Four Months in Cuba

by Luana Ehrlich

  Of course, that was only because he had spent the night in his car, or most of the night anyway.

  After Mateo had fallen asleep at the safe house, I’d instructed a couple of the guys on the surveillance team to haul him downstairs and put him in the back seat of his uncle’s Chevy Malibu.

  The medic had told me Mateo wouldn’t be able to remember anything once the effects of the drug had worn off, so I’d driven the Chevy back to the Meliã and parked in the hotel’s parking lot.

  After that, I’d gone up to my room and slept soundly until Sofia had called me the next morning with the news Mateo was asking for me.

  When I’d met Mateo down in the lobby, I’d asked him, “What’s up, Mateo? You look like you could use some coffee.”

  “Señor Bandera,” he said, massaging his temple, “I wanted to ask you about last night. I can’t seem to remember anything after I picked you up here at the hotel.”

  “I’m not surprised. We partied big time last night.”

  He smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

  “I can honestly say there was never a dull moment all evening long.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. We should do it again sometime.”

  “I agree. Maybe I’ll give you a call in a few days. Right now, I’m waiting for Señorita De Santos to pick me up so we can ride over to the Velazquez Museum together.”

  Mateo didn’t show any reaction when I mentioned Juliana or the museum, and I marveled at how well the scopolamine had worked on him. At the same time, I also felt a twinge of guilt for doping the guy up like that.

  I guess that’s why I slipped him an extra fifty pesos when we shook hands—a small token of appreciation from the American taxpayer for the intel he’d given us.

  However, I told Mateo it was a tip for the exciting evening we’d spent together.

  * * * *

  After receiving the alert from the Ops Center about Carlton’s impending phone call, I bypassed the entrance to Café Tropical and walked out on the second-floor balcony of the hotel.

  The balcony offered a spectacular view of Santiago Bay, and I went up to the railing and looked out across the blue waters of the Caribbean.

  Just over the horizon, fifty miles to the east, was Guantanamo Bay, the oldest overseas U.S. Naval Base in the world.

  Better known as Gitmo, the base was also home to a detention camp for enemy combatants in the war against terrorism. The facility was America’s most unusual military prison, equipped with a soccer field, first-rate hospital, 10,000 book library, and a four-screen movie theater.

  In addition to these amenities, the prison had a world-class kitchen catering exclusively to the palettes of the Jihadi inmates. Their demanding diets meant fresh food had to be flown in daily from the Middle East, while the men and women guarding these prisoners dined on much lesser fare.

  Besides Department of Defense employees at Gitmo, a variety of other personnel were assigned to the naval base, including members of the CIA. Most of them served as interrogators at the camp, but there were a few covert intelligence officers there as well.

  It didn’t surprise me when Juliana mentioned the weapons package I’d found in the pantry at the safe house had been supplied by a Level 2 covert operative from Gitmo. Even though a seventeen-mile razor-wire fence separated Gitmo from Caimanera, the nearest Cuban town, it wasn’t unusual for one of our spooks to go “under the wire” at Gitmo and cross into Cuba undetected.

  From Caimanera, it was only a short bus ride along Autopista Nacional A1 over to Santiago de Cuba. If an operative left Gitmo at daybreak, he or she should be able to make it back to the naval base in time for dinner—unless they decided to spend the evening in Santiago.

  As soon as I stepped away from the railing, my phone vibrated.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re calling to let me know the POA has been approved.”

  “You’re a lousy guesser,” Carlton said.

  * * * *

  A few days after my interrogation of Mateo, Carlton had held a video conference call at the safe house to discuss the possibility Mitchell was no longer in Santiago.

  Coach Thompson, in particular, was especially skeptical of what Mateo had told us.

  To support his belief that Mitchell was still being held up at El Bonete, Coach had shown us the most recent reconnaissance photographs from Lorenzo’s compound, which we all agreed didn’t look all that different from the last ones we’d seen of the place.

  The photos still showed armed guards carrying AK-47s standing around the guesthouse and additional security patrolling the perimeter. Coach said all this security was further proof the occupant of the guesthouse was extremely important to Rafael Lorenzo.

  Once Coach had finished showing us the satellite intelligence, Carlton had gone over the reports from the surveillance teams on the ground in Santiago.

  The watchers at the Santa Rita location, whose group leader was Gloria, hadn’t seen any evidence Mitchell was being held there, although they’d seen an increase in traffic at the abandoned processing plant. This movement had caused Carlton to revise his earlier opinion and conclude Lorenzo was once again using the site for repackaging his cocaine shipments from Colombia before sending them north.

  Mark Stevens headed up the team watching Lorenzo’s compound in El Bonete, but since the place was completely enclosed on all sides by a concrete wall, his surveillance had yielded only minimum results.

  Mostly, the watchers were reporting the comings and goings of Lorenzo’s family. However, one notable sighting at Lorenzo’s compound had drawn a lot of attention from the Ops Center.

  That was the appearance of Franco Cabello at Lorenzo’s gate.

