“What about your wife?”
“I'm not married.”
“You live alone?” Lonsdale pretended surprise. “I don't believe it. A leopard doesn't change its spots.”
“I live in a large, well-located and well-protected house. There's a maid comes in every day to do for me, so don't worry about putting me out. She'll look after both of us. Makes a damn fine breakfast.”
Lonsdale gave in. “Sold. Drive me back to Bice's to pick up my car, and I'll follow you to where you live.”
It was past midnight by the time they got to Gal's house on Ibis Crescent located on the Inter-coastal Waterway and shielded from the street by a solid brick wall. Lonsdale dumped his bag in the bedroom next to the office and joined his host for a short nightcap on the screened part of the pool patio between the house and the sea.
Gal poured them a small brandy each. Raising his glass he said, “Nice to see you alive and well and healthy.”
“L'Chaim.” Lonsdale countered with the traditional Jewish toast: “To life.”
They settled into comfortable armchairs facing the waterway and neither spoke for a while. It was Lonsdale who broke the silence. “How secure is this place?”
“Quite. Once the gates on the outer wall are electronically locked no one can get through them. There are infrared motion sensors on top of the wall, and above the flower beds along the two sides of the property. The rhododendron bushes separating me from my neighbors are, as you can see, very thick, but when you'll look at them from close up tomorrow you'll discover I didn't rely on nature. There is razor wire strung through them to a height of nine feet.”
“So you can be penetrated only over the wall or from the waterway.”
“True, but I have twenty-four hour regular and infrared surveillance from four TV cameras through monitors in my bedroom. They display the entire area at all times and keep a taped record of all goings-on.”
“Wouldn't like to be your gardener, or pool boy.” Lonsdale mused.
Gal laughed. “Right.” His English was near perfect and sometimes very Englishy since he had been educated in the UK. “I view the tapes daily, of course, and about a year ago had the pleasure of watching the pool boy making it with the maid at the poolside.”
“In broad daylight?”
“Yeah, on the chaise this side of the pool.”
“What did you do—fire them?”
Gal was taken aback. “Why should I want to interfere with the civil liberties of two consenting adults? Besides, they're both Cubans and good at that sort of thing.”
“Which brings me to my reason for visiting you.”
Gal emptied his glass. “At last. But first, let me neutralize any eavesdroppers who might be around.” He got up and flicked one of the light switches upward. Nothing visible happened.
“What does that do?” asked Lonsdale.
“See the mosquito screen around us? It's a bit heavier gauge than normal. I've just electrified it thereby creating a magnetic field around the patio, which knocks out all electronic listening devices in the vicinity.”
“What about the rest of the house?”
“Only the office is safe. It's always locked, and I have the only key. Of course, I sweep it for bugs daily, but we both know that, although conversations inside the office can be protected, the wires, telephone, fax, computers, and so on are all open to interception at the other end.”
Lonsdale leaned forward in his chair and put his glass on the table. “Let's get down to business.”
“About time.”
“We have to extract two heavily guarded men from a Latin American country.”
“Who's the client?”
“I don't know because the job was contracted to me through an intermediary.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“A rough one. It involves a total of twenty men in the field and four backup.”
“Does that include the diversionary team?”
Lonsdale was pleased. Gal had not lost the touch. “Yes, it does.”
“How many vehicles?”
“A panel truck, two taxis, a helicopter, and a cargo ship.”
Gal looked at him perplexed. “You're not crazy enough to be thinking of mounting an amphibious operation?”
“In a way, I suppose I am.”
“Explain.”
It took Lonsdale until three a.m. to put Gal into the picture. He had to be careful not to give away his targets' identities or the specific area where the action would take place. When he finished, Gal poured them both a last drink. “What's our budget?” he asked.
“About twelve million bucks, I estimate.” Lonsdale decided to keep three million dollars in reserve.
“How much of it is mine?”
