by Glen Carter
There was no sign of any interest from Pavel, who had returned to standby mode again.
They drove for about half a mile before Jack spotted more lights. They came to a guardhouse on the outside of a tall metal fence topped with razor wire. Jack suspected the fence was electrified and carried enough juice to knock a man down – maybe even the brothers.
Uri stopped the car.
A uniformed man appeared and tapped Jack’s window.
Jack lowered the glass and smiled weakly while the man studied him. “Doyle?”
“Who else would it be, Pepe?” Uri said. “Go back to sleep, you fucking monkey.”
The guard gave Uri a killing look and disappeared. A moment later the gate opened and Uri drove to a stop fifty yards ahead. They were parked on a circular driveway in front of a sprawling white stucco bungalow. It had a red barrel-tiled roof and front archways divided by wide ornate columns with sky-blue trim. A dark wood, ground-level veranda stretched the entire length of the house while spot-lit palms and shrubs with thick waxy appendages circled a small fountain populated by illuminated urinating cherubs.
Security lighting pierced the darkness at strategic points on the grounds, turning palm trees into towering giants. Jack saw two men in uniforms hugging the shadows of the building, rifles held lazily at their sides.
Jack opened the car door and got out, stretched his legs while Pavel retrieved his knapsack.
Suddenly the front door swung open, spilling light across the veranda. Dmitri Raspov emerged, wearing nothing but a red housecoat and matching beret. “You bastard Yankee,” he growled. “Welcome to Cuba. One of the last places on earth you’ll find a good communist.”
“Still wearing the party colour.” Jack smiled, embracing his old friend with a back-slapping hug.
“What would Stalin think if I weren’t?” Raspov replied. After a second he pulled away and smiled. “How are you, Jack?”
“Well, Dmitri. Well,” Jack answered. “And needing a drink.”
“You and I, old friend.”
When Dmitri led them into the house Jack saw why Dmitri couldn’t meet him at Figuardo’s. The two girls were no more than eighteen and excruciatingly beautiful. They lounged together on a red Caucasian ottoman and giggled when they saw Jack.
“Más esta noche.” Raspov bent and kissed their brown cheeks, “A casa ahora ir.”
They looked hungrily at Jack, pouted, and then swung a pair of astounding rear ends out the door.
Dmitri winked at Jack. “I think they tire of this old broken-down Georgian,” he said. “A tall handsome Yanqui would be more to their satisfaction.”
Jack watched them leave. “Ukrainian, I thought.”
“Who can remember when you’ve had as many covers as I?”
Raspov’s housecoat flapped open as he slapped his feet across travertine marble towards the back of the house. “Time for drinks…to catch up on our lost years!” His voice echoed through a palatial foyer crowned with a huge chandelier that cast shafts of blue light through a thousand Murano teardrops.
Jack walked slowly through the house. On his left, above the ottoman, hung paintings of a birch tree forest and to the right of that, the Russian steppes with a Siberian train in the distance. An antique brass samovar sat in one corner. Russian dacha with a Spanish colonial bent, Jack thought. As he walked farther into the house he heard the limo pulling away. Uri and Pavel were probably taking the girls home. A moment later Jack found Dmitri mixing drinks at an island in the centre of a large kitchen which was full of stainless steel, granite, and terra cotta tile. What remained of a suckling pig lay on a sparkling silver tray, exotic fruit half eaten on white porcelain plates.
“My young guests were hungry as Russian bears,” Raspov said. “It pleasures me to watch them eat so, to nourish their young welcoming bodies.”
Doyle felt a tinge of revulsion. But he chose not to voice what he was thinking.
“Care to eat, Jack?”
“No thanks.
The old spook had gone to fat. Despite the Cuban sun, he managed the pallor of an uncooked bratwurst. His housecoat had fallen open, exposing an ample gut. Raspov removed his beret to reveal grey hair which was still cut to military length, but thinning over visible age spots on his scalp. He wore gold wire-rim glasses that magnified cold grey eyes and had thick generous lips that were his only redeeming facial feature. KGB Bohemian, Jack thought.
