The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02]

by David L. Robbins

  “No. I don’t want to. And I suggest you make no inquiries either. As a rule, the less we know, the better. Do you intend to expose me, Professor?”

  “Like I said, only if I have to.”

  “And as I said, what makes you believe you will wake up tomorrow? If I am, as you claim, able to take part in the murder of my country’s leader, what would save you from me? That we have shared a few rums together? You cannot be that naive.”

  “What makes you think I won’t cut your throat right here?”

  “I am safe from you, so long as you need my help. You want to bring our young mystery marksman in without a fuss. I must assume you need my assistance because this is something you cannot do on your own.”

  “I tried this afternoon. He shot at me.”

  “Really? You found him?”

  “Yes. From a distance.”

  “You are clever, Professor, as advertised. But the boy missed. Is Alek that poor a shot?”

  “Believe me, it was on purpose.”

  Lammeck returned to the wicker chair. The woven fibers squealed under his weight. Lammeck poured fresh rum into both glasses.

  “Thank you,” Johan said. “This is all too intricate for me to consider with a sober head.”

  The two drank. They’d gone through half the bottle, but they were both large men, accustomed to liquor and crossing swords.

  “Now tell me why I should do as you ask,” Johan said, swirling the rum, contemplating it. “Tell me, please, why I should not have you disposed of, then do as I see fit with Alek Hidell.”

  “Because you’re a CIA asset, just like me. And I’ve been told to bring Alek in, alive and under the radar. I expect that means you’ve been ordered to do the same.”

  The captain’s hand stilled on his rum glass. The liquid settled in the bottom, dark and moody.

  Johan set aside his rum. He stood. Lammeck tensed, but the policeman made no alarming move.

  “Walk with me, Professor. I am beginning to feel cramped under this roof of your porch, in the light of this little candle. I want to see some stars and hear the ocean. Then I will tell you everything.”

  If Johan meant him harm, it could come anytime, anywhere, in the shadows along the coast road or here in his own house.

  Lammeck stood with Johan.

  “Alright. Thank you.”

  Johan smiled again, this time real and cheerless.

  “Do not thank me.”

  ~ * ~

  Johan was unhurried. He strolled gazing at the constellations overhead. To their right, the flat water mirrored the silver light of the moon not yet above the horizon. No waves, no wind came off the straits. Tomorrow would dawn placid and warm, a perfect shooting day.

  Johan drew a deep, appreciative breath. “I smoke too many cigars,” he said. “I sometimes forget how to breathe such marvelous air as we have in Cuba. Is this your first time in Cuba, Professor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah,” the policeman said expansively, lifting his arms into the night to encompass the sea and constellations, “then you missed it. What a wonderland Cuba was. I am fifty-six years old, I suspect very close to your own age. I was born only seven years after the Americans threw the Spanish off the island. I grew up under your flag. Under American prosperity. But under Spanish culture. What a mix that was. Beauty, leisure, wealth, indulgence. My parents were land owners. We had money, influence. And I, Professor, I had it all. You understand?”

  Lammeck did not. He was raised in New England in an academic tradition. Everything around him, family, weather, was cold.

  “We embraced everything American, you see, because it served us well to do this. We had these lovely houses here against the ocean, and the mansions on the Malecón, we had fields of sugar and pineapple. We gambled on horses and cards, baseball and regattas. We had no conscience. We did not let ourselves see the millions”—Johan aimed a stern finger at the ground to make his point—”millions beneath us.” He patted his breast pockets, looking for something that was not there.

  “See, Professor, how dissolute I am? I cannot take a walk without a cigar. I cannot remember my youth without shame.”

  Lammeck didn’t know what to say. This was confusing; Johan spoke not like a man plotting to murder Castro, but like a revolutionary.

  “Many in my class left. They went north. To you. They took their money and bought new houses in a new country. They complain that Fidel has stolen from them. And they are right. Fidel stole the blindfolds off our eyes. He paraded in front of all of us the poor and uncared for, three of them for every one of us in our luxury. He showed us the corruption of American business and the American Mafia. Yes, Fidel is a thief. He took my comfort. He returned me only disgrace. And rather than escape to America, I chose to stay and wallow in it.”

  Johan said no more. Lammeck let long moments pass measured only by their heels on the gravel shoulder of the road.

  After almost a block walked in silence, Lammeck prodded.

  “But he’s become a dictator, Johan. You know this. The revolution’s more about Castro’s personal power and vision than the needs of your people. The abuses are mounting up. Freedoms are fading. I can tell you from thirty years of study, that’s when the people strike back. That’s when leaders get assassinated.”

  The policeman tilted back his head, again to the stars.

  “Just as you say, Professor. And it is heartbreaking for many of us who believed in Fidel. Even sadder, in the last year he has begun leaning too far toward the Soviet Union. That cannot be good for Cuba. Not with America, so strong and jealous, only ninety miles to the north. It has to be stopped.”

