Without Honor - 01

by David Hagberg

  McGarvey was barely able to keep from making a sarcastic remark about trust coming from the lips of such a blatantly untrustworthy opportunist.

  At first the remote training camp up in the Guatemalan mountains was nothing more than a collection of shacks at which a handful of Cuban radio operators were being trained. But throughout that year, and all through 1960, people kept streaming in. Eventually more than fourteen hundred recruits were in combat and infiltration training, and a big airstrip was carved out of the hillside. Basulto spent most of his time briefing the combat troops on the terrain and the waters around the Bahía de Cochinos (the Bay of Pigs) southeast of Havana. In the old days he had run a number of operations in the region for Harris, so he knew the bay fairly well.

  “The best place on the entire base was the pilots’ quarters,” Basulto said. “Very nice, I’m telling you, at least by comparison to how the others lived. They used to call it the Hilton. They had their own showers, their own mess.”

  “Harris was there the entire time?”

  “No. He would come and go. Sometimes he’d stay for a few days, but never any longer than that, until the very end.”

  “He was running the recruiting station in Miami at the time,” Trotter said. “They had quite a setup. Doctors, nurses, the whole nine yards. It was an open secret.”

  “It was a big joke,” Basulto said. “We used to laugh about it.”

  “Who was your boss when Harris wasn’t around?” McGarvey asked.

  “Pepe San Roman was the top man, but Erneido Oliva was the deputy commander. If there were any problems, he was the one we went to first.”

  “But there were other Americans there, CIA people?”

  “Coming and going all the time, especially after the runway was finished,” Basulto said.

  He stayed at the camp for a very long time, and every few months Basulto would get so frustrated with the isolation he would slip down to Guatemala City to raise a little serious hell. Sometimes he’d go alone, sometimes he’d take a few friends from the Hilton along for the ride. They’d start at one end of the town and work their way to the other, through all the bars and whorehouses, going strong twenty-four hours a day until they couldn’t take any more. Sated, they’d head back to the base where they would get back to work.

  “No one ever missed us, they were so disorganized,” he said.

  “Did you ever run into anyone in Guatemala City during your forays?” McGarvey asked.

  “Sir?”

  “Baranov or his crowd, or perhaps the American you’d seen him with in Mexico City.”

  Basulto shook his head.

  After a short pause, McGarvey took another sip of his drink. “Then came the invasion.”

  “It got really crazy around there in the last couple of months. No one was allowed off base. They started to watch us pretty closely.”

  “What was your job to be? You were expected to go with them, back to Cuba, weren’t you?”

  “You bet, even though I didn’t want to go back. I knew damned well it was going to fail. But Roger was there. He was coming along.”

  Green Beach was east, Red Beach was back up into the bay at Playa Larga, and Blue Beach was just east of the town of Girón. Basulto came ashore at Blue Beach, along with Roger Harris and a heavy contingent of Cuban exile troops who had been trained in Helvetia. The fighting had already begun.

  “It was a mess, let me tell you,” Basulto said, lighting another thin cigar. His hand shook. “There was a lot of shooting, parachutes were coming down, aircraft buzzing all over the place. We heard later that at least two of our ships had been sunk … one right off our own beach and the other up the bay somewhere. One of our planes went down too, up by Jagüey Grande. We didn’t know any of that at the time, of course. We were too damned busy trying not to be killed.”

  Basulto paused for a long moment. He turned and looked at the fire. His skin seemed to be stretched taut around his mouth and across his cheeks. Day had his legs crossed, his coffee cup balanced on one knee. Trotter sat forward. He was staring at Basulto.

  “It was very strange, Mr. McGarvey, let me tell you,” the Cuban picked it up without turning back. “All hell was breaking loose. A lot of our paratroopers were going down north of Girón, but there was nothing but swamps up there. Christ, if I told them once, I told them a thousand times, they would have to watch the wind. They’d have to pinpoint their landing. Someone was supposed to have gone out to the airstrip to lay out the signals, but they never showed up. Roger was mad as hell, but he kept saying he had a job to do, and we’d do our part.”

