Del entered the U.S. with over eighty thousand other prisoners who were released as a gesture of Fidel Castro’s inability to house, clothe and feed them. And, while the move was probably the most humane thing the dictator had ever accomplished, it was perceived as political spring-cleaning. U. S. President Jimmy Carter gave them a new home with open arms until intelligence sources within the Immigration and Naturalization Service, known as the INS, uncovered the truth. By then it was too late and Carter was perceived as a duped fool. As a last ditch effort to control the situation, the INS created a temporary housing facility deep in the heart of the watery Everglades, south of Miami and adjacent to the highway that connects the Florida Keys and the mainland of Florida called appropriately, the eighteen-mile stretch. The conditions at the camp, made up of surplus green military tents, were worse than any Delgado had seen in Cuba. The heat and humidity were compounded severely by the hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitoes that fed on the prisoners like piranhas devouring a herd of cattle caught in a crossing river. In the first two weeks, thirty-eight were diagnosed with spinal meningitis, a disease infecting the lining of the brain spread primarily by mosquitoes and other waterborne insects.
Del had served a seven-year sentence for thievery in Cuba. Like most criminals, his career started when he was an adolescent. He had joined a youth gang that terrorized the back streets of Havana preying on European tourists. The gang called themselves the Diablos and as part of their initiation process, each boy had to etch a crude tattoo depicting a simple pitchfork on the back of their left thumb. Using black ink and a household pin, each boy made their pledge indelible. Each tattoo was only as consistent as the bearer’s artistic ability, which was usually in very short supply.
The Diablos where a tough crew made more vigilant by the tactics Castro used to control them. Death squads roamed the streets and city alleys after dark, looking for and hunting the young boys who made up the Diablos and gangs like them. Policemen by day, these hunters dressed in black fatigues and black matte army boots and spent the dark hours peering into small shelters, discarded boxes, abandoned cars, and any other place one might find the homeless residing. Armed with Russian built AK-47s, the squad was fast, efficient, and most of all, deadly. Their guns were equipped with custom-machined tubular silencers that kept the weapon’s noise limited to the sliding bolt action. Swiftly, silently, and most of the time, without suitable warning, the young boys were killed in their sleep. Others were shot in the back while running down sewage-filled alleys or climbing out of glassless car doors. The Diablos were a menace to Castro’s island and were unwanted by most of the population. There were no missing person reports, pictures on milk cartons or worried parents sitting at home crying over framed grammar school pictures. The boys were pure evil and the death squads kept them in a constant state of stress-filled escape with nothing left to lose. Those who survived were truly part of the criminal elite.
With the help of a public assistance attorney, Del received his green card and a place to stay. He did so in record time, leaving the prison camp in three weeks. His first job was as a cook in a small storefront Cuban restaurant owned by Philipe and Roberto Alazar. Del worked hard preparing everything from black beans and rice to fried plantains. Philipe, called Gordo because of his short, three-hundred-pound frame, immediately befriended Del and the two became inseparable. Gordo was an established member of the South Florida based Marimba, a Spanish word for a small musical instrument, and also a term used to label the growing drug trade and its tributaries that had infiltrated the economy of the Caribbean basin. The Marimba labeled the drug trade like the Mafia labeled the organized crime families of New York and Chicago. Those who participated were known in circles as Marimbettos.
Besides also being a Marimbetto, Gordo was also Mishawaka and more seriously, a hardcore Santeria Mishawaka. Mishawaka was a western-based religion that worshipped the spirit of the Native American Indian. As one might wear a ring with a lucky horseshoe, the Mishawaka followers had an entire collection of Indianhead rings and necklaces. A group of boat builders named their product after the Native American motif. And, while the Marimba supported a large number of orders, civilian buyers also bought these boats known for their endurance and speed. It’s not how fast you go, but how far you go fast, boasted one of the company’s ads.