  Lammeck said, “Calendar.”

  Johan tucked his hands in his pockets. He kicked at a stone, sent it skittering up the road. To their right, the moon took its first white peek above the horizon.

  “Yes. Calendar. An excellent example of American can-do attitude, that man. He believes there is no one he cannot kill.”

  “Johan.”

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “Please. There’s not a lot of time left for any of us. You, me, Alek, even Fidel. Tell me.”

  The policeman halted. He took a languorous look around at the deserted houses along the ocean lane, perhaps recalling more oblivious days when he was not so burdened. He pivoted, to return along the direction they had come. Lammeck fell in beside Johan.

  The policeman said, “I was told very little about the plot. I did not know about Heitor or his plans. Nor was I informed of your participation, Professor. I accepted your visa in December for the reasons I stated. I appreciate your book. I wanted to meet you. I befriended you for those same reasons. Your involvement was purely happenstance, some opportunism on the part of our clever Agent Calendar once he learned you were coming to Havana.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Johan continued. “Two weeks ago, the CIA notified me that I was to order entry visas for the American Alek Hidell and his Russian girl. I did as I was asked.”

  “When did Calendar tell you Alek was a sniper brought in to kill Fidel?”

  “He didn’t. I already knew.”

  Lammeck stopped walking. He reached his good left hand in front of Johan’s midriff to halt him, too.

  “How? How did you know?”

  “Because that was the plan all along. This is what you do not know, my friend. La clave.” The key.

  “Tell me.”

  “I would never have agreed with the CIA or anyone to take part in a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Never.”

  “But Alek ...”

  “The scheme did not call for Alek Hidell to shoot Fidel. I would not have consented to that. Your young American sniper was supposed to be captured before he could have the chance to shoot Fidel. As I said, that was the plan. It remains so.”

  Lammeck reeled under this revelation. He caught himself bending forward at the waist, jaw slackened. He straightened, but could not contain an involuntary gasp. Johan nodded, plainly pleased that
Lammeck had been so fooled.

  “The tip I received this morning,” Johan said, miming a telephone receiver in his hand, “came at Calendar’s direction from his informant. Immediately I ordered the raid. I fully expected to arrest Heitor, his conspirators, and Alek Hidell.”

  “Then I. . .”

  Lammeck faltered. Johan finished the sentence.

  “Yes, you, Professor. You were the ‘wild card.’ You were where you were not supposed to be. You somehow managed Hidell’s escape, along with your own.”

  Beneath the gauze of his hand, Lammeck closed his eyes. Johan was snapping all the threads of the web Lammeck had believed were enclosing him. Now he was tumbling on those loose strands, falling onto another, larger, and totally unexpected web.

  It was Calendar who told Felix to inform on Heitor’s meeting. That’s why he’d knifed Felix so fast, to prevent the man from saying anything.

  Rina. She sent him to the meeting. Lammeck had trouble believing her reasons. For love of Alek? To protect him? Had she known Heitor’s house was going to be raided? Lammeck started to say her name aloud to Johan, to have her brought into the open. He checked himself. He had no reason for withholding the girl other than a need to cling to some piece of the puzzle that was his own.

  He lost track of how long he’d stood in front of Johan with his wrapped hand to his forehead, staring up. He lowered his arm and his eyes. “Why arrest Alek? I can’t figure, it doesn’t make sense.”

  The policeman resumed the walk back toward Lammeck’s beach house. Lammeck lagged a step, slowed as if tethered to his confusion. Johan waited for him to catch up.

  “I have learned in my life as an investigator, that if something does not add up, there is always something I do not know. Perhaps your experience as an historian has been similar?”

  Lammeck bit back his impatience for answers. Without facts, he perceived only danger, a growing sense of suffocation, and the time ticking away toward one o’clock tomorrow.

  “You say the boy fired at you this morning,” Johan said. “Why would he do that?”

  “It was a warning.”

  “Certainly. But think. What else does it tell you?”

  “He doesn’t know he’s not supposed to kill Fidel. He thinks the assassination plot was real.”

  “And he believes the plot remains intact, even after the raid on the meeting.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It should also tell you that Hidell was instructed by the CIA to kill anyone who came after him, anyone who might stop him from his appointed task. That person was you, Professor. But, because of the boy’s affection, he chose not to put a bullet into you. Now he is out there with a high-powered rifle, on his own, ignorant, and very dangerous.”

  “What are you saying? That I was supposed to die? That the plan called for me to be dead?”

  “Yes. Of course. Consider. The object of this entire exercise is for the defector Hidell to be arrested. But what has he done to be put in jail? Hmm? Nothing, except attend a Unidad meeting that he cannot be placed at. Why not? Because you got him out of the house before the raid. The underground members we did arrest are understandably reluctant to inform on him. Heitor and his men, even his wife, are quite stubborn. This resistance was expected. Unidad’s opposition to Fidel is quite fierce. So Hidell had to do something quickly to draw the attention of the police.”