  They were called the brigade, and Basulto said their first operational headquarters were set up within the tiny town of Girón, several hundred yards inland from the resort cottages near the beaches. In town, but closer to the beach, a medical station was set up for the wounded, and directly across the street was the radio post.

  “They were intercepting a lot of our traffic, but there wasn’t a goddamned thing we could do about it. There wasn’t a lot of time for coding and decoding. It was all happening so fast.” Basulto turned back, a strange, haunted look in his eyes. “And then I saw him.” He shook his head in wonder. “I turned around and there he was by the door of the radio shack. He was talking with Roger, just like they were long-lost friends. I mean, he was wearing battle fatigues, just like the rest of us, with a Thompson slung over his shoulder. He said he had just come down from the rotunda up on Red Beach. There was a lot of fighting going on. They were going to need some help.”

  “Just a minute,” McGarvey said. “Who are you talking about here?”

  “The American … the one from Mexico City who was pals with Baranov. Who the hell did you think I was talking about? What the hell do you think I’ve been talking about all fucking morning?”

  “Easy now,” Trotter cautioned.

  “Harris knew him?” McGarvey asked.

  “Presumably,” Trotter replied.

  “Did he know it was the one from Mexico City?”

  “No, goddamnit,” Basulto shouted. Then he shrugged. “At least I don’t think so. He didn’t act as if he knew it was the same one. But I was goddamned scared. Here he was, the double agent. It was real.”

  “You’re sure it was the same one?”

  “Damned sure, Mr. McGarvey. It’s a face I’d never forget.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that until six months ago.”

  “Havana?” McGarvey asked, holding himself in check. It was coming now. The part they had brought him here to listen to was coming.

  “Miami,” Basulto said, looking at his hands.

  “Wait up,” Day interjected. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves again.”

  “He killed Roger,” Basulto said defiantly. “And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Roger just took off with the bastard before I could say jack shit. Bam! He was gone.”

  “What happened then?” McGarvey asked carefully. “Did you follow them?”

  “You’re goddamned right I followed them, but it was too late,” Basulto said, and in this it seemed as if he were appealing for their belief and support. “It was less than five minutes from the time Roger left with him until I found a jeep and took off. But it was too late.”

  Roger Harris was shot to death. At close range, two soft-nosed bullets into his face. Basulto found his body lying beside the jeep about ten miles north of Girón alongside the beach road.

  “There was a lot of traffic all up and down the road. Aircraft overhead. It was a zoo, but no one stopped. No one gave a damn.”

  “You’re sure it was Harris?” McGarvey asked. “You said his face was shot away. Could you be sure?”

  Basulto threw up his hands. “What kind of a question is that? I knew it was Roger. I just knew it!”

  “No sign of the other one?”

  Basulto shook his head. “I was really scared then, you know. I figured if Roger could be taken in by the bastard, I wouldn�
��t have a chance. There was no one I could trust. I mean, who was I supposed to take my story to? The so-called invasion was falling on its ass. And I’d be a sitting duck.”

  “So he ran,” Trotter said.

  “So, I got smart.”

  “Where? Where did you run?”

  “Up to Santa Clara that night,” Basulto said. “I took the jeep, stole some ID off a dead government soldier, and drove up there.”

  “In the American jeep?”

  “They all had Cuban markings. Besides, I ditched it a few miles outside of town. I just got out of there on a bus down to Holguín, and from there to Santiago de Cuba.”

  “I thought you were dead meat in Cuba.”

  “I was dead meat anywhere,” Basulto replied. “At least it was home. I knew my way around. I still had a lot of friends. Not everyone was in love with Uncle Fidel. Not then, not now.”

  McGarvey shook his head. There were holes a mile wide in his story. There was a hell of a lot more to it than Basulto was telling.

  “I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not, see!” the Cuban cried, clenching his fists. He was shaking. “The bastard killed Roger … the only good man I ever knew. And it was his own people who did it. I didn’t know what to do except keep my ass down. I couldn’t play their games any longer.” Basulto pulled up short.

