“Gearheardt tells me that he only 98% trusts you, Jack.”
“The bastard. After all the times I’ve saved his ass.”
“He says to me ‘Jack, has a streak of honesty in him that worry me. I never know when he might be tempted to do the honorable thing just at the wrong time.’ That’s what he told me.”
I didn’t feel quite so bad.
The square below us was filling up with vendors, carts and some people with just large baskets they sat on the sidewalk. The meat market opened its heavy metal doors and the bread store was giving off its wonderful scent. None of the people in the plaza below looked as if they were plotting any overthrows, assassinations, or general mayhem. How did I get to this place in life?
“So what else do you have to tell me, Marta? Why don’t you start with how you met Gearheardt? I’m not sure I understand the relationship.”
“First, I am not the girl friend of Gearheardt. I know you think that Gearheardt is always my amour. It’s not true. It is just better to have you think that.” She patted my hand for some reason. “I meet with Gearheardt when he was in Cuba.”
“Gearheardt was in Cuba?” Why did anything Gearheardt did surprise me though?
“Si. He came to Cuba with some troops returning from Angola. He says it was easy. No one suspects anyone to try to get into Cuba. So my half-brother bring him home and we gave him a place to stay while he made his plan.”
“He met your half-brother in Angola, right?”
“Si. In the bars and nightclubs, he met many Cuban soldiers. They got along very well. Gon told Gearheardt that the Cuban people would be happy without Castro.”
“Did you say Gon? Are you talking about Gon Norea?”
“Si. My `half brother from my father and a Panamanian woman. My father was demonstrating the product and it didn’t work so well.”
“Your father really did sell prophylactics then.”
A discreet knock on my door (I recognized it as Jorge) came as she replied. “Si.”
Jorge gave me the check in a sealed brown envelope and had me sign for it. As he started to leave, I called to him. “Jorge, are you driving anyone this morning?”
“No, Señor. You would like me to drive you?”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes. I will have someone with me also. She is cleared, Jorge. We can talk in front of her. Esta bien?”
“Si, Señor. I will bring the car to the front of the building.”
Marta was making herself comfortable on the couch. “Get ready, Marta, you’re coming with me. I think you and I should stick together now.”
“Si, Jack.” She smiled and went into the bedroom. When she came back out, she was dressed and looked dynamite.
In the back of the embassy car I told her my plans. “I need to meet a friend of mine. This has nothing to do with you. Stay with Jorge when I am gone. Then we need to find Gearheardt.”
“I am not sure we can find him. He will meet with me later in the afternoon near the park. Then we can find him.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” It didn’t make exact sense, but this was Gearheardt we were talking about. “How about Victor? Can we find him?”
“You are still wanting to meet with Victor?”
“Until Gearheardt and I work something out, I think I’ll just go along with his plan.” I had not told her that Crenshaw also wanted me to meet with Victor. I wasn’t ready to tell her everything just yet.
We pulled into the parking lot at Universidad de Mexico. The giant campus was quiet, the students on a holiday of some kind. Leaving Marta and Jorge sitting, I walked to the large mural by Diego Rivera that adorned almost the entire side of one of the university buildings. Rodrigo was there.
“Ola, Jack. I was getting worried for you. Come with me quickly.”
Rodrigo led me across the campus, through the building where the foreign students took their classes and up the stairs to the library. We stepped beside the doors where we could not be seen from inside.
“The Colombiano is inside, Jack. He is meeting with students. American students.”
The rotten little shits. My contacts at the university had been telling me for months that a number of American students, mostly from wealthy families, were in Mexico to involve themselves with bombs and guns being transported to the U.S. to use in the student unrest. The most promising of these students were recruited by Cuban agents, taken to Havana and then flown to Pyongyang for training in terrorist camps. The students were less active now than at the height of the Vietnam War protests, but the Russians and Cubans were still actively recruiting.
