The Havana Game

by John Lutz

  “Yeah. But it’s sort of a troubling chain of events, isn’t it? You think the NSA can afford to walk away from this?”

  Ava sighed. “I think I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The first thing Laker realized on awakening was that he was alone in bed. Ava must be making coffee in the kitchen. He dozed and waited. No gurgle of water, no scent of Arabica. He was not at home. He was in Tallinn, Estonia.

  The previous day came back to him: a seemingly endless, turbulence-ridden flight over the Atlantic, a tedious layover at Heathrow Airport, the last leg over the North Sea and the Baltic. He’d been practically comatose by that time, but his driver was excited to have an American in the cab and insisted on conversation. He spoke fluent English and had an extensive knowledge of American television and pop music. Laker was unable to add much.

  At the hotel, the desk staff wouldn’t let him go up to his room until they’d offered him a nightcap of the local liqueur, Vanna Tallinn, a bedtime snack of smoked herring and potatoes with sour cream, a visit to the sauna. Laker got to make extensive use of one of the few Estonian phrases he knew: “ Ei, tanan,” No, thanks.

  He threw off the covers and swung his feet to the floor. That seemed to go okay, so he rose and walked to the window.

  The desk staff had told him they were giving him a room with a view of Old Town. Opening the curtains, he found that it was true. He could see dormered roofs dusted with snow and a varied assortment of towers: a conical fortress, a pointed medieval church spire, and a cluster of onion domes. Farther away, he could see the blue of the harbor, and the funnel and communication masts of some cruise ship docked there. The idea of cruising the Baltic in March didn’t appeal to him, though he’d heard it was the best time of year to see the northern lights.

  Glancing at the clock, he decided to skip breakfast. He didn’t have much time to get to his first meeting. He showered and stepped up to the mirror to shave. He had a good face for his profession, meaning that it wasn’t the kind people remembered. Black hair, brown eyes, regular features. His nose showed no sign of its numerous breakages, and the IED blast that had partially deafened him had left no visible scars. His only distinctive feature was his cleft chin. Ava often teased him, saying it was like Cary Grant’s, or Kirk Douglas’s, depending on her mood. Spreading foam over it, Laker considered growing back his beard. He liked covering up that Hollywood cleft. Liked not having to shave, too.

  He was in good time as he crossed the bedroom to the closet. His last act of the night before had been to hang up his suit bag, so he wouldn’t go to the meeting in wrinkles. Laker owned only four suits, and they were all old. But they were good. Years ago, when stationed in London, he’d had them tailored on Savile Row, justifying the expense because he was hard to fit, owing to his height and the width of his shoulders.

  He’d chosen the charcoal pinstripe for this trip. After knotting his tie, he slipped into the jacket and buttoned it, then paused feeling that he’d missed a step.

  He hadn’t strapped on his gun. That was it. He’d followed Mason’s order to leave the Beretta M9 and its shoulder holster in his office safe in Washington. Diplomatic finesse, not weaponry, was what this mission would require of him. He hoped Mason was right about that.

  Outside, it was a lot colder than Washington. He was grateful for his heavy wool topcoat. The concierge was holding open the door of a black Volvo taxi. He got in and told the driver where to go.

  “Ministry of Justice?” The driver repeated doubtfully, with a glance at Laker in the mirror. The face in the mirror was north European, broad cheekboned and long-jawed, with blue eyes behind steel-framed spectacles, but the cap was American, adorned with the Y of the New York Yankees.

  “You know where it is?” Laker asked.

  “Sure, that is not the problem. Okay if I take detour?”

  “Something going on?”

  “Big demonstration on Suur Karja Boulevard.”

  “Use your best judgment.”

  The driver turned into the street. The Volvo was warm and comfortable. Laker sat back and buckled his safety belt. He asked, “Who’s demonstrating?”

  “The Russians.”

  Here was an opportunity to sample local public opinion. Mason would be interested. “You mean the ethnic Russians? They’re Estonian citizens, aren’t they?”

