“I’m on my way,” I told Mongoose.
He was watching my back from a roof one block over. Red was sitting at a café across from the police station, which had in fact closed for the night.
I slipped through the shadows and threw myself against the wall of the building. Easing toward the door sideways, I kept expecting something, someone, to walk by on the street or pop out from somewhere I didn’t expect. This was all just too damn easy.
No alarm wires on the door. No infrared motion detectors in the hall or upstairs. No alarm. Not even, it appeared, any electricity.
The basement was divided into two large spaces by an L-shaped partition. The outside door led into the inner room inside the L. I flipped on the LED light on my miner’s flashlight and started looking around.
A pair of folded workmen’s ladders leaned up against the wall next to the door; otherwise, the room was empty. So was the outer room, except for some boxes containing pamphlets and educational material about the museum and its exhibits.
The upstairs front room, which I’d seen from the sidewalk, was nearly as bare. The smell of fresh paint hit me as I came up the steps; it mixed with a musty, stale smell, as if the place had been painted and then forgotten for weeks or maybe months. After checking for alarms—nothing—I walked quickly and on my tiptoes to the hall that ran down the right side of the building all the way to the back. There was just enough light from the windows for me to see, and I continued my cat burglar routine as I walked through.
The front room was devoted to a history of the Cuban Revolution, starring Fidel, of course. The wall opposite the door was covered with a large map of the island, stars and balloons commemorating where different events of the rebellion had occurred. There was a mural on the right, and a diorama on the left showing a guerrilla attack on a group of ill-trained regular army soldiers in 1958.
Fidel definitely deserves some credit for his generalship during the Revolution. He wasn’t exactly a quick learner, but he did learn. When he started in 1953, he knew as much about small unit combat tactics as your average lawyer-politician. Which is to say, he knew nada.
His first few encounters, including the idiotic attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 and the equally disastrous return to Cuba aboard the Granma in 1956, demonstrate just how inept he and those around him were. But he gradually learned how to be effective as well as ruthless, perfecting hit-and-run tactics that, while not as sophisticated or as fanatical as those the Viet Cong used, worked a hell of a lot better than anything the Cuban army tried.
Granted, a good portion of Fidel’s success had to do with the even more pathetic tactics of the Cuban army, as well as the general ineptness and cruelty of Batista. Still, give the devil his due—he only had to be a little better than his enemy, and he was.
What Fidel really excelled at was getting rid of rivals. After the fall of Batista, he consolidated power effectively and brutally. As Red’s family could attest, many of those who had fought against Batista found themselves fighting Castro as well. Or rather, would have fought Castro, except that he never gave them the chance.
None of that was in the display devoted to the Revolution. Nor did the diorama note that a lot of the weapons Fidel’s men used had come from the Alabama National Guard. And there wasn’t room on the mockup of the battle between the revolutionaries and the army to show that the revolutionaries made use of M4 Shermans that had very recently been part of the American National Guard.
Yes, class, the United States played an important role in the Cuban Revolution, though that’s an inconvenient fact as far as both the U.S. and Castro are concerned. It’s also inconvenient to note that political pressure from foreign governments—including the U.S.—and the Catholic Church forced Batista to release Castro from jail in 1955, arguably the most critical decision if not for the Revolution, then for the Communist takeover that followed.
Castro paid back his debt to the Church by seizing its property in 1961. But I digress.
The back room on the first floor was outfitted as an office. It didn’t look as if anyone had done more than arrange the furniture. Two desks, chairs, and empty file cabinets were covered with a fine layer of dust. I searched for hidden doors and compartments, and even went back to the room with the diorama and checked under the table to see if something was hidden there. But clearly it wasn’t.
The DVD wasn’t the only thing missing. My friend Murphy seemed to be AWOL as well. That bothered me more than the fact that Ken had apparently sent me on a wild goose chase.
Two hours later, we toasted the pointless op with a nightcap back in my room, where I broke into my personal medical kit and partook of some of the Doctor’s finest. We’d checked the room for bugs but found none; apparently the eastern tip of Cuba is so isolated from Havana that no one feels it’s worth eavesdropping on the tourists here.
“Maybe there is no third copy,” said Mongoose. “Maybe Fidel can’t count.”
“He’s not Shotgun,” I said.
“Maybe it’s a trick though. To throw off anyone who got it.”
“I doubt it.”
“It could be anywhere, Dick,” said Red. She was sitting cross-legged and sideways in the upholstered chair opposite the bed. “Maybe he gave it to one of his children, or maybe Raul’s family has it.”
I didn’t answer. Mongoose and Red started exchanging theories on where the video would be. I wasn’t actually thinking about that—I was wondering whether we’d been sent out here because Ken wanted me out of Havana.
It seemed far-fetched, but his intelligence on the other DVDs had been impeccable.
Maybe too impeccable?
I was overthinking the situation, but the CIA’s history in Cuba made it difficult to trust anyone, especially my old friend the admiral.
About the only person you could truly count on was Fidel—he was consistently a liar and a slime.
“Dick’s got it figured out,” said Mongoose finally. “He’s got that look.”
