Havana Harvest

by Robert Landori

  “Both from men, I bet.”

  “What's the matter, cheri? Jealous?”

  Lonsdale smiled “Maybe just a little.”

  “Well you're wrong. They were from my assistant, Lucille, and from a secretary in the credit department.” She went upstairs to change, and Lonsdale followed.

  At dinner he asked her to go over what she had done to avoid pursuit.

  “I took the Metro to Cote-des-Neiges Station, you know, the one near where I live. I got out, then, at the last minute I jumped back in again.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Nobody jumped back in after me. So I went to De la Savane, picked up my car, drove toward Dorval Airport and then cut off to come north. Nobody followed me as far as I could see.”

  “What about in the village up here?”

  “I went to the convenience store, like you said I should, and bought groceries. I watched if anybody pulled up to wait for me and I couldn't spot anybody, so I'm pretty sure there was nobody after me. From the store you can see up and down the highway for a mile each way.”

  Lonsdale took three thousand dollars from his pocket and handed the money to Micheline. “Tomorrow I want you to buy me a return ticket to Amsterdam via KLM. I looked up the address, they're on Greene Avenue.” He gave her a piece of paper. “Make the reservation in the name of Linsdahl. Make sure you spell the name carefully.”

  “Linsdahl?”

  “Yes. The name resembles my own close enough to get me past passport control, but will not cause the computers to sound the alarm and alert the authorities. I am assuming, of course, that my colleagues are searching for me.”

  “Passport control in Canada?”

  “Not really passport control, but control at the check-in counter to make sure the airline doesn't have to fy me back if I'm denied entry at destination.”

  “And why a return ticket? Don't tell me you're coming back here.” Micheline tried to sound fippant, but was making a poor job of it.

  Lonsdale was expecting the question. “Miche, once I've fnished this mission I will apply for my pension. With my years of service I'm way past retirement age.” He gave her a crooked little smile. “I have no one in the world I care for except you. Of course I'll come back here. I'll even marry you if you'll have me.” “You mean that?”

  He laughed delightedly. “I mean it with all my heart.”

  She began to cry, and he leaned over to kiss away the tears.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Thursday

  Langley, Virginia

  Lawrence Smythe took a sip of his drink, then, shifting his arthritisriddled body painfully, turned toward Morton. “Have you heard from him?”

  “No, Sir. I haven't for a few days now. He's either gone to ground, afraid they'll try to take him out or they have already taken him out.”

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  Morton sighed wearily. He hated amateurs, especially amateurs with clout, and Smythe had plenty of that. “Sir, if you remember,” he explained for the umpteenth time, “you told me that this operation was set up on orders from the president on a need-to-know basis. Therefore, only those who needed to know were told about it. This did not include our embassy or our stations in Canada. My asset is operating on a need-to-know basis as well. He's soloing.”

  “Soloing?”

  “Yes, Sir. He's on his own and reports directly to me when he feels he has something to say.”

  “And what do we do about him if he gets into trouble?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “We just let him be. He either comes home or he doesn't.”

  “And if he doesn't?”

  “Then we write him off and your Operation Adios goes ahead as planned.”

  “And the fur will fly.”

  “And,” Morton got up and headed away from the man, “as you say, the fur will fly.” He was at the door, ready to open it.

  “Morton!” Smythe's voice sounded like a whiplash. Startled, Morton turned around. In the dusk the director's wasted body was almost invisible. But the huge, penetrating blue eyes in the heavily lined face were blazing at him with such intensity that, momentarily, Morton felt fear. “Morton,” Smythe said more softly, but very firmly. “Don't fuck with me! I'm not going to let that bastard in Cuba continue to give our nation grief for very much longer!”

  “But, Sir—”

  “But nothing. Get Lonsdale sorted out and quick, or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “You got the message. Now leave.”

  Smarting from the insult, Morton left, slamming the door behind him as hard as he dared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Friday and Saturday

  Budapest, Hungary

  As expected, Lonsdale had no difficulty with passport control at Mirabel Airport, and he passed the security check with flying colors.

  His seat was in the upstairs cabin of the 747. He had charmed the passenger agent supervisor into blocking off the seat next to his, so he felt free to remove the inside arm rest. As soon as they were airborne, he stretched out across the two seats, tucked a pillow under his head, pulled the blinkers provided by the airline over his eyes, wrapped himself in a blanket, and was asleep within minutes.

  Seven hours later he exited the plane in the Amsterdam airport. He checked the departure console and saw there that an Austrian Airlines flight departed to Vienna at eight thirty. He bought a one-way business-class ticket for cash in the name of Donald Jackson, got two bottles of liquor at the Duty Free Shop, a bottle of Grecian Formula in the drugstore, and hurried on board with ten minutes to spare.

  He was in Vienna by noon. He mentally complimented Austrian Airlines for its service: the flight had left on time, breakfast had been ample, and the seats had been comfortable.

  He took the bus from Schwechat to the downtown railway station and bought, again for cash, a one-way, first-class ticket to Budapest on the express leaving at ten past five.

