by John Lutz
The Filipinos were descending the ladder. Ramón told him to keep climbing down. Laker did, gingerly. He didn’t go far before Ramón called to him to stop.
A powerful flashlight came on, making him blink. Ramón trained its beam on the top of a container, almost level with Laker’s feet. He told him to climb onto it. Laker put out one foot. There was enough light to show that the container’s edge was made fast to a metal ledge in the bulkhead. It was moving only with the motion of the ship. He put his other foot down. Let go his handgrips and dropped to a crouch. The Filipinos, quick and sure-footed, joined him. It was Ramón who had the flashlight. Laker wondered how he’d managed to descend the ladder one-handed. Ramón pointed at the next container over. “The Magadan one.”
He played the light over its top. It looked no different from the others: gray metal, riveted seams, a few dents and dings. A wide steel bar held it tight to the container they were crouching on. Stepping over it, they crouched on the Magadan container. Ramón’s light had shown there was no way in from the top. On hands and knees Laker crawled to the end and looked down. Could see nothing.
Ramón handed him the flashlight. The next stack of containers was ten feet away. He played the light into the gap. A tiny spot of reflection showed, in a pool of water on the deck of the hold, fifty feet below.
Joseph knelt beside him and took a loop of rope off his shoulder. “You go down. We hold you.”
“I’m big and heavy.”
“There are two of us,” Ramón said. “We’re strong.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Joseph tied the rope around Laker under his arms. He was quick and deft with knots. Finished, he sat and braced the heels of his boots against the steel bar that held the front of the container motionless. He had the rope in his hands. He passed it back to Ramón, who sat behind him and braced his feet against Joseph’s back. Once he was sure both had a sure grip on the rope, Laker crawled over the edge. The rope bit into his armpits as it took his weight. The injured rib gave its first twinge.
The Filipinos slowly lowered him. He played the flashlight over a small metal housing. Reached into it. “There’s a padlock.”
“There usually is,” Ramón called back. “We have bolt cutters.”
Laker looked up to see the long handles appear over the edge. One of the Filipinos must’ve had to take a hand off the rope, but Laker hadn’t felt it. These guys were strong.
Stretching his arms up, he was able to reach the handles. Fitting the short blades into the housing, he bore down and cut the loop of the padlock. He let go of the bolt cutters. It seemed like a very long time before they hit the deck.
The flashlight beam showed him that two vertical rods kept each door closed. He lifted the handles on the right-side door, disengaging the rod ends from their keepers. He finished just as the ship rolled. The door swung open, knocking Laker out of the way. He spun all the way around on the rope. He could hear the Filipinos grunting as they held onto him.
The ship rolled the other way. Laker caught the door. With his other hand, he shone his flashlight inside. The beam showed him only a metal framework, heavily padded with rubber. Then it hit something reflective.
Laker squinted, steadied the beam. He was looking at a sphere of polished steel. Could see only half of it above the rubber-padded rack that held it. Its surface was smooth. No, it wasn’t. There was a sort of nozzle on one side, a plug with protruding wires on the other. He couldn’t make sense of it, and then he did.
The nozzle was a component of the assembly that armed the weapon. The plug was part of the detonator.
“Oh God,” he murmured.
“What do you see?” asked Ramón.
“They’re . . .” Laker played the light around. Could see four more shining spheres. Enough to kill tens of millions of people.
“They’re nuclear warheads,” he said.
Suddenly he was falling. He dropped ten feet and stopped. He thought the rope would cut his arms off. A bolt of pure agony shot from the injured rib up his spine into his brain, and he nearly lost consciousness.
When he came to himself, Ramón was shouting his name.
“I’m all right,” he called back. “What happened?”
“Joseph. Panicked. Dropped the line—fled.”
“You’re holding me alone?”
“Can’t for much longer.”
Laker could hear the strain in his voice. Laker was dangling and slowly twisting in the loop of rope. Had to stop that. Take the load off Ramón. He’d lost the flashlight but looking down he could just make out the padlock housing of the container he was now facing. He put his foot on it. Threw out his arms to grasp the vertical rods.
