by Mark Dawson
“Yes, boss.”
“We follow ARIEL once they’ve finished,” Navarro said. “I’ll lay odds that PROSPERO is hiding out wherever she ends up. We confirm that, and, once we’re sure, we go in. We scoop him up and bring him back here. At least he’ll get the chance to see his daughter before we get rid of him.”
“And ARIEL?”
“We do her there,” Navarro said. “She’s caused enough trouble already.”
95
Danny was preparing a late lunch in the kitchen when Beatrix got back from the house. He had found a recipe book in the bookcase and had found that the larder contained everything he needed to make Pernil Relleno de Moros y Cristianos. He had removed the bone from a piece of pork shoulder and had marinated it in oil, orange juice, garlic and oregano. He had spread white rice and black beans down the middle of the meat and then folded the meat over it, tied it with string and then roasted it in the oven.
“Know why it’s called Moros y Cristianos?”
“I have no idea.”
“Moors and Christians. The Moors are the black beans. The Christians are the white rice.”
He sliced the pork and served it on two plates, taking them up to the terrace on the roof of the house. Beatrix grabbed two beers from the fridge and followed him. She saw that he had set the table for the two of them. He set the plates down and she used a bottle opener to pop the lids on the beers.
“Cheers,” he said, and they touched the necks of the bottles together.
They sat and ate. The food was delicious; the meat had been cooked to perfection, beautifully seasoned and succulent.
“This is good,” she said.
“You need to eat more. You’re wasting away.”
She took a pull of the beer. “Danny,” she said, “I need to talk to you.”
He drank off three fingers of the beer and put the bottle down. “What is it?”
“I think this is all going to come to an end tonight.”
“How?”
“I spoke to Logan. I’m meeting him. Navarro will be there. They’ll put me under surveillance and follow me. They’ll hope that I’ll lead them back to you. That’s not going to happen. I won’t be able to come back here until this is done.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give them something else to think about and then, while they’re doing that, I’m going to go and get Melissa.”
“And me?”
“You stay here. Alfredo is going to send someone while I’m gone.”
“I don’t need babysitting.”
“I know. But it’s just in case. I’ve been careful to make sure no one knows where you are, but you can never be completely sure. I need you to pack your stuff and be ready to move. If it happens, it’ll happen fast. We’ll have to get out of Havana before Navarro can regroup.”
“Okay,” he said a little uncertainly.
“I’m going to get her back, Danny,” she said. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
She finished lunch, helped Danny to tidy up, and then went to her room. Her go-bag was still packed and ready. She took out Caprice’s clothes and went into the bathroom to change. She knew that she had to persevere with the disguise. Logan might have seen her without it, but, as far as she knew, he had been the only one. She had no interest in letting Navarro get her photograph.
She put on the wig, added her sunglasses, picked up her bag, dropped her pistol inside and slung it over her shoulder. She left the bedroom and went downstairs.
Danny was waiting for her.
“When will I see you again?” he asked her.
“Tonight.”
He started to say something, then swallowed.
“Come on,” she said. “None of that.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice cracking. “You didn’t have to do any of this.”
“You’ve looked out for me. No one else did that.”
“I know. But you’ve gone halfway around the world for me—”
“Just make sure Michael finds Isabella,” she interrupted. “That’ll be thanks enough.”
He cleared his throat and, before she could stop him, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and drew her in for a hug. She stood there, uncomfortable, and, as he held her, she heard him give a little sob. She reached up for his shoulders and gently separated herself from his embrace. He sniffed, and, as she looked into his face, she saw that his eyes were wet.
“Be careful,” he said.
“Stay here and keep your phone on. I’ll call you when I’ve got her back.”
She moved him to the side and, before he could say anything else, she sidestepped him, opened the door, and stepped out into the late afternoon heat.
96
Alfredo had arranged for a car to be left outside the house and had told her that the equipment she had requested was in the trunk. Beatrix checked it out. The car was a Peugeot 405. It was plain and unprepossessing, just as she had requested. The counterbalance was that the car certainly looked as if it had seen better days, and at least one hundred thousand miles. Alfredo had assured her it had been recently serviced and ran well, and she took him at his word.
She opened the trunk and saw that there was a canvas bag and a tyre iron inside; she transferred the bag to the passenger seat.
She started the engine and set off. She left the city, heading east toward Santa Cruz del Norte. There was a gas station on the road outside Playa Jibocoa, and she parked alongside the store and went inside. She made her way down the aisle and collected six cans of El Ebro black bean soup and a ball of string. She paid for them at the counter and went back to the car, placing both items on the passenger seat next to the canvas bag.
She pulled out again and continued on her way.
Beatrix parked the car outside the house in Santa Cruz. She checked again that there was no one about. It was quiet, with just the susurration of the waves rolling up onto the deserted beach.
