Tempest

by Mark Dawson

  “She’s getting into a car,” Ramalhete said. “A grey Peugeot 405.”

  Navarro left the square and hurried to where Mazzetti had parked the car.

  “Registration Hotel Delta Uniform seven three zero,” Ramalhete added. “She’s on the move.”

  “I’ve got her,” Hook said. “Heading east on Via Monumental.”

  Navarro reached the junction with San Ignacio and Tejadillo just as Mazzetti pulled over. He opened the passenger-side door and got in.

  “Go,” Navarro said.

  Mazzetti pulled out and they set off to the north.

  Beatrix reached Santa Cruz del Norte, slowing the car as she turned off the main highway.

  She took out her phone and called Alfredo.

  “Ready?”

  “I am here,” he said.

  “I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

  She ended the call and put the phone back into her pocket. She looked up into the mirror; the only car that she could see was half a mile behind her. She had watched the tail switch on three separate occasions, each changeover performed with elegance. On the first occasion, she had seen the Ford Falcon she had picked out as she had left Havana take a left at a junction; its place had been taken seamlessly by the Moskvitch 2141 that had rolled out of the forecourt of the gas station she passed before she reached the next junction. The Moskvitch had followed at a discreet distance until Bacuranao, when it had turned off into the town, its place taken by a battered Chevrolet Bel Air. That car had stayed the course until Arenales de Parodi, where it had dropped back, and the Falcon had appeared again. The Ford was with her now, following her as she led it back to the house.

  She slowed down, driving carefully along the unfinished streets. She turned onto the road that led to the house and pulled in at the kerb. She glanced up at the first-floor window and saw the flicker of the television that she had left switched on. She got out, made her way across the pitted road to the front door, unlocked the metal cage, opened it and then opened the door behind it. She relocked the cage, shut the door and went inside.

  She took a breath, composed herself, and then hurried to the rear.

  99

  Mazzetti and Navarro were the last to arrive in Santa Cruz del Norte. Navarro gazed at the town as they rolled through the outskirts. It looked dirt poor, not much better than a shanty town. Havana was on the skids, but at least there was a faded grandeur there, everything still redolent with the glamour of its past even if those days were long gone. This place, though, this was a hole. He looked out at a crowd of young men gathered around the entrance to a bodega, and watched them eyeball their car as they cruised by.

  “I’ve got her,” Morley reported. “House at the end of a quiet street. I’m sending the location now.”

  “Keep your distance,” Navarro said. “We can’t afford to spook her.”

  “Copy that. We’re leaving the car and continuing on foot.”

  Navarro closed his eyes and started to put together the tactical assessment that he would rely upon later. ARIEL was off the street. He had two assets—Morley and Farrow—close behind her, with eyes on. The rest of the team were inbound. He felt the quiver of excitement, so familiar to him after all these years. She had to be with PROSPERO. There was no reason why she would have stashed him at a second safe house.

  PROSPERO had to be in that house.

  Had to be.

  “This is Ramalhete. Location received. ETA is six minutes.”

  Navarro took out his phone and saw that Morley had sent the location of the safe house. Santa Cruz was a small town, with a grid of streets set between the main road of Via Blanca and the sea. He switched to a satellite view and saw a series of regimented blocks, each one containing the same number of properties. Morley had identified one building with a red dot.

  Navarro zoomed in. The house was at the end of a street, separated from the emerald sea by a ribbon of yellow beach. He tried to zoom again, but he was at the maximum magnification. The property looked like it was a decent size, with a large yard surrounding it to the east and south. A road ran north–south along its western side, and another road—more of a track—bordered it to the north.

  “We’re four blocks out,” Mazzetti reported.

  Navarro looked at the map on his phone.

  “Morley,” he radioed, “what’s your position relative to the house?”

  “Six zero feet southwest.”

  “Hold there.”

  He looked at the map again, then looked up and fixed their own position. They were approaching the final lateral crossing before the block that contained the house.

  “Which way?” Mazzetti asked him.

  “Go right and then left,” Navarro said.

  That would bring them up to the track that separated the block from the beach. The whole team would converge here in the next few minutes. Navarro and Mazzetti would take up a position to the northeast of the house; Morley and Farrow were to the southwest. He would direct Ramalhete and Harker to the northeast, too, and Hook and Schroder to the west. They would have the house covered in every direction; they would scout it and, once they were satisfied that it was safe to approach, they would breach it and clear it, get PROSPERO, kill ARIEL, and get the fuck out of this pissant little town and this pissant backward country.