  Franco Cabello was a top lieutenant in the Los Zetas organization and the head of the cartel’s smuggling operations. He’d also been the drug cartel’s point man when Hezbollah had contracted with Los Zetas to smuggle two hundred canisters of sarin gas from a ship docked in Santiago Bay to an industrial parts plant in San Diego, California.

  Fortunately, a joint task force, consisting of both CIA and FBI personnel, had located the truck at a truck stop near Baltimore, and the crates of gas canisters were now in the hands of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) in Aberdeen, Maryland.

  Carlton said the presence of Franco Cabello at Lorenzo’s compound could be another sign Mitchell was being held in the guesthouse. His argument was based on the extensive profile the analysts had drawn up on Franco during Operation Citadel Protection.

  In addition to being responsible for all the cartel’s smuggling operations, Franco’s other duties included facilitating the transfer of ransom money following a cartel kidnapping and overseeing the safe return of the victim.

  Even though the Senator hadn’t heard anything from the cartel since his last communiqué, Carlton said Franco Cabello’s visit could mean a ransom demand was imminent.

  While I agreed with Carlton’s conclusions, when he asked for my assessment, I decided it was time to present Gabriel’s plan—modified by my tweaking—for rescuing Mitchell from Lorenzo’s guesthouse.

  The moment I’d finished outlining the plan, Coach Thompson said he was on board with it, but Carlton wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic. However, he did say he thought the plan had some potential if the kinks could be ironed out.

  I knew exactly what that meant, and sure enough, the next day Carlton had called and presented me with his own tweaks, plus a Plan of Action.

  Now, the POA was awaiting the DDO’s approval.

  * * * *

  When I heard Carlton say he wasn’t calling about the POA, I got worried. It wasn’t what he said that worried me; it was the sound of his voice. There was a constricted quality to it, as if he might be trying to control his emotions.

  The first thought that popped in my head was that something had happened to Mitchell—something I didn’t want to hear.

  “What’s wrong, Douglas?”

  “Are you clear?”

 
“I’m clear. I’m sitting outside, and there’s no one around.”

  “I’ve just gotten out of a meeting with the DDO. He called me around midnight last night and told me to meet him in his office at six this morning. Since I couldn’t get any sleep after his phone call, we should have had the meeting right then. To make matters worse, he wouldn’t give me any hint about the agenda.”

  “Did it have anything to do with—”

  “Let me finish.”

  Carlton wasn’t a man to be rushed, and I should have known better than to interrupt him—it never did any good.

  “The DDO had all the principals from the Joint Task Force at the meeting. Everyone was there, including Frank Benson and Arnie Dawson. However, none of them knew why he’d called the meeting.”

  When the DDO had formed the Joint Task Force, he’d asked Arnie Dawson, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to serve as the DHS representative, and Frank Benson, a former CIA operative, to represent the Bureau.

  Frank Benson and I had known each other for years, and although we’d had our differences in the past, the two of us had set aside those differences in order to work together on Citadel Protection to expose an Iranian terrorist operating on American soil.

  The last time I’d seen Benson, he was being hauled away in an ambulance after the Iranian terrorist had shot him. Later, however, I’d learned Benson would make a full recovery.

  The terrorist would never recover.

  I’d made sure of that when I shot him.

  As Carlton paused to take a breath, I said, “I’m surprised to hear Frank was at the meeting.”

  “His arm was still in a sling, but he was there. Frank has his flaws, but his work ethic has never been one of them.”

  “How long did it take you to figure out why the DDO had called the meeting?”

  “I knew as soon as he introduced the man sitting next to him. Of course, I didn’t know the details, but I had a pretty good idea of what the DDO’s agenda was when I heard his name.”

  Carlton waited a beat, and since I knew he wanted me to ask him, I did.

  “Who was he?”

  “Rand McCormick.”

  Although I racked my brain, I couldn’t come up with a face or a title. “I give up, Douglas. That name sounds familiar, but I’m clueless.”

  “He’s the head of the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen.”

  That revelation gave me pause. “I can see why that got your attention.”

  Carlton cleared his throat. “When the CMA inspectors finally finished checking out the two hundred canisters the FBI had confiscated at the truck stop in Baltimore, they discovered ten of those canisters were fake.”

  “You mean they were duds or—”

  “I mean the cartel kept ten of those sarin gas canisters for themselves and substituted ten fake canisters. The phony canisters have the exact same markings as the real canisters, but they were deliberately placed in the center of a pallet and surrounded on all four sides by the real canisters, which made it impossible for anyone to tell the difference until a closer inspection was made.”

  Suddenly, I remembered sitting in RTM Center C a little over two weeks ago and watching the monitors overhead as the FBI’s special reactionary force arrived at the truck stop to interdict the canister shipment. I recalled feeling apprehensive the canisters might not be inside the truck when the doors were opened.

  My fears were based on what I’d learned about Franco Cabello and his ruthless behavior. I knew if even half the stories about him were true, he wouldn’t have any scruples about auctioning off the chemical weapons to the highest bidder or using the sarin gas to protect the Los Zetas drug empire.

  When the FBI agents had opened up the truck’s cargo compartment and counted the crates of canisters, I’d dismissed my fears about the cartel taking possession of the sarin gas.