Gordo Alazar introduced Del to some of his contacts in Miami. In a relatively short period of time, Del was working the boats offshore, lugging bales for two grand a night. Gradually, he worked his way up the ladder until he made the rank of captain, navigating the dangerous crossings between the Bahamas and the Florida Keys. He was good and his superiors knew it. Del worked for several smugglers in the area but he was especially fond of his friends Gordo and Roberto Alazar. Of the marijuana smuggled through the Keys, the Alazar’s ran almost sixty percent. The work was plentiful, and for the most part, safe.
For three years Del ran loads routinely. He built a home in the Redlands of Homestead, not far from the camp at Chrome Avenue where he spent his first weeks living in the U. S. after arriving. Del was building his dream, one piece at a time. He had developed a small fortune, stowed securely, and developed investments, one of which was a partnership in a small company that built the boats he was using. He had a pretty, live-in girlfriend named Marcia, an educated American girl with blond hair, blue eyes and a nicely manufactured body.
It was a load of bad fuel he took on while in Andros, the largest of the Bahamian islands, that brought his dream to an abrupt end. All four outboard engines on his custom-built, 40-foot Indian boat succumbed to the tainted gas, leaving the craft adrift in the Gulf Stream. During the ordeal, the frantic Cuban tried to offload eighty bales of Guatemalan-grown pot. Without power though, the bales never drifted far from the lifeless speedboat. At dawn, a Coast Guard reconnaissance hawker spotted the boat adrift and its load floating close behind like a patch of seaweed. As Del watched the white and orange jet pass less than a hundred feet off the water, he knew his life was about to change considerably. Within an hour, a high-speed patrol boat was bearing down with guns drawn.
Del’s arraignment went smoothly enough as Miami attorney Steven Weinberg pleaded a good case for ROR, release on recognizance. The judge compromised between the ROR and the million-dollar bond that Miami Assistant U. S. Attorney Sam Bittel had asked for, setting bond at three hundred and fifty thousand. The bondsman took his cut, with thirty-five thousand up front, the house in the Redlands as collateral and another five thousand under the table to keep the money’s origin confidential. Peter Delgado was a free man awaiting trial.
Distance was placed between Delgado and Roberto Alazar. The two met only when they absolutely had to. He was caught red-handed and facing twenty years. His only exposure to prison life in America was the camp at Chrome Avenue and if that was an example of what American prisons were like, a deal had to be made. When he was offered a plea bargain of thirty months at the Eglin work camp, Del took it.
This was where a new life began for Delgado. At thirty-five, he was back in school, learning a trade for the first time. He was to become a machinist, a trade chosen for him based on aptitude tests, personal likes and dislikes and the availability of training.
The Eglin work camp had a training facility that rivaled most vocational technical schools. It was ironic since most who were sentenced to the minimum-security facility were citizens already trained, usually in one of the professions.
Doctors, lawyers, and accountants, along with a few bankers, made up almost eighty percent of the toll at Eglin and their crimes ranged from simple tax evasion to million-dollar bank fraud. This didn’t seem to affect Del though, who took to his newfound profession almost immediately. He was a natural. His meticulous nature coupled with other mechanical abilities enabled him to succeed where others had failed. Before long, he was machining parts for dozens of different state and federal agencies. There wasn’t anything Del couldn’t make, though his specialty was designing and fabricating parts for
marine engines.
His girlfriend, Marcia, visited regularly for the first six months but then moved on to someone else who could pay the bills and provide for her expensive tastes. It was no surprise to Del, who had toyed with the idea of marrying her before his incarceration started. She was not the stick-it-out type, he told himself. He knew this before they got serious making her departure that more painless.
The work camp suited the Cuban. The tasks were interesting, designing and building components for Coast Guard and Customs boats as well as a multitude of other governmental agencies. The food was plentiful. Del had gained almost twenty pounds in his first year and a full thirty by the time of his release. Del despised working out. While his co-captives spent hours pumping iron in the facility’s massive gym, he simply wandered back into his machine shop, looking over projects, and fine-tuning parts he had meticulously carved out of cast iron and aluminum blocks. These pieces were like treasures to him. Like a New York Fifth Avenue jeweler, he would hold each piece up to the light, inspecting it for obvious flaws. Finely machined parts, brackets, pump housings, steering components, all cradled in steel vices, held high over mounds of metal shavings on the floor below.
