Havana Harvest

by Robert Landori

  Casas shifted painfully in the cramped passenger seat so that he could face Lonsdale. “Of course it's true,” he said matter-of-factly. The painkillers had subdued him. “It never occurred to me that the CIA would not believe me. I chased Fernandez to Miami because I could think of no other way of getting your government's attention.”

  “What do you mean chased?”

  “I had to frighten him, so he would think he had made a serious mistake involving money. I also had to tempt him with a lot of money. I succeeded in doing both.” He gave Lonsdale a crooked grin. “I even succeeded in helping you find a way to get in touch with me without Fernandez's help.”

  “How's that?”

  “Tell me, how did you locate me?”

  “Through our late friend, Schwartz.”

  “And how did you get to him?”

  “I traced the Cayman money to him.”

  “And how did you do that?”

  “I suppose you'll be telling me soon that you helped me find you.”

  “‘Help’ is perhaps the wrong word. ‘Providing hints’ is the way I would phrase it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Depositing money in bundles, with the bundling intact, for example.”

  Lonsdale's head snapped back as it struck him that he had grossly underestimated Casas. His mind went into overdrive. Was Casas trying to capitalize on a mistake of which he had become aware only subsequently or was he for real? Hard question to answer. Lonsdale said nothing for a while, concentrating on driving.

  “Help me make sure we're not being followed,” he finally said, playing for time. “Watch the rearview mirror on your side while I make a couple of quick turns.” Lonsdale accelerated down Palota Boulevard and took a sharp left on Váralja towards the tunnel leading to the Chain Bridge. Another sharp left through the traffic lights got him into the tunnel. He drove as fast as the sparse Sunday night traffic would allow and soon emerged onto the Adam Clark round-about that connects the tunnel with the bridge. He raced around it at speed, making a full circle and went back into the tunnel. He cast a questioning glance at Casas as they carefully surveyed the cars coming from the opposite direction.

  “There seems to be no one following us.” Casas sounded very positive and more alert. “What do you think?”

  Ignoring the question, Lonsdale made up his mind. “I have come to the conclusion that, maybe, just maybe, Fernandez was telling the truth, at least the way he understood the truth to be. Suppose you tell me your version, and then we'll do a little analyzing.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we'll see.”

  “How do I know you're CIA?”

  “You don't, but to show good faith I'll tell you the highlights of what I know and you'll judge for yourself. Is that a fair deal?” He held out his hand and Casas took it awkwardly. Lonsdale began to talk, just as they were reentering the tunnel on their way toward the Chain Bridge and Pest for the second time.

  It took an hour to tell Casas about Fernandez's flight to freedom, Lonsdale's trip to the BCCI in Cayman, his subsequent visit to Montreal, Siddiqui's death, Lonsdale's talks with Schwartz, and the way the old man had died. He was careful to present a coherent and logical story without mentioning Micheline or the strange attitude of his own colleagues toward him. He wanted to hear Casas's unbiased take on the situation.

  “Hold on, hold on.” The Cuban held up his good hand to stop Lonsdale. “Do I understand correctly that you thought the shot that killed Siddiqui was meant for you?”

  “Not really, because at the time the assassin, unless he was working for the Agency, which I doubt, did not know my identity.”

  “Who then would have arranged for you to be followed?”

  “Whoever the shooter was working for—the Cubans or the drug cartel. After eliminating Siddiqui to shut him up they needed to stop me from continuing my investigation.”

  “That's fair,” Casas bit his lower lip, “but you also said that before Siddiqui got killed your colleagues wouldn't let you speak to Fernandez again.”

  “Right.”

  “And they had ordered you to stop working on the investigation and report back to your head office.”

  “Right again.”

  “They know something you don't know, and they don't want you to find out what it is.”

  Lonsdale, who had been driving around the city aimlessly, now headed for the Eastern Railway Station. “You might be right, but I'm damned if I know what it is. What do you think the reason is for holding back information? Why don't they let me have the full picture?”

  “Maybe the man to whom you report does not have the full picture.”

  “That's possible.”

  Neither of them said anything for a while. It was Casas who broke the silence. “You've told me little that I didn't know, except the Schwartz and Siddiqui assassinations of course. These events reinforce my theory that they don't want you to get to know certain things. I'm beginning to attribute more significance to something that has been bothering me only slightly up to now.”

  “What's that?”

  Deep in thought, Casas did not reply. Lonsdale pulled over to the sidewalk and stopped the car. They were alongside the railway station. He knew better than to say anything. He understood that Casas needed a few moments to marshal his thoughts.

  As the minutes ticked by, Lonsdale's chances of catching the Sunday evening express to Vienna were fast evaporating, but the general had to be given the opportunity to conclude on his own that he required help from Uncle Sam, so Lonsdale stuck with him. He started the car again and drove back toward the downtown area.

  Finally, Casas bestirred himself. “Listen to this, Mr.—”

  “Call me Roberto.”

