1 Red Right Return

by John H. Cunningham

  Hemingway had used the Ambos Mundos as his base of operation on extended fishing trips with Joe Russell in the thirties, long before he bought the Finca outside Havana. The hotel took credit for his writing For Whom the Bell Tolls there and charged a dollar to visit his room on the fifth floor. He kept the Pilar in walking distance for his daily fishing adventures in pursuit of marlin and sailfish. It was sad that the same boat was now parked on a tennis court ten miles inland. Could the answer to the missing cipher be here? Ambos? I added that to my notebook.

  The sun was bright, no clouds cluttered the sky, and a light wind blew napkins off outdoor tables. The lounge was empty. I walked the perimeter of the roof and studied the city below. One block over was Obrapia. I traced it with my eyes until it blurred into the city on one end, then back to where it terminated at Havana harbor.

  #1 Obrapia must be located down by the water. Willy had described marina sounds in the background of the FBI’s recording of the cell call. The waterfront had boats docked intermittently along its length.

  The elevator opened and Ivan stepped onto the terrace.

  He looked all around before acknowledging me. For a Cuban, guiding an American in town to investigate a crime potentially committed by their repressive government was a dangerous task, a hundred dollars a day or not.

  Once on the street we turned toward the harbor, and took Papa’s path to where the Pilar and Gregorio Fuentes, his Cuban captain, had launched their daily hunt. The taste of salt was in the air. I gave Ivan the address from Salvo’s crate, and he led me over a block onto Obrapia. Sure enough, the addresses descended toward the water.

  After a fifteen minute walk we stood next to an ancient brick warehouse that faced the muddy harbor. Boats were randomly tied up to haphazard docks, and a smattering of small fishing craft were anchored off shore. The warehouse blocked our path. Its walls were pressed flush to the sea wall, ten feet above the water, and a barbed wire fence prevented access onto the dock. I stared through the fence. Suddenly, a door slammed out of sight.

  “Sorry!” The loud shout followed the slam.

  A second passed before I realized the voice was in English. I waited, listening, then caught a whiff of a freshly lit cigarette. Smoke blew into my face, and a man stepped up to the edge of the dock just a few feet away though still hidden by the wall.

  Why had he spoken in English?

  Still uncertain of the address, I set off for the front of the building. The cobblestone alley led past a loading dock, stacks of wooden pallets, broken bottles, and a landscape of trash. I glanced back, and Ivan was gone. I hesitated before continuing around the corner. The front of the building was pressed up against the street. I walked toward the door, and opted to play the dumb tourist.

  A sleepy-eyed guard was slouched in a chair. When he saw me approach, he jumped up and waved me away.

  There was a faded number “1” painted above the door. I kept my distance but continued around the building. The parking area narrowed to an alley that funneled toward the water. A walkway led along the sea wall beyond the warehouse’s dock.

  A wood dory sputtered toward the shore, where pelicans stood on pilings. I heard the sounds of horns and a scratchy loudspeaker in the distance. Marina sounds.

  From my position it was impossible to see into the dock, so I stepped out to the walkway where there was a clear view into the loading area that had been invisible from the other side. This side was fenced too. Four pallets sat in the middle of the wharf, each piled with wood crates.

  They were the same types of crates as those in Salvo’s studio.

  It was too far to see what was printed on them. Official-looking signs written in Spanish were attached to the fence, their messages meaningless to me.

  Whoever had yelled “Sorry!” upon the slam of the door must have finished his cigarette and gone back inside. I removed the camera from my backpack. Through the telephoto lens I studied the loading area.

  Suddenly, behind me, I heard a shrill sound, along with feet stomping against asphalt. I glanced around and saw the guard from the front of the building running in my direction, waving his arms and blowing his whistle.

  Uh oh!

  I spun on my heels and sprinted down the harbor walk. Maybe thirty yards along, a gray-shirted cop, known locally as a PNR, jumped out from the bushes and crouched with a gun pointed at my chest.

  I skidded to a stop.

  What the hell happened to Ivan?