  Beatrix opened the rear door, checked left and right and, seeing no sign of anyone who might have been a part of Navarro’s team, stepped outside. She paused again, closing her eyes and listening, but heard nothing beyond the sound of a distant argument and, over everything, the soft rush of the waves. She crouched low and hurried ahead through the garden, dodging the discarded trash until she reached the fence. She squeezed through the opening, checked her surroundings a final time, and then crossed over the track. She made her way to the north, clambering over the shallow dunes until she was on harder, more compacted sand. She followed it to the east, quickly accelerating until she was at a flat sprint. She wasn’t running because she was scared—far from it—but because she needed to get to Melissa before Navarro made the decision to hit the house. He would quickly find that the house was empty, and, when he found that, he would realise that she had set him up. He would alert whomever he had left to watch Melissa, and things would get even more complicated. Alfredo had left a man watching the premises, but there would be nothing he could do if whoever was guarding Melissa locked the door and waited for backup. Beatrix could have asked Alfredo to hit the warehouse for her, but that was a risk she preferred not to take. She wanted to do it herself.

  Beatrix assumed that Navarro would be cautious. He would have to scout the house before he gave the order for his team to go in, but how long would they watch? Thirty minutes? More? Less? It was impossible to say.

  She climbed the beach to the raised parking lot that overlooked the water. There was a single car waiting there, its headlights on, the exhaust fumes tinted crimson by the taillights.

  The front passenger door was open. Beatrix slipped inside, slamming the door behind her.

  Alfredo was behind the wheel.

  “Go,” Beatrix said.

  Alfredo put the car into drive and pulled away, turning out of the parking lot and setting off to the east.

  “They followed me,” she said. “What did you see?”

  “There were three men we recognised at the cathedral.”

  “And at the warehouse?”

  “Eight men drove away.”

  “And now?”

  “My man has seen no one going in or coming out. The doors are closed. We cannot see inside.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She looked out at the road signs as they approached Playa El Fraile. There were forty-five miles between Santa Cruz del Norte and Matanzas. It was late, and there would be no traffic on the roads, but the fastest that they would be able to cover the distance would be fifty minutes.

  “Can you go faster?”

  “The police watch this road,” Alfredo said. “I do not think
you would want to be stopped.”

  She glanced over at the dash and saw that, despite his words, Alfredo had edged their speed up to sixty. The road was empty and in decent condition for Cuba; maybe they would be able to get there a little faster than she had allowed.

  100

  Navarro looked at his watch. ARIEL had gone into the property at the end of the street at ten fifty. It was eleven forty-two now. She had been inside for fifty-two minutes. They had been waiting outside—watching, assessing—for fifty-two minutes.

  “Boss?”

  It was Ramalhete.

  Navarro had told Ramalhete to be ready to walk the block. ARIEL had not seen him before, and, of all the operatives at his disposal, Ramalhete was the one who was most able to pass for a native Cuban. He was tanned, of average height, and could manufacture a slouch to his gait that lent him an ability to melt into the background. There was no crowd in this neighbourhood for him to blend into, but the late hour delivered one singular benefit: it was dark, and Ramalhete was able to use the shadows to his advantage.

  “Do it,” Navarro said into his throat mic.

  Ramalhete was parked around the corner from their position, and Navarro was able to watch as he got out of the car and started to the west. He quickly passed out of sight, but, as he radioed back, Navarro was able to follow his progress on the satellite map on his phone.

  “At the end of the road. The house is on my left,” he said, his voice quiet and laden with tension. “Turning left now. Stand by.”

  Navarro found that he was holding his breath.

  “Okay,” Ramalhete reported. “I’m on the other side of the house. The blinds are drawn. I got up close to the downstairs window. There’s a light on inside and I could hear a television. The blinds are closed upstairs, too, but there’s light. I think the TV is upstairs—looks like it from the flickering, and the sound was muffled; too muffled to be from downstairs.”

  Navarro looked at his stopwatch again. Three more minutes had passed.

  “Any sign of activity?”

  Each man radioed back with the same response: there was nothing, no sign of anyone else on the street with them, and no sign of activity in any of the nearby houses.

  Eleven forty-six.

  No reason to wait any longer.

  Time to bring the matter to a head.

  “Breach and clear,” Navarro radioed. “Repeat: breach and clear.”

  “Breach and clear. Repeat: breach and clear.”

  “Here we go,” Morley said to Farrow as he unclipped the restraining strap on his shoulder holster and pulled out his Beretta.

  Farrow took out his own 9mm and flicked the safety off. “About time. Home tomorrow.”

  “Amen to that.”

  They had parked at the southwest of the property. They got out of the car and crossed the dirt track until they were shielded by the neighbouring property. They hurried along the street, staying in the shadows, making sure that there was no way that they would be visible to anyone who might be looking out of the windows of the house at the end of the block. Morley could hear the sound of the sea, the waves rolling onto the beach that he knew was over the dirt road that formed the northern boundary of the property.

  He saw the others. Harker was to the north; Hook and Schroder were approaching from the west. Ramalhete, fresh from his reconnaissance, had turned around and had joined up with them. Navarro and Mazzetti would stay in the car, as was usually the case during an operation. That still gave them five deployed operators. He was not about to discount ARIEL’s proficiency; she had got the drop on them before, but that wouldn’t be the case this time. The roles were reversed: she didn’t know that they were coming. And there was just one of her; there was PROSPERO, of course, but Morley doubted that he would pose any serious risk.

