Four Months in Cuba

by Luana Ehrlich

  “And I’d hate to have to explain that to your father.”

  He looked over at me. “Have you and the Senator had a conversation since I was kidnapped?”

  I’d never told Mitchell about my previous encounters with the Senator before he was kidnapped, but I suddenly realized once he arrived back to the States, he might hear about the role his father had played in getting me assigned to Peaceful Retrieval.

  I decided now would be a good time for us to talk about it.

  “The Senator phoned me after I got back from Damascus and invited me to his office to discuss your kidnapping. When I got there, he offered to hire me to get you back from the cartel.”

  Mitchell hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “I can’t believe he did that.”

  “He was desperate to get you back, and he was—”

  “Why did he call you in the first place?”

  I hedged a little when I answered his question. “The DDO briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee when you went missing. He probably mentioned my name as the primary for the operation.”

  “I’m sure you refused the Senator’s offer.”

  “Yes, but it was only because I knew it would be easier for me to locate you if I had the full resources of the Agency behind me. That’s what I told your father when I turned him down. After that, he went to the DDO and requested I be assigned to the operation.”

  Mitchell threw his head back and laughed. “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he? I know this may surprise you, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing the old man.”

  “I’m sure he feels the same way. He’s been giving the DDO fits since you’ve been gone.”

  “So what happens next? Will we fly back to the States tomorrow?”

  “I’m sure we’ll hear about those arrangements as soon as we get to the safe house.”

  “Let’s hope there’s food there. I never did get to eat that sandwich Victor brought me.”

  “If Alex is in charge of the safe house, I promise you there’ll be food around.”

  “There was never anything to eat when Juliana was at the safe house. She claimed she wasn’t much of a cook.”

  I didn’t comment.

  * * * *

  As we entered Santiago, it started to drizzle, and by the time we turned onto Nuevos Pinos where the safe house was located, sheets of rain were coming down.

  Although I got drenched when I jumped out of the truck to open the gate at the entrance to Una Casa Sin Esperanza, when I swung open the gate and spotted a van sitting in the driveway, I forgot all about being soaked.

  The maroon van looked exactly like the rental Keith Gabriel had been using when he was in Santiago.

  Had the DDO sent him back to Santiago?

  Would Gabriel be babysitting Mitchell and me while we waited to get back to Langley?

  That scenario conjured up images in my mind that made life in Cabin Thirteen seem like a vacation in comparison, and as I dashed up to the front porch, I considered the possibility I might have to come up with a plan to escape from the safe house after spending a few days cooped up with Gabriel.

  I rang the doorbell while Mitchell was parking the truck, but I was still waiting for someone to answer it when he raced across the driveway and onto the porch.

  “Hey, open up,” Mitchell said, pounding on the door with his fist. “We’re about to drown out here.”

  “Careful,” I said. “You don’t know the mental state of the person behind that door.”

  A few seconds later, Alex Nelson opened the door and greeted us with a big grin on his face.

  “Welcome home, boys.”

  * * * *

  To say I was happy to see Nelson standing at the door would be an understatement. I was almost ecstatic.

  Although I felt like giving him a bear hug, I gave him a slap on the back instead. I didn’t want him thinking—and possibly reporting back to the Agency—that I was highly emotional and appeared to be experiencing some kind of psychological aftereffects of my imprisonment at Número Diez.

  After Nelson greeted Mitchell and me, he backed away and said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, the two of you look awful.”

  He waved his hand in front of his nose. “And you don’t smell too good either.”

  “You should have seen us before we cleaned up,” I said.

  Nelson laughed. “What happened? We’ve been expecting you to show up here for the past two days.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “I believe that would be me,” Juliana said, leaning over the banister at the top of the stairs.

  Mitchell beamed when he glanced up and saw her. “Juliana, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “Are you kidding? I told the DDO if he didn’t send me back, I’d resign.”

  “Really?”

  She was laughing as she came down the stairs. “No, I’m just kidding. Douglas wanted to use the safe house again, and since my name was still on the lease, he decided to send me back. I admit I didn’t give him an argument about accepting the assignment, though.”

  She walked over and hugged Mitchell—an embrace he prolonged for as long as possible—before she turned to me and gave me a half-hearted squeeze.

  Nelson said, “I’m sorry I can’t give you more time to decompress, but you need to talk to the Ops Center before we lose communication with them.”

  “Why would that happen?” I asked. “Is something wrong with our satellite?”

  Nelson looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Cuba’s about to be hit by Hurricane Erika,” he said. “We’re experiencing the outer bands right now.”

  I must have looked surprised because Juliana said, “You didn’t know about the hurricane, did you?”

  “No,” I said, “we didn’t have a clue.”

  Mitchell asked, “Does this mean we’re not getting out of here tomorrow?”

  Nelson shook his head. “If Erika is as bad as they’re forecasting, you’ll be lucky if we can get you out of here in a week.”

  Mitchell didn’t seem to be as disappointed to hear this news as I was.

  * * * *

  After Juliana went upstairs to set up the computer uplink with the Ops Center, Nelson asked us if we were hungry.

