What wasn’t normal was the sight of the cleaning lady sitting on my bed.
Although her back was to me, I could tell she was looking down at something in her hands. As I moved closer to her, I realized it was the Bible I’d purchased in Port-au-Prince, the one I’d failed to put back in my suitcase before leaving the room.
A few seconds later, she sensed my presence and jumped to her feet. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, holding the Bible out to me. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” I said, taking it from her. “I don’t mind.”
She immediately lowered her head—as if I’d caught her in some shameful act—and then she started to walk away.
“Wait a minute. Don’t leave yet.”
I saw fear in her eyes when she turned to face me. “I only held it for a few seconds,” she said.
“It’s okay. No harm done.”
“You won’t tell my supervisor?”
“No, of course not.”
“I wasn’t going to steal it.”
“I never imagined you were.”
She stared down at the Bible. “It’s such a beautiful book.”
I glanced down at the cheap, hardback Bible I’d purchased at the airport gift shop. Beautiful wasn’t a word I would have used to describe it.
“Do you own a Bible?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, I could never afford one.”
Her answer didn’t surprise me.
In the late 1960s, the Castro regime had banned the distribution of Bibles and made it illegal for them to be printed in Cuba. Following the Pope’s visit to the island a few years ago, a small number of Bibles had been allowed into the country through what Castro termed an “exemption program.” Even so, Bibles were in short supply and few Cubans could afford to buy one, even if they happened to find someone who sold them.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Euphemia, but my friends call me Phene.”
I offered her the Bible. “I’d like for you to have this, Euphemia.”
“No,” she said, backing away from me, “I couldn’t accept it.”
“Please, I want you to have it.”
“No. No,” she said, fluttering her hands nervously in front of her. “Someone might think I stole it from you.”
She looked so distraught, I didn’t force it on her. Instead, I laid the Bible down on the nightstand and said, “I’ll leave it here in case you change your mind.”
“Is there anything more I can do for you before I go?” she asked.
“Not a thing,” I said, removing some pesos from my wallet and offering them to her, “and thanks for doing such a great job cleaning my room.”
She smiled as she slipped the pesos inside the pocket of her uniform. “Thank you, Señor Bandera. You keep your room so neat, it’s always easy to clean.”
When she walked over and picked up the garbage bag she’d left by the doorway, I said, “It was nice meeting you, Euphemia. Maybe we can talk again soon.”
Before closing the door, she gave me a small wave and said, “You can call me Phene.”
Now, as I readjusted the zoom feature on my phone, I watched Phene and her companion making a beeline toward the red-striped cabanas partially hidden behind the sand dune.
When the two women disappeared from view, I revised my earlier decision and decided I should check out the covert gathering behind the sand dune.
* * * *
The path I took over to the sand dune was a little different than the one taken by Phene and her friend, plus it was a lot more strenuous.
First, I hiked up to the highway and then I walked down the road about a quarter of a mile before descending the hill and approaching the dune from the opposite direction.
Accessing the cabanas in this way enabled me to see inside them without having my view obstructed by the sand dune.
As I walked down the hill, I saw no evidence the group had posted any kind of lookout near the tents—which wasn’t very smart on their part.
However, that failure made it easy for me to scout around until I located the ideal observation spot, a grassy outcropping that gave me plenty of cover but also allowed me to observe what was happening inside the cabanas.
After taking some photographs of the group with my sat phone, I counted at least a dozen people seated on the ground engaged in conversations with each other. A couple of men were standing around the entrance, and I presumed they were the group’s leaders.
At first, I was puzzled when I saw one of the men holding a guitar in his hand. However, when he turned around and faced the group, I recognized him as one of the members of the hotel’s mariachi band, and I assumed, like Phene and her friend, he would probably head over to the hotel once the meeting was over.
After scanning the other faces in the crowd, I identified a few more of them as hotel employees, which made me wonder if everyone inside the cabanas worked at the Meliã.
This observation made me revise my earlier assumptions.
Perhaps they weren’t Cubans planning an escape or members of a dissident group after all. Maybe I was simply observing a few hotel workers getting together for a meeting.
If that were true, then why were they holding their meeting in a remote location? Why didn’t they just meet up at the hotel?
Seconds later, the mariachi singer began strumming his guitar, and all my questions were answered.
* * * *
As soon as the members of the clandestine group heard the guitar music, they ceased talking and focused their attention on the mariachi singer.
When he saw he had their attention, he announced the name of the song he was playing, and then he encouraged them to sing along with him. The song, “Cuan Grande es Dios,” wasn’t one I recognized.
However, when I heard the words extolling the greatness of God, I quickly realized the event happening inside the cabanas was a worship service.
Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
Even though the practice of religion wasn’t officially banned by the Castro regime, Cubans who professed to be believers were subjected to ridicule and faced tremendous economic constraints, as well as social harassment.
