Ghosts of Havana

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Ghosts of Havana Page 6

by Todd Moss


  This topic made the Deputy Director uncomfortable, so he changed the subject. “Madam Chairwoman, I saw your hearing this morning.”

  “Don’t call me madam, dammit,” Brenda Adelman-Zamora hissed. “It makes me sound like an old woman. And don’t blow smoke up my ass about the hearing. I don’t have much time. Where are we?”

  He cleared his throat. “We’re proceeding.”

  “How’re you going to do it?” She leaned toward him.

  “I believe we agreed that it was better that I not share any operational details.”

  “I’m the goddamn chair of the House Intelligence Committee. I have constitutional oversight of your agency. I think I can handle a few details.”

  “I promised to update you on progress. That’s why I’m here now,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “But we also agreed that it was best if specifics be kept to a minimum. If there’s anything you need to know, I will tell you.”

  She sat back and frowned. “I’ve heard that need-to-know shit before. I won’t stand for another screwup.”

  “We won’t have another failure. I’m personally taking charge of this operation,” the Deputy Director said.

  The congresswoman harrumphed.

  “I’m sticking my neck out,” he said, hiding his irritation.

  “I am fully aware of our deal. You make this happen and I will ensure that you are the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  He winced at her words, their arrangement laid out so crudely. So quid pro quo.

  “You just make sure you hold up your end,” she said.

  He grunted again.

  “What else do you need from me?” she asked.

  “The less you’re involved, the less you know, the better. I don’t think we should meet again. Not until the operation is over.”

  “I’ve heard that all before. You think I can just trust the CIA to get this done for good? How many times have we been down this road?”

  “This time is different. I told you. This is my operation.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “No excuses. So I’m asking you again: What do you need?”

  “Nothing, ma’am.”

  “Nothing? I’ve never heard that one before. You don’t need money?”

  “No.”

  “How’s that possible? How are you running a major covert operation and you don’t need cash?”

  “Your committee oversees the intelligence budget. You know we have resources.”

  “You buy that constitutional bullshit I just threw at you? You think we have oversight?” She laughed. “I don’t know shit. That budget is a long list of black accounts.”

  “I have all the resources I need. We agreed it’s in both our interests that the sources of any financing remain undisclosed. For operational security.”

  She eyed him. “For deniability, you mean. In case it all goes wrong again.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “I don’t want to hear later that this thing flopped because you were short of cash.” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want any excuses this time.”

  “There won’t be.”

  “Christ, it’s almost midnight,” she said, checking her watch and turning the ignition back on. “I’ve got to go. I’m on the first flight tomorrow morning down to my constituency for another fund-raiser. You may not need cash, but I do.”

  12.

  RONALD REAGAN WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT

  WEDNESDAY, 6:42 A.M.

  Judd nudged the steering wheel to ease off the George Washington Memorial Parkway at the exit for the airport.

  “You really didn’t have to drive us,” Jessica said. “We could’ve taken a cab.”

  Judd patted the dashboard of his car, an aging silver Honda Accord that he’d bought off one of his Amherst College students. Jessica hated the car and had been urging him to replace it for months. But Judd liked this small piece of his old life back in New England. His grandmother had driven a silver Honda until she died in her farmhouse in Vermont. Every time he drove this car, which wasn’t often, he thought of her.

  “It’s really no problem. I have plenty of time to drop you and then get to the office. And I get to see my family off,” Judd said with a forced smile.

  “Plane!” shouted Noah, their three-year-old son, strapped in his car seat.

  “Is that our plane?” asked his older brother, Toby, pointing at a low-flying Boeing 737 making its final approach for landing at Reagan National Airport, just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington, D.C.

  “It could be, baby,” Jessica said. “Are you excited?”

  “Yes, Mommy,” Toby said. Noah, sucking on the remains of what was once a raisin bagel, nodded in agreement.

  Judd weaved through the heavy early-morning airport traffic and squeezed his car into a tight space at the departure zone between two black Lincoln Town Cars. Jessica busily helped the two boys and their Ninja Turtle backpacks out of the car while Judd extracted a small orange wheelie suitcase from the trunk. Once the whole Ryker family was assembled on the sidewalk, Judd hugged and kissed his children.

  “Be good . . . for Mom.” Then, turning to his wife, he gave her a long kiss, “Have a great time, Jess.”

  “Who’s that, Mommy?” Toby interrupted, pointing at a woman getting out of one of the Town Cars. She was in her early sixties, with heavy makeup, a golden tan, and wearing a red designer pantsuit. An aide unloaded several matching Valextra leather suitcases and carried a tiny Yorkshire terrier. “Is she a movie star?” asked the six-year-old boy.

  Noah was staring, too. “Is she a princess?”

  “Congresswoman,” Judd said. “You remember the big white building shaped like a snow cone? She works there.”

  Jessica nudged Judd in the ribs. “Is that Adelman-Zamora?”

  “Yep. Brenda Adelman-Zamora. House intel committee chair.”

  “I’ve seen her on TV.”

  “Maybe she’s on your flight,” Judd offered, raising his eyebrows.

  Jessica scowled and then gave him another kiss.

