Black Horizon

by James Grippando

  “Yes, in school. The CIA operation.”

  “I’ve always thought of it as a humanitarian operation run by the Catholic Church. It was for families who opposed the Cuban revolution and didn’t want their kids to grow up in a Communist country. Parents sent their children to live in America with friends or relatives, hoping to join up with them later.”

  “We learned in school that it was CIA propaganda to make the Cuban people afraid that the Revolutionary Government would take their children and send them to Soviet labor camps.”

  Jack looked off to the distant glow of emergency cleanup lights visible above the tree line. And people wonder why we can’t agree on what to do about an oil spill.

  “Did your abuela make it over before your mother died?”

  “No. It took her forty years to get out of Cuba. I was a grown man. The last time they saw each other was when Abuela put her sixteen-year-old daughter on a plane and kissed her good-bye.”

  “That’s sad,” said Bianca. She stopped. They were outside the apartment building. “Makes me think of when I got on the boat and said good-bye to Rafael.”

  Jack nodded. It surprised him that he had not yet drawn that comparison—at least not consciously.

  Bianca turned to face him more directly. “Do you ever wonder if your abuela wishes she hadn’t sent her daughter away?”

  Jack caught his breath, not sure how to respond. It was a little like asking Jack if he wished he had never been born.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bianca. “That wasn’t a proper question.”

  “It’s okay,” said Jack. “It didn’t come from a bad place. I understand your feelings.”

  She looked away. Jack suddenly felt the need to answer.

  “I’m sure, in her darkest moments, Abuela told herself that her daughter would still be alive if she had stayed in Cuba. But a mother isn’t to blame for trying to make a better life for her child. And a young woman isn’t to blame if she gets on a boat hoping to find something better for her husband and the family they want to build. This is not your fault. None of it, Bianca, is your fault in the least.”

  Her eyes brightened a bit. It wasn’t profound or all that wise, but Jack sensed that his words had actually helped her. She rose up on her toes and gave Jack a peck on the cheek.

  “I think you will be a good papa.”

  She stepped away quickly and hurried up the walkway to the apartment building’s entrance. She opened it, then turned and waved goodnight. Jack returned the gesture, smiling on the inside as she disappeared into the lobby.

  So many things were unknown and uncertain, and having a pregnant wife away on an undercover assignment didn’t make life any easier. But that brief moment brought him a little clarity. It was the first time anyone had ever said that to him.

  And it was one of the nicest things Jack had ever heard.

  Chapter 37

  Jack woke early the next morning. Five thirty-three a.m. Much earlier than planned. It was a bizarre dream. Josefina was there. Rafael was there. And Jack walked into the room.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked.

  The letters Rafael had written to Josefina, for Bianca, were stacked in a neat pile on the table, directly in front of an empty chair.

  “Abuela got her wish,” said Josefina.

  Jack looked more closely at the empty chair. It had his mother’s name on it—Anna.

  “What wish?” asked Jack.

  “You were never born.”

  The phone rang on the nightstand. He hoped it was Andie. Jack sat up in the bed, collected his breath, and answered. It was Abuela, which was almost too weird.

  “Jack, mi vida!”

  Mi vida—literally, “my life”—was what she always called him. She was almost shouting with excitement. “I so proud of you! I just hear on the radio this morning.”

  “Heard what?”

  “You sue Fidel!”

  Jack forced his eyes open wider. He knew he was no longer dreaming, but he was not yet fully awake. “No, you heard wrong. I’m not suing Fidel Castro.”

  “But the man on the radio. That what he say.”

  “First of all, Fidel is no longer president.”

  “Then you sue the brother?”

  “No. I’m not suing Fidel, Raúl, or any other Cubans. I’m suing the oil consortium.”

  “But . . . the radio.”

  “Abuela, you may find this hard to believe. Shocking, even. But just because it’s on Cuban talk radio at five-thirty in the morning doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  Abuela was a loyal listener of the shrinking number of talk radio stations that catered to Miami’s hard-line exile community. Even WQBA had been reformatted for a more moderate pan-Hispanic message.

  “All rumors?”

  “Yes. Just rumors.”

  Jack could hear the deep sigh of disappointment over the line. “Abuela, I’m going back to sleep now. I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Okay. But not on the eh-smart phone you bought me. El eh-smart phone es estúpido. It no work. The screen all black.”

  “Abuela, when is the last time you charged your smartphone?”

  “Charge?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ll call you on the landline. Te quiero.”

  Jack was too engaged now to fall back asleep. He climbed out of bed and went to his laptop. Up-to-the-minute images of the spill appeared on his homepage. As bad as things had looked outside the Truman Annex just hours earlier, Key West was not in line for a direct hit. If the latest NOAA projections were correct, however, Jack’s meeting on Candela’s yacht had marked the last oil-free sunset in Boot Key Harbor for many nights to come.

  Jack read the lead article about sludge on the reefs, then skimmed a companion story about benzene and other carcinogens already being released into the atmosphere by the natural evaporation of oil from the surface, which paled in comparison to the soot and other particles thrown off by the controlled burns that were part of the cleanup effort. It was making Jack sick just to read about it, but then he took the truly toxic plunge: his e-mail.

