by Gil Hogg
“Arias.”
“I’d already worked out that you hadn’t told me the full story about Arias.”
“Only trying to save your feelings, man.”
Yarham gave a big grin. “I can take it, sir.”
At Mariel we picked Kershaw up at his lodging, and shared a bottle of rum in the jeep, parked in a backstreet in the dark, while Kershaw reported. He was sure that there was only one site. He thought that with the exception of two or three locals, the Mercados crew were the only workers. There was twenty-four hour security on the site as I had expected, including dogs. Other than local market lorries delivering food and building supplies of wood and cement, he’d seen nothing significant in the way of traffic going or coming – except that he had sighted an eight-wheeler Demag with a superstructure that looked like a mobile crane entering the wire enclosure. He produced a blurry photo on his mobile.
“It could be a firing platform,” Yarham said.
“Keep looking,” I said, bestowing what was left of the bottle on Kershaw, as we prepared to pull away.
That night I asked Yarham to find out whether the black Toyota sedan was a regular part of the Gomez fleet, and if it was, where it took Gomez and when. Yarham went off with the jeep in the morning, while I purchased a new wardrobe for my encounter with Arias – a light grey suit which fitted passably well, a white shirt with a green silk tie, and a pair of brown brogues. It was smart without being expensive, about right I judged for a US secret agent.
I had fixed the appointment with Arias by the simple expedient of ringing his secretary and making a request, as Yarham had facetiously suggested. My name I gave to the secretary was Smith – so obviously false to a person looking for falsity. I explained to her that I was visiting from England, and had met some friends of Dr Arias there. I had to make Arias curious about this visitor without alarming him. There had been a delay on the telephone line, and I had expected a further interrogation, but to my surprise the appointment was fixed for eleven the next day.
One of Yarham’s tasks, when he was finished tracking the black Toyota, was to drive via Mariel and get a report from Kershaw, but he came back that night without one.
“Kershaw wasn’t in his room.The room had been turned over, sir.”
“Just a rough search?”
“No, a ransacking. Furniture broken up, curtains torn down. Dog shit, or maybe human shit, on the mirrors.”
“A message?”
“Only an implicit message of hate.”
“Kershaw had nothing there that could worry us.”
But I was concerned about him. There was nothing to do but wait until he made contact. I ruled out going to Mariel. Either Kershaw was able-bodied and would report later, or he was in such serious trouble that any effort by me would be ineffectual.
I had taken to dining quietly with Yarham in the hotel on recent evenings. It was a pity we had to keep our heads down, because there were a few Havana restaurants I would have liked to try. At our hotel the food was disappointing Caribbean-style fried vegetables and fish, only interesting if you didn’t have to confront it night after night. I established that the cook – not a chef I’m afraid, appreciated being presented with a bottle of good rum, and was at his best away from the hotel menu. He could produce an acceptable version of orange duck or garlic chicken vesuvio on request. Afterwards, we would drink cognac and make our plans for the following day.
Yarham had followed the Toyota that morning. He found that it departed with two or so passengers including, Yarham thought, Gomez, for Mariel, at about ten in the morning, and was taken into the compound of the site.
“That gives us a serious problem,” I said. “If we were to hit Gomez on the road, it would be at a time when his men were at the site, and we’d have to assume they’d hear of it somehow. The opportunity to catch all of them together in the bus might be lost.”
“Equally, Captain, if we zapped the bus at six am, Gomez wouldn’t follow his normal routine.”
We mulled over different schemes which might throw a noose over the whole gang at once, but none seemed to have satisfactory timing and we left the nature of our attack unresolved.
I thought about Kershaw that night, and he didn’t phone the hotel. In the morning, after breakfast, leafing through the hotel papers as a matter of routine, I found in the tabloid Cuban Star a story of a gruesome beating at Mariel. A photo of an unidentified, unconscious white man was included. His mutilated body, found on wasteland, was lying on its back, and despite the blurred quality of the photo print, and the swollen and bloody injuries the man had suffered, was recognisable as Kershaw: the short grey hair, big forehead and the long, irregular face, now more irregular than ever. I worked though the rudimentary newspaper report with Yarham’s assistance. The assault was described as a drug duel, but the other duellist was unknown.
