by John Lutz
The new Cuban government had banned Castroite army fatigues, and Gonçalves was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. The suit was baggy on his tall, thin, stooped frame. The fraying of the shirt cuffs was visible even at a distance. Gonçalves had a fine head of gray hair, full beard, craggy face, and glittering black eyes. He would have looked distinguished, except that his shoulders were bowed and he was hanging his head. His complexion reminded her of that of the seasick man aboard the dive boat in Key West. He would obviously have preferred to be anywhere else this evening.
“Ivan Diegovich!”
It was Morales, sweeping down on his guest with hand outstretched.
Gonçalves stiffly extended his own hand, saying, “I do not use a patronymic.”
“You ought to. A lover of all things Russian like yourself.” Morales was aware of the wide circle of onlookers and was playing to them. Dropping Gonçalves’s hand, he pushed back his French cuff and consulted his gold watch. “Say, didn’t I tell you it was hora británica tonight?”
Gonçalves looked blank, and Morales repeated the Spanish phrase.
“Oh. Hora británica,” Gonçalves said, giving the R a few more rolls and redistributing the emphasis. Morales spoke Spanish with an American accent.
“Yeah. In Havana that means only twenty minutes late. And you’re half an hour late. What was the problem, you caught a slow elevator?”
“I did not stay here. I’ve come straight from the airport.”
“I can tell. You look like you haven’t had a decent meal in months. You know the joke, right? The three biggest victories of the Cuban Revolution were education, medicine, and women’s rights, and the three biggest defeats were breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“Yes. I know the joke,” said Gonçalves stonily, over the laughter of the circle of spectators.
“Well, come on, I’m taking you over to the buffet table.” He put his arm around Gonçalves’s shoulder. Gonçalves cringed.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I will rejoin you in a moment.”
“Sure. The men’s room is first door on your left,” Morales called after him. Once Gonçalves had gone out the door, he added, “We got a product in capitalist Miami a man your age could use. Called Depends.”
The spectators laughed delightedly. Morales, satisfied, reached for another glass of champagne.
“Lays it on thick, doesn’t he?” Ava whispered.
“Oh, that’s just the way Ruy treats his partners. If you’ve made a deal with him, he’s made a fool of you.”
“I’m going to talk to him. This is my chance.”
“Careful, coz.”
In the corridor, she waited until Gonçalves came out, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief. Oddly, considering he was an old Commie, he had the air of an aged and faded aristocrat. Not just any aristocrat, she thought. Don Quixote, with his hollow cheeks and beaky nose and deep, dark eyes.
“Señor Gonçalves?”
He waved the handkerchief to make her go away. “I can find my own way back.”
“I don’t work for Morales.” She stepped in front of him. “I have something important to tell you.”
“And you are?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just listen. The coral reef off San Ferdinand—”
“The port, yes.”
“Do you know about this?”
“What?”
“It’s been blanched. Nothing alive down there.”
He stared at her. It was news to him. “How did this happen?”
“About a month ago, there was a toxic chemical spill. From one of the ships unloading in the harbor.”
Gonçalves put up a long bony hand to stop her. As if he couldn’t take in anymore. Then his mouth set, his eyes glittered, his very nose seemed to sharpen into a blade. He was like Don Quixote spotting the windmills. Without a word, he brushed past her, stalking back into the ballroom.
Ava made herself wait. Following him closely into the ballroom would give the game away. She counted to sixty and returned.
Nobody was looking her way. All eyes were on the two men confronting each other. They were speaking Spanish, loudly and angrily. Gonçalves had pulled himself up to his full height. His shoulders blocked her view of Morales, of whom she could see only gesticulating arms in white dinner jacket sleeves. Carlucci was at his side. He seemed displeased that everyone was witnessing the argument. Soon he had Morales and Gonçalves walking across the room, ringed by flunkies. They were heading for a pair of French windows.
