Castro's Daughter

by David Hagberg

  The plane, already on the ramp, was a sturdy short takeoff and landing de Havilland Beaver that had once been used all over the world, but especially up in Alaska, for back country flying. It could carry the pilot and up to six passengers and gear at a cruise speed of a little over 140 miles per hour, its floats equipped with wheels that allowed it to take off and touch down on land or sea. The little aircraft was all but indestructible.

  Ruiz was a short slope-shouldered man with a belly, bandy legs, and thinning gray hair over thick black eyebrows and mustache. He was trundling the hangar door closed when they drove up.

  “I’ve read about you in the papers,” he said, shaking McGarvey’s hand. “Pretty risky for a former DCI to be going into harm’s way.”

  McGarvey instantly liked him. “That’s why I get the big bucks.”

  Ruiz laughed. “They’re mostly a bunch of fine people over there saddled by a fucked-up system. But don’t think they’re incompetent because the Russians are gone and just about every governmental agency is broke. They’ve got a good coastal navy, and some damned effective radar installations.”

  “You’re taking a bigger risk than I am.”

  “Acceptable, given the mission.”

  McGarvey didn’t ask what the man understood the mission to be.

  Ruiz pulled a chart out of the plane and illuminated it with a small red flashlight. “Raúl says that you need to get somewhere in the vicinity of Cojimar, which is just east of Havana. Not so many people there, but the navy will be active, especially if they have an idea that you’re on the way, specifically to that spot on the beach.”

  “They know I’m coming,” McGarvey said. “And the DI knows exactly where.”

  “In that case, they probably won’t start shooting until you’re safely ashore.”

  “Getting out might be a different story,” Martínez suggested.

  “Might be interesting,” Ruiz said without hesitation. He turned back to the chart. “We’ll fly down to Big Pine Key, about three quarters of the way to Key West, then head a little west of south, low and fast. Fifty miles to Big Pine and from there a hundred miles to Cojimar.”

  It was just midnight.

  “Should set down just outside the surf line a little before two. You can take the rubber raft, so by the time you’re ashore, I’ll back in international waters.”

  “Wait for us at Newfound Harbor,” Martínez said. It was south of Big Pine Key. “I’m going ashore with him.”

  It was about what McGarvey had expected. “You’re a high-value target.”

  “And you’re a gringo, so somebody has to hold your hand.”

  Ruiz laughed out loud. “I think I like crazy people better than sane people, because I feel that I’m among friends.”

  * * *

  Heading southwest, they flew at an altitude of about five hundred feet, high enough for them to see twenty-five miles in any direction, the keys an irregular necklace of lights like jewels on a black velvet backdrop. The moon had set, and in the distance they spotted the rotating beacon of an airfield.

  “That’s the airstrip at Marathon on Key Vaca,” Ruiz told them.

  They wore headsets so they wouldn’t have to shout. McGarvey and Martínez were in back, where the two middle seats had been removed, leaving space for the small inflatable boat in a bright yellow soft valise.

  About fifteen minutes later, they spotted what looked like a barrage balloon, a large Goodyear-type blimp, at a much higher altitude than they were flying, tethered on Cudjoe Key behind the harbor.

  “Fat Albert,” Ruiz explained. “Aerostat radar system. Watching for illegal traffic coming across the strait.”

  “Will it cause trouble for you when you fly back?” McGarvey asked.

  “They know who I am.”

  Just past the surveillance blimp, Ruiz banked to the southwest and headed down to fifty feet above the wave tops. The sea was fairly calm, five- to six-foot swells, and after ten minutes he eased the small plane even lower, and looking out the side windows McGarvey got the impression that they were hurtling along like a speedboat, actually leaving a wake behind them. The slightest downdraft, the least little mistake, and they would crash.

  Martínez looked at him. “Ernesto has done this before.”

  “Glad to hear it,” McGarvey said. “Now, tell me everything you know about Colonel León’s house, and who’s likely to be there.”

