Bluewater Revolution: The Twelfth Novel in the Bluewater Thriller Series - Mystery and Adventure in Florida, Cuba, and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 12)

by Charles Dougherty

  "Not that I can think of."

  "Good. Call me if you do think of someone. I will see you at breakfast."

  ****

  "What did you learn at your lunch, Ortiz? Who was there?" Manny Cruz was sitting with his feet on his desk, his tie loosened, and a drink in his hand.

  "I'm making good progress with the girl. We had a little spat this afternoon after lunch, but everything's cool now. She just called and asked me to spend the day sailing with her and Chirac tomorrow."

  "That's good. But come on. I don't have all night. Who was at the lunch?"

  "Dani and her partner in the boat; that's Liz Chirac. Phillip Davis. I got to talk with him for a couple of minutes, but nothing new, there. And a couple from another boat. Connie Barrera and Paul Russo, their names were. Husband and wife. They run the same kind of charter business down in the islands as Berger and Chirac."

  "What are they doing there? You get their connection to the others?" Cruz asked.

  "Yeah. Barrera's a friend of Berger and Chirac. She chartered their boat one time and got interested in sailing. She'd just wrapped up some kind of deal and was looking for what to do next. They taught her the business, and she bought her own boat."

  "She was married then? Or not?"

  "Not. She was single. She was looking for a cook, and they fixed her up with Russo."

  "He's a cook?"

  "Yeah, but -- "

  "How'd they know him?"

  "He's a friend of Berger's family. He met them through Mario Espinosa. You know Espinosa's Dani Berger's godfather, right?"

  "Yeah. So Barrera and Russo, they didn't know one another before?"

  "No. I told you, Berger and Chirac introduced them because Barrera was looking to hire a chef for the boat."

  "Russo must be from Miami, if he was Espinosa's friend. How about Barrera?" Cruz asked.

  "Grew up in California. Last lived in the States up in Savannah," Ortiz said.

  "She Cuban?" Cruz asked.

  "No. I asked her if she was Mexican, you know, because of California. She about bit my head off. Told me she was American, that her family was in California when it was just the Spanish and the Indians."

  "Okay, so she's sensitive about it. Must be some history there. What was she doing in Savannah?"

  "She was a partner in some kind of health care business, is all she said. She got bought out and went to the Bahamas to chill for a while. Then she chartered Vengeance to learn to sail."

  "And Russo?"

  "What about him, Manny?"

  "You said he was a chef. He worked in Miami?"

  "Oh, yeah. But not as a chef. He's retired from the MPD. Cooking and sailing were his hobbies."

  "MPD, huh," Cruz said, sipping his cocktail. "You sure you don't want a drink?"

  "No, thanks, Manny. I'm good."

  "Anybody else around there? What about Berger's parents?"

  "They're staying there, but they weren't around for the lunch. He's from Paris, and his wife's never spent much time in the States, so he's spending most of his time driving her around, sightseeing."

  "Okay. So that's it?"

  "As far as meeting people. But I learned that Phillip Davis's wife is coming in the morning of Espinosa's birthday, along with a couple from Dominica."

  "From Dominica," Cruz said. "And who are they?"

  "Friends, apparently. I guess they're friends of Espinosa's."

  "You got names?"

  "That was kinda strange, Manny. Their names are Sharktooth and Maureen."

  Cruz put his drink down and lowered his feet to the floor.

  "Sharktooth?" He leaned toward Ortiz.

  "Yeah. Weird, huh?"

  "You get a last name?"

  "I asked, but Dani said he never uses one."

  "What the hell? Why Sharktooth?"

  "He's got a water taxi in Dominica, takes the tourists on dive trips and shit. He's got these big, dried shark's jaws mounted on the bow of his boat. That's the boat's name. Sharktooth. She said that's all he answers to."

  "Keep your ears open; see if you can get any more on him."

  "Sure. You want me to ask about Russo's time with the cops?"

  "No, that's okay. Don't ask too many questions, I'll get Santos to use his connections on that."