Those who acknowledged their faith found it impossible to attend a university or get a government job, and the government encouraged its citizens to snitch on their friends and relatives who celebrated religious holidays or held unauthorized assemblies.
After several decades of government-enforced atheism, many churches in Cuba had been disbanded, and those still in existence had either been weakened or forced underground.
Now, as I observed the scene in front of me, I had a better understanding of Phene’s reaction to my Bible. No one in the group, not even the speaker who got up to deliver the sermon, had a Bible.
All he had were some index cards.
As he began distributing them among his tiny congregation, he announced, “Our Scripture reading for today is from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.”
When Phene received her index card, she cradled it with both hands, the same way I’d noticed her holding my Bible, as if it were something extremely valuable and precious.
Once the cards had been passed around, the speaker asked everyone to stand while he read aloud the words printed on the cards.
Before becoming a believer, I’d never been inside a church—except for a couple of weddings and several funerals—but when I was living in Norman, Oklahoma, I’d attended a church service where the pastor asked the congregation to stand as he read his text from the Bible. He said standing was a way to honor God’s Word, and I suspected that was what was happening here.
“Please listen as I read chapter four, verse six, of second Corinthians,” the speaker said.
I’d never read any of the Apostle Paul’s letters because Javad had recommended I read through the gospel of John before tackling anything else in the Bible. Now, I found myself listening intently as t
he speaker read the words from his index card.
“‘For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’”
After the speaker asked everyone to be seated, he began explaining the words he’d just read, and it wasn’t long before I realized the verse from second Corinthians sounded very much like what I’d been reading in John’s gospel.
Did the speaker know Jesus called himself the light of the world? Did he know what John said about Jesus? Had any of them ever been able to read the gospel of John for themselves?
Strangely enough, for one brief insane moment, I considered abandoning my hiding place and joining the group so I could share this bit of insight with them.
That moment of insanity quickly passed, and instead of joining the little band of believers, I slipped away from my observation post and made my way back up to the highway.
A few minutes later, I jogged around the bend in the road and entered the lobby of the Meliã, as if I were just finishing up my morning run.
As soon as I got back up to my room, I began considering what I could do to help the little Cabana Church, and by the time Juliana picked me up a couple of hours later, I felt sure I had a workable plan.
The only drawback was that it required Juliana’s full cooperation.
And, it might get both of us dismissed from the Agency.
Chapter 15
On our way over to Club Nocturno on Sunday evening, Gabriel kept telling Juliana how confident he was his gig at the club would be successful.
He never clarified what he meant by successful, but what I was hoping Gabriel meant was that when the evening was over, the club’s manager, Javier Santino, would be so impressed by Gabriel’s musical talent he would immediately book him as part of the entertainment for the tourism celebration at Lorenzo’s compound.
If that happened, I’d consider the evening a smashing success.
On the other hand, I had an uneasy feeling Gabriel would only consider his gig at the club successful if the club’s patrons gave him a standing ovation, or threw money at him, or had some other way of showing him how much they enjoyed his performance.
As Gabriel pulled into the club’s parking lot, I remembered the disparaging remarks the travel agent, Antonio Guillermo, had made about Club Nocturno on our flight from Port-au-Prince to Santiago.
He’d described the establishment as a neighborhood bar, and he’d warned me it definitely wasn’t on par with the nightclubs located around the plaza or in any of the fancy hotels.
When we got out of the van, I took a good look at the club’s exterior, and I knew Guillermo was right about that.
The club was painted bright orange and trimmed in an odd shade of turquoise. A flashing red neon sign with the club’s name in cursive script was mounted on the roof just above the front door, and strands of multi-colored lights decorated the tin ceiling on the outdoor patio.
The building’s colorful appearance didn’t surprise me because I’d seen several photographs of Club Nocturno during my briefing for Peaceful Retrieval. I’d also seen an image of the nightclub when I was first told about Mitchell’s disappearance while I was in Damascus running Operation Citadel Protection.
The emotions I’d felt at that moment—a mixture of sadness and anger—welled up inside of me again as I walked past the patio and pictured Mitchell sitting there sending a text to the Ops Center just seconds before he was hauled off by two of Lorenzo’s bodyguards.
Once I walked through the front door of the club, I set aside those feelings in order to concentrate on executing the POA.
Seconds later, I realized whether I liked it or not, the success of phase one of the POA wasn’t on my shoulders. It depended entirely on Keith Gabriel, jazz musician and part-time philosopher.
I didn’t think the man could pull it off.
But I prayed he would.
* * * *
Club Nocturno’s clientele bore little resemblance to the tourist crowd at the Meliã.
After a quick scan of the smoke-filled room, I determined most of the men inside the club were day laborers who worked on the docks or in the warehouses, and the majority of the women were either shop clerks or hard-working housewives.
