Black Horizon

by James Grippando

  “I’m almost positive Swyteck and his friend are being followed.”

  Josefina did a double take, but Vivien was the one with the binoculars. She still couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but she assumed that the question in her own mind was also being put to Vivien: “Followed by whom?”

  Vivien raised her binoculars and again peered out toward the park. “I think I saw Noori,” she said into the telephone.

  Chapter 65

  Jack and Theo waited at the Malecón until 4:15 p.m. There was no sign of Josefina.

  “I don’t think she’s coming,” said Theo.

  Jack took a seat on the stone seawall, facing the esplanade. Josefina could not have chosen a more beautiful spot for the delivery of one million dollars. Behind him, waves splashed on the rocks below, a tropical breeze carrying in the salty warmth of Havana Bay. Rising above the rocky edges of a knoll—not quite an acropolis, but breathtakingly beautiful, nonetheless—sat the flagship Hotel Nacional de Cuba in all its eclectic combination of architectural styles. Despite a steady onslaught of camera-toting tourists, Jack and Theo had waited at the designated spot until 3:45, when Jack had started to wonder if there had been a miscommunication between him and Josefina. With Brunelli’s blessing, Theo had stayed put while Jack went on a walk up and down the Malecón, searching. He’d gone west, all the way to a Madison Avenue–quality billboard that showcased photographs of U.S. Marines violently rounding up members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, bold red letters proclaiming: FACISTAS—MADE IN THE U.S.A. And then he’d turned around and walked east, down to a colorful work of graffiti-art that someone had painted on a wall that faced out toward the United States, a cartoonish depiction of Uncle Sam growling and Che Guevara laughing. Its message read (in Spanish): MR. IMPERIALIST, WE DO NOT HAVE ANY FEAR OF YOU.

  All told, Jack had probably covered a mile-long stretch of the esplanade. No Josefina.

  “I think you may be right,” said Jack.

  “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”

  Theo shrugged. “You don’t have change for ten thousand hundreds, do ya?”

  Jack’s phone vibrated. “Got a text,” he said to Theo, but his narration was mostly for Brunelli’s benefit, who was still monitoring them electronically. Jack checked the text more closely. “Not really a message,” he said. “It’s just a link to a website for Cuba Times. That’s an online English-language newspaper about life in Cuba.”

  “Josefina’s friend writes for it,” said Theo.

  “Open it,” said Brunelli, his voice in Jack’s earpiece.

  Jack clicked on the link. Slowly, the page opened to the latest issue of Cuba Times.

  “It’s a story on the victims and survivors of the Scarborough 8 disaster,” said Jack. “Written by Patricia Nuñez. That’s a pen name for Josefina’s friend, Vivien Delgado.”

  The image continued to build on Jack’s screen. It was an indecipherable mess of pixels for nearly a full minute, but finally the photograph came into view. Five young men smiling for the camera on a sunny day. Each was wearing a hard hat and orange coveralls, a tangle of mud-stained hoses at their boots. They were leaning against the rail at the platform’s edge, nothing but blue sky and ocean behind them. Jack recognized only one of them.

  “It’s a picture of Rafael with some of his coworkers on the Scarborough 8,” Jack said.

  Jack’s phone vibrated again. He exited his browser to receive another text. This time there was a message, not just a link, which he read aloud for Brunelli’s benefit: “ ‘Look closely at his right hand.’ ”

  Jack switched back to his browser screen. The photograph was still up. He zoomed in on Rafael’s hand, which was draped over the shoulder of one of his buddies. He drew the image tighter and tighter—then froze.

  “Rafael had a tattoo,” he said.

  Theo came closer, to look for himself. Jack described the tattoo for Brunelli. “Below the wrist, just above the thumb. It’s an eye.”

  “You gotta be shittin’ me!” said Theo, even though he could see it for himself.

