Ghosts of Havana

by Todd Moss

  “Then what?”

  Oswaldo threw back another shot of rum. “The boss.”

  “El Comrade Jefe?”

  Oswaldo shook his head. “El Comrade Presidente. ECP.”

  “Are you saying ECP isn’t on board?”

  “If the Comrades knew I was here talking you, I would be . . .” Oswaldo dragged a finger across his neck.

  Judd sat back in his chair to digest this new piece of information. “You’re rogue?”

  Oswaldo poured the two of them another drink. “I’m rogue, Dr. Ryker? What about you? You came to me in disguise, hidden from your own people. Why didn’t you just fly into the airport at Havana? Why are you dressed like a peasant and not a diplomat?”

  “Discretion, Oswaldo. Your people are watching the borders.”

  “Of course!” Oswaldo laughed. “I must control any knowledge of your arrival. Or we’d both already be”—the Cuban grabbed Judd by the throat and pretended to choke him—“dead.”

  “So”—Judd pushed Oswaldo’s hands away—“on whose authority are you negotiating with me?”

  “I should be asking you that very same question.”

  “I don’t think so, Oswaldo.” Judd scowled. “I’m representing the U.S. Department of State. The American government.”

  “Are you certain of this, asere?” He waved a scolding finger at the American. “That’s not what the television says.”

  “I have authority. I was sent here by Landon Parker. You know that. I have instructions from him to negotiate and bring a deal back to Washington,” Judd said.

  “How are you certain Parker will agree? Or that Parker can get your Secretary and your President to agree to this?” Oswaldo shook Judd’s paper with the three points. “Or your Congress?”

  “I know my limits. It’s my problem to get everyone on board,” Judd said. “I know how to get my side to agree.”

  “So do I,” Oswaldo shot back.

  “So . . . how will you get ECP to go along?”

  “You leave that to me,” Oswaldo said with a wave of the hand.

  Judd stood up from the table. “Before we go any further, I need to know how.”

  Oswaldo shook his head.

  “That’s it? The whole plan depends on me just . . . trusting you? Your secret?”

  “Precisely. The whole plan depends on me,” Oswaldo said, his eyes widening. “The future of Cuba depends on me. I am glad that you finally understand, Dr. Ryker. And that’s why I need something very important from you.”

  65.

  FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA

  FRIDAY, 4:32 P.M.

  Don’t hang up.”

  Jessica already regretted answering the phone when it flashed DANIEL DOLLAR. She had told herself she wouldn’t answer the phone, wouldn’t talk to her boss, until she was back in Washington. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be used anymore. She wasn’t getting dragged back into his operation, blind and manipulated.

  Jessica had spent the morning at the pool with the boys. Now they were walking on the boardwalk, enjoying the sun, Toby and Noah losing a battle with melting soft-serve ice cream. Doing what normal vacationers did. That was the whole idea, right? But something in the back of her brain, something deep down, compelled her to push the button and answer his call.

  “I told you, I’m out,” she said.

  “You’re never out, Jessica,” the Deputy Director said. “You should know that by now.”

  “You sent me on vacation,” she said, stepping off the boardwalk onto the soft white sand. “That’s the order I’m following.”

  “Well, the situation’s changed. I need you now. It’s an easy job. A-B-C. In and out.”

  “Easy?”

  “I need you to go to Homestead and collect a package and then drop it off. That’s it. You’ll be done before midnight.”

  “Homestead? The air base? What am I flying?” Jessica asked.

  “Need-to-know,” he said.

  “Where’s the drop?”

  “Need-to-know.”

  “What’s the package?”

  “Jessica, you should know better. You’ll know all of this soon enough. All you need to do is go to Homestead tonight.”

  “I’m not flying another one of your missions into Havana, sir. I’m not dropping another good operative to his death. I won’t do it.”

  “The drop isn’t Havana.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s Santiago!”

  “Not exactly. The package isn’t an operative.”