I imagined everyone at the club was just there looking for a few hours of mind-numbing entertainment before they had to go back to work on Monday morning.
There was one exception—the four beefy-looking males seated at a table near the entrance.
Even though I saw no sign of Rafael Lorenzo, I suspected these thugs were some of his men, and I didn’t think they were there to be entertained.
When we entered the club, Gabriel immediately abandoned Juliana and me at the door and walked over to a corner table where two men were seated.
From the description Gabriel had given me, I knew the older man had to be Javier Santino, the manager of Club Nocturno, and when I saw Gabriel hand the other guy some sheet music, I figured he had to be the club’s piano player.
“Let’s hope Keith impresses that guy tonight,” Juliana said, nodding her head at Santino.
A few seconds later, when two young ladies rushed over to where Gabriel was standing, I said, “It looks like Keith has impressed someone already.”
Gabriel smiled as one of the ladies thrust a piece of paper at him. After he scribbled something on it, she held it up for the other woman to see. Even though I was across the room, I immediately recognized the album cover from Soft Euphoria’s latest CD, the one with the members of the group all decked out in white suits.
I had to believe the album cover was the reason Gabriel’s wardrobe for the evening consisted of a white Guayabera, white slacks, and a pair of black and white shoes.
As the animated ladies returned to their seats, Juliana said, “Their enthusiasm is sure to help our cause.”
“Our cause might need some help. Club Nocturno’s customers don’t strike me as being jazz music aficionados.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that.”
* * * *
Just before Gabriel took the stage, Juliana and I found a table near the front where we’d be able to watch Santino’s reaction to Gabriel’s performance.
A local band had been entertaining the bar’s patrons with salsa music before we arrived, and the band members were just walking off the stage as Santino began introducing Gabriel.
The timing of their exit made it difficult to tell if the hoots and hollers from the crowd were meant to welcome Gabriel or were meant to show their appreciation for the band.
Evidently, Gabriel assumed the crowd’s reaction was intended for him, and as Santino left the stage, Gabriel raised his hands to quiet the excited patrons.
“Thank you. Thank you. You’re all beautiful. Just beautiful. And now, let’s make some beautiful music together.”
After the pianist played a measure or two of introduction, Gabriel lifted his horn to his lips and began a slow, lazy rendition of “Stardust.”
The audience immediately got quiet.
At first, I thought this was a good sign, but by the time Gabriel had finished “Stardust” and gone on to an even slower version of “Autumn Leaves,” the crowd’s initial enthusiasm had waned considerably.
Gabriel didn’t seem to realize the natives were getting restless, but I suspected Santino knew exactly what was happening. When I saw him pull out his cell phone and start texting someone, I figured the first phase of Peaceful Retrieval was in big trouble.
I got confirmation of this a few minutes later when I received a text of my own.
It was from Mark Stevens who was up at El Bonete doing surveillance on Lorenzo’s compound.
“Slugger is on the move.”
A few days ago, Stevens, who was a big baseball fan, had assigned the code name Slugger to Rafael Lorenzo. He said it was because Rafael Palmeiro, the retired Major League Baseball player, was from Cuba and the two men shared the same f
irst name.
I told him the code name was also appropriate because Rafael Palmeiro had been accused of using drugs during his playing days, and Rafael Lorenzo was a drug dealer.
For some reason, Stevens had failed to see the humor in my comment.
I texted back. “Where’s Slugger headed?”
“Best guess, the club.”
Not good.
By the time Gabriel was halfway through his languid version of “Body and Soul,” Juliana was rolling her eyes at me, and no one in the bar was paying the least bit of attention to the long-haired man dressed in white standing on stage with a horn to his lips.
“Can we do anything?” Juliana asked.
“I’m considering arson. Did you bring any matches?”
“Fresh out.”
“Maybe we could—”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Gabriel said, “before I begin my second set, I need to take a short break. Don’t worry, though. I’ll be right back.”
No one applauded.
* * * *
When Gabriel walked over to say something to the piano player, I tried getting his attention, but either he was ignoring me, or he was too preoccupied to look in my direction.
My guess was the former rather than the latter.
Suddenly, when Gabriel looked out at the audience, he seemed energized. It wasn’t just Gabriel, though. Santino also looked more alert, and when I saw him get out of his chair and head toward the back of the club, I immediately understood why.
Rafael Lorenzo had just entered Club Nocturno.
As Santino escorted Lorenzo and his entourage to his table near the stage, I heard a murmur ripple through the crowd. Along with the increased noise level, there was a palpable sense of excitement among the patrons. It reminded me of the way some moviegoers reacted when I was at a theater in London one evening and a celebrity showed up.
When I saw the admiring looks some of the younger ladies were giving Lorenzo’s wife, I realized they probably thought of her the same way.
She certainly looked like a celebrity.
Four Months in Cuba Page 12