  Jack had cleared most of his calendar for the honeymoon that was not to be, but there was still a ton of catching up to do. The wifi connection at the hundred-year-old bed-and-breakfast wasn’t exactly state of the art, but it was plenty fast to e-file pleadings with the courthouse. It was almost nine by the time he went downstairs in hopes of finding an amazing breakfast to make up for the too-short mattress in this overpriced B&B. Agent Linton, the direct FBI contact that Andie had established for Jack, was waiting in the lobby for him. Another FBI agent was with him. Linton, the ex-Marine with the Jamaican accent, spoke first.

  “Join us for coffee, Jack?”

  If it was a question, Linton’s delivery invited only one answer.

  “Sure,” said Jack. “But why the ambush?”

  “No ambush.”

  “I know Andie raised hell with the field office about the need to communicate better with Bianca and me as victims. But that doesn’t mean you have to track me down in person. A phone call every now and then would be just fine.”

  “It’s no problem, Jack. We know where you are.”

  His tone wasn’t entirely cordial. It could have been the accent, but Jack took it as a message: We know where you are, Swyteck—at all times.

  They stepped outside and went to a white wicker seating arrangement at the far end of the front porch. The agents took the love seat. Jack got the rocking chair. A waitress brought them a fresh pot of coffee with three cups. She placed the tray on the table between Jack and the FBI, where a whirring paddle fan directly overhead was immediately blowing the coffee cold. She gave the dangling chain a tug, cutting the fan speed in half, and then left the men alone to talk.

  Linton rose and put the fan back on high. “Sorry, guys. I know it seems odd to complain about smog in Key West, but my asthma doesn’t lie.”

  “I just read about that,” said Jack. “We’re downwind from the spill. It’s not actual
smoke from the burns. In fact, the water is so rough in the Gulf Stream right now, I hear that the burn efforts aren’t going that well. It’s a chemical reaction in the atmosphere. ‘Secondary aerosol compounds’ is how they put it.”

  “Whatever it is, my lungs feel like I’m back in middle school in New Jersey in need of my inhaler. Pardon me if I make this quick.”

  “Quick is good,” said Jack. “Any leads on who attacked my client?”

  “No,” said Linton.

  “On what happened to Josefina?”

  “No.”

  “Any new thoughts about the message left on Bianca’s mirror?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve heard nothing more from my kidnapper about who was behind the sabotage. Have you heard anything?”

  “Can’t discuss that.”

  “What can you tell me about the sabotage investigation?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Jack reached for the coffeepot and filled his cup. “Well, that was quick.”

  “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a prick.” He coughed, then drew a deep breath. “Sabotage is actually in the general ballpark of what I wanted to talk about.”

  He coughed a little deeper, then took some water. If compounds were in the air, Jack wasn’t feeling the effects. But Linton was struggling.

  “Are you okay?” asked Jack.

  “Yeah,” he said, wheezing. “Now, about the sabotage.”

  “So you can tell me something?”

  “Not what you want to hear,” said Linton. “There’s no delicate way to put this, Jack. You need to shut it down.”

  “Shut what down?”

  “All your talk about sabotage.”

  “It’s what Bianca’s case is about.”

  “That’s the concern.”

  “Whose concern?”

  “The FBI’s.”

  “It’s a civil lawsuit. How is that the FBI’s concern?”

  “There is an active criminal investigation into the possibility of sabotage on the Scarborough 8.”

  “So?”

  “Pursuing a sabotage theory in the context of a civil lawsuit could be detrimental to the criminal investigation.”

  Linton signaled to the waitress and asked for some Claritin. She didn’t have any. When she was gone, Jack followed up.

  “I don’t see how my lawsuit hurts your investigation. I see it as complementary.”

  “It’s a multijurisdictional effort to determine who was behind the sabotage. I can’t give you specifics about the targets of the investigation, but suffice it to say that your theory doesn’t jibe with ours.”

  “Are you talking about Victor Garcia-Peña and his radio campaign against the Cuban government? Because that’s not my theory.”

  Linton covered his nose and mouth with a napkin, drawing deep breaths of crudely filtered air. Oddly, he was simultaneously ticking off Jack and earning his sympathy.

  “What is your theory, Jack?”

  “Discovery hasn’t even started yet. But, as I told Mr. Candela yesterday, I don’t have to prove who did it. All I have to do is persuade a jury that the oil consortium failed to implement adequate security measures to prevent disaster and keep its oil workers safe.”

  “So your plan is to poke around in depositions until something about sabotage turns up? Sorry. Can’t let you do that.”

  “What do you mean you can’t let me? That’s up to Judge Carlyle.”

  “I have the unpleasant job of giving you two choices. One, back off the sabotage theory. Or, two, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida will intervene in your case and ask the judge to stay the entire action until the criminal investigation has run its course.”

  “Which could be years.”

  “I can’t really say.”

  Jack smelled a bluff. “Let me get this straight: the United States government is willing to confirm publicly, in a Key West courtroom, that there is an active criminal investigation into sabotage on the Scarborough 8?”

