by Jose Latour
“And that lent a fresh perspective to the case,” Smith went on. “Always a different pay phone, always a new phone card. So far, Steil’s phone tap and surveillance have drawn blanks; his anger when we recruited him furnish additional proof he may well be clean. After Scheindlin died, Maria got chummy with Steil, who would be traveling to Cuba soon. She made one of her suspicious phone calls two days before Steil flew to Havana, where Carlos Capdevila and Berta Arosamena approached him and fed him this weird story about Scheindlin having bought medicine for Cuba. Then, a few days later, these two surface in Miami.
“So, we have all this circumstantial evidence linking Maria with four Cubans: Berta and Capdevila, from CuIS for sure; Steil, who is playing for us; and Bonis, the wild card we knew nothing about. This morning Berta and Capdevila were hoping to recover the Cuban money they claim Scheindlin had when he kicked the bucket. The date they told Steil probably wasn’t the real date; it’s standard practice to move the real date and time forward or backward. We know Berta and Capdevila went to Maria’s place and weren’t admitted. We know that Bonis did Maria’s garden at least once since we began staking out her place in earnest five weeks ago; maybe she had been his client for months, or years. In addition, Bonis emigrated from Cuba.
“So, one working hypothesis might be that Maria was not a Cuban informer; she found the money and agreed to give it back. Bonis, willingly or unwillingly, was courier, cutout, or auxiliary agent handler for CuIS. He picked up the hundred Gs and then got greedy, demanded a share, or for some other reason argued with Capdevila and they shot it out. But why would he kill Maria if she gave him the money? Couriers, cutouts, and auxiliaries are not hit men. A lovers’ quarrel?”
“Oh c’mon, Chief; that’s stretching it a little, don’t you think?” Hart complained. “Surveillance found no indication of her playing the field. Besides, that kind of woman doesn’t screw the help.”
“Then, a second hypothesis might be that Maria Scheindlin was spying for Cuba,” Smith went on, “and for some reason CuIS thought she had betrayed, or was a playback, and ordered her terminated. She may have refused to fork over the dough.”
“I know CuIS is strapped, but not so much to kill for a hundred thousand,” Hart objected.
“Yeah, you’re right. If Bonis killed Maria for reasons related to espionage, he was a full-fledged handler, maybe a ringleader. He knew he’d be the prime suspect and was getting ready to flee.”
His eyes on the road, Hart shook his head. “We don’t have anything on this guy and he’s been here for twenty-two years,” he said. “But we should consider whether Maria Scheindlin was somehow involved with CuIS. It would give a rational explanation to all that malarkey about Scheindlin buying pharmaceuticals for Cuba and demanding money. How soon are they performing the autopsies?”
“Right away,” Smith said. “The bullets will go to Imaging immediately, to compare with the one dug out from Maria Scheindlin’s wall. The gun and the casings recovered back there, too. By ten we should know if Maria was shot with the Beretta.”
“So practical having an indoor range at the ME’s. Speeds things up.”
“And pretty sophisticated photographic equipment at Imaging, too.”
“One goes with the other.”
Nothing was said during the couple of minutes both men spent reflecting on the most recent developments.
“I think we should send a team to the Bonises’,” suggested Smith as they were cruising Ali Baba Avenue. “Tell the missus we’ll look for evidence of who killed her husband and comb the place. He may have a computer, records …”
“You think so? A gardener?”
“Everybody has a desktop these days.”
“Won’t she wonder why the FBI is investigating her husband’s murder?”
“Well, if she does, tell her the other stiff is a foreigner and that brought us to the case.”
“Okay.”
…
A voice clamoring for Berta awoke Victoria at 7:13 A.M. Reality overtook her in a millisecond. She got to her feet, seized the gun, rushed barefoot to the bedroom door, and pushed it open.
“About time,” Elliot growled. “We pee and shit, you know?”
“Elliot! Don’t be vulgar,” Fidelia scolded him.
“Okay, calm down. Give me a minute,” their captor said upon learning what the problem was.
