The Midnight Swimmer

by Edward Wilson

  Catesby caught a glimpse of an attacking B-26 as it circled for another bombing run. It was now apparent that the military attaché had been mistaken when he predicted the nearest attack would be at ‘St. Tony’s’ eight miles to the south. The bombs sounded like they were landing less than a mile away. It must, Catesby thought, be the airfield at Ciudad Libertad. It was in military jargon, D-minus-2. The actual landing with troops was still forty-eight hours away.

  Despite the walls shaking each time a 500-pound bomb exploded, it didn’t seem a particularly ferocious air attack. Catesby wasn’t sure there were more than two bombers involved – and then there was one. He watched the stricken plane as it glided over the city. The silence was eerie. One engine was on fire and the propeller on the other wing was slowly turning by force of wind rather than engine. It was fascinating to watch in a ghoulish sort of way. The plane was flying lower and lower as if it were aiming at the old Morro Castle. Catesby mouthed a plea: ‘Please, please don’t crash in the city.’ A moment later the plane seemed to elevate, like a hawk soaring on a thermal, before plunging into the harbour entrance. It was as if the old castle had seen off another pirate.

  ‘Well,’ said the Ambassador, ‘that was a bit exciting.’

  ‘And I’m sure it’s going to happen again this evening,’ said the military attaché, ‘and the next day too.’

  The morning briefing was two hours later than normal so that staff had time to decode cables and make evaluations. The most interesting cable that Catesby dealt with hadn’t come from Washington or London, but from the SIS man in Nicaragua.

  ‘What have you got to tell us, William?’

  Catesby looked at the Ambassador. He wasn’t supposed to brief colleagues who hadn’t been security cleared.

  ‘If you can tell us.’

  Catesby made a snap decision to declassify. It would soon be common knowledge in any case. ‘As you know, today’s air strikes originated from a secret base in Puerto Cabezas.’ He looked around at surprised expressions. ‘Well, you know now. Our man in Managua has confirmed reports that only eight of the seventeen B-26 bombers available to the rebels took off.’

  ‘Maintenance problems?’ said the military attaché.

  ‘No,’ said Catesby, ‘pilot problems. There were never enough trained Cuban exile pilots to fly all seventeen planes.’ Catesby paused. He was starting to skate on limited-access security ice.

  The Ambassador smiled and said, ‘The other nine planes were supposed to be flown by American pilots, but it looks like Kennedy got cold feet at the last moment.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Catesby.

  Mickey Blakeney joined in. ‘It means, essentially, that Kennedy is signalling that there will be no US military support for the invasion. I’m not a military expert, but it seems then that this operation is doomed to fail.’

  The military attaché looked perplexed. ‘Surely then, the invasion ought to be cancelled.’

  ‘There’s too much momentum,’ said Catesby, ‘and the green light is flashing. I bet it’s still going to happen.’

  ‘Unless Castro’s air force is destroyed,’ said the attaché, ‘the invasion fleet will be sunk and any soldiers that get ashore will be slaughtered on the beaches.’

  It seemed, thought Catesby, a sound prediction. It wasn’t a military operation: it was a ritualised dance of death.

  ‘Round two,’ said Mickey, ‘will be the blame game.’

  The Ambassador was twirling his reading glasses and looking off into space. ‘We could,’ he said, ‘be witnessing the beginning of the end of Jack Kennedy.’

  The events of the next few days rolled out with dreary predictability. The SIS man in Nicaragua later told Catesby that he was in Puerto Cabeza the night that the 1,511 men of the Assault Brigade boarded the ships that would take them to the Bay of Pigs. The Nicaraguan dictator, Generalissimo Luis Anastasio Somoza, was on hand to see them off. Somoza was in a white military uniform clanking with medals and carrying a Thompson submachine gun. He waved the Thompson above his head and shouted to the men as they embarked, ‘Bring me some hairs from Fidel’s beard!’

