The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02]

by David L. Robbins

  Or... the other way around. Did Calendar expect the boy to find him?

  Lammeck fixed his eyes on the roofline of the empty El Capitolio a third of a mile away. The building was eerily similar to the U.S. Capitol, just as Johan had described it.

  This would catch Alek’s eye, too.

  America was what Calendar held over the boy’s head. Alek wanted desperately to go home, so much so that he would risk his life, become a killer, and hide it all from his fiancée.

  Alek needed to stay out of sight, until one o’clock tomorrow.

  Lammeck leaned away from the trunk of the palm tree.

  Facing El Capitolio, he waved his bandaged hand high over his head, certain the boy was watching.

  Like the crack of a whip, the air around Lammeck split open. Before he could blink, instinct drove him to the ground; adrenaline exploded in his chest. Lammeck scrambled to cover behind the tree. He pressed himself against the trunk’s width.

  He checked himself, knowing how panic could repress pain for seconds, a fatal wound could be a surprise. He found no blood. No tears in his clothing. He drew a breath, put his back against the palm tree. The gash in his right hand drummed from the sudden surge in his pulse.

  Lammeck looked around. The carpenters on the platform had all stopped to gape at him ducking behind the tree. On Prado, cars flowed past, but people on the sidewalk had halted in midstride to stare at him on the ground, patting his pants and guayabera for holes. Across the street at the Inglaterra, Gustavo and his patrons peered curiously. All of them would have heard the supersonic snap of the bullet, perhaps without recognizing what it was. None gazed anywhere but at Lammeck.

  He stood, keeping behind the palm trunk for several more seconds to compose himself. Then he rounded the tree, ignoring those people on the street who probably believed he was just some hypersensitive fool who jumped at a car’s backfiring. Lammeck turned to the tree. He put his left index finger into the .308 bullet hole punched only ten inches above the top of his head. He knew that Alek was good enough, fast enough, the Winchester zeroed to precision at this distance, that if the boy wanted Lammeck dead, he would be.

  He turned back to El Capitolio in the distance. He held his hands away from his sides, to signal to the boy: Why?

  Standing like this, Lammeck projected himself again beside Alek on the roof of the capitol. He saw his own rotund figure through the Weaver’s crosshairs, watched himself stretch out his arms. His chest itched with the invisible reticle he knew was stitched right now across his torso. Alek watched him closely. His finger lay off the trigger; he’d need to replace the busted bleach bottle at the end of the barrel before he could safely fire again. But he won’t shoot, not yet. He doesn’t want to kill Lammeck. He’s trying to warn him.

  What’s he saying?

  Don’t follow me.

  Why?

  Lammeck glanced around. The carpenters had bent back to their chores, the folks on the sidewalks resumed their strolls. Gustavo at the Inglaterra set down the plates of food he’d held in midair.

  Lammeck took a stride toward El Capitolio.

  Alek sees him coming. With swift hands, he strips the plastic bottle off the barrel and tapes on another. He finds Lammeck again through the Weaver. This time he fingers the trigger.

  The boy likes Lammeck. Looking for the duffel bag, he rifled through Lammeck’s house with as much restraint as he could muster.

  That was why Alek cut off conversations when they were shooting in the cane field and in the car. He didn’t want to get to know the old man too well. In case he had to kill him.

  Promise you won’t try to stop me.

  Lammeck had been warned once. He wouldn’t be again.

  Lammeck stopped walking.

  Bud Calendar. He felt the agent’s hand on this like a chokehold.

  Motionless, still sensing the crosshairs painted over his breast, Lammeck calculated. Calendar’s voice played in his head: The kid’s just doing the job I gave him. What did that mean? That Calendar had sent Lammeck after Alek, knowing the boy had instructions not to be stopped? Did Calendar actually set Lammeck up to be murdered?

  Again the question; like a maypole, everything revolved around it: Why? Nothing made sense. What would Lammeck’s death at Alek’s hands accomplish for Calendar and the CIA?

  Maybe Lammeck was overthinking this. Alek was just scared and reacted, yes? Lammeck shook this notion off. The boy’s warning shot had been dead center into the tree trunk. It was coolly done. Alek had followed Lammeck through the scope the whole time he was in the park. The boy knew Lammeck would come. The instant Lammeck waved, telling him I know where you are, he’d fired.

  Lammeck nodded, certain the boy saw the gesture. Alek wasn’t afraid, not a bit. He was determined, and he was deadly.

  Lammeck took a step backward. This signaled to the boy: Take your finger off the trigger. I’m not coming.

  What now? Lammeck couldn’t advance. The boy might shoot and choose not to miss. If he didn’t fire on Lammeck, he’d just disappear from El Capitolio’s roof before Lammeck could reach him. Lammeck would have no chance to find him, not before tomorrow at one o’clock. The boy could relocate in any of the other buildings around the park with a clear path to the reviewing stand. Calendar knew this. What was the agent’s gambit?