Hours earlier, nearly forty minutes after Victoria walked out of the bedroom and when all was quiet, Elliot had asked Fidelia to try to untie him using her teeth on the strip of cloth around his hands. Almost half an hour of efforts proved fruitless and the lawyer threw in the towel. Then he had tried to free her using the same method. Twenty-five minutes of futile attempts persuaded him that, besides wasting his time, he risked losing his front teeth. As he was catching his breath, Fidelia had asked whether Mr. Steil considered that, as a victim, she could claim the right to know what he had kept from her concerning his trip to Cuba. “In other words, Elliot, would you kindly tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Abiding by his promise to Hart, he omitted his role as FBI informer. When he finished, she could not resist the temptation: “I warned you,” she had said in a derisive singsong. Next, they had searched in vain for a way out. Following a tenor fifteen-minute silence, Elliot registered that the exhausted Fidelia had drifted off. Acknowledging that the only positive thing he could do was to rest a while, he had soon fallen asleep.
At seven the alarm of their clock went off.
“I’m bursting,” Fidelia had said.
Then he had started calling Berta. After wasting several minutes gradually raising his voice, he was forced to holler.
Victoria relieved herself and washed her face before untying Fidelia. The lawyer scurried to the bathroom and six minutes later came back into the bedroom looking fresh and clean. Then Victoria authorized her to untie Elliot. They waited as he used the bathroom. When he got out, the psychologist said they should move to the living area and have breakfast.
While Fidelia heated the milk and brewed the espresso for three cafés con leche, Victoria put her shoes on and sat in the loveseat to consider her options. Elliot stared through the window and sulkily stroked the growth on his chin. The shoreline exhibited the aquamarine color that people in the tropics take for granted until they spend a winter watching the Baltic from Rostock, the Cantabric from Gijón, or the Atlantic from Tierra del Fuego. The billowing sails of two boats reminded him that most people live placidly. A gecko climbed up the windowpane. Five stories up. Unbelievable. It reminded him of Santa Cruz del Norte. He wished he were there.
“Move to the kitchen, Elliot,” Victoria said, rising to her feet. She had decided to take one step in the right direction. “I have to make a phone call and I need privacy.”
“By all means,” his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Feel at home. Here in Miami we are used to getting kidnapped by the Mafia every coupla weeks.”
When Elliot dropped two slices of white bread into the toaster, the psychologist moved to the wooden desk positioned between the window and the living room’s farthest wall. It had three drawers on its right side and a laptop, a printer, and a telephone on its top, plus a pad and two ballpoints. She pulled back an armless swivel chair from the kneehole, turned it left to better keep an eye on her prisoners through the kitchen counter, sat down, and rested the gun by the printer. Then she lifted the handset and dialed a number. For around ten seconds the absence of sound made the line seem dead. Victoria recovered the gun and turned her gaze to the kitchen counter. Steil, his back to her, was saying something to Fidelia. Then the connection was made and someone unhooked a phone after two rings.
“Ordene,” said a man curtly.
“Put me through to Lastra, Mao,” she ordered.
Nobody had ever dared to call Pernas “Mao” to his face since appointed Lastra’s adjunct, in 1991. He found it an honor, but he realized it was meant as an insult. It made him mad to see that certain comrades swallowed capitalist propaganda aimed at def
aming one of the greatest historical figures of all times.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Micaela.”
“Micaela! Where are you, Colonel? We’ve been so worried!”
“Give me Lastra. Right now. I know he’s there.”
A rather long pause followed as arrangements were made to record the call. This line was for the exclusive use of trusted people whose exchanges with the chief of intelligence were not to be registered, Victoria recalled.
“Micaela! Where are you?” Lastra, sounding cheery, said into his mouthpiece.