  Three days after the invasion 114 of the 1,511 invasion force had been killed and 1,179 captured. A handful of survivors had escaped by sea. It hadn’t been a good week for Western prestige. On 12 April, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had orbited the earth as the first man in space. On the following Wednesday the ragged remnants of an American-sponsored invasion force were being hunted down in a Cuban swamp. The coincidence left Catesby feeling uneasy. A humiliated superpower can be a dangerous superpower.

  The first time Catesby saw Fidel Castro in person was a week later. Members of the diplomatic corps and the press had been invited to see the Bay of Pigs prisoners at the Havana Sports Palace. Catesby thought the men had been scrubbed up for the occasion. They were all wearing clean white T-shirts, military trousers and shined boots. They then had to listen to a speech by Fidel Castro that lasted from midnight to three thirty a.m. in which they were berated as criminals and pawns of US imperialism. Catesby was impressed by Castro’s utter self-confidence and energy. At the end of the speech he told the prisoners that they all deserved to be shot, but he wasn’t going to shoot them. Castro reminded the prisoners that Fulgen-cio Batista’s regime, the one he overthrew, had murdered 20,000 Cubans in its seven-year rule – and that even Kennedy admitted that. Catesby later checked the facts. Castro was right.

  The next day Catesby had a lie-in. He lay naked and exposed in bed, for the stultifying and humid heat made even a covering sheet too clammy. The ceiling lizard was back and staring down at him with disdain. He knew it was time to get up, but first he checked the inside of his brain to see if the rum mojitos had left the machinery intact. He opened one eye and closed the other, then vice versa. No serious damage.

  After El Supremo’s speech to the prisoners, a group of diplos and journos had ended up in O’Reilly’s Bar in Calle O’Reilly. The bar and the street were named after Alejandro O’Reilly, one of the ‘Wild Geese’ who left Ireland to fight in foreign Catholic armies against the British. It was in fact O’Reilly, by then a Spanish general, who received Havana back from the British at the end of the Seven Years War. But the history imp still had strange twists to play out. O’Reilly decided that Havana had fallen because there wasn’t a strong enough fort guarding the harbour entrance. He directed the construction of Fortaleza San Carlos de la Cabaña. Two centuries later another man of Irish descent, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, commanded La Cabaña fortress.

  Catesby drew the curtains and felt the warmth of the mid-morning sun on his body. His bedroom window looked over a flat cityscape of red roofs punctuated by embassy flags fluttering in the sea breeze: the nearest was the red flag of Turkey with its crescent moon and a star in the centre. In fact, he had got a lift back from O’Reilly’s with a Turkish diplomat whose name, Mustapha Something Rude, was a constant source of amusement to Brits with immature senses of humour.

  Catesby looked north beyond the roofs and neat grids of tree-lined streets to the sea which was a gleaming line of silver. The embassy quarter, because of its sea front, was called Miramar Playa. And, like the embassy quarters of other cities, Miramar was where the rich lived too – or had lived until the revolution. The millionaires may have gone, but their mansions and walled gardens were still there. Many of the grand houses were not only vulgar, but spectacularly so. These were not the mansions of Florentine dukes, but of gangsters and casino owners. Mercifully, thought Catesby, the onset of dilapidation gave the houses a shabby dignity they had lacked in their prime. Aren’t I, thought Catesby, turning into a snob?

  The British Embassy itself wasn’t too bad. It was a white villa with red roof tiles built in the Spanish colonial style. Its baroque ornamentation, as if anticipating a British tenancy, had kept itself understated. There was a lodge by the gate where Francisco, an ancient Afro-Cuban, greeted visitors and played the guitar. He also looked after a great-grandson who, as Catesby arrived, was polishi
ng the plaque on the entrance gate: Embajada de Inglaterra. The plaque worried Catesby. He wondered who was representing Esocia, Gales and Irlanda del Norte.

  ‘Good morning, Señor William.’