  The driver shrugged skeptically. He was good at expressing himself with his back turned. “Stalin moved them in, when he occupied the country. Yeltsin should have moved them out, when he let us go.”

  Laker’s briefing book, which he’d read on the plane, had forty pages on the situation with the ethnic Russians. The cabbie’s statement summed it up pretty well.

  They were driving down a wide boulevard. Traffic thickened and slowed to a stop. Laker looked out the side window as an old-fashioned streetcar rolled past. He said, “You’d think the ethnic Russians would lie low for a while. What with the bombing.”

  “Their leaders say they had nothing to do with it. For them, issue is settled. It’s back to their usual demands.”

  “Stronger anti-discrimination laws?”

  “Today, is language. They want Russian to be made an official language of Estonia. Taught in all schools.”

  “You mean, they want their children to keep speaking it?”

  “No, they want rest of us to learn it. We’ll need it when we’re part of Russia again.”

  The topic seemed to be making him irritable. He checked his mirrors and spun the wheel. The Volvo accelerated into a narrow, cobbled side street. For a few hundred yards, traffic was light and moving well. Then they turned a corner and entered a small square that was packed with cars. After a few minutes of immobility, the driver took his hands off the wheel and slumped in his seat. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Turn was bad idea.”

  Laker heard a noise louder than the thrum of engines. He pressed the button to lower his window a few inches. It was a din of shouts and running footfalls. The sound of a demonstration going bad, familiar to him from many years in the world’s trouble spots. It was coming from somewhere off to their right.

  Laker’s eyes filled with tears, his nostrils with mucus. Pulling out a handkerchief, he said, “We need to get away from here. Turn left.”

  The driver was coughing and wiping his eyes. “What is it?”

  “Tear gas.”

  He closed his window. Not that it would help much. People who knew tear gas only from movie scenes in which characters ran through dense clouds of it unaffected didn’t realize how potent the stuff was. It got to you before you even smelled it. Tears were gushing down his cheeks, rivers of snot running from his nose.

  The driver, gasping and coughing, was having a hard time maneuvering the car. He managed to get it pointing toward a street opening to their left, but then he had to stop. Cops in riot gear, carrying Plexiglas shields and wearing gas masks, were running toward them. They streamed past the car on both sides.

  Laker swiveled to look out the back window. Beyond the line of motionless cars, the street was filled from one building wall to the other by demonstrators. They were making the transition to rioters as he watched, throwing down their signs, tying handkerchiefs around their faces. They met the police charge with a hail of rocks. One bounced off the roof of the Volvo. A bottle fell on the cobbles next to the car and broke. A pool of blue flame began to spread. Molotov cocktail.

  “We have to get out of here!” the driver yelled.

  But a car had come to a standstill right in front of them. Laker said, “We can’t. We’ll be okay. Just concentrate on breathing.”

  The melee spread through the traffic jam as the outnumbered cops were pushed back by the rioters. Only paces to Laker’s right, a cop went down, one rioter seizing his shield while another kicked him. The Volvo shook. Out the back window Laker saw jeans-clad legs as a man mounted from the trunk to the roof of the car. His feet clomped overhead and he started shouting.

  Laker t
urned back to see the driver shift the gear lever into reverse. “No!” he shouted. “Don’t move!”

  The car lurched backward. The man toppled onto the hood, then rolled to the street. His cry of surprise and pain drew the attention of the rioters. Their eyes glared at Laker. Rushing the car, shouting, they beat on its windows with their fists, kicked its doors.

  “We’re okay,” Laker told the driver, with more confidence than he felt. “They can’t get at us.”

  The car was completely surrounded. It shifted on its springs, one way, then the other. Its left side rose. The wheels lost contact with the ground. Laker’s safety belt held him, but the driver slid from his seat as the car settled on its right side.

  Another sickening jolt and it was upside down, resting on its roof. Over the din he could hear impacts of metal upon metal. Some pointed tool, clanging against the exposed gas tank? No way to be sure. Just in case, he wasn’t going to wait until the car exploded. “Try to get out!” Laker called to the driver. That was all he could do for the man.