  Martínez gave him the general layout of what in effect was a smallish beach house once owned by the daughter of a pre-Castro sugar baron who’d sent her to Cojimar in exile for some indiscretion that no one remembered. The state had given it to María when she returned from Moscow and took up her DI duties as department chief in signals intelligence in the late 1990s. Since then, she’d put a fair amount of money into remodeling and furnishing the house and grounds, adding a west wing, the pool, and a small cabana. But all of the work had been done over a fairly long period of time, in bits and pieces, slowly, so as not to excite much interest. It didn’t do to flaunt one’s money.

  “We have people down there keeping their eyes and ears open,” Martínez said.

  McGarvey had never remembered seeing such detailed information when he was deputy director of operations or as DCI. “By we, do you mean the Company or your exiles in Miami?”

  Martínez just shrugged. “Anything important gets to Langley. Nothing is going to change the system until we can go home. Trouble is a lot of people are dying of old age, waiting for the day.”

  Ruiz had been listening to the exchange, and he glanced over his shoulder. “I won’t go back,” he said.

  “Why?” McGarvey asked.

  Apparently Martínez already knew the answer because he said nothing.

  “There’s a lot of resentment. Years of it. And when the regime finally falls, there’ll be a bloodbath in the streets. I don’t want to be a part of it, because my hands wouldn’t stay clean.”

  “Nor will mine,” Martínez said. “But wild horses couldn’t keep me from going back.”

  “Look,” Ruiz said, and McGarvey and Martínez leaned forward to see out the windshield.

  A soft glow lit the horizon slightly right of the aircraft’s nose.

  “Havana,” Ruiz said. “You might want to take the raft out of the valise—we’ll be landing in about fifteen minutes.”

  EIGHTEEN

  María sat at her desk, alone in the west wing of her house, staring at the images on the computer monitor that were relayed from Coastal Radar Station Guanabacoa and listening to the chatter on the navy’s guard channel. A small single-engine aircraft had suddenly popped up on the screen coming from the north, its image breaking up because of its proximity to the water, and the sector commander aboard the Russian-built missile patrol boat Osa II was asking for orders to blow the bastard out of the sky.

  “Stand by and observe,” the squadron’s watch officer at Station Santa Cruz del Norte radioed. “Acknowledge.”

  “Copy,” the skipper replied, though it was clear from the strain in his voice he wasn’t happy with his orders.

  Lieutenant Miguel Vera, the young commander at Santa Cruz, was intimidated by the DI, especially since María had mentioned to him that she knew of his great-uncle’s support for the Batista regime back in the late fifties. It was the same sort of power that the Stasi had wielded over the East Germans, and that de facto branch of the KGB had been one of María’s major interests of study. Information—didn’t matter if it was true or simply implied—was power.

  They’d watched for small aircraft in the Keys, looking for the one that would turn south at some point and then disappear in the surface clutter. It was exactly how she figured McGarvey would be coming to her, and she’d called Santa Cruz to keep whatever patrol vessel was in the sector to stand down.

  “Pardon me, Colonel, but what happens if the aircraft you say will be coming picks up defectors?”

  “Then you would be authorized to blow them out of the sky when they took off,”
María said. “But I believe this aircraft will be landing someone on the beach.”

  The squadron commander was impressed. “A spy?”

  “We think so, in which case, the matter belongs to the DI.”

  “What about the aircraft?”

  “You would allow it to return to the States, so that they would think their mission was a success.”

  “I see,” the young man said, even more impressed. “I’ll have a patrol vessel with night-vision capabilities standing by.”

  That was earlier this evening. Now her telephone rang, and it was Lieutenant Vera. “A single-engine civilian aircraft has just landed one hundred meters from the beach north of Cojimar.”

  “Yes, I have a feed from Guanabacoa, and I’m monitoring your radio traffic.”

  “Stand by, Colonel.”

  “Base, this is vessel two-zero-niner on station, with a sitrep.”

  “Roger, two-zero-niner, report.”

