Leon Uris

by Topaz

  André’s face was drawn. “Yes,” he whispered, “I am ... and I’ve never told her and probably never will. What a shame. What a damned shame. Time has ... just about run out on us.”

  The harrowing day was over. All the hungry anticipation was done. Now, alone together as man and woman, there was neither wildness nor desperation. A beautiful calm descended over André and Juanita as they came together on the bed. They were at peace and grasped the rare instant of total contentment.

  Not a word passed between them nor was any needed....

  Their hands, their mouths, their bodies spoke in a way more wonderful than it had ever been.

  And when it reached its uncontrollable zenith, Juanita burst, at last, and trembled and cried for an hour and was unable to take her hands away from him until they loved again. He drifted into a euphoric dream with her fingers massaging away the tension in his back and neck.

  He awoke with a cool chill passing over his body and saw the sea breeze blowing the curtain into the room. He had been in her arms, against her breast ... all night ... in the same position they had fallen asleep.

  Juanita told him she loved him and she wept again and he asked why she was crying and she said it was from happiness.

  André knew now that it was the same way with her as it had been with him. Wasn’t it always that way? Hadn’t she hidden her feelings to protect herself from heartbreak?

  The sands of time had now run out. There was little left for them together. And, she need not keep her feelings from him any longer.

  21

  WHEN SHE HAD PASSED through Viriel a year earlier, Juanita de Córdoba related to the Mendoza brothers the tragic news.

  Carlos and Shuey Mendoza were to learn that their beloved father had been sent to Castro’s concentration camp on the Isle of Pines after being branded, without trial, as an enemy of the Revolution. He was shot dead on the old ruse, “la fuga,” the killing of a prisoner allegedly trying to escape. It was out-and-out murder and they all knew it, for one does not escape from the Isle of Pines.

  After that, it was not difficult for Juanita to enlist Carlos and Shuey into the espionage group.

  At one time the Mendoza family had had considerable interest in the shipping business of Viriel. Castro had confiscated their business.

  But Carlos and Shuey had been born and spent their lives there, and they knew the old harbor like their mother’s smile.

  A day after André Devereaux arrived in Havana and gave instructions to Juanita, she traveled to Viriel and visited the Mendoza brothers and gave them cameras, field glasses, and orders to keep the harbor under scrutiny day and night.

  On the third evening of their vigil four Russian ships ... Pinsk, Margrav, Georgia, and Vladivostok .... crept into the sagging harbor ahead of an onrushing storm. They were precisely the type of ship that the Mendozas had been told to look for. They had extremely wide beams, having originally been designed for the lumber trade.

  All roads to and from the port area were sealed from the town by Cuban Army regulars. No Cubans were allowed into the port compound.

  Russian troops debarked from the four ships in battalion strength and took up guard of the port area as well as all stevedore duty.

  At the Castro rallies one saw great portraits of the Russian and Cuban brothers clasping hands, embracing, side by side, fists upraised in play of white and Negro brotherhood. The marching brothers were grim in their determination. The embracing brothers smiled, comrades in this great new world of revolution.

  But in Viriel the Cubans were puzzled, for the Soviets belied the posters by being standoffish and removed. So many strange things had happened since the Revolution. The local committees told the people the arrival of the Russian troops meant something for the better.

  Yet the natives of Viriel remembered the brash Marines from Guantanamo and the American sailors when their little port was entered. They were different men. Wild and free, like the Cubans themselves. But one did not question these days.

  The Russian entry had frightening overtones. Cubans were barred from their own places in their own land. They were kept from the hotels and bars in Viriel, where the Russians were billeted. Not even the prostitutes were allowed. During the day the four ships sulked at anchor. Only at night did they discharge their cargoes, while others slept.

  But Carlos and Shuey Mendoza did not sleep. They crouched in the cliffs that surrounded Viriel. On the first night the storm hid the moon and bubbled the sea with increasing swells. During daylight they slept in shifts and used the long-range photographic equipment that Juanita de Córdoba had brought.