  42

  INSIDE THE WAREHOUSE, CHAIN link separated the open room into quarters, low-watt bulbs hung from cords strung along the rusted roof joist lit a pair of decrepit chairs by the door, and there was a distinct smell of urine in the air. I checked to make sure it wasn’t coming from me.

  Two guards stood between me and the door, one antiquated handgun between them. Neither spoke English. The gray-shirted PNR had radioed somebody. The other man, who wore a different uniform, rummaged through my backpack, and removed my camera, books, passport and wallet. At least my money belt, filled with Willy’s two grand, had not been discovered.

  “Why are you holding me?” The tenth time I asked this brought the same no-response. A persistent twitch flourished in my right eyelid.

  When they first grabbed me, I’d said I had done nothing wrong, vehemently—which earned me a billy club to the stomach. It was pointless to argue. Whether they had reason to hold me or not didn’t matter. This was a Communist country, and like all nearly extinct species, their actions were driven out of a manic desperation to survive.

  What had happened to Ivan? Couldn’t he just say I was a guest at his hotel? Did he think I was dumb enough to reveal the gift from his grandmother?

  Each warehouse quadrant contained stacked wood crates. Some were long and skinny, others more rectangular. None were stenciled with FLORIDA, but they were similar to the ones in Salvo’s studio.

  The PNR kicked my calf. He barked something in Spanish and pointed to the warehouse.

  I got the message.

  Brakes squealed outside. The gray-shirted guard stepped out, leaving the PNR to keep watch over me. Voices indicated several people but settled into one monologue, most likely a description of me wandering around the warehouse like an idiot, only to be intercepted and wrestled into submission by this crack security team. The guard returned, followed by three other men. Two wore uniforms similar to his, but they stood aside for the third man, who was dressed in plain clothes.

  His eyes locked onto mine. “Why did you try to enter a restricted area?”

  “I was looking to rent a fishing boat—”

  “You were taking pictures of a secured facility. Who do you work for? The CIA?”

  “I’m a tourist.”

  “Here illegally, then.”

  “I have a license from the United States Treasury Department.”

  “Since when are they granting permission to tourists? Maybe they ended their embargo and haven’t told us?” Plain Clothes was maybe forty-five years old, solid- looking, and had a piercing glint of conviction in his eyes.

  “I’m a missionary with the Church of the—”

  “Missionary!” He laughed. “Fishing missionaries trespassing at a secure installation, that’s a good one.” He stopped and ripped my passport out of the PNR’s grasp. “Charles B. Reilly III, Washington, D.C.”

  “The passport was issued there. I live in Key West. I got here yesterday and—”

  “I wasn’t aware that the Ambos Mundos had become a mission.”

  “The mission’s in Cayo Hueso.”

  He made a quick statement in Spanish, his eyes never leaving mine. One of the uniformed men gathered up my possessions and walked outside.

  “You’re under arrest for espionage against the Cuban government.”

  The PNR saluted and stepped aside. Each of the remaining two uniformed men took one of my arms and pulled me up. I was too stunned to resist.

  A beat-up, white, unmarked van was outside. They shoved me into the middle of th
e back bench seat, and a guard sat on either side of me. Plain Clothes sat up front. We lurched away, with no siren or flashing lights to mark our departure.

  I remembered the Mayday in Spanish the day I was nearly broadsided by the waterspout. It had seemed a condemnation from God, but it occurred to me now that it might have been a warning. My cardinal rule of avoiding arrest was shattered, again, and my worries escalated from Betty being confiscated to my being dumped in a Cuban jail and tried for espionage.

  As we pulled away, something caught my attention. What?

  Ivan was talking to the PNR guard who’d arrested me. He pointed to the van. I sucked in a sharp breath. Was he a rat or just trying to find out why I’d been arrested?

  The driver angled his head toward Plain Clothes. “Combinado del Este?”

  “No.” He extended his arm toward the front of the van and flung his wrist.

