Castro's Daughter km-16

by David Hagberg

  A small desk sat on a Persian carpet in the middle of the room, with only the one lawyer’s chair, a worn cushion on the seat, behind it. Visitors to this room, for whatever reason, were meant to stand in El Comandante’s presence like children called before a principal. A floor lamp stood beside the desk.

  María closed the wooden blinds over the window and went back and closed the door before she switched on the light. This place, too, smelled like cigars and the hints of a dying old man, though that part she figured was her imagination, as what she felt was a deep chill.

  She put her shoulder bag down and started with the desk, not really knowing what she was looking for, but hoping that her father might have kept a diary or some sort of a daily journal that might point her in the right direction. Rencke had talked about Spanish gold, something her father had apparently mentioned twice during his visits to the UN in New York. And if even one tenth of what the American had suggested had a grain of truth to it, the find would be fabulous for cash-strapped Cuba.

  An appointment book lay open to a date ten days ago, Fidel’s final notation made at nine in the evening: Arrange for M to be summoned. Soon. María shivered, the M was very possibly her, and Soon could have meant that he knew he didn’t have long to live.

  But there was nothing indicating what he intended to say to her, what he intended asking her to promise on his deathbed. Nor was there anything of interest in the four drawers, other than stationery, a well-thumbed Spanish — English dictionary, a box of cigars, several boxes of wooden matches, and a collection of pencils, erasers, pens, paper clips, a couple of folded maps of Cuba, and of the southeastern section of the United States, along with street maps of Manhattan and downtown Washington, D.C. The only thing that she found odd was a small paper bag filled with what she recognized as votive candles, some partially burned down. But she couldn’t wrap her mind around what they might mean, nor did she want to go in that direction.

  Next she went to the files, starting with the top drawer of the leftmost cabinet, which contained a series of folders, some of them quite thick, labeled with names in alphabetical order, beginning with ACOSTA, HOMERO, who was the current Minister Secretary of the Council of State, followed by hundreds of names — most of which she did not recognize — for whom her father had kept dossiers.

  Under K, were three fat folders for the Kennedy brothers, starting with the president, whose dossier actually filled nearly half of one drawer. He’d kept files on a lot of figures before and after the revolution, including Batista and the people in his regime, plus a dozen or more U.S. gangsters, among them Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante. A lot of history from Fidel’s point of view that would probably never see the light of day.

  And in a lower drawer of the second cabinet, she came across a thick file marked LEÓN, MARÍA, which she passed by, not wanting to know what it might contain, her chest tight, her throat constricted. And she felt like a total fool because of her reaction. Stupid, actually.

  In the hour and a half it took to go through the files, she’d found no references to Spanish gold or the speeches he’d made at the UN, only names. If there was any mention, she would have to read through every file, which could take weeks, probably months. Time that she didn’t have.

  After closing the last file drawer, she went to the window, eased one of the wooden slats aside, and looked out. The compound was quiet.

  The floor-to-ceiling bookcases held what María guessed had to be at least three thousand books, some of them stacked double deep on the shelves, other larger books lying flat. They weren’t arranged in any specific order, and many of them were old and dog-eared, especially the paperbacks, most of which were falling apart. A lot of the books were novels — many of them American Westerns or Mexican and Spanish science fiction. Some were history books, of Cuba and Spain and other countries, including the Soviet Union, with several shelves containing nothing but histories of the United States and its leaders beginning with Washington, Franklin, and the other revolutionaries, and of Lincoln and Davis and the Civil War.

  But she found what she was looking for in less than ten minutes. A series of notebook-sized lined journals — Moleskines, similar to the notebooks that Hemingway had used to jot down his ideas — were stacked behind a full shelf of books on military history and strategy, including von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. A dozen of them — apparently in chronological order, because the ones toward the bottoms of the stacks were old, the covers tattered, some of them moldy, while the ones near the top were new, even shiny.

  María opened one of them, and she recognized her father’s distinctive handwriting from documents and drafts of his speeches she’d studied at university. The notebook entries began three months ago, detailing a series of meetings he’d had with his brother and with Darío Delgado, who was the Attorney General, on the advisability of hiring lobbyists to deal directly with the U.S. Congress concerning the trade and tourism embargo. Nothing concrete had come of the meeting, and her father’s notes made it seem as if he were vexed, not only by his apparent ineffectiveness in the day-to-day running of his government, but also because of his age and failing health.

  R seemed sympathetic but Gen DD didn’t want to listen to anything but his budget concerns. Defense is a must, but whom does he think he’s going to war with?

  An entry dated two weeks ago was the last, his handwriting nearly illegible.

  Must talk to my people. Much to tell them, much to suggest, to give them hope.

  She took all twelve of the notebooks off the shelf and brought them back to the desk, careful to keep them in the same order. If he’d left any clue to his search for the Spanish gold, she was sure it would be somewhere in his journals.

  Then she rearranged the military books so that it wasn’t apparent that something had been removed, and went back to the desk. Some of the notebooks were held shut by an elastic band attached to the back cover. Some had a nylon string attached to the spine that could be used to mark a page.