  “I’m starving,” Mitchell said. “I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

  “Something to drink sounds good,” I said.

  “I’ve got you both covered,” Nelson said. “Follow me.”

  When the three of us entered the kitchen, the first thing I noticed were the cases of water, fruit juices, and soft drinks stacked around the dining table.

  “It looks like you’re well-prepared,” I said. “How long have you known about the hurricane?”

  “Three days,” Nelson said. “This may look like overkill, but you know how it is in a third-world country when a hurricane hits; sometimes it takes months before things get back to normal.”

  He opened up the pantry. “We’ve also got plenty of food, plus a generator in case the electricity goes out.”

  “Let’s hope Erika misses us,” I said.

  “That’s not likely. The Agency told us Cuba is supposed to get a direct hit.”

  “There were hardly any cars on the road. It didn’t look like people were leaving the city.”

  “No, I’d say over half the people here may not even know there’s a hurricane on its way. It’s not like the Castro government keeps the public informed about the weather.”

  Mitchell twisted the cap off a water bottle and said, “When I was a teenager, the Senator had me tag along with him when a Congressional delegation toured Puerto Rico after a major hurricane hit the island. I’ll never forget the experience. The people were acting like savages because they’d run out of food and water. Looters were everywhere. It was total chaos.”

  Nelson said, “If you don’t want your father to worry about you more than he already is, then I’d advise you not to bring that up when you speak to him in a few minutes.
”

  Mitchell looked surprised. “You think he’ll be in the Ops Center when we talk to Douglas?”

  “I just assumed he would be. I know he’s taken an active role in this operation.”

  When Mitchell took his plate of food over to the table without responding, I had a feeling it made him uncomfortable knowing his co-workers were aware his father had used his influence with the DDO.

  I tried to think of some way to change the subject, but Juliana did that herself when she came in the kitchen and informed us she’d established a link with the Ops Center and Carlton was ready to brief us now.

  “Don’t be surprised when you see the crowd in the RTM Center,” Juliana said.

  “Why would there be a crowd?” I asked.

  “Because everyone can’t wait to hear the story of how you got yourself captured so you could rescue Ben from the cartel.”

  * * * *

  I thought Juliana was kidding about the RTM Center being crowded, but when Carlton came on the screen, I noticed every console was occupied.

  Even C. J. Salazar was there.

  The good news was that Salazar was seated along the outer ring and wasn’t wearing a microphone. The best news of all was that there was no sign of the DDO in the room, nor, for that matter, the Senator.

  As soon as Mitchell and I appeared on the screen in RTM Center E, everyone in the room applauded. Along with the clapping, there were several shouts and a few whistles.

  The celebration went on for a couple of minutes, and then Coach Thompson raised his hands for quiet and turned toward the screen.

  “Hey, guys, it’s great to see you. As you can tell, we’ve got the whole team here tonight so we can all celebrate together. We’re looking forward to seeing you in person soon, but, for now, let me say congratulations from all of us.”

  After Mitchell and I voiced our thanks, Carlton cleared his throat and began reciting the operation’s identification tag for the official recording of the briefing.

  “Douglas Carlton, RTM Center E, initiating the OFU on Operation Peaceful Retrieval, Code 57213.”

  Carlton took a deep breath, looked directly into the camera, and shook his head. “What were you thinking, Titus?”

  “Uh . . . could you be more specific?”

  He looked down for a moment and scratched his forehead.

  When he looked up again, he was smiling. “I’m glad to see you’re both still in one piece. Actually, after everything you’ve been through, I’m surprised you look as good as you do.”

  Mitchell said, “You should have seen Titus a week ago. He had one foot in the grave.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m anxious to hear what happened, but in keeping with our OFU format, I’d prefer to do this systematically. First, we’ll begin with you, Ben. Give us a short narrative of what transpired the night you went missing. Keep in mind we’ll do an extensive debrief when you get back to Langley.”

  Mitchell quickly laid out the events of his kidnapping and reported the highlights of the months he’d spent at Número Diez. When he got to the night I showed up in Cabin Thirteen, Carlton stopped him.

  “I’m sure Titus has already filled you in on Peaceful Retrieval and the mission the Agency undertook to rescue you.”

  Mitchell nodded. “We’ve had a lot of time to talk about it. I think I’m up-to-date on all the protocols.”

  “So the cartel kept you and Titus together the whole time?”

  Mitchell answered in the affirmative, and after Carlton asked him a few more questions about his confinement, he turned his attention to me.

  “Okay, Titus, it’s your turn,” Carlton said.

  I gave him a brief synopsis of how Lorenzo’s men kidnapped me from the sugarcane plantation, and what happened after I came out of my drug-induced stupor hours later in the cabin at Número Diez.

  “We immediately identified your location because of the password they used to get into your computer,” Carlton said, “but I have to admit I was surprised when Ricardo Bandera received a phone call from his brother. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Would you believe Rafael Lorenzo was in the room with me when I made that call? I’d convinced him Ricardo would pay a substantial ransom for Nacio’s return, and I’m guessing he needed the money so badly he took the bait. My objective was to let you know Ben and I were fine, and we were planning an escape.”