We knew that a main source of explosives was Colombia, or at least through Colombian hands. Now, hopefully, inside the library was proof of the relationship between the Colombians and the most radical of the American students.
“Rodrigo, are there other doors?”
“Si, Jack. But they are temporarily blocked by my sons and cousins.” He smiled.
“I know you want to bust these guys, Rodrigo, but it is just as important for us to get photos. You understand?” I clutched a small camera that Jorge always carried in his car for me. “Okay, you go in first. In fact, Rodrigo, you should take the photos. Be sure and get the Americans. When I go in, they might panic and rush the exits. What’s wrong?” Rodrigo was looking over my shoulder and his face became tense.
“We have trouble approaching, Señor. The Halcones.”
“Get in the library, Rodrigo. Get those pictures. I’ll try to stall the Halcones. Go.”
Rodrigo went through the door and I turned to see two men in black suits and sunglasses come up the steps.
“Buenos dias, Señors,” I said. “You are coming to study in the library.”
“Buenos dias, Señor. We like to see the guests in our country learn at our university. Sometimes we come to see what they are learning.”
The men stopped and, although they seemed on edge, didn’t appear to realize what was going on inside the library. They had probably been tipped to the appearance of the embassy car, and might have been alerted to the Colombian’s presence. I knew the Mexican police wanted to talk to him almost as badly as I did.
I heard a shout in the library and tried to get in the door. I was brushed aside by the smaller of the Halcones. The larger of the two stood squarely in front of the door, a pistol in his hand. When I finally got inside, most of the scuffle was over. The Colombian was on his face on the floor with the shoe of the Halcone on his neck. The Mexican students were jabbering at Rodrigo. The two American students that I saw were silent, cowed by the pistol in the hand of the Halcone, although their overall demeanor was defiant. Then the rest of the Halcones came bursting through the door, spreading noise and chaos. The Mexican students ran for the exits and were for the most part allowed to get away. The Colombian student was dragged, literally kicking and screaming, by two Halcones out the door and down the steps. Just as I stepped outside his screaming stopped. The policemen lifted him and dragged him away, his toes scuffing the ground.
The American students were now being handcuffed and shoved roughly down the steps of the library. One of them caught my eye and cried out, “I’m an American,” either because he thought I looked American, or hoping that someone, anyone, could help him.
“Vaya con dios, son,” I answered him. I felt bad for the boys. Transporting explosives and training terrorists seemed to be a man’s game. These two looked like school boys again as the Halcones hustled them to the waiting cars. But I could also see the poor garage owner, his shop destroyed and his sons bleeding. Playing with bombs had consequences.
“Are you okay, Jack?” Marta asked as I got into the car. “We saw many people running.”
“I’m fine.” I patted her hand that rested on my sleeve. “Jorge, I am going to write up a report here. Would you take it back to the embassy for me? After you drop us off?”
“Si, Señor.” He hesitated and I could tell he wanted to say more. Jorge had been my driver and friend si
nce I joined the embassy staff. “I think that I should stay with you, Señor. This morning, there were Halcones in the embassy asking the ambassador about you. And there is a small man in town that also is asking.”
He looked at Marta and back at me. I nodded affirmatively. “And there are Cubans that wait outside your apartment sometimes.”
And to think I was getting paid all of forty thousand dollars a year for this. Gearheardt shows up and three days later I had become a hunted man. It made me realize how much I had missed him when I thought he was dead.
Señor Rodrigo came by the car, walking with a group whom I assumed were his relatives. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I indicated for him to call me later, forgetting that I probably wouldn’t be in my office for some time
“Jorge, I appreciate the offer for help. I need you to stay at the embassy and keep your eyes and ears open. When you need to contact me, leave word with Señor Chavez at the El Caballo. That would be a great help. Gracias.”
Jorge turned and started the engine. He clearly would have preferred staying with me, and I appreciated his concern.
“Jorge, you said that a small man is looking for me. What did you mean?” I realized that this was a new revelation.
