Escape to Havana

by Nick Wilkshire

  “Señor Hillier.”

  He was too frozen by fear to move or call out, unable to do anything other than watch as an imposing figure rose from a chair to his right.

  “I believe you have something belonging to me.”

  Charlie’s heart pounded as he stared up at the broad-shouldered man standing a few feet from him, the distinctive scar across his right cheek suddenly visible as he turned his face into what dim light there was coming through the windows. If the idea was to be represented by a terrifying figure, the cartel, or whoever the man worked for, had chosen well. Just to look at Diego Medina had a paralyzing effect, and he couldn’t help thinking the nickname La Muerta was just as apt.

  “What?” he heard himself say.

  “You heard me. Where is it?”

  “You sent me the note?”

  “I said where is it?”

  “Where is she?” Charlie heard himself ask.

  “Safe, for the moment,” Medina said, producing a grainy Polaroid of Jillian Gray holding up a copy of Granma — the Communist party’s official paper. Charlie squinted in the low light but thought he recognized the cover page from the office and was sure it was today’s edition. She was alive, and in relatively good shape from what he could see. “But I’m losing patience.” Medina withdrew the photo. “I don’t think you realize what you got yourself into when you pulled up those floorboards,” he said, with a rough laugh. “Garcia hid it well, but not well enough. You must have been quite surprised at your discovery.”

  “You could say that.”

  “But the time for games is over,” Medina said, his hand going to his belt. “And I want what Garcia thought he could take from me.”

  Charlie watched the glint of a long steel blade emerge as Medina drew his hand back from his waist, and he took an instinctive step backwards.

  “I’ll ask you one more time. Where is it?”

  “You get nothing until I see her,” Charlie said. Though he could feel himself shaking, he had managed to sound quite calm, and in that moment of terror, one thing became clear to him — Medina would have killed him already if he didn’t think Charlie could lead him to the drugs. He summoned what was left of his failing courage to add: “If you’ve done anything to her, I swear I’ll never tell you where it is.”

  Medina let out a sharp breath, then approached slowly as Charlie just stood there, immobilized by fear. He could smell the stench of the Colombian’s cologne — he must have bathed in it, it was so strong — as Medina’s face hovered within inches of his own and the blade of the knife slowly rose between them, its tip touching Charlie’s cheek with just enough pressure to sting, but not to draw blood.

  “I think you will,” Medina said, as Charlie fought to keep his fear under control. The big Colombian was still staring into his eyes when Charlie felt the air go out of his stomach. The shove that followed the surprise body blow sent Charlie flying back into the wing chair near the entrance to the living room. Doubled over and gasping for air, Charlie didn’t resist as Medina grabbed his arms and pulled them around the back of the chair. He heard the sound of packing tape and his hands were quickly bound. Helpless as he sat there, Charlie wondered what was next, and thought he knew when Medina approached him again with the knife, pressing it into the flesh of his cheek, below his right eye. With a lightning-fast flick of the Colombian’s wrist, Charlie felt the knife tear into his skin, followed by the unmistakable sensation of blood running down his face. He tried to shield himself out of instinct, but his hands were held firmly behind the chair, and he could only sit there, waiting for the end. Instead, the Colombian straightened up and tucked the knife into his belt, laughing as he did so. He allowed himself a few moments to savour Charlie’s terror and confusion before he spoke again.

  “Midnight tomorrow, at the Alameda de Paula. You will bring what is mine, and we will make an exchange. The woman for the coca, and then you will leave Havana and never return. Is that clear?”

  Charlie managed a hurried nod.

  “And if you try to involve anyone else in our arrangement, I will gut you like a fish and toss you in the bay, along with your girlfriend.”

  Charlie was too terrified, not to mention surprised he was still alive, to react to the blow to his temple that seemed to come out of nowhere and plunged him into darkness.

  When Charlie came to, he was slumped in the chair and Medina was gone.

  He strained against the tape that bound his wrists, and noticed drops of blood from his face on the floor in front of him. After a few minutes of exertion, he managed to stretch the tape and separate his hands. Bolting out of the chair, he noticed a smear of blood on the floor to the left of the entrance to the living room, leading toward the kitchen, and he ran to the patio door and looked out over the garden. The sliding door was unlocked, but there was no sign of anyone outside. As he surveyed the yard, the lights inside the house came back on and, putting his hand to his face, he went to the bathroom. The first glance in the mirror, and the sight of a considerable amount of blood smeared on his face shocked him. But after wiping it away with cold water, he was relieved to see the cut was not deep, and after a few minutes of pressure the bleeding stopped.

  As he sat at the kitchen table, Charlie realized he was still shaking. He tried to pull himself together with a couple of fingers of Scotch, but he could barely bring the glass to his lips, his hand was trembling so much.

  All he could think of was tomorrow night. What the hell was he going to do?

  Chapter 37

  “What happened to your face?” Landon asked as he stood at the door to Charlie’s office.

  “Ran into a door, would you believe,” he replied, in his best aw-shucks impression.