The ballroom, like all Morales’s properties, had architecture inspired by old Havana. There were tall French windows all around, with long draperies framing them, leading out to wrought-iron balconies. She’d noticed as she and Tilda drove up that these rows of balconies went all the way up.
Before her cousin could arrive to tell her to be careful again, Ava walked briskly out of the ballroom, found the stairs, and climbed them at a run to the next floor, then headed for what she judged would be the balcony above the one where Morales and Gonçalves were talking.
She had to cross another ballroom. Giant yellow cats and blue squirrels hung from the ceiling. Spectators in similar costumes and dye jobs ringed long tables where young people sat intensely over pads and cards and laptops. It was a Pokémon competition. No one glanced at Ava as she rounded the tables and went to the window and out.
It was a small balcony, more for appearance than use, with a wrought-iron railing. The downtown skyscrapers around her glittered with lights. The bay was only darkness, but for the lights of an occasional boat. At first she couldn’t hear anything but the swish of traffic three floors below and thought she was on the wrong balcony. She dropped to her knees and leaned close to the wrought-iron uprights.
Now she could hear Morales saying, “I knew nothing about this.” He sounded as if he’d said it several times already. “You want me to get my project supervisor on the phone? He shoulda told me, and he didn’t.”
“No. I’ve seen you get your underlings to lie for you before.”
“All right. I knew about the toxic spill. Satisfied?”
“Why did you not inform me?”
“I was going to. Once the hotel was finished.”
“It is inexcusable to delay!”
“I knew you were gonna be a pain in the ass about it.”
“You must compensate the people for their loss!”
“You mean the snorkelers and scuba divers? ’Course I will. They’re my guests. We’ll sink a ship as an undersea attraction. A pirate ship. The one from the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Disney’ll be happy to unload it cheap, and the publicity will—”
Morales was free-associating and enjoying himself. The old Cuban cut him off. “I’m talking about the people of San Ferdinand.”
“What about them?”
“They are fishermen. The reef is one place the fish breed. Another is the mangrove swamp, which you destroyed when you were deepening the harbor. This is a death blow to the village of San Ferdinand!”
“Are you crazy? San Ferdinand is gonna be fine. It’s entering its golden age, as the cruise ship port for Yemayá. There are gonna be plenty of jobs, driving shuttle buses, carrying luggage, selling souvenirs—”
“Why not diving for coins that passengers on the ships will throw?”
“I’m tired of you bustin’ my chops, old man!” It was easier for Ava to hear, because he was raising his voice. “You keep dragging me through arguments you’ve already lost. This project is providing jobs, and your people need them.”
“What sort of jobs? Socialism teaches the dignity of labor. Do you respect that? No! It will be the Special Period in Time of Peace, as El Líder called it, all over again. When the weakling Gorbachev and the drunkard Yeltsin destroyed the Soviet Union—”
“I know all about it. The subsidy from Moscow stopped coming, and you couldn’t hack it on your own.”
“El Líder had no choice but to encourage the people to turn their hom
es into hotels and restaurants. Invite the tourists in and allow them to use their dollars. Soon Cuba had two economies, dollars and pesos. The people working for the tourists got rich while those working for their own fellow citizens languished. My father was a surgeon. He made less than a cabdriver. My uncle was a professor. He made less than a bellboy.”
“You’re boring me, camerón.”
“I’m going back tonight. To organize the people of San Ferdinand.”
“No. You’re not gonna turn out a handful of your fellow dead-enders with ‘socialism or death’ placards and Che T-shirts. You’re not gonna open an official inquiry. You’re not gonna alert Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Because all these things will be bad for business. And you need—”
A sound interrupted Morales. Ava didn’t realize it was the door opening until she heard Carlucci’s voice. It was softer, harder for her to understand what he was saying.
“Ruy . . . Ruy, step back. Please. We don’t want an accident here. You know, somebody falling off the balcony, getting run over. Step back. Good.”
