Ghosts of Havana

by Todd Moss

  Still no reply.

  “Why haven’t they let us call the U.S. embassy?” Crawford asked. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”

  “I don’t know,” Brinkley said.

  “How the hell does our government even know we’re here?”

  “They know.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Our government isn’t just going to let us rot. They aren’t going to leave us in Cuba, just sitting here exposed.” Brinkley shook his head.

  “Are you kidding me?” Crawford’s eyes were wide. “You think our government is going to save us? You don’t think Washington will see us as some kind of pawn? They would sell us out without blinking if they can gain an advantage! Or just leave us here! I was in the Navy, too, you know. I know how this works!”

  “They won’t leave us exposed again,” Brinkley said.

  “Again? What the fuck’re you talking about? Brink, we are in fuck-ing Cu-ba!”

  Alejandro, who had been quiet all along, suddenly spoke up. “Craw’s right.”

  “What?” the other two men gasped in unison.

  “They’re gonna do it again. No air cover. No backup. No admission. It’s all happening again. Just like mi abuelo.”

  “What the fuck’re you talking about, Al?” Crawford growled.

  “Look, we’re all under stress,” Brinkley said, showing his palms. “Let’s all calm down.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen again,” Alejandro said. “That was the whole goddamn point.”

  “Shut up, Al!” Brinkley hissed.

  “They’re going to abandon us,” Alejandro said. “Just like our grandfathers.”

  “No they’re not!” Brinkley insisted.

  “What the fuck are you two talking about?” Crawford narrowed his eyes in a mix of confusion and anger.

  “Nobody’s leaving anyone,” Brinkley said. “This isn’t 1961.”

  31.

  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THURSDAY, 5:04 P.M.

  I’m missing something, Judd thought to himself. He took a step back to examine his puzzle. He had tacked photos of the four Americans up on a whiteboard: Dennis Dobson, Brinkley Barrymore III, Crawford Jackson, Alejandro Cabrera. Who are these guys? What are they up to?

  Landon Parker had asked Judd to help find a way to get them back without appearing to talk directly to the Cuban government. Judd was supposed to initiate a backchannel while Assistant Secretary Melanie Eisenberg was the public face of the U.S. government. So far, Eisenberg hadn’t been saying much. She was playing diplomatic chess, waiting out the Cubans to see their next move. Hoping it would all go away so she could resume with her plans for diplomatic normalization. But what was Parker’s angle? “I need creative thinking, Ryker!” Parker had insisted. But it didn’t quite add up.

  What am I missing? Judd wondered. He scrawled the name RICHARD GREEN in a box next to ALEJANDRO CABRERA and drew a solid line connecting the two men. Next, he printed a photo of Ruben Sandoval that he had found on the Internet, wrote his name underneath the picture, and attached it to the board with another solid line to Green. Above all the pictures, he wrote CUBA in a large red circle and drew dotted lines connecting the circle to Cabrera and Sandoval. He still had one more clue. In the upper corner he scribbled his best drawing of the White House and then connected dotted lines to Sandoval.

  Judd stood back again and visualized the web he had just created. Maybe this was nothing? Maybe he was imagining some grander network that didn’t really exist? A lost fisherman and his beer buddies, a Florida drifter, a yoga and juice bar tycoon, a connection to the White House. This all sounded crazy. He certainly couldn’t mention any of this to Landon Parker. Judd considered wiping the whiteboard clean and starting over. He grabbed the eraser and was about to swipe when the White House gave him pause. If there was anything meaningful here, anything really treacherous, it would be the link to someone powerful. If these men were really all linked, then who was this Ruben Sandoval? Was he a power broker or a pawn? Who would know?

  Judd smacked himself on the forehead. Of course. He dialed a number.

  A few seconds later, his phone erupted. “Judd, darling!”

  “Hello, Mariana. I’m sorry to call out of the blue.”

  “Not at all, my darling,” responded Mariana Leibowitz, the Washington lobbyist who had worked closely with Judd on his missions to Mali and Zimbabwe. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  “Where are you?” Judd asked.

