Topaz

by Leon Uris

  Once they had gotten him strung up in the crucifix position he had still been able to get off a good kick that landed between Muñoz’s legs. Then his feet were tied together and he was raised so that his toes barely touched the floor.

  Even so, Muñoz got close enough to be spat on. A gag was shoved in Rico’s mouth.

  Muñoz had worked him over fearfully. The wet rope had ripped the flesh of his bared body. His face had been beaten to a grotesque distortion. One eye totally shut, the broken nose a lumpy discolored bruise, his lips like raw liver.

  Juanita walked to the bathroom, soaked a couple of towels and wiped the blood from his face and compressed one behind his neck. Without seeking permission, she untied the gag from his mouth.

  He spoke with semi-intelligibility through the swollen mouth. “Sure one hell of a way to end up. Funny part. Muñoz was my protégé when we were in the mountains. Always felt the bastard was a coward.”

  “I’ll stay with you as long as they let me,” she said.

  “Huh ... you know, Juanita ... it wasn’t that I ever expected you to fall in love.... I just wished that once or twice you really enjoyed it ... ”

  “Rico ...”

  “Don’t lie ... don’t lie. What a hell of a woman you are. When you make a bargain you go all the way .... Well ... maybe you’ll get together with the Frenchman in heaven.”

  “Enough!” Muñoz shouted. “Well, lovebirds, how do you like your honeymoon cottage now?” He advanced into the room, menacing them with the butt of the whip. “We all know now just how the Yankees found out about the missiles.”

  “For whatever it’s worth, Rico Parra is innocent,” Juanita said.

  “For selling his country for a piece of ass!”

  “Cuba should be proud of you, Señor Muñoz. Well, when is it my turn?”

  Muñoz laughed softly. “Not just yet. You have too many friends around Cuba whose names we wish to know. Oh, perhaps you won’t talk right away but after you watch what we do to Rico Parra now ... tomorrow ... the next day ... your tongue will begin to loosen. It happens that way when the mind goes.”

  Juanita was lashed to a bulky chest of drawers so she was directly opposite Rico fifteen feet away. She neither flinched nor closed her eyes. Muñoz circled the hanging target, threw his whip away. “Why don’t you spit?” he taunted.

  Muñoz brought the heel of his boot up and jammed it between Rico’s legs. Rico’s body shuddered and he moaned softly and swayed from his crucifixion.

  And then Rico smiled. “You hit like a woman, Muñoz.”

  Muñoz was infuriated. He kicked Rico again and again but Rico refused to cry out his agony. And then he vomited and Muñoz had his victory.

  Muñoz’s eyes rolled insanely and the sweat poured over him as he pounded the defenseless bloated face until his knuckles began to shred and swell. And, as a blessed darkness fell over Rico, Muñoz continued to pound the half-dead man until he fell exhausted against him. Even some of his bloodthirsty colleagues were forced to look away. One came over and pulled him off.

  Muñoz staggered to Juanita and ripped the clothing from the upper part of her body then unflicked a gleaming razor-sharp switchblade knife. “For you, Little Dove,” he gasped, “some very special art work. Those breasts of yours won’t look so beautiful when I finish carving them up.... Put the lovers in their bridal bed.”

  Rico was cut down. He and Juanita were tied together from neck to ankle back to back and thrown on the bed and in a moment the sheets were blood-soaked.

  As soon as he arrived at G-2 Headquarters at the Green House on Avenida Quinta, Muñoz showered and changed clothing but all of the stench and blood could never be washed away.

  The Soviet Resident, Oleg Gorgoni, waited anxiously in his office. “I have just received urgent instructions from Moscow that you are not to harm Juanita de Córdoba. She is to be turned over to us.”

  “I also have instructions,” Muñoz said. “No.”

  “Don’t play with me, Muñoz.”

  “Who plays? I said no.”

  “I said it was urgent!”

  “So you did.”

  “You are on dangerous ground. Juanita de Córdoba is to be kept alive for reasons important to the Soviet Union.”

  “She is to be taken care of for reasons important to Cuba.”

  “You are angering the Soviet Union!”