  "Hey, that reminds me," Ortiz said. "Any news on Lupita?"

  "No change. Whoever it was that did it fucked her up pretty good."

  "Santos have somebody to replace her?"

  Cruz frowned. "Why do you care?"

  "I just wondered. I know she collected rent from some of those deadbeat Haitians for him. I figured he might need a replacement."

  "Maybe. You interested?"

  Ortiz laughed. "Not me. But there's a guy who does odd jobs for a fellow I know who might be."

  "Odd jobs? Like what?"

  "Collections. The fellow I know? He's in the numbers racket. He makes book sometimes, too."

  "How do you know him?"

  "I showed him some houses back when I was with the other broker."

  "So how do you know this guy that works for him?"

  "The guy -- my former client, that is -- he lives in the neighborhood. I see him every now and then. He's got a younger brother he wants in the business, and he's trying to find a place for this odd-job guy."

  "You know the guy? The one looking for work?"

  "To see him, yeah. You know, just like, to say hello. That kind of thing."

  "You know anything about him?"

  "He's kind of scary looking. Haitian, speaks broken English with a strong Creole accent. Short, built like a gorilla, lots of tattoos. Maybe done some hard time, I'm guessing."

  "Can't hurt for Santos to talk to him. You got a name?"

  "François. That's all I know."

  "I'll tell Santos tonight. Get this François to give him a call."

  "Okay."

  "You got anything else?"

  "No. I'll give you a call if I get anything while I'm out on the boat tomorrow."

  "Yeah. Good night, Ortiz. Good work."

  "Thanks. 'Night, Manny."

  ****

  Lupita Vidal was in a drowsy state, neither sound asleep nor fully awake. The wall-mounted television in her hospital room was set to a music-video channel, the barely audible sound coming from the hockey-puck-sized speaker on her pillow.

  She was in a moderate amount of pain; the nurse had just brought her evening medication, helping her to take the two pills and holding the glass of crushed ice and water so that the straw reached her lips. Lupita had tried to speak to the woman, to ask her to turn the damned television off, but her voice had come out garbled. Even Lupita couldn't understand the words she'd tried to form.

  She wondered why she couldn't give voice to her thoughts. It must be the painkillers, she supposed. When she had awakened a little while ago, she had resolved to spit out the pills the next time. She didn't like being drugged. By the time the nurse arrived with her evening dose, she had thought better of it.

  As the drugs wore off, the pain swept over her in ever stronger waves, every muscle and joint screaming for her attention. She'd swallowed the pills with relief when the nurse finally came; it wouldn't be long, she knew, before she slipped away again.

  "Lupita?" she heard, from the edge of consciousness. Was it the television? She forced her eyes open, realizing as she did that someone was in her room. A janitor, she thought, catching a glimpse of a roll-around mop bucket as he pushed it closer to her bed. Why did he call my name? she wondered. She decided it was the medication. She must be hallucinating.

  "Lupita Vidal?" She heard him for sure, that time. There was no doubt. She gurgled some meaningless phrase and gave a little nod, the movement sending fresh ripples of pain down her neck and into her shoulders. The pain brought a momentary lifting of the fog. She cut her eyes toward him, careful not to move her head.

  She recognized him. She tried without success to say his name, making a mumbling sound.

  "Yes,"
he said, leaning down close to her face. She smelled his breath, tinged with garlic and tobacco. "Yes, you know who I am, don't you? Blink once for yes, twice for no."

  She blinked once.

  "Good," he said. "Have you told anybody about me?"

  Confused by the drugs and his unexpected presence, she searched her memory for the answer, but she couldn't grasp what it was.

  "Once for yes, twice for no," he reminded her.

  She blinked once, confused.

  "Did you tell the cops?" he asked.

  The cops had been asking her questions. That seemed like a long time ago. She had been in excruciating pain, and the policewoman had been chewing gum as she demanded to know what had happened. Had she told them about him? Maybe, she decided. She blinked once.

  "That's too bad, bitch. At least now you'll die knowing why I killed you." He grinned at her and took something from the pocket of his overalls. She watched, still not quite understanding what was happening.