“We can’t go near him, Yarham. We’ll be identified and…”
“Or worse. Leaving Kershaw to the tender mercies of one of Fidel’s hospitals is no bad thing, sir. Fidel is good at hospitals.”
“We couldn’t even send Kershaw a card without making it tough for him. We’ve lost thirty-three per cent of our force.”
No doubt the Cuban police would be standing around Kershaw’s bed. I drew a blind in my mind, closing off the man who had been.
“Oh, that’s a crude measure of loss, Captain. I’d say Kershaw was fifteen percent.”
“I was only trying to be generous to a troubled man.”
23
“Just when we were beginning to work together,” Yarham mused.
“Kershaw was all right… Somebody is sending us a message. The CIA or Al Qaeda?”
“An angry CIA?” Yarham decided.
I thought that was probably right. I couldn’t see Kershaw being taken by the people he was watching. He was too fly, and they were too busy. But somebody who was also watching might have noticed him watching, or somebody who knew him may have seen him. I was thinking of Burton.
“I think we should assume the CIA are working on more or less the same lines as we are. So be aware when you’re snooping around the Mariel or San Cristobel,” I said.
I sent Yarham off for a repeat of yesterday, had a long bath, and dressed for my visit to the Ministry of the Interior. Other than putting in a short satellite report of Kershaw’s hospitalisation, there was nothing further I could do for him or about him. My report said no more than Injured in action. I could get away without details at this delicate stage. Kershaw wouldn’t talk, and he would remain a mystery body to the authorities, ultimately consigned to a prison. His timid wife would be bereft in the rambling pseudo-manor with its plaster Grecian gods.
I arrived at the Ministry in the Capitolio National at ten-forty-five am on a brilliant and hot morning. I had walked through the Parque de la Fraternidad on the way. Havana’s morning lethargy had worn off, and there was a burst of energy from the bicycles and clanking cars, and more bounce and colour in the pedestrians.
The corridors of the Capitolio were wide and dark and long and cool, lined with half-shadowed portraits or painted with Rivera’s murals of the struggles of Maceo and the workers. The floors were polished granite, the carved doors designed to admit giants.
I was shown through various barriers, past bureaucrats by whom my meeting was verified and my body searched. I was carrying proof of identity in the form of a forged British passport in the name of Smith, acquired at high cost from a local dealer. It was a poor effort, but good enough for this purpose. I progressed through the fortress, and came to an ante-room presided over by a uniformed officer, where I was invited to sit down. I remembered with an unpleasant tremor that if Dr Arias rejected my case, and had me arrested, I could, as Yarham had suggested, disappear into a deeper, darker hole within this battlement. I crushed the thought. A half a million dollars was surely an inescapable lure.
If offices are the index of importance in government, Alfredo Arias was very important indeed. When I was invited t
o enter – at precisely the appointed time – I had difficulty finding the man at first. My eyes were dazzled by the expanse of shaded glass along one wall, the richly sculpted moquette of the multicoloured carpet, and the oil paintings of more than life-size soldiers, some mounted on horses, in scarlet, blue and green uniforms, which hung on the walls. It was as though I had stumbled into a gallery or a museum.
I peered one way and then another. There was a movement behind a desk at the end of the room. The relatively small figure of a man on his feet in a brown linen suit, advancing toward me, a grey-eyed creole, with a skull of sleek, dark hair. Dr Arias had a bearing of Latin impatience, struggling, in competition with the splendour of his room, to narrow the focus down to himself. We cannoned together in a brief handshake.