  “Sir?” Jessica took a deep breath and started to speak again when he cut her off.

  “Cash,” he said. “Hard cash.”

  “I’m delivering money?”

  “I need you to deliver ten million dollars in unmarked bills to a contact in Baconao Park. It’s a mountainous reserve about halfway between Gitmo and Santiago. It’s how we channel cash to sleeper cells on the streets of Santiago. That’s the mission. A cash drop in a park. I told you—easy.”

  “Why physical cash? What happened to the electronic money operation? Isn’t that what BesoPeso was for?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snarled. “Cash is the only way.”

  “The Cubans blocked BesoPeso?” she asked.

  “That’s why I need you,” he said, fighting to cool his temper.

  “Mommy, I need you!” Noah cried. She looked up from her call, a swirl of chocolate and vanilla ice cream coating his face and dripping down his arm.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Like I told you, I’m out.”

  66.

  OFFSHORE EASTERN CUBA

  FRIDAY, 4:38 P.M.

  Cash.”

  “Money?” Judd was taken aback. “I thought you were a socialist?”

  “Twenty-five million dollars. Nothing less. Untraceable. It must be in unmarked, nonsequential bills,” Oswaldo Guerrero said, looking satisfied with himself.

  “Twenty-five million dollars in unmarked, nonsequential bills?” Judd winced. “Where did you get that, O?”

  “Hollywood,” Oswaldo said with a smirk. “I’ve seen your movies.”

  “What movies?”

  “All of them.”

  “Well, movies are made up,” Judd said. “I don’t know where you expect me to get that much cash. That’s not how it works in Washington.”

  “You are rich.” Oswaldo snapped his fingers. “Twenty-five million is nothing for the American government. Twenty-five million is nothing even for those Cubans living in Miami. I should ask you for more. I should ask for a hundred million.” Oswaldo rubbed his chin. “But, no. I am a socialist. I am not greedy. I only need twenty-five million.”

  “What for?”

  “For me. For my independence. For my total independence. What else do free men truly desire, Dr. Ryker?”

  “Free men?”

  “I can see where my country is going. I don’t want to be the last one. I want to live, asere.”

  “I need another Bucanero,” Judd said. He accepted a beer bottle from Oswaldo and popped the top. “Even if I could get you the money—and I’m not saying I can—but if I could, it would have to be in an account somewhere.”

  Oswaldo shook his head.

  “We could set it up wherever you want,” Judd continued. “In Miami or New York or maybe . . . Mexico City—”

  “No!” Oswaldo slammed his beer down. “You think I would fall for another yanqui trick?”

  “Why would I trick you, Oswaldo? What would I have to gain?”

  “With respect, Dr. Ryker”—Guerrero calmed himself—“you are nothing. You can say whatever you want here. But you cannot guarantee that the money will appear. You cannot promise to deliver. No. I’ve seen it all before.”

  Judd started to reply. “What if I—”

  �
��Untraceable cash.” Oswaldo rubbed his thumb and forefingers together. “Right here. I need to feel it. Or we are finished negotiating. You are finished.”

  “That’s unreasonable, Oswaldo.”

  “If you are finished, there is nothing left to discuss. I go back to Havana. I cut the throats of your four American fools at Morro Castle. I feed their flesh to the sharks. And you?” Guerrero forced a grin that sent a chill through Judd’s spine.

  “Oswaldo, you can see I have nothing.” Judd showed his palms and patted his pants. “How can I just make twenty-five million dollars appear?”

  Oswaldo stood up and stumbled over toward a desk. He carefully pulled open the top drawer and reached inside, feeling around clumsily for something.

  Panic rose within Judd. A gun? Judd thrust his hands into the air. “What are you doing!?”

  “You will make the money appear.” The Cuban turned back and tossed something black and rectangular. Judd caught the object. A satellite phone.

  “Call Parker,” Oswaldo demanded.

  “I thought satphones were illegal in Cuba?”

