by Gil Hogg
“We need to find out whether our Cuban intelligence contact can tell us anything,” Yarham said.
“And pick up the tools.”
I noticed that a paunchy man with a thick neck, wrapped in a loose suit, had paused on the shining floor of the lobby and half-turned toward us, frowning, concentrating his gaze. I met his glance; there was mutual uncertainty. Recognition happens in milliseconds, but it seemed to take a long time for me to trace in my memory the precise lines of the pug nose and the thick lips… It was the man on the couch, Carmelli! I had seen his face for only a fraction of a second but it was unforgettable.
Carmelli looked away from me, bustled on his way, and swiftly disappeared into an elevator.
“Carmelli come to retrieve the CIA’s honour, and his own!” I said.
“I fear we may have made a stupendous blunder in showing ourselves here, sir,” Yarham said.
“He must be staying here, Yarham.”
“They don’t stint themselves, these servants of the people.”
The Excelsior was one of about three locations patronised by rich foreigners. I was tired of playing the small businessman – that was why we had treated ourselves to a drink at the Excelsior, but now that I came to think of it, the Excelsior was the natural place to find the lavishly salaried, expense account-supported top men of the CIA.
“We better get our asses out of here, or Carmelli will be chasing us with a 45,” I said.
We retired hastily from this cathedral of polished marble and white-jacketed waiters, to the dog-eared Comodoro. We washed our feet, and installed ourselves in my room. The risk of being seen from the balcony meant that we had to sit indoors and listen to the wheezing air conditioner. With clean socks and replenished cocktails, we considered our fate.
I turned over our few options – see the Cuban contact; try Neville for information about CIA movements at the risk of revealing our mission; and finally, home in on the CIA more closely, perhaps even tail Carmelli.
Yarham, tactfully, did not mention a further examination of the 1960s sites. The warmth, the rum, and the relaxed ambience of Havana took the edge of urgency off our conversation. I had made no decision, when there was a light knock at the door.
Yarham opened the door, and it was kicked back in his face, knocking him flat on his back. Two men were in the room, big, gymnasium-trained Americans in linen suits, ties, with lumpy, sunburned faces and short hair. Both had snub-nosed revolvers in their hands.
Carmelli had moved swiftly. The CIA had sprung into life, while we had forgotten our training and every spy film we had ever seen. In opening the door, we had acted like a couple of tourists inviting a heist.
“You move, you get iced,” one of the men said, waving his weapon.
“I donna understand,” I said, reverting to car-dealer Garcia.
“You will, punk, you will.”
The CIA pair came round with their backs to the balcony windows, and held their guns on us. Between us was the empty couch on which Yarham and I had been sitting facing the windows. We were all in the ante-chamber of the suite, which contained only the couch, armchairs and a low table. Multi-coloured tiles, strewn with a few old rugs, covered the floor.
“We’re goin’ to have a little talk with you guys,” the speaker continued calmly as they took up their positions.
I could see now that the man who had only frowned hatefully, and not spoken, did not have a conventional pistol in his hand. He was holding a dart gun. They were going to tranquilise us, and remove us to a place with more scope for interrogation. That would be life-threatening.Although these were two young men with college education and law degrees who no doubt faithfully remembered their mothers’ birthdays, they were also brutal goombahs in the Kershaw mode, who would kill without conscience. I was sure Yarham would have assessed the situation as I had, and understood the need for instant action.
Although I was unarmed, I had been taught a technique to deal with this kind of event which the melancholy MI6 instructors called The Gas Chamber Alternative. When you are destined for the gas chamber, you will surely die if you don’t act. The essence of the technique is action, a whirlwind of physical action which confuses the planned approach of an antagonist. I had never employed the technique before, and at the time I had learned it, thought it rather puerile, desperate and dangerous. But now I could see, graphically, that it was better than nothing. Action, but what action?
When my eyes met Yarham’s I moved my head slightly to indicate the windows, and thought Yarham signalled readiness, his chin hanging down below his open mouth, oddly relaxed. The talking man signalled me to come closer.
“I wanna get to know you better.”
He was lining me up for a shot by his accomplice with the dart.
Between the man and me was the heavy, upholstered couch, sitting on small brass wheels, easily mobile on the tiles. I stepped forward to comply, but then dived behind the couch, twisting and heaving it forward with my shoulders toward the gunman. There was a wild shot, and I felt the heavy furniture collide with the man and smash him against the closed windows, shattering them.
Yarham took advantage of the momentary distraction of the other man, and charged him like a lineback, carrying both of them through another pane of the glass doors to sprawl on the balcony.
When Yarham and I sprang back from our work, we had two dazed CIA agents on their backs, and a pistol spinning on the tiles. I scooped it up.
“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing the satellite phone, and while our assailants were struggling to their feet, we were out the door and down the stairs.
“Not the front,” I cautioned, thinking that there might be reinforcements there, and that our attackers would be in immediate radio contact with their team.
We made our way out through the kitchens, and melted into the crowds on Calle D heading toward the Malencon.
16
After I had bought antiseptic cream and plasters from a pharmacy, I retired with Yarham to a shadowy bar, replaced the drinks which seemed fated to be interrupted, and dealt with the cuts on Yarham’s scalp and hands.
