North of Havana Read online

  There was a rustling in the bushes. The flashlight nodded, coming closer. I could now see Geis. He was vaguely illuminated by light reflecting off vines and elephant ear leaves. His face was black. Cammo paint…? No. I watched him reach and strip a black balaclava off his head. Could see his rust-colored hair, one eye wide, looking at me over the sights of a short automatic rifle.

  An H&K MP5?

  Some ultimate high-tech weapon. Modern times…

  Geis said, “So… the question is: Should I or shouldn’t I?” Reflective; didn’t seemed to be enjoying it, but didn’t seem troubled by it either.

  My legs felt weak, watery… but a surprising calm had come into my mind. I wondered clinically: In times of extreme fear, does the brain produce some kind of pheromone that acts as a natural sedative?

  I said, “Before you do anything, there’s something you need to believe—Dewey’s just a friend of mine. She’s not connected with this… business in any way. You make sure she gets back to the States safely, there’s some money in it for you.”

  I was surprised when he answered, “Considering who she’s with, yeah, she’s going to need a helping hand.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  He stopped now, ten yards or more away, a careful professional distance, the beam of the light once again locked onto my chest.

  “You’ll see that she gets out of Cuba?”

  “Sure. Nice gal. Way too classy for these Cuban goat killers.”

  “I’ve got your word on that?”

  Taken aback, he didn’t reply for a moment. “My word? Anybody else asked me that, I’d laugh in their face. But for you—yeah, you bet. You’ve got my word.”

  Even holding a gun on me, Geis had an ingratiating genuineness. I could hear him on the street saying, “Us Anglos, we’ve got to stick together.” It was phony, all phony; a learned skill, but even knowing that it was an act, I still wanted to trust him. What choice did I have?

  I took a deep breath, my whole body rigid; closed my eyes, expecting him to shoot. After several long seconds, I said, “If you’re going to do it, do it.”

  Small burst of laughter. “You sound eager.”

  I opened my eyes. He had moved a pace or two closer. Was wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, nothing military except the night optics scope hanging on a lanyard around his neck. Or maybe an infrared thermal scope.

  He’d known where I was the entire time.

  I said, “It’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?”

  “Is that a recommendation… or the voice of experience?”

  “It’s an evaluation. You missed me on the road, you caught me here. So finish the job.”

  “Missed you on the road?” It seemed to amuse him—why? And why was he still talking? “I’m curious about something, Ford. You don’t want to answer, fine. But what I’m wondering is, say you were in my position. Would you do it? Right now I’m talking about. Would you shoot?”

  “No.”

  “You seem pretty sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t. Because I grew up.”

  “Ah…” Like he didn’t believe me. “What about ten, fifteen years ago?”

  “I think… I think we both know the answer to that. It’s what this whole thing’s about, isn’t it?”

  “Aledia Malinovsky, Nikolai Alekseev—those names ring a bell?”

  I nodded. One woman, one man. The woman had been a horrible surprise.

  “So you are the guy.”

  He didn’t know already?

  “You’re holding the weapon. You want to ask something, ask.”

  “I’m asking if you regret it. What you did. That’s what it sounds like you’re telling me.”

  I was tempted to go along with him; tell him what he wanted to hear. Maybe he’d spare me. Take me in and have them put me in some hellhole prison… in which case maybe I could get word to Juan Rivera, have him ask Pilar to intercede. Would she do it? Did Pilar still care enough?

  But no. I’d dealt with the memory of that one night far too long to diminish it all with a lie. I said, “I regret the… necessity of it.”

  “Which means you’d do it again.”

  “Yes.”

  “The night the sailboat exploded. The whole thing—that’s what you’re telling me.”

  The forty-two-foot Peregrine, built in Cuba to be sailed among a thousand other Freedom Flotilla boats across the Florida Straits, then anchored in a major U.S. port. The Soviet GRU’s absurd and desperate solution to Star Wars: a test boat equipped with a leaded keel, a radio-detonated nuclear explosive therein, and more to follow if the Peregrine made it through undiscovered.