  “They are. Tell Landon Parker twenty-five million. Unmarked, nonsequential bills.”

  67.

  FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA

  FRIDAY, 4:41 P.M.

  Jessica was still steaming when her phone rang. No matter what the Deputy Director says, she decided, I’m still out. But the number displayed on her phone started +882 and then a string of random numbers she didn’t recognize. An anonymous satellite phone.

  “Hell-o?”

  “State Operations Center? This is Judd Ryker with S/CRU,” her husband’s voice said. “This is an urgent call. Please connect me to Landon Parker.”

  “Judd, it’s me,” she said. “You called your wife.”

  “This is a priority one call,” Judd replied. “Yes, yes, thank you. I’ll hold for Mr. Parker.”

  “Judd, can you hear me? It’s Jessica.”

  “Yes, I can hear you, Mr. Parker,” he said. “I’m still in Cuba, but we’ve got a situation and I need your help.”

  “I’m listening,” Jessica said.

  “I’ve met with our contact. I’m with him right now . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . We’re making progress . . . I’m feeling good . . . Historic, yes, sir. There’s just one problem.”

  “I’m listening,” she repeated.

  “I need twenty-five million dollars.”

  Jessica then heard some muffled noises. “Judd? Judd?”

  “Twenty-five million in unmarked, nonsequential bills. It has to be untraceable, sir. That’s what I need right now or it’s all over.”

  “Judd, is this for real? Is your life in danger?”

  “Yes, yes. That’s correct,” Judd said. “I know it’s impossible, Mr. Parker. That’s what I told our contact, but he’s insisting that you can make it happen. If I don’t come up with twenty-five million, we are dead in the water. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  “Judd, I have an idea.”

  “That’s what I thought, Mr. Parker . . . Very well . . . I will pass that message . . . Yes, I can give you my location.”

  More muffled noise. “Here are the GPS coordinates . . .”

  Jessica wrote the digits that her husband recited on her arm with a pen and then quickly hung up. She dialed another number.

  A young female voice answered. “Coney Island Pizza.”

  68.

  SANTIAGO, CUBA

  FRIDAY, 5:32 P.M.

  The woman strode briskly down the alley toward her next target. Two men, middle-aged, with identical black mustaches, sat on wooden crates, playing chess. They each held chipped enamel cups of black coffee and they were sharing a plate of roasted pork covered in onions.

  “Jaque-mate!” one shouted with glee.

  “Puta!” the other man cursed. He slapped his hand down on the board and swept away the pieces. He drained his coffee and scowled.

  The winner held his belly and laughed. “No más, comrade?” he joked.

  When the men spotted the woman coming their way, they stopped their conversation and their faces turned serious.

  She stopped in front of them and looked them up and down warily. “Are you ready?”

  The winner of the chess game nodded. “We are waiting for your signal.”

  “Here,” she said, passing him a few local pesos.

  “What is this?” he scowled. He showed the money to his friend. “What can we do with this?”

  The other man shook his head.

  “More is coming. American dollars tomorrow,” she said. “That will be your signal. You need to be ready. You need them all to be ready.”

  “Manuel, Domingo, Arianna,” the man counted out on his fingers. “Louisa, Marisela, Ramón Grande, Ramón Pequeño. All of our barrios in Santiago are ready.”

  “Very good,” the woman nodded.

  “When?” the man asked.

  “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  The man smiled with approval. “Where?”

  “The Plaza de la Revolución,” she answered. “Are you certain you’re ready?”

  “Of course,” the winner said. “We have been ready for a very long time. We are now only waiting . . . for you.”

  “Viva Cuba Libre!” she whispered.

  “Viva Cuba Libre!” the two men repeated in unison.

  And she turned on her heels and fled the alley to find her next target.

  69.

  HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA

  FRIDAY, 9:32 P.M.