She unzipped the canvas bag and opened it: there were ten Russian F1 hand grenades inside. The Russians had copied a design popularised by the French, adding a yellow-green coloration that—when combined with the distinctive shape—had led to the grenade being dubbed limonka, or lemon. The steel exterior was notched for better grip, and the striker lever extended halfway down the oval. The grenade had a three-second fuze; she would have preferred the instantaneous variety, but Alfredo had apologised that he hadn’t been able to source that in the time that he had been given. The grenades looked old, and, she guessed, must have been sourced through Alfredo’s more dubious contacts in the military.
She put the grenade back into the bag and added the ball of string. She zipped it closed, picked it up along with the cans of soup, and walked up to the front door. It was guarded by a metal cage; she unlocked the cage, then the wooden door behind it, and went inside.
She checked the house again. It was perfect for her purposes, separated from its neighbours on both sides, the windows obscured so that it was impossible to look through them. There was also a rear exit that would allow her easy access to the garden and the track that led to the beach.
She passed through the rooms again, one by one: the kitchen and sitting room on the ground floor, the two bedrooms and bathroom on the first floor. She went down the stairs and imagined what might happen later. She put herself into the shoes of a soldier who had been tasked to clear the property. She would choose stealth over an all-out assault, and, after checking the locks on the cage and the wooden front door, she concluded that it would be a simple task to pick them. She would leave them locked. The doors would be opened and then the breaching team would filter inside. If she were in charge, she would clear the ground-floor rooms, then she would make her way upstairs and clear the rooms up there. It would be quick. Thirty seconds. A minute at the outside.
The doors would be opened, one by one; the soldier would come into the room, weapon raised, finger on the trigger, ready to fire.
Clea
r.
Clear.
Clear.
She was going to slow that process down a little.
Give them something to think about.
She went to the kitchen and took out the cans of soup. She fetched her knife, picked up a can, pressed the tip of the blade into the aluminium, and sheared off the top inch. She emptied the cans into the sink and repeated the process with each of the cans until she had six of them, all empty and open at one end. She collected two of the cans, went up to the first floor and turned right into the first bedroom. She checked that the window would open so that she could get out again once she had finished what she needed to do; the sash was stiff, but she forced it up enough so that she could slide through. There was a drop down to the garden, but the discarded fridge was directly below, and she would be able to use that on the way down.
She took the string and tied one can to the radiator on the wall. She dragged the bed until it was adjacent to the radiator and then tied a second can to the nearest leg. She took two grenades from the canvas bag and looped a length of string around each of them, pressing it into the deep grooves that ran around the perimeters. Finally, and with exquisite care, she removed the pin of the first grenade and, holding the lever, she slid it into the open can. She would have used beer cans, but they would not have been wide enough; these cans were perfect. It was a snug fit: the striking lever sprang out a little but was prevented from opening enough to ignite the fuze. Beatrix took the second grenade to the bed, pulled the pin and placed that one in the can that was fixed to the leg. There was a little play in the string, so she made a loop and fed it around the door handle.
She checked: the line was taut now. If the door was opened, the string would tug the grenades out of the cans. The safety levers would fly off, releasing the cocked strikers. There would be a loud pop as they initiated the igniters that set the time fuzes burning and then, somewhere between three and four seconds later, the grenades would detonate. The sixty grams of TNT in each would turn the pound of steel in the body into a hail of lethal fragments. The Viet Cong had used the same trap fifty years earlier; it seemed apt to deploy the same trap now, given the history of Danny’s antagonists.
She clambered through the window, dropped onto the top of the fridge and then slid down into the garden.
She went to the rear door and went back inside, then walked through the ground floor to the front door. She stepped outside and walked back to the car, opened the trunk and took out the tyre iron. She went back inside the house and into the front room, where she selected a floorboard that was lined up with the door, dead centre. She pushed the tyre iron into the join between that board and its neighbour and pushed down. The wood complained, cracking a little, and then the nails that secured it to the joist beneath popped out. Beatrix removed the board, fashioned a loop of string and slipped it around the board. She positioned it an inch from the end and tightened the noose to hold it in place. She got down on her hands and knees and looked down into the space between the joists. She took another piece of string, looped one end around a third grenade and the other around the joist, tightening the knots so that the grenade was flush up against the wood. Finally, she took the spare end of the string that she had attached to the board, fed it through the pin and then knotted it tight. She lowered the board back into place, making sure that it did not look as though it had been disturbed. The joist would act as a fulcrum; if anyone put weight on the end of the board that was nearest to the door, the other end of the board would spring up and the sudden jerk would pull the pin from the grenade.
And then… bang.
Beatrix stepped back to admire her handiwork. She was satisfied, but she wasn’t done.
There was still more to do.
97
It was ten o’clock in the evening, but it was still busy in the cathedral square. It was loud and hectic, and Navarro was grateful for that. It would have been more difficult to observe ARIEL if the streets had been quiet, and following her would have been difficult by another order of magnitude altogether. But, as he looked around at the busy tables outside the restaurants, he saw enough to be confident that his men—all of them expert at surveillance—would be able to achieve their aim without compromising their presence.