  “There’s a caption beneath the photograph,” said Jack, and then he read it:

  “‘Rafael Lopez (third from right) with four surviving coworkers. Lopez, whose mother was born in Mexico, prayed daily to Our Lady of Guadalupe for his safety. Many believe that Our Lady appeared to a humble Native American in 1531, leaving her image imprinted miraculously on a poor-quality cactus cloth, which should have deteriorated in two decades but has survived for nearly five centuries. The eyes of Our Lady are said to reveal much of what she saw in the sixteenth century, as well as messages to the faithful. While on the Scarborough 8, Rafael had one of the famous eyes tattooed onto his hand, so that Our Lady would keep him safe, watching over his every grasp of the rungs as he climbed high on the derrick.’”

  Jack lowered his phone.

  “Whoa,” said Theo.

  Jack turned around and looked out over the seawall, toward Havana Bay, toward the mile-deep ocean beyond.

  “He’s gotta be dead,” he said in disbelief. “Doesn’t he?”

  Chapter 66

  The message crackled in Jack’s ear at 6:00 p.m. “Let’s call it,” said Brunelli.

  It was a three-minute walk from the Malecón back to the Hotel Nacional. Jack and Theo reached the veranda in time for cocktails, but not even Theo felt like imbibing. Brunelli met them in the lobby and took the duffel bag from Theo.

  “Count it if you want, but it’s all still there,” said Theo.

  “I’ll trust you,” said Brunelli. “Not that it matters. It’s not real.”

  “You told me it was,” said Jack.

  “It was important for you to think it was. You’re more convincing that way.”

  It made sense, but it made Jack wonder what else Brunelli had told him was false and for effect.

  “Time to lose the James Bond clothes,” said Theo. “I’m going up to the room.”

  Before Jack could say “me, too,” Brunelli was pulling him aside. “We need a little postmortem, Swyteck.”

  Jack agreed and followed him to a quiet seating area just outside the hotel lobby. A two-foot green iguana scampered across the mosaic of Moorish tiles and into the bushes. Jack took the white wicker armchair. Brunelli sank into an overstuffed couch that almost seemed to swallow him whole.

  “Why do think she was a no-show?” asked Jack.

  “Who knows? Maybe this was all a dry run. Maybe something spooked her.”

  “I don’t think it was Theo,” said Jack.

  “I agree. But there’s no way she saw me or my team, either.”

  “So what would have spooked her?”

  Brunelli didn’t answer. Jack watched his eyes and got a weird feeling. It was the same look he’d seen in Andie’s eyes when she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him something about one of her operations.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” said Jack.

  Brunelli pushed himself up from the sunken cushions and moved to the edge of the couch, bringing himself to eye level with Jack. “Let’s talk about Theo. I have to take him back to Nassau.”

  Jack’s response—something along the lines of what Brunelli could go do to himself—rose up and caught in his throat. Had Brunelli not been a friend of Andie’s, Jack would have let it fly. He cleaned it up considerably.

  “Sorry, but that’s not the deal,” said Jack.

  “Those are my orders. My hands are tied.”

  “Then untie them.”

  “I can’t. This is coming from Justice.”

  “By ‘Justice’ you mean the National Security Division?”

  “Correct.”

  Jack leaned forward, looking him in the eye. “Here’s what you tell the folks in NSD. Theo is in Cuba. You have no authority to arrest him here. You can’t make him go anywhere or do anything. He’s not going back to the Bahamas, period.”

  “That’s not a wise posture,” said Brune
lli.

  Jack sat back, thinking. “This is all about the photograph, isn’t it. The tattoo on Rafael’s hand.”

  “I can’t discuss that.”

  “You don’t really think he’s alive, do you?”

  He considered his response before answering. “Did you know that the only live video of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 was taken by some fishermen who were fishing near the rig?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “It’s not unusual for fishing boats to be hanging around oil rigs. Rafael could have been thrown into the ocean. Someone could have picked him up, transferred him to another boat, taken him to shore—who knows? It was a major catastrophe, total confusion.”

  “You know that didn’t happen,” said Jack. “Even if he survived the explosion, no fishing boats would have been near the Scarborough 8 in that storm.”

  “That’s your opinion. But it really doesn’t matter what you or I think, does it?”

  “No. And apparently it doesn’t matter what the truth is, either. Because NSD doesn’t need the truth. All they need is a story. Now they have their story: Rafael Lopez blew up the Scarborough 8 and remains at large. Of course no one will ever find him, because he was incinerated. But that doesn’t matter, because the Rafael Lopez story fits with some other agenda of the NSD. I don’t know what that agenda is. You probably don’t, either.”