  “I’m still in Zimbabwe. I’m here with Gugu.”

  “You mean President Mutonga? Are you celebrating her victory?”

  Mariana laughed. “Yes, President Gugu Mutonga. Of course! I don’t think I’ve slept at all since Monday, my dear! What a ride!”

  “I’m sorry I missed the party,” Judd said.

  “Party? Oh, Judd, you’re sweet. We’ve been up for days because we’ve been working! The president doesn’t want to waste any time. It’s almost midnight here and we’re still in the president’s office. We’re going to roll out her plan for the first one hundred days in the morning. A national television and radio address. Gugu’s gonna bring it!”

  “That’s great. I’m doubly sorry to call, then.”

  “What is it?”

  “I need your help, Mariana.”

  “Of course you do, darling. I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed?”

  “We just finished Zimbabwe and you’re already onto another crisis,” she said.

  “Well, not really. I have to navigate a problem in Washington and—”

  “Of course, darling,” she said, “after all we’ve been through.”

  “Do you know Ruben Sandoval?”

  “Not personally,” she said.

  “But you do know of him?”

  “Of course, Judd! What kind of lobbyist would I be without keeping a pulse on the heavy hitters?”

  “Who is he? Who’s he backing?”

  “A better question is, who isn’t he backing?”

  “So one of them’s the President?” Judd asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Why? What does Sandoval want?”

  “What do any big donors want? They want power. They want influence. They want to stroke their own egos. They want to impress their girlfriends. Play the big shot.”

  “Big shot,” Judd repeated.

  “Why do you care about Sandoval?” Mariana asked.

  “Do you need to know why?”

  “Only if you want to tell me, darling,” Mariana said in her most soothing voice.

  “Is Sandoval connected to Cuba?”

  “I’m hearing Middle East. My sources tell me Egypt or Jordan,” she said. “That’s about as far from Cuba as you can get.”

  “But I want to know if he’s a player on Cuba policy,” Judd said. “Do you know?”

  “Then forget the White House. POTUS won’t touch Cuba until it’s a slam dunk. They won’t make that mistake again.”

  “So where should I be looking?” Judd asked.

  “Good Lord, Judd,” Mariana said.

  “Congress?”

  “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

  “So you’re saying yes, Congress.”

  “Not just anyone in Congress. Start with the Free Cuba Caucus,” Mariana said.

  “You mean Brenda Adelman-Zamora?”

  “That’s her,” Mariana said. “Is Sandoval connected to Adelman-Zamora?” she then asked.

  “I don’t know,” Judd said. “That’s why I called you.”

  “Judd, darling . . .” She paused and exhaled loudly. “Only because it’s you am I doing this.”

  “Thank you, Mariana.”

  “Give me five minutes,” she said, an
d hung up.

  Judd thought about Brenda Adelman-Zamora. She was the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. She held the press conference today about the soccer dads. She was the Cuba hawk. But was she linked to Sandoval? If so, how?

  Judd wrote BAZ with a big red question mark on his whiteboard and drew a box around it. How does the congresswoman fit?

  His phone buzzed with a text message from Mariana.

  Adelman-Zamora $raiser 2nite @7pm. I can get u in.

  Bingo! Judd hit reply:

  Thx. Where?

  9900 Coconut Vista, Las Olas, FL.

  I’m in DC.

  U know anyone in South FL?

  32.

  LAS OLAS, FLORIDA

  THURSDAY, 7:08 P.M.

  Jessica pulled back on the throttle of the Deputy Director’s Cobalt bowrider powerboat as she approached the bright lights of her destination. The river that was the backbone of the South Florida Intracoastal Waterway was busy that evening, filled with noisy family day cruisers, long, gleaming sportfishing boats, and gargantuan party catamarans blasting hip-hop dance music.