  There was a longish silence then, in which Trotter and Day seemed literally to be holding their breath. Another car passed on the road, and from out in the hall a clock chimed the hour. It was one o’clock in the afternoon already.

  “That was twenty-five years ago,” McGarvey said, appealing directly to Trotter.

  “Within a year he had a marijuana operation going, from what he tells us. They ran the stuff up into the Florida keys. By the time the Cuban authorities got around to him—remember, they had their hands full at the time—they decided he was doing them a service and left him alone.”

  It was too loose. There were too many unanswered questions. A man who had worked for the CIA, and who had participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, suddenly makes a success of himself in the drug business in Castro’s Cuba?

  “He was arrested about seven months ago in Miami by a DEA team and was jailed pending trial,” Trotter said. “That’s when he began making noises.”

  “Darby Yarnell,” Basulto blurted. “In jail, I saw him on the television. It nearly knocked me over.”

  McGarvey sat forward very fast. “What about him?” Yarnell was a power in Washington politics. Even from afar, McGarvey had heard the name.

  “He was the one working with Baranov in Mexico City. He killed Roger Harris. He’s a goddamned Russian agent.”

  8

  Basulto was scheduled to leave with Day for the airport, but once there they’d separate, two of Trotter’s babysitters picking up the burden of getting the Cuban back to Miami.

  “We’re keeping him on ice there. Less conspicuous,” Trotter said. “The question is, will you be able to help us?”

  “With what?” McGarvey snapped. He glanced at Basulto. “He’s just trying to save his own ass with this story. You can’t actually want me to run off half-cocked chasing goblins … twenty-five year old goblins.”

  A sudden intensity came to Trotter. “Kirk, we did the preliminary checks. Darby Yarnell worked for the CIA in the late fifties and early sixties. He was stationed in Mexico City at our embassy. He was involved in the Bay of Pigs business.”

  “Then send the Company after him. It’s in their bailiwick.”

  Day and Trotter exchanged glances.

  “Yarnell and Powers are … friends. They worked together in the old days. They still see each other occasionally, on a social level.”

  “What the hell are you trying to tell me, John? Yarnell worked for this Russian. Are you saying Powers is a double as well?”

  “Good God, no,” Trotter blurted, rearing back as if what McGarvey had just said was blasphemy.

  Basulto laughed out loud and rubbed his hands together. Day paled.

  “If there is anyone in this mess who’s clean, it is Donald Powers,” Trotter went on. “And we want to keep it that way. The scandal … if it got out, would wreck the agency. Simply wreck it!”

  “Powers has fought the Russians for his entire career, from what I understand,” Day interjected. “He’s hurt them too badly, too many times, for him to be suspect in this.”

  “Of that I can personally vouch,” Trotter said. “I worked with him. We all know his reputation.”

  “Kim Philby had a wonderful reputation with the British, too.”

  “Come now, McGarvey, you can’t possibly compare the two,” Day said.

  “No,” McGarvey said, sitting back. “But what do we know about Yarnell?”

  “That’s just it, Kirk,” Trotter said earnestly. “Superficially Yarnell’s past is an open book. But on closer examination, the man is something of a mystery. One moment he is working as trade adviser out of the Mexican embassy, and the next he’s in Helvetia training a contingent of the Cuban invasion force. In between, we suspect, he made a number of trips to Washington. For what? To see whom? There are no easy answers.”

  “If you can’t unravel his past, how the hell do you expect me to do it?”

  “We can’t get too close to him,” Trotter said. “Not without him finding out. He has his finger in nearly every Washington pot.”

  “Including the bureau, John?”

  Trotter nodded. “Including the bureau. And the agency. If word got back to Powers that we were investigating his friend, he would naturally get involved himself.”

  “There cannot be a hint of scandal, I won’t allow it,” Day said.

  “Which is why I went to see Leonard,” Trotter said, nodding toward Day. “Personally.”

  McGarvey nodded toward the Cuban. “How about this one? How reliable is his story? How reliable is he?”