  “You’re reading way too much into this.”

  “Am I? You know, there’s something I’ve always wondered about since the hearing where I cross-examined the vice president of Barton-Hammill about the alarm security. I wondered why the U.S. would allow state-of-the-art technology to be used on a Chinese rig.”

  “Safety,” said Brunelli. “It was in everyone’s interest that the rig operate safely.”

  “That’s one explanation,” said Jack. “But here’s another: What if the alarm system was rigged in a way that allowed the U.S. to monitor everything that happened on the Scarborough 8 without the Chinese ever knowing it?”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “The Scarborough 8 was the largest and most advanced oil rig in the world. It was built in China with over ninety percent Chinese parts and technology. Wouldn’t the U.S. like to know every secret about every component on that rig?”

  “Come on, Swyteck. You’re saying that the Department of the Treasury granted an exemption to the trade embargo so that Barton-Hammill equipment could be put on the rig to spy on Chinese technology? Really?”

  “The U.S. allowed a special exemption to the embargo, which it normally would never do. The U.S. handed over to the Chinese state-of-the-art technology, which it normally would never do. There had to be a compelling reason. What better reason is there than to allow the U.S. to monitor the activities of the Chinese, Russians, Venezuelans, and Cubans—not exactly our four closest friends—ninety miles from U.S. shores?”

  “Seriously? You’re accusing the U.S. government of blowing up the Scarborough 8?”

  “Not at all,” said Jack. “I’m saying that somebody from Barton-Hammill fucked up the electronics on the rig while spying from a remote location. That’s what caused the alarm to malfunction in the storm. That’s what caused the rig to explode. That’s what the NSD is covering up.”

  Brunelli didn’t answer.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Jack. “I’ll never prove it. And you’re probably right. The National Security Division will take the position that Rafael is alive. The FBI’s criminal investigation will drag on for three or four years and eventually back the NSD’s position. Bianca’s wrongful death lawsuit will go away for good; a widow can’t sue for wrongful death if her husband isn’t dead. That will leave no one in a U.S. courtroom to prove that Barton-Hammill caused the explosion. Eventually there will be an earthquake in California, a flood in the Midwest, a hurricane in the Carolinas, and everybody but the Conchs who are stuck cleaning up the mess from Marathon to Key West will forget about the oil spill. It all conveniently goes away.”

  Brunelli remained silent.

  “I’ve said enough,” said Jack, rising. “We’ll fight that fight later. For now, you can’t have Theo.”

  “I can’t leave here without him.”

  “Then you’d better brush up on your Spanish. Because you are way out of your jurisdiction. And Theo really likes it here.”

  Jack turned and headed back to the lobby. The elevator yawned open, and he rode it to the third floor. His anger was rising, much faster than the car. Brunelli was proving to be no more helpful than Agent Linton. Jack blamed himself. The pre-Andie Swyteck would never have been so trusting. At least on a subconscious level, the fact that he was married to an FBI agent had lulled him into an unhealthy level of comfort with the government. That wasn’t how the “adversary system” worked.

  Fool me once, shame on you . . .

  Jack unlocked the door and entered his hotel room. The lights were on, and Theo’s sweaty armored clothing was scattered on one of the beds. But the room was quiet.

  “Theo?”

  No response. The bathroom door was open, but Jack saw only a cockroach scurry across the floor. Jack checked the closet. Theo’s clothes were gone. So was his overnight bag.

  . . . fool me twice, shame on me.

  Maybe Jack had been fooled again by the FBI. Theo had not.

  “Damn it!” he said, angry only at himself. Where the hell did you go, Theo?

  Chapter 67

  For the first time in his life, Theo walked right past a jazz bar without even the slightest temptation to go inside. He was on a mission.

  He didn’t trust Brunelli. Not for a minute did he believe that the FBI would keep its promise to resist his extradition to the Bahamas—not if he was the number-one suspect in the brutal murder of a Bahamian banker. He’d spent four years on Florida’s death row for another man’s crime; no way was he going to a Bahamian jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Too many people had their own agendas. Theo had his own ideas about who had kidnapped Jack in Cuba, threatened Bianca in her trailer, and killed Jeffries in his living room. It was time to take matters into his own hands.