As the northwest Florida sun set early in the day, a spinning ceiling fan hung from a cedar rafter blocked just enough of the sunlight to send its shadow circling the dusty room. Agent Moore looked down at his watch as he grabbed the keys to the transport van.
“Come on Delgado, I don’t want to be late for dinner. The misses would have my ass,” Percy said before noticing a shadow approach the glass entrance to the room.
A tall, heavyset Latin male immediately occupied the doorway.
“Well I’m not going to wait all day, boy!” Gordo bellowed as he came in the room.
Del’s head popped up from his sweaty hands to see his friend standing over him. His year and a half ordeal had come to an end. From under his seat he retrieved everything he had taken in with him, all confined in a favorite black satchel. The two embraced for a minute and headed out the door. Agent Moore, with his feet still perched up on the duty desk, reached around and hung the van keys back up on its hook.
* * * * *
Nucleus
The Dirty Laundry was one of, if not the most popular club in downtown Brunswick. A line of over two hundred patrons wound its way around the turn of the century brick structure. It was a cold night. Hot clouds of steam poured into the damp night air, escaping from crevasses beneath the street and sidewalk. Members of the crowd rubbed their hands together. Young couples cuddled close trying to conserve body heat in an attempt to stay warm. Above them, with the backdrop of weathered red clay brick and mortar, a bright neon sign blinked repeatedly.
Dirty Laundry - Dirty Laundry - Dirty Laundry
Old-style furnaces heated the open building that once housed a naval laundry facility. Massive tin pipes, some four feet in diameter, encompassed the seven thousand foot agora. The foyer was dimly lit but beyond was a palace of lights. Strobes, flashers, beacons and red strings of laser light bounced back and forth in a rhythmic dance that followed the heart pounding beat of the base-enriched music. A manic DJ stood in an elevated, glass-enclosed box, dancing his own rendition, which did not necessarily correspond with the gyrating, contorting crowd on the highly polished wooden dance floor below.
Joel Kenyon stood alone in a corner as he watched the tall, confident frame of Jhenna Kenyon-Stephens approach. She was a very beautiful woman who knew how to capture the attention she deserved, dressed in a black spandex skirt, heels and a well thought out collection of jewelry which included an eighteen-carat gold Rolex her husband presented her for Christmas.
“What are you doing hiding over here?”
“Oh, I wasn’t planning on staying very long. I’ve got to drive to the Keys tonight. Just wanted to spend a few last hours with the class.”
“How sweet, I take it we don’t have a date?”
“Nah, haven’t had the time to meet anyone over here.”
“Cathy asked about you the other day; she said you haven’t called in a while,” his sister mentioned with a mischievous smile.
“I know, I’ve just been so busy. They really keep you occupied here. I’ll call her when I get to the Keys.”
“You’d better; I don’t want you breaking another one of my intern’s hearts.”
“Well, who do we have here? Quiet-shy Joel Kenyon seems to be doing very well for himself,” said Bret Halpren, a fellow graduate who broke in between the two.
“Bret, this is Jhenna, my sister.”
“Jhenna, I’m delighted,” he said.
“So Joel, where’s your assignment?”
“Tavernier.”
“Tavern- where?”
“Tavernier, in the Florida Keys.”
“Oh, the badlands of drug enforcement. Gee, whose ass did you have to kiss to get that ticket?” Halpren asked glancing back at Mrs. Stephens.
“Yeah, it should be challenging,” Joel replied ignoring the statement and regaining his arrogant classmate’s attention. “Where did you end up Bret?”
“El Paso, wouldn’t you know it, frisking beaners at the border. It’s only temporary though, I’m gonna put in for air support after my internship is up,” Halpren said with a sense of manufactured confidence before yelling at another graduate across the room. “Gomez, cómo estás? Good luck Kenyon.” Just as soon as he had appeared, Halpren left, and not a moment too soon for Jhenna, who was trying not to laugh.
“So where is your husband?”