  He opened the catch of the safety belt, tucking in his head and letting his shoulders take the impact as he dropped to the roof of the car. His fingers scrabbled at the unfamiliar door lever. It was only seconds but felt much longer. Finally he pushed the door open. Turned over and began to crawl out on hands and knees. He’d be completely helpless. He braced himself for blows.

  They came. Fists in his back, kicks in his ribs. He watched helplessly as a boot stamped down on his right hand. The din all around him was so tremendous he couldn’t hear his yelp of pain.

  As soon as he was clear of the car, he flipped onto his back, coiled his legs, and drove both feet into the groin of the nearest attacker.

  More blows fell on his shoulders as he surged to his feet. A woman with long dark hair snarled something at him and swung a rock at his head. Laker stepped inside the swing and tapped her on the chin. She went over backward.

  A riot was no place for gallantry.

  He put his back to the upside-down car and raised his fists. But apparently there were no more bouts on today’s card. The rioters were taking to their heels. Either the police had deployed more tear gas or the wind had shifted, because it was getting harder to breathe. Pausing only to see that the driver was crawling out the front door, Laker staggered away, weeping and wheezing. His handkerchief was gone. He mopped his face with his scarf.

  A running man bumped into him, knocking him against a motionless car. He felt his way along its fender. Looked up to see, through his tears, the mouth of a narrow street straight ahead. He ran toward it, bent over, head down, as a shower of rocks and paving stones fell all around him. One struck him a painful blow in the shoulder.

  Once he reached the street, not even wide enough to qualify as an alley back home, it was better. The tear gas was no longer incapacitating. Apart from a few running figures in the distance, no one else was around. Blinking and wiping his face, he strode steadily away from the clattering and shouting in the square.

  He turned a corner into a wider street. Ahead, a line of riot police stood shield to shield. Laker approached slowly, arms at his sides, hands open. The police watched, unalarmed. He called out, “Räägi inglise keeles?”

  The cop directly in front of him raised the visor of his helmet and said, “Yes, I speak English.”

  “I’m a representative of the U.S. government,” Laker said. “Can you get me to the Ministry of Justice?”

  It wasn’t necessary to show his creds. Four policemen were detailed as his escort. They set down their shields, surrounded him, and set off at a brisk pace. He assumed they were taking him to a car, but they just kept walking. “Is the Ministry of Justice nearby?” he asked the cop on his left.

  The helmeted young man raised his plastic visor to answer. “You’ll be able to see it once we get past the Linnahalle,” he said. Everybody in Tallinn seemed to speak English. He pointed at the building they were about to walk by, an enormous bunker with blank concrete walls. After a hundred paces or so, they came to the first break in the wall, a wide staircase with crumbling steps and rusting railings. It led to boarded-up doors and windows. The boards were embellished with colorful graffiti.

  Laker recalled seeing similar buildings in Moscow. He said to the cop beside him, “One of Stalin’s architectural gems?”

  “Nazi bombing left a lot of vacant lots in the city,” the cop replied. “When the Soviets occupied us, they put up buildings like that. We preferred the vacant lots.”

  Passing the concrete hulk, they came into a square lined with government buildings. The cop pointed out the Ministry of Justice. It was a couple of centuries old, Laker, guessed, made of white stone and red-orange brick, with tall round windows, a tier of over-life-size statues of national heroes on plinths, and a clock with a deep blue dial. The facade was made even busier by stone scrolls and iron fretwork. At its summit, the blue, black, and white Estonian flag furled and unfurled in the wind.

  His escort left him at the door. “Head aega,” Laker said, with a grateful nod, and went in. A functionary in tailcoat and breeches, lacking only a powdered wig, approached. Laker told him he was here for the meeting on the terrorist attack, but he already seemed to know that and led the way up broad marble stairs.