“One million guaranteed, half up front, the other half at the end. You get another quarter million for each target we bring out alive.”
“In other words, about 10 percent of the total is mine. How much are you taking?”
“I'm being paid separately.”
“So we have about ten million dollars for the operation itself.”
“About.”
“Twenty men in the field at a quarter of a million dollars each is five million. Your support people are another half million, so total payroll is five to six million. The helicopter with fuel and maintenance is another million, as is the cargo ship. This leaves about two million dollars for weapons, uniforms, protective gear, and three motor vehicles.” Gal closed his eyes for a few seconds. “What kind of artillery are we thinking about?”
Lonsdale was glad Gal had said “we” for a second time. “Galil assault rilfes, side arms, tear gas, stun grenades, and perhaps a couple of rocket launchers.”
Gal closed his eyes again, this time for a full minute. Then he got up and stretched. “My preliminary impression is that our budget is somewhat tight, but let me redo the sums, and I'll let you know tomorrow morning.” He yawned and held out his hand. “Sleep tight, Bernard. I'll see you at nine thirty for breakfast.”
Lonsdale was pleased. The bargaining had begun. He bade his host goodnight and headed for his room.
“How do you propose to smuggle all those men and their equipment into Cuba?”
Lonsdale almost choked on his orange juice. “Who said anything about Cuba?” he managed to croak.
Gal grabbed a piece of toast from the rack in the middle of the table and wiped the remains of the egg yolk off his plate. “Come off it, Bernard! What kind of a schmuck do you think I am?” He stuffed the soaked toast into his mouth and washed it down with a gigantic gulp of hot coffee. Then he burped discreetly and sat back in his chair with a contented smile. “I worked it all out last night. Your clients are the Colombian drug cartel and the people whose necks you're to save must be some high-up Cuban officials whom Fidel has sent to the pokey for helping the cartel smuggle drugs through Cuban waters. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to spend upward often million dollars to spring two has-beens from jail once their usefulness has come to an end.”
“Maybe it's the men themselves who're putting up the money for their own liberation.”
“Then why don't they just offer the money to Fidel and be done with it? For fifteen million dollars Fidel could buy a lot of much-needed agricultural equipment for his people.”
Lonsdale helped himself to a tangerine, peeled it, and stuffed the skin into his coffee cup. He looked past Gal and beyond the pool. The houses across the Inter-coastal Waterway shimmered tantalizingly in the morning sunshine, their windowpanes glittering like huge diamonds.
“Reuven, I don't deny that the Colombians might be my ultimate clients, but I don't know for sure. I've been retained by a Panamanian, and he's the one who's paying. As for the extraction targets, I have no clue about their identity, nor about the place from which we're supposed to extract them. What I do know, because I've checked, is that there've been no recent arrests of senior Cuban government officials on drug-related charges, nor are there any such
individuals being held in jail in Cuba.”
He reached across the table for a glass of water. “My instructions are to train a team of about twenty commandos and have them and their equipment ready to move out at a moment's notice three weeks from today. Everybody, and that includes you and me, gets paid half their basic pay in advance and the other half at the conclusion of the mission, whether successful or not. Bonuses will be paid only if the mission is successful. And this we'll only know at the end.”
Gal was skeptical. “This whole thing sounds to me like a fairy tale.”
“Would a half million dollar transfer into your bank account make you into a believer?”
Gal was delighted. “It would certainly help; in fact it would go a long way—”
“Give me a bank account number, and I'll arrange for the money to be in it within ten days.”
“And what's my job to be?”
“Field commander. You are to recruit and supervise the training of the seventeen-man field force that will carry out the diversionary and extraction operations.”
“I thought you said twenty men.”
Lonsdale nodded. “I did, but two will be flyers, copter pilots to be more precise, and I will recruit them.”
“You'll look after transport and ordnance?”
“Yes to transport, no to ordnance. You'll have to do that, but I'll give you a supplier. And you are to secure a mixed bag of Argentinean, Venezuelan, and Italian passports, just in case.”
