Castro's Daughter

by David Hagberg

  The DCI gave Louise a chaste hug and a peck on the cheek. “I’m so glad to see that you survived your ordeal. No worse for the wear, I hope?”

  “No, sir. None whatsoever.”

  “I understand that your daughter is doing just fine at the Farm.”

  “That she is.”

  “Terrible business, involving an officer’s family,” Page said, and he directed them to sit down.

  A staffer came in and poured everyone coffee from a silver server and then left.

  “I thought that it would be more productive if we just had a little chat this morning to try to get to the bottom of this incident,” Page said. “Rather than submit you to a formal debriefing.”

  “The FBI wants to talk to me,” Louise said. “It’s the no-ransom thing that’s driving them crazy. And I’m sure that Joyce Kilburn’s husband is wanting some answers.”

  “She was the unfortunate woman shot to death at the day care center,” Patterson explained.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Page said. “To find out what just happened and why, so that we can give the Bureau something to work on.”

  “The kidnappers were DI operatives here from Havana, either through New York or Miami,” Otto said. “And by now, they’re back in Cuba. Untouchable. You can count on it.”

  “Well, what the hell was this all about?” Bambridge demanded. “We’re sitting on the edge of our seats here. I mean, one innocent civilian shot to death in Georgetown, and we have no earthly idea yet how many casualties it took to get the two of you home. Martínez won’t tell us a thing. He claims to have his hands full in Miami, making sure the pot doesn’t boil over.”

  “It might without him,” McGarvey said. “Leave him alone and he’ll manage, because it’s probably not over with yet.”

  Bambridge started to say something, but Page motioned him back.

  “I think we’re agreed that the reason Louise was kidnapped was to force Otto to fly to Cuba, where he was taken, which action precipitated Kirk to become involved,” Patterson said. “And from what we’ve learned so far, the operation was ordered by a colonel in the DI’s Directorate of Operations, María León, apparently an illegitimate child of Fidel Castro. And I think it’s a fair assumption to guess that all of this had something to do with Fidel’s death. Perhaps something he asked his daughter to do for him. A deathbed wish, because we’re told that she was the only one with him when he died.”

  “That was exactly what it was,” McGarvey said. “He apparently told her that Kim Jong-il recommended me. Suggested that if Fidel ever found himself in a situation that even as supreme commander of Cuba he could not resolve, he was to ask for my help.”

  “Extraordinary,” Patterson said. Very few people outside the Operations and Intelligence Directorates knew anything about the operation McGarvey had been on last year, in which he had been of some service to the North Korean leader, but the CIA’s general counsel was one of them.

  Two police officers in Pyongyang had been assassinated, apparently by a high-ranking Chinese intelligence officer, and China was ready to start a war with North Korea. Kim Jong-il had threatened to launch his nuclear weapons if the Chinese moved against his regime.

  North Korean intelligence had contacted McGarvey, and he’d agreed to look into what became, to this point at least, one of the most intense endeavors of his life.

  “Fidel was on his deathbed—what did he want you to do?” Bambridge asked.

  “Cuba’s salvation, he supposedly told his daughter.”

  “Salvation from what?”

  “She didn’t know, but she hoped I did, because Fidel told her to contact me. Which she did the only way she knew how, because I’d gone to ground in Greece. But she figured Otto knew, which was actually a pretty astute guess, so she targeted him by grabbing Louise.”

  “Which was a big mistake,” Louise said with some satisfaction, and her remark hung on the air for a long moment.

  “You met her face-to-face,” Bambridge said. “What did you tell her?”

  “That I didn’t know what her father was talking about. But my guess was that he might have been talking about his country’s salvation from the Soviet economic model that he’d finally admitted wasn’t working, and never would. Five hundred thousand of the government’s labor force thrown into the private sector has pushed the country into an economic crisis at least as big as Germany’s at the end of WWI.”

  “That’s it?” Bambridge pressed. “After killing an innocent bystander here in Washington and ultimately causing the deaths of however many people who came to your rescue, you’re sitting there telling us that the woman was merely going on a fishing expedition?”

  “Something like that,” McGarvey said. “But I wasn’t in control of the situation. She initiated it.”

  “Couldn’t have pleased her, your knowing nothing to help,” Patterson suggested.

  “She threatened to kill us both,” Otto said. “She just never had the chance, ya know.”

  “Extraordinary,” Patterson repeated himself. “Is the woman insane, in your estimation?”

  “Almost certainly,” McGarvey said.

  “How should we respond?” Page asked.

  “We shouldn’t.”

  Bambridge looked from Page to McGarvey and back, clearly frustrated just about beyond control. “That’s it?”

  “What would you have us do, Marty?” Page asked.

  “For one thing, if she’s as nuts as McGarvey thinks she is, we need to expand our presence in Miami. And have the Coast Guard step up its patrols in the strait, maybe send a navy destroyer on an unannounced visit to Gitmo.”

  “Something like that would be viewed as provocative,” Patterson said.

  “What are they going to do about it,” Bambridge practically shouted.

  “We’re not suggesting anything quite so drastic just yet,” Page said. “What’s our operational status on the ground in Havana?”