  ‘Good morning, compay.’ Catesby was never sure that he was saying the right thing. He noticed that most Cubans called each other compay. It was Cuban for compañero, comrade, but without political connotations. The problem with revolutions was knowing what to call people.

  ‘You’re late this morning,’ said Francisco.

  ‘I was out late last night.’

  ‘And too many mojitos and too many mamitas.’

  ‘Just the mojitos.’

  Francisco smiled and waved Catesby away.

  Catesby’s desk was in a corner of Bob Neville’s office. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but they didn’t seem to have any secrets that the other wasn’t supposed to know. Cuba was the only country in the world where the briefs of the two spies overlapped. Neville was a Western Hemisphere man and Catesby was Europe East. The area of overlap was Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union and other East bloc countries.

  ‘How did you get back?’ said Bob.

  ‘Mustapha Kunt gave me a lift.’

  ‘Useful contact. He’s a Russian specialist, you know. Was stationed in Moscow all through the war. Meet anyone else interesting?’

  ‘No. Where’s the best place to meet Russians?’

  ‘Embassy parties. They don’t go to bars much.’

  ‘You know, by the way, that Alekseev is now officially the rezident?’

  ‘On the diplomatic list?’

  Neville nodded. The Soviets openly listed their head spy as the rezident, the diplomat in charge of intelligence gathering. The Brits and other countries used cover aliases.

  ‘Did his wife come with him?’

  ‘Yes. Her name, I believe, is Katya – a very enigmatic woman.’

  ‘Why do you say she’s enigmatic?’

  ‘I saw her at a party at the Venezuelan Embassy. She just clung to her husband as if she were a little girl.’

  ‘What colour’s her hair?’

  ‘Deepest black.’ Neville smiled, ‘I am sure, William, that you have more to tell me about Katya.’

  ‘In time.’

  The door opened a crack and someone whispered, ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Is it Katya?’ said Neville.

  ‘No, it’s me.’

  ‘Come in, Debra.’

  Debra was a petite woman in her late thirties who ran the Trade Section.

  ‘Where,’ said Neville, ‘did you go last night?’ Debra had been part of the British group at Castro’s speech to the prisoners.

  ‘I got chatted up – and I thought I’d better tell you about it?’

  ‘I’m not surprised, you’re gorgeous. Who’s your latest admirer?’

  ‘The Minister of Industries.’

  Neville was suddenly attentive. ‘Are you serious? What did he say?’

  ‘He said he wanted to talk to me about buses.’

  ‘That’s a very odd chat-up line.’

  ‘He loves our buses and is considering buying them. He’s particularly fond of the Routemaster.’ Debra was referring to the iconic red double-decker buses of London.

  ‘Is that all he wanted?’

  ‘No, he asked me to listen to him recite some poetry in English. He wanted to know if his accent was all right.’

  ‘Love poetry, I bet.’

  ‘No,’ said Debra, ‘it was Kipling’s If.’

  Neville started laughing and turned to Catesby. ‘Well, if we ever want to learn anything about the art of seduction I suppose we’d better take lessons from Che Guevara.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Debra, ‘he was utterly charming. He has a beautiful smile and I was rather taken with him.’

  Neville looked at Catesby. ‘If isn’t such a bad poem, William, especially for blokes in our trade: If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you / But make allowance for their doubting too.’

  Catesby opened a file on his desk – it was an SIS ‘biographical and personality report’ on Guevara – and made a few notes. Neville looked back at Debra. ‘Have you got another date?’

  ‘Yes, he wants me to come to his office.’

  ‘Buses?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I think, Debra, you’d better take William as chaperone.’

  ‘Are you sure,’ said Catesby, ‘it wouldn’t be a better idea to have Mickey go instead? After the invasion shambles, Che might want to send a political message for us to pass on to Washington – and Mickey has the status to receive it.’