  Now, those fears were back.

  Chapter 13

  Carlton had never been hesitant about identifying the failures of another government agency, so I wasn’t surprised when he pointed out how negligent the CMA investigators had been by not immediately opening up the crates and examining each of the gas canisters individually.

  I have to admit I was more interested in knowing what the DDO planned to do next than I was in hearing about the timing of the discovery, but I waited until Carlton had finished his rant before I asked him about it.

  “That job should have been done immediately,” he said. “Now, here we are, almost three weeks later, and we’re just finding out Los Zetas is in possession of chemical weapons.”

  “What happens next, Douglas? How’s the DDO going to handle locating the canisters?”

  “The deputy said he’s still weighing his options.”

  “Is there any evidence Franco switched those canisters out after they left Mexico?”

  “None whatsoever. More than likely, they’re in some warehouse in Tijuana, which means the DDO will probably notify the Mexican government the drug cartel is in possession of several canisters of sarin gas and leave it up to them to locate the weapons.”

  “I’m betting the FBI will launch their own investigation into the missing canisters.”

  “If Frank Benson’s reaction to the news is any indication, I’m sure they will. By the way, after the meeting was adjourned, he caught up with me in the hallway and asked me where you were.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him you were out of the country. Nothing more.”

  Even though Benson still retained his top-security clearance at the Agency, I didn’t figure Carlton would have shared any details about Peaceful Retrieval with him.

  Handing out information about any of his covert operatives—no matter how trivial—wasn’t in Carlton’s DNA.

  “Did Frank mention why he was asking about me?”

  “No, but I had the feeling he thought your assignment was to locate the missing canisters.”

  I wondered if Benson was happy to hear I was out of the country. If so, it was probably because my absence from Langley meant he would get to spend more time with Nikki Saxon.

  Benson had met Nikki a few weeks ago at the FBI Academy in Quantico where he was one of her instructors. As soon as I found out they knew each other, I’d asked him to keep an eye on her, and, in exchange for his promise to help her pass the FBI course, I’d given him some intel about a suspect he was investigating.

  Benson had been enthusiastic about taking an interest in Nikki, but involving him in my personal life had turned out to be a huge mistake, and I’d ended up having to confess my error in judgment to Nikki the last time I’d seen her.

  Now, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable—jealous might be a better word—knowing Benson was spending several hours a day with her, even though she’d forgiven me for treating her like some kind of bargaining chip.

  I asked Carlton, “Is there any chance the DDO would pull me off Peaceful Retrieval and send me after those canisters?”

  “Are you kidding? There’s absolutely no chance he would do that; not with Senator Mitchell hounding him every day about finding his son.”

  “What about our Plan of Action, Douglas? Why hasn’t the DDO approved it yet?”

  “That’s not the DDO’s fault. I haven’t sent it up to his desk yet.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Hold on, Titus. Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m waiting to hear back from our asset in Havana before signing off on it.”

  “You mean the guy who said the cartel might be holding Ben in El Cobre?”

  “I don’t believe I said the asset was a guy.”

  “So the asset is a woman?”

  “I never said that either.”

  When I didn’t respond for several seconds, Carlton said, “Perhaps you’d appreciate the position I’m in when I tell you our asset in Havana is being run by one of C. J. Salazar’s operatives, and I’m waiting to hear back from C. J. before deciding whether the asset ha
s any viable intelligence on Ben’s whereabouts.”

  C. J. Salazar—sometimes referred to as “Cartel Carlos” by certain Agency employees—was head of the Agency’s Latin America desk. While he wasn’t necessarily incompetent, he was easily distracted. To make matters worse, if he tried to juggle too many balls at once, he tended to drop a ball or two.

  In this business, dropping even one ball could have disastrous consequences.

  Cartel Carlos had earned his nickname for his tendency to blame the drug cartels for the government upheavals, political corruption, and guerrilla warfare happening south of the border. Although the cartels were still a major problem, America’s neighbors to the south had recently drawn the attention of a much wider audience. Now, some particularly bad actors—namely, Iran and Hezbollah—were making their presence known on the Latin American stage.

  “If Cartel Carlos is running the show, that explains a lot.”

  “It’s not entirely his fault. The reopening of our embassy in Havana has placed our personnel there under intense scrutiny, and now our chief of station is having difficulty making contact with the asset.”

  “You must be talking about Alex Nelson.”

  Carlton didn’t say anything for a moment. “That’s right. Alex is running the asset in Havana, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “I’ve worked with Alex before. If he believes the asset knows something about Ben, then I don’t mind waiting a few more days to finalize the POA.”

  There were times when cooperation was the key to opening doors with Carlton, and today it worked like a charm.

  “As it stands right now, the asset appears to have knowledge of the inner workings of the Los Zetas organization, and she claims there’s an American being held at a farmhouse near El Cobre.” He paused. “Yes, the asset is a woman.”

  “Any idea who she is?”

  “No, but Alex refers to her as Queen Bee, and that’s the handle the Ops Center has assigned to her file.”

  “Have our analysts been able to locate a farmhouse in El Cobre that’s connected to Los Zetas?”