  “Not at all,” Trotter said. “But his life is on the line. All we have to do is throw him back on the streets and he’s a dead man.”

  “I’m not shitting you here,” Basulto cried. “I’ve got my own life to consider. It’s a trade I’m offering you, see.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” McGarvey snapped. “Trade for what?”

  “He wants a new identity, a new track, new town, a job …” Trotter said.

  “In trade for what?” McGarvey asked incredulously.

  “Yarnell’s head on a platter …”

  “Hold on. All we have here is an accusation. Nothing more.” McGarvey wasn’t buying this at all. He looked at his watch. It was time to be getting back. Perhaps he’d take Marta out for dinner tonight. To make up for last night.

  “We think there is sufficient evidence to proceed with an investigation,” Trotter said softly.

  “I’m convinced,” Day added.

  “On the strength of this …”

  “Directly after the Bay of Pigs business, Yarnell was assigned to the embassy in Moscow.”

  “So what?”

  “His product was said to be fantastic. Never been beat.”

  McGarvey held a sharp reply in check.

  “Baranov, the Russian he was seen with in Mexico City, was reassigned back to the centre in Moscow at exactly the same time.”

  “Circumstantial.”

  “In the early seventies, when Yarnell was assistant DDO at Langley, the Company went into its slump. The lean years, remember? Then in 1978 Yarnell was elected senator from New York. That was your era, Kirk. Who do you suppose pulled the plug on Chile?”

  “It was within the Company.”

  “Directed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence …”

  “Of which Senator Darby Yarnell was a member,” Day put in.

  “It all fits, Kirk,” Trotter said. “Circumstantial perhaps, but just because someone the likes of Basulto makes the accusation, if it turns out to be true it doesn’t matter.”

  McGarvey turned back to the Cuban. “Why didn’t you keep your
mouth shut in Miami and take your fall like a good boy? The worst that could have happened was deportation to Cuba. You would have been back in business within a week or two.”

  “I was getting tired of it.”

  “Of making money?”

  “He saw a better opportunity,” Trotter said. “A chance for a new start in the States. Even with money, Cuba is no place to live.”

  “Sooner or later the big connections will get you. Make a little mistake and it’s all over,” Basulto said.

  “He was losing his nerve,” Trotter said.

  It wasn’t fitting, goddamnit. None of the pieces were in any kind of logical order. Too many holes. When this went sour—and McGarvey was certain it would—someone would be left holding the bag, and it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Day had gotten to his feet, and he motioned for Basulto to get up. “We’re leaving now, Mr. McGarvey. I sincerely hope you’re with us.”

  “To do what?” McGarvey said, looking up.

  “John will explain our thinking to you. Something will be set up for you in D.C., and this one here will be on call in Miami. Anytime you want him he’s yours for the duration.”

  “Get the bastard,” Basulto said with much feeling.

  “Why, because he killed your case officer?”

  Basulto grinned, his teeth perfectly white and straight. “Maybe you and I will become partners. We will become famous.”

  “Get that sonofabitch out of here,” McGarvey growled.

  . The grin faded from the Cuban’s face. “Goddamnit, you think I’m fooling around here, just trying to make a buck …”

  “Yes, well …” Day said.

  McGarvey got to his feet, and he and Day shook hands.

  “As I said, I hope you are with us, Mr. McGarvey. I sincerely hope so,” Day said. He and Trotter nodded to each other, and then he left with Basulto.

  “Another cognac?” Trotter asked.

  McGarvey shook his head. “I should be getting back.” He listened and moments later heard the garage door swing open below; the van started up and left.

  “As soon as they return, we’ll get you back to Lausanne. Shouldn’t be more than an hour,” Trotter said.

  McGarvey didn’t reply. He walked over to the window and looked down into the steep valley across the road. Switzerland was coming to an end for him. He knew it. He had known it for some time now. All the signs had been there for months: his interrupted sleep, his boredom, his sudden fits of anger, his drinking. This time he had hoped it wouldn’t happen. Coming to Switzerland five years ago, he had sincerely hoped he’d be able to settle down.