Jose was waiting at the curb, just as they had planned. Except that General Rincon sat in the back seat. Carlos did not see him until he’d already opened the front passenger door. Rincon and Jose were making a show of talking very loudly and joking with each other. “We’re having lunch together,” Rincon said, loudly, when Carlos greeted him. “The occasion is my thirty-fifth year of service. I am taking you out for lunch, Ministro.”
When they were out of sight of the residence, the joking immediately ceased. “It went as planned?” Rincon asked.
Carlos turned around so he could look at the general’s face. “Almost as planned. He made me apply it to myself first.”
“On you? You put it on you?”
“I had no choice. I wiped it off as soon as I was out of his office.”
“Are you feeling anything?”
“A small dizziness. Nothing serious.”
“And on him, how long will it take now?”
“In half an hour he will begin to feel nauseous. If the dose was sufficient, fifteen minutes later he will be dead.”
“And nothing anyone can do?”
“Not now. Nothing. Unless he wiped it off, too, when I left him.”
“Fine,” Rincon said, and there was something in his face Carlos did not want to look at. He turned around, facing forward, and heard: “To the Dentist’s, Jose. We have one piece of business to conclude there before our celebratory lunch.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Even in the meager shade of the pier, Carolina could feel the power of the tropical sun. She had been sitting there for at least two hours, possibly more. She’d pressed the transmitter button six times, but now, from the fading glow of the small red light, she could see that the battery was nearly exhausted. She was terribly thirsty, her feet felt like nothing more than shards of whipped flesh stuck to throbbing bone, and her eyes burned from continually looking out at the horizon. The ocean seemed to be on fire, lit up with dancing flames. Even the palm fronds were like knives of light.
At last—it must have been past noon—she saw, or thought she saw, a dark spot on the horizon. Not on the horizon, exactly, but well out in the bay. The boat, if it was a boat, had not come from the open ocean, but seemed to have circled around the promontory of land to her left, west. So this would be a local operation, then, more Cubans risking their lives for her. She wondered if Jose Ulises himself would be piloting the craft, and if he would head it straight out to sea, north through the porous defenses of the Cuban navy, toward Florida, toward safety. Or maybe they had some other place of refuge closer by. Moved by an old reflex, she checked the huge pocket at her hip for the cyanide, then stood and walked to the end of the pier. The craft approached at a fast clip. It seemed like a small yacht, well appointed. But it was moving too quickly for any ordinary yacht. She decided it had been outfitted with about four times the horsepower required of a pleasure craft that size. Enough speed to outrun the Cuban destroyers and make it safely to Key West.
The boat was coming straight at her. She stood in her peasant’s dress in the broiling sun, her face scratched, her feet swollen, her belly all but empty. She tried to maintain her concentration, but it was undercut by the exhaustion, the hunger and thirst, and the night of fear. Somehow, even the garish tent of a dress and tattered leaf-sandals conspired to put her off balance.
The boat churned steadily toward the dock and then stopped short, sending a wake splashing through the pilings and onto the beach. A skiff was dispatched, piloted by a muscular brown-skinned man in a straw hat. The man was a master. He sped to the dock, turned the bow, and cut the engine at the last instant, so that the gunwale swelled up to the pilings, barely bumping against the wooden ladder.
The man gestured for her to climb in, but did not speak. Once she was seated, he opened the throttle and they were back beside the yacht in seconds. The rope ladder pressed into the torn soles of her feet as she climbed. She saw that, with the help of a small crane on the back of the ship, they were lifting the skiff back into place. She climbed over the top, into the luxury of the boat, and everything seemed fine at first. Someone—a servant—was moving toward her with a tray on which a bottle of water rested like a gift from the hand of God. But then, as she was reaching for it, as the yacht turned and sped back close to shore, down from the bridge came a man in uniform. The man was in his late sixties, she guessed, and she thought he was handsome until he smiled at her, showing teeth that bent outward away from his lips. Something in the smile was all wrong. Something in the man’s posture. He walked up to her calmly and she thought for a moment that he might reach out his hand to greet her, but when he was close enough, he hit her across the right cheekbone with a ferocious backhand.
