by Jose Latour
“We are being fleeced. And on top of that, you’ll tip her two?”
“Three, ’cause she doted on you.”
“That’s … over 20 percent.”
“Such a cheapskate.”
The cabbie was waiting for them. Pardo thought it prudent to not get to the bus station before it opened for the day, so he asked the driver to take them to Hemingway’s house. Yeah, he knew it would be closed, it was okay. The hacker, happy as long as his meter was ticking, drove them there and then suggested they take a peek at Jackson Square, the Audubon House and Gardens, and Land’s End Village. At this last place Victoria checked her watch. 4:28. She nudged Pardo with her elbow and tapped the Casio dial.
“Okay, friend, take us to the bus station now,” he requested.
A police cruiser, flashers gone mad, rounded a corner and sped away. The cabbie grunted. Amieba and his men could be the cause for the cop’s hurry, both passengers thought.
“That cheap watch of yours doesn’t go with such an elegant dress. Take it off,” Pardo whispered in her ear. She mulled on that, nodded, and complied.
At the station, Pardo was asked for a photo ID to buy the tickets to Miami. He had not foreseen this, and it surprised him. An ID to buy two bus tickets? Victoria was in the restroom at the moment. Thinking that security was tighter here than he expected, he showed his Costa Rican passport to the man, then forked over $106. Eventually, at a quarter past five, northbound from the airport on U.S. 1, the most hectic hours of their lives now past, they relaxed. The air conditioner made Victoria shiver, and she rubbed her arms up and down. Pardo took his jacket off, concealed the butt of the gun under his shirt, and covered his wife. They reclined their seats, and by the time the bus crossed through Boca Chica Key both were sound asleep.
…
A little after half past five in the morning on Monday, April 29, General Lastra’s full bladder made him get up. Mulling over Victoria’s disappearance, he shaved, brushed his teeth, brewed espresso, and lit his first Lancero of the day. A few minutes past six, Lastra abandoned the five-bedroom, two-story residence in Nuevo Vedado—built to order in 1957 by a very rich Cuban lawyer who three years later emigrated to Spain—in which his wife, two daughters, two sons-in-law, and five grandchildren still slept soundly.
Driving his Lada to Línea and A Street, he experienced a foreboding that he would soon learn something bad concerning the psychologist. She had either committed suicide, been abducted, murdered, or had flown the coop. She would be given a quiet burial if she had killed herself. If abducted, they would find her. Had she been murdered, she would get a hero’s funeral and her assassin would be executed by firing squad.
He feared the worst possible outcome: desertion. Why would she? he wondered. It was unlikely she had been recruited by an enemy service. Some things work both ways, though. You pull a fast one on them, they pull a fast one on you. It happens everywhere. Ask Jacoby, Wilson, or Hughes at the DIA. Tenet or McLaughlin at the CIA. Sessions, Freeh, or Mueller at the FBI. If she hadn’t been recruited, what had made her chicken out, feel frustrated, unhappy, or whatever pissed psychologists off? He could understand that the many millions living in misery wanted to flee, but not her. She had recently been presented with a wonderful apartment and a brand-new car. She could buy whatever she wanted at the ministry’s special shop, was a member of the most exclusive Cuban clan, the Chief’s clan. At no time had she shown reluctance to fulfill her duties, nor express the slightest doubt about anything. A crisis of conscience perhaps? There was no reason for it. She had nothing to do with the repression of peaceful dissidents, prisons, the sort of thing that may weigh heavily on an officer’s scruples over the course of time. He could not make sense of it.
If she had defected, Cuban Intelligence would lose Miami. Five cells, fifteen top-level agents, an excellent cobbler, three cutouts, and dozens of informers—he made a mental note to check the exact number later in the day. Even if she didn’t turn them in, assuming that she had was a basic rule. In a week, two at most, they had to consider that the rival services were feeding them crap through the exposed networks. Such a loss four years after the Wasp setback and one year after the DIA agent had been exposed would be devastating. Even worse, Victoria was a repository of knowledge concerning Cuban Intelligence; she could give away agents in Europe and Latin America, too.