  Linton showed discomfort, and it wasn’t just the air quality. “The answer to your question is yes. But only if you’re unpatriotic enough to force us to do so.”

  Jack flashed a sardonic smile. “So the ‘patriotic’ thing would be for me to put my client’s best interest aside and abandon the sabotage theory. Is that your point?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “That makes no sense,” Jack said, and then he suddenly realized what was going on. “Have you spoken recently to Mr. Candela?”

  Linton coughed twice, his breathing a little shallower. It wasn’t all about the smog effect. “I have never personally spoken to Mr. Candela.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. You’re just the messenger. I’m sure his client has the ear of someone in Washington who is more keenly aware that Venezuela is this country’s fourth-largest supplier of oil.”

  “This isn’t politics. It’s a national security issue.”

  Jack rose. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to Bianca Lopez.”

  Linton rose too. “So do we have an understanding?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re making a huge mistake.”

  Jack shook the agent’s hand, remaining cordial. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “I would imagine you’ll be hearing directly from the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

  “Can’t wait to hear how excited he is about siding with the Cubans, Russians, Chinese, and Venezuelans against a grieving young widow.”

  Linton sneezed into his fist. Jack was glad the obligatory handshake was already behind them.

  “I’ll give you the rest of the day to change your mind,” said Linton. “If you’re smart, you’ll drop it.”

  Drop it. The FBI and Bianca’s attacker were sending the same message.

  “I hear you loud and clear,” said Jack as the agents stepped away.

  Chapter 38

  Jack spent the next two hours on the telephone with an expert at MIT on the computerized security and alarm systems that were used on engineering marvels like the Scarborough 8. He wasn’t about to “drop” the sabotage theory. Not by a long shot. But he did need to distance himself from Victor Garcia-Peña. That was his next phone call, which was short and to the point.

  “It has to stop, Victor. No more public innuendo that you are connected to me or my client, or that you have inside knowledge about the case strategy.”

  Victor totally got Jack’s message. And Jack got Victor’s. He was no longer welcome at the law offices of Alejandro Cortinas, and by noon Jack was searching for a new Key West outpost. Actually, he was looking for more than office space. The phone call to the MIT security expert was priced at a thousand dollars an hour. Jack needed well-heeled co-counsel to help front costs, which would mount quickly, and which he would never recover if he didn’t win.

  Jack called a law school classmate who practiced in New York. Jack and Cassie Hahn had spent their first year at Yale in the same study group. They’d also spent a few late-night study breaks in the same bed, but that was ancient history. What mattered was that Cassie’s law firm had earned multimillion-dollar verdicts against multinational corporations for failure to protect their workers abroad. Cassie’s bio listed her as lead counsel in victories against a construction company in Colombia whose chief engineer was kidnapped by FARC, and a mining conglomerate in Kazakhstan whose director of development was beheaded by “religious” radicals.

  “I’ve been reading about your case in the American Lawyer, Jack. Congrats.”

  “Thanks, but I haven’t won yet.”

  “Could be big,” said Cassie.

  “Could be a disaster.”

  “No pun intended, I’m sure.”

  Jack was having lunch at Goldman’s, a local bagel and sandwich shop with Key West flavor. It had the best pastrami on rye south of Miami Beach and enough atmosphere to transport even a former New Yorker back to Amsterdam Avenue and brunch with Bubbie. It was also tucked away next
to the Winn-Dixie on the northeast corner of the island, as far away as possible from the crowds around the emergency responders to the southwest. Jack found enough privacy to talk at a table by the window.

  “So how can I help you, Jack?”

  “I have a hypothetical problem.”

  “Ah, love hypotheticals. And would I be correct in assuming that this problem is so hypothetical that I will have to surrender my license, an ovary, and my firstborn child if I breathe a word to anyone about our conversation.”

  “You can keep the ovary.”

  “Thank you. Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “This case started out like the international version of the wrongful death lawsuits filed after the Deepwater Horizon spill. There are major issues about what laws apply, but basically it boiled down to whether the oil consortium protected its workers from the usual occupational hazards.”

  “That’s what I’ve read.”

  “Here’s my hypothesis: What if it wasn’t the ‘usual’ occupational hazard?”

  “How unusual might it be?”

  “Sabotage.”

  She paused, but it didn’t seem to shock her. “I’ve seen the reports on the news. What is it, something like two hundred organizations have claimed responsibility?”

  “Not that many. But a lot. None of them credible.”

  “How do you know none is credible?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But hunting down terrorists is not my job. The FBI and Homeland Security are involved in an investigation. Call it sabotage, call it terrorism. It doesn’t matter. I need to prove the oil consortium should have protected its workers from an explosion that was not an accident. It was an intentional act.”

  “Actually, it does matter, Jack. It’s one thing if this was a pissed-off employee acting on his own—purely an act of sabotage with no ‘terrorist’ implications. But if it was an act of ‘terrorism’ as defined under federal law, you have an entirely different case on your hands.”

  “Okay, smarty pants. How?”

  “Let’s put the oil consortium aside. Maybe they did everything they possibly could to protect their workers. Maybe they installed a state-of-the-art computer security system.”