“Thanks!” Ramón called. “Give me a minute. Then I’ll pull you up.”
“Where’s Joseph going?”
“He’s scared. Wants to run. But there’s nowhere to run to.”
“He wouldn’t go to the officers?”
“He’s not that stupid.”
There was nothing Laker could do about it anyway from his precarious perch. Ramón called out that he was ready. A moment later, Laker began, slowly, to ascend. He didn’t know where the Filipino was finding the strength.
The ship rolled again and the door of the Magadan container swung open. Ramón cried out in alarm as the rope pulled against him. Laker swung his body to the left to slide the rope off the top of the door. Pulled his legs in tight as he swung back. Now he was able to rest his toes on the foam gasket inside the container.
“I can help from here on, Ramón,” he called.
Using the steel supports of the framework holding the warheads as rungs, he climbed up until he could thrust his hands above the level of the bar along the top of the container that held it in place. Ramón dropped the rope and grasped his hands. As he pulled, Laker was able to clamber back on top of the container.
He and Ramón grinned at each other, gasping. Laker noticed blood on his hands. It was Ramón’s, from rope burns.
Abruptly, the lights came on. The whole vast hold was brightly illuminated. A man in dark blue overalls—an officer—was crouching on the next container. He had a pistol in his hand.
Laker’s hand went to his cargo pocket for the Glock.
“No! Don’t move!” The officer leveled his weapon. He seemed to know how to use it. Laker froze.
Another man in blue overalls was coming down the ladder. He turned and stepped onto the container. He had exceptionally good balance, because he was able to stand erect on a steel surface that dipped and tilted with the sea’s motion. He had blond hair and beard and blue eyes. He too was carrying a pistol.
“The situation is clear,” he said. “You know. And I know that you know.”
He had a rather high voice, with a trace of middle-European accent. This was Korzeniowski, the captain.
“You are Laker,” he said. “I can tell Moscow that now I know why their agent in Mexico City failed to report. Is she dead?”
“Yes,” Laker said.
“They think highly of you in Moscow, Laker. They warned me to take you seriously. I should have. How did you get on board?”
“When you were refueling.”
“And you found help.” He looked at Ramón. “I don’t know your name, but you work in the engine room. You’ve impressed me as smart, for a Filipino. But it turns out that your friend Joseph is a good deal smarter.”
Laker and Ramón exchanged a look.
“I can’t say it all came to him in a flash,” Korzeniowski went on. “But he had a general sense of what you were going to do next, Laker. Try to seize the bridge. And if you succeeded, use the radio to call Washington. Then, in a very short time, jet fighters would have flown in, firing missiles, blowing this ship to pieces and killing everyone aboard. Including Joseph.”
“No. Navy ships would have intercepted. We don’t kill innocent men.”
“What a shame you didn’t get a chance to make that argument to Joseph. I don’t think he would
’ve believed you. A lifetime of experience has taught him how little his life means to white men.”
“White men like you,” said Ramón.
Korzeniowski looked at him. “Not sure what I’ll do with you. Throw you overboard is the simplest thing. But it might be interesting to find out, first, if you were the one who sent the text message that caused all my problems. As for you, Laker, you’ll live. Moscow is interested in you.”
A third officer was descending the ladder. Korzeniowski waited until he turned and drew his pistol. “Now,” he said. “Stand up. And put your hands on your heads. Do it very slowly, Laker. You mustn’t take your survival for granted.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
At last the low door opened. Ava backed away from it, panting for breath, rubbing her sore knuckles. Carlucci’s long-fingered, hairy-backed hand appeared, beckoning her. She crawled out on hands and knees, then rose.
“You must be tired,” Carlucci said. “You’ve been banging on the door and shouting since we cut the engine.” The lined, lean face bore a sardonic smile.
“Are we in Havana?” Ava asked. Her throat was raw.
“You know we are. Gonçalves is aboard. I’m supposed to bring you topside. But it wasn’t all your noise that did it. He never heard. It was fucking Ruy. He couldn’t resist telling him all about you. C’mon up.”
He took her elbow and steered her along the corridor and up the steps. It was night. The yacht was tied up at a pier, but aside from the lights of a ferry boat crossing their stern, there wasn’t much to see of Havana.