  Bambridge calmed down a little. “We have three assets at the moment: a mechanic at the air regiment in Playa Baracoa; a writer for the political magazine Carteles, which was reactivated a couple of years ago, when Raúl began relaxing the state’s restrictions on the media; and an old couple who run a little privately owned restaurant near the waterfront. They go back to the revolution as kids, and they apparently know just about everybody.”

  “Have them keep their eyes and ears open, but stay out of it,” McGarvey said. “We’re not done with Colonel León.”

  Bambridge glared at him. “You meant to say that you’re not done, right?”

  “Something like that,” McGarvey said.

  “Are you going to tell us?”

  “Not yet.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  María changed into a print dress and flats around noon and left her office, where she had stayed last night to drive directly over to one of the DI’s safe houses, this one on the Avenue Antonio Maceo, commonly known as the Malecón, right on the bay. It was actually a large, nicely furnished apartment in a foreigner’s building that was sometimes used on a temporary basis to house visiting VIPs. The entire place was wired, and a listening post had been installed in the attic. She was in civilian clothes so as not to attract any attention.

  She was the only one using the apartment now, and she’d made sure that the listening post was not manned before she tossed down her shoulder bag, poured a stiff measure of rum, which she drank down in one piece, then poured a second and went to the French doors that opened to a small balcony.

  After her meeting with the president, she needed time to think out her next moves. Away from the office. Away from the prying eyes of her staff, and especially from Ortega-Cowan, who’d reported to the OD that he would be in sometime after lunch.

  Her problem as she saw it was twofold. She wanted to find out about this gold business that Rencke had brought up and that she’d found mentioned in several places from what she’d read so far in her father’s journals. On his deathbed, he’d asked that
she talk to McGarvey for Cuba’s salvation. But if it were that simple—that her father meant for her to ask McGarvey to help find the gold and make sure that Cuba somehow got its fair share—then her father had been crazy at the last. Perhaps dementia or some form of Alzheimer’s, because even if there was some fortune in Spanish gold buried somewhere in Mexico or the Southern United States, a man like McGarvey would never consent to find it and make sure the Cuban government got a percentage of it. That was beyond fantasy.

  The second and most urgent part of her problem was Fuentes, who was making a run at bringing her down, no doubt with Ortega-Cowan’s help. Her chief of staff had always played both ends against the middle. Forcing McGarvey down here with his help—the only way it had been possible for her to do so—had left her wide open. Raúl had all but hinted at a charge of treason, which could very well stick without her father’s protection.

  Traffic was fairly heavy, and the neighborhood stank of car exhaust even with the light breeze coming off the water. All of Havana smelled that way, and most of the time, neither she nor anyone else living here noticed. It was simply a fact of life. But she had become hypersensitive in the past few days; she was noticing just about everything.

  Situational awareness, her Russian trainers had drilled her. Without it, the field agent is as good as dead.

  The two problems—that of the gold and that of Fuentes—were linked, of course. But in order to save herself possibly from jail or a firing squad, she would somehow have to actually find the gold, and then turn the problem over to her government. Whether or not diplomacy—perhaps at the UN or even in the World Court at The Hague—would result in Cuba’s improbable claim being honored would not be her problem. No matter what, she would come out on top: the hero who’d made efforts above and beyond the call of duty for her government.

  She could see the smug look on McGarvey’s face, and on Rencke’s, and it infuriated her. They were arrogant, self-assured men who’d actually pitied her and her country. Rencke had told her that he could hack into Cuba’s computer infrastructure any time he wanted to, but that it wasn’t worth the effort. She wanted to show them that she was just as good as they were.

  But in order to find the gold, or prove that it was nothing but another dream of Cíbola, she would need to remain free to operate. Starting right now, before her situation here became impossible.

  After draining the second drink, she left the apartment and went back to her office, where Ortega-Cowan hadn’t yet returned.

  From her private wall safe, she got a stack of euros and American dollars amounting to ten thousand U.S.; an ID kit, which included a Mexican passport, driving license, and several credit cards in the name of Ines Delgado; along with a cell phone in the same name—all of which she stuffed into her purse. But she left her Russian-made compact 5.45 mm PSM semiautomatic. If she got into a situation in which she had to shoot her way clear, she would already have lost. And taking a weapon across international borders was all but impossible, except for a sky marshal or someone carrying a diplomatic passport.

  She had a Cuban passport, too, along with several others—for Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and even Spain. But for now, she needed to go deep. Out of sight. Under the DI’s radar.

  She’d gathered all the paperwork and other things over the past several years in part because of her Russian adviser, who’d cautioned her to always maintain the means for an escape. It was a cynical thing for him to have told her, but Russia had become a cynical place, as had Cuba. And she’d also followed his advice because in her estimation, just about every high-ranking official in the Cuban government, including her father, was, deeply paranoid. And paranoid people could be counted on to do the unexpected at any moment, especially turning on an insider who they perceived was anything less than absolutely loyal.

  She’d told herself that actually, she was practicing sound tradecraft by maintaining alternate identities in case she had to go into the field.