  What if Lammeck simply took a taxi back to Miramar and waited events out? Alek would gun down Castro. The CIA didn’t want that. Or did they? Lammeck had no idea at this point. He was certain only of two things: that he’d been sent into harm’s way without knowing the reason, and that Calendar would take a vengeful view of Lammeck’s failure. The rest was confusion and guesses.

  His thoughts jumped to Rina. What was she angling for? Why did she really send Lammeck to the meeting between Alek and Heitor? What did she want Alek to do? Kill Castro? Or come back to her, as she claimed? Did she want Lammeck dead, too? Nothing added up. But now that a bullet from her fiancé had passed so close to his head, Lammeck was much keener to know Russian Rina’s role in the mystery.

  He gazed south down Prado, over the tops of traffic, trees, hundreds of unwitting Cubans, to the deserted capitol. At that moment, Alek was surely fixed on Lammeck’s magnified image. Both men, old and young, gazed and wondered at the other’s next move.

  Lammeck focused in on Alek as tightly as the boy must be on him. What was the boy thinking right now?

  Was he concerned that Lammeck would turn him in to the police? No. He had no reason to think that. Lammeck had Heitor’s assassination plan; if he was going to betray the mission and come for Alek in force, he wouldn’t be standing here alone and unprotected. Besides, how could Lammeck turn the boy in without incriminating himself?

  Why was Lammeck here in the first place, instead of Calendar? Did Alek sense betrayal by the agent, the same way Lammeck had? That’s why he fired high. Alek won’t play along, not unless Lammeck pushes him to it.

  Will the boy sleep on the capitol’s roof tonight, since Lammeck knew where he was? No. Alek still had the Cuban’s pistol. Lammeck recalled the flinty look on the boy’s face this morning in Heitor’s back room, again in the alley ready to square off against the pursuing soldier. Alek would use the sidearm to defend himself. So he would leave, spend the night in a hotel, and avoid a confrontation. He’d find another sniper’s nest before sunup. He had the money he’d grabbed from the Nacional along with his passport.

  In that instant, with the speed of the bullet that had slammed into the tree, Lammeck was struck by a new question. It staggered him into another backward step.

  The answer was just a detail, harmless and small. But it might finally begin to unravel the web tightening around him.

  He raised both palms, flattening them to Alek’s eye. He pushed his open hands slowly downward, indicating: Stay calm, son.

  He had to leave Alek for now. Lammeck stepped into Prado, and hailed a taxi.

  ~ * ~

  She answered the phone on the first ring.

  “Do
n’t move,” Lammeck told Rina, forgetting for the moment to speak to her in Russian. “I’ll be right up. What room?”

  “Six twelve.”

  He pushed inside the room even before the girl could swing the door fully open. She staggered backward slightly. Lammeck shoved the door shut behind him.

  He switched to Russian. “Is this room bugged?”

  “No.”

  “You checked?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what?” Lammeck said, striding to the center of the room. “I don’t care if it is. If somebody’s listening in, I want them here. Now.”

  “No one is listening, Mikhal.”

  The view from the room’s picture window caught his eye. The long ribbon of the Malecón lay dry this afternoon. The Florida Straits shone blue as an opal. A mile and a half east from the hotel, old Havana rose craggy and sunny. Lammeck moved closer to the window. There, in the heart of the city, rose the dome of El Capitolio.

  “You would know if they were, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Rina sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Yes.”

  Lammeck turned to her.

  “You are upset,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I found Alek.”

  The girl jerked on the mattress. She kept herself from rising off it in excitement. “Where is he?”

  “He’s exactly where he thinks he’s supposed to be. But I’m not going to tell you.”

  Rina opened her mouth to object. Lammeck cut her off.

  “He shot at me.”

  “Oh my God—”

  “Why would he shoot me, Rina?”

  She stared at Lammeck. “I don’t know.”

  Lammeck glanced around the room, angry. The wound in his hand ached. He felt the impulse to snatch a lamp off a table and smash it. Or to unsheathe the blade at his back.

  “Yes, you do know. You’re CIA.”

  Again the girl shook her head. Her eyes had calmed. “No. I am not.”

  “When are you going to get tired of lying to me?”

  “Mikhal, believe me. I am not CIA. What I am will make no difference in our situation.”

  “Fine. If it makes no difference, tell me.”

  The girl kept silent. Lammeck turned for the door.

  “Screw this.”

  “Mikhal”—she stopped him with her voice—”I am KGB.”

  He spun at her, doubling at the waist as if the disclosure had punched him in the gut. He groped for a chair and fell into the seat.

  “You’re what? You can’t be.”

  She drew herself up at his response, looking almost offended. “Why not?”

  “Because... because the CIA’s trying to kill Fidel. Christ, that’s the only reason Alek is here. But you’ve been playing along the whole time. If you’re KGB, wouldn’t you be trying to stop him? Russia doesn’t want Castro dead!”

  “I must stop him, because he has gone on his own. But before, when he was part of a plan, no.”

  “Part of a plan?” Lammeck’s hands came to his temples, as if to contain the eruption of revelations going on inside. “You’re saying this is a joint operation? KGB and CIA got together to assassinate Castro?”