  “Isn’t that just too bad,” Muñoz answered. “Maybe you think you can bully us because we are small. Maybe it might work with Cuba because you’re too yellow to bully the Yankees!”

  Gorgoni turned ashen as Muñoz stormed to his feet and snatched the morning paper from his desk and thrust it under the Russian’s nose.

  “The Americans tell you to get the hell out of Cuba and what do you answer? Your great and courageous chairman engages in writing love letters to a doddering, inept British philosopher and cries and weeps and moans about the Yankee piracy and tells us all ... let’s sit down and talk ... brotherhood ... peace for mankind.” He flung the paper away. “Where is all the goddam missile power you’ve been threatening to use on the Yankees? You’re yellow ... liars!”

  “Enough! Enough! Enough!”

  “Yellow!”

  “I demand Juanita de Córdoba.”

  “Demand your ass off. You see, my brave señor comrade resident, we are telling you we run Cuba and we warn you to start showing some spine.”

  11

  LONDON ... THE PRESIDENT ANSWERED the telegram from the aged British philosopher with the terse comment ... “I think your attention might well be directed to the burglars rather than to those who caught the burglars.”

  KEY WEST ... low-level Navy P8U reconnaissance planes have now positively identified twenty-four Soviet bloc ships steaming toward Cuba and are keeping them under tight surveillance. All sources say that the confrontation at sea must take place within the next few days ....

  WASHINGTON ... The President has ignored Walter Lippmann’s column which pleads for negotiation, as well as brushing aside U Thant’s United Nations appeal that both sides stop their collision course. In the face of swelling world criticism of the brazen American position, the President sent a telegram to each of the OAS members, with the exception of abstaining Uruguay, which read in part: “By your swift and decisive action we have shown the world and particularly the Soviet Union we stand united in our determination to defend the integrity of the hemisphere....”

  In Moscow, the Soviet Premier in another of those paradoxes belied logic by summoning Pomeroy Bidwell, a visiting American industrialist, to the Kremlin. Bidwell was seated opposite a man who appeared on the brink of total exhaustion. The Soviet Premier was well aware that the beginning of the end of his reign of power might be taking place and that his bully tactics would never again effectively cow America.

  Arguing with Bidwell as though he were an official representative of the United States instead of a visiting fireman, the Premier tried to convince him the weapons in Cuba were truly defensive. He debated in semantics using verbal gymnastics. Pomeroy Bidwell was not at all convinced and cited Sweden’s weaponry and proximity to the Soviet Union as an example.

  The Russian tried to appeal his case as he had to the pacifist British philosopher. When unsuccessful, he launched a series of threats and swore that if the Americans boarded a single Russian ship his submarines would sink the American fleet.

  And suddenly, the Soviet leader complained in almost a whimper. “How can I negotiate with a man who is younger than my son?”

  Pomeroy Bidwell rushed to the American Embassy to arrange transportation to Washington. The Ambassador closeted him in.

  “How did it go, Pomeroy?”

  “Well, Mr. Ambassador, we were just sitting there, eyeball to eyeball ... and I could swear I saw the other guy blink.”

  12

  ANDRÉ’S DOORBELL RANG AS he took breakfast. It was an ININ colleague from the American Embassy.

  “Got a cable for you. It just cleared the code room.
”

  “Thanks for bringing it, Ted.”

  I AM EN ROUTE TO PARIS FOR TWO WEEKS OF NATO BUSINESS AND WILL BE LANDING AT ORLY SIX O’CLOCK PAN-AM THIS EVENING. I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO OPEN A NEW SOURCE OF INFORMATION INSIDE CUBA OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TO YOU. PLEASE MEET ME IF YOU CAN. (SIGNED) Michael, NORDSTROM

  André’s assistant sped toward Orly Field to meet Nordstrom. He sat beside the driver reading through the stack of the day’s newspapers.

  Much of the attention was focused on a parade and rally in Havana. Castro had called in units of militia and army from all over Cuba and demonstrated his Soviet-made armor, artillery, and aircraft.