Victoria snorted. “Don’t pretend with me. You know damn well where I am. I got news for you. You may cut three new notches in your gun’s butt. Pardo is dead, Pola Negri is dead, but your assassin is dead, too.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“All we wanted was to get the hell out, Lastra. We were sick and tired of the repression, the hypocrisy, the lies, the personality cult, and the ever-deepening economic crisis. And yes, Pardo had the brains and the balls to screw you. But let me tell you: Turning in the fools we have here risking their freedom so His Majesty and his courtiers can live the good life never crossed my mind. Behave and I won’t. They are just a pack of manipulated puppets, like you and those under you are, like I was until a few days ago. But be warned, Lastra, I’ll make a full report, naming all the names and giving all the addresses. You can bet your life that if something happens to me, it’ll reach the Gypsy. And you know, Lastra, you know perfectly well that the scandal will make headlines from here to Nepal. So, it’s your call, General.”
Lastra considered his reply for a few seconds. “You are obviously suffering an altered state of mind. Tell me where you are and I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
“Good-bye, you pathetic eunuch,” she said before hanging up.
Victoria took a very deep breath. So deep, in fact, that she had no memory of ever having filled her lungs so much. This made her smile broadly. Steil seemed to be slathering butter or jelly on toast. The smell of freshly brewed coffee reached her.
“When are we going to have something for breakfast?” she yelled joyously. Then, from the sacred corner that stored her most precious memories, Pardo smiled at her. After an instant of bewilderment, she started sobbing and crying inconsolably. Elliot and Fidelia exchanged surprised looks. Should they wait and see, cuddle her, or run away? They were still undecided when Victoria sniffled back mucus, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and got to her feet.
“I need something to eat, please,” she said. “And a handkerchief.”
…
Victoria broke the connection at 7:49. At 7:58, Hart’s extension rang and he lifted it.
“Hart.”
The special agent was in his cubicle, at his cluttered desk, on the second floor of the bureau’s Miami division, holding a mug in his left hand. Across from the desk, in a metal and vinyl armchair, Nathan Smith, being fond of making subtle statements, was sipping coffee from a Washington Times mug. The metallic drapes to a bigger office in which staff labored were drawn.
“Alford here, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Sir, uh, twelve minutes ago a woman made a phone call to Havana from Elliot Steil’s number. It wasn’t Fidelia Orozco. It was someone else. And … I think you should try to make sense of what was said. ASAP.”
Something in the specialist’s voice made Hart suggest to Smith they should hurry to the recording studio. The instant Victoria identified herself as Micaela, the two men exchanged astonished looks. When the click of the phones signaled the end of the call, they looked at each other.
“Micaela?” Hart, squinching up his face in doubt. “Colonel?”
“The head of the Miami desk?” Smith, also unbelieving.
They had learned her cryptonym from communications with the ringleader of the Wasp network. That a woman was head of the Miami desk had always been in doubt. To misinform the opposition, males have been known to choose female cryptonyms.
“General Lastra?” asked the puzzled Hart.
“The general director?” Smith, wondering if they were being set up.
Both men stared at one another.
“Berta Arosamena is Micaela?” Smith, incredulously.
“Steil is … a Cuban agent?” Hart, wholly mystified now.
“It would seem so,” Smith said.
“But … But …”
Alford, the SIGINT specialist, kept turning his head to right and left.
“Order a SWAT team to Steil’s place. On the double,” Smith said.
“Right away,” Hart, turning and rushing for the door.
“I’ll be damned,” Smith muttered before bolting after his subordinate.
The openmouthed Alford felt sure he had stumbled onto something big.
…
In a conciliatory tone, the muzzle of her gun pointing to the floor, Victoria asked Fidelia to please bring her a cup of café con leche and a piece of toast to the desk. The couple was to have their breakfast in the kitchen. She apologized for the inconvenience, hesitated, chuckled while shaking her head, and added that inconvenience did not begin to describe what she had done to Fidelia and her husband, but perhaps one day the lawyer would realize that she had no choice. She pressed a button to turn off the alarm of her beeping watch. Then she dropped the Kleenex she had wiped her nose with into the waste-basket by the desk.
Following breakfast, Victoria told Fidelia that she needed Elliot to drive her somewhere. If he followed her instructions to the letter, she promised that nothing would happen to her husband and he would be back in a few hours. Fidelia countered by saying that it might be best if she drove Ms. Berta to wherever she wanted to be taken. Two women in a car were less conspicuous, she argued.