For him it would be the end. He would be sent into retirement, no doubt. Thirty-dollar-monthly pension, no more complimentary rations of food, clothing, and toiletries for the whole family, no more Lanceros, either. Never again would his grandchildren vacation at a nice beach all expenses paid. He would be kept under constant surveillance for the rest of his life, in case he considered following her steps. Lastra found himself wishing Victoria were dead.
Had she defected, he deserved the punishment for being so stupid, if for nothing else. Were that supposition correct, he had been tricked into believing what had in fact been a masterful performance. No, it was more than that. She had set a perfect trap into which he had ambled sight unseen. Well, come to think of it, he’d fallen for both things: the masterful performance and the perfect trap. The minister had, too, but the poor man’s brain only functioned in combat. In his mind’s eye he could see her standing at the rigid position of attention, ranting, “I serve the Socialist Revolution!” It was perhaps the single moment when she had overacted. An intelligent individual behaving like a soulless automaton. No, not even then; that line of verse had been intended for the minister, not for him. So good, she was sooo good.
Suddenly the most probable reason for the desertion exploded in his mind like fireworks. His surprise was so overwhelming that he kicked the brakes, and escaped getting rear-ended by a few inches. Seeing a guy in mufti and the civilian plates, the driver behind him tooted the horn in anger for several seconds before calling Lastra a shit-eater. Dude was right on the money, the general thought, he was a shit-eater. Lastra swerved to the right lane, pulling over to the curb at Twenty-sixth Avenue between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-seventh Streets. He killed the engine, turned the headlights off, and, puffing on the Lancero, took a moment to consider what had dawned on him so unexpectedly.
She had told them the truth: Pardo was the XEMIC thief. But they had acted in collusion! Both had been considering desertion for years! Not before they had the money to live comfortably the rest of their lives, though. Victoria had defected for $2.6 million! The enemy had not recruited her; she had not been pissed off. She and her cocksucker husband had achieved a master coup and now wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labors! However, for certain reasons he could not immediately come up with, they decided to set the trap and stage the comedy. Maybe to gain time until they were ready to leave, or to have an alternate solution available. He would find out eventually.
Okay, what should he do next? First, calm down, take it easy. Maybe his perfectly understandable occupational disease—suspecting everybody—had evolved into a disorder requiring medical treatment. Maybe Pardo had just killed her. He chuckled at the just. Assuming that nerdy, coolheaded sons of bitches murdered people. What he ought to do was show concern for his most brilliant subordinate, keep his suspicion to himself, and wait to see how things worked out. He turned the key in the ignition.
Three blocks from his office, at Calzada and Second Street, he remembered the server’s report. That was probably the detonator that had caused this explosion. Had to be. Pardo had bungled badly when he accessed his offshore bank account, the Jersey bank, from home. Victoria knew that the network administrator had to make frequent reports and would mention it. The scheming cunt had covered their asses immediately and brilliantly with the most audacious diversion! He had been preempted with a stunning red herring! Chances were Victoria Valiente was alive and kicking, on board a plane or a boat, already in another country maybe.
The guard at the entrance to the garage gave him a martial salute that he distractedly returned, cigar loosely held between forefinger and middle finger. He steered the car to his marke
d parking bay and rode the elevator to the ninth floor, where the officer on duty was standing watch. Lastra turned the handle and pushed the door open; the man jumped to his feet.
“Good morning, Comrade General.”
“Good morning, Major. What’s new?”
The man lowered his eyes to the logbook. “The UN mission’s chief of station sent an urgent message at 0254 hours; it’s already been decoded. At 0322 hours, the counterintelligence officer on duty informed us that nothing suspicious was found at the apartment you asked to be searched. We’ve been getting hourly reports on a Tico parked in Matanzas, as well; nobody has approached it. And at 0531 the Revolutionary Navy reported a patrol boat missing.”
Poker-faced, Lastra kept his eyes glued to the officer, processing the information, wondering whether … “You mean missing as sunk by an enemy craft or missing as … disappeared?”
“No specifics on that, Comrade General.”
“Anything else, Major?”
