The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02]

by David L. Robbins

  “How better to rule a people?” Johan asked. “Why allow them to prosper? Best to keep them dependant, corrupt, and servants.”

  “And ignorant. The illiteracy rate in Cuba was forty percent.”

  There was more Lammeck could have told, that the American Mafia operated ninety percent of the casinos in Cuba, how at one point there was not a single major hotel in Havana that did not have underworld owners. All of this with the knowing wink of the American government. By 1959, the poorest forty percent of Cubans earned only six and a half percent of the island’s income. The United States owned ninety percent of Cuba’s telephone and electric utilities. Then, in Eisenhower’s last term, Fidel showed America the door.

  “All that,” Johan said deliberately, “is the stage Fidel stepped onto.”

  Lammeck got the sense that Johan was weighing him, to see what kind of American he was at his core. Did Lammeck lament these things, or approve? Or was he what he claimed to be, simply an academic keen on history’s trail?

  “And that,” he said, setting down the glass, “is why Fidel has to die.”

  Johan narrowed his eyes.

  “Be careful how you phrase these things with me, Professor.”

  “You asked me to tell you specifically, Johan. That’s what I’m doing.”

  Coolly, the policeman said, “Proceed.” Then, mercurial, Johan smiled again. “I apologize. It is a professional instinct of mine to view such statements with... distaste.”

  “I understand. And you understand, Captain, I’m just an observer.”

  “Please,” Johan said, “continue.”

  “The real problem is that these conditions, poverty, illiteracy, trade imbalances, colonial histories, racial tensions, all of them exist right now throughout the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. If a Communist revolution can happen in Cuba, it can happen in any of those places.”

  “Yes, I know this. But why can’t the United States negotiate with Fidel? Why not engage with him, win him over? Buy him off? Anything but murder.”

  “Here’s the key.” Lammeck leaned his elbows onto the table for emphasis. Johan remained motionless.

  “Your young Fidel Castro conducted the first and the only Communist revolution in the last thirty years that was not supported by either China or Russia. It was indigenous, Johan. Completely homegrown. Not one Soviet tank, not one peso from Mao. That scares Washington. Because it proves that someone very dangerous might’ve been right.”

  “Who?”

  “Karl Marx.”

  “I see.”

  “Right now, Khrushchev’s doing backflips over Fidel, the new poster boy for world Communism. And like I said, there’s nothing to stop this revolution from inciting others in the Western Hemisphere.”

  “The American hemisphere.”

  “Some like to call it that, yes.”

  Johan bobbed his head up and down, calculating, seeing all the connections.

  “The invasion,” Lammeck said.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You said you’d tell me how you know.”

  “Professor, it is an open secret. There is so much rumor in Miami, so much in the American press, that our biggest problem is sifting through it all for truth. But now I see how obvious it is. All this recent activity to kill Fidel. It is a signal that the rebel landing will be soon. The invasion is inevitable. The two surely go hand in hand.”

  Johan stabbed a finger at Lammeck. “You are an American. Do you feel it is necessary to kill Fidel, to save America?”

  Lammeck measured his answer, and the man he would give it to. Lammeck was an historian. He did not delve into what ought to happen, only what had and what might. But, as an American, he believed the menace of Communism was real. Revolution could spread. Fidel, the reformer, could be the match to the tinder. Karl Marx predicted this, that Communism would be the “engine of history.” Marx actually predicted Fidel. The CIA was right to remove Castro. Lammeck knew this because it was his own conclusion.

  “Frankly, Captain, I can discuss both sides of the ethics of assassination. History hasn’t made up her mind, yet.”

  “I will let you go without answering. I see it makes you uncomfortable. Let us agree that we both wish it were not so. We will talk about it another time, perhaps when events have helped clarify your thinking.”

  The waiter came to clear the plates. Johan fixed his eyes on Lammeck, a wince of approval furrowing his brow.

  “You see all this in an historical context, Professor. The many elements and currents, across centuries in both directions. Though I find everything you’ve said very disturbing, all the more so because it is believable. Tell me one last thing.”

  “If I can.”

  “Why Cuba? There are many revolutions going on in the world right now. Many places are teetering between Communism and democracy. In Africa, Asia, Central America. What made you center your research on my country?”

  “The central question, Johan. What creates history? Men or events.”

  “You believe Fidel is the answer?”

  “I think Castro might be that rare individual who’s truly indispensable to history. For four hundred and fifty years, this place needed a revolt. Martí got close, but he couldn’t make one. Cuba waited a long time for Fidel. Not Che, Raul, or Cienfuegos, none of them, could have pulled this off. Only him. If Fidel’s assassinated, I’ll have the best chance of my career to watch what history will do afterward. Continue in a straight line? Or veer off?”

  “Please tell me you are not hoping for this to happen.”

  “I’m not, Captain. I’m waiting.”

