The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02]

by David L. Robbins

  Alek said, “I don’t need Heitor or any of his guys. No one’ll hear the shot. I found me an open duct to throw all this stuff down into. After Castro’s hit, I head down the stairs, sneak out a side door I busted into, and start running with everybody else. I run all the way back to the Nacional and get on a boat with Rina off this damn island. The rest of y’all can sort it out from there. I’m done.”

  Lammeck wanted to touch the boy’s thin shoulder, to make a firmer connection than words. But Alek was out of easy reach, he’d already put himself on the verge of murder.

  Lammeck said, “I told you. Calendar’s called it off.”

  The boy pursed his lips. “Calendar wouldn’t have sent you with that message. He’d know I’d shoot you.”

  “You’re being set up, Alek. Calendar told me the Mafia was going to take the blame for you shooting Castro. But that was a lie. You’re the fall guy. That’s all I can tell you right now. If you kill me and shoot Castro, the police will arrest you. I guarantee it. And you’ll be dead sixty seconds later.”

  “That isn’t gonna happen. The police aren’t gonna catch me.”

  “Yes, they will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I brought them with me.”

  Angrily, the boy stomped forward. He rammed the nose of the revolver into Lammeck’s chest over his heart.

  “You what?”

  Lammeck started to explain. Alek cut him off with another jab of the gun into his breast.

  “I can’t trust none of you sons of bitches.”

  Lammeck stared into Alek’s wide eyes, white with anger and hurt.

  He kept his voice even. “I had to make a deal, for your life. If you come down with me peacefully, there’ll be no trouble. You pull that trigger”—Lammeck looked down at the revolver pressed into his guayabera—”and you’re a dead man. Rina will never leave Cuba either. You shoot me, you kill all three of us. I’m the only one who can get you both out of here alive.”

  “What about Calendar? Why didn’t he come get me himself if he didn’t want me to shoot Castro?”

  “Don’t ask me to explain it. You just have to trust me.”

  At that moment, beyond the ledge of the capitol’s roof, the first clamor of the farmers’ parade rebounded from Prado below. The crowd roared, diesel tractors cranked up to pull floats, and the first strains of a brass band arced around Alek and Lammeck, who stood with a gun between them. The boy could pull the trigger, muffled against Lammeck’s chest, and no one but them would hear it.

  Lammeck took a chance. He set his bandaged hand over Alek’s wrist, shoving gently down. “Please, son.”

  The gun stayed firm. “No. You’re a liar.”

  Lammeck licked his lips. “Will you give me one more minute?”

  “What for?”

  “Because I know who you will believe. Look through the scope. Down at the reviewing stand.”

  Skeptically, Alex waved the pistol. “Stand over there. If I hear one piece of rock on this roof move, I shoot.”

  Lammeck backed off to give the boy room. Extending the gun at Lammeck, Alek turned his face to lean over the spotter’s scope. The boy did not focus or adjust the eyepiece; the magnification was already trained on the reviewing stand.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  Lammeck said nothing.

  Alek raised his eyes to him. “I said what’s going on?”

  “Keep looking.” Lammeck indicated the scope. Alek breathed hard out of his nostrils, losing patience, drowning in confusion. He returned his eye to the scope. Lammeck stared into the dark circle of the barrel pointed blindly at his belly.

  In seconds, Alek’s hand holding the pistol at Lammeck wavered.

  “He’s not there, Alek,” Lammeck said. “He’s not going to be there. Keep watching. I won’t move.”

  Far below, the sounds of the parade began to slither right to left as the marching workers took their first steps along Prado toward the reviewing stand. Lammeck checked his watch.

  One o’clock.

  “Watch,” he told the boy riveted to the scope. “Listen.”

  Lammeck envisioned what he was betting, with his life, Alek was looking at: a slender figure stepping onto the raised platform, escorted by Johan; she passed the lineup of Cuban dignitaries, absent Fidel; she approached the bank of microphones; Johan stepped back, perhaps he searched the roofs and high windows of the many buildings ringing the platform; perhaps he looked right at Alek.

  Rina.

  Only a moment after imagining it, the girl’s voice broadcast out of the loudspeakers hung around Parque Central. Her words cut through the commotion of the parade, sharp and clear.

  “ Ya govoryu ot vsego serdtsa.”

  Rina paused. A second voice translated the Russian into Spanish for the crowd:

  “I bring you this message, from my heart.”

  “Pozbaluista poverite, ato lyubov.”

  “Please. Believe that you are loved.”

  “Verite tomu, kto ryadom s vami.”

  “Trust the one beside you.”

  “Ii kogda deni zakontychen i khochu, tchto by pryidia domoi be chyvstvovali by sebia b besopasnosti.”

  “And when this day is done, come home where you are safe.”

  The crowd below the white face of El Capitolio, arrayed in thousands along Prado, cheered Rina’s cryptic message, believing it brought to them from some pretty ambassador of the Soviet Union. Alek kept his eye glued to the scope, the pistol forgotten in his hand. Lammeck guessed he was watching her leave the stage, again with Johan at her side.