Navarro’s discreet microphone was attached to the lapel of his shirt. His earpiece was tiny and flesh-coloured, and, if it was noticed, it would have been dismissed as a hearing aid. That, he thought sourly, was one of the benefits of age. No one would suspect him for what he was.
He dipped his chin a little, raised his hand to his mouth and spoke quietly. “Are we ready?”
All members of the team—Morley, Farrow, Harker, Hook, Ramalhete and Schroder—reported that they were in place. They had each found spots to observe, meaning that there were six of them with their attention trained on the restaurant that ARIEL had suggested for the meet. Mazzetti was in his car, set up in the back with his laptop in the event that they needed him to supply tactical information.
Navarro brought his hand up again, as if to scratch his nose. “Do we see Logan?”
“I got him,” Schroder reported. “He’s just sat down.”
“ARIEL?”
“Not yet.”
Navarro looked at his watch. It was just coming up to ten. He was impatient. He always had been, and experience had not cured him of his vice.
Logan was waiting for her at a table in the rear of El Patio. Beatrix approached, nodding her head in greeting as she pulled a chair back and sat down. He made no comment on her now obvious disguise.
“So?” Beatrix said.
“I’ve been on the phone all day. The IG is on board. And, between us, we’ve fired a shot across the bow of one of the guys who worked for Lincoln and Navarro before.”
“And?”
“And it was enough to get his attention.”
“Enough for him to help?”
“I think they’ll see the light the moment we play them the tape.”
“That still doesn’t get us to Melissa.”
“He’s tight with an active member of Navarro’s crew—a man called Morley who’s been looking for an excuse to get away from Navarro for months. Morley won’t be hard to persuade. Change sides now before the charges are laid, or stay with him and go down together.”
Beatrix sucked on her teeth.
“Well?” Logan said. “Are we still on? I need the tape or this isn’t going to work.”
She reached into her pocket and took out the cassette. She laid it on the table and slid it across to Logan. He reached for it; she kept her hand over it.
“You find out where Melissa is and then you help me to get her out. Do that and you’ll get as long as you need with Danny. A full debrief, on camera if you want it. Once they’re both out of the country and safe, then you get the other tape.”
She watched him, her eyes hidden behind the dark glasses.
“Okay.”
Beatrix took her hand away, and Logan pocketed the tape.
She stood as the waitress arrived with a plate of tamales.
“Enjoy your dinner,” she said. “Let me know when you know where she is.”
She turned and walked away from the table, glancing around as she did. The room was busy, with most of the tables occupied, but, as she made her way outside into the heat of the evening, she saw Alfredo and, at a table on the other side of the room, the driver of the car who had brought them from Varadero. Neither man acknowledged her.
Beatrix didn’t turn back.
98
Navarro looked at his watch for what must have been the hundredth time. Five minutes had passed since ARIEL had taken her place at Logan’s table. There was no way of knowing what they were discussing—Navarro would have loved to have had Logan wear a wire, but he would never have been able to source one in time—so he was left with no option but to rely upon the occasional reports from the observers who were ranged around the meeting in a loose perimeter. Schroder was closest, taking a tab
le four places over from the one where Logan and the woman were sitting, but the restaurant was loud, and it had not been possible for him to hear the subject of their conversation. His proximity required even greater discretion, and Schroder had restricted himself to a single report that the meet was underway.
Navarro had selected another restaurant in the square as his own observation post. It was aimed at the tourist market, accepting only convertible pesos and offering a better quality of fare than would have been available in a national-peso establishment. He had needed to eat something in order to keep his place and had ordered ropa vieja, shredded beef served as a stew with green peppers, tomatoes, onion and a lot of garlic. He picked at it, eating just enough to keep the waiter away. He had been chasing PROSPERO for a long time now. It was difficult not to think about a thick, juicy steak, a cut of prime American Wagyu at the Golden Steer in Vegas, the joint he had made it his habit to visit whenever he came back from an op. He had been going back there for years. A steak meal, a few hours in the casino, and some time with Eloise, the good-time girl he had been seeing since he had returned from Iraq the second time. He—
“She’s on the move,” Morley reported.
Navarro snapped back to attention. “Where are you?”
“Behind her. She’s heading east.”
“On her own?”
“Yes. No sign of anyone else.”
“Logan?”
“Still at the table,” Schroder said.
“She must have wheels. Where is she going?”
“She’s turned north onto San Ignacio. Stand by.”
Navarro took out enough money to cover his bill, dropped it on the table and got up. San Ignacio ran alongside the cathedral square and he was conscious that she might pass through the crowd on her way to Cuba Tacón and the Parque Luz Caballero, where it would be quieter and easier for her to identify anyone who was following. The last thing he wanted was for her to notice him on her way, and, walking briskly, he went over to a crowd of tourists who had formed a line as they waited for their coach to collect them.