  Her target, the house at 9900 Coconut Vista Lane, was easy to find. Illuminated palm trees along the waterfront framed a brightly lit modern glass-and-steel structure that appeared to be more art museum than residence.

  It had seemed absurd to Jessica to go to a party in a speedboat. She was arriving alone—wife, mother of two small children, agronomist, the furthest thing from a flashy celebrity. Her CIA training had taught her always to assume a low profile, to go unseen whenever possible. James Bond pulling up to black-tie parties in an Aston Martin was only for the movies. Real spies slipped in through the back door and then left unnoticed. Arriving at a fancy party wearing a designer wrap dress and in a luxury boat seemed precisely the wrong move.

  But she had followed Judd’s clear instructions from Mariana Leibowitz, who assured her that at a Florida political fund-raiser this was exactly how to fit in. With her light black skin, the partygoers would probably assume she was Puerto Rican or, even better, Cuban. No need to correct anyone’s presumptions. No need to explain. Mariana had promised to tell the party host nothing more than she was sending over a rich young woman who had taken a strong interest in local politics, low taxes, and the protection of endangered manatees. That would be plenty to get Jessica in the door.

  “Bienvenido a Casa Libre!” shouted a young Latino man standing on the shore, dressed in white shorts and a white golf shirt. Dozens of boats were rafted up, tied together like a marine parking lot. The valet waved for her to pull the powerboat alongside a teal-and-orange cigarette racing boat that was already secured to the dock.

  Jessica idled the engine and threw him a line, which he quickly attached to a cleat, and then he stood to take her hand to help her off the vessel. A young woman, also dressed in an all-white uniform, suddenly appeared, holding a tray of champagne flutes. “Welcome to Casa Libre,” she said. Energetic but soothing rhumba rhythms emanated from a band playing on the pool deck.

  Jessica accepted the drink and followed the girl toward the house. Inside the parlor, voluptuous bronze women in bright pink cocktail dresses handed out drinks, while the crowd was a mix of trendy Latinos and elderly couples of all races. Along one side of the room, a long table was covered with pyramids of stone crab claws, rings of enormous shrimp, and giant wooden bowls of papaya, mango, and pineapple. Jessica stood in a strategic position by the back door, sipping her champagne, while she scanned the room. No one matched the photo of Ruben Sandoval.

  She mingled among the crowd, making small talk about the hurricane season and real estate prices. She hated it. After nearly an hour, someone, mercifully, clink-clink-clinked his champagne glass, the band stopped playing, and the room hushed.

  An older man stepped forward and smiled confidently at the room. His gray hair was combed over his scalp and he wore a black tailored suit over a bright red open-neck shirt, exposing a thick gold chain around his neck. The man raised his glass triumphantly.

  “My friends, you are all welcome to Casa Libre! I hope you all enjoy yourselves this evening. But I must interrupt the fun for a moment to remind you why we are here tonight,” he said with a slight accent that hinted at a mix of both Latin America and the outer boroughs of New York City. “Our guest of honor has just arrived and she does not have much time with us tonight. We are so very honored to have her with us this evening. I am humbled to introduce one of America’s great leaders. She is the backbone of our people, a champion of freedom, and a friend of all of ours. She is just the person that we all need at this crucial time. And we are all here tonight because she also needs us. I am honored to welcome”—he paused, allowing the band a few beats for dramatic effect—“Congresswoman Brenda Adelman-Zamora!”

  The crowd clapped enthusiastically as the congresswoman entered from a side hallway. Wearing a cream-colored pantsuit, she stopped and shook hands with each guest as she moved deliberately around the room, trailed by a young aide. When she arrived in front of Jessica, she warmly shook her hand as if they were old friends, “So lovely to see you again. That’s a stunning Von Furstenberg dress. And thank you for your support,” Adelman-Zamora said, then quickly moved to the next guest. Once she had greeted everyone, the room quieted and the congresswoman moved toward the center of the room.