  “You made that clear, but when we didn’t hear from you after that, we decided something had happened to one of you.”

  “Something happened all right,” Mitchell said. “He came down with dengue fever.”

  Carlton looked surprised when he heard this news, and when I told him I couldn’t remember much of what went on during that time, he had Mitchell fill him in on the details.

  Mitchell’s highly descriptive version of my illness was totally unnecessary, and I felt sure he exaggerated my delirium-induced outbursts.

  Once Mitchell had exhausted his imagination, I asked Carlton how the Ops Center had learned Hezbollah was planning to attack Número Diez and retrieve the canisters.

  “After your sat phone was activated from that location,” Carlton said, “we were able to start grabbing the cellular data coming from the farm. About a week ago, just before you called, we discovered Felix Alvarez was in communication with a Hezbollah cell in Santiago. Once we began monitoring those phone calls, we realized he’d betrayed Lorenzo and had given away the location of the canisters.”

  “Are you saying Alvarez was a Hezbollah mole?” I asked.

  “That’s what we decided. However, it was obvious from his conversations, he’d only recently made contact with them, and his motivation seemed to be more personal than ideological. They rewarded him for his information with a substantial amount of cash.”

  “So I’m guessing Alvarez knew in advance when Hezbollah would arrive at the farm?”

  Carlton nodded. “Our satellite surveillance showed he and three other people headed north in a pickup about ten hours before Hezbollah arrived.”

  “That’s the reason there was no one in the house when the truck bomb exploded. Alvarez knew Hezbollah was coming after the canisters, and he got out of there.”

  Mitchell said, “Or maybe he left because of Hurricane Erika.”

  “It could have been both,” Coach Thompson said. “We’ve been dealing with both crises in the Center for over a week now.”

  Carlton said, “I don’t mind telling you none of us have gotten much sleep around here trying to figure out how the arrival of Hurricane Erika and the arrival of Hezbollah might affect the two of you.”

  “Did you ever consider sending a Special Ops Team in to get us out?” I asked.

  “Not after you told me you’d be home in a few days,” Carlton said. “After Nacio talked to Ricardo, I assumed you and Ben had a viable escape plan, and you’d be popping up at the safe house any day.”

  Mitchell said, “When you told Titus that Hezbollah planned to come after the canisters in two days, we decided to wait. We figured when they showed up, it would create a diversion, and it would be easier for us to get away.”

  After telling Carlton about “our” plan, Mitchell cut his eyes over toward Juliana, who acknowledged his brilliant thinking by giving him a smile.

  Carlton said, “I wish I had better news about when you’ll be able to get out of Santiago, but right now, the airport’s shut down until further notice.”

  Carlton looked over at Coach Thompson and asked, “Do you have any questions for them before I log out of the official record?”

  Coach adjusted his microphone and said, “Ben, I wanted to let you know we contacted your father about your successful escape, and he said to tell you congratulations. He had to attend a fundraiser tonight, otherwise he would have been here.”

  Mitchell nodded and didn’t respond.

  Coach looked at me and said, “No one’s called your personal cell phone for several weeks, Titus, so I’m assuming there’s no one you need to call about
your extended absence.”

  “No, I’d prefer to wait and talk to her in person.”

  Chapter 52

  Friday, October 9

  As I sat in the back seat of Nelson’s van on my way to the airport, it was hard for me to imagine I’d be back at Langley within a few hours. There’d been times during the past ten days when I thought I might not make it out of Santiago before Christmas.

  As expected, when Hurricane Erika slammed into Cuba, it caused devastation on a massive scale. Although Santiago didn’t receive a direct hit, the hurricane destroyed buildings, flooded streets, and knocked out electricity throughout the city.

  Until a few days ago, power had only been restored to the hospital and a few government buildings. The government buildings had taken precedent over the airport, until the Castro regime had announced they were lifting restrictions on international relief organizations and allowing them to fly in aid for the victims of Hurricane Erika.

  Once the government had made the announcement, power was restored at the airport, and the control tower began functioning again.

  Although there were no commercial flights going in or out, an armada of planes from relief organizations began arriving on an hourly basis. One such organization, Emergency Aid International (EAI), put wheels down on the tarmac at Maceo International Airport in Santiago one day after the airport resumed operations.

  EAI was a legitimate non-profit relief organization whose workers were committed to giving aid and comfort to victims of a disaster. It was also a CIA-run entity, but only a handful of EAI employees knew that.

  When Carlton wanted to handle his operatives in country during a mission, he often posed as an EAI director, something he’d done in Damascus during Operation Citadel Protection.

  However, when the EAI plane arrived at the airport in Santiago, Carlton wasn’t onboard. He was back at Langley monitoring events on the ground from RTM Center E, where he and his operational team were working to get three operatives out of Cuba and back to the States.

  The protocols he’d established called for Juliana, Mitchell, and me to arrive at Hangar B at the Santiago airport around noon today, thirty minutes before the EAI plane was scheduled to return to Virginia to replenish its supplies of food, water, and medicine.