The force of the blow knocked her hard to the floor, and there she spit out a piece of bloody, broken tooth. She could see only the man’s boots, and she thought he was about to kick her in the face, but he spoke a word, one very foul word. The man spun on his heel and went back up the stairs, and she felt herself being handcuffed from behind, and then shoved over against the hard ribs of the boat’s gunwales. The craft bounced and tilted, each slap of the waves a jolt of agony through the bones of her face and skull.
The ride was endless, the sun smashing down on her, the men ignoring her, the bumps blinding her with pain. She lost consciousness. When she came to, nothing had changed, but there was blood on the deck in front of her face, and an almost paralyzing fear running through her. Over the years, she had imagined many times what it would feel like to be tortured. She had worked with someone in Uzbekistan once, posing as a tourist then, too, but carrying something out, not in. She remembered the mosques with their sky blue domes, the dry mountains rising up beyond the Soviet-style housing, the bustling markets with women in bright kerchiefs selling watermelons and apricots—another potential paradise made into hell by a mad dictator. She’d gone in and out safely, bringing back a few documents to her boss at the time, but she’d heard that moments after she boarded the plane for Moscow, her contact had been arrested. Later he was tortured and killed. That was as close as she’d ever come. Until now.
The pain in her face was terrible, sharp at first but then a deep throbbing ache that burned the bones of her jaw and scalp and radiated up through the broken tooth. She could feel her face swelling. She could feel that the boat had left the rough water and was moving closer to shore again, perhaps into port. In a moment, the man with the awful teeth came down the steps in his tall black boots and colonel’s stars, and pushed the tip of one of boot against her breasts, then into her crotch. He was wearing a side holster with a pistol in it. He held the boot there and wiggled it around, and the harder she tried to squirm away from him, the more force he used, pinning her against the side of the boat. He laughed his horrid laugh, then turned away and she could hear him giving orders in a tone of absolute, unquestioned command.
She had the dose of cyanide in the pocket of the huge dress, but even if she could have reached it she would not have taken it, not quite yet. Through the fog of pain and terror she had the thought that, somewhere, Volkes must know what had happened. The Orchid prided itself on never leaving one of its own to be devoured by the wolves. If there was any possible way to do it, they would get her out. The trick—for them, for her—was not to wait too long.
After another two minutes the engine noise changed again. The boat came slowly to a stop. She was lifted to her feet, blood dripping from one side of her mouth and down onto the front of the dress. Havana. She saw the crumbling façades of the Malecón. Off to her right, the famous Morro Castle stood like the battered hopes of all of Cuba’s glorious pasts. There were a few large freighters tied up to their left. One of the men took hold of her elbows and maneuvered her forward on unsteady legs, down a sort of gangplank. The makeshift sandals slipped this way and that but remained on her ruined feet. Through a fiery cloud of pain, the world seemed to swivel and tilt. They were moving toward a car. Someone opened the back door and she was thrown rough
ly, facedown, onto the floor of the back seat. She heard the door slam behind her, then the passenger and driver’s doors open and close, and then she heard the voice of the man who had struck her. He was sitting in the passenger seat. She tried to raise herself up far enough so that she could see him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Put your light on the roof,” Rincon told Jose in his general’s voice. “Engage the siren.” They went through the streets of the capital beneath a blinking blanket of shrill noise. The city Carlos loved passed beyond the windows like a dream: the arched facades and columns of the buildings along Paseo del Prado, the Museum of the Revolution, the university. He shifted his eyes to Jose, but his friend was busy turning the radio dial to improve the reception, and would not look at him. There was nothing on the news, nothing at all. It was early yet: Thirteen minutes had passed since he’d walked out of Fidel’s quarters.
“Feel anything?” General Rincon asked as they were shrieking past the university.