She’d heard Morales’s petulant, bullying voice before she could see him. He sounded overexcited and irritable. He was pacing among the deck chairs in the stern while Gonçalves watched impassively. Morales was wearing a white linen suit and open striped shirt, Gonçalves olive-drab fatigues.
“So I come into the harbor, I’m expecting to see Morro Castle, and what do I see?”
“Morro Castle,” said Gonçalves.
“Only the silhouette. ’Cause it’s not floodlit. Disappointment Number Two, I couldn’t see the Malecón.”
“Oh, it’s there. But too far from the harbor mouth.”
“Well, we can do something about that. Carlucci, remember this for me. We’re gonna have big color photos in the elevators at Yemayá, with Morro Castle floodlit, viewed from the Malecón. We’ll photoshop it so they’re right next to each other. People will love ’em. We’ll sell ’em in the gift shop for twenty bucks. With frame, a hundred.”
A crewman in his immaculate uniform stepped up to Ava and offered her a tray of mojitos. One of those who’d been deaf to her pounding and screaming of a few minutes before. Now it was her turn to ignore him.
Gonçalves walked over and studied her face. He seemed a lot different on his home ground, erect and confident. Funny how his suit had been shabby and ill-fitting, while his army fatigues looked custom-tailored and freshly pressed.
“Yes,” he said. “It was you who approached me in Miami.”
“That’s what I told you,” said Morales. “We were pretty sure right away that it was her, because she’d been hanging around for weeks, poking around in my business. Didn’t take my people in D.C. long to find out she was NSA. Former NSA. The agency doesn’t know what she’s been up to.”
Gonçalves’s deep-set black eyes were fixed on hers. “Is this true?”
“Yes. I quit to investigate a murder. Morales killed a colleague of mine to prevent you from finding out about the toxic spill at San Fernando.”
Gonçalves turned to look at Morales. “I’d never have known at all, except for her.”
Carlucci sighed. “See, Ruy? I told you it was gonna get complicated if we brought her up here.”
“No complications. Ivan Diegovich and me are tight. He’s found my family cross.” Morales lifted his mojito to Gonçalves, who couldn’t respond, not having one. “Hey, speaking of the cross, what are we standing around here for? Let’s go.”
“I have a request,” said Gonçalves. “Turn the North woman over to me. We would like to interrogate her.”
“Ruy—” Carlucci began.
Morales waved him off. “Fine. We’ll never have to worry about her again, Arturo. The Fidelistas are experts at making prisoners disappear.”
The remark didn’t dismay Ava. She had the sense Gonçalves was up to something. Didn’t try to figure out what. All that mattered was she was walking down the gangway, off that yacht from which she’d nearly gone overboard, and into a night city. A chance to escape was bound to come.
On the pier, two Jeeps were waiting, one empty, the other with soldiers in it. Even in the darkness, she could see how ancient and dilapidated they were. It was easy to imagine them being made in Detroit, shipped across the Atlantic in a Liberty ship, carrying Red Army men all the way to Berlin, being sent to Cuba as part of a military aid package, lasting through Fidel’s long reign, and serving still. But when Gonçalves got behind the wheel and pressed the starter, the engine came to life immediately and ran smoothly.
She climbed into the back with Carlucci beside her. He wasn’t armed, as far as she could see, but he was watchful. Any sudden move and those strong hands would grasp her. In the Jeep behind them were four soldiers, and all but the driver had Kalashnikovs in their hands. Ava postponed her break for freedom.
Morales swung into the front passenger seat, planting his right foot on the Jeep’s mudguard, in imitation of the hero of a favorite World War II movie, she assumed. “Let’s go by way of the Malecón,” he said. “Or—wait. Are the waves breaking over the seawall?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Gonçalves replied. “Not windy enough.”
“Then I’ll wait till tomorrow. I want to see the waves breaking. And the fishermen. And couples strolling arm in arm.” His moods were as mercurial as ever. The irritability had passed, and he was happy and excited. “After I see the cross. I wanna have dinner. Been too excited to eat. And cocktails. First, Hemingway daiquiris at Sloppy Joe’s. Then the best palador you know. We’ll eat lechón. And congri. And ropa vieja con sofrito.”