“Meester Smeeth from England, please sit down and tell me about yourself,” he said, sweeping me on to a couch at the side, and taking a seat beside me. He thrust his face forward to occupy my full vision. The fumes of his expensive after-shave were slightly intoxicating. There could be no pause to admire the room.
I came straight to the crux. “I thought it most diplomatic to use the name Smith, Dr Arias. My codename is Wolf. I’m an agent for MI6, working with the US on anti-terrorism. My name is Roger Conway.” Arias’s expression never changed as I gently delivered this surprise. “I was given a special code for you in Washington – The yellow roses of Texas.”
I knew that the code phrase had been originated in the utmost secrecy, and was probably only known to Arias and Dolores Martinez. Arias drilled me deeply with his glare, and then his expression softened.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
I wasn’t going to tell him about my financial adventures with Dolores, because he spoke as though this was my first contact, and I didn’t want to get into side issues. “I want to ask for your help.”
He nodded very faintly, as though help was something he didn’t do. “What exactly?”
“A small quantity of arms.”
“What for?”
“To deal with Gomez.”
He frowned, confused. “You will deal with Gomez? What about your famous Central Intelligence Agency? They will deal with Gomez.”
“My mission is separate.”
“MI6? But you work together?”
I had to change course and give Dr Arias the answer he wanted. “Of course. We each do our separate part.” It was clear he was confident that the CIA would remove the Gomez threat, and that was the deal he would have made when he sold Carmelli the information.
“But I don’t understand what you do, Meester Conway.”
“It’s very simple, Dr Arias. Now that we have surveyed the task on the ground here in Cuba with our friends the CIA, we find we need further arms. We haven’t the time to bring them in from the US or elsewhere. We look to you, our valued ally, to help us, for which we will gladly make a contribution to your fund for the future.”
Dr Arias went through a long moment of stony consideration before he could see. “And with these extra arms you will deal with everything?”
“Everything. The terrorists and their works.”
“Yes, how much contribution do you have in mind?”
I told him a quarter of a million dollars, and specified the grenades, automatic rifles, high-explosive and anti-tank mines I required. I handed him a slip of paper with a quantified list. “The actual cost of these items is relatively little, and so there will be a substantial contribution to your campaign funds.”
“Certainly, but the risk of getting them to you is great,” he smiled.
We parted with an agreement which I did not like, but had to accept, that the money would be handed over first, to a representative of his, at a bank in Vedado, and that the delivery of the arms would take place at a drive-in on the Pinar del Rio Autopista the day following the payment. But, all in all, I returned to the hotel with some satisfaction that I had not only made the deal, but confirmed definitely that the CIA were planning a strike against Gomez.
Yarham was slightly questioning when I explained the arrangement to him. “We are dealing with an important man in government,” I protested. “Surely we can trust him on this? It’s not a petty matter. Cuba’s whole future is at stake.”
Yarham continued to stare at me as though I was talking drivel. I pressed on: “I know politicians tell lies, but this is…” I struggled to find the appropriate words.
“The opportunity for a very big lie,” Yarham said, slumping his head toward one shoulder as he habitually did when confronting the utmost idiocy.
“OK, maybe you’re right. I’m a sucker. Hell, as a second-hand car dealer I ought to know very well if you don’t get the money when you part with the car, and vice-versa, you don’t get it all! But what alternative do we have?”
“There you have me, sir.”
I was sitting at the hotel bar when Yarham returned that night, with an irrepressible grin suffusing his face. “Got some interesting news, Captain, and a present for you in the jeep.”
“You know I like presents,” I said.
I followed Yarham downstairs to the weedy lot surrounded by a broken stucco wall which served as the car park. Yarham opened the jeep and drew back a blanket which covered the rear deck. A human body, on its side, bound and gagged, lay there. The man’s face was red and his eyes bulged with semi-suffocation.
“Burton! You’ve come back to us!” I said. “How good to see you.”
“I found him skulking around in San Cristobel, followed him into a side street and… persuaded him to join us.”