  “Still no word on Gray?”

  “No,” Charlie replied. He had made a point of inquiring with Connors first thing, though he knew only too well that there would be nothing to report.

  “That’s awful,” Landon said. “But they can file a missing persons report now, at least.” He was obviously trying to be upbeat, but they both knew such a filing with the Cuban police would mean nothing.

  “What do you make of this hurricane?”

  Charlie looked up from his computer. “What hurricane?”

  Landon’s eyebrows shot up. “The first one of the season’s on its way,” he said, walking over to the window and looking out. “You didn’t notice the sky?”

  “Come to think of it, it did seem kind of dark on the way in this morning,” Charlie said, though he was so preoccupied this morning that he might not have noticed if a plague of locusts had swarmed the island. He got up and joined Landon at the window. “Is it supposed to be a bad one?”

  “Depends on what sort of shape it’s in when it hits here,” Landon said with a shrug. “Could be pretty wild. You might want to move your patio stuff inside.”

  Charlie nodded and looked out at the clouds, which seemed to have gotten darker even in the few seconds he had been standing at the window. He had seen a few major summer storms in Ottawa, but nothing like a hurricane. He might even be worried, if not for everything else that was going on right now. An impending hurricane seemed the least of his problems.

  “Hey Drew,” Charlie said, just as Landon was starting for the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember whose property borders mine at the rear?”

  Landon shrugged his shoulders. “I thought it was some government compound or something. Why do you ask?”

  “I know the cops said it was government property when they were investigating the break-in. I was just curious which department.”

  “There’s no house on it, is there?”

  “It’s hard to see with that big hedge and all the greenery on the other side, but I don’t think so.”

  “If it’s government, it’s probably under the control of our good friend Gustavo Ruiz.” />
  “What do you mean?” Charlie was taken off guard by the response.

  “Well, whatever department is using it, if any, Ruiz’s shop is probably in control of it.”

  “I thought he was only responsible for foreign governments.”

  “No, ImCub’s responsible for the works, as far as I know. I can check if you want.”

  “No, don’t bother,” Charlie said, waving the offer off.

  “Coffee later?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said, managing a half-hearted smile as Landon left, and betraying no sign of the breakneck speed at which his mind was replaying his memory of his last meeting with Gustavo Ruiz, and the strange comments he had made. What was it he had said when they were talking about environmental liabilities? You need to be assured that there is nothing unsavoury on the grounds … or under them.

  Charlie had thought it an unsettling remark at the time, but he saw it in an even more ominous light now, especially after a sleepless night of replaying and dissecting every statement and piece of information that came to mind in an attempt to figure out what to do at the fast-approaching midnight meeting.

  His mind returned to where he had begun after his terrifying encounter the night before — with Medina’s presence in his living room, which he had initially attributed to his diplomatic guards being involved. Why then, had Medina left through the back of the house? The one smudge of blood on the hallway floor, which could only have been left by Medina’s shoe, clearly showed he had exited from the back, not the front, of the house. It occurred to him that the guards might not be involved after all, in which case the people who had torn his house apart on the night of the break-in would have taken the same route. He had gone out in the yard with a flashlight the night before and found nothing but a chain-link fence behind the large hedge at the rear of his property, complete with razor wire at the top. How, then, had it been so apparently easy for Medina and whoever had broken in to get in and out? He had gone the length of the fence and seen no obvious point of entry, but it had been dark, and who knows what he had missed. Besides, uncovering their escape route wasn’t helping with the more urgent problem of what he was going to do tonight. He was deep in thought when Connors appeared at his door.

  “The Cubans want to talk to me about Jillian Gray. I think you should come.”

  Charlie sensed this was more of an order than a request, so he nodded his agreement. “The meeting’s at their headquarters in the old town at noon. I’ll meet you there. You know where it is?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And the ambassador wants a debrief this afternoon, around four, after he gets back from his own meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

  Charlie nodded and sighed. What else could he do?

  Charlie drove up out of the underpass from Miramar and felt the car lurch to one side as an onshore gust bore down on him, bringing enough sea spray with it to obscure his vision for a couple of seconds before his wipers cleared the windshield. The sky had gone from a dark blue-grey to downright black, and the wind had been gradually picking up all morning, chasing even the hardiest of anglers from the seawall. The ominous weather was consistent with the turmoil going on inside Charlie’s head as he made his way toward Old Havana.

  Noticing a long line of cars waiting ahead, and a roadwork crew blocking the westbound lanes of the Malecón, desperately trying to pack up their equipment before it was blown or washed away, Charlie took a right by the Meliá Cohiba and began working his way east through side streets. He was still working on what was so far a hopeless plan when he caught sight of a familiar car in his rear-view mirror. Keeping his head facing directly forward, he carefully checked the other car’s position as he made a couple of turns that eventually brought him out onto the Linea, heading east again. Checking the mirror, he saw that the car was still there. It was far enough back that it was hard to make out the model, but it looked relatively new. Maybe a Peugeot? Like Gord Connors drove …

  Charlie decided that it was normal for Connors to be headed in the same direction, since they were both due at the same place in a few minutes. But why would he be taking precisely the same convoluted route? And why wouldn’t they have gone together if they were both coming from Miramar? It occurred to him that despite what Landon had said about the likelihood that Redden had shot his mouth off about Charlie’s liaison with Gray, Connors had not pressed him on the point. Did he really think Charlie might have something to do with her disappearance? He scanned the mirror for other cars, wondering whether the Cubans might also be following him as part of a joint surveillance exercise with Connors.