“They call him The Pygmy. He was talking to the ambassador yesterday. Then he began asking about you. I don’t like him, Señor. Very arrogant and smells like the roast goat.”
The Pygmy was in town! Did Gearheardt know this? So there really was a guy that roasted goats in the building at Langley.
In a motion that would be sure to throw a potential assailant for a momentary loop, Marta reached up under her skirt and withdrew her Beretta. “I will protect Jack, Jorge,” she said. “We will watch him like the hawk.”
I felt a lot better.
CHAPTER TEN
BEARDING THE LIZARD
Jorge dropped Marta and me at Los Flores, a small restaurant owned by Mr. Chavez and managed by his oldest daughter, Pilar. It was far out on the road to Teotihuacan, where we were not likely to be disturbed.
“Welcome, Señor Armstrong,” the lovely Pilar said as we entered. “And welcome also to your friend.” Pilar for some reason had taken an interest in my love life. I knew she would sniff around Marta like a bloodhound and later give me her impressions and opinions.
“Ola, Pilar. We would like a table away from the peasants.” An old joke between Pilar and me based on my poor attempt at Spanish the first time I had visited her restaurant. Los Flores was a humble place and I had tried to make a joke about not ordering pheasant under glass which of course had no meaning to Pilar whatsoever and in trying to explain, it got weaker and I got stupider by the moment.
“I have the table for lovers which is perfect, Señor.” Evidently she had a positive early assessment of Marta. No doubt because Marta was Latin American, and not northern European like Greta, or Ingrid before her.
“Very nice place, Jack,” Marta said after we were seated and Pilar had taken our order for cerveza.
“I’m afraid this is not going to be a social lunch just yet, Marta. You really haven’t told me much about Gearheardt’s plan. Other than its Cuba he has in mind taking over. Not Mexico.”
“I am afraid that you believe I know more than you think I know, Jack.”
She must have been spending too much time with Gearheardt. She had picked up his double talk.
“No. I think that you know more than you are telling me. Not more than I think you know.”
“That is what I said. I do not know more than you think I know.” She poured her beer into a glass and drank. Then she smiled. “It’s good, no? Soon you will be so angry with my words that you will forget what you were asking in the first place. Gearheardt is a very good teacher.”
Oh great. A female Gearheardt.
“Did Gearheardt also tell you that many people have knocked the crap out of him for doing his double talk?” I smiled also.
“So what is it you want to know?” Marta asked.
“I know that you are a very smart woman, Marta. I cannot ask all the right questions. You can tell me what I should know. I think you can do that.”
Marta drained her glass, filled it again, and signaled for another round. Yes, Gearheardt trained.
“Jack, you know that the Americans are very worried that the Russians are behind much trouble in Mexico. You are aware that they provided mucho money to the radical students who rioted at the University. Sabe? Maybe some are not so aware that the Russians use Cubans quite often to do their business. It is obvious that Cuban people are less easy to detect in Mexico than the Russian people.”
I nodded my head. So far nothing was new to me. In fact it was along the lines of my investigations into the Colombian connections. It was at a Cuban anti-American rally on the campus that I had first spotted the Colombians.
“There are people such as Gearheardt who believe that America will not confront the Cubans. After the Bay of Pigs, and the missile incident with the Russians, some would want to leave them alone. There are many people like this.”
“I think I know the rest, Marta. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it before now. Gearheardt wants to blame the assassination attempt on the Cubans, believing that will trigger an interest in invading Cuba, and with support from the Mexicans and other Latin American countries. Right?”
“Creo que si, Jack. I think so. There are parts of Gearheardt’s plan which I am not in total understanding.”
“Such as why he wants me to defect to Cuba after my failed assassination attempt.” That one still had me puzzled. “What about Victor? Why does Gearheardt want me to try to use him?” I held back a bit of the information about Crenshaw’s plan to use Victor to smoke out the Agency assassin. It just seemed the wise thing to do since I was talking to a Cuban, and the ex-girlfriend of Victor the Lizard Ramirez.