  “I’m seeing two people climbing into a small inflatable. Looks like they mean to come ashore. What are my orders?”

  “Did you get that?” Lieutenant Vera asked.

  “Yes, I’m still monitoring your radio traffic. Don’t interfere with them.”

  “Sí, Coronel.”

  “You’ve done well this evening, Lieutenant. I will not forget,” María said, and she hung up.

  Moments later, the watch officer at Santa Cruz relayed the orders to the skipper of the missile boat.

  “Once they are ashore, this becomes a matter for the DI,” the officer said.

  “What about the aircraft?”

  “Let it go.”

  As soon as the aircraft had shown up on radar heading south from Big Pine Key and then disappeared from radar, María put Ramiro Toro and Salvador Gonzáles, her two bodyguards, on standby to fetch McGarvey, if that’s who had landed. The problem was the second man. She hadn’t counted on him. Rencke was safely locked away in a small room here in the west wing, so he couldn’t cause any mischief tonight.

  She called them over from their quarters and told them what was happening. They’d been shown photographs of McGarvey. “If it’s him, bring him here. I don’t think he’ll give you any resistance.”

  “What about the second guy?” Toro asked. He was a large man by Cuban standards, over six feet, with a square jaw and mean eyes. He’d been the Cuban All Services boxing champion three years in a row not long ago, and he still had the edge. It’s why she’d picked him.

  “Kill him, and leave the body in the bush,” María said.

  “And if neither man is McGarvey?”

  “One of them will be.”

  “Sí, Coronel,” Toro said, and he and the much smaller Gonzáles, one of the DI’s better marksmen, turned and left.

  María watched the radar feed and listened to the routine radio traffic for a couple of minutes, but then went back to where Otto Rencke was being kept. She opened the door, and Rencke, who’d been lying on his small cot, opened his eyes.

  “It would appear that your friend McGarvey has arrived by small float plane a few miles from here,” she said. “We’ll begin the questioning tomorrow.”

  “The sooner, the better,” Rencke said. “I’m sure Mac has a few questions himself. And he doesn’t take to liars.”

  “Neither do I,” María said.

  She walked back to the pool, where she heard the Gazik her bodyguards used sputtering off in the night, which became still except for the sounds of the surf thirty meters down the slope on the beach.

  Retribution and salvation. It’s what her father had said to her on his deathbed, and it made no more sense to her now after questioning Rencke. McGarvey was supposed to have the answers, and her father’s unlikely source for this opinion had come from Kim Jong-il, possibly the most unstable government leader in the world.

  And she was having some serious second thoughts, even though to this point everything was going according to the plan that she and Ortega-Cowan had worked out last week. But she was terribly unsettled. There were so many things that she didn’t know or understand, especially her father’s insistence that McGarvey be enticed to come here.

  Twenty-four hours, she told herself. Forty-eight at the most, and she would have the answers, though what they might be, she hadn’t the faintest idea.

  NINETEEN

  It was nearly two by the time the small rubber raft, in black Hypalon, pulled up on the beach and McGarvey and Martínez got out. The night was quiet, this spot deserted. They could make out the silhouettes of houses a hundred yards to the east and a little closer to the west, but very few lights were on at this hour. The sky to the west was lit with the glow from Havana, but there seemed to be no life here just now.

  “Ruiz picked a good spot,” McGarvey said.

  “He knows his business,” Martínez said. “But that patrol boat out there was waiting for us, you do know that.”

  “I was counting on it,” McGarvey said. The night odors of lush vegetation mixed with the sea smells at the tide line were the same as the beaches of South Florida, except here he was sure that he smelled burning garbage, and maybe the exhaust of a diesel generator or boat somewhere into the sea breeze. Possibly the patrol vessel, though he couldn’t hear the sounds of her engines or make out the silhouette of her superstructure.

  But it did nothing to explain why the DI colonel wanted him here, though he was more certain now that they didn’t mean to assassinate him. If they’d wanted that, the patrol boat could have blown the plane out of the sky, and been well within its rights to do so. The U.S. would have had absolutely no recourse.