  “Don’t do any work when you’re down in Florida, Jess. Just try to enjoy yourself. Try to relax.”

  “That’s the idea,” she said.

  “I got you this,” he said, handing her a dog-eared copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

  “Awww,” she purred. “You remembered.”

  “I know it was your favorite.” Judd shrugged.

  “It is,” she said, touching her chest. “I still don’t know how mine got lost when we moved from Massachusetts.”

  “I thought it might help you forget about work. You know, for the beach.”

  She accepted the gift and slid it into her handbag, already stuffed with children’s books and small baggies of corn snacks and pretzels. “Enjoy the quiet while we’re away.” Then she paused for a moment. “Scratch that.” Jessica leaned forward and whispered, “Kick some ass.”

  13.

  MARATHON, FLORIDA KEYS

  WEDNESDAY, 7:23 A.M.

  A soft pink glow on the horizon hinted at the imminent sunrise. The predawn water was calm, barely a hint of a cool breeze off the Caribbean Sea. The only sounds were seagulls and a gentle sloshing of waves against the pier at the Marathon Marina and Boat Yard.

  “Motherfucker!” bellowed Alejandro Cabrera, bear-hugging a thin man with sunken cheeks, long greasy black hair, and skin that was dark from a mix of sun and motor oil. He was wearing flip-flops and a dirty T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing tattoos on both arms. “Que bolá, asere? You’re so skinny! Don’t you eat down here? You’re wasting away!”

  “You’re gordo, asere,” said the man.

  They hugged again and slapped each other aggressively on the back.

  “
We all good?” Alejandro asked.

  The beach bum nodded.

  “You staying out of trouble, brother?”

  “Doing my best to stay off the grid and outta trouble,” the man replied.

  The two men fist-bumped and then turned to face the others.

  “Boys, this is Ricky. We go way back,” Alejandro said. “Ricky, you know Brink already. And this is Craw and Deuce.” The men all exchanged firm handshakes and head nods. “These are all guys from the neighborhood up north.”

  Then with a dramatic flourish, Alejandro opened his arms wide and announced, “And this is The Big Pig.”

  “It’s fabulous, Al,” Dennis said, gawking at the sparkling-white sportfishing boat docked beside them. “But what’s with the pink stripe?”

  “Fuck you, Deuce!” Al said. “You don’t know style when you see it.”

  “Florida, baby,” Crawford said.

  “Fuck you, too.”

  “She’s impressive,” Crawford said, running his hand along the bow of the boat. “What can she do? Thirty, thirty-five knots?”

  “Forty-two,” Ricky said. “She’s fully loaded.”

  “How’s that possible?” Crawford asked.

  “Custom-built,” Brinkley explained. “Alejandro made some modifications to the standard engine package.”

  “Ricky juiced it for me,” Alejandro said, his face again beaming with pride.

  “The Big Pig flies,” Ricky said, hands on his hips. “But if you boys want to catch some marlin today, you need to get going. Vamanos.”

  Ricky started unloading cases from a huge red Ford pickup truck on oversized tires.

  Al whistled. “When’d you get this?”

  “New F-150 Raptor SuperCrew. A 6.2-liter V-8 under the hood.” Ricky strained with the weight of a large steel case, his muscles flexing and showing off his tattoos. “And las chicas, they love it.”

  “I’ll bet.” Al raised his eyebrows. “It’s fucking beautiful, asere.”

  “Geez, Al,” Dennis said. “A private plane, this fishing boat, monster trucks. What the heck is going on down here?”

  “What can I say? We Latinos are lovers. And we love the toys. Same goes for the brothers. Isn’t that right, Craw?”

  “Am I your only black friend?” Crawford joked.

  “Nah. We Cubans are all black. Don’t you know that—”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your discourse on contemporary race relations,” Brinkley interrupted. “But we’ve got marlin to catch. Can we get the boat loaded, gentlemen?”

  “I’ve got this one,” Ricky said as he hauled a large case onto the boat and then disappeared down the hold.

  A few seconds later, Ricky’s head reappeared. “Let’s get the rest of these down below and then I’ll run an engine check for you, Al.”

  “Bueno, Ricky. Where’s the new GPS?”

  “In the secure case in hold four. It’s with the backup satellite phone. I’ll leave you with a spare battery, too.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Dennis asked.

  “Not today.”

  “I’m the fucking captain of The Big Pig,” Al said. “Plus I’ve got two Navy boys with me. You can be my radio officer, Deuce. Not a bad crew for a little fishing expedition.”

  Crawford set down a crate. “This is a shitload of gear for a fishing trip, Al. What the hell are we loading?” he asked.

  “Provisions,” Al said. “You never know what you’ll need hunting out in the open ocean. And we can’t run out of beer and Cuban sandwiches.” Al winked, then lifted a red cooler.

  “All this for marlin fishing?” Dennis asked.

  “Marlin.” Brinkley nodded. “Maybe some bonefish.”

  14.

  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  WEDNESDAY, 9:03 A.M.

  Judd had arrived in the office early that morning to continue working on his memo for Landon Parker. He was trying to anticipate scenarios that might go wrong in Cuba and outline responses for the State Department. It was precisely why his Crisis Reaction Unit had been created.