  On the second night of the watch, the sea calmed and it was moon-bright. Shuey Mendoza crept carefully from the hiding place and climbed down the jagged rocks to the sea. Alternating silent breast strokes and diving, he swam for a mile and ducked unseen under the pier pilings. He knew every cranny and hole. When the moon fell behind clouds, he slipped up onto the pier and hid in a lumber pile.

  Carlos waited until two hours before daybreak, then made a shorter swim to the wreckage of an old ship which had piled up on the rocks just a hundred yards from the harbor entrance.

  Each of them took a camera wrapped in plastic, and in short intervals shot film of the cargo which had been unloaded during the dark hours and now sat on the dock.

  They stayed thus for twenty-four hours and on the third night retraced their steps, swimming back to the cliffs.

  22

  THE NEXT DAY, AT THE ancient graveyard of Matanzas on the road between Viriel and Havana, Rosa Mateos, wife of the local druggist, bought a bunch of flowers from the old vendor outside the cemetery walls.

  She adjusted her shawl and entered. The wet ground and leaves sagged under her step. She looked about. The graveyard was empty.

  Rosa Mateos walked to the third row of tombstones in the new section near the mango grove and counted to herself as she passed the tombs. Ten ... eleven ... twelve ... thirteen ... fourteen. She stopped and knelt, placing the flowers at the base of the stone.

  HERE LIES IGNACIO GÓMEZ, DIED ... 1947

  MOURNED BY HIS WIFE AND SONS

  GOD KEEP HIS SOUL

  Rosa patted the earth around the stone until her hand felt a crack in it near the ground. She pulled a loose fragment away and her fingers searched deftly, then found what she was looking for. She withdrew a plastic bag containing the film of the Mendoza brothers.

  She slipped the packet inside her shawl quickly, replaced the piece of stone, prayed, made the sign of the cross and left the cemetery.

  That evening her husband, Humberto Mateos, the druggist of Matanzas, left for his weekly trip to Havana to requisition the drugs he needed to fill several prescriptions. It had been thus with the bureaucracy since Castro nationalized the druggists.

  He personally delivered his requisitions to Amelia Valencia, a senior pharmacist at National Pharmacy No. 15 in Havana, along with the film.

  During the afternoon break, Amelia Valencia visited the old market of Havana, as she often shopped during her time off. Her first stop was a futile attempt to buy some decent sandals at the sandal-maker, whose product had become atrocious since the Revolution.

  The second stop was at the chicken stall of the butcher, Jesús Morelos. She passed the film to him.

  Jesús Morelos put the packet into a chicken, sewed it up and set it aside.

  Later in the afternoon, Maggie, Juanita de Córdoba’s Negro cook of twenty years, also visited the stall of Jesús Morelos. The chicken and its messages then found its way to Juanita de Córdoba.

  23

  THESE WERE TO BE THE longest, most harrowing days of André’s life. For the intelligence chief there is no relief from the pressure. There are no fistfights, no gunplay, no swinging from balconies, no rescuing of maidens, no acrobatics, no karate chops, no miracle electronic gimmicks.

  The pressure dictated silent courage and the brain-sapping work of outthinking and outmaneuvering a skilled and dangerous opponent.


  As the moving force behind the mission, André had no choice but to wait in agonizing silence while his agents carried out his instructions. They were nonprofessionals for the most part ... decent patriots ready to die at his command ... and this responsibility weighted him down. André was able to hide the erosion of his innards, and publicly mask his tension.

  Only his woman, Juanita de Córdoba, knew the truth when that ashen color came to his cheeks and his overworked brain betrayed itself behind a curtain of bloodshot eyes.

  Fragments of information found their way back to Juanita and were passed to André. In the sanctity of the French Embassy he pieced the puzzle together, evaluated the scraps of hard-won intelligence, and formulated new plans.

  The mission was moving along well enough, but a break was needed. Nothing of a conclusive or proof nature yet had been found.