  Supposedly. I never learned if it was true. I never would.

  I said, “Yes. I’d do it again. That’s what I’m telling you.”

  The laughter again as the flashlight beam swung to the ground, then found the tree where I’d been hiding. There was a deep yellow gash in it where the rock had hit. Geis said, “See there, more misinformation. Fidel told me that you couldn’t throw; that you’re a shitty baseball player.”

  “He remembers that?”

  Geis said, “Anything that hurts his ego, the old fool remembers,” then fired the weapon twice into the tree—paRAP-RAP. He waited for the screams of startled birds to fade before he said, “There. Far as anyone listening’s concerned? You’re dead.”

  I was shaking again, the pheromone calm, whatever it was, shocked out of me. “But why? Why?”

  Geis was moving past me; touched me on the shoulder—I was to follow. “If you’d stood there whining about how guilty you felt, about how they made you do it, just following orders—all that bullshit—then, yeah, no problem. The tree lives, you don’t. I’ve got no… patience with people who make excuses. It’s like showing disrespect for what we do.” He was working his way down the hill toward Mariel Harbor. I stood there dumbly, listening. “Know something else, Ford? You’re right. Sooner or later, we all grow up. Nikolai was an idiot, and Aledia Malinovsky, Jesus, what an obnoxious pain in the ass she was. I almost popped her myself once. Red Six, the four of us left, we got drunk one night and actually wrote you a note. Started out, ‘Dear Imperialist Brother—Thanks for taking that bitch off our hands.’ Like a joke, you know. But we meant it.”

  I was still in shock. “Castro sent you after me because of that goddamn baseball game?”

  Geis stopped. “He hinted he wouldn’t mind if I got the chance. But I set my own agenda, which means you’re like zero priority. I didn’t even know you were in the car until you started with the tactical turns. Your rental, but I knew Santoya had it. I thought, hey, wait a minute—that’s got to be Ford. Adolfo Santoya do a J-turn? Kind of a shitty, amateur kind of J-turn, but Santoya wouldn’t have even tried it. He was so bad behind the wheel, the party assigned him a driver.”

  I almost asked, “Adolfo?” but then I thought: Valdes. “Santoya was the mark?”

  “What the hell you think? Where’s the profit in taking you down? To get Adolfo, I’d’ve done it, but I didn’t want to. Not until I’d had a chance to have this conversation. Let’s face it, in our line of work it’s hard to find people to talk to.” Geis turned. “You coming or aren’t you?”

  “Wait a minute. He’s got a little boy with him.”

  Geis’s silence said, So…?

  “You expect me to tag along and watch you kill them both? I’m not going to do that.”

  He took a couple of steps up the hill, close to me. “You’re not going to just tag along, you’re going to help me. You spent some time with that group, maybe you picked up some information I don’t have.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “When I sounded you out in the street in Old Havana, that’s when you didn’t know anything. By now, a guy like you, you’re bound to have collected a little bi
t of information. You’ve been trained, remember? And you’re going to tell me.”

  I said, “Nope. I won’t do that.”

  “Yes, you will. Know why? Adolfo’s planning to assassinate my boss. That’s why. Him and that Santería idiot, Taino. They even try it, Dewey, your buddy Tomlinson, anyone within a couple of miles, they’re going to be executed. Like maybe three days jail time, just so the guards can have some fun, then put up against a wall. Your pretty little Dewey. You want to see that happen?”

  “Kill Castro!”

  Geis put his hand on my shoulder and started me down the hill. “The moment Rita found a way to sneak in here, I knew it. Trouble is, I can’t get my idiot boss to believe me. Know why? Because he’s become a fucking goat killer, no smarter than the rest of them.”

  16

  Geis said, “We either missed them or they traveled a lot faster than we did.”

  We’d spent the last two hours picking our way around the southern rim of the harbor: rain forest, then plowed waist deep through marsh—“Watch out for snakes; the bastards are thick in here”—then walked through a couple of clearings that had gone to weed until we came to a line of low CBS buildings, windows boarded, everything dark.

