You’re not going to find a better statement of first principles than that.
Across from the monument is a bland box of an office building that on its side features a wire sculpture of Che Guevara. That’s the interior ministry, home to any number of Cuban bureaucrats and worse. Then there’s the National Theater, which among other things hosts Fidel’s show-stopping speeches. My understanding is that they used to lock the doors before he started talking; no potty breaks when the commander in chief is onstage.
Communist Party Headquarters—our target—sat at the south end of the square. The CIA had copious maps and photos of the area, along with real-time satellite imaging, which made it easy to run our surveillance checks and map out the neighborhood. Then with the help of some makeup, I underwent an ethnic-transplant, becoming an old Chinese gentleman, complete with Asian eyebrows, a deeply respectful bow, and business cards promising everlasting prosperity and fortune. Taking a break from selling bourgeoisie goods to the old-line pinkos—that was my cover—I joined a tour of the building escorted by a member of the Cuban chamber of commerce.
(Junior’s magic fingers had wormed a way into the organization’s computers, discovering the tour and securing me a place in it. One more reason he was where he was.)
There were ten of us, and I was the only one not from Europe, which made it easy to play the inscrutable oriental as the tour guide extolled the virtues of Cuba’s “open” economy. He took us into the legislative chambers and then into the office area behind the scenes.
Communist functionaries in Cuba undoubtedly work as hard as government workers anywhere, which explained why the place was nearly empty in the middle of the day. The guards were mostly older men—the youngest I saw was on the far side of sixty-five. There was the usual assortment of wired alarms, a few motion detectors, and a security monitoring station filled with red lights and a Chinese-made radio.
Chinese-made to U.S. specifications, I should say. Very convenient.
The tour led us through several ceremonial rooms on the first floor, and even a few where people worked, though these did not include the cabinet secretary’s office, who after Fidel and Raul was the most important person in the government. Ken thought the DVD might be in any of their offices, though pride of place belonged to the dictator.
The tour leader then took us to the third floor, where Fidel’s and Raul’s offices were located, showing us both. I ruled both out immediately.
It was obvious from how neat they were and how sparsely they were furnished that the offices were used for ceremonial purposes only. That’s why we could be taken there in the first place. Neither Fidel nor his brother used them to get any real work done.
The work offices were in the basement—not because it was cooler down there, but because the ceiling and surrounding walls were reinforced against a bomb strike, something Fidel and his people still feared some forty years after the Bay of Pigs. While I couldn’t slip away to get down there, I did get a good look at the doors to the stairs, opening one and making sure it didn’t have an alarm.
Our guide gave me a funny look, then directed me down the hall to the men’s room.
Junior got Shotgun hooked up with another tour for European travel agents, assigning him a cover as an Estonian. We scrambled to concoct a passport for him; ironically, it turned out not to be needed, and Shotgun had a grand time pretending not to understand a word anyone else said to him, while helping himself to a myriad of snacks offered by the host. He managed to focus on his job long enough to assess the locks used on the doors, look over the phone system, and locate the utility conduits. That evening, Mongoose and I examined the exterior and surrounding park and neighborhood, looking for good access and egress points. Red searched out the places staff members hung out, gathering information and three ID tags as she went.
Doc and Trace flew in from Canada around seven. They were covered as an independent video team working on a documentary on the Cuban governmental system. We needed a story to smuggle the high-tech gear in, and this cover also gave us an excuse to go to Party Headquarters and other government buildings if we needed it. (We needed a little help arranging the cover story on such short notice; fortunately, I had a few outstanding IOUs from some friends in Ottawa and Toronto, who smoothed the way.)
Doc and Trace were met at the airport by a member of the Communist Party’s Revolutionary Orientation Department—in other words, a high-level security type trained in PR and bullshit. She helped whisk the bags of video equipment through customs after a cursory check.
And fee. That was in cash. Unspecified in any of the formal documentation, for some reason.
Shotgun trailed them to their hotel and subsequent “orientation,” just in case something went wrong; Mongoose joined up with him after finishing with me. In the meantime, I met Red and went to borrow a car from a party member in northwestern Havana.
We may have forgotten to ask permission, but I’m sure he didn’t mind. He’d even filled up the gas tank earlier in the day.
Leaving the keys would have been even better, but you can’t have everything.
We needed the car because we were on our way to the outskirts of Havana to meet with a man who called himself José Martí. Unlike the original patriot, this José was a black marketeer specializing in ammunition, a highly prized and difficult-to-find commodity in Cuba. We’d been turned on to him by one of Danny’s contacts, who described him as a cross between Darth Vader and a carny hawker: as likely to kill you as sell you something. Heck of a way to enforce a no-refund, no-return policy.
Whatever statistics are cited about how safe Havana is didn’t apply to the area where José did his business. It was edging midnight by the time we got there, but there were knots of people on the street corners, young males mostly, standing with the universal posture of wannabe thugs. In my experience, wannabes are considerably more dangerous than the real thing; they’re too stupid to know when to walk away.