A pause. Then Carlucci went on. “Now, we have a problem. An immediate problem. A mutual problem. The room’s full of travel writers. We want them to write about how everything is going according to plan at Yemayá. Which for them is kind of a dull story. They’d much rather write about strains and tensions and so forth between you two gentlemen. So, Ruy, Ivan, you’re going to go back in there and make nice.”
Gonçalves said something she could not make out, because Morales was talking at the same time. Carlucci cut them off.
“You’ll both make speeches. They don’t have to be long. Or clever. Just say everything is fine. There are no disagreements. Got it?”
The other two were mumbling again. It sounded like assent. At the sound of the doors opening again, Ava rose to her feet and went back in.
Tilda was waiting for her at the foot of the steps. She stared wide-eyed as her cousin descended, but waited to speak until she was close enough to whisper.
“We have to get out of here.”
“It’s okay, nobody saw me talking to Gonçalves.”
“Coz—”
“We’ll go in a minute! I just have to hear what they say.”
By the time they got back to the ballroom, Gonçalves was already finishing his speech. He’d kept it brief, all right. He was stepping back from the microphone, patting his lip with a handkerchief like a man who has just vomited. The two were standing on the dais, with a big computer-generated photo of the resort on the wall behind them. Tilda kept Ava at the back of the crowd.
It was Ruy’s turn. His face was flushed to the same color as his cummerbund. HIs mouth was in full pout. “I can only underline what my . . . friend Ivan just said,” he began. “Things are fine.”
He’d run dry. Carlucci, standing behind him, looked concerned. But then Morales thought of something to say. The hard, glittering eyes softened into pools of chocolate. A sly grin spread across his face.
“Listen, let me level with you folks. You’re wondering what Ivan and I were talking about out there. You want me to tell you? I will. We were talking about my family’s cross.”
Carlucci and Gonçalves exchanged a look, united in puzzlement, if nothing else.
“I told him about the darkest day the Moraleses ever knew. My grandfather had just come back from turning in his Cadillac. The government made him get a tune-up first. We knew they were going to confiscate everything before they expelled us. So we gave our prized possessions, paintings, jewelry, table silver, to friends who were staying on. They’d keep them for us till we returned—which would be in only a few weeks, we thought. By now, of course, all our family heirlooms are long gone. And you know, ladies and gentlemen, my friend Ivan totally sympathized. He had tears in his eyes.”
The room was hushed. Gonçalves kept his face blank. His shoulders were sagging so that deep vertical folds showed in the too-large suit. His head was bowed, gray locks straggling across his forehead that he didn’t brush back.
Morales went on. “But there was one family heirloom that was too precious to entrust to anybody. Our Toledo cross. Solid silver. Our ancestors brought it from Spain. It always stood in the place of honor in the house. Men of the family kissed it before they went to war. Women prayed before it before they got married. Or went to the convent. Every child said his Pater Noster in Latin before his first Holy Communion. We couldn’t smuggle it out, couldn’t entrust it to anyone. So Abuelo Francisco buried it. He raised a tile in our veranda and put it in, in a lead box. All by himself, so the servants wouldn’t know.”
Morales folded his hands in front of his crotch. “Well, I got kind of worked up, talking about that. And you know what my friend Ivan said to me?”
Morales stepped over to him, put his arm around the sagging shoulders of the older man, who cringed helplessly.
“He said, Ruy, you should have that cross back. I’ll see to it personally. Soon as he gets back to Havana, he’s going to throw a police cordon around Casa Morales. Kick out whatever lowlifes are living there. Bring in the best archeologists from the university. If that cross is still there, he’ll find it. His personal pledge to me. Because this is not just a partnership. It’s a friendship.” He flashed a grin around the room as the applause began.
“Was that all bullshit?’ Tilda whispered.
“It’s not what was said on the balcony.”
“He sure knows how to play a crowd. Look at them.”
Photographers were stepping forward with their cameras, amateurs holding their smartphones over their heads. Reporters were scribbling in their notebooks. Morales was forcing Gonçalves to shake hands with him. Ava felt sorry for the old man. When Morales got you down, he couldn’t help grinding your face in the mud.
