Countdown in Cairo (Russian Trilogy, The)

by Noel Hynd

  A captain in a black jacket met them. His name was Mario and he knew Federov. Mario quickly led them to a table where a man was waiting. The captain dutifully held the chair for Alex as they sat down.

  Yuri introduced Alex to his friend, Paul Guarneri.

  “This is my friend, Alex LaDuca of the US Treasury Department,” Federov said to Guarneri. “Alex, I’ve mentioned you to Paul many times.”

  “Favorably, I hope,” she said politely.

  “Always,” Federov said.

  Guarneri was fiftyish, dark, and handsome, with a little gray at the temples. He had a strong face, what some might have called a Sicilian face, but with something else mixed in. Alex, having a mixture of Italian and Spanish-Mexican blood in her own veins, was always alert to such things.

  “Usually I don’t like to hear from anyone at Treasury,” Guarneri said with equal politeness. “Maybe tonight will be an exception.”

  “I’m here socially, not professionally,” Alex said.

  “That makes three of us,” Guarneri said. “I guess it’s a check-yourgun-at-the-door sort of night.”

  “Really?” she answered, “I didn’t check mine.”

  Guarneri laughed. “What are you carrying?” he asked.

  “If everything goes well, no one will find out.”

  Even sitting, Guarneri came across as tall and powerfully built. He also came across as smart.

  Alex could always pick up when a man she was meeting showed some interest. There was something about the eyes on her, the body language, the tone of voice. She sensed it from Guarneri, just as she had the first night in Kiev with Federov.

  “See?” Federov said. “I told you Alex was my type of broad.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Yuri,” she said back.

  In no way did she expect to feel anything in return for this new acquaintance. If she had felt ready for any sort of new relationship, it wouldn’t have been with either of these men. It would have been with her longtime friend and sporting partner, Ben, or it could have been with someone like Peter Chang, whom she had worked with in Madrid. But the bottom line was that Guarneri was an attractive man. Even though he was twenty-some years older, she picked up on something primal. And it surprised her.

  “Just visiting the city?” Guarneri asked her.

  “I live in Washington right now,” she said. “Treasury sent me up to keep tabs on Yuri. Nothing new about that, the US government seems to think I’m his babysitter.”

  “Ha! We should all be so lucky,” Guarneri answered.

  “What about you, Mr. Guarneri?” she asked. “Yuri says you live here?”

  “I have a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights,” he said. “And my name is Paul, if I may call you Alex.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “And a brownstone in Brooklyn isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

  “No, it’s not,” Guarneri said. “I bought it a year ago when the market was down. I have room for my kids.”

  “You’re married?”

  “Divorced. Joint custody. Two girls, fifteen and twelve. My angels. A boy, eight. My devil.”

  “I get it,” she said.

  “I grew up on Long Island,” he said. “Glen Cove. Know it?”

  “I know where it is. I’m from the West Coast. So it’s just a short three thousand mile walk from where I grew up.”

  Guarneri had lived in the New York metropolitan area all his adult life, he said. He added that he had gone to parochial schools in Glen Cove, “run by some of the world’s toughest nuns,” as he put it, and then had gone to Cornell University where he picked up an undergraduate engineering degree while nearly freezing to death for six months of each of the four years. “My old man made plenty of money,” he said. “Not all of it legal, but he made it anyway. So I got sent to good schools. I try to do the same for my kids.”

  “That must cost you a few bucks,” she said.

  “Yeah. About fifty grand a year. Three private school tabs in the city.”

  “I’m told you used to be able to buy a house for that,” Alex said.

  “Now you can barely buy a judge,” Federov added.

  “Your father? Is he still in business or is he retired?” Alex asked, staying with Guarneri.

  “Neither. He’s dead. Someone shot him.”

  A beat, then, “Recently?” she asked.

  “My father was shot to death as he walked to his car in South Philadelphia,” Guarneri said. “Easter morning, 1973.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “So am I,” Guarneri said, “but it was a long time ago.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, was anyone ever convicted of killing him?” Alex inquired. She felt Federov’s squinty gaze bouncing back and forth.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said. “Of course not. Look, he was connected to organized crime; he did what he did, and he took his risks. I loved him as a father, he was good to me, but I’m not going to sit here and say he was a good man. I’m not so sure he was. But I was provided for and so was my mother.”

  A waiter in a traditional white jacket brought a bottle of wine to the table and showed it to Guarneri—he must have ordered it before his guests had arrived. From what Alex could see, it was a hearty red Tuscan. Guarneri gave a nod. The waiter uncorked it and poured a glass for Guarneri, who gave another nod. Then the waiter poured wine into the other two glasses and departed.

  “My father left behind the ownership to several buildings in the New York and Long Island area. So I never had to get involved in the type of business that he did. All I had to do was manage buildings. Be a landlord. Push the right papers around. I picked up an MBA at St. John’s University so I’d know how to do it. But I learned more in the first month of managing buildings than I did with two years of real estate law at St. John’s.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Alex said, sipping the wine, which was excellent.