  “But doesn’t the United States understand? Che and Raul, those two are next in line. They are both far more militant than Fidel.”

  “Fidel’s the personality. He’s the one with history’s kiss on his cheek.”

  “So, Professor.” Johan rubbed his hand over his chin. “What is your guess? What will happen to history’s kiss if—or as you expect, when—Fidel is assassinated?”

  “The revolution ends.”

  “And with it, the danger to America.”

  “You’ve got to figure that’s what they’re thinking up in Washington. If he’s left alive, even if the invasion succeeds, I’m betting he’ll be back. If not in Cuba, then in Haiti, Nicaragua, Africa, somewhere else that needs a revolution.”

  “So one man can indeed change history, yes?”

  “We’ll see. The CIA believes it. That’s why they’re after him. And I suspect it. That’s why I’m here.”

  Johan ordered two cafés con leche and cognacs. He pulled from his coat pocket a pair of Partagas cigars. Lammeck took one and accepted the flame from Johan’s Zippo.

  The policeman sat back with his glowing stogie. “Who knows who may make history?” He looked troubled, but blew a satisfied cloud of smoke above the table. “Perhaps it will be two lonely old men. You and I, eh?”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  March 20

  First Avenue

  Miramar

  Havana

  LAMMECK DROPPED HIS BRIEFCASE on a table beside the front door. He peeled off his shoes and socks and headed for the kitchen. Along the way, he shed his jacket, tossed it over the sofa, and untucked his white shirt.

  After pouring himself a glass of water, he grabbed a slab of sliced pork from the refrigerator. Popping it in his mouth, he walked to the rear porch, carrying the meat in his teeth like a dog. Lammeck’s eyes were exhausted, he’d been cooped inside the archives for seven hours without lunch or fresh air. He wanted to sit on his porch, close his eyes, let the late afternoon breeze blow over him. This was one of the compensations of age, he thought, to know what you want and go directly at it. He bit a chunk out of the pork and chewed, leaving the rest of it hanging from his lips. Lammeck was aware that he looked unsavory. He considered this another reward of age and living alone.

  He pushed open the back door. On his wicker lounger lay a newspaper. On top of
it rested an unopened bottle of dark rum. The siete. Lammeck put down his water glass, removed the paper and bottle from the seat, and collapsed into the chair, tired to his bones.

  The paper was the New York Times, three days old. It had been folded to page three, where an article declared that an invasion of Cuba was imminent in the next few weeks.

  Johan.

  Before reading the article, Lammeck wolfed down the rest of the pork. Dumping the water into the yard, he peeled the label from the rum cap, unscrewed it, and poured a glass. He gulped the liquor, relishing the sizzle at the back of his throat. He was out of cigars but did not want one, only a relaxing shot of rum in his blood and his feet up in the Caribbean breeze.

  The ocean ran mild. The Malecón would not be flooded this evening. Lammeck decided to stay in tonight, forage in the fridge, go to bed early. His head was full. He committed himself to reading nothing for the rest of the night after he looked over the paper Johan had slipped onto his back porch. He intended to sit here until hunger drove him from the chair, then return for the sunset and most of this bottle. Lammeck made up his mind to pass out drunk on the porch.

  The slender Times article was neither a revelation nor a scoop. It was speculation, based on some rumor, some fact. Fifteen hundred Cuban exiles were known to be training in Guatemala and at secret sites around south Florida and Louisiana. The Kennedy administration was ramping up its anti-Communist rhetoric. Kennedy called meeting after meeting with his military staff, CIA, and political advisers over the “Cuba problem.” Fidel himself warned daily against an invasion from the American-backed exiles, whom he called gusanos—worms. Lammeck had heard this at two more speeches over the past week. Fidel’s ability to lecture at immense length, without notes, beggared description. Lammeck would never have believed a man could go on for so long, keep crowds of thousands thundering over his words for hours. Fidel Castro was remarkable. Every day that Lammeck read about him, or saw him, spoke with Johan about him, he became even more convinced that Fidel was indeed the anomaly that Lammeck believed him to be, the one in a million who, alone, could change history—and as such, was absolutely marked for death.

  In the last week, Lammeck had switched his research at the archives from the economics of the island to recent Cuban history. He focused on sources not available to him in American libraries or press: the Communist newspaper Granma, and eyewitness tales from the barbudos, the bearded ones who’d been guerrillas in the mountains with Fidel. In every instance the accounts spoke of Castro’s extraordinary magnetism, his unbending persuasiveness. No other man, Lammeck thought, no one in his right mind would have sailed from Mexico with eighty-two others, not a one of them with military experience, to conquer a nation. After a disastrous landing, Castro’s cadre was quickly whittled down by Batista’s troops and bad luck to a dozen men. He endured two years in the mountains, hunted by the government, short of food and supplies, through swamps and jungle, recruiting an army of illiterates and cane cutters. And won a nation. What other revolutionary of the twentieth century had taken such risks? Lenin had waited out the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the safety of Zurich. Stalin held up banks and trains, then spent time in Siberian jails, serving only as a military administrator during the Russian Civil War. Mao controlled vast armies against the Kuomintang and the Japanese, but never suffered privations or danger. Yugoslavia’s Tito led troops from a safe headquarters and enjoyed American and British protection. Ho Chi Minh was imprisoned and did not lead soldiers against the French. Khrushchev had not fought in World War II, he’d been only a commissar. Hitler screamed in beer halls while confederates brawled and slit throats for him. Castro had slept with a rifle barrel tucked under his chin in case he was caught in the night.