  “OK, Roberto. Before I left Cuba, Oscar De la Fuente and I had a violent argument. That was about ten days ago. We were discussing the Fernandez situation, and he said we'd have to volunteer to go on trial and swear in public that Oscar and I were the highest-ranking Cubans who knew about the drug operation and that the government and Fidel were not aware of anything. He said we needed to do this to save Cuba's reputation because of what Fernandez was telling the CIA.”

  Casas began to stroke his injured fingers. “Oscar also said he would have to involve more of his own people in the drug operation to make it look as though it were a bunch of MININT—pardon me, Ministry of the Interior—people who thought up the whole scheme. Then he went on to say that Fernandez, being the only person who heard me talk to Raul Castro about the drug operation, had to be killed to erase any possible connection with the government.”

  “Sounds logical to me, but go on.” Lonsdale tried to sound encouraging.

  “But by killing Fernandez we would be committing suicide, don't you see? We'd be found guilty at our trial, condemned to death, and shot. I told De la Fuente that our life insurance was Fernandez, that if he was dead we were dead.”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “That Fernandez was not enough, that we needed to manufacture more proof that Fidel knew, so that we could threaten to expose his complicity if he allowed us to be condemned to death.”

  “Instead of?”

  “Instead of, say, being sent into exile, like Fidel had been after he had attacked the Moncada barracks.”

  “What about world opinion?”

  “As long as there was no proof that Castro or the government knew, the world would have to assume that they were innocent and we were the guilty parties.”

  “And your life insurance, as you call it, would have been Fernandez?”

  “Or someone like Fernandez, or several Fernandezes, or documents, such as minutes that would attest to knowledge at the highest levels.”

  Lonsdale felt sick with apprehension. “You mean to tell me we're holding Fernandez, the only proof to what you're saying being true, and we're not aware of this?”

  “That's exactly what I'm saying.” Casas was shaking his head, unwilling to believe what he was about to say.
“And he doesn't know, so he couldn't have told you, and you're probably not guarding him closely enough.”

  “You mean because Fidel's or Raul's assassins could get to him—”

  “And Oscar and I would be dead men.”

  “And Fidel and Raul would get off scot-free.”

  “Yes.”

  Lonsdale seized his opportunity. “But not if you come to the States with me.”

  Casas looked stunned. “I would never do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “I could never live with myself thinking I've saved my neck and abandoned my family.”

  “But you wouldn't.” Lonsdale made himself sound as persuasive as he could, but within, he felt unconvinced. “You could present what you know to the world and explain how you made Fernandez flee to alert the United States of what was going on.”

  “No good, not even with Fernandez corroborating what I was saying.” Casas shook his head. “People would simply say Fernandez and I were either in the pay of the United States or guilty as hell.”

  “And De la Fuente?”

  “What about him?”

  “Would he not be sufficient to corroborate?” As soon as Lonsdale had uttered the phrase he knew his cause was lost.

  “Whether Oscar corroborated what I said would make no diffierence,” Casas said softly. “Don't you see, Roberto, I've painted myself into a corner. Fidel would put Oscar on trial, Oscar would take all the blame, and he would be shot. Fernandez and I would come off as the cowardly drug dealers who ran for their lives, abandoning their coconspirators to certain death.”

  “They would have to get to them first.”

  “I'm sure that would not be difficult.”

  “There is another ‘unless.’ ” Lonsdale made himself sound optimistic and smiled at Casas, trying to convey hope. “Suppose we enrolled both you and Fernandez in our witness protection program. You could disappear and start afresh with new identities.”

  “Now there's a stupid idea if I ever heard one,” Casas retorted, sounding disgusted. “I don't know about Fernandez, but I wouldn't want to find myself in a position of never again being able to see my mother, my two daughters, and my friends—assuming I'd have any left after all this.” He shook his head sadly. “No, Roberto. Without intending to, I've dealt Fidel a winning hand, and all because I didn't watch my back.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What I mean is…what's bothering me is that I have begun to suspect the worst.” He was having difficulty saying what he had to say. “I have begun to suspect that this entire drug operation is a private-enterprise deal, cooked up between De la Fuente and Raul, or De la Fuente and his father-in-law, or maybe De la Fuente alone.”

  “You mean for their personal enrichment?”

  “That's exactly what I mean.”

  “Yet involving a number of people in the MININT and the army.”

  “All of whom are following orders convinced they are working for Department Z on a legitimate highly secret, government-authorized smuggling operation, designed to break the U.S. embargo and to generate much-needed hard currency, while at the same time undermining the morale of the people of the U.S.”

  “With drugs.”

  “Yes, with drugs, habit-forming drugs, the use of which kills directly and indirectly.” Casas stared straight ahead, not daring to look at Lonsdale. “Just think of all those infected needles spreading AIDS.” He shuddered.

  “Let me understand this, Patricio.” Lonsdale said quickly, choosing his words very carefully. “You have begun to suspect that, without Fidel's or the government's knowledge, Oscar alone or Oscar and Raul are smuggling drugs for proft, using the facilities of the Cuban Army and the Ministry of the Interior.”

  Casas nodded without looking at Lonsdale. “Yes, that's it in a nutshell.”

  “Let's get to basics, Patricio.” Lonsdale needed to get to the core of Casas's knowledge. “Who first approached you about the drug operation and when?”