  A short time later, the waiter reappeared and took their orders. A cordial conversation continued among the three diners until, after they had finished their meals and knocked back a second bottle of the Tuscan wine, Guarneri finally angled around to something he wished to discuss.

  “So listen, I want to ask your opinion,” Guarneri said, turning to Alex. “May I ask you how you see certain things in relation to the United States and a certain country in Central America?”

  “You can ask, Paul,” she said. “What country?”

  “Cuba,” he said.

  The mention of Cuba, of all places, took her by surprise. “I’m not an expert and I’ve never been there. So my free advice will be worth exactly what you’re paying for it.”

  “I was born there,” he said. “In Cuba. Mi madre fue cubana.”

  “Verdad?” she asked. “Y habla bien el español?”

  He laughed. “Claro que si!” he answered.

  A small exchange followed. He spoke Spanish as well as she did, which was with complete fluency. After a moment, they switched back to English for Federov’s sake.

  “What do you think will happen to property that was left behind fifty years ago?” Guarneri asked. “Or seized by the revolutionary government?”

  “What sort of property?” she asked. “Land? Bank accounts? Real estate?”

  “Any of those,” Guarneri said easily. “Make it a hypothetical. All of them.”

  “Wouldn’t a lawyer be able to tell you better than I?”

  “Paul is only asking for your opinion,” Federov said. “I’ve told him how intelligent you are. You know how your government works, and you know how the world works. And you can convey in almost any language.”

  “Okay, look,” she said, “we’ll talk as friends, how’s that? Completely off the record.”

  “I’d like that,” said Guarneri.

  “Regarding property in Cuba that once was owned by Americans?” she said. “To clarify ownership there would have to be a new treaty tied in to diplomatic recognition of a new regime,” she said. “Realis
tically, that will take several years beyond the passing of Fidel Castro and possibly Raoul Castro as well.”

  “I’d prefer not to wait that long,” he said.

  “What you’d prefer and what’s going to happen are two different things,” Alex said.

  “Could you get legal entry into Cuba?” he asked. “Through your contacts in law enforcement?”

  “Me?” she asked in surprise.

  “You,” he nodded.

  “I’ve never thought much about it,” she said. “And for the very reasons the United States might want me to go, the Cuban government might not want me to arrive. So that doesn’t sound too promising.”

  “Would you ever be available to accompany me to Cuba?” he asked.

  Again she looked at him in surprise. “What?” she asked.

  He repeated. Then, “I’m trying to recover property that was abandoned by my father a half century ago,” Guarneri said.

  “Whose property was it?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “Whose property is it right now?” Alex asked.

  “No one’s,” Guarneri said, “because no one can find it.”

  After a few seconds, Alex asked. “It’s hidden?”

  “I believe it still is, yes,” he answered.

  She pondered for a moment. The waiter intruded. They ordered coffee. Alex asked for an espresso to counteract the rocket fuel served at the Waldorf and the glasses of wine here.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re talking about property that you feel would have been rightfully yours if Castro’s revolution hadn’t happened.”

  “Correct,” Guarneri said

  “Well,” she said, “I deal with international financial complications all the time. People cheating governments, governments cheating people. So I’ll tell you what I know, even though you might not like it. In post-Castro Cuba the restitution of property will be the most contentious issue the new Cuban government will face. Assuming the Cuba of the future is democratic or even mildly socialist, everyone will have to take into account the hostility that many Cubans would feel toward having their national assets transferred to people such as yourself.”

  “What would they have against me?”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “You and other former Cubans have been living comfortably in Miami, New York, or Los Angeles for decades. The Cuban people endured Castro and the idiotic American embargo that helped impoverish the island and kept food and pharmaceuticals in short supply.”

  “I thought you worked for the US government,” he said.

  “I do, but that doesn’t mean I personally agree with all policy. A lot of it is just plain stupid. Or political. Or ill-conceived. The Cuban embargo is a great example of all three.”

  “Not afraid to tell me what you think, huh? I like that,” he said.

  “You might like it now, but you won’t always,” she said. “Let’s get back to you. I’m guessing you have family links to the previous regime, Batista’s, which was even worse than Castro.”

  “Why do you guess that?”

  “No offence intended,” Alex said, “but it’s written all over you. Look where we’re having dinner, for example. I feel like I’m on the set for The Sopranos.”

  Guarneri stared at her coldly for a moment, then shook his head and laughed.

  “See?” Federov said to his friend. “I warned you.”

  But by now, Alex was intrigued.

  “Okay, I’ll give you some of the rest of it, Alex,” Guarneri said, opening up. “My father was a part owner of a racetrack and a gambling casino near Havana. He also owned a couple of strip clubs,” he said. “When Fidel Castro took over the country, my dad had to get out of Cuba fast. He was holding a lot of money at the time. Half a million dollars in US currency. But it was all in small denominations. Fifties. Twenties. Tens. Fives. There was no way that he could take it with him to the airport. The police or the army or Castro’s soldiers would have taken it from him.” Guarneri paused. “So he buried it.”