  Alek raised his gaze from the scope. “Goddammit. I can’t believe you got her involved in this.”

  “Okay,” Lammeck said, lifting his bandaged hand, “that’s enough. You involved her when you brought her to Cuba. You involved her when you bragged about being an assassin.”

  “Shut up, Mikhal.”

  “No, Alek, time for you to shut up. We’re done now with you running the show just because you’ve got a gun in your hand. Guess what? That pistol doesn’t make you smart, and it doesn’t make you brave. You’re a patsy. So am I. We’re both putting a stop to that right now. You need to show me where that duct is. Let’s dump everything down the shaft and get off this roof. You and Rina have to catch a boat to the Bahamas tonight.”

  Lammeck strode forward before Alek could reply. He grabbed the Winchester off the stack of crates. With a swift flick, he snapped hack the bolt to eject the chambered .308 round into the air. He snatched the bullet and stuck it in his pocket beside the poison pill. He took down the blanket and pointed at the range scope and tripod.

  “Let’s go, boy. You’ve got no one to shoot today but me. Fidel’s not showing up. It’s over. So pull that trigger and kill me and you can go to hell. Or grab that scope and the duffel, and let’s all get out of Cuba.”

  Alek shifted his gaze from Lammeck to the parque in the near distance. The boy seemed to be trying to sense Rina through the air, her words lingering in his ears. Could he trust them? Come home, she’d said, where you are safe.

  “Choose,” Lammeck ordered, “right now.”

  The boy lifted the pistol. Lammeck’s breath snagged. Alek laid out his palm flat, handing the revolver over. Lammeck took it.

  Alek scooped up the tripod and the duffel. Without a word, Lammeck followed him to the far edge of the roofline. Alek ducked low to avoid being seen from below as he approached a corrugated tin sheet. He slid this aside to reveal a vent wide enough for a man’s shoulders. The boy lifted his chin to Lammeck, to say, You first.

  Lammeck bent at the waist and crept to the rim of the shaft. He opened his arms and let the Winchester with the bleach bottle taped to the end fall into the hole. The rifle bashed the sides of the duct on the way down, then made an echoing crash four stories below. Lammeck threw in the blanket. Alek hurried beside him and dropped in the duffel, then the scope and wooden tripod. The clatter of their plummet was tinny and loud, but that could
n’t be helped. If Jorge had left the capitol like Lammeck told him, no one on the grounds watching the parade could likely hear. Out on Prado, a marching band’s drums and cymbals had struck up.

  Last, Lammeck tossed in the revolver.

  ~ * ~

  He led Alek down along the same stairs and hallways Jorge had used. When they reached the basement, Lammeck followed the bare lightbulbs the old janitor had left on, like a trail of bread crumbs out of a cave. Passing all the great boilers and ductwork, Lammeck wondered which unit had the broken jumble of Alek’s weapons and bags heaped at the bottom. He imagined Jorge finding them; the viejo would mumble for the next year about it.

  Lammeck recognized the correct door by finding his straw panama hung nearby. Before taking the boy out of the building, he stopped to put on the hat.

  “Don’t leave my side,” he said to Alek. “I’ve got something the police want. They’ll get it when you and Rina are gone. But I don’t trust them enough for us to be separated. Alright?”

  The boy said his first words since leaving the roof. “What about you?”

  “I’ve got some details to handle. I’ll get out tomorrow or the next day.”

  Lammeck pushed the door open. Alek almost trod on his heels.

  On the grass, Johan waited. The policeman held a military-style two-way radio. Lammeck looked behind Johan to see that he’d kept his word. As far as he could tell, Johan had: There was no evidence of other security.

  Lammeck said, “Captain, this is Alek Hidell.”

  The policeman approached. “Mr. Hidell,” he said in his fluid way, “I will spare you the lecture you would otherwise get for attempting to assassinate my country’s leader. If I had my way, that lecture would be the highlight of your day. But I am not getting my way this afternoon, and you may thank the professor for that. We will put you on a boat and be rid of you soon enough. Professor, a word.”

  Lammeck stepped only a few strides away from Alek. The boy, without his pistol and rifle, or the invisibility of the roof, seemed stricken, afraid. He reached for Lammeck, childlike. Lammeck assured him he would stay close.

  “He is not much to look at,” Johan said low enough for only Lammeck to hear. The racket of the parade echoed off the capitol and surrounding facades.

  “Maybe not,” Lammeck replied, “but he would’ve done it. Don’t doubt it.”

  “Is everything as you wish it, Professor?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Excellent. One moment.”

  Johan brought the walkie-talkie to his lips. He pressed a button and spoke into the mouthpiece.

  “Este es Johan. Dejalo que páse.”

  He released the button; static answered him, then a voice. “Sí.”

  Johan lowered the radio.

  On the roof of the Partagas factory across the street, a flash of movement snared Lammeck’s eye. Three figures, maybe more, stepped back from the ledge and disappeared.