  After the parade there was a rally in the square under the statue of the liberator, Martí. Castro launched into the kind of harangue now familiar to the entire world. As his breast-beating rage heightened he vowed that Cuba would not abide by any unilateral agreement reached by the Soviets and Americans without his approval. He vowed, further, to defend the country to the last man. He repeated the demand that the Americans leave the Guantánamo Base.

  The most violent part of the speech was directed against the “treachery” of the Organization of American States and he swore to inflame revolution throughout Latin America.

  “Even now!” Castro cried, “our beloved compadre and the most trusted lieutenant of the revolution, Rico Parra, is on a secret mission somewhere in the Caribbean.”

  Parra’s absence, already speculated upon by the journalists present, further brought their attention to the conspicuous absence of one of Cuba’s leading figures. “Also missing from the demonstration was an intimate of Rico Parra, Juanita de Córdoba, known throughout Cuba as ‘The Little Dove.’ ”

  Michael Nordstrom cleared Customs. “Let’s get in to Paris,” he said grimly to André.

  “No,” André answered firmly. “I want to know it now. I borrowed an office here.”

  Mike procrastinated. He seemed trapped and unwilling ... a man who had rehearsed a speech during his flight over and over.

  “I know the worst has happened,” André said abruptly.

  “Yes.”

  “I could almost hear her cry out to me two nights ago in some kind of terrible agony. I haven’t slept much since I returned from Cuba. I didn’t at all last night. It was as though I knew your message was coming and I had to wait up for it.”

  “All right,” Nordstrom said. “Let’s get it over with for God’s sake.”

  Mike sat on the edge of the desk in a small office gesturing with his hand, rubbing his face and sighing over and over again. André closed the door, shutting out the hollow echoes bouncing off the marble floors and the whine of the jets. He settled in the only extra chair and waited for Mike.

  “You know the Casa de Revolutión?” Nordstrom asked.

  “Yes. On the Bahía del Sol. It once belonged to the De Fuentes family. You remember Pedro de Fuentes. He was one of the best ballplayers who ever came out of Cuba. He was the one who first interested me. Anyhow, Rico Parra took the villa away from the family.”

  “André,” Mike sputtered, “you don’t know how rough the rest of this is going to be.”

  “Damn it, Mike. I know Juanita and Parra were together there and they weren’t playing Chinese checkers. Now, let’s hear it.”

  “Muñoz got orders to do away with Parra for complicity in allowing you to escape Cuba. Further orders, to make Juanita de Córdoba talk. You know Muñoz. Nothing clean and merciful about that butcher. The Casa was turned into a prison with two prisoners, Juanita and Parra.”

  Mike related just what had taken place. André hovered close to collapse until Mike’s words became unreal ... dreamlike.

  “One of the G-2 men by the name of Jesús Zapata became revolted by Muñoz’s brutality. He searched around Havana for a contact on our side. Zapata felt the story had to be known. Do you know Karel Vasek?”

  “Heard the name ... I don’t remember ...”

  “Vasek is a Czech engineer. Been in Cuba over a year in charge of a bridge-building program. He started working with British Intelligence six months ago. Vasek and Zapata set up their future meeting places.

  “Parra was a tough cookie,” Nordstrom continued. “His brains were so scrambled from the beating he reverted to idiocy. In the end he never knew what was happening. Juanita was half-crazy from being forced to watch the atrocities on Parra. I don’t have to spell out what Muñoz did to him.”

  “No ...”

  “With Rico dead, Muñoz was going to start on Juanita. With a knife. Zapata came into Havana desperate. Vasek gave him a cyanide capsule. He was able to slip it to her. It was the only merciful thing to do. Before Muñoz could lay a finger on her, she died instantly and peacefully.”

  “Thank God for that....”

  “André, are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes ... I ... I am. You see, Mike, if that beautiful woman’s life meant anything to this world I have to fight on to the end.”

  “André, what can I do?”

  “Just leave me alone for a while.”

  13

  ANDRÉ WAS THE LAST TO enter the big conference room on the first floor of SDECE headquarters. The assemblage appeared to him like a gang of eager alley cats around the long table covered with billiard-green felt cloth. The omnipresent portrait of Pierre La Croix looked down on them like a stern father.

  At the head of the table was Charles Rochefort, the witless bureaucrat of medium weight but of great wealth and power inherited from his family.