  He had plenty of money and four hours to spare, so he took a cab to the Hilton, got a day-room, once more for cash, showered and shaved, had a couple of hours' sleep and was in his seat on the train fifteen minutes before departure time, rested, but tense.

  He thought he had the compartment to himself until a Hungarian family of three barged in huffing, puffing, and fussing. The father, Lonsdale gathered, was some sort of senior banking official, the son a precocious high-school student. The mother, a Hungarian housewife, was a stay-at-home type.

  The thought brought Lonsdale up short. How did he know all this? Then it dawned on him. He had been reading a magazine, yet he had been following the conversation subconsciously and had understood just about everything that had been said, even though his travel companions were speaking Hungarian. This, of course, pleased him immensely. Though born in Budapest he had spoken no Hungarian since changing identity almost two decades ago. Quietly he gave thanks for the exceptional language skills with which he'd been endowed and went back to reading his magazine.

  But he couldn't concentrate. With the language came a flood of memories—of his youth, of the war, of his parents and his brother, all dead long ago.

  His brother, Anthony, three years older than Lonsdale, had been killed by shrapnel during the siege of Budapest in 1944. Anthony, whom Lonsdale had idolized, had always been a curious kid who wouldn't listen. He had disregarded his mother's orders one Boxing Day when, he had ventured into the street to see what was happening. He had barely stepped outside when a tiny piece of shrapnel from an exploding mortar shell pierced his brain.

  Lonsdale had gone looking for his brother when Anthony failed to return for lunch, and he had found him less than ten yards from the entrance of their apartment building, sitting on the curb, facing the street, his back against the base of a street lamp which shielded him from view. To Lonsdale, he had appeared to be asleep, so he had given him a playful shove to wake him up. The sliver of metal that had killed him had been so small t
hat the entry wound could not be seen for the hair that was covering it.

  The three months following Anthony's death had been a blur of mental and physical pain that had seared Lonsdale's psyche indelibly.

  He'd had to cope with a hysterical, then deeply depressed and guiltridden mother, forever blaming herself for having let Anthony out of her sight. There was no privacy in the overcrowded basement where twenty-four families had taken refuge while the city above them was being shelled to pieces and fought over by the German, Hungarian, and Russian armies. There was hardly any food, it was freezing cold, and the Russians came by regularly to rape the women.

  In March his dad came home from the Russian front. He'd been taken prisoner near Kiev, some two thousand kilometers from Budapest, but had escaped to walk home disguised as an old peasant woman.

  A year later, having sold everything they owned in Hungary, Lonsdale and his family left Budapest to stay in his paternal grandmother's home in Vienna. Lonsdale was sent to boarding school, first in Switzerland then in England. By the time he got to Canada five years later, his mental wounds had healed, at least on the surface.

  Lonsdale's reverie was interrupted by the arrival of the Austrian border police. Their attitude was perfunctory. They couldn't care less about who was leaving their country, especially not for places behind the Iron Curtain.

  On the other hand, the Hungarian border guards, who clambered aboard at Hegyeshalom in pairs, were thorough and focused, especially on what they could confiscate from returning citizens on the pretext of having uncovered “restricted” merchandise.

  Lonsdale watched them work over the banker and his family, who really did have an extraordinary number of suitcases. When it became apparent that the guards were not about to leave without their pound of flesh, Lonsdale gave them the bottle of Scotch he had purchased at Schipohl, Amsterdam's airport. The guards disappeared and the train was soon on its way again.

  All members of the banker's family spoke English. They had lived in London and New York where the banker had represented the Hungarian National Bank. Profuse in their thanks for his kindness, they asked Lonsdale whether he had somewhere to stay in Budapest. When he sheepishly admitted that he had no specific destination, they supplied half a dozen hotel names and listed their pros and cons. He listened carefully and made note of a couple that sounded low-key enough for his purposes.

  Lonsdale planned to arrive in Budapest around half past nine at night and to bribe his way into a second-class hotel. He would debrief Schwartz on Sunday morning and go over the details of the upcoming meeting with Casas.

  Morton had ordered him to be back at the office on Tuesday. He had no reason to think Lonsdale would not follow orders, yet Siddiqui had been murdered on Monday. The murderers, while bugging Siddiqui's phone, must have overheard Lonsdale making arrangements to meet the banker on Monday and wanted to prevent the meeting at all cost. This meant that either Siddiqui or Lonsdale, or both, had to die. The opposition had acted with skill and quickly, which meant they must have had agents nearby.

  Canadians? Unlikely.

  Cubans? Maybe. They had the manpower in Montreal.

  Did Morton ask for surveillance on Siddiqui? Lonsdale concluded that he had no reason to do so since he was not even aware of Siddiqui's existence. There had been no time for Lonsdale to brief Morton on him.

  The Agency, the Agency, the Agency, the little voice inside Lonsdale's head kept on repeating. The left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. Everything is based on need-to-know. He stared out the window. It was dark. The train's wheels kept clicking: “Need to know, need to know, need to know.”

  In Budapest, he headed for the nearest taxi. “Hotel Taverna,” he said, hoping it would be enough to get him where he wanted to go.

  It was.