  “None of you are here tonight to hear a political speech, so I will be very brief, my friends. You are all here because you know of our fight. You are all here because you already know that the battle for freedom and democracy has not yet been won,” she said, shaking her head. Heads around the room all shook with hers.

  “You are all here because you know that the forces of tyranny and evil still exist. You all know that in the face of oppression that the United States of America must stand strong. You are all here tonight because you know that we must remain firm, even as those around us waver in the battle.

  “We all are here because we seek redemption for the families who have been ripped apart by those who deny human rights and human dignity. You are all here tonight to help bring brothers and sisters together who have been torn apart by those who are threatened by freedom. You are all here tonight because we cannot allow the weak in Washington, D.C. to abandon the brave freedom fighters who live every day in fear . . .”

  Jessica nodded and clapped along with the others, scanning the room for any clues she could bring back to Judd.

  “. . . We cannot allow the spineless bureaucrats back in Washington to forget about the courageous people who live every day with the hope that democracy will one day return to their shores. We cannot betray those brave souls who still hold freedom deep in their hearts. We cannot turn away from those who look to America for inspiration and comfort . . .”

  Jessica’s line of vision suddenly focused on a face hidden among the crowd that triggered something familiar. Was it him?

  “. . . You are all here today because you already know that, until I fight my very last campaign, until I breathe my very last breath, I will not rest until we have a free Cuba!”

  Yes, it’s him.

  The crowd erupted in ovation and shouts of “Viva Cuba Libre!”

  He cleaned up.

  The party host hugged Adelman-Zamora, then turned and raised his hands. “This is why we are all here tonight. We are all here to support the reelection of Brenda Adelman-Zamora and to send a message to Washington that we will not rest until there is a free Cuba! I know everyone has come here to be generous. Checks are now being collected by the staff. Enjoy the party! Viva Cuba Libre!”

  Jessica moved silently, eyes fixed on her target, skillfully weaving her way through the buzzing crowd, toward a skinny man in an immaculate white embroidered guayabera shirt. He was clean-shaven and his hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She watched the target hug the party host and hand him a thick envelope.

  Once the transa
ction was complete, Jessica walked up and stood behind him. She could smell cigarettes and cologne.

  “Hola, Ricky,” she said.

  He slowly turned around and narrowed his eyes. “Do I . . . know you, chiquita?”

  “Sure you do. I’m Alexandra. We met in Marathon.”

  “I don’t know any Alexandra,” he said, turning away.

  She touched his arm. “Sure you do, Ricky.”

  He spun back and gripped her hand on his arm.

  “I remember your tattoos, Ricky,” she said, squeezing his arm. “En la Gloria de Dios. I remember that one.” Jessica traced the outlines of the mermaid on his arm with her finger. “You don’t remember me?”

  “I don’t know you,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And you don’t know me.”

  “And I remember this one, too,” she said, touching his other arm and stroking his tattoo of a naval ship with a cross and the numbers 2506. “Ricky, are you . . . in the navy?” she asked, her eyes meeting his.

  He pulled away. “You have the wrong guy. You don’t know me,” he said, and marched off.

  Jessica waited a few seconds, then followed him through the crowd toward the back of the house. She watched Ricky talk excitedly to the valet and then climb into the teal-and-orange cigarette boat. He glanced back at the house as Jessica ducked behind one of the palm trees. From out of sight, she heard the boat fire up and roar off.

  Jessica ran up to the valet, “Oh no!” she wailed. “That man who just left in the big racing boat. He forgot his cell,” she said, holding up her own phone. “Do you know who he is?”

  “No, señorita. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know where he was going in such a rush?”

  “No, ma’am. But he went that way,” he said, pointing down the channel.

  “South?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Toward Port Everglades.”

  “Cast me off,” she instructed, handing him a twenty-dollar bill. She jumped in the Cobalt and started up the engine. Once the lines were free, Jessica punched the throttle, gunning the engine. This sent her wake splashing up against the waterfront and jostling the other boats. The valet stood on the shore, dumbfounded, watching the dazzling woman disappear into the darkness.