“Over there politicking,” she replied, pointing to a group of suit-clad men standing by the bar.
“I had to fly in yesterday for a conference in Savannah. We decided to meet and make an evening of it. Some evening, huh.”
“Yes, but things will be better after the election, regardless of the outcome. He’ll slow down. Besides, imagine it, Mrs. Jhenna Stephens, the distinguished wife of a United States Senator.”
“It sounds real nice but I don’t know. I’m really a simple girl at heart and, well, we just don’t spend enough time together as it is. How will it be if he gets nominated and elected? Besides, I hate Washington and we just went through all the hassle of building a new house and everything, you all just don’t understand. You know Daddy would have been so proud, but I’ve got my happiness to think about,” she responded. “At least he would have been proud of you.”
“Proud?” Joel asked. “I doubt that this is what he envisioned me doing with my life. If anything, I would have to say he would’ve been disappointed.”
“Don’t say that,” she protested.
“No, I’m happy with what I’ve done, but let’s face it, Dad always had much higher aspirations for me. Law, Annapolis, a junior version of him,” Joel said.
“You are like him. I see it every day.”
“I’m nothing like him sis, and you know it. Now that guy over there,” Joel said pointing to his brother-in-law. “He’s like our dad.”
“It’s only because he’s trying, but don’t let him hear you say that. He’s got a big enough head already, and besides, he’s too short to resemble anything close to our father.”
“Okay, point taken. Let’s just be ourselves, if not just for tonight,” Joel suggested.
“Deal, little brother...” she replied, being suddenly interrupted as Pat groped her from behind.
“Ah, a little family reunion I see?”
“Well, two out of three isn’t bad,” she said despairingly. Pat seemed to ignore her jab as he tilted the heavy tumbler in his hand backwards sending the rest of his drink down his throat.
“Shouldn’t you be on the road by now?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Joel answered as he reached over giving Jhenna a peck on the cheek. “I’ll call Cathy tomorrow.”
“Pleeeeease!” she responded like a little girl begging for candy.
“I will, I promise,” he replied as the two exchanged a parting look.
* * * * *
>
Homestead
The western end of Miami’s Southwest 233rd Street looked like an oasis in a jungle of slash pines and vegetative overgrowth that made simple foot travel near impossible throughout most of the area. On the eastern edge of the Florida Everglades, this area, known as the Redlands, was as far as one could go on a westerly course without an airboat. Florida panthers, alligators and multitudes of other wildlife called this habitat home, and due to restricted building codes in the area enforced by the Metro Dade Zoning Board and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, it was more than likely going to stay that way. This was a big change from almost fifteen years ago when Roberto Alazar and his family set up their homestead here, moving from the crowded and somewhat crime-ridden city of Hialeah. At that time, the land was cheap and building prices were reasonable. Years later, the average home builder would spend at least two to three hundred thousand dollars for a site as the county required at least five acres and all new construction had to conform to the amended code restrictions for the area. With the new restrictions, Alazar found himself living next to doctors, lawyers and smugglers like himself; not the image Alazar needed since he preferred to keep a low profile.
Alazar’s home was a spacious three thousand square feet. Modest in comparison, it was nestled in between a three story cedar structure of seven thousand on one side and a stucco mansion of nine thousand on the other, the latter selling for just under a million dollars two months prior. Alazar’s single story, ranch style home with its red brick fascia seemed out of place, but to him and his family, it was home. The seven-acre tract’s perimeter was lined with a four-foot chain link fence. The portion on the street was laced with brick pillars, slightly higher than the fence. Green vines grew in between the links making it that much more secure. On the backside of the property stood a handsome wooden barn, built by Roberto and Bobby Alazar. It sheltered two purebred Arabians, Pilgrim and Apache. One hundred feet from the barn stood a series of smaller buildings. Parked in front were Alazar’s long, black dual-wheeled pickup truck and three triple axle boat trailers. The buildings housed Alazar’s shop equipment consisting of an industrial air compressor, a commercial grade welder and other industrial tools he used to work on his small fleet of boats.
Mid Ocean Page 4