Carlos shook his head without turning around. His body felt fine, almost normal, but he did not like the atmosphere in the car. The lack of sleep, the massive worry of the last few days, the thing he had just done—it was all working on him, twisting his thoughts into knots of wet rope. He did not like the fact that the cream had seemed to have no effect on him. None; zero. It had been several minutes before he’d been able to wipe it off; if the drug was as potent, as lethal, as he’d been told, then even the small dose should have caused him to feel something. Perhaps it would strike him all at once, and instead of killing him, the diluted dose would mean only a minor heart attack, or a stroke, or chronic digestive problems. He’d spend the rest of his life in a home for the ancianos, or he’d die in the prison here. Or perhaps the cream had been fake, and the so-called conspiracy had been fake, an elaborate ruse dreamt up by the prince of paranoia to see which of his ministers he could trust. Who was the betrayer? Olochon? Rincon? Gutierrez?
Jose screeched up in front of the Montefiore Prison and turned off the car. He and Rincon leapt out as if acting roles in a well-rehearsed play. Carlos climbed out more slowly and walked around to the sidewalk, where they seemed to be waiting for him. “Walk in front of us, my friend,” Rincon said, and Carlos knew then, from the tone of voice, from the sad-sounding “mi amigo,” from the fact that Jose absolutely could not make eye contact with him—he knew from all these things, and from the quality of the silence among them during the short ride, that Elena had been right. Rincon and the others had used him for their own ends. They were going to sacrifice him now like any beast of the farm. For one instant he thought of running—he even looked briefly down the sidewalk to his left. But there would be no running now. He would face what he would have to face with as much dignity as he could manage. At least, if they tortured him, there would be no names for him to give up, no one to betray . . . unless they forced him to denounce the completely innocent. Elena, Véronique, Julio.
They marched him up the walk, a prisoner who did not need to be handcuffed. The stone-faced guards at the entrance—D-7, both of them—saluted the second in command of the Armed Forces as if it were graduation day at the College of the Defense of the Motherland. Carlos felt Rincon’s fingers against his spine, a light steady pressure: where friends were concerned, you needed only fingertips, not the barrel of a gun. Jose held the door for him, eyes averted. They stepped out of the sunlight, into the disinfectant and piss smell of the stone lobby. More salutes, this time from the interior guards, the country boys, semi-innocent.
Rincon and Jose marched him down the corridor and up three flights of stairs, the screams and stink, the torment and death, echoing from every damp wall.
They proceeded at a brisk pace down the corridor toward Olochon’s office, but before they reached it, Rincon used the pressure against Carlos’s back to turn him left into the room where Ernesto had been killed.
The room had been cleaned, but it did not matter: Stepping into it, hearing the metal door close behind him, Carlos saw it as it had been on that day, the tortured man hanging there, the blood and tissue, the horror of Olochon’s calm smile. He saw what he had done in a new light now. Elena was right again: You did not kill in the name of justice. There was the same scarred table with a chair behind it, the place where the interrogator sat when he needed a respite from his duties. Rincon moved him there, said, “Sit, please.”
Carlos sat. He looked first at Jose, then at the general. “I did as you asked me,” he managed to say from between lips as dry as sand.
Rincon nodded curtly. “Sit there,” he said. “Keep your hands behind you as if they are handcuffed. For what it’s worth, if we don’t see you again, I’m sorry we had to do it this way. You are a man of courage.” He saluted, his highest compliment, spun around, and banged through the door as if there were men all across the nation waiting for his word of command. Jose hesitated two seconds, then removed the pistol from the holster beneath his arm. Carlos understood that he was to be shot there, by his former driver and onetime close friend. His innards went loose and a sweat as cold as ice broke out on his face.
Jose turned the pistol around and handed it to him, butt first.
Carlos refused to accept it. “That’s it, then?” he said. “All these years of friendship and what they amount to is that you’ll allow me the privilege of killing myself, rather than doing it yourself or waiting for Olochon to do it?”