  And then it hit him. A plan.

  If Connors really was following him, all Charlie had to do was lead him to the meet tonight, and wait for him, and probably the Cubans, too, to bust things up. He would just have to stall Medina long enough — maybe with a bag of flour wrapped in cellophane — to hold the fort until the cavalry came to the rescue. Perhaps not the greatest plan on earth, but it was better than what he had two minutes before.

  Arriving outside the police station, Charlie parked and got out of the car just as a turbulent blast of wind caught the open door, almost wrenching it off its hinges. Fat raindrops had begun to fall, and he had to shield his eyes from the leaves and little twigs whipped up by the buffeting winds as he made his way across the street.

  He was not at all surprised to have arrived ahead of Connors, and he tried to act naturally when the former showed up five minutes behind him, shaking the rain from his clothes and muttering something about having come from a nearby meeting. As they went through the motions of filing a formal missing persons report with the Cubans, Charlie wondered whether the two cops sitting opposite them at the table had him under surveillance as well. He hoped so, and for the first time since receiving the note from Medina, he felt there was a chance, if only a slim one, that both he and Gray might survive the night.

  Chapter 38

  Charlie flinched as a tree branch slammed into his windshield and he fought the wheel to keep his car straight against a vicious gust of wind as he made his way along Fifth Avenue. The briefing he and Gord Connors had been scheduled to give the ambassador at four had been cut short. There was no news on Jillian Gray, and nothing much they could do for now. The weather had deteriorated to the point where Stewart had decided to close the embassy, and he had become caught up in issuing emergency orders to ensure staff and equipment were safely tucked away before the storm hit. Charlie slammed his foot on the accelerator and sped along through a calm patch, eager to get back to his house before he was blown off the road. He was no meteorologist, but he could tell by the gusting winds, and the way they were bending even the biggest trees, that this was serious. He wondered what the conditions would be like later, when he was supposed to meet Medina in the old port. He had heard that the Malecón had been shut down, so he would have to find an alternate route if it hadn’t been re-opened by midnight.

  Charlie had spent the whole day trying to refine his plan and had slipped home at lunch to prepare the package of flour that he hoped to fool Medina with for long enough that he and Gray might be spared. As evening approached, Charlie began to fear that he would blow it when it came time for the meeting. He had to be convincing enough with Medina that keeping him and Gray alive for as long as it took Connors and company to arrive would lead the Colombian to his precious dope. If he wasn’t, La Muerte might just kill them both on the spot. The fake brick of cocaine had been much trickier than he could ever have imagined, and he had looked like the Pillsbury doughboy by the time he was done. But the plastic-wrapped bundle, bound with masking tape, looked enough like what he had found under his floorboards that it just might just buy him some valuable time.

  As he turned onto his street and the guard hurried out from his shelter to open the gate, Charlie felt a rush of relief at having made it home. But when he turned off the car and closed his eyes, all he saw was
Gray’s frightened face staring back at him from the grainy photo. What was she going through right now? Surely if there was a God, he wouldn’t let her suffer the same fate as Amirjit Saini, whose only crime was to fall in love with a man who was willing to take risks of which she was probably completely unaware.

  Charlie ran through the torrential rain to his front door and fumbled with the key, just as the sky lit up with a blinding flash of lightning, followed a couple of seconds later by an earsplitting bang that displaced the air around him. Once inside, he slammed the door and looked around at the darkened interior of his house. He flicked the nearest switch and realized the power was out again.

  Shit!

  He made his way upstairs and fumbled in the dim light of his bedroom for some dry clothes. He was throwing on a T-shirt when the room was flooded with the silver glow from another lightning strike, followed by an even louder eruption of thunder. A few seconds later, the light in the ceiling fan over his bed flickered for a moment, and rather than the return to darkness Charlie expected, the light continued to burn brightly. He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped out of the bedroom, oblivious to the fist hurtling toward his midsection that took his breath away and left him in a crumpled heap at the top of the stairs. He looked up to see Diego Medina’s fearsome bulk hovering over him.

  “Get up.”

  “What … what are you doing here?” Charlie said, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his midsection.

  “I said get up.”

  “But … you said midnight.”

  “Change of plans. Get the fuck up!”

  The urgency of the command got Charlie upright, just in time for Medina to bark another one.

  “Where is it?”

  Charlie’s mind was racing. He willed himself to stay calm. He had to stick to the plan, to the extent possible.