  Along the left side of the table sat the five-man SDECE team which had investigated the Topaz affair. Their head was one Daniel DuBay, an excellent intelligence man of long standing, but one who was more preoccupied with never getting caught on the wrong side of the political fence.

  Immediately to Rochefort’s right sat Colonel Gabriel Brune, there to give dominating counsel. This morning he owned a slight smirk as he nodded grayly to André and sucked on a long cigarette held by nicotine-stained fingers.

  Next to André’s chair was his only possible ally, Léon Roux, Chief of Internal Protection of the Sûreté. Roux introduced André to Inspector Marcel Steinberger, who had been Sûreté’s man on the team.

  Colonel Brune nodded to Daniel DuBay, who stood. He was a short, plump person with a great gold watch chain spanning his girth. He opened a loose-leaf notebook, fitted his glasses on the end of his nose and tucked a thumb into his vest like a lawyer preparing a court argument.

  “We have returned from Washington, these gentlemen and Inspector Steinberger of the Sûreté, after having studied the interrogation records, tapes, and other evidence supplied by the American division of ININ. We have also held visits with one who is referred to as Boris Kuznetov.”

  “And you have had the opportunity to evaluate your findings for a report and recommendation?” Rochefort asked.

  “We have.”

  “You may continue.”

  “Monsieur DuBay,” Colonel Brune interrupted. “All of us present are familiar with the case. We would like at this time to have a summary of your conclusions.”

  “Yes ... very well.” DuBay gloried in the spotlight. “At the same time the United States and the Soviet Union concocted the Cuban missile hoax, they meticulously plotted a second part of the scheme for the purpose of discrediting the French Secret Service.”

  There was no reaction from André or Roux. Steinberger played with a nail file dreamily.

  “Boris Kuznetov, or whoever he really is, has proved out to be an excellent KGB officer and probably as brilliant a memory artist as we are ever apt to encounter. Kuznetov was assigned by KGB, with American cooperation, to act out a defection to the United States.”

  DuBay flipped the page, puckered his lips and studied the faces around the table, only avoiding the eyes of André Devereaux. He bent, picked up his place in the notes and straightened up again.

  “Kuznetov was sent to Scandinavia, to Copenhagen, fully groomed by the Soviet side as to his past and pas
t functions. In Copenhagen he obviously held tens of dozens of meetings in a secret place where he was further coached by American ININ people. It is our feeling that he was schooled by the very same people who pretended to be his interrogators later on, namely, Dr. Billings, W. Smith, Jaffe, and Kramer. So that when they met again in Washington both sides had thoroughly rehearsed all the questions and answers previously.

  “Kuznetov was given a schooling in depth in certain NATO matters, supplied with certain NATO documents to memorize, and was instructed on the workings, divisions, and directors of the French Secret Service. With this intensive training done, probably over a period of six or eight months, the United States and the Soviet Union played out a defection.

  “It is beyond belief, is it not, that a KGB officer could escape from a Western country with his wife and daughter unless both sides were party to the escape?

  “Now in America, Kuznetov shows he is just as capable an actor as he is a memory expert. According to a prearranged time schedule, he plays out the game. At first he doesn’t talk, then he talks a little, then he goes into great shows of fear. In the meantime, his innocent wife and daughter have terrible family quarrels with him.

  “Then, somewhere along the line he asks to see a diplomat. But a certain diplomat. A French diplomat. Monsieur Devereaux, to be specific. The bait is swallowed. Over a period of time, Devereaux is lured in and becomes convinced of Kuznetov’s authenticity. But Kuznetov also convinces him not to report all this to Paris ... not, of course, until they are ready to spring the trap.

  “Nothing is left to chance, up to and including a fake heart attack. With his knowledge and permission, Kuznetov is given drugs to make it appear he is on the verge of death. The real sorrow of his unwitting wife and daughter adds to the appearance of legitimacy, and all this draws in Devereaux more and more.

  “Devereuax returns from Cuba, fulfilling the first part of the scheme by handing over information designed to drag France along behind America into the fake missile crisis. Now, phase two of the plot unfolds: the so-called confession of Boris Kuznetov.