I’d finished seventh overall and left that miserable school feeling wobbly, out of my league, but happy as hell just to be alive.

  The truck was up ahead, close enough now to see.… I waited until I was only a couple of hundred yards away, then I switched on my lights and saw it clearly for the first time: a big stake truck, the kind they used to haul sugarcane. Way too big to ram. It had been pulled across the road, cab pointed toward the harbor, blocking both lanes. I saw the man sitting on the driver’s side throw his arm up at the unexpected dazzle of light, as Valdes yelled, “You’re going to kill us!”

  The man in the truck apparently thought the same thing. I watched him scramble out the door, saw him dive for the ditch just as I grabbed the emergency brake lever and lifted hard.…

  There was a shriek of melting rubber as the rear tires of the Nissan locked… I kept my right hand on the brake lever, left hand on the steering wheel, holding the front tires straight as we continued to skid toward the truck, which was now no more than forty yards ahead.…

  “Mother of God!” Valdes had his knees up, arms crossed in front of his face—crash position.

  My eyes were busy glancing from the truck to the speedometer, truck to the road… gauging velocity and timing and distance—all factors in executing what the professionals know as a “boot turn,” named after the bootleggers of old.

  Turn too soon, we’d probably flip. Turn too late, we’d hit the truck.

  I kept the skid under control, fighting it a little with the tires still locked… then, when we had slowed to around fifty, I gave the steering wheel a casual quarter-turn… felt the car slide sickeningly into a slow motion spin… saw headlights pan across ditch weeds and trees and boulders as we pirouetted 180 degrees… heard Valdes yell something that I didn’t understand as the headlights locked onto open road again—the truck now behind us only a few yards away—and I downshifted into first, released the emergency break… and we were driving in the opposite direction without ever having stopped.

  Not a great turn, but my old instructor would have approved.

  “What are you crazy people doing?” The voice of a very angry, sleepy boy—Christ, I’d forgotten that Santiago was back there.

  I was charging through the gears again, gaining speed. Yes… I could see the car that had been following us. It looked to be a big black Russian Lada coming toward us down the road, now going very slowly, lights still off.

  I said to the boy, “Put your seat belt on and hold tight.”

  “Seat belt, my ass, mister! Stop the car; I’m walking.”

  Valdes was now beyond panic; he was resigned. To the boy, maybe to me, he said, “The gringo has gone insane. He listens to nothing. Prepare to die.”

  Because I said it for myself, I answered in English. “That’ll be the day.”

  What I was hoping was that I could take the black car by surprise. Bully them off the road, frighten them with speed. I got the Nissan up to around ninety, the speedometer showing 150 kilometers an hour, and held it there. The car rattled and clattered and missed; the damn thing just wouldn’t go any faster.

  I still had my lights on; was watching the approaching car maintain its slow course as it came around a slight curve, precisely down the middle of the road. No sign that the driver was intimidated; no hint that he would pull over enough to let me by.

  Was I willing to risk a collision? That’s what he seemed to be asking.

  Behind me, Santiago yelled, “Holy Mother! You hit that car, I’m going back to Havana. I mean it.” Still angry.

  No… I wasn’t willing to risk it.

  Began to gear down, applying the foot brake.

  Valdes said, “Now what are you doing?” Like, what insanity is next?

  But Valdes didn’t understand what was happening; the boy certainly didn’t. The methods of terrorism and assassination have been studied and dismantled step-by-step by some bright people who work in very private offices. The simplest terrorist techniques are considered classics for a simple reason: They’re the ones that almost always work. From what I’d seen, there was a damn good chance that we were being set up by the passengers of the truck and the car, one being the blocker, the other the shooter. This narrow road, in terrorist terms, was a choke point—a road we had to take to reach our destination. The place they chose to trap us was the X-spot—the killing place.

  A classic maneuver that is nearly impossible to escape… if choke point and X-spot have been wisely chosen.

  I was creeping slowly forward as the black car now hit its lights… saw that it was still coming down the middle of the road, refusing us passage.

  “Perhaps we should stop and speak with them,” Valdes said. There was a new quality to his voice—fear. Finally, he was beginning to understand the situation.

  I was starting to feel it myself; a sickening sensation. I said, “I don’t suppose you’re carrying a gun.”

  “A gun?” As if it were distasteful. “No, of course not. Taino’s assistants… and sometimes Molinas, they’re the only ones who carry guns. Molinas, he likes guns.”

  Valdes: some revolutionary.

  I was almost glad, though. I despised the idea of fitting a weapon into my hand. Despised the absurdity of it, that mindless potential, and the absurdity of what it implied. I thought
: What is it about this place?

  Mariel…

  I tried to convince myself there was a plausible explanation for the behavior of the truck and the black car. Yes, they were trying to stop us, no doubt about that. But could both of them simply be blocker cars? No shooters involved? Maybe they were just cops or government security people who wanted to stop us and search us—“Why are you on the road at this hour?”

  No one had fired at us from the truck. So far, there had been no shots from the black car.

  If a shooter was involved, why weren’t they shooting?

  I shifted to neutral and coasted to a stop. Twenty, thirty yards ahead of us, the black car also stopped. The driver had his high beams on, now he switched to dim—the polite thing to do… or was it an attempt to be intentionally disarming? I watched the car very carefully as Valdes said, “What do they want?” Watched the doors on both sides of the black car open slowly… saw two men step out on opposite sides and stand there, showing me their empty hands but not obvious about it. Still… why would they make the effort? I pushed the clutch in and shifted into reverse, waiting, as I listened to Valdes say, “See? They only want to talk.”

  I said, “So why don’t they do something?”

  Each man remained behind his own door, two silhouettes because of the car lights shining in my eyes.

  “Maybe they want us to get out.”

  “That’s what worries me. Any chance these could be some of your own people?”

  “Ochoa? No… why would they stop us here?” As if the question were idiotic.

  Why tell him? “You’re sure? How it is that Taino trusts a man like you, a nonbeliever?”

  “Taino doesn’t trust me, but why would he do this?”

  “Maybe he sees you as a threat; sends the two of us out here in the same car.”

  Valdes was shaking his head in frustration—why should that matter? “You’re making too much of this. In Cuba, we get stopped all the time. Wait here. If these men want to talk, I’ll talk.” As he leaned to find the door handle, I released the clutch experimentally—wanted to make certain reverse was there if I needed it… I also wasn’t going let Valdes out of the car until I had a better sense of the situation… and in that microsecond of movement, the windshield of the Nissan exploded… safety glass showering in bright prisms as the crack of a rifle shot registered in my ears…