  They would go in, secure the old man, kill ARIEL and leave.

  Simple.

  “On me,” Morley said. “I’ll open the door and then we go in, quietly if we can. Harker, Schroder, take downstairs. Farrow, we go upstairs. Hook, back us up from outside.”

  Hook, Schroder, Ramalhete and Farrow radioed that they understood and agreed. Harker, ahead of them, raised his joined thumb and index finger in the okay signal.

  Morley led the way to the front door and knelt down in front of it. It was made of wood and was protected by a metal cage. He reached for the cage handle and tried it; it was locked. He reached into his pocket and took out his lock picks. He put his pistol on safe, holstered it, and busied himself with his wrench and pick. The lock was rudimentary and he aligned the teeth in seconds; this time, when he tried the handle, the cage opened.

  He took out his pistol, flicked the safety off, and opened the cage all the way. He tried the handle for the front door and found that it turned; he opened the door, pushing it until there was enough of a gap for him to see inside. There was a hallway with a door to the left and another straight ahead, and, to the right, a flight of stairs that climbed to the first floor. He listened intently and confirmed Ramalhete’s suspicion: the sound of the television was coming from upstairs.

  He raised his hand above his head and gave the signal that they should proceed. He went in first, his pistol held in a loose and comfortable two-handed grip. He crept to the staircase, stepping along the edge of the hall to minimise the possibility of putting his weight on a loose floorboard, and waited for Farrow to come up behind him.

  He turned to see that Harker and Schroder had come inside. The former had taken up his post outside the door to the left, while the latter silently made his way to the door at the end of the hall.

  Morley turned back to the stairs. The passage was narrow, and they would have to take them in single file. He went up first, staying on the outsides of the treads, moving slowly, stealthily. He reached the top of the stairs and found that he was on a short landing. There were three additional doors: he guessed two bedrooms and a bathroom. The first door was open; he looked inside and saw, in the dim glow from a skylight, that it was the bathroom. It was empty.

  “Kitchen clear,” said Schroder, his voice no more than a hiss.

  Farrow took up position by the bedroom.

  “Sitting room clear,” Harker whispered.

  Morley went to the door that was farthest away from the head of the stairs. The television was playing inside; he could hear the sound, muffled, and see its blue light flickering in the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor.

  He turned, checked that Farrow was ready, and raised three fingers of his left hand. He folded them down one by one.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Now.

  Morley kicked the door and entered the room, his gun up and ready to fire. As he stepped inside, he saw a flash of movement from his left and then heard noises to both his left and his right: two clatters and then, immediately thereafter, two pops.

  He had heard the noise before and knew exactly what it was.

  He saw a can fastened to the leg of a chair, the end sheared off so that the can was open. A grenade had been tugged out of the can. The spoons had been thrown off, and the loud pops meant that the delay fuzes were already burning, counting down to detonation.

  “Grenade!”

  Navarro was looking at the rear of the house when it happened, one immediately after the other: a flash of light that pulsed through the slats of the blind that covered the upstairs window and then, almost as one, two dull crumps. The glass in the window blew out to scatter over the yard below.

  “What was that?” he said into the radio. “What was—”

  Ramalhete’s voice was panicked. “Explosion!”

  “What?”

  “Booby trap! Shit—”

  There was a second muffled explosion from the other side of the house, and then, immediately after that, a third.

  Harker was frantic. “Multiple explosions upstairs.”

  Navarro thumbed the button to speak. “Morley? Farrow? Report.”

&n
bsp; He closed his eyes, the gravity of what was happening hitting him all at once.

  “Men down,” Harker radioed. “Men down.”

  “Can you see them?”

  “Affirmative. I’m at the top of the stairs. They’re both down.”

  Navarro gripped the dashboard. He knew what had happened.

  ARIEL wasn’t here.

  She had set a trap and used herself to bait it.

  And Navarro had allowed them to fall for it.

  One thought led to another; panic was layered upon panic.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  “Abort!” he radioed. “Abort! Get back to the warehouse. She’s going after MIRANDA.”

  101

  Beatrix and Alfredo rolled into Matanzas, passing a ramshackle stadium that advertised itself as the home of the Cocodrilos, passing around the green space of the Parque Liberdad, going by groups of old men who sat on the stoops of their houses and youngsters who drank beer while sprawled across the hoods of their cheap cars. The town centre was, at least, colourful, but, as they drove on, the reds, greens and yellows that decorated the exteriors of the businesses and municipal buildings faded to grey. They passed slumlike row houses, with clotheslines run across the streets and jerry-rigged junction boxes hijacking electricity from the overhead cables. She saw children running through the streets, despite the late hour, with feral dogs bounding after them.

  They continued toward the coast, following signs to the docks. Pieces of discarded paper and cardboard cartwheeled in the night-time breeze. Trash lay outside the entrances to the warehouses, rats gorging themselves on scraps of food, too lazy or full to do anything other than glance up at them as they rolled by.