“You can get anything here,” muttered Red under her breath, and I’m sure she was right. Illegal drugs were big sellers, but the streets in José’s neighborhood featured a veritable department-store selection of items ranging from illegal anywhere to simply inconvenient to obtain in Cuba. On one street corner, someone had set up a display of toilet paper and books on a stand made from a coat rack.
We were clearly outsiders. While I had an MP5 on my lap, the real thing that protected us was the fact that we were obviously customers, and shooting us would be bad for business.
Red took a left down a narrow street, heading in the direction of the ally where Danny’s contact had told us we could meet José. The street was so narrow, only one car could pass—a very easy place for an ambush. The buildings on either side were three and four stories tall, with their windows blocked out by cement blocks. This is common in Havana, where glass is considered a luxury, but it added to the short hair factor.
As in, my short hairs were all standing at attention, tightened by the knot in my stomach.
“You sure about this?” Red asked.
“Think of it this way. We’re seeing a part of Havana most tourists never see.”
“Mmmm,” said Red, unenthusiastically.
Three garbage cans sat in the middle of the alley fifty feet from the intersection, blocking it off. We couldn’t see anyone nearby. There were no windows on the buildings on either side of us.
“There’ll be lookouts on the roof,” I told Red as she turned into the alley.
“And snipers.”
“And snipers.”
She stopped in front of the garbage cans.
“Leave the car running,” I told her.
“No shit.”
She took a deep breath, then checked her .45. It was an old Colt, a military model older than she was. “Let’s do it.”
We got out of the car at the same time. We passed the garbage cans, walking toward the back of a building about seventy-five feet from the car. A set of steps led to a basement door; th
e stairwell had a thick iron pipe railing. A few metal spikes stood out from the bricks where a fire escape had been. Otherwise the wall was blank, all of its windows in its four stories filled in by bricks.
We walked slowly until a pair of spotlights flicked on from the stairwell. The lights were surprisingly powerful, strong enough to nearly blind us. I resisted the urge to raise the submachine gun, holding it down by my side—visible, though not immediately threatening.
“Who are you?” asked a voice near the light at the left.
“A friend sent us. Christo,” said Red in Cuban Spanish, using the password Danny had supplied. “We’re looking for José Martí.”
“He died long ago.”
“Yes, but now he sells things of interest to people in need.”
There was no answer. I could see someone or something moving near the edge of the searchlight. Finally he stepped out from the shadow, just at the edge of the light.
“I am José Martí,” he said. “What do you want?”
“To make a deal.”
“And who sent you?”
“Christo.”
“Christo is dead many years.”
As far as we knew, Christo wasn’t a real person, just the name used to initiate a contact. Neither Red nor I knew what the answer was supposed to be.
“Maybe he came back to life, like José Martí,” I said in Spanish. I put a growl into my voice, trying to disguise my accent.
The man by the light laughed.
“Yes, yes, all the great heroes return. They walk among us every day. Every day. What is it you want to buy, Christo?”
“Hunting rifles,” said Red.
“What sort?”
“The best you have.”
“AK47. Very expensive,” said José.
Red shrugged.
“I can get you four. With a hundred bullets apiece. Three thousand euros each.”
Three thousand euros—at the time somewhere in the area of $4,500 American—was several times what the guns would have cost in any other black market in the world. Hell, you can practically get them for free in some places.
“I can pay a thousand each,” said Red.
“For a thousand I can get you some bullets.”
“Five thousand for the lot.”
“Five thousand will buy you two,” said José Martí.
Red looked at me. We had only taken ten thousand euros with us, and there were some other things we wanted to buy. I showed her three fingers, signaling that we could settle for that many guns.
“I can give you seventy-five hundred for all four,” said Red.
“Seven for three,” replied José Martí.
“Bullets—”
“A hundred rounds apiece.”
“We need more.”
“Two hundred.”
“A thousand.”
Martí scowled. “A hundred Euros extra.”
“Fine. Grenades?”
Our friend shifted, but said nothing.
“We’re fishing,” Red told him. “We need an easy way to catch the fish.”
José Martí shook his head. Asking for the grenades had crossed whatever line he was comfortable with. Red told him it was fine, but the damage had been done.
“Where do we pick up the guns?” she asked.
“Tomorrow it will be arranged.”
“Tomorrow is too late. I am taking them now, or there is no deal.”
José Martí tried to renegotiate.
“No,” I told him.
We stared at each other for a few seconds. He had the advantage—the spotlight made it difficult to see.
“Problem, Dick,” whispered Red.
“You take the guys on the roof. I have José,” I told her.
A second later, the bullets started to fly.
( III )
It’s not that easy to shoot down from a roof at someone in an alley. First of all, if the alley is very narrow, you have to get close to the edge to see your target. Most shooters don’t like that, especially in the dark. Then there’s the problem of hitting a moving target—never easy under any circumstance, but especially when you’re standing on an uneven, slippery surface, like the edge of a roof. Finally, you usually overcom-pensate for your height advantage by aiming a bit low.
Don’t buy it?
Neither did the people shooting at us, who did a damn good job of covering the alley with lead. If it wasn’t for the fact that I shot out the spotlights before they got sighted, we’d be buried in that alley right now. Assuming they went to the trouble.