“You were met well?” Dmitri brought the drinks, something red and fruity with rum in them. He looked at the expression on Jack’s face and retied his housecoat.
Jack tasted his drink, licked the sweetness from his lips, and wished instead for some of Dmitri’s iced vodka. “Eventually, thanks to you,” he said. Jack then told Dmitri about his gunboat escort.
Raspov smiled. “Good,” he said. “A week ago an American yacht pulled a dozen balseros from their inner tubes about forty miles out, Cuban exiles coming to take their loved ones to the land of dreams. A gunboat like the one that found you today was dispatched to engage the interloper.” Raspov shook his head. Sipped. “Such a stink it would have caused sinking an American yacht. More sword play between Havana and Washington. You remember little Elian? Anyway, Raul retracted his talons and the yacht was permitted to flee. The coastal defense forces want their revenge. I dispatched an escort to make certain it wasn’t you.”
“Much appreciated,” said Jack. He then asked Raspov about the brothers.
Dmitri laughed. “Big-hearted Chechens those two. Gentle as bears until they are fucked with.”
“What’s with the fresh air phobia?”
Dmitri turned serious. “You haven’t seen the flying livestock around here yet.” It was a statement. Raspov shook his head and swallowed a good measure of his fruity drink. “They were driving up from Havana a month ago. Pavel was drunk. Had his big fat head stuck out the window singing one of his patriotic songs when something flew into his large mouth.”
The image brought a smile to Jack’s face.
“So Uri has to pull over. There was Pavel, crawling in the dirt, choking on whatever it was, and Uri is pounding him on the back, trying to save his miserable life. You know, brotherly love. Anyway some great big fucking cockroach with wings pops out of Pavel’s throat. He doesn’t like it, even a bit. So out comes his big Russian gun and he begins to shoot. Uri has to force him back in the car and get moving quick before he can reload.”
They were both laughing now.
After a moment Jack looked at him. “They look like mob, Dmitri?” Jack knew he was pushing into dangerous territory.
Raspov waited a moment. “Uri and Pavel were KGB – not mob.”
“Not the charm school types,” Jack said.
“No,” Dmitri said. “But they had other talents.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow.
“They found them as children,” Raspov continued. “Not more than two…maybe three. A pair of little savages. Alone with Papa and Mama. Their parents had already killed each other. Who knows why? It doesn’t matter. Both were Chechen. Anyway, Papa had a big knife in his chest. Mama with a bullet…right here.” Dmitri placed a finger in the centre of his forehead.
Jack imagined the scene. A barren Moscow apartment, naked light bulbs. Two bodies, and two children, though it was easier to image an infant yeti than Uri and Pavel as toddlers.
“Anyway,” Raspov said. “When police kick in door, Uri and Pavel have been there four, maybe six days. No way to tell, though the corpses smell very bad, because as you can imagine they are rotting, even though there is little heat. So there they are: little Uri and Pavel, both of them hungry as black bears and trying to force their way into the bedroom where their parents’ bodies are ripening. Not because they want love. But because they need to eat.” Dmitri stopped for a moment to let it sink in.
Jack grimaced.
Dmitri took another swallow. “The KGB took them both. Their whole lives. School, everything. Like little wolf boys. They taught them human things. And t
hings not so human. Uri and Pavel were good students.” Raspov nodded. “With special talents.”
Jack preferred not to think about their special talents.
Raspov went on, “No more Soviet Union, no more use for them. So I took them. They are mine now.”
“Your retirement gift from the KGB,” Jack added. Raspov’s KGB service had never been a secret, not after that first night in Moscow.
“Yes, my retirement gift. Like a gold watch.” Raspov laughed loudly. “You were a better spy than reporter, Dmitri,” Jack said, remembering that night in Moscow when Raspov had skillfully drawn him away so that at the end of the night a “brown envelope” could change hands.
Dmitri feigned hurt. “Ouch. Eventually, I’ll forgive you for that,” he said.
“You’ve done well.”