  “Oscar, in Africa, about a year and a half ago.”

  “In Africa?”

  “Yes, Angola.” Casas thought for a bit. “You see, we were conducting these foreign exchange operations on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior's Department Z, and Oscar was in charge in Africa.”

  “What kind of operations?”

  “Ivory and gold coins. Diamonds also. Oscar handled the diamonds, but needed help with the ivory and the coins, first to find them, then to collect them, and, most importantly, to sell them for hard currency, preferably dollars. He needed a reliable partner with army connections and a diplomatic passport. I filled the bill.”

  “So you worked for Oscar, your troops gathering the ivory and coins, and you, yourself, transporting the stuff?”

  “That's right. For about six months before he started talking about drugs.”

  Lonsdale held up his hand. “Wait. Who set up the banking arrangements?”

  “Oscar.”

  “With the BCCI?”

  “Yes, with the BCCI in Luanda.”

  “And in Montreal?”

  “The Luanda BCCI manager.”

  “What about the Cayman Islands? Who set up the account there?”

  “The Colombians did at Fernandez's request. But the account was controlled by him and me jointly. As you know, it was just a transfer account. As soon as the money came in from Colombia it would be transferred to Panama into a Department Z account.”

  “And the drugs?”

  “I guess Oscar set that up. I've known Oscar since the days of the fighting in the Sierra Maestra.” Casas let out a bitter little laugh, “I trusted him implicitly as an old comrade in arms. Oscar knew that I knew how to follow orders.”

  “And did he give the order?”

  “He did, indeed. In Havana, at a special meeting in his office, in the Ministry of the Interior's building on Calle 23, convened for that purpose.”

  “Is that where Department Z now operates from?”

  “No, not quite.” Casas's hand had begun to hurt again. “Oscar is an organizational genius. He compartmentalized Department Z to maximize security. Headquarters were at his own office in the Ministry of the Interior, where he set policy, but each of the department's subdepartments had its own separate place.”

  “In the same building?”

  “No. Spread around Havana in various buildings.”

  Lonsdale was impressed. “And who ran the money?”

  “You mean who had final authority over its disposal?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm not sure at all about that.”

  “Did any other official, higher in grade than you or Oscar, ever discuss the drug operation with you?”

  “Only once. Raul, in the presence of Fernandez.”

  “In detail?”

  “No, only in general terms.” Casas was sweating; he recognized how exposed, how precarious his position was, and how lame he sounded. Lonsdale, on the other hand, felt that the general had been naive to say the least, or perhaps, he hadn't wanted to know what was going on so as to be able to claim, when the day of reckoning came, that he was just following orders. Why then the change of heart now?

  “Let's get back to the money. Who has ultimate control of it?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Well then, we have a way out for you from this mess.”

  “We do? How?”

  “Simple. Let's find out who has final control over the money.”

  Casas whipped around to face Lonsdale. “That's the reason why I can't go with you to Washington. Only I, working from the inside, can find out who manipulates the money. If it is the government, I'll get proof and let you have it. If it is by private persons, then I'll go public with the information in Cuba.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, under this scenario, the principles of the Revolution would not have been betrayed by the government, only by some high-up individuals.”

  “For their own personal benefit.”


  “As you say, for their own personal benefit.”

  Lonsdale thought for a while. Then he said softly, “In any event, Patricio, whatever the answers to your questions turn out to be, we must work together. You must allow me to help you. You cannot succeed alone.”

  “I agree!” Casas answered without hesitation. “Now explain how you propose to go about helping me.”

  “Fair deal.” Lonsdale was all business. “Before I tell you what we'll do I want you to realize that we're about to undertake something that will be very dangerous for both of us.” He parked the car alongside the Hyatt Hotel and began to brief Casas in detail about how to keep in touch and how to flee if that became a necessary option. When they parted almost an hour later Casas asked for his weapon back. Lonsdale obliged without delay and apologized for having hurt him. He then grabbed his bag from the trunk of the Cuban's car and went over to the group of limousine drivers huddled in front of the Hyatt Casino to find one willing to drive him to Vienna.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sunday Evening

  Budapest, Hungary

  General Casas extracted his hand from the sling gingerly and tried to use it. Although his broken fingers were throbbing, the pain was manageable. He attempted to shift gears and found that if he used a combination of the palm of his hand with his thumb, index, and middle fingers, he could get by.

  Not that he had much choice. He had to get to Conchita's apartment somehow.

  Without Conchita Borrego, life in Budapest would have been very complicated. She allowed him to stay in her apartment, lent him her car, did his laundry, and provided him with background information he needed to be effective while doing business in Hungary's capital city.

  She was a tall, exceptionally attractive woman with a beautiful face and a statuesque figure. These attributes, and the fact that she was politically reliable because of her campesino background, had earned her the job of lead dancer at the Tropicana, the Caribbean's most spectacular nightclub. Since she was also intelligent, the powersthat-be put her in charge of the little troop of nightclub performers Cuba maintained in Budapest. She had accepted the job with enthusiasm, said a tearful good-bye to her boyfriend in Havana, and off she had gone to dance for the Hungarians.