We ducked against the wall on opposite sides of the car, where the shadows and height of the vehicle gave us a bit of protection. Frustrated, the gunmen concentrated on the car. Glass, metal, and bits of brick and mortar from the buildings filled the air as the gunmen gave an impromptu demonstration of how quickly the AK47 can run through a full magazine.
When the gunmen paused to reload, I raised my head, looking for a shot. But I quickly lowered it as they began firing again.
I heard Red whistle. Figuring that she was signaling a move, I raised my gun and fired off a burst, then hurled myself forward, still in the shadows as the gunmen tried to nail me down. I’d like to say that I nailed at least one of them with my shots. But then I’d like to say I’m a billionaire.
I did get their attention, at least. Their bullets dug a few feet from my head.
When the hail of bullets lifted, I began moving backward in the direction of the stairwell where José had been. I figured I had two choices: I could go down the stairs and face José Martí directly in his lair, where undoubtedly he was prepared for me, or I could really tempt fate by climbing up the wall in full view of the gunmen on the roofs, hope to find a roof entrance or skylight on the building, and pop down into José Martí’s lair from above—where, of course, he’d still be waiting for me.
Under ordinary circumstances, I’d’ve chosen Door Number Three—none of the above. But that door had been replaced with cinder blocks. So I went with option two.
Red and I had divvied up our last flash-bang grenades between us, two each. I took one out, kissed it for good luck, and threw it over the car, toward the intersection with the street.
One thousand one, one thousand two . . .
As soon as it exploded, I leapt up and grabbed the lowest iron spike, pulling myself upward. The gunmen began firing furiously—down toward the end of the alley where the grenade had exploded, thinking that I had tossed it to clear the way for a breakout.
At some point, they realized their mistake, stopped firing, and started looking for me. By then, I was scrambling onto the slightly pitched roof of the building, trying desperately to find something to grab on to so I wouldn’t fall on my ass. The roof seemed to be made of a coat of very loose pebbles over a slippery coat of tar or maybe rubber cement; every time I grabbed something I started to slip toward the edge.
My lack of forward progress became an acute problem when the gunmen realized where I was and started plinking the roof. Desperation increased the amount of friction between my soles and the roof, and I managed to toss myself over the peak—only to find I couldn’t stop, sliding forward on my belly toward the front of the building and, presumably, the ground. I snagged a roof vent with my right arm, curling around it to a stop, my feet dangling over the edge. I caught my breath, then pulled my feet up one at a time, still clinging to the vent.
I was just about to take stock of my options when I suddenly started falling again—this time straight down, as the roof around the vent collapsed.
After making it to the end of the block, Red tucked her pistol into her jeans and started to scale the facade of the building on the left of the alley. The concrete blocks that covered the first-floor windows made this relatively easy. It was a different story on the second and third floors, however. She was able to get up on the cornice above the blocked-up window, but then found the rest of the wall too smooth to get a grip. She worked herself all the way to the corner, hopin
g to get a grip up there, but found none. Finally she spotted a fire escape on the next building over, which was separated by an alley nearly eight feet wide. She climbed down and was just climbing the fire escape when my flash-bang went off.
The boom surprised her as much as it did the Cubans. She froze, thinking the building had exploded. By now the gun blasts had done a job on her ears, and her head had a slight fuzz to it, a sort of mental smoke that mixed adrenaline with shock and sensory overload. She collected herself, then started climbing again. There was enough light to see the rungs and a bit beyond, but the roof itself was a collection of shadows. Unlike the roof I was on, hers and the others were flat; she crawled to the middle until she could see the men on the next building taking their potshots at me.
If they heard her pistol over the growl of their own weapons, those were the last sounds they heard—Red took out both men in quick succession with shots to the head.
That left two men on the far roof, neither of whom she could see. She crawled out to the edge of the building she was on, gauging the distance she’d have to jump. Then she rose, took a few steps back, and jumped.
She cleared the alley, but as she landed, her right toe clipped the top of the low wall that ran around the roof. Red crumbled—a good thing since the men on the other roof had seen her and began firing in her direction. Bullets whizzing above her head, she crawled over to one of the gunmen she’d killed, using his body for a shield until the shooters ran through their magazines. Then she jumped up, fired two shots into what she thought was one of the gunmen, and rolled against the low wall at the edge of the roof.
It’s one thing to turn a blind eye to black marketeering, and quite another to let thugs threaten the state monopoly on violence. As soon as the first gunshots went off, it was inevitable that the Havana police would respond, and in serious force. They turned out every car with a siren, and more than a few without.
I was thankful for the sirens—they woke me up.
The roof deposited me, briefly, into a small attic. The attic seemed to be home to fully half of Havana’s pigeon population, and a deep bed of guano broke my fall. But if the roof was weak, the attic floorboards were even weaker. After straining for perhaps a half second, they gave way and I hurtled down to the building’s fourth floor. I lay stretched out in dust and bird shit for somewhere between a few seconds and several minutes until the sirens shook me from my slumber.
RW15 - Seize the Day Page 17