  The journal entry marked in the second book from the latest took María’s breath away. It was under a date in mid-September last year.

  J-i’s letter arrived by secret courier today, and he’s given me much needed detail about the incident in Pyongyang with the former DCI. Incredible. J-i says the man is to be trusted, even though he is the enemy — former DCI and contract assassin. Was involved two years ago at Guantánamo Bay. J-i promises that KM is willing to cut through any bureaucracy, including his own if he believes the truth of a thing. Might be able to help in your quest. But the right man would have to approach him, in the right way. Very important. Salvation and especially retribution can be extremely costly. Something I’ll have to think about, but for now there is only one person in all of Cuba I can trust.…

  J-i was Kim Jong-il, and KM was Kirk McGarvey, but it was the last four words in that entry that rocked her to the core. Her father had written:

  She’s not ready yet.

  She went to the window again and looked outside, but the compound was still quiet. Evidently the security detail had not been able to reach Fuentes, otherwise he would have been here by now. But the situation would not last, and she didn’t want to have to deal with him tonight.

  Starting with the first entry in the first journal, dated June 15, 1955, in Mexico City, her father wrote about meeting a very bright and eager medical doctor from Argentina named Ernesto Guevara, known as Che, which was nothing more than a speech filler in Argentine, meaning “hey.” The next pages were filled with long discussions he and his brother Raúl had with Che, and with a dozen other people, including Alberto Bayo who’d been a leader of the Republican force in the Spanish Civil War and who agreed to help train the Cuban rebels.

  But it was something near the end of the first notebook that caught her attention. Her father was writing about how to come up with the money for arms and ammunition when he met a young Mexican history major studying for his Ph.D., identified only as Dr. José D, or sometimes simply as JD.
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br />   JD has a far-fetched idea that intrigued me last night, though Che and Raúl think very little of him. He talked about gold — as much as tons — buried somewhere in northern Mexico or perhaps even farther north. Not Cíbola, but caves filled with gold, brought by monks from Mexico City that in some cases should have been transshipped to Spain via Havana.

  María pulled out the chair and sat down, her heart racing, her mouth dry, and she started thumbing through the notebooks, starting with the first one, looking for any mention of the gold, or of Dr. Jose D or JD. One entry in the middle of the second journal date late in December 1956 briefly mentioned the doctor:

  Dr. José D wanted to come with us because he wanted to be a part of history instead of merely studying it. But Che was with me in arguing for him to stay in Mexico City, to continue his work. Che later told me JD would be a liability to us, but I thought he would have a better chance of finding Cuba’s gold at the National Archives. JD agreed and he agreed to try to keep me informed.

  The next three notebooks were filled mostly with entries from the revolution and the months following when her father was trying to organize the country. But she came across two brief mentions of JD, one of them having to do with the mystery of a place called Victorio Peak in southern New Mexico.

  … Doc Noss deer hunting found a rock that had been worked with tools, beneath which was a hole that led straight into the mountain where he discovered notes and maps and gold.

  In the second entry, her father wrote that JD had promised a full report, but that there was some doubt as to the authenticity of the find. At the end of that entry, her father promised not to give up.

  … clutching at straws. But the gold could solve a serious problem for us — whom to choose as our ally — the US or USSR. Ideology would make it easy to choose. But more importantly we need help to reverse B’s destruction of the economy. I will continue.

  * * *

  Headlights flashed across the drawn blinds, and María heard a car pull up at the front of the house. She hurriedly stuffed the notebooks in her shoulder bag and started for the door, but then turned back to the file cabinets, where she retrieved her file, put it in her purse, then turned off the light and left the room.

  Fuentes was charging across the living room when she emerged from the bedroom, and he pulled up short. “What are you doing here?” he demanded harshly. She thought he looked more frightened than angry.

  “The real question, Captain, is what you haven’t been doing. There is no security here other than your two buffoons at the gate. Anyone could simply walk in and take whatever they wanted to take. Souvenirs, perhaps.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “You let an American spy in here, why not a tourist?”

  Fuentes had nothing to say.

  María arched an eyebrow. “I’m getting tired of calling you to my office to report on mistakes that you have made. But I want you downtown within twenty-four hours with a complete operational directive for security. How exactly you plan on safekeeping the national treasures here while managing what is expected to be a horde of visitors.”

  Fuentes looked beyond her to the open bedroom door and the door to Fidel’s study beyond.

  “Am I clear?”

  “Sí, Coronel,” Fuentes said.

  And María could see the cunning in his eyes. He had become a real enemy, but rather than fire him, she wanted to keep him very close so that she would have a reasonable expectation of knowing what he was up to.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The fishing boat was ancient, even older, Martínez figured, than most of the derelict cars on Havana’s streets, but the diesel engine was in perfect tune and very well muffled. “Not very fast or pretty,” Luis Casas said, “but she is as reliable as a whore with the scent of money in her nostrils.” He was at the wheel, smoking a cigarette, cupping the glowing tip in his hand.