“No, Comrade General.”
“Okay. Take care.”
Lastra ambled to his office, pressed his right thumb on the Chinese-made fingerprint lock, pushed through the door, went to his desk, and logged on to CNN International. He double-clicked on the headline “Four Cuban coast guard members defect.” He read on. “Four camouflage-clad, Cuban coast guard members arrived Monday morning in Key West, where they told police they had raced across the Straits of Florida in a Cuban patrol boat they took while on duty, police said.”
Lastra learned that the four men had grounded the thirty-five-foot escape boat on a beach, walked into town, surrendered to a police cruiser, and applied for political asylum. One had a Chinese handgun that the police confiscated. Two AK-47s and eight loaded magazines were found on the boat. The radio was monitoring the U.S. Coast Guard frequency.
The general mulled things over. Too strange a coincidence. He did not take comfort from the fact that the four deserters were men. Lastra suspected two things: that Victoria and her husband had fled Cuba on that boat, and that Pardo was not among those who had surrendered to the police. Somehow the couple had managed to escape Key West authorities undetected. Or maybe not. Maybe she called the FBI office and said: “Hey, guys? Want to learn a couple of things about Cuban espionage?” Had she, her defection would not be made public until she had been squeezed dry, weeks from now. You win some, you lose some.
He knew the first thing he should do to confirm his suspicions. Ask Military Counterintelligence where the patrol boat had been based—Matanzas possibly, unless the “heroine” had abandoned the Tico there as another misleading clue—then ask Edmundo to find out if Pardo had recently visited relatives or friends who lived close to the naval base or worked there. He would not move a finger, though. He would play dumb for a while, let someone else figure it out. He wondered what the Chief would say when told that the woman he had vaunted so much, maybe even had slated to be the next chief of intelligence, had deserted and joined the ranks of his enemies. And guess who he would take it out on. Lastra felt he was finished.
An idea came to his mind like a snake slithering slowly out of its cave. Had Victoria fled in that boat, maybe she was on her way to Miami. If so, she may try to contact the network to obtain false documents and IDs. Now, if he warned the resident director that a traitor might try to establish contact …
Seven
The bus taking Manuel Pardo and Victoria Valiente to Miami was twenty or thirty minutes away, depending on traffic, from the city’s international airport, where the ride ended. Even though spring was no big deal this far south, the sun shone in the clear sky, and the leaves of trees and shrubs, the fronds of palms, and the lawns reflected shades of newly arisen greens.
Four and half hours earlier, relieved from anxiety and utterly exhausted, Victoria had fallen sound asleep. Now she was dreaming that someone had seized her right wrist and was forcing her to take hold of a thick broom handle. With eyes rolling beneath their lids, Victoria wondered why she had to clean up the apartment right away. The mass meeting would begin in a few minutes. Which was it? May 1? Twenty-sixth of July? Or was it one of the numerous rallies staged in front of the United States Interests Section? She could not recall. Her hand kept being pressed down on the broom handle. Muscles refused to respond; she was unable to break away. Frowning in disgust, she half turned away from the window, started to wake up, and opened her eyes. The broom handle turned out to be Pardo’s erect penis, pulsating beneath the cashmere of his slacks.
Coming to her senses, Victoria smiled broadly. He grinned, too, and let go of her wrist. She had a good stretch, yawned, and looked around. She was free, rich, and in good health. Her husband, an intelligent, brave macho, lusted after her like no man ever had. Starting to feel sexually aroused, she gazed around again. No, impossible. The elderly couple across the aisle, now staring out the window, seemed straitlaced. They could look this way any moment, frown upon a woman giving a headjob to her man in broad daylight on board a bus. Not the best behavior for tourists arriving to the Land of the Free. Then again, they might enjoy watching. Better not risk it. She fixed her gaze on her husband and her fingernails journeyed from the base of his dick to the glans several times. Breathing hard, Pardo watched her with the inflamed look she knew so well. Insomnia acted as a potent aphrodisiac on her husband. He always got a boner whenever he missed a few hours of sleep or stayed up all night.
“We are in Miami,” he announced.