“What’s next, Captain?” Yarham asked with his foolish grin.
It would not be possible to return to the hotel rooms. “I’ll send some cash in the post or the hotel will report us to the police, or maybe I can get the MI6 man to compensate for the damage.”
We were wearing shirts and trousers, and our suit jackets were no loss. Each of us had money and a passport in a body belt. I had the satellite phone, and the pistol I had picked up from our attackers. Nothing of any value, to the CIA or anybody else, had been left behind. The false memoranda and invoices which were meant to bolster our identity as Mexican domiciled car dealers were in my belt, although that identity was almost useless now. We could check into another hotel, but I assumed the CIA would set up a fairly comprehensive surveillance on hotels; they would have plenty of scavenging dogs, hired for a few pesos, to sniff the streets.
“I think we pick up our tools and go for the safe house, work from there,” I said.
“Do you think the CIA will haul in the police to find us? It would be easy enough for one of the CIA men to complain, say, of a theft. We’re missing. Hotel room damaged.”
“Perhaps, to make life more difficult for us, but my instinct is that they’ll keep clear of the police.” In an hour we had changed from respectable businessmen into fugitives. “We’ll need to be cautious on the streets anyway.”
“I’ve always fancied having a beard like Fidel,” Yarham said.
It wasn’t such a bad idea. “We’ll ask Mr MI6 if he can provide wigs.”
We hung out in a grotty bar, fortified with warm, greasy empanadas and rum, until the time for the meeting was near, and then slunk through the back streets to the assignation at the Herradura bar. Our man was waiting in shorts and open-toed sandals, slumped back easily on a bar stool, a white t-shirt stuck out over his bulging belly. He had no luggage that I could see. He looked at us with
curious humour, and noticed Yarham’s plastered head and fingers.
“Started work, eh?”
“Have you got the stuff?” I asked.
“Yes, but we have to pick it up elsewhere.”
“We need disguises. Maybe wigs, a moustache, something to darken our skin, dark glasses.”
“Fancy dress, eh? OK. Cops after you?”
“Could be. You need to discreetly fix up our bill at the Comodoro Hotel and compensate for the damage to my room, or they will be.”
“It’s not that easy,” Neville frowned.
I knew he was considering the administrative bother – the requisition for funds, the reports, the explanations. “Don’t wait until you’ve discussed it with London, will you?”
Neville hardened. “What happened?”
I explained the damage, but not the cause.
“How did it happen?”
“You think of an explanation, and peddle it to the hotel manager.”
“I have to make a report,” Neville said, sourly.
“You know the need to know routine.”
Neville accepted this reluctantly. “The police aren’t all that sharp. But there are a lot of informers around.”
“I want to use the safe house.”
The hard look turned to the annoyed. More admin work. “You’re all done, then? Waiting to leave?”
“No.”
“If you operate from the safe house it won’t be safe for very long.”
“Too bad. Right now we need somewhere.”
This gave Neville a problem. Disturbed in his cosy and probably tranquil post, he could feel himself inching toward trouble.
“Why not set up another safe house immediately?” I asked, thinking we might have to bolt again.
“I’ll handle my department.”
“We might need it. I’m serious. Don’t let me have to ask, and find you can’t deliver.”
“I said I’ll handle my department.”
The meeting finished coldly. Neville’s visitors were a bloody nuisance. He gave directions to the safe house, and agreed to meet in fifteen minutes, in a nearby electrical goods shop, where the weapons would be handed over.
“The shop is only a few minutes away. Wait here, give me five minutes, and then follow,” he said.
When Neville had gone, I moved to the front of the bar, from the dark recess we were inhabiting, and looked up and down the street through the strip of dirty window that was not plastered with advertising. It was a lucky move, made out of caution rather than foresight. Some of the patrons eyed me curiously, but I wasn’t worried about them. Through the window I saw one of the CIA college boys who had raided the hotel, the trank operator, crossing toward the bar. They were apparently searching aggressively.
“Let’s move,” I said to Yarham.
I went out back toward the lavatory, kicked open the back door, waded through a heap of rags, old newspapers and empty liquor cartons, to enter the next-door premises. It was a cookhouse, with the door open. I walked through a haze of barbeque smoke, followed by Yarham, toward the restaurant at the front. Nobody seemed to take notice of us. We slipped out the front door, and heads down, dodged down alleys toward our rendezvous. At one point we had to pause to make sure we were going the right way and Yarham held my arm.
“Some questions arising out of that, Captain,” he said, blocking me from moving.
“Like, how did Trank know we were there? Maybe he was just searching routinely,” I said.
“How many bars are there in central Havana? Big coincidence turning up at the Herradura. And if he followed us, why wait until after our meeting?” Yarham’s head was inclined quizzically.
“He was tipped off?”
“By our MI6 colleague, perhaps, Captain?”
“That’s uncharitable, Yarham. Maybe Neville has unintentionally let his CIA friends know he has pals coming to town, and they’re following him, to get a line on us,” I reasoned.
“Despite what you said about telling nobody?”