“Why?”
“I want Latino-looking, preferably Spanish- or Italian-speaking men who won't stick out like a sore thumb in a South American environment.”
“You don't want much, do you?”
Lonsdale gave the Israeli a friendly grin. “Hey, I'm paying top dollar, ain't I? I deserve top-quality service.” He became serious. “Kidding aside, it shouldn't be too difficult to find seventeen reliable and trained Israelis, Italians, and Cubans thirsting for action and needing money.”
“You keep on saying seventeen.”
“Yeah. You're number eighteen.”
“You mean I'm to go into the field?”
Lonsdale looked at Gal hard. “For a million and a half U.S. dollars, yes!”
“But I'm not fit.”
“You've got three weeks to get fit.”
“I don't really need the money.”
“But you want the excitement, don't you, Reuven?” Lonsdale was at his persuasive best. “You're bored, you're soft, and you're in a rut. You make nicey-nicey to rich people whom you don't like; you play up to wealthy women you don't really love; you're indolent, slothful, and purposeless. In other words, you're no longer the Ben Gal Tiger.”
“How did you find out my Mossad cover name?”
“You'd be surprised how much more I know about you.” Lonsdale shrugged. “But never mind—just tell me: are you in or not?”
“For two million guaranteed, plus bonus, I'm in.”
“I'll give you a million now, five hundred thousand when we finish, in whatever way we finish, plus a bonus of a quarter of a million bucks for each target extracted alive—that's a possible total of two million bucks.”
Gal held out his hand. “It's a deal, provided you deliver the million within ten days.”
Lonsdale took his host's hand and shook it. “I will.” he said simply. “And I thank you, Reuven. I know you're doing this as much for old times' sake as for the money. By the way, why do you need your money precisely within ten days? I know your business is doing well so why the hurry?”
“You said we only have three weeks. Finding and recruiting men properly qualified for this thing is the hardest part of my job, so I'll need to get on it right away. Once I've found them I can lead them on for a week, but no more. Otherwise it'll affect my reputation. If you produce the first million in ten days I'll know you're well connected and that your clients are serious. That's when I'll bring the men down here for training because you're bound to pay them.”
“You trust no one, do you?”
It was Gal's turn to look hard at Lonsdale. “Do you?”
“Touché.” Lonsdale looked at his watch. “I've got to get going. Give me your banking particulars.”
Gal wrote them down on a paper serviette. “How do we communicate?” he asked.
“I'll e-mail your instructions.”
They gave each other a bear hug, pats on the back, and then shook hands.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Wednesday Morning
Coral Gables, Florida
The streets intersecting Ponce-de-Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables have elegant Spanish names reflecting the background of the area's predominantly Hispanic residents at the turn of the century, when the community was built. Even today the tradition continues. Coral Gables is home to upper-middle-class Cubans, Argentineans, Venezuelans, and Colombians who, although they work and reside in Florida, maintain close ties with their countries of origin.
On Valencia Street, between Ponce-de-Leon and South West Thirty-Seventh Avenue, stands an elegant, expensive-looking house. The plaque on the gate pillar, somewhat obscured by the branches of a magnificent bougainvillea, is of subdued burnished brass. It reads: F. Raymond Rodriguez, Certified Public Accountant, Business Hours: Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Very few people know that the F. stood for Felix and that Rodriguez used to be Ramirez. But Lonsdale did.
He and Rodriguez, then known as Felix Ramirez, had spent six months working together in South America during the bad old days of the Tupamaro crisis in Uruguay. Then, out of the blue, Ramirez was recalled, leaving Lonsdale to fend for himself as best he could. He'd regretted the Cuban's departure. The two had made a good team.
It was likely that Rodriguez's house was under periodic photo surveillance by the FBI, but that did not concern Lonsdale. Nevertheless, he decided to proceed with caution.