  Every day the people of Cuba saw Fidel in his fatigues. He reminded them of the struggle, that he was a true guerrillero. Judging from the endless rallies, the people loved him.

  Lammeck didn’t make it out of the chair. He watched the sky darken above the straits. He felt the breeze scour away the closed-in sensation of his day spent in the dusty stacks of the archives.

  He made it through a quarter of Johan’s rum and half the New York Times before he got his wish and fell asleep, barefoot.

  ~ * ~

  Lammeck’s hand flashed to the small of his back. He jerked erect on the wicker chair, planting his feet, ready to jump. His eyes cut into the darkness for the rustle of someone unannounced on his porch.

  “Whoa, whoa.” A silhouette spoke, hands up in surrender. “Easy, Professor.”

  Lammeck’s head pulsed from the sudden waking and the remnants of rum in his system. He kept fingertips on the hilt of the knife, sliding it partway out of the sheath.

  “Who are you?”

  The man kept his palms up. He took a step forward, still little more than a black figure. “I’m with the government. Your government. The United States.”

  Lammeck blinked and snorted once, to shake off the last of his sleepiness.

  “What are you doing on my back porch?”

  “I knocked, pal. Nobody answered.”

  With his vision clearing, Lammeck could make out enough to see that the slowly approaching intruder was broad shouldered, with a flattop crew cut. He was dressed like a Cuban in guayabera and loose pants. Lammeck didn’t pull his hand from the dagger.

  The stranger took another stride. He lowered one hand to point at Lammeck’s arm, still angled behind his back.

  “You can take your hand off the pig sticker, Professor. My name’s Bud Calendar. I’m with the CIA.”

  “Does CIA recommend you walk up on people in the dark on their own property? There are rules, Mr. Calendar, even for your sort.” Lammeck continued to grip the blade.

  The agent pushed open the screen door to the back of the house. He stepped inside and found a lamp to flick on. He returned to the porch washed in sallow light. Lammeck saw better now what a brute his government had sent him. He’d be more than a handful in a fight.

  “Rules?” Calendar eased into the other wicker seat. “No. There’s not.”

  Calendar jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the interior of the house. “You want a cup of coffee or something?”

  “I’m fine.” Lammeck noticed the open rum bottle and the empty glass on the table beside him. He felt a bolt of embarrassment at what he must look like, some sorry aging alcoholic conked out in a chair.

  “Good. How about making me one, then?”

  Lammeck released a long breath. He let go of the knife and rose from the chair. Calendar stayed on the porch when he went into the kitchen. They spoke through the screen door while Lammeck filled the percolator with water and ground beans.

  “What branch of CIA are you with?”

  “Special Operations Division. Out of Quarters Eye.”

  Lammeck pursed his lips, setting the coffeepot on a burner. He wondered at all the sudden attention he’d gotten in the past week. The Cuban secret police sent him an emissary. Now the CIA had sent one.

  He went to the screen door while the water boiled. He caught Calendar finishing a swig of rum from the bottle.

  “I can get you a glass.”

  “Nah.” The big agent waved off the suggestion. “Coffee’s good. Black.”

  Calendar set the bottle aside without screwing on the cap. Lammeck eyed the man a moment longer, comparing him to Johan. Both were sizeable and exuded real power. But Johan seemed to possess a respect for boundaries this one did not.

  Lammeck poured two cups, accepting that he could use some coffee. On the porch, he handed down the hot mug and sat opposite the CIA man. He watched Calendar sip and nod at the quality of the coffee. The night breeze had stiffened a little. Lammeck took a sip from his own cup in the yellow light of the one lamp inside.

  “You mind?” Calendar indicated the siete. He tipped a splash into his cup, then offered the same to Lammeck, who held forth his mug. The rum agreed with the coffee. Sitting, drinking, Bud Calendar seemed no less threatening than
he did the first inky moment Lammeck saw him in shadow. He had the brow and skewed nose of a pugilist, his hands were thick and indelicate on the coffee mug.

  “Why’re you here, Mr. Calendar? Have I done something to attract the CIA’s attention?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I’m in Cuba on a research visa. I can show you the stamp in my passport.”

  “That ain’t it.”