  “CIA recruited Alek. KGB learned of the plot. As you have seen, Alek is quite the talker, quite in love with playing at espionage.”

  “In other words, he told you what the CIA was planning.”

  “I’d only known him a week. I informed my uncle, who is a colonel in the MVD. He reported this, of course, to KGB. Instead of interfering, KGB contacted CIA and gave the idea its approval. They insisted only that I be allowed to come. To support and encourage Alek. And to make a report. Alek came to me and suggested a sudden vacation to Cuba. I agreed, of course. Five days later, we are here.”

  “Does Alek know? That you’re his KGB case officer?”

  “He does not. There was no need for him to know. And I see no need for him to know in the future.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Not so much, Mikhal.”

  “But why? Why on earth would the Soviet Union want Castro dead? The man’s leading a Marxist revolution south of the United States. This is the best thing that could happen for Khrushchev. For the whole Communist movement worldwide.”

  “Think for a moment.” Rina mimicked Lammeck by touching a fingertip to her own temple. “Have you heard Fidel say one word that this is, in fact, a Communist revolution in Cuba? No. He has never made a single public proclamation to this effect. Yes, many of his programs are socialist. And yes, he has accepted much assistance from the Soviet Union. But Fidel continues to hedge his bets. He still believes he might somehow make a rapprochement with the West. Even now, on the eve of an invasion.”

  Lammeck listened, amazed. Rina did not sound like a nineteen-year-old girl. Why had he forgotten she must have been raised in the cant of Communism? She spoke like a seasoned ideologue.

  He asked, “You know about the invasion?”

  “The world knows about it. The only questions are when and where. Your CIA believes that if Fidel lies dead when the rebels land, the people of Cuba will rebel against the revolution. Or chaos will follow his killing and there will be little organized resistance. KGB believes otherwise. Once Fidel is gone, other, bolder leaders will step forward. They will beat back the exiles. They will fortify the revolution in Cuba. And they will do this as dedicated Communists.”

  Lammeck reeled back in the chair. He felt a flash of empathy for Fidel. How did the man stand a chance, when both his enemies and his benefactors wanted him murdered?

  Rina continued. “Ask yourself. Who is next for power in Cuba after Castro?”

  Lammeck considered. “Most likely his younger brother Raul. And, of course, Che Guevara.”

  “Exactly. The brother has long been an open member of the Communist party. Che is a committed Marxist revolutionary. Both are more radical than Fidel. Both would make more willing partners for the Soviet Union. Fidel will serve Communism far better as a martyr than a leader. That was the decision in Moscow.”

  “So Castro must die.”

  The girl wagged a finger. “Do not scold me, Mikhal. For separate reasons, the same decision was made in Washington. There are no saints here.”

  Sitting on the bed, the girl crossed her arms. She was pretty and still so young. Now that she’d been candid, Lammeck’s bitterness at being lied to subsided. He feared for Rina’s future; being a conspirator in an assassination plot rarely led to happiness or even a long life, at least not so far as Lammeck’s study of the subject could show him. He thought of the attempt on Lorenzo de Medici’s life in Florence in the late fifteenth century. Lorenzo was marked for death by the archbishop of Pisa and two leading Italian bankers, all competitors for power. The Florentine crowd, when they heard of the unsuccessful assault on Lorenzo, reacted swiftly to protect him, torturing, hanging, and slaughtering almost a hundred men, many of whom had nothing to do with the plot. Adolf Hitler destroyed the lives of tens of thousands in an ever-reaching circle of vengeance for any attempt on his life or his minions’. In 1793, after young Charlotte Corday murdered Jean-Paul Marat in his Paris bathtub, the spasm of retribution that erupted out of the French Revolution cost thousands their lives, many more than a living Marat might have sent to the guillotine and gallows. Again, Lammeck grew aware that his inclination to protect both Rina and Alek might prove hopeless. It pitted him against the great tide of historical events. He thought of the boy at his post on the roof of the empty capitol.

  But Lammeck had grown tired of being a pawn. He’d come here for answers.

  “Why did you send me to that meeting with Alek?”

  “Just as I have said, Mikhal. To keep an eye on him. Besides, I’m aware that the Cuban underground can be brave but sloppy. I know you to be wise and seasoned. You are smart and, most important, you are loyal.” The girl paused. “As I have told you many times, I do love Alek. I intend to marry him when we return home. So I sent you
to do exactly what you did.”

  Lammeck had no way of telling if this was the whole truth. She was KGB. He expected every word she uttered to be nothing more than the opening steps into a labyrinth of facts, lies, and veiled intent. On his own part, he chose not to tell her of Alek’s desire to leave the U.S.S.R. That was a personal matter between the two of them, and he’d leave it there. Besides, it made him feel less of an imbalance, keeping another secret from her.

  She asked, “You said Alek shot at you. Tell me.”

  Without relating any clues to the location, Lammeck described the incident. He’d guessed correctly where Alek was hiding, then waved his arm. The next second, Alek put a round into the center of a tree inches above his head.