  Pier Three, where they had loaded small boats with 120,000 refugees, was behind us. The narrow mouth of the harbor was off to our right, north, a couple of miles away.

  Geis had kept his eye to the scope around his neck, a thermal sensor. Saw nothing. Just in case, he wanted me to call out the names of Valdes—Adolfo Santoya—and the boy, try to lure them in. I’d refused.

  “You don’t trust me? I won’t shoot either one. Promise.”

  “That’s right, I don’t trust you.”

  Harsh laughter. “Every time we talk, I feel like we’ve got more and more in common. Hey, know what I’d like to do? Next time we sit down, I’d like to hear about the benefit program they had set up for you guys. For us, the government didn’t do shit. We had to take the benefits where we found them. Still do.”

  Now Geis had the MP5 slung over his shoulder; stopped, leaned up against a doorway and lighted a cigar. “They’re probably a couple of miles ahead, already on the peninsula. The question is, do we want to go barging in there now, have that Taino ready and waiting on us? Or do we want to give them some time to settle down?”

  I checked my watch: nearly three a.m. Four more hours and the winter sun would be up.

  Christmas Eve…

  I looked across the harbor to Angosta Peninsula. No fires showing, everything dark; no boat lights out on the water, either… but one boat, way in the distance, under way and moving. A sailboat? Yes, a sailboat. I could see the delicate triangulation of its mast against the stars. Could hear the diesel pop-poppa-pop of its tiny engine straining against the tide.

  I remembered Tomlinson saying that No Más was in Mariel Harbor, anchored as if she were waiting for him. Remembered Adolfo Santoya saying the boat was ready, everything cleared.

  Could it be?

  To Geis, I said, “Maybe we should hike back to the road, have one of your partners drive us to Havana. You want to stop the Santoyas? You’ve got Castro’s whole army to back you up. Surround the place, smoke them out, and arrest them.”

  Geis said, “Those aren’t my partners; they’re flunkies I hired. Pay them a few bucks, they’ll do anything you tell them to do. Besides, you don’t understand the situation or you wouldn’t even suggest something like that. Surround the place?” Like I was being silly.

  “Because of who you’re after. He’s too well connected.” Maybe Angel Santoya was now so powerful, the only way to deal with his wayward grandson was through covert action. Geis acting alone.

  “Adolfo? No one in Cuba is that powerful. Jesus, what bullshit story did those people sell you?”

  “That he was a department head; in charge of shipping for Cuba. That Rita had come back to retrieve the family fortune—didn’t say anything about being her cousin. Just that Angel Santoya’s people were after her, wanted it all for themselves.”

  “Yeah, well… everything’s true but the last part. Angel Santoya, the old son-of-a-bitch, died three months ago. I can see why’d they’d want people to think that, sure. They’ve got to explain being followed some way. But the only person after them is me.”

  “To save Castro. It’s not the money.”

  “Damn right it’s the money; it’s got everything to do with money. What, you think I’m being patriotic? If there really is a family fortune, I want it.”

  “And you don’t want to share it. That’s why you won’t have them arrested.”

  “Partly, yeah. Why make it a public matter? But mostly, I want to keep my crazy boss alive. If Fidel gets whacked, I’m out of a job. I’ve got a pretty nice life here. Beach house down on the Isle of Pines, my suite at the Havana Libre. No one knows who I am but everyone does exactly what I tell them to do. A month off a year to go anywhere I want to go, brush up my languages. That prostitute I told you about? It’s true. She comes to the hotel for only one reason. One of the most beautiful women in the world.

  “What, I’m going to go back and freeze in fucking Moscow? Or Montreal? Believe me, five years training in that place, dealing with those asshole Canucks, it was enough. You know what I’m saying. The rest of the world, having money just makes you rich. But in a place like Cuba, it makes you God.”