  The Taverna Hotel turned out to be exactly what he was looking for and he was able to get the last available room, a single. In spite of being located on Váci Utca, Budapest's upscale shopping street, it was far from a five-star hotel. Lonsdale took it gratefully and paid cash in advance for three nights. Although the lobby was narrow and dingy and the staff surly, Lonsdale fell in love with the place at first sight. The reason: you could get out of the building four different ways; one was through the garage, without having to pass the front desk.

  By half past eleven he was walking up and down Váci Utca, wearing his newly acquired hat and horn-rimmed glasses, ostensibly window-shopping, but in reality watching the parade of whores, and checking for signs of surveillance, as always.

  After several entertaining and salacious discussions with several belles de nuit, he decided that he was not being followed and picked out the woman he wanted: a no-nonsense brassy, buxom streetwalker.

  “So you got tired of walking up and down,” she challenged him, “or did you finally make up your mind about getting laid?”

  He nodded and said nothing.

  “You picked me because of my great-looking body.”

  He nodded again.

  “Ha, you like the big package?”

  He nodded for the third time, then asked “What's your name?”

  “Berta.”

  “And how much is the package for the night?”

  She named a number, which, by Western standards, seemed extremely reasonable.

  “There's only one little problem,” he said. “I don't have anywhere to take you.”

  “Don't worry about it big boy. We'll go to a hotel I know. Just follow me.” She turned on her heels and headed for the nearest cabstand.

  “Not so fast,” Lonsdale called after her. “How much will the hotel cost me, and besides, I want to know which hotel you're proposing to take me to.”

  “The Citadella, on Citadel Hill in Buda, and it's only twenty-five American dollars.”

  Lonsdale pretended to hesitate. “Listen, that's just too much for me in total.” He made himself sound rueful. “I guess I had better just say good night and ask for a rain check. I don't have the money.”

  “Suit your self,” the woman shrugged, visibly peeved, and walked away. Lonsdale was pleased. All he had wanted was the name of a hotel de passage where he would probably not have to show identification.

  The Citadella is an impressive fort-like building strategically located on St. Gellért's Mountain and overlooking the City of Pest toward the east and the Royal Castle of the Kings of Hungary to the north. The castle was built on the ruins of fortifications that had withstood the onslaught of the Turks for over a hundred years, thus becoming Hungary's symbol of resistance against all oppressors. The Citadella, on the other hand, had been built by the Austrians after the Hungarian War of Independence in 1848 to serve as a garrison for the troops charged with keeping an eye on the rebellious Hungarians.

  Lonsdale flagged down a cab on Rákoczy Boulevard and directed it to this massive edifice, now ignominiously converted into a combination YMCA and hotel de passage.

  In the dark, the “fort” appeared ominously menacing and singularly uncomfortable. Three-feet-thick walls, pierced by gun ports that now served as windows, a narrow circular parapet, and sentry posts every fifty feet, all made for an uninviting and inappropriate-looking site for a so-called romantic interlude.

  No matter. All Lonsdale wanted was a secret refuge, a backup venue where he could hole up in case he had to disappear from the Hotel Taverna in a hurry.

  In contrast to its stark exterior, the Citadella's interior was warm and friendly. The clean, well-lit, and whitewashed lobby was large, the furniture comfortable. Despite the hour, the receptionist greeted him with a welcoming smile.

  “Can I have a double room for the night please,” Lonsdale said in English and handed the clerk a ten-dollar bill. “Preferably upstairs.”

  “For the night? No sweat.” The clerk was falling all over himself trying to be helpful. He took Lonsdale's money and then asked, “What is your name, Sir?”

  Lonsdale handed him another ten-dollar bill and the clerk gave him a slip of paper. �
�Mark down your name and address for me, will you?” Lonsdale obliged and then paid for the room.

  “Can I see some ID please?”

  “Berta will give it to you when she gets here,” Lonsdale replied and headed for the stairs.

  The clerk did not call after him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Sunday Morning Budapest, Hungary

  Lonsdale had slept deeply and had awakened rested and refreshed. After a quick shower and a shave with the foam and razor he had stashed in his coat pocket before leaving the Hotel Taverna, he had headed for the reception area. It was early, half past seven, and the same clerk was still on duty.

  “Where can I get something to eat?”

  “Have breakfast in our cafeteria. We bake our own bread, and it's good.”

  “And where's that?”

  “On the mezzanine floor.”

  Lonsdale made as if to leave then turned back. “Say, can I have my room for another night?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me pay you in advance.” Lonsdale gave the man fifty bucks, double what the room cost.

  “No sweat. I've got you covered.” The clerk yawned. “Keep your key and have fun. As for me I can hardly wait to get off.”

  While pretending to read the Sunday Magyar Nemzet, Lonsdale contemplated what he had to do next.

  Contact with Casas was the objective, but this could only be achieved through Schwartz. And, by now, Schwartz must either be under American surveillance or actively cooperating with the Agency,of this Lonsdale was almost certain. After all, the CIA had almost a week to identify Siddiqui's client as the Angolan contact.

  Whether Schwartz was working with Lonsdale's tormentors was immaterial. It was best to assume that he was being followed in hopes he would lead to Lonsdale or to Casas, or both.