“Do you, Dick?” asked Red. “You know where it is?”
“No,” I said, getting off the bed to refill my glass. “But I know someone who does. And it’s about time we asked him.”
( V )
While we were studying history out east, Trace and Doc were dabbling in the arts in Havana.
The fine arts of eavesdropping and trading information, to be exact.
After the press conference, Trace returned to the hotel to rest up. Doc went down to the hotel club to sample some of their bourgeoisie cognacs.
He was about two sips into a Gautier cognac when he heard a familiar foreign voice at the other end of the bar. It took him a few seconds to identify the language—Russian—but once he did that the rest was easy. The big loud bass belonged to a good friend of his we’ll call Ivan.
Ivan is a member of the Russian FSB—that’s the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the foreign spy service once known as the KGB. Among his different portfolios, he’s an expert on the Chinese and, as far as we knew, worked out of Tokyo. (We knew that because he had met me there during my Korean adventure, and even helped me out. Kind of.) So the fact that Ivan was here not only surprised Doc but piqued his interest.
Even if Doc had been a Russian language specialist, he was sitting a bit too far away to really hear much of what Ivan was talking about. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t happy though—the words Doc could hear were almost all curse words, the one area of any language where Doc might be considered an expert.
Doc suspected he was being watched at the bar by one of MacKenzie’s compatriots, but he couldn’t figure out who it was. He wracked his brain trying to come up with a way to contact Ivan without tipping off the minder. Passing a note was out of the question; even if it wasn’t seen, the waiters were surely on the payroll of the political police. He thought about using that golden oldie of following him into the men’s room, but knew they were probably bugged.
So instead he sipped his cognac, quietly biding his time to see if an opportunity pr
esented itself. Doc tried following nonchalantly out of the bar when Ivan left, but the Russian moved too fast for Doc’s ambling nonchalance, and the door to the elevator had already closed when Doc got there.
The car stopped at two floors, fourteen and seventeen. Doc made a note of it, then went back to the bar. A few sips into a fresh drink, he got a hankering for a cigar and some fresh air. The bartender sold him a cigar out of the humidor, and Doc decided it was a nice night for a stroll.
A few blocks away, he finally identified his trail, a mouse of a fellow who looked to weigh 110 in a rainstorm. But his slim size made it easy to duck between the shadows, and Doc found him extremely hard to shake. He wandered toward the Malecón, mingling with a knot of Spanish tourists on a cigar tour, but the shadow stayed well within earshot. Doc finally decided to give it a rest—literally, as he went back to his room and pretended to go to sleep.
The Cubans had bugged his room in five different places, including the bathroom. Doc began his usual noisy routine, turning on the television and running the water. Then, he told himself out loud that he was hungry, and needed a snack before going to bed. So he called room service, and had them deliver a cart of french fries and hamburgers. He met the server at the door in his pajamas, made a good fuss, then ate and returned the tray to the hall—leaving the door slightly ajar thanks to a piece of gum wedged into the lock plate. When Doc got ready for bed, he discovered that the door was open and closed it.
Of course, he was in the hall by then. He’d taken the precaution of leaving a voice recorder with some of his mumbles and snores set to run in a half hour to add to the illusion.
Doc tiptoed down the hall to the stairs, then made his way to the roof. From there, he started calling every room on the two floors he thought Ivan might be on until he found him.
Doc got him on the third call.
“The Italian place, for a drink,” said Doc, using English since he couldn’t trust either his Russian or Ivan’s Spanish. “Fifteen minutes.”
Doc guessed that Ivan was being watched just as he was. So Doc found a girl27 a few blocks away, described the Russian to her, and paid her to kiss Ivan on the street and, as she did, tell him to go over to the Renaissance Hotel bar instead.
Ivan had a big grin on his face when he spotted Doc in the far corner of the bar twenty minutes later.
“I thought it might be you, Americanski.”
He clapped him on the back. When Ivan claps somebody, they generally can’t breathe for a few minutes. It’s also good to check and make sure your wallet is still there.
“What the hell are you doing in Cuba?” Doc said, signaling for some vodka. “Smuggling in more missiles?”
“No, no, no,” said Ivan. “Business is off-limits tonight. We no talk business. Vacation.”
Ivan’s English tends to deteriorate when he doesn’t feel like talking about something.
“Bullshit it’s vacation. What the hell are you doing here?” asked Doc.
“I shit you, Americanski? You favorite turd. Ha-ha-ha.”
Doc stayed with it, gently coaxing, moving off the subject, sharing old war stories—Ivan had been in Egypt for a while—and plying the Russian with vodka. Lots of vodka. Finally, a chance comment broke loose a torrent of abuse.
“Now that Fidel’s out of the picture, you think Hugo Chavez is the dictator to beat in the Western Hemisphere?”
Ivan practically spit up his vodka.
“What makes you think that Fidel is really out of the picture, Americanski?” he said. (The terms of endearment have been withheld to protect tender ears.) “You believe a man who has been king all his life can walk away from being king? You are foolish. Everyone wants to be king. Today we call president. Same thing.”
“Even Ivan.”
“Ivan especially.” He clapped his chest. “Ivan would make great king.”