  “He buried it?”

  Guarneri nodded.

  “And that’s the ‘property’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hidden?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know where?”

  “I think I know where,” he said. “If I could get back into Cuba, I think I could find the money.”

  “You said, ‘back,’ ” Alex said. “You’ve been there?”

  “I was born in Havana in 1955,” Guarneri said. “My mother was my father’s mistress in Cuba. She was a dancer at one of his clubs.”

  Guarneri thought for a moment. He then reached to his wallet and opened it. He produced a pair of pictures, one of his mother as a leggy casino-style showgirl from a chorus line in what he said was 1957. The second was a grainy picture of himself with his mother, a faded color shot, from Long Island in 1966.

  “So your mother got out of the country too?” Alex said.

  “She was able to leave in 1961,” Paul Guarneri said. “My father had a wife and family here, but he did the decent thing for me and my mother. He smuggled us out. I remember it happening. My mother came and got me in the middle of the night. She wrapped me in a blanket, and we were taken to a car. She told me it was time to leave, and we couldn’t bring anything. We drove without headlights and went to a boat. The boat went to a seaplane, and we flew to Florida. I’m told we flew eighty miles at three hundred feet. I slept through it. When I woke up the next morning we were in an apartment in Key West. Then came the Bay of Pigs, the American invasion at Playa Giron. It was harder to get anyone out of Cuba after that. Years went by. My father always fretted over the thought of those greenbacks slowly rotting in the Cuban earth. But he was shot to death first and never got back to Cuba.”

  “I assume previous attempts have been made to recover this ‘lost property,’ ” Alex said.

  “Yes, but not by me,” Guarneri said.

  “Then by whom?” she asked. Guarneri glanced at Federov.

  “I traveled to the island twice,” Federov said. “I have a Ukrainian passport. I can go in and out whenever I want. But I was of no help.”

  Alex turned to Guarneri. “Taking into account the fact that much of the wealth before Castro was accumulated by friends of a repressive government with links to American gangsters,” Alex said, looking him squarely in the eye, “I wouldn’t think your position in Cuba would be a very popular one.”

  “So you’re not encouraged that I’d be able to recover anything? Cash or any other assets.”

  The coffee arrived and so did a small tray of sweets for dessert. The espresso was scalding hot. She sipped carefully. As the caffeine hit, it was a punch in the nose. So much for easy sleep tonight.

  Alex waited till the waiter had departed until she spoke again. “Generally no,” she said. “And the bottom line is that restitution of property will be the sovereign decision of the new Cuban government, which can set any rules it likes.”

  Federov grinned to the side.

  Guarneri blinked. “Is there any sort of historical precedent,” he asked, “for recovery of property?”

  “I remember that with East Germany and its reunification with West Germany, restitution of property led to a multitude of competing claims in the German courts as well as some Swiss, Czech, and Austrian courts. Look, Paul. Suppose a sugarcane farm was nationalized in the early sixties and the owners fled to Miami. By now, there are probably a half-dozen potential heirs who may well not agree on how the pie should be divided. You will have relatives coming out of the woodwork, second and third cousins whom you didn’t even know existed, claiming that they own part of the money. And that’s even if Cuban courts will award a claim to a foreigner. More likely, they will award it to people who have been on the island for most of their lives, for the reasons I already mentioned.”

  The discussion took a break as the bill for dinner
arrived. Guarneri was treating. He peeled off some cash and laid it on the table. Over the course of the evening, Alex had now watched her acquaintance enrich the city’s restaurant economy by close to five hundred dollars.

  “So what you’re saying, Alex,” Guarneri said in closing, “is that it would be more effective for me to go directly into Cuba, grab what’s mine, and get out again?”

  “If it’s a pile of money, yes, sure. That might work,” Alex said simply. “And it might not. You might get your head blown off by local police. And you might find that the stash disappeared fifty years ago. Equally, a Cuban prison would be a pretty horrible place to spend ten years if your visit hit any snags. So be forewarned.”

  “I understand,” he said. But he said this in such a way that it suggested more.

  “Was there something else?” she asked.

  The two men exchanged a glance.

  “Well, there’s my actual offer to you,” Guarneri said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m going to make a trip into Cuba. I need to be accompanied by a woman who will pose as my wife or an adult daughter. I need a woman who is politically savvy, intelligent, able to think on her feet in dangerous situations, and is fluent in Spanish. I’m under no illusions as to how risky such a trip would be.” He paused. “Yuri suggested you.”

  She looked back and forth between the two of them, then laughed.

  “The two of you,” she said, “you’re both quite charming and completely out of your minds.”

  “Will you go with me?” Guarneri asked.

  “No. That’s a flat-out no. I don’t even have to think about it.”

  “A woman who can handle a gun would be particularly useful,” Guarneri said.

  “Ask around in this room,” she said. “I’m sure someone knows someone and can hook you up with a Lara Croft clone.”

  “Again, Yuri suggested you.”

  “Yuri’s full of bad ideas, Paul. This would be one of them.”