“Are we?” and she shot a glance at her naked left wrist, clicked her tongue. “What time is it?”
“Nine thirty-eight. Within a few minutes we’ll get to the airport.”
“Then we better calm down,” she whispered and, changing position, fumbled with the lever in order to sit upright. Pardo imitated her, crossed his ankles, and tried to distract himself from libidinous thoughts by looking out through the windows. She returned Pardo’s jacket, drew a comb and cosmetics from her purse, and spent time getting herself presentable.
The bus turned off U.S. 1 and followed Le Jeune. Victoria finished sprucing up, cleaned off her glasses with the hem of her dress, put them on, and stole a look at her husband. Men and their beards. Having shaved less than eighteen hours ago, already his chin was sprouting stubble. Obviously impressed, Pardo’s gaze moved over facades, cars, and pedestrians. Mentally prepared for the visual shock—the clean streets, well-dressed people, thousands of cars, and tall buildings as seen in movies and documentaries—Victoria found herself marveling not at what passed before her eyes but at the dissimilarity with Cuban cities and towns.
Two years earlier, tourists in Havana that had strayed from the trodden track would wonder whether a war they knew nothing about had recently taken place in San Isidro, the neighborhood in which she had been born. Its decay had become so embarrassing, especially when compared with the renovated section of Old Havana a mile away, that the city government began filling potholes there, removing rubble, and selling paint to those homes whose frontage would improve somewhat with a lick of water-based color. Interiors, however, remained ruinous. The true purpose had been to deceive wandering foreigners, not to furbish up. In stark contrast, the Palace of the Revolution had already been undergoing alterations and improvements for thirty years. Some well-traveled journalists considered it the most resplendent presidential palace in Latin America.
Victoria tried to spot one structure in this section of Miami that needed a coat of paint. She gave up after twelve blocks.
At the airport they boarded a taxi and asked the driver to take them downtown.
“Downtown?” the hack, turning in the seat with raised eyebrows, hoping for a more specific address. Black, in his fifties, his radio was tuned to a station that, to Victoria’s ears, sounded like it was broadcasting in French, or Creole.
“Yes, downtown,” Pardo repeated.
“What part downtown?” with a strong accent.
Pardo turned to Victoria with puffed cheeks.
“Courthouse,” she said to
the cabbie.
The man nodded, shifted the stick to drive, and pulled away. Pardo gazed into his wife’s eyes. She silenced him by rolling them heavenward.
Back to Le Jeune, left on Flagler. Past Twenty-seventh Avenue everything started looking less affluent; after Fifteenth Avenue Victoria spotted some houses that could use a coat of paint, a few in bad repair. Do not prejudge, she said to herself again, this time smiling. Nothing remotely comparable to Cuba, though. Were they heading downtown? Had the hack misunderstood her? Her eyes went to the meter: $23.75? The taxi crossed a bridge over Miami River, turned left on Miami Avenue, pulled over past First Avenue.
“Courthouse,” the cabbie announced.
$25.65. Victoria estimated that the fare over the same distance in Havana would not exceed $4.50, maybe $5.00, tip included. Pardo gave the man a twenty and a ten. They got off. The cab pulled away.
“You keep throwing our money away like that, soon we’ll be paupers,” she commented while looking around. The courthouse was a gray four-story building. Across the street stood another government-looking building, newer and higher. Policemen were all over the place, shooting the breeze and smoking, as if not on duty. She eyed them curiously. Waiting to serve as witnesses at trials? All but a few looked under thirty-five, cocky compared to Cuban cops, healthier and better fed, hip holsters positioned so the butt of the gun angled outward away from the body, gunslinger like, as with many young Cuban cops. Boys will be boys everywhere, she thought. They would grow up, hopefully. Cafeterias and shops thrived in the vicinity. Was that a train going overhead? It looked like one.
“How about breakfast?”
“Not a bad idea. Will you tip the waiter ten bucks?”
Pardo shook his head sadly, took hold of her elbow, steered her to the corner, and waited for the light before they crossed First Avenue.
“How did you know where the courthouse was?” he asked.