“How eloquent you must have been, Yarham. I hope you told him we’re not doing airport transfers any more. Not even if he has a complementary flight on Air Mexico.”
“Shall we take him for a ride, Captain?”
Burton bucked and groaned at this prospect. I closed the door on him. Yarham got behind the wheel, and we drove to a lonely area near Bauta on the Carretera Central where we could talk to Burton without interruption. Yarham sat him up in the back and removed the gag. Burton looked weak and vulnerable, and anxious about his fate. His anxiety had caused him to mess his trousers, and the stench was revolting. It also seemed to me to be a sign of extreme apprehension based on guilt.
“Burton, I don’t want to spend much time with you,” I said, “because you need a bath. I told you the only good scenario was the one where you caught the plane to Mexico City. You could be on your way home to your Mom now, in Idaho. You didn’t listen. Pity…” I stared at him for a moment, watched the childish mouth falter. “Now tell me about Kershaw.”
“I didn’t do anything to him.”
“But you saw him at Mariel and identified him to your CIA colleagues.”
“I didn’t know… I didn’t expect…”
“You knew they’d kill him or nearly kill him, because you were going to kill us when we went for that little voyage on the Santa Maria with the late Gino Carmelli. That’s how you guys work.”
Burton didn’t say anything. His lips trembled.
“I’ll take that as an admission. We won’t talk about Kershaw any more. Tell me about the CIA plans to hit Gomez.”
“I don’t know them!”
“Then you better start imagining them. You are the man who brought the local department of the CIA into this. Until then it was your well kept-secret with Carmelli. When you escaped from Kershaw, you contacted them, told them Carmelli’s mission, and in pursuit of glory, they’ve taken it over. You are right at the heart of it, son.”
“No!” he protested, his eyes wet.
“Well, Burton, I don’t have any more to say to you.” I turned to Yarham “How shall we dispose of him?”
“Here, in a ditch?” He snapped open the flicknife obtained from Neville, and Burton let out a sad little sound.
I considered. “Wait. I think Burton has to disappear.”
“OK. Suppose he takes a swim a mile off the coast, Captain. We can hire a boat, deal with it tonight.”
“No! I’ll tell you all I know,” Burton whined, predictably and sensibly because he would have realised we now had no alternative.
I sat in the jeep, prodding Burton with questions, until a tolerable picture of the CIA activities and plans, which weren’t greatly different from ours, was created. The CIA had been funding dissident Cubans, and had accumulated a cache of arms over a period. They had, according to Burton, a core of two US special agents, as well as their wider network of local agents. It was going to be a two-pronged attack. First, a strike at the ranch, and second at the site, a military exercise to wipe out the terrorists and their work. The event, which was expected to make international waves – and would, was going to be used by Arias’s party to help destabilise the government in the popular mind.
When the interrogation was over, I decided we should keep Burton on the floor of the jeep tonight, with Yarham and I taking turns to keep watch to see that he didn’t get loose. I overruled Burton’s request for a shower and fresh clothes. I would decide what to do with him tomorrow.
When Yarham and I were enjoying a cognac after a late dinner, all taken on the patio where we could see the 4x4, I said, “You wouldn’t have used that knife, would you?”
“No sir, but I could get close to it. Would you have dumped him in the Florida Strait?”
“No, but I might have taken him out there to scare him further if it had been necessary. Remember that feeling we had on the Carmelli cruise, with the dark water swirling past a few inches away, and the thought of sharks below? I don’t have any sympathy for him.”
“What are we going to do with him, Captain? We need the vehicle.”
“And he stinks so much, we can’t cart him around with us.” We came to no final conclusion and I went to bed.
My stretch as guard was from three am, and I spent the rest of the hot night in a deckchair on the patio, from where I could view the parking compound, watching and listening. During that time I considered various ways to deal with Burton. I had seen some killing in Afghanistan, but that was war. I wasn’t squeamish about the need to eliminate Gomez & Co, and was prepared to do it because they were psychopathic would-be mass murderers.