  Combinado del Este was a notorious cesspool of a prison on the outskirts of Havana. Contingency plans swirled through my head, along with wild theories as to why I‘d been arrested. I flashed back to last night’s daiquiri-debate: could the Cubans and Santeros be one and the same?

  Plain Clothes lit a cigarette. Its smoke slightly improved the city smell—decay and rot from a half-century of neglect.

  The José Martí tower appeared above the rooftops. We drove past the Plaza de la Revolucíon. The immense area of crumbled asphalt made me think of an abandoned stadium’s parking lot decades after its last big game. Che Guevara’s face stared down at me. The black metal sculpture was omnipresent, and Oz-like. MININT, the State Security apparatus’ headquarters, grew before us as we entered their driveway, passed through several security checkpoints, and descended beneath the building. Before I knew it Che had swallowed us whole, and I was in the bowels of State Security’s hotel-no-tell, where they held people indefinitely without reason or cause. Just yesterday I’d thought the building looked like an aged hotel, but I never expected to be getting a room.

  The van’s brakes announced our arrival. Plain Clothes marched ahead, his stature within MININT evident with every nervous face we passed. The uniformed guards urged me onward, poking me in the back with billy clubs. Remarkably, my confidence grew despite the gravity of the situation. It was the same feeling I’d had when my partners and I went on our road show, meeting with Wall Street analysts and market makers when we took e-Antiquity public. My free-fall into the abyss of bankruptcy taught me that terror is best diluted with confidence, feigned or not.

  From a maze of poorly lit corridors, I was unceremoniously dumped in a windowless, furnitureless, and toiletless cube of a room that stank of piss, vomit, sweat, and fear. Plain Clothes would be checking my passport, custom’s information, port of entry, and any other data he could find about me.

  Did he have access to the internet? How deep they would dig?

  Given the chance, would I contact the U.S. Interests Section here in Havana? In another time I would have had a wealth of diplomatic connections rush to my rescue, but those died with my parents, soured by the accusations that surrounded their deaths. Cuban State Security could easily accomplish what the U.S. Courts had failed to do, and my freedom was in danger of expiring. Plain Clothes stated that I was arrested for spying, a powerful charge in a society where spies are hung and even citizens whose sole desire is to emigrate can be jailed indefinitely.

  My personal effects had been confiscated. Plain Clothes himself removed my belt, and his eyes bulged at the twenty-two hundred-dollar bills inside. That alone would be reason enough for me to disappear. They also took my watch, so I could only guess at the time passing.

  Would Truck realize I’d been captured? My money would be on his hunting me down, only I didn’t have any money left. If only I’d never met Shaniqua Peebles, my destiny would have been completely different. I’d have been back out in the Dry Tortugas by now, maybe even have found the Esmeralda. But Ray’s warning echoed in my head. If I tried to covertly salvage treasure from Park waters it would be a criminal offense. But, if I found it and then got the Park Service involved, it could right the foundering course my life had taken these past few years. Archeology for history’s sake, instead of profit. What a concept.

  That’s what I’ll do, if I could just get out of here. I promise to tell the Park Service about the gold and Hemingway’s letter. I’ll help them find it, I’ll—The single bulb that dangled from the ceiling suddenly went off.

  I drifted in and out of sleep as the hours passed. A vision of flying in Betty above distant cays, spotting schools of bonefish, reading wind, waves, currents, and searching for suitable landing spots played like a silent film. Creamy green seas beckoned…Betty’s hull wet in Caribbean waters…taxiing on the step toward a lone dock that extended from a tiki hut on a talcum powder beach. A tall woman sauntered slowly down the narrow dock and gave a single languid wave of her arm, my yellow, waterproof pouch in her hand.

  Closer now, I could see her golden hair tied back, her tanned skin, her bikini top a matching green to her eyes. A warm smile welcomed me. I licked my lips in anticipation of her kiss.

  “You’re not alone, Buck Reilly, you’re not alone.”

  43

  MY CELL DOOR SUDDENLY opened and my sweaty body jerked awake. The light was blinding. New guards shoved me down the hall.