Dmitri waved an expansive hand. “I suppose. But the fucking country is a shambles, and I grow somewhat tired of hunting for toilet paper and soap. Even for someone like me there are shortages. Castro, on the other hand. Lavish homes and a personal fortune. Do you know he’s paid twenty million per year from the French alone for the Havana Club label? The revolution has served him well, don’t you agree?”
Jack did.
Raspov continued, “When the Soviet Union collapsed, I had no job. Hundreds of us, told to go home. Just like that.” Raspov snapped his fingers, let the sound hang there a second or two. “It was also bad news for Castro. No more Ladas and caviar or spare parts for anything.”
“It shows,” Jack said.
“Now he’s an old man who still sees the CIA under his bed,” Dmitri said. “Word is he still wears a hairnet to protect his precious beard from the Mongoose.”
Jack jumped in. “Castro brought you in to head his intelligence apparatus. You were qualified. A KGB colonel, suddenly unemployed, with ‘talents’ of your own. He pays you to keep an eye on things, especially in the Americas where the socialist spark is waiting to ignite any number of fires. Sounds like your kind of heaven.”
“Or hell.”
“You left hell, Dmitri,” Jack said. “By comparison this is heaven.”
“Yes, I suppose,” he said. Dmitri refilled their glasses and then led him outside to a small patio where they sat.
Jack smelled the scent of flowers. Soft lights stretched along a wide stone pathway that led in the direction of the ocean.
They both stared into the darkness for a while, and then Dmitri spoke. “You look bad.”
“Thanks, pal.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Some days are better than others,” Jack said.
Raspov lowered his voice. “No doubt.”
“This helps,” Jack said, raising the glass to the moonlight. “In large amounts.”
Neither of them said anything for a couple of minutes. In the distance the surf slapped an easy rhythm against Raspov’s private beach.
“I was sorry to hear about what happened,” Dmitri said eventually.
Jack brought the glass to his lips, swallowed twice before replying. “Thanks.”
“She was a beautiful girl,” he said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. He thought for a moment. “We grew up in the same place.” It seemed like a good place to start. “I left after my dad died. Moved to Boston with my aunt. That’s where I went to college. Kaitlin stayed on the island and eventually went to J-school on the west coast. We went our separate ways until she came back east. Not long after that we hired her.” Jack looked at Raspov ruefully. “It was my call.”
“And a good one by the sounds of it,” Raspov said. “You were her mentor?”
Jack looked directly at him. “She didn’t need it, Dmitri. She was already good. Very good. Taught me a thing or two.”
“Including regret.”
“Yep.”
“Colombia’s a dangerous place, Jack, and you’re blaming yourself – maybe unwisely.”
“My call,” Jack repeated. “Besides, who else is there to blame?” Jack gulped his drink and looked at his friend expectantly.
Raspov remained silent.
“Right,” Jack said. The same look he’d seen on Walter Carmichael’s face the day he came to collect him in Cartagena. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Jack, before someone decides to take out the hospital,” he had said, dryly.
Jack thought about Seth’s video. The picture he’d printed from it. He’d haul it out soon enough, before Raspov got too deeply into the alcohol. In the meantime he’d relax a little, enjoy the company and the sound of the surf. The rum drink, less so. Its syrupy sweetness was beginning to turn his stomach.
Raspov must have sensed it. “Thank God the embassy has a good supply of Stolichnaya,” he said.
“Thought communists didn’t believe in God,” Jack replied, smiling.
“Only when it comes to vodka,” Raspov said, before heading back inside.
Jack stared towards the ocean, which was shrouded by darkness behind a line of tall palms. He imagined the waves licking at sand that had the look and feel of refined sugar. For a moment he desired a long walk along the sea, a chance to rethink everything, including the conclusion that led him here – to Raspov. He wasn’t sure about it, or the much bigger choice he’d made. He let his mind wander back to the Moscow summit, to the night a brown envelope was dropped into his lap that transformed him into a bonafide network star. Jack’s story seriously imperiled the Soviet bargaining position, and thus, the summit. Jack and Raspov had not spoken about it since. To do so would have been dangerous. Though he still wondered, why him? Why had he been the chosen one?