  He stopped outside La Escuela de Boxeo. The long shadows on the sidewalk were disappearing as twilight turned into darkness. The light over the entrance flickered every few seconds with a bad electrical connection. Theo tried the door. It opened, and he went inside.

  The hallway was dimly lit, but even in total darkness Theo could have simply followed his nose to the stale, smelly air of the training gym. All but one of the six boxing rings were empty. The lonely sound of one woman’s punches echoed through the gym. Her trainer wore padded coaching mitts to absorb her blows. It was just the two of them, Josefina and Sicario, working late in the ring, as if nothing had happened. Theo would have something to say about that.

  “Missed you today, girl,” he called out.

  Josefina stopped, her trainer lowered his punching mitts, and they watched Theo walk slowly toward them. He said nothing until he was almost to the ring.

  “Something’s not right here, Josefina.” Theo stopped at the ropes, but his thinking aloud continued. “You train hard. You love boxing. Last time I saw you, we joked around, kept it light. But working in a bar makes me a pretty quick study on people. If there was one thing I knew about you when I left Cuba, it was this: money ain’t what it’s about.”

  She chewed her mouthpiece, silent.

  “So I ask myself: What’s in this for you?”

  Sicario stepped in front of her, putting himself between Theo and his fighter. “Why don’t you go ask yourself outside?”

  “ ’Cuz here’s my problem, dude. I can’t think up a single reason why Josefina would wanna do this. So maybe the real question is, who could make her do something she doesn’t wanna do? It has to be someone who’s got the power to end her boxing career, to kill her dream. Someone who knows she wasn’t really engaged to Rafael. Someone who could tell the Cuban government that she was part of Rafael’s lie so
he could get a job on the rig.”

  “That’s pretty big talk,” said Sicario.

  “I’m a pretty big guy.”

  “We don’t like talkers around here. Boxers only.”

  “You want to box?” asked Theo. “I’ll box you.”

  Sicario laughed.

  Josefina’s mouth guard dropped into her glove, her voice filled with concern. “Sicario, don’t. Your head.”

  “My head?” said Sicario, scoffing.

  “Theo, just go away. He had to stop boxing because of his head.”

  “You’re afraid he’s going to hurt me?” said Sicario.

  She was pleading with her trainer. “He’s younger than you, and look at him. You can tell he grew up fighting. All he has to do is land one lucky punch to your head and—”

  “Wear the headgear, if you want,” said Theo. “I can still kick your Cuban boxing ass.”

  Sicario glared at him from inside the ring. Theo hadn’t planned to pick a fight, but he’d picked one.

  “Get us gloves, Josefina. This won’t take long.”

  Chapter 68

  Jack followed his hunch and jumped into a taxi outside the Hotel Nacional.

  “La Escuela de Boxeo, Habana Centro,” Jack said, handing up a twenty. “Show me how fast this old Buick can go.”

  The driver didn’t understand English, but he understood cash. The sixty-year-old Buick Special rumbled away from the car port, down the main driveway, and onto the Malecón. Traffic was moving along at about thirty miles per hour, top speed for many of the pre-Castro classics. Another twenty-dollar bill from Jack had the driver changing lanes and weaving between cars as if they were standing still. The cash incentives were working just fine—until they came upon a vehicle that actually was standing still. The smoldering shell of a vintage 1940s Ford pickup was blocking the right lane. The tourists strolling along the esplanade were moving faster than Jack’s taxi.

  “Aquí está bueno,” said Jack, telling the driver to drop him off.

  The brakes squealed, followed by a horrific grind from the transmission as the driver shifted into PARK. Jack jumped out of the backseat and ran the final three blocks. The light outside the school was still on—flickering, but on. Jack took a moment to catch his breath and then tried the door. It opened. Jack went inside. The front desk was unattended, but Jack remembered his way down the narrow hallway. The familiar sounds of boxing—footwork on canvas, gloves meeting, competitors sucking air—drew him into the gym. Then he stopped, taken aback. Theo was moving around the ring, squaring off against Josefina’s trainer. Jack walked to the ropes and stood beside Josefina.