  He snapped off a plastic cap that protected the needle of the disposable syringe and picked up the clear plastic IV tube that ran from the bag of liquid hanging next to the bed down to a needle in her arm. He emptied the syringe into the IV line. He put the disposable syringe in his pocket and picked up the mop.

  "You won't feel a thing," he said. "Rest in peace."

  She closed her eyes as she heard him push the mop bucket out of her room.

  ****

  Chapter 17

  "Mario said to give you his regards." J.-P. said, stirring sugar into his coffee. He and Phillip were in the kitchen, sitting at a counter that gave them a view of Vengeance and Diamantista II. The bright work on the boats glistened as the early morning sunlight was refracted by the dew on the varnish.

  "You didn't tell him I'm here, did you?"

  "No. We did not discuss anybody's location. He did not ask, and of course, I did not wish to spoil our surprise. I told him only about the situation with the exiles."

  "Did he know this Manuel Cruz?" Phillip asked.

  "Yes. Manny Cruz, he says the man calls himself. He is one of the younger men involved in the anti-Castro movement. Cruz is active in Alpha-66. Mario knows him only by reputation. He took some time to explain to me the intricacies of politics in the exile community. He stressed that your government and the news media tend to oversimplify things."

  Phillip laughed. "Yes. I'm sure he's right. Nobody would have a broader perspective than Mario. So tell me, what did he say?"

  "He reminded me that ethnicity and politics are not the same thing, and the difference might be critical. Even organizations like Alpha-66 and the others are not monolithic. There have been people from Cuba living in Florida for centuries; not all of them came to escape the communists. The ones who fled Castro and formed these organizations didn't all have the same views, either. Their motivations were individual. Some wanted to return to the way things had been under Batista; they had amassed great wealth, some of them. Their motives in wanting to overthrow Castro had as much to do with greed as with patriotism. Then there were some who wanted to make their country a true democracy.

  "Mario pointed out that early in the post-revolutionary era, the wish to overthrow Castro created some alliances which have not survived. Added to that, the older generation is beginning to give way to younger ones. There are three generations which have come of age in the U.S., plus there are the people who have come here much more recently. They all share cultural bonds, but there is a great deal more ethnic and economic diversity in their ranks than there was in the '60s and '70s."

  "Did he have any hard advice, J.-P.?"

  "I am making a summary of what he told me; it is not too much longer. And yes, he did have advice, but he said that first I must make you and your government contact listen."

  "I'm listening."

  "This man Cruz is a strange one, Mario says. His grandfather was a wealthy attorney with many commercial interests in the days before Castro. Much of his wealth was in the form of real property; he lost that when Castro came to power. Still, he came here as a rich man, as did many of his contemporaries. His son, Manny's father, was born here and grew up as an American; he prospered, and the family is more wealthy now than they ever were in Cuba. This is not an unusual story, according to Mario, except for Manny Cruz. Why would he want to overthrow the Castro government? Cuba is where his grandfather came from; it means nothing to Manny, so why is he so active in Alpha-66?"

  "I see his point. Did he have any ideas?"

  "He doesn't trust Manny Cruz, because there is no obvious motivation for his behavior. Mario says this is true of many of the younger members of the militant groups. He says the organizations have become social clubs for some, and a cover for criminal undertakings for others. They have been infiltrated for years by agents of the U.S. government and the Cuban government. Mario jokes that most of the members are undercover agents for somebody.

  "There are several well-known cases. He mentioned a man named Avila who was once the Chief of Operations for Alpha-66. In 1992, he turned himself in to the FBI and confessed that he was a senior operative for Cuba's DGI. They had planted him in Alpha-66 with the mission of conducting what amounted to terrorist raids on Cuba to help Castro justify his anti-American policies."

  "Is that true?" Phillip asked.

  "Mario thinks it probably was, but there's no way to know. He also mentioned the Cuban Five, also called the Miami Five. They were DGI agents who infiltrated several of the militant exile groups and collected evidence of terrorist activities directed against Cuba from the U.S. The Cuban government tried to get the U.S. to act on the evidence, but what happened was the FBI arrested the DGI agents and they ended up in federal prison for being in the U.S. as illegal agents of a foreign government."