He parked his car in front of the office complex on Ponce-de-Leon, at the corner of Sevilla, put on a wide-brimmed straw hat he had bought for the occasion, and walked east on Sevilla to Galiano. There he turned left for two blocs until he reached Valencia where he turned right then put his head down and quick-marched—almost ran—the couple of hundred feet that brought him to Rodriguez's garden gate.
He pressed the bell, and after being buzzed through, followed the arrows to the entrance at the side of the house. The CPA office was downstairs, where he was confronted by an attractive, determined-looking woman.
The sign on her desk said she was Sylvia Gonzalez.
“You have an appointment?” she inquired, sounding formal and noncommittal. “Mr. Rodriguez is very busy.”
“I'm afraid I don't.” Lonsdale was appropriately contrite. “But I'm sure that if you told him that Mr. Jackson from Langley Disposals is here to see him he'll fit me into his busy schedule somehow.” Anyone with a name starting with the letter j and claiming to be from Langley Disposals, the Agency's clean-up squad, was a senior CIA officer. The woman gave him a piercing look and picked up the phone.
Rodriguez appeared within seconds. He was wearing dark glasses. “Mr. Jackson please come this way.” He led Lonsdale into his inner sanctum and indicated a comfortable-looking couch. “Take a seat, and tell me how I can be of help.”
“Come off, it Felix. It's me, Bernard Lands,” Lonsdale said in Spanish. Ramirez's surprise was total. He began to grope around in an attempt at getting out of his chair and that's when Lonsdale realized that the man was blind. He wanted to bite his tongue in half.
It took him a few minutes to calm down Ramirez, who at first thought he was in the presence of a ghost. Then Ramirez asked Sylvia for a couple of Cafe Cubanos.
Lonsdale spun Ramirez the same yarn he had told Gal and quickly came to the point. “Felix, I need a paymaster for my operation. Will you handle it?”
“How much are we talking about? What's the budget?”
“Fifteen million.”
“Over what period of time?”
“About a month.”
&nbs
p; “I'll charge 1 percent of all disbursements.”
“You mean a hundred and fifty thousand bucks?”
“Yes, but that includes all bank charges and so forth.”
“Nice return on your time.”
“True, but who else would go near the shit you'll be throwing at me?”
“I guess you have a point there.”
“So tell me what you want done first.”
“No. First you tell me about your eyes.”
“Thanks for being discreet and not bringing up the subject right away.” Ramirez smiled sadly. “There's nothing much to tell. You might remember that the Shah of Iran went to Panama for a while after he was thrown out of power.”
“In the mid-seventies.”
Ramirez nodded. “Yes, around that time.” He sighed. “Anyway, he was holed up in this luxury hotel on an off-shore island with his Savak people guarding him. As you know, I was pulled out of the field in South America very hush-hush and sent to Panama by the Agency to advise the Shah.” He took a cigar from the humidor on his desk and offered one to Lonsdale who declined. “The poor bastard didn't need an advisor; he needed a doctor. He was dying of cancer.” He held out his cigar for a light.
Lonsdale obliged. “But what has all this to do with your eyes?” He lit Ramirez's cigar, “Oh that.” Ramirez dismissed the question with the wave of his hand. “I was inspecting the disposition of the Shah's guards around the hotel and one of them threw a phosphorous fare at me by mistake, which burnt my eyes out.” The story sounded unlikely, but Lonsdale got the message: Ramirez lost his eyesight during a politically very sensitive and secret mission for the Agency that was still classified.
“Is that when you changed your name?”
“No. About a year later when I married the nurse who put me back together again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Being blinded is a terrible trauma, especially for an active man like I used to be.” Puffng away at his cigar Ramirez said nothing for a while and Lonsdale knew better than to push. “Anyway,” his host finally got going again, “there's one damn good thing that came out of this. I settled down.” He chuckled. “Remember how I used to play the field?”
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