  They ran without lights about one hundred yards offshore, and Martínez standing in the back, bracing his hip against the gunwale, looked through a pair of binoculars at a red flashing light a couple of miles inland to the west.

  Pedro Requeiro was at his elbow. “Anything yet?”

  The red light was atop the cell phone tower, and they were waiting for it to go out, which would indicate that Jorge had managed to cut power to the installation.

  “No,” Martínez said, but then the light went out. “Okay, he’s done it.” The time on his watch was five minutes until midnight. He motioned for Luis to head toward the shore.

  If the eight men that the de la Pazs had arranged had not run into trouble, the attack on María León’s compound would begin any minute, starting with cutting the electricity and taking out the antennas on the roof. As soon as the first shots were fired, he and Pedro would go ashore.

  His speed-dialed Ruiz’s sat phone number. “It has begun.”

  “I’m on the deck twenty minutes out.”

  “Anything on your radar?”

  “A couple of fishing boats to the west, and a strong military target about fifty klicks to the east. But I don’t think I’ve been painted yet. Leastways, nobody’s heading this way in any big hurry. How did you get word to Mac?”

  “I didn’t. But he knows I’m here, and soon as he hears the first shots, he’ll understand what’s happening.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Martínez broke the connection, as Pedro finished attaching the 9.5 horsepower outboard to the four-man inflatable, and he helped ease it over the side of the slow-moving boat. They were headed toward the beach directly below the León compound, the diesel at dead slow, its exhaust noises almost nil.

  “Ernesto is on his way?” Pedro asked.

  “Sí. Twenty minutes.” Martínez looked at the man’s weathered face, crinkled now in a slight smile. “There’s room in the plane to take you back to the States.”

  “What would I do there? Go back to washing dirty laundry?”

  “It’s going to get hot after tonight.”

  Pedro laughed. “This is the tropics. But you know all about that.”

  “The war won’t end tonight. Maybe not in our lifetimes.”

  “Perhaps not, but you’ve told us that this battle is worth the effort.”

  “Sí.”

  “Then let us take it to them.”

  THIRTY

  María had stormed off just after dark, and hadn’t returned yet. The cook and houseboy had retreated to their quarters, leaving McGarvey, who’d been unable to sleep, seated outside at the pool, drinking a Red Stripe beer. Otto had been locked in his room, insurance against McGarvey trying anything, and a second pair of security officers had shown up around nine, one of them manning the radio room.

  The sea breeze had died to nothing a couple of hours ago, and the night was hot and humid under an overcast sky, only occasionally lit by distant lighting to the northwest out in Hemingway’s Gulf Stream, and McGarvey felt that something was about to go down. Soon. He could almost sense Martínez somewhere close.

  He glanced over at Gonzáles leaning against the slider frame just inside the dark living room, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. The only light came from the west wing, where Otto was being kept and where the compound’s communications and security center was located.

  McGarvey thought that Gonzáles and Toro had seemed nervous all day, and especially since María had taken off and the second pair of muscle had shown up. The entire compound should have been lit up like day, no shadows to provide places to hide. And at the very least, he should have been locked up in his cell, not allowed to have the run of the house.

  Except for the beach, which was lit up as if for a party. If something was going to happen tonight, the security staff expected it might be coming from the sea.

  In the distance to the north, McGarvey thought he might be hearing the sounds of a diesel engine running at dead idle, and somewhere in the opposite direction, toward the highway, he was sure he could hear something else; something new, a very faint clank of me
tal against metal.

  Gonzáles may have heard something, too, because he turned away for just a moment.

  “Señor,” McGarvey said, getting up. He started toward the security officer.

  Gonzáles snapped around, suddenly alert, wary.

  “Do you speak English?” McGarvey asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Will Colonel León be returning tonight? There’s something I need to tell her.”

  “I’ve not been told.”

  “Can you find out? It’s important. Something she needs to know about the gold we were talking about this afternoon.”

  “Stop there, please,” Gonzáles said, and McGarvey stopped a few feet away as the guard took a cell phone/walkie-talkie out of his pocket and keyed the SEND button. “Ramiro.”

  The walkie-talkie was silent.

  “Ramiro, this is Salvador, come back.”

  At that moment, the lights on the beach went out, and Gonzáles swung his rifle off his shoulder as he fumbled with the walkie-talkie. Before he could bring it to bear, McGarvey was on him, snatching the weapon and slamming the insole of his foot into the man’s left leg, dislocating his kneecap.

  Gonzáles cried out as he fell back, grabbing for the rifle, which discharged one shot, catching him under his chin, the back of his skull blowing out.

  Someone came running from the west wing at the same time as what sounded like a powerful engine came to life, and the lights on the beach flicked back on.

  McGarvey stepped into the living room into the deeper shadows of a corner a couple of feet away from the open slider, when a series of three explosions came in rapid succession outside in front, in the direction of the west wing. The sounds of the engine — which was likely driving the compound’s emergency generator — died, and the lights went out again.