  Plain Clothes awaited me in a small interrogation room. Two chairs, a table with my camera, the books, my watch, and wallet on it. No sign of the money belt. My heart sank at the sight of my duffel bag from the hotel on the floor. “Sit.” He waved the guards out. “You’ve been charged with spying, Señor Reilly.”

  “Is this my trial?”

  “That’s tomorrow.” He smiled, “Due process, Cuban style.”

  I took a deep breath. “I never caught your name.”

  His eyebrows arched momentarily. “Detective Raul Dumbas. Now, Officer Fernandez, the PNR who arrested you, caught you photographing a restricted area.”

  “I was using the camera like binoculars, searching for a fishing boat.”

  “How long have you worked for the CIA?”

  “I told you—”

  He reached into my duffel, removing… oh, shit. “And this?”

  “It’s called a book.”

  “On codes and ciphers? Strange reading for a missionary. Perhaps you’re decoding the Bible? Tell me about the so-called mission.”

  “Redeemer’s?”

  “What were you taking pictures of?”

  “Develop the ones in my camera, they’re of Hemingway’s—”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I want to speak to the U.S. Interests Section.”

  “That’s who you work for?”

  “So they can get me out of here.”

  “Why were you interested in that boat?”

  “What boat?”

  He paused. “Yes, Señor Reilly, what boat indeed.” Dumbas stood and said something in Spanish.

  “I don’t speak—”

  The door opened. The two guards who’d escorted me here flanked another man dressed in a suit, but of a higher quality. He was older, had silver hair and a matching tightly cropped beard. His eyes, a piercing blue, zeroed in on mine like a double-barreled shotgun.

  “This is Director Sanchez,” Dumbas said.

  Why would the Director of State Security be interested in me?

  “I want to speak to the U.S. Interests—”

  One of the guards swung a baton down across my back, knocking me to the floor. Pain shot up my spine. My instinct was to spring up and fight back, but this wasn’t a boxing match. I stayed down and took the ten-count.

  “Why were you taking pictures of the warehouse?” Sanchez asked.

  “I wasn’t. I wanted a fishing boat, I like to—”

  “Then why did you struggle with the security guards?”

  “They surprised me, I hadn’t done anything.”

  His blue eyes stared through me. “That’s a nice airplane you came in. Yours?
”

  Damn. “What about it?”

  “Having an airplane that lands on the water would be quite useful.” “I want the U.S. Interests Section. This’ll be an international incident—”

  A guard held up a black rubber hose, but Sanchez raised his hand.

  “Your father’s State Department associates are of no use to you any longer, are they?” I swallowed hard. “Tell me, why would a successful capitalist like yourself fly missionaries around?”

  They had been digging. Dumbas and his goons must be tied into cyberspace after all. Just because they wouldn’t let the Cuban people access it didn’t mean they wouldn’t.

  “It’s called philanthropy.”

  “How generous, King Charles, but from what I can tell, you don’t have much left to give. If it were not for the code book, I may have thought you came seeking asylum.”

  He had really been digging. An involuntary frown bent my lip and he laughed. Yeah, you hit a nerve asshole, congratulations.

  “This man’s nothing but an amateur detective. He’s too incompetent to be a spy.” Sanchez said something in Spanish, and then switched back to English. “But he’s no missionary either. Neither are Lewis, Stackelborough or Roberts.”

  Uh-oh.

  Sanchez laughed again. “Did you really think they could spread their religious poison in Cayo Hueso? You’ve been there, are they mad?”

  “Always Toward Victory.”

  Sanchez jumped back as if I’d spit in his face. He shouted something and the black hose landed an instant later, knocking me to the floor. Another blow hit my thigh. I curled up in a self-protective ball. Several more strikes landed, each in different locations and all inflicting serious pain. My body convulsed in spasms even after the guard stopped beating me.

  “The U.S. Interests Section,” I said. “I want to talk—”

  “We’ve arrested your accomplices,” Sanchez said. “They too are being questioned. Your stories will be compared.”