  At the top stood three men in the olive uniforms of U.S. Army soldiers in NATO. The one in the middle had his cap under his arm. Its bill was encrusted with gold curlicues; he must be the superior officer. He certainly had a superior smile, as he looked down at Laker.

  Only now did Laker notice that his coat was hanging open, having lost its buttons, his tie askew and white shirtfront spotted with grime and blood. He wasn’t sure where the blood had come from. At least it wasn’t his. His trousers were torn at both knees so that his hairy kneecaps showed.

  “We heard that an American got caught in the riot. That would be you,” said the senior officer. His shoulder boards carried the gold eagles of a colonel. The badge on his chest read ANTROBUS.

  “It would. Tom Laker, Colonel. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Creds, please,” said the young lieutenant on Antrobus’s right. Laker handed over his ID. The lieutenant glanced at it and handed it to Antrobus.

  “Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “That doesn’t narrow it down much. But never mind. I’ll call Washington later and find out what agency you work for. And why you’re here. Just to pass the time, though, what’s your version?”

  Laker had worked extensively with the military during his Middle East postings, and had come to know many types of officers. Antrobus seemed to be the type who was always performing for his aides. The smooth-faced, bright-eyed lieutenants on either side of him were listening intently, and tonight they’d be telling their mess-mates, “You should have seen the old man rip into that spook from D.C.” Or at least Antrobus imagined they would be.

  “I’m just here to listen and learn, Colonel.”

  The smug smile hadn’t left Antrobus’s face yet. Maybe it never did. He was about to say something skeptical when the aide on his left looked down the hall and said, “Excuse me, sir? It looks like they’re going in.”

  “Let’s join them by all means.” Hands clasped behind his back, he sauntered down the hallway. Laker fell in beside the aide on the right.

  “I doubt you’re going to learn anything this morning, Mr. Laker,” Antrobus went on. “The Minister calls a big meeting every day, whether anything’s happened or not. And I have to come in.” He glanced sideways at Laker. “Base is an hour away.”

  Laker chose not to express sympathy for the colonel’s wasted time. “There’s still no claim of responsibility?”

  “It will be in the media when it comes. No need to hold a meeting. Anyway, no one doubts that it’s the Russian minority. Those charming people who just roughed you up. I realize you can’t do anything about the state of your trousers, but at least straighten your tie. Also, take off your overcoat and hang your creds on your breast pocket.” He remembered bela
tedly that he was talking to a civilian and added, “Please.”

  The meeting was evidently a formal affair. People in suits and uniforms were preceding them through tall double doors at the end of the hallway. Sentries in old-fashioned dress uniforms, armed with new assault rifles, stood on either side of the doors.

  Passing through them, Laker found himself in a huge room with a lofty ceiling, a row of tall windows on one side, and a vast painting of a Napoleonic-era battle, with flashing swords and plunging horses, on the other. He assumed Estonia had fought on the winning side.

  The attendees were gathering around a long, highly polished table. Antrobus sat down. One lieutenant, who’d been carrying his briefcase, laid it in front of him, while the other poured a glass of water for him. Then they retreated to join the line of flunkies along the wall.

  A slender man in a dark blue uniform with rows of bright buttons approached Laker. He had a neatly trimmed dark goatee, high forehead and large, heavily lidded eyes that gave him a mournful look. “Mr. Laker, sorry for your misadventure. Telliskivi, Commissioner of Police.”

  For a policeman, he had a soft, gentle voice. They shook hands and Laker winced. It was the hand that had gotten stomped on. “I’m okay. Your men were very helpful.”

  “Should you need to travel around the city again, please feel free to call on me for a police car.”

  “You’re expecting the disorders to continue?”

  Telliskivi flexed his eyebrows noncommittally and went to his seat up the table. A man who had to be the Minister of Justice was taking the chair at the head of the table. He was a portly old fellow in a vested suit, with longish gray hair tucked behind his ears and round spectacles. He had a benevolent air. Laker could imagine him carving nutcrackers for little girls, which would turn out to be enchanted.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “We will speak in English for the benefit of our friends from NATO, if there are no objections?”