  It was a strange game. The cat and the mouse remained friendly to each other in public. As a ranking French diplomat, André was greeted by warm handshakes of the Cubans and even the Russians. He attended long lunches and conferences on diplomatic and trade affairs and carried out the detail of routine government business with his adversaries.

  Even though G-2 and the Soviet Resident, Gorgoni, suspected Deveraux was operating an espionage ring under their noses, they were simply unable to pin him down. But as the operation probed deeper, the chances for error and detection became greater and the pressure intensified.

  André was able to establish that no phone taps or listening devices had been planted in Juanita’s villa. He reckoned that G-2 was putting on a front to lull them into complacency. More likely, G-2 realized that André would soon discover the taps and use them to feed back confusing information. With the villa free of eavesdropping, it gave André and Juanita a welcome measure of freedom to speak to each other.

  On the day of the French Embassy reception for the new Chinese First Secretary, three messages arrived sewn in a chicken from Morelos, the poultry merchant.

  They were in a simple code and written on a special type of cigarette paper which Juanita had passed out months before. As he dressed for the reception, André placed tobacco on the papers and rolled them into cigarettes and put them into a half-empty Camel cigarette package.

  Juanita studied him as they dressed. He was out of it again. His mind was on the frightful treadmill, thinking, thinking, thinking. She was disturbed by the obvious strain. The haggard expression ... the sudden loss of strength that she alone saw in the bedroom.

  She helped him with his cuff links, her graceful fingers threading his shirt together, and he thought and spoke out loud. “We’ve got to move someone in close to the Finca San José. No damned way to get a camera there.”

  “Hold still, dear.”

  “Rico Parra has been invited to the reception tonight. It’s our first face-to-face meeting since La Torre. He may want to talk. If he makes any overtures, give him rope. Try to be friendly. Sometimes he acts compulsively. Remember every word he says.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  André swept the excess tobacco off the dressing table into his hand and shook it off into the waste-basket. He put the message-bearing cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. Juanita smoothed his tie down, patted his cheek and told him he looked handsome.

  As predicted and noted by the Cuban press, the new Chinese First Secretary was clever and filled with Oriental charm. The steady hum of Spanish, French, and English warmed the large living room of the Embassy. With Havana so drab these days it was an event when the French threw a party. Blanche Adam entertained with style. The Chinese were delighted.

  Shortly after his entry with Juanita, André was cornered by Alain Adam and during their conversation Alain asked for a cigarette. André took the pack of Camels from his shirt pocket. Alain noted Camels were difficult to come by these days and André insisted he keep the pack. A few moments later, the Ambassador was called to the telephone. He excused himself, went to his office, locked the door behind him and quickly put the cigarette pack into the safe. The dials were twisted to secure the safe, followed by an enormous heaving sigh of relief.

  Alain Adam had great affection for Devereaux but sometimes deplored his visits to Cuba. The intelligence game made him nervous. The Ambassador reentered the living room mopping his brow and nodding to André, who was deep in discussion with the head of the Soviet Cultural mission.

  This night, Rico Parra seemed subdued by the elegant atmosphere. He admirably contained his desire to speak to Juanita de Córdoba, selecting a discreet moment when they could step out to the balcony out of earshot of the others.

  Juanita noted his contemplative attitude. She was aware that Rico Parra was no fool. Much of his bluster was for public consumption and to instill fear into his flunkies. Behind that straggly façade was a man of enormous ability and native intuition.

  “When a man such as I, Rico, comes into power,” he said with uncommon softness, “he is apt to believe he can demand anything or get anyone. That is why you perplex me so, Juanita.”

  “You are being charmingly candid tonight,” she fenced.

  “You see, Little Dove. I have always observed aristocracy in a certain way. When I was a boy toiling in the canebrakes I vividly remember the haughty daughters of the Finca owner galloping by on their Arabian horses. Like a good, humble peasant I would take the hat off my head and bow as they passed. But they inflicted a pain, here ... in my heart ... which I will never get over. When you are a monkey in a zoo behind bars and are suddenly freed, you wish to hold in your hands everything that was denied you.”