  “That’s why Calendar sent me to find him. So I’d get shot.”

  “Once CIA learned you would be on the island, they developed this role for you. Calendar realized, and I agreed when he shared the idea with me, that Hidell might somehow evade arrest when the time came. We did not, unfortunately, envision your hand in that. But we did forecast this contingency, as unlikely as it seemed. The plan required a sacrificial lamb. Someone we could send to find Hidell. And, may I say, you were perfect. An expert in assassinations and weaponry. In human nature and the game of betrayal. Once Alek arrived, Calendar instructed Heitor to put you and the boy together, first at the Tropicana, then for a day of shooting, under the pretext that you would train and evaluate him. The real purpose, of course, was for the two of you to bond. You also formed a closeness with the Russian girl on your own. By attending the meeting and saving Hidell, you triggered your part. Calendar sent you forth with the story that you were to bring the boy in for his own safety. You reasoned out where he was hiding, you tracked him, and you drew his fire. Just as we knew you would. Alek’s orders were to dispatch you. When he did, he would give me the basis to initiate a massive manhunt for him. To do so without reason, without Alek taking some overt illegal action, would draw attention to my own connection to the CIA’s plot. You see the logic? The chain of events?”

  Lammeck’s mouth had gone bone dry.

  “I was a sacrifice. The whole time.”

  “Yes. You and Alek both. But the two of you simply will not comply. It is frustrating.”

  Lammeck couldn’t stop his left hand now from unsheathing the knife at his back. He stood with it pointed at Johan. Did Johan have confederates, were they closing in?

  “Put that away, please.” Johan showed Lammeck his back, making himself vulnerable. “We are alone, Professor. Only you, me, and Calendar know anything about this arrangement. It falls to you and me to fix it. At this point, we need each other quite a bit.”

  Lammeck held his ground, trusting little about Johan. The policeman strode away, pausing only to call over his shoulder, “Do come on!”

  Without sheathing the blade, Lammeck stepped alongside Johan.

  The captain continued: “You know where he is, Professor. And you know what he intends. I control the police. We cannot do this without each other.” Johan indicated the dagger in Lammeck’s left hand. “I see you still do not believe we must work together. Have I lost your friendship because I said you were to be killed?”

  “Amazing how that gets in the way.”

  Johan shrugged. “It was not personal.”

  “It wasn’t you in Alek’s crosshairs.”

  “Fine. This is becoming tiresome. Where is Alek Hidell?”

  “Not until you tell me the rest. Everything.”

  “I have told you enough for you to follow Calendar’s orders. He said for you to bring the boy in. We will do that just as you desire. Quietly. Now where is he?”

  Lammeck put the knife away under his guayabera. He stopped walking. He watched the policeman take several more steps before stopping. Johan turned his big girth slowly.

  “What’ll happen to Alek after he’s arrested?”

  Johan drew close, bringing his face near to Lammeck’s.

  “He will not survive the arrest, Professor. He cannot be allowed to say he is working for the CIA.”

  Lammeck leaned in more, until his nose almost glanced Johan’s.

  “Then fuck you. I’ll let him kill Castro.”

  Lammeck watched Johan’s features curdle. It pleased him to see the policeman lose his composure, for the captain to hoist his arms over his head and shout: “For the love of God, man! Why do you care!”

  With both hands, Lammeck shoved Johan. The policeman stumbled backward, awkward and shocked. Lammeck’s bandaged palm smarted. He ignored it.

  “Because I promised I’d bring him back. That I’d get him out of Cuba.”

  Johan gathered himself. He tugged down his ruffled shirt to smooth it. His voice and demeanor showed no anger with Lammeck.

  “Who did you promise? The girl?”

  “Yeah. The girl.”

  Johan’s big chest heaved once in a long sigh. He stepped forward, to come next to Lammeck again.

  The moon had risen enough to cast a milky pallor on the coast road. Lammeck looked at the side of Johan’s face, pasty and Spanish in the pale glow. Johan spoke.

  “You, Heitor, and Unidad, even Alek himself, you all think he is the prize. The boy is not. He never was. It’s the girl.”

  “Rina? Why?”

  Instantly, Lammeck knew.

  He said, �
�She’s KGB.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not trying to kill Fidel. You’re trying to turn him.”

  “Against the Soviets, yes.”

  In a flash, all the strands of the plot wove together. Lammeck could not break free, but for the first time, he saw how they connected.

  “You set Alek up to be involved in Heitor’s assassination plot. Calendar alerts you to the meeting. You raid it. You make sure Alek dies during the arrest, or soon after in prison to shut him up. Then you grab Rina. You make her admit she’s KGB.”