  I didn’t want to hear any more. I wanted to be away from him. Was it that I found Geis so repelling… or just so uncomfortably familiar? I said, “Then let’s talk money. I’ve got nine thousand, cash. I can get it for you tomorrow. You cut me loose now, I walk to the Santería compound alone, get Dewey and Tomlinson, and we’re out of here.”

  “You get back with Taino’s people, you’re not going anywhere. That’s what you don’t understand.”

  “They like Tomlinson. They think he’s helping him; him and his psychic powers. They’re not going to hurt me or Dewey as long as they think they need Tomlinson.”

  Geis said, “Oh?” letting me know that I was already providing information, whether I wanted to or not. Then he said, “Tomlinson’s going to get all three of you killed. Tell me this, last night, when you went down that alley? Did some gorilla jump you, try to rob you?”

  “He tried to kill me.”

  “There you go. A guy named Rosario. He used to do some stuff for us. That guy, Jesus, he’d sneak up on cows, neighborhood dogs at night, and cut their throats just to stay in practice. Rosario, he likes it. Now he works for the priests. Taino put him onto you. Taino would burn his own mother if he thought it would get him a little more money or a little more power. He’s like the fifth or sixth most powerful priest in Cuba, and he wants to be first. So what’s new?”

  “Bullshit. Taino’s people tried to rescue me. I’m pretty sure they killed the guy you’re talking about.”

  “You think Taino would tell anybody? He has you popped, takes the money, his own people still think he’s a great guy. What’s he care what happens to you or anybody else. He’s just like Fidel; all those power-hungry assholes. He’s got a public agenda and a private agenda. What you better hope is, Dewey’s not on Taino’s private agenda.” Geis puffed on his cigar before he added, “So you going to think it over, or are you going to help me?”

  I stood there feeling sick; cornered. Finally said, “God damn it.”

  Geis said, “Good decision,” then turned suddenly and kicked open the door of the building. He had the light of his rifle on, shining it around: some kind of old mess hall; a few cans of food sitting on shelves, dust everywhere, the tiny ruby eyes of rats looking out at us. Was this Point Lenin, the old special forces base? Geis said, “First thing we do, we get something to eat. Maybe sleep a little bit, too.”

  I was exhausted. When was the last time I’d slept? Dewey and I had had a short nap at the Havana Libre—this after making love. But my last real sleep was… Panama City.
/>   It seemed as if we had flown out of Panama City weeks ago, not the day before.

  I said, “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to sneak off and I’m not going to try to take your weapon.” Telling him that in advance so he wouldn’t be tempted to tie me.

  The man was looking at cans, holding them up to the light. Black beans; something else that might be spinach. “Damn right you’re not,” he said. “I’m your ticket out of here, your only way. That’s why I trust you a lot more than you trust me.”

  When I awoke, the sun was casting dust streamers through cracks in the boarded windows. I’d folded some newspapers, old copies of Granma, into a pallet and had slept on the floor, my back to a wall.

  I’d been dreaming about something… what? Something to do with Dewey; one of those anxiety-ridden dreams that suddenly lost detail as it collapsed then blended into a general feeling of dread.

  Rolled, stood, checked my watch: seven forty-five a.m. I’d slept for less than three hours. I’d talked with Geis until first gray light, telling him what I knew about the Ochoas, what I knew about Rita Santoya. That she was looking for something that Taino wanted her to find, but her grandmother’s directions were wrong. So they were now depending on Tomlinson’s psychic vision to lead them to it. I told him the names of the villages I remembered, La Esperanza and Candelaria, but that Rita had said she’d already spent two days in Candelaria and claimed she didn’t find a thing.

  Geis had asked, “You really think he’s got those kinds of powers?”

  “Tomlinson? No, of course not. It’s nonsense.”

  “Total bullshit, I agree. What it is, I think someone’s trying to buy time. They tell you what it is they’re after?”

  “Money for their revolution.”

  “That too,” he had said.

  “What else would it be?”

  “Something a lot more important than money. At least, that’s what the Santoyas want them to believe.”

  “Meaning you think they’re intentionally misleading Taino.”

  “At least one of them is. If they knew where it was, they’d have it by now.”