  “So what’s next, Mac?” Martínez asked. “The colonel’s house is less than two miles to the west, so if you want, we can get there on the beach. But she probably has security that we’d have to deal with.”

  In the very far distance, a stray bit of breeze brought the fading sound of the Beaver heading back to Florida, but then it was gone. Ruiz was safely back in international waters, something else he’d counted on. And something else that made no sense to him. The Cubans would consider Ruiz a high-value target, but they let him fly away.

  “We’re going to walk up to the highway—our ride should be along any minute now,” McGarvey said, and he started toward the line of tall sea oats and grasses that grew just above the high-water line, but Martínez stopped him.

  “I’m not coming with you,” Martínez said. “The DI wants you tonight, not me.”

  “You should have gone back with the plane.”

  “No disrespect, Mac, but I think getting you here was a hell of a lot easier than getting you out will be. So I’m going to stick around until it’s time to bail.”

  “I’ll try to get to a radio.”

  “No need,” Martínez said. “You’ll know it’s time when the shooting starts.”

  McGarvey had to smile. “It’s good to have you around.”

  McGarvey patted him on the shoulder and headed up to the sea oats, but when he looked back, Martínez had already disappeared, and except for the sounds of the surf, the night was even quieter than before.

  The narrow two-lane coast highway was less than one hundred yards from the high-tide line, and when McGarvey made it that far and stepped out onto the pavement, a pair of headlights switched on about that far to the west and slowly came his way.

  No other traffic was on the road, and as the Gazik pulled up a few feet away, McGarvey raised his hands over his head.

  Two men in civilian clothes got out of the jeep; the smaller of the two armed with what looked like a Soviet-made 5.45 mm AKR compact submachine gun remained behind as the bigger man cautiously approached.

  “Señor McGarvey, are you armed?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Please hand me your weapon, we mean you no harm this morning.”

  “Why is your partner pointing a weapon at me?”

  “Why did you bring a gun into Cuba?” Toro asked reasonably. But he seemed a little uncertain, and his eyes kep
t darting to the bush along the side of the highway.

  “I didn’t know what I might be walking into,” McGarvey said. He reached with his right hand for his pistol at the small of his back and held it out handle first to the Cuban DI officer, who took it.

  “Are you carrying anything else that might harm me?” Toro asked, making sure the Walther’s safety lever on the left side was engaged before he stuffed it into his belt.

  “No.”

  “Someone else got off the airplane and came ashore with you. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” McGarvey said. “As you can see, I’m alone.”

  “You were observed from the deck of a patrol vessel.”

  “Yes, we saw the boat. Perhaps if whoever was watching had been paying attention, he would have seen the pilot help me deploy the raft before he took off.”

  “He came ashore,” Toro said patiently. “And we’ll find him. This is our island.”

  “Maybe not for long if things keep going the way they are,” McGarvey said irritably. He was tired of screwing around. “The ball’s in your court, gentlemen. Either shoot me or take me to see Colonel León so we can find out what the hell this is all about.”

  Toro started to say something, but then stepped aside and motioned McGarvey to get in the backseat of the Gazik, and he climbed in beside him.

  * * *

  Martínez crouched in the bush just a few feet from the side of the highway, and less than twenty feet from the Gazik. McGarvey had gotten into the backseat with the larger of the two DI officers.

  He almost laughed out loud. Either the two guys were the dumbest security people in the business or they had no real idea whom they were dealing with. It would be like taking candy from babies for Mac to disarm and disable the two men—kill them, if need be—and make his way to the colonel’s house, disable or kill her, rescue Otto, and wait on the beach for Ruiz to fly back and pick them up. They could all be back in Key Largo in time for breakfast and Bloody Marys.

  But that’s not why they’d come down here, and Martínez was just as curious as McGarvey was to find out what this was all about. But in the meantime, he had a bit of work to do himself.