  Police snipers.

  Lammeck glanced back at the boy. Alek had his hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He looked cold.

  Lammeck asked Johan, “How’d you manage to keep Castro off the viewing stand?”

  “At this moment, Fidel is cursing his driver. Unlike other world leaders, he enjoys very few of the trappings of power. He does not move with motorcades and sirens. Fidel is stuck in traffic at a roadblock arranged by my office. He will fire his driver, whom I will quietly promote and relocate. Fidel will arrive before the end of the parade, in time for his very long speech. Now, Mr. Hidell.”

  The boy pulled his hands from his jeans. He stood straight, his nerves making him eager.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “A car is going to drive you and Professor Lammeck to the Nacional. Your fiancée is waiting there. By the way, she also saved your life today. I suggest you thank her. You will all three stay at the hotel under my protection, which is a more pleasant way of saying under guard. You will not leave the grounds until six o’clock this evening, when I will come to take you and the girl to your ship, bound for Freeport. Professor, I will then escort you back to your house, where we will continue our discussions.”

  “Once they’re out to sea, Johan. Not before. That was the deal.”

  “And so it shall remain. If you will follow me.”

  Johan pivoted to face the road, raising a hand. In moments, a brown Skoda sedan pulled up on Avenida Industria. Two hard-faced policemen sat in the front. Johan opened the rear door. Alek climbed in first. Johan stopped Lammeck. He leaned close and whispered in Spanish, “If you are wrong, Professor. If you have miscalculated. If you’ve in any way taken some romantic notion of trading your life for those two, understand me. I will accept that trade, without hesitation.”

  Lammeck climbed in the backseat beside Alek. Johan closed the car door and banged a fist on the roof above Lammeck’s head.

  ~ * ~

  At the stone gates to the Nacional, Rina stood waiting. When the police car swerved into the oval drive, Alek saw her and pressed against the window. She waved and shouted. The driver did not stop for the reunion. Rina ran alongside the Skoda to the steps of the hotel. Lammeck noted two dark-clad men jogging in the background, tracking her.

  Alek burst out of the ear into Rina’s embrace. One of the policemen climbed out, to stand aside. He was joined by the armed pair who were shadowing Rina. The driver sped away the moment Lammeck reached the pavement.

  The trio of guards watched the couple, silently. Lammeck moved to usher Alek and Rina inside. Immediately, the girl released Alek and encircled Lammeck, squeezing him hard enough to make him labor for a breath.

  “¡Spasivo, spasivo!”

  Gently, aware of his bandaged hand, Lammeck patted her on the back.

  He spoke in Russian to both. “Let’s go inside.”

  Alek answered in English. “I’m starving.”

  Only one of the guards followed. Rina hugged Alek, wrapping the boy’s thin waist, as they crossed the lobby. Seconds of uncomfortable silence followed into the elevator, packed tight with the stony policeman. The man, in black T-shirt and khakis and with an American S&W .32 holstered on his belt, glared malevolently at Alek. The boy kept his eyes on his shoes. Rina, perhaps because she was Soviet, or because she knew how close she had come to killing this Cuban policeman’s leader, stared back at the cop.

  The guard took up position outside their door. After Alek and Rina had gone inside, the guard hooked Lammeck’s elbow.

  “My name is Blanco,” he said in English. “Please, Professor, none of you must try to leave this room. Understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “And no one will get in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Inside, Alek had flopped spread-eagled on the bed. “I’m exhausted,” he announced. Rina jumped on beside him, making the mattress bounce. She fit herself inside his outstretched arm.

  Alek spoke in English. “Professor, call up room service. Get me a steak and get yourself anything you want. The Cubans are payin’ for it, ‘cause we’re outta here tonight.”

  Rina laughed, not understanding everything Alek had said but enjoying the vivacity of his tone. Lammeck stood back, fascinated at the turn in the boy the moment the hotel room door closed behind them. No longer frightened, he put on this show of bravado for his fiancée, the manner of a man fresh from a success. And in a way, wasn’t he exactly that? The success was that he was still alive. All of them were.

  Lammeck didn’t pick up the phone immediately to order the boy’s food. He stood beside the bed gazing down at the pair of young people he’d rescued. The two clasped each other and gazed with affection up at him. But there were still so many secrets unrevealed in this room, standing between them as stolidly as that Cuban guard outside the door. Alek had no idea his fiancée was KGB. He didn’t know that last night, when Lammeck gave her the plan he’d devised to bring Alek back, he’d told her everything of the CIA’s and Johan’s plot, how they were all three marked for death in orde
r to sour Castro on the Soviet Union. Alek was oblivious to it all, still believing that he’d been the centerpiece of the betrayal, not Rina. She knew nothing of Alek’s desire to return to America. Lammeck didn’t even know the boy’s real name. Secrets.

  Neither of them knew, or would ever be told, what Lammeck had to promise Johan in return for their safety. Or the danger he would soon face from Calendar for that promise.