“Perhaps he let it slip before that, before we even arrived, said he had a couple of guys coming in from the States.”
“He did look taken aback when you told him to keep quiet. But we’re keeping our meeting with him?”
“We have to take the chance, Yarham. We need the weapons, and we need the disguise material.”
“You have a gun, and a disguise won’t be much use if Neville can’t be trusted, Captain.”
Yarham was right, but I blustered on. “True, but it’s my gut feeling we ought to do this.”
As soon as we appeared in the cramped, narrow shop, lined with dusty radios and record players, each bearing garish signs blaring their cheapness, a black Cuban greeted us and led us to the back room. Neville was there, looking nervous, sweating too much for a long-time resident. He held a backpack in his hand.
“It’s all in here. Not the stuff you asked for this morning or the cuffs. I’ll deliver that to your place as soon as I can. If you want to get back to me at any time, go to the bar, buy a drink, and leave afterwards. I’ll be there twenty-four hours later.”
“That’s a bit like sending smoke signals,” Yarham said.
“Make it two hours,” I said.
“No. It’s the best I can do,” Neville said, seeming pleased at the delay. “I have to rely on a man to come to me, and I live quite a way from here.”
“Does your man have to go on horseback?” Yarham asked.
“Look, Neville. These are prehistoric communications you’ve set up. We may need assistance quickly.”
“Sorry. I don’t know anything about your mission. It’s the best I can do.”
I made a mental note to deal with Neville later, in my report. “Good old MI6,” I said, taking the pack and testing its weight. It was solid. I thought of questioning Neville about the CIA pursuers, and decided it would give away more than it revealed. I shrugged my shoulders in desperation. “We’re out of here.”
Yarham felt the pack uncertainly as I hefted it. “Could I see if I have a right-handed gun, sir?”
I hadn’t thought to check the contents. I dropped the pack on the floor and looked inside. Neville closed the door. The two cheap flickknives worked well enough. Then I pulled out a 9 mm Colt semi-automatic. I slid out the empty magazine clip and racked the mechanism. The gun was new, in fine working order. Yarham tested the other.
Yarham plunged his hand into the pack and retrieved two boxes of shells. With one of his daffy grins he held out the boxes so I could see the labels; they were .38 shells. “Tricky loading with these, Captain.”
I looked at Neville.
“Shit!” Neville started miserably, “They gave me the wrong ones. Give me those, and I’ll get some more to you tonight.”
We made our way cautiously west across the city to the Buena Vista area in the Playa district, where the house was. We took most of the day, dallying in bars, travelling on buses, and waiting in a lonely spot in a nearby park until dark. Yarham told me his life story, and I entertained him with tales of my adventures at public school and Oxford. But then our talk turned to more serious matters, because I was conscious that the safe house was likely to be bugged, and we couldn’t take the chance of doing any of our planning there.
“Do you have any doubts about our mission, sir?”
“Of course I do, Yarham. Any sensible person would. If it’s true the CIA and C3 are fighting each other, and it seems to be, who can tell what the outcome of this nuclear threat will be?”
“I was thinking along a different line, Captain. Why have we been sent here? I mean, two people, when they could have sent ten or fifty, or alerted the Cuban government, and made the whole thing into a huge search and destroy mission?”
“I can think of a lot of reasons. Politics. We can’t expect intelligence agencies to do the sensible or even the obvious thing. Neither the Disciples nor the CIA really know how urgent the threat is, and they seem to be assuming they have sufficient time. I guess t
hat with all our sophisticated surveillance machinery there’s a reluctance to believe that such a threat could be brought to fruition without it being known long in advance. Second, the Disciples want to get one over the CIA. They don’t want a CIA triumph here; that would reflect credit on the President. They also want to dislodge the President. So they want the problem to escalate to a crisis, as in 1962, to show the President and the CIA are inept. Then they will take a last- minute victory by forcing the bombing of Cuba, engineered by their own presidential candidate, McDonald, and right-wingers amongst the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We will presumably have found and passed the necessary information to them to enable them to pinpoint the strike.”
“Humble information-gatherers.”
“Humble, but not minor, Yarham. Yes, we’re confirming the map references so they can zero in the bombs. And they know we probably have more chance of finding out something useful than if they sent an army of lead-footed agents in.”
We agreed that this was more or less the rationale of what we were doing, and although Yarham mumbled something about not being entirely convinced that we were working in a just cause, I pointed out that the ultimate safety of people on the US mainland was in issue, and I suggested that we should leave the politics to those who seemed to know so much. Yarham assented, and we decided to move on in good faith.
The safe house was in a middle-class district of modest detached houses of two or three storeys, walled and heavily barred against burglars. As we – alone – moved along the street, the dogs behind the walls stirred and barked excitedly. There was no sign of life in the house, no light from the windows. Yarham rang the entry-phone, and when I was beginning to think we must have the wrong address, the speaker came to life with a mumbled answer.
“This is Wolf,” I said. Eventually the gate was opened and we were led inside by a brown boy of about eighteen, wearing only a pair of shorts. Pedro, the man I had been told was in charge, was waiting, smoking a cigar, coughing and dropping the ash down his T-shirt on to his paunch.