  "Okay, J.-P. I understand why Mario thinks we should be careful. Did he know anything about Martínez?"

  "No, he didn't. But he did mention another name. There's a man named Guillermo Maldonado who shows up at social gatherings in Miami from time to time. His friends call him Willy. He's supposed to be a rich playboy from Argentina, but Mario says some of the old timers think he's a Cuban agent. Some of them knew his grandfather when he was in law school with Fidel before the Revolution. This man looks just like his grandfather, so they're sure it's him, and there are some strange gaps in his background, according to Mario's friends. His advice was that if Maldonado's involved, Raul Castro is behind this."

  "Okay. I've heard enough," Phillip said. "How about you? Do you want to do this deal?"

  J.-P. grinned and shook his head. "No. Now, how are we going to get out of it? Your friend Olsen says we must go ahead or your government will frame us."

  "I need to digest this," Phillip said. "I want to try to make sense out of what Olsen is up to, given what you learned from Mario. It's clear that Olsen doesn't think we can walk away from it, but I don't think he's telling me the real reason the government's pushing us to go forward."

  "You think it is a setup of some kind," J.-P. said.

  "Without a doubt," Phillip said. "We need to figure out who they're trying to nail, and why."

  ****

  Ortiz was getting dressed when he heard the hammering on his door. Shoving the tail of a polo shirt into the waistband of his cargo shorts, he rushed to the entryway and put an eye to the peephole. Manny Cruz stood there, looking around like he was worried that someone would see him. Ortiz turned the deadbolt and opened the door, stepping back to let Cruz enter.

  "What's up, Manny? I gotta hustle; I'm due at Star Island in a few minutes."

  "Yeah, okay. This won't take long. Glad I caught you, though. I didn't want to do this over the phone. There's a couple of things you need to know before you get mixed up with those people again."

  Ortiz nodded. "Okay."

  "First thing, Lupita's dead."

  "You're shitting me. Dead? How?"

  "They think a heart attack, but they don't know for sure, yet. They're going to do an autopsy. The hos
pital called Santos early this morning. A nurse went in to check on her and found her at around midnight."

  "I don't believe that. Lupita? No way she had a heart attack. She was what? Late twenties?"

  "Twenty-seven, yeah," Cruz said.

  "And she was a damn long-distance runner, besides doing all that mixed martial arts stuff."

  "I hear you, Ortiz. Santos and I figure somebody finished her off. Maybe whoever beat her up; maybe somebody else."

  "That doesn't make sense, Manny. If it was whoever did the beating, why not just kill her then?"

  Cruz shrugged. "It was in that parking garage. Maybe they heard somebody coming. Who knows?"

  Ortiz was shaking his head. "Un-fucking-believable."

  "Believe it. Santos is beginning to think it must have been something to do with the Haitians."

  "You mean, she kicked the shit out of the wrong person, or something?"

  "More likely she had some kind of side deal going on that we didn't know about. Now that she's out of the loop, Santos discovered that she let a couple of them slide on their rent for several months."

  "But he would have noticed the shortfall," Ortiz said.

  "Yeah, except there wasn't a shortfall."

  "I don't understand."

  "She was making up the difference, Ortiz. We're not talking high finance, here. She could have done that, no sweat."

  "Yeah, but why would she?"

  "She was obviously getting something in return. Drugs, maybe. The people she let slide, they're dealing."

  "I never saw her using," Ortiz said.

  "Neither did I, but she could have been. Or she could have been getting shit for somebody else. There's no way to know now, unless the people in those units talk."

  "Is Santos going to ask them?" Ortiz asked.

  "Yeah. He and the new guy."

  "New guy?"

  "Your pal, François. Santos talked to him last night. They hit it off. Santos said to tell you he was a good find."

  "Glad it worked out."

  "Yeah. You got anymore where he came from? We can always use muscle."