Steil cut in, “Do you realize that you are talking like I’m a robot that you, Fidelia, own, and that you, Berta, want to rent?”
“I was trying to make your wife understand why I’ll ask you to tie her up,” Victoria said.
“Tie me up? Again?”
The psychologist, sensing that she was dealing with a woman several removes away from her world of cheating and double-dealing, attempted to make acceptable the unacceptable. “Please understand, Fidelia. You may report what has happened here to the police and that would …”
“I promise you I won’t report it.”
Victoria clicked her tongue and shook her head. Was this lady for real? “Don’t you see I can’t take your word for it? Listen, I’m trying to work this out with you, make you see things from where I stand, but I have no alternative. Before leaving this apartment I have to make sure you can’t lift the phone, or drive to the nearest precinct, and report that your husband has been abducted and is driving a car with plates number so-and-so.”
“Okay,” Fidelia fumed. “Then just point that gun at us and force us to do what you want. But don’t try to make us believe you are the victim here.”
“If that’s the way you want it …”
“Wait!” Elliot barked. “Don’t you believe me? You can’t go to Maria’s home to pick up the money. Maria is dead. You’ll be arrested.”
“Take it easy, Steil. We are not going to Maria’s. I have the money. C’mon, get in bed, Fidelia.”
Therefore, it was back to the bedroom at gunpoint. Elliot was twice asked to tighten the strips of cloth binding Fidelia’s wrists and ankles. He wondered whether it was true that Berta had the money. What was true and what was false here? Once Victoria felt sure that the lawyer would not be able to free herself, she addressed Steil.
“You have your wallet and car keys on you?”
Steil felt his pockets. “I do.”
“Okay. We are leaving now. Let’s go,” she said, walking backward toward the door to the living room, at no time taking her eyes off him. She picked up the tote bag.
“Okay. Now I will do this.”
Victoria cradled the tote bag on her left forearm and put the gun int
o it, but her right hand remained inside the bag, closed around the pistol’s butt, forefinger on the trigger.
“We have to ride the elevator together, cross the lobby, go into the parking lot. You may try to overpower me along the way. Don’t do it. I’m warning you: Don’t do it. I’m pretty tense, there’s a round in the chamber, the safety is off, and I can move fast if I have to. So, don’t try anything. I don’t want to shoot you. But I will if you try anything. Are we clear on this, Elliot?”
He nodded emphatically. Overhearing the exchange in the bedroom, Fidelia squeezed her eyes shut and muttered to herself: “Elliot, do whatever she says, please.”
“Now, I want you to open the front door and tell me if there’s anyone in the hallway.”
Elliot complied. The hallway appeared to be deserted.
“There’s no one,” he said, turning to look Victoria in the eye.
“Okay, let’s go.”
They crossed the threshold into the hallway, Elliot fifteen feet or so ahead of the psychologist. Victoria leaned sideways, fumbled with her left-hand fingers until she found the handle, and pulled the front door closed. She had taken two steps after Elliot when a voice boomed:
“FREEZE!”
Which was exactly what, for an instant of total astonishment, both did. Elliot slumped to the floor immediately. Victoria drew the Tokarev.
“DROP IT!”
She thought things through for what seemed like an eternity. Life without him, penniless, informing on others, cleaning floors or washing dishes until the end? Elliot turned his neck to watch her.
Victoria lifted her eyebrows in resignation and forced a smile before turning the gun on herself and pulling the trigger.
…
Pandemonium followed. Gun-toting men in black fatigues materialized out of nowhere. One knelt before Elliot, placed an ugly-looking 9mm H&K MP5SD with a sound suppressor before his face, and ordered him not to bat an eye. Another kicked the Tokarev away from Victoria. Numbers three and four used a battering ram to break down Steil’s front door and barged into the apartment. Two others knelt by Victoria; one placed two fingers on her carotid artery, his partner pried open Victoria’s eyelids and stared into her pupils. Fidelia let out a piercing shriek that reached Elliot at the same time that he felt hands palpating him for weapons.