  Jessica pulled the white convertible Ford Mustang off U.S. 1 and turned sharply to the west down another wide, flat Florida avenue. After several more turns, she pulled into the parking lot for the Gator Grill, a fast-food stand advertising fried frogs legs and alligator tacos. At this hour, the place was already closed, and the seating area, a cluster of picnic tables beneath a thatched roof, was abandoned. She backed the car into a space facing the main road and turned off the engine. The land around her, horizontal emptiness in every direction, was punctured only by a sliver of moonlight and the chirping of cicadas.

  —

  The Deputy Director had been less surprised than she hoped when she called him back to accept the drop mission. Jessica realized the moment she heard his voice on the other end of the line that he had expected her to call back. He knew she would cool off and eventually relent. They both knew it.

  “I’ll do it out of my loyalty to you,” she had said, “for everything you’ve done for me.” He pretended to accept her lie graciously and countered with a fabrication of his own. “Apology accepted. You know I wouldn’t knowingly entangle you in a mission that involves family.” Then, gratuitously, “You have my word on that, Jessica.”

  She bit her lip. “Yes, sir.”

  The lies were out in the open and mutually ignored. She had to focus. She used to wall off her emotions effortlessly, but it was getting harder. Now Jessica had to forget how she felt about her husband, her family, her boss, her future. Just focus on the mission.

  The Deputy Director of Operations explained that Jessica’s task was to deliver ten million in cash to a Cuban opposition cell leader. Using the code name Alpha Nine Nine, she was to meet a contact code-named Bravo Zero at the Gator Grill in Homestead, accept the package, and take it to the nearby Air Reserve Base, where she would fly to Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, following regular flight patterns. Just after the approach at Gitmo’s Leeward Point Field, Jessica was to pull up and veer to the south into Cuban airspace to meet a second contact, code-named Charlie Three, in a remote part of Baconao Park. Her instructions were to deliver the money to Charlie and then return immediately to Florida. “In and out,” the Deputy Director had said. “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie—easy.”

  His reassurances had the opposite effect. She couldn’t help but wonder w
hat he wasn’t telling her. But what made Jessica really anxious was what she wasn’t telling him.

  —

  Jessica watched two headlights appear in the distance and then bound toward her location. She stepped out of her car and leaned casually on the hood.

  The approaching lights turned into the Gator Grill parking lot and then went dark. An oversized cherry-red Ford F-150 pulled up next to her and a skinny man with long dark hair stepped out of the pickup truck.

  The moment he was out, Jessica leapt at him, unleashing a lightning front snap kick to his groin. He groaned and doubled over just as she thrust a palm heel blow to his nose. The man screamed and held his face, blood gushing between his fingers. She snatched one of his wrists and twisted violently, forcing him to spin. Jessica grabbed a fist of hair at the back of his head and jammed his face against the pickup truck. His blood smeared the side of the red cab.

  “What are you doing here?” she snarled.

  The man coughed and wheezed.

  Jessica punched him hard in the kidneys. “I said what are you doing here, Ricky?”

  “I’m—” he began.

  She unleashed another blow to the back of his head and then forced him to the ground.

  “How did you find me, Ricky? Or should I say Ricardo Cabrera!”

  “Alpha . . . Bravo,” he moaned.

  “You’re . . . Bravo Zero?” she gasped, releasing her knee from his back.

  “In the cab . . . your packages,” he groaned.

  Jessica checked over both shoulders. They were still alone. “Don’t move!” she hissed, pushing her foot against his neck, his face rubbed into the gravel. Ricky nodded and winced.

  Jessica slowly backed away from Ricky toward his truck. Satisfied that he wasn’t getting up, she clicked open the cab door. Inside she saw five black hard-shell suitcases piled on the passenger seat. She turned back to Ricky, now in a fetal position.

  “Don’t you move, Ricardo.” He shook his head.

  Jessica transferred four of the cases into the trunk of her Mustang, the fifth she strapped like a child into the passenger seat. She returned to Ricky and bent down close to his ear.