“All at one meal?” asked Gonçalves. Again Ava noticed his equanimity. Morales no longer oppressed him. Only amused him a bit.
“Better have somebody call Coppelia. Tell ’em to stay open.”
Gonçalves had been waiting patiently with the engine idling, looking sideways at Morales. He raised a hand, and one of the soldiers from the Jeep behind came running. He stopped beside Gonçalves and presented arms. Gonçalves rapped out an order. Spanish was one of Ava’s weaker languages, and she didn’t catch what he said, but she didn’t think it had anything to do with Coppelia.
He thrust the Jeep’s long crooked gearshift lever forward, and they set off. At the punta de control where the pier joined the land, the soldiers raised the barrier and came to attention. “We will waive the customs and immigration formalities,” Gonçalves said.
He turned into a narrow street. The pavement was rough, the lights few. Morales was leaning dangerously far out of the Jeep, looking around. “It’s so gloomy,” he said. “No advertising. It’s so dark you can see the stars,” he said with disapproval.
Abruptly he ordered, “Stop! Turn off the motors!”
He got out of the Jeep and stood turning in a circle, sniffing the air. “I can smell the gardenia . . . and, yes, the lavender. Just like Tía Luisa said. The scented nights of Havana.” He cocked his head. “But it’s so quiet. There should be music coming from every window . Guajiras and boleros and pachanga.”
“Too early. Havana has not come to life yet,” Gonçalves said, in the same amused, tolerant tone.
Though it was the middle of the night, this seemed to mollify Morales. He climbed back in, and they got going again. After a few minutes they turned onto a broader street with more traffic, enormous old American cars and tiny box-like Soviet cars. Motorcycles and bicycles. Even a cocotaxi or two, the egg-shaped three-seat motor-scooters Ava’d heard about. The sidewalks were full o
f strollers. Wherever there was a working streetlight, people were sitting under it, playing dominoes or checkers, or selling their wares. Morales turned in his seat, pointing at a wizened man with a tray of carved wooden dolls hanging from his neck.
“Hey, there’s a guy going into business for himself,” he said. “Creeping capitalism, Gonçalves. You want to stop and arrest him? We’ll wait.”
“Not necessary. But I will wait if you want to bargain with him. See how ill-fed he looks. You can probably beat him down to a few pesos.”
Morales gave Gonçalves a long look as they drove on. He wasn’t a sensitive man, but even he was now noticing the old Cuban’s lack of deference.
Seeing a woman in high heels and tight pants standing alone under a streetlight, Morales pointed and said, “Jinetera! You people brag about opening all the professions to women. But I bet there are still plenty who are in the oldest profession.”
“Yes,” said Gonçalves. “You and Señor Carlucci will find it easy to staff the brothels you will soon be opening.”
Carlucci said nothing. But he shifted in his seat. He was a wary man, and Ava could tell that his focus had shifted from her to Gonçalves.
They passed another punta de control. Again they were recognized and not stopped. The Jeep turned into a narrower, quieter street. “Welcome to Vieja Havana,” Gonçalves said. He was wrestling with the wheel as the car bounced and jounced over broken pavement, avoided furniture lying upended in the street or piles of brick and rubble. There were fewer working streetlights, but she could see bits of the fine old houses they were passing: pillars holding up round arches, colonnades, pedimented windows, balconies with wrought-iron railings. But many windows were covered with sheet metal, colonnades were crumbling, railings bent. Either because the decaying grandeur made him thoughtful, or simply because he was only minutes from seeing his family crucifix, Ruy Morales’s manner was subdued. He slumped in his seat, saying nothing, darting glances about the unevenly lit streetscape.
Gonçalves slowed and turned between noble stone posterns. He switched off the engine and lights. The other Jeep pulled up beside them. “La casa Morales,” Ruy whispered. He climbed out and looked up at the ghostly white stone villa. Pointing up at a wrought iron balcony. “That’s where my Tía Maria was serenaded. I ever tell you that story, Arturo?”