  This morning, however, Judd was stuck. What causes revolts? It was a question that politicians had been mulling for centuries. What final straw causes people finally to rise up and overthrow their own government? Analysts had been trying to unlock that puzzle for decades. It had been an academic interest of Judd’s when he was a graduate student and then a professor at Amherst College. Databases had been compiled with every variable possible: population, demographics, ethnic composition, corruption, and financial data. Complex statistics attempted to tease out the factors that were associated either with a rebellion or with prolonged periods of stability.

  Judd had used this exact approach of building large databases and quantitative analysis to come up with his Golden Hour theory about the need for speed when responding to an international crisis. He had discovered that slow reaction time was statistically correlated with failure. He then made a slight—and he thought defensible—leap to claim, therefore, that waiting too long to react to a coup or outbreak of civil war meant a steep decline in the chance of U.S. policy success. It was the kind of conclusion that would be scorned in the academic community. But they gobbled it up in Washington. The Golden Hour was the basis for S/CRU. His job was built on a data model. And on Landon Parker’s enthusiastic support.

  Quick response by the United States government made intuitive sense to Judd, even if he didn’t quite fully believe the numbers himself. Correlation does not equal causation. That was the very first lesson he taught his students. But inside the American government, quantitative evidence was seen as proof, and thus was a powerful weapon in the policy trenches. Whether the numbers were right or not was entirely beside the point. That was the very first lesson he had learned from Landon Parker.

  Now he was tasked with helping Parker foresee problems in Cuba. However, this morning Judd wasn’t finding much. He looked at his two computer screens. The one on the left was unclassified, connected to the Internet. The monitor on the right was connected to SIPRNet, the government’s computer system cleared up to level Secret.

  —

  On his unclassified computer, he opened an online window to access the Amherst College library and searched the political science journals for determinants of popular mass revolts. One study from Stanford pointed to ratios of ethnic composition of cabinet ministers. Another from the University of Texas suggested that the concentration of land and livestock ownership was a factor. A third study from Tufts University found correlations between political unrest and changes in the prices of an index of rice, cooking oil, and fuel. Nothing particularly helpful.

  “Dr. Ryker?” Judd looked up from his computer to see the familiar face of his assistant, Serena. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I thought this might be useful,” she said, brandishing a bright red folder. “I compiled all the cables from Havana and highlighted the most critical sections.”

  “Thank you, Serena. I don’t pay you enough.”

  “No comment, Dr. Ryker. I’ve also forwarded to you the latest intel assessments on SIPRNet. Will you be needing a SCIF today?” she asked. For really squirrely information, anything classified as Top Secret, Judd would have to go down the hall to a special room called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility—a SCIF, in government shorthand.

  “No, thank you, Serena.”

  “I also printed you a copy of Assistant Secretary Eisenberg’s speech that she gave last month at the Miami Chamber of Commerce. I think you’ll find it useful.”

  “Melanie Eisenberg . . .” Judd muttered to himself. “Have you found out anything that . . . I should know?”

  “The Assistant Secretary is a shark.”

  “A shark?” Judd eyed his assistant. “I heard that she’s close with Bill Rogerson over in African Affairs. Is that what yo
u mean?”

  “She’s bigger than Rogerson. Eisenberg has the ear of the Secretary. A direct line.”

  “What’s her relationship with Landon Parker?”

  “She knows to give him his due respect,” Serena said. “I heard she rolled him on Cuba.”

  “Eisenberg did an end run around Landon Parker on Cuba policy?”

  “Yes. And that’s not all. Word on the seventh floor says the Deputies Committee is considering her for P.”

  “P? Melanie Eisenberg is going to be the next Undersecretary? Number three in the building?”

  “I told you she’s a shark.”

  15.

  STRAITS OF FLORIDA

  WEDNESDAY, 5:21 P.M.

  Ten hours later, the fishermen were getting cranky.

  After a whole morning of fishing and no sign of any marlin, Brinkley had suggested they head farther offshore to the Seminole Flats to try their luck catching bonefish. “Per pound, bonefish are the strongest fish in the world,” Brink had told them proudly. “And the Seminole Flats in the Florida Straits is the best place in the whole world to catch them.” Alejandro had navigated The Big Pig due south.

  But it was now early evening and they still had no sign of any fish.

  “I think we’re over the line,” Dennis muttered. He glared down at the GPS unit in his hand. “Brink, you gotta take a look at this.”

  Brinkley set down his fishing rod and walked over.

  “Right here, this looks like we are over the line,” Dennis said, pointing to the little screen. “I think we are . . . in Cuban waters.”

  “No way. I don’t think that’s accurate. We may be close, but we’re still in international waters, don’t worry. Where’s your gear?”

  “Close? I don’t want to be close to Cuba.”

  Brinkley took the GPS unit from Dennis and examined the map again. “Alejandro, what time is sunset?”

  “Seven o’clock sharp,” he called from the cockpit.

  Brinkley checked his watch. “Ninety minutes . . .” he mumbled, scanning the horizon with a pair of high-tech binoculars.

 

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