The flicker of an uneasy smile crossed Jose’s face. “It’s not that, Boss. Every chamber is loaded this time. When the Dentist comes in, wait as long as you can and shoot him at the closest range you can manage.”
Carlos looked at the gun. It took him several seconds to understand. “Why . . . what . . . why was I chosen for this?”
“Because what was needed was a man beyond suspicion on the one hand, and with the brains and courage to do this on the other.”
“And afterward, what?”
“Afterward, go outside to the front of the building. I’ll be waiting for you in the car, at the corner, not directly in front. Rincon will take care of the guards at the front door. I’m sorry, too, for what it’s worth. To put you through this. In the end it will seem right, even to you, but I’m sorry for the deception.” He leaned down and tied a cloth gag around Carlos’s mouth, then turned and was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As the car sped through streets she could not see, Carolina had to use every ounce of strength and willpower just to keep her head turned so that the battered side of her face did not bounce against the carpeted floor. The man who had struck her reached his arm over the back of the seat and fondled the material of the dress, tugging it tight against her skin but not touching her through it. There was something utterly terrifying in the way he did it, as if he had possession of her now, body and soul, and an unlimited amount of time to bring her to deeper and deeper levels of misery. She had to urinate but would not let herself.
In a matter of minutes she heard the brakes and felt the momentum press her against the back of the driver’s seat. Car doors opened and closed. The driver pulled her out as if she were a sack of coconuts. It was futile to resist, but she resisted anyway, by reflex, until the man who had been in the passenger seat, the hideous colonel, came around and struck her again, one iron finger pushed hard into her gut. She lost control of her bladder then, wetting her legs and sandals. The man cursed and stepped back and spat the vile word at her again.
Then she was being prodded up the walkway toward a stone-walled building that hulked and tilted like the abode of the devil himself, then up a set of stairs, her wrists cuffed, one powerful, merciless hand gripping her just above her right elbow. The colonel was striding ahead of them like a prince. A pair of mean-faced guards at the door snapped to attention when they saw him, offering sharp salutes. Her right eye had swollen closed. They passed through a foul-smelling lobby; more guards, desks, muted shrieks that became unbearably clear when she was brought through another set of barred metal doors. The
stink and the raw fear made her want to vomit. She could hear the scrape of her breadfruit-leaf sandals on the floor but it was almost as if they were attached to someone else’s feet. People were wailing and moaning and screaming on all sides, a vision of hell. Through a curtain of absolute terror it occurred to her that this place was the reason, the motivation, that lay behind the whole project. For her at least. This was the reason she had come here, to help end this kind of thing in the land of her forefathers. Now she would pay her blood dues.
They led her up three flights of stairs and along a stone corridor into which no daylight fell. They turned her sharply left, through a metal door, and as she stepped into a room that reeked of disinfectant her one working eye came immediately to rest on a man there. The man was wearing a suit, and he was sitting at a desk with his hands behind him as if he, too, were cuffed. He had been gagged, and his eyes followed them in desperation. At the sight of him, the colonel with the terrible teeth stopped short. “What have we here?” he said, after a moment, in that awful taunting voice. “Quién tenemos aquí?” “What have we? Carlos Gutierrez, my good friend, come to give me his greetings in this room. What a gift, what a joy!” The colonel paused for a moment, drinking in the sight of the cuffed man, drawing the top lip back from his slanted, yellow teeth. “You shall be the observer first, my friend and former minister of health. An observer and then the participant. How wonderful. How wonderful to know that my intuition was correct all along. What a glorious day!”
Carolina was led to the wall where a set of iron cuffs stood at the height of her shoulders. The driver uncuffed her, then put her wrists into the thicker wall cuffs and handed the key back to the colonel, who was leering at her now. Now she would have taken the cyanide, if she could have reached her pocket. The man leered, savoring the sight of her. He turned to his huge assistant and said, “Give me my privacy. I want only Carlos to see this, our onetime minister of health. Only he and I will see what happens to yanqui whores who try to humiliate us.”
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