Raspov returned with two frosty tumblers filled to the brim with fine vodka. They toasted and drank and then Jack turned to him – serious. “How did Rimbey get the story before me?”
“We gave it to him. Just the broad strokes. But you were the one, Jack. You got it all. Remember? Our side’s position on offensive and strategic nuclear weapons – warheads, throw-weight and the like. The absolute maximum reductions Soviet negotiators could live with. The party apparatchiks were outraged over Gorbachev’s readiness to capitulate. They saw it as surrendering their big stick, giving in to the enemies of communism.” Raspov adjusted his housecoat, brought his glass up again and paused. “We needed the Cold War to continue. What would we have done without it? Especially those of us who actually wore uniforms and were dedicated to defending the Rodina. Gorbachev was going to bargain away Soviet intermediate-range missiles pointed at Western Europe. What were we to do? Spit at the invading NATO forces? The Warsaw Pact was screaming bloody murder.”
“Sounds like Comrade Gorbachev might have been living on borrowed time,” Jack interrupted.
Raspov stared at him. “Believe me. All options were considered. Even that one. But in the end we knew that killing the architect of Glasnost would have created even deeper problems. Reagan would have used Gorbachev’s demise to ramp up the arms race even further.” Raspov rubbed his fingers together. “Hard currency, Jack. We were short on that as you know.”
“You were bankrupt,” Jack said.
“That’s right. So we improvised. Showing Mikhail’s hand effectively ruined his ability to reach a weapons reduction agreement that would have satisfied his opponents within the party, the politburo, and of course the Soviet military establishment. As I said, Rimbey was given just a taste so that he would become the spark under your ass, so to speak. It worked.”
Jack remembered the pressure from Carmichael to get confirmation and reaction – “but for Chrissake get the goddamn story.”
“What happened afterwards?” Jack asked Raspov.
“The great Soviet Union collapsed – and it all became a moot point.”
Jack screwed up his face. “I mean before that.” Smart-ass.
Raspov tipped his head back. “Shit hit the proverbial fan. Gorbachev blamed his enemies for the leak. He exacted his pound of flesh. Many of the patriots ended up dead or imprisoned. Mostly dead.” Raspov lifted his hand, squeezed an imaginar
y trigger and blew phantom smoke from the tip of his finger. “I kept a low profile and somehow survived. Eventually Gorbachev got what he wanted anyway. The Cold War was over. Communism collapsed. The rest, as they say, is history.” Dmitri paused, swallowed. After a moment he said, “I know you were interrogated, Jack.”
“Our side was pretty pissed too. They demanded to know where I got my information. My source.”
“And you didn’t give it to them.”
“You kidding? For a journalist the protection of sources is sacrosanct.” Jack turned to Dmitri. “I told them to eat shit.”
Raspov laughed. “Well said, and no doubt you made a lifetime friend of your CIA.” The Russian slipped into silence, gazed into the darkness.
Jack looked at him and said, “The kind of friends you don’t need.”
The moon slipped behind thin strips of low hanging cloud that looked like trails of grey ash from the countless fires that burned in split oil drums he had seen on the way up from the city.
“By the way. Why me?”
“Pardon?’
“Why was I the chosen one?”
“Simple,” Raspov replied, grinning. “Your network had the biggest… what is it you say? The biggest ‘market share.’”
“Ratings. The highest ratings.” Jack felt slightly deflated.
“Yes, more eyeballs watching as you delivered the goods. You were the biggest bang for our buck so to speak. No pun intended.”
“Great,” Jack said. “Just great.” He’d been used by people who didn’t like Gorbi’s plans for a brave new world. He suspected it then. He was certain of it now. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for the story of a lifetime, Dmitri,” Jack said. “Even though I felt like a whore.”
“Whore? Maybe, Jack,” Raspov said. “Whore or a hero.”
“The network signed me to a sweet contract when I got home.” Jack grinned.
Raspov sneered. “You became a star and I was still lining up for toilet paper and week-old bread.”
Jack chuckled, waved his hand across the grounds. “Looks like you haven’t done too badly.”
“A good whore also,” Raspov snorted. “Castro’s whore.”