  He reached for a cigar, then thought better of it.

  “Do you know what I really want from Juanita de Córdoba? Aside from your beauty as a woman ... aside from all the respectability?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I want your power. De Córdoba and Parra. That is power ... yes ... I know I disgust you. I’m an animal. I disgust most women.”

  “You’re not in keeping with yourself tonight, Rico. What did you bring me out here to say?”

  The Cuban managed a rare smile. “See the Little Dove! She looks right through me. I cannot win you as a man. But maybe I could convince you by a more subtle means that a friendship between us would not be so undesirable.”

  “Go on.”

  Rico Parra paced the balcony. All of the cunning and danger of the man was obvious to her. The things which had made him a brilliant and brutal guerrilla commander could not be underestimated. He selected his words with meticulous care.

  “Castro,” he said, “has chosen me to keep an eye on certain foreign diplomats who come in and out of the country frequently.” He stopped and looked directly into her eyes. “Castro has also given me a great deal of latitude and authority to act in any manner in any given situation.”

  Juanita kept her composure. Rico Parra was impressed by her show of skill. It was a skill he wanted to have, to work for him. “I should say that Fidel has entrusted you with enormous responsibility.”

  “I knew you would understand,” Rico Parra said.

  André unzipped Juanita’s dress and held her from behind at arms length and studied her back. She had a most beautiful back. Most women were either bony or angular or fleshy or marred. Juanita was perfect.

  “Rico was in a rare behavior,” she said.

  “I’m queer for your back.”

  “We had our talk. He was subdued for a change.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Nothing new, André darling. Parra’s same old nonsense in a different presentation. I think he’s a complete fool.”

  André dropped his hands from her and pondered. “Parra’s no fool. Mistakes ... yes. But no fool. I was getting a feeling that he had taken over some of the G-2 authority. I smelled his nose in our business.”

  “I couldn’t sense anything like that,” she said. Juanita went to him for the automatic response of his embrace. “Tonight,” she said, “I want to make love to you.”

  “You always do,
darling. You’re unselfish ... too unselfish.”

  “No ... I mean ... tonight I’m going to make love to you all night ... and watch you while I’m doing it. I want to see your happiness....”

  24

  THE VALLEY NEAR PINAR del Río brimmed with lush tropical foliage. This natural hothouse was a world wonder, a valley of rare fertility that gave the Cuban tobacco its unique and renowned quality.

  A battered old Dodge, groaning from neglect, turned off the main road of the valley toward the Finca San José.

  “WARNING!” a large sign read, “GOVERNMENT PROPERTY! GO NO FARTHER!”

  The Dodge and its driver, Vicente Martínez, rattled and banged past the forbidding warning for almost two miles until the cane fields swallowed him up.

  His eyes were glued to deep ruts and tire marks on the dirt road. He calculated their width and depth. This was what he had been told to look for. Monsters on wheels had passed on this ground.

  Suddenly the main gate of the Finca San José loomed ahead. It had changed.

  “Halt!”

  Four angry Russian soldiers dashed from the guard shack, all yelling at him at the same time.

  “What in the hell is this!” Vicente Martínez demanded, shoving the door open, getting out of the car and fanning himself with his wide-brimmed hat.

  The Russians continued to jabber heatedly in a language he could not fathom. Vicente argued back just as heatedly in a language they could not fathom.

  The old Dodge boiled over, too.

  At last a Cuban officer was sent for. He arrived on the scene growling. “Who are you! What the hell are you doing here!”

  “Me! What am I doing here? What are you doing here? I am Gonzoles. I come here every month since I was a child to see my grandfather.”

  “Well, your grandfather is no longer here.”

  “He has been here all his life, señor officer. Why should he leave?”

  “He has been relocated.”