“The Cubans must be convinced that the CIA is actually backing the attempt to take over Mexico. Victor can convince them, if we can convince him.”
“Do you think we can?” I asked.
“Probably. Victor wants to believe that he is a more important man than he is. Carrying the news that a CIA group wants to support the Cubans in Mexico would give him great importance.”
“Marta, does Victor know that Gearheardt asked me to be the assassin?”
“I don’t know that he does. I would not think Gearheardt would tell him that.” She excused herself to visit the ladies room.
It appeared that I could still serve both masters, Gearheardt and Crenshaw, for a while longer. Both wanted me to contact Ramirez and convince him that he was dealing with the CIA. The mission objectives parted there, with Crenshaw hoping to find out who the Cubans were working with in the assassination attempt, and Gearheardt hoping that the Cuban leadership would be informed of the alliance and let us inside their organization, Castro egotistical enough to believe that he was needed by the CIA. At least that’s what I assume Gearheardt wanted me to do when I got to Cuba. Where I was definitely not going. But Gearheardt didn’t know that yet.
I needed to talk to Crenshaw and I certainly needed to talk to Gearheardt. Marta had not returned and I decided to use the telephone in Pilar’s office to call Juanita.
“Juanita, this is Jack. Has Crenshaw returned?”
“No, Señor Jack. Many people are looking for him. Should I tell them he is on his burro?” She sounded a bit panicky.
“Do you know that he is, Juanita, or is the burro just gone from its parking place?”
“Que?”
“Never mind, Juanita. I was just being an arschloch. So Major Crenshaw is in the hills. Is that right?”
“Si. He went again to meet the people, and I have not heard from him.”
“Do you know where these hills are, Juanita?”
She told me the name of a small town north of Mexico City and I wrote it on a slip of paper from Pilar’s desk. “Did he tell you any of the names? Of the people he was meeting?”
“Carlos Benetiz, and Ped
ro Dominguez. That’s all he tell to me. Only to tell me that if they were to call, that he was on his way. Major Crenshaw he was very secret.”
“Have you talked to anyone else?”
“I mention to Señor Eric about Major Crenshaw. He told me to tell you.”
A real go-getter that Eric. Probably still spending all of his time in church.
“Okay, Juanita. Don’t worry. I’ll look into the whereabouts of Major Crenshaw. If you need me—”
“I call Señor Chavez at El Caballo, okay?”
Yes, calling the local pub owner when a CIA agent is missing is probably a time-honored tradition.
“That would be okay. But also let Jorge know. Sometimes he can find me.”
“What is wrong, Señor Jack? Why is nobody located?”
“It’s a bit complicated. You keep things running back there. Major Crenshaw and I will be back in the office soon.”
“Wait, Señor Jack. There is one thing more important. The small man came and the ambassador let him into your office. He was in there for a long time and then he disappear.”
“What do you mean, he disappeared?”
“I did not see him leave your office. I was working at my desk and then I say “Ola, who is roasting the goat?’ and when I look back your door is open but no one is inside.”
“Thanks, Juanita.”
Back at the table, Marta was eating. She had ordered for me and I joined her. “Do you know the Pygmy, Marta?” I asked. “I mean, has Gearheardt talked about him?”
“I don’t know the pygmy. He is small man, right? From Africa?”
“Marta, here is our plan for today. I am going to borrow a car from Pilar. We need to go find Victor Ramirez and talk to him. I don’t want that part of the plan to get stalled. I can worry about the outcome later. Then we need to find Gearheardt. Can we do that?”
“Victor is no problem. Gearheardt we cannot find until later. There is a place that I am to appear. After a few minutes, Gearheardt will appear. Maybe we can appear there about six o’clock.”
It was five after two. That should give us enough time.
Goodbye Mexico Page 10