Tilda was pulling on her arm. “I’ve already called for our car. Let’s go.”
They walked quickly down the stairs to the lobby. The Avanti was waiting at the door. Tilda tipped the car valet generously, and they got in. Tilda waited only to raise the convertible top before driving away.
“We’re not going home.” She sounded tense, unlike herself. “We’re going to a hotel in Palm Beach—or no, I’m too well-known there. We’re going to a motel in Orlando.”
“Tilda, I told you, nobody saw me with Gonçalves.”
“They didn’t have to. You think they’re not going to be able to connect the dots? What they killed Brydon to prevent from happening—you just made it happen. It won’t take them long to figure out who you are and what you’re up to.”
The words sobered Ava. She was silent. Wondering if Orlando was safe. If anywhere was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Despite his poor Spanish, Laker was able to make the cabdriver understand that he wanted him to pull over. He’d spotted just the type of place he was looking for.
The street, only a mile from the Mexico City airport, was a humble one, lined with small shopfronts. The windows of the shop that interested him were almost completely covered by posters and stickers in fluorescent colors, advertising cheap rates for the services it offered. After paying the driver, Laker went in. The little place was packed with people. Some were standing in line at the counter to receive and cash remittances from their relatives working in the United States. Others were waiting at another counter to place long-distance phone calls. Laker went to a third counter.
With terse words he didn’t understand, and a gesture he did, the clerk directed him to the one computer in a row that wasn’t being used. They were all old ones, cased in battered tan plastic, with CRTs a foot and a half long. But Laker’s came to life when he put pesos in the slot. He tapped keys. The letters were worn off half of them.
He’d discovered this site during his layover at Tokyo airport. Theoretically, it could tell you the location of any ship at sea. The catch was, its receivers could only pick up their transponders when they were close to land. Entering M/V Comercio Marinero, he got only “Out of Range.” So he had time t
o prepare. He just didn’t know how much.
Or what he was going to do.
The screen went black. After a moment’s hesitation, he fed in more pesos, and went to the site of the State Department, United States of America.
He’d been awake for most of the long flight from Tokyo to Mexico City, trying to make a plan. It wasn’t going to be possible for him to seize the ship single-handed, search the hold for the container loaded at Magadan, and open it. That left him with two options, neither of them good.
The first was to sink the ship. In the Middle East, Laker had trained with Navy Seals, and it was just possible he would be able to improvise an explosive charge and fix it to the hull of the ship while it was docked. But he was no demolition expert. The explosion might kill dockworkers or sailors. Or himself.
The second was to go the official route. Have American diplomats persuade the Mexican government to seize the ship legally, search it, interrogate its crew. But if Laker walked into the American embassy, he’d never get a chance to make his case. He was a fugitive, a suspected rogue agent. They’d tie him, gag him, and put him on a military plane back to Washington.
While the Comercio Marinero steamed out of Puerto Chiapas and disappeared over the horizon.
There was one hope. Laker had been a CIA agent for fifteen years before being recruited by the Outfit. He’d served in many stations in the Middle East and Europe as well as Langley. If there was anybody he knew in the Mexico City station, anybody he could trust, he’d make a gingerly approach to that person, try to convince him that Comercio Marinero had to be stopped.
He kept clicking on the State Department site until he came to the Mexico City page. The CIA didn’t try to conceal the names of its officers who were attached to foreign embassies. It just listed them under vague and innocuous titles. Finding the personnel roster, Laker scanned it.
The third assistant attaché for cultural affairs was Theresa V. Lydecker. It was a name he knew well.
Only too well.
* * *
At sundown, Laker was sitting among the many people idling and chatting on the benches lining the path leading to the Palacio de Bellas Artes. It was the grandest building in a city that was fond of grandeur, an immense white marble edifice with pillars and pilasters and a cornice decorated with statues of angels and muses, topped by triple stained-glass domes.