“You’re too short,” said Doc. “Kings are at least six-eight.”
“If I am king, I kill everyone over six foot tall.”
“You’ll rule a land of midgets.”
“Like Fidel, no?” Ivan laughed. “Except that he can’t do that with Chavez. Now the student has become the teacher. With his oil, he causes many problems.”
“I thought Chavez was a friend of yours.”
Ivan practically spit. “Chavez. Venezuela. Do you think this is 1960 all over again? This is the twenty-first century, Americanski. Oil. Gas. Energy. He is a competitor. Putin doesn’t like him,” added Ivan. “That is good enough for me.”
Had the conversation ended there, Doc probably would have taken it all at face value. In fact, he was about to change the subject when Ivan continued.
“It’s the Chinese who are trying to make a deal with Chavez. The Chinese are the ones starting mischief.”
Ah, thought Doc. That’s why Ivan was in town. He tried not to show too much interest.
“What are they up to?” Doc asked.
Ivan winked.
“Well?” asked Doc.
Ivan ordered another round. On Doc of course.
“I hate the Chinese,” said Doc.
“We drink to that.”
“So what are they up to?”
The Russian responded with a saying in Russian that means, basically, go have sex with a barnyard animal, preferably in a blizzard.
“Why is it a secret?”
“You’re not so naive, Americanski. Tell me about Korea. What did your boss do there?”
“I’ll tell you everything if you tell me why you’re here.”
“Vacation. Ha-ha-ha.”
That was all Doc managed to get out of Ivan. He snuck back into his room with the help of a call to room service for coffee, caught a quick nap, then met Trace and MacKenzie for breakfast. They spent the day talking to a half-dozen minor officials willing to walk the tightrope between praising Raul and lamenting that his brother was no longer able to lead the country.
Since their date had gone awry, MacKenzie had grown somewhat chilly, which was just fine by Doc. The big sunglasses she’d donned to hide her hangover remained in place, and Doc suspected she was still feeling a bit queasy. He suggested they knock off early and go for drinks; she begged out.
Operation Wild Goose Chase over, Mongoose and I left Baracoa and made our way back to Havana via plane and bus to Santiago, where we caught the night train east. Red took the train as well, abandoning the motorcycle at the station.
Doc checked in with Junior while we were on the train, and Junior patched us into a conference call. Ivan’s interest in what the Chinese were up to didn’t surprise me. The Chinese have done a lot in the Western Hemisphere over the past decade besides buying American computer companies. It was also the sort of information that Ken undoubtedly already had, though of course we’d pass it along.
More interesting was Doc’s description of the press conference.
“Fidel looked like a ghost,” he said. “A pasty ghost, straight out of A Christmas Carol.”
“The ghost of commies past, or to come?” asked Junior.
“Both,” said Doc.
He was more right than he knew.
___________________
24 A photo of a similar building was recently posted on Google Earth, if you’re interested. Search “Rooms with a view of Plaza de la Revolución” in Habana.
25 The list referred to political officials and aides connected to the Cuban national congress only. I’m not sure how many names were on it, but the type was small and the pages full.
26 There is a completely different possibility—that Doc did partake of the minder’s charms. But saying that would get him in trouble with his wife.
27 Yes, that is a euphemism.
( I )
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has always been one my favorite Christmas stories. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a bit of a Rogue Warrior himself—fearless and relentless.
Still, it’s a story, not something that happened in real life or was ever likely to ha
ppen in real life. Not because of the ghosts. There are ghosts all around us, whether we choose to see them or not.
It’s the part where Scrooge changes and becomes a nice person. Most people would say piss off five minutes after the ghosts were out the door.
Red found us a new place to stay in the southeast corner of Havana, an illegal hotel used almost exclusively by expatriate Cubans visiting relatives. (You can do that, as long as you bring the regime cash and don’t make trouble.) The location suggested easy cover stories; Red and Mongoose became brother and sister visiting Pop while I was a family friend along for the ride. It was a good story, but we never used it: the owner asked no questions and stayed far out of our way.
What I had in mind was simple: I’d locate Fidel and ask him where the DVD was. I’d do this by making him think I was him—that he was having a conversation with himself in a dream. To do this, we needed two things: a dose of Demerol or some other sedative, and definitive information on where he was.
The intelligence came first.
Doc said that Fidel had left the press conference in an ambulance. Our first night in Havana, when we were planning on driving around to all the hospitals in the city, the local television station broadcast an exclusive interview with el Jefe on the transition of power. They opened the show with a covering shot of the hospital where the interview had taken place. Bingo.
That left the drugs.
During the Cold War, the Western media used to run stories about the miracle of Cuban health care, focusing especially on the wide availability of cheap prescription drugs. The stories were limited to the point of being bogus; you could find aspirin, certainly, but Cuba was about the last place in the world you could get expensive medicines, for free or otherwise. It’s not much better today, out in the rural areas especially. Fortunately, our needs could be fulfilled by generics, and we were willing to use any number of substitutes. The most important quality was that they be available at a small clinic, the sort with a friendly staff and almost nonexistent security procedures.
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