  Oretga-Cowan was just getting off the elevator at the end of the corridor to the right, in deep conversation with a pretty young woman who was one of the Directorate’s researchers, as María grabbed her fatigue uniform and boots and stepped out of her office. Before he had a chance to look up, she turned the other way and disappeared around the corner and down the stairs to the ground floor.

  Someone would mention to him that the colonel had been in her office, but suddenly left again. He was smart; he would begin to sense that something was wrong. And when she hadn’t returned for her meeting with Fuentes, he might suspect that she had skipped.

  And she was going to lead him to exactly that conclusion.

  Back at the safe house, she telephoned Cubana de Aviación, booking a round-trip first-class seat for the morning flight to Mexico City, using the Delgado credit card. Flight 130 left at six thirty, which meant she had to be at the airport no later than five. Which would be easily doable.

  Ten minutes later, making absolutely certain that no one had followed her, she left the safe house again and drove over to La Maison, which was a mini complex of upscale shops in an old mansion in Miramar, where she picked up a skirt and white blouse, along with a Hermès knockoff scarf, a pair of faded jeans, decent sneakers, and a few bangles. At another shop, she purchased a nice leather overnight bag and a pair of big glitzy sunglasses with rhinestones, and at a third, some panties and bras.

  Her bag would be searched at the airport, and those sorts of items would be expected. Without them, questions might be raised, among them: How could a woman make a trip from Havana to Mexico City without at least a change of underwear?

  Once again back at the safe house, still hopeful that Ortega-Cowan hadn’t jumped the gun and sent someone looking for her, she changed back into her fatigue uniform and packed her civilian clothes into the bag, including the things she’d just purchased, along with one of the courtesy toiletries kits from the bathroom.

  It was nearly three by the time she left the apartment and drove out to the air regiment at Playa Baracoa, where she presented herself to Lieutenant Abeladro, the on-duty operations officer who jumped up from behind his desk and came to attention.

  “I need to get to Camagüey in a big hurry,” she said. “Do you have any training flights scheduled for this afternoon?”

  “No, Señora Coronel. As you can see, it is quiet here today.”

  “Well, schedule one—I’m not going to wait all day. Your pilot is to drop me off and return in twenty-four hours.”

  “My captain is off base at the moment, but I think I can find him,” the nervous lieutenant said, and he reached for the telephone. The only other person in the room that looked out toward the active runway was a clerk typist, who suddenly began typing furiously on an old IBM Selectric.

  “This is official DI business, so the need to know is limited. Do you understand?”

  The lieutenant wanted to say no, but he nodded. “I’ll have to log the flight.”

  “Routine training mission on my personal request,” María said. “I’ll sign the flight orders. Now, get on with it, Lieutenant.”

  María went outside to wait by her car and smoke a small panatela. Timing was everything. She needed to be on the ground and lost as Ines Delgado in Camagüey before Román sat up and took notice that something was wrong. That gave her a little more than two hours before she was supposed to be back in her office to meet with Fuentes.

  It might take him a half hour or so to find out that she had cleared out of the safe house apartment, and maybe that much longer to find out where she’d flown to, but by then, she would have dropped out of sight. And in less than eighteen hours, she would be even more lost in Mexico City, from where she would launch her search.

  A dark gray Gazik came from a small hangar across the field and drove directly to a much larger hangar, the main doors of which were trundling open, and disappeared inside.

  María was just grinding out her cigar when the lieutenant came out and had her sign the flight order on a clipboar
d. “If you’ll give me just a moment, Colonel, I’ll drive you over to the ready hangar.”

  “I’ll drive myself. I want to leave my car overnight.”

  “Sí, Señora,” the lieutenant said, and he came to attention and saluted.

  After he went back inside, María drove over to the hangar and parked out of the way of the small Czech-made Aero L-39C Albatros that a ground crew was prepping for flight. The aircraft was a two-seat trainer/fighter jet that could do well in excess of five hundred knots. Once they were up, flying time to Camagüey—which was only a little more than 550 kilometers to the southeast—would be about one hour.

  The young pilot, whose name tape read MACHADO, looked up when she walked over with her shoulder purse and the leather overnight bag. He came to attention and saluted.

  “Pardon me, Señora Coronel, but you should be dressed in a flight suit.”

  “Not today,” María said. “I need you to get me to Camagüey as quickly as possible. So let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  The pilot seemed uncertain, but he was a young lieutenant and she was a colonel. One of the flight crewmen helped her up the ladder and strapped her in the rear seat. He handed her the purse and leather bag, which she put on her lap, making for cramped seating, but there were no storage compartments in the jet. Finally, he helped her with the flight helmet, which he plugged into a panel at her left.

  The pilot checked that she was properly strapped in before he climbed aboard, and within minutes, a towing tractor had pulled them out of the hangar, the engine was started, and they taxied down to the active runway.

  “Are you ready, Señora Coronel?” his voice came over her helmet comms unit.

  “Sí,” María said, and suddenly they were hurtling down the runway and lifting off, the city of Havana spreading out behind them, the waters of the Straits of Florida impossibly blue.

  * * *