  ‘That’s the problem. As Head of Chancery he’s got too much status. Che has to be careful not to go over Fidel’s head by making foreign policy statements to senior diplomats.’ Neville paused. ‘You forget, William, that our role as spies is changing. We’re not just spooks, we’re back-channel diplomats, the ideal conduits for passing on info that can be denied later.’

  There was something in Neville’s words that Catesby found troubling. The echo of Bone was too exact to be coincidence. Once again, Catesby felt he was being manipulated by forces unknown.

  La Cabaña is an extremely impressive and, despite its being a fortification, beautiful piece of architecture. The smooth stone of the walls is beige-pink and reflects sensually in the sunlight. O’Reilly, thought Catesby, really knew how to build forts. He and Debra were escorted to Che’s office along a parapet lined with a battery of huge eighteenth-century canon that pointed across the harbour entrance.

  ‘It’s a bit,’ said Debra, ‘like being in a film. I wouldn’t be surprised if Errol Flynn swashbuckled up the wall with a dagger between his teeth.’

  ‘I would. He died two years ago.’

  ‘You’re such a ray of sunshine, Catesby.’

  The revolutionary militiaman, who had met them at the entrance gate, led them down a stone staircase to a massive oak door. He hammered the door with a massive iron knocker until someone shouted, ‘¡pase pase por favor!’

  Che’s office was sombre and austere like a cell in a monastery. The walls were panelled with dark wood, the floor was black and white marble tiles set out in a chessboard pattern. There were bookshelves piled with document files as well as novels and volumes of poetry. The only incongruity was a golf putter and a rolled-up carpet leaning against a wall.

  Debra introduced Catesby as ‘an official from the Department of Trade who was on secondment to the Foreign Office’. Che listened to Catesby’s cover story with impish bemusement. He didn’t believe a word and couldn’t be bothered to pretend otherwise. Guevara was, however, genuinely interested in the Routemaster buses. They spent a half an hour discussing possible trade deals. Then, as she and Catesby had agreed beforehand, Debra looked at her watch and gasped.

  ‘I am terribly sorry, Commandante Guevara, but I’ve got to go now. But William can stay. Thank you for seeing us. Please don’t think I’m rude.’

  Catesby watched in admiration as Debra turned on the departure charm giving Che a hug and besos gordos on both cheeks. He, in turn, was radiant.

  As soon as Debra was gone, Che said, ‘She misses her boys awfully.’

  Catesby knew that Debra had two sons at a boarding school for military and Foreign Office dependants. He thought they were in the sixth form. Debra often talked about them, but Catesby didn’t seem to pick up all her worries. Yet Che, after less than an hour with Debra, knew every detail: names, birthdays, ailments, the sports her sons played and the subjects they found easy or difficult. Catesby understood the secret of Che’s charisma. People loved him, because he loved them.

  ‘How are your daughters?’ said Catesby trying to copy Che’s interest in others.

  Che smiled. ‘Aleida took her very first steps yesterday. The elder, Hildita, spends most of her time with her mother, but now that they’re both in Havana, at least I can see more of her.’ Che folded his arms and looked reflective. ‘Not long after Hildita was born I took her in
my arms and said, “My dear daughter, my little Mao, you don’t know what a difficult world you’re going to have to live in. When you grow up, this whole continent, and maybe the whole world, will be fighting against the great enemy, Yankee imperialism. You too will have to fight.”’

  ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Now that she can understand your words, why don’t you tell her the same thing?’

  ‘No.’ Che smiled. ‘I don’t want to upset her, to spoil her innocent childhood.’ He paused. ‘Maybe that is a weakness. Or maybe when I said those words I was talking to myself – or trying to impress my wife.’

  Catesby was disarmed by the honesty and the self-criticism.

  Che got up and went over to the window where he looked out over the harbour. ‘It was stupid for the Americans to break off diplomatic relations. It means they have to ask other countries to use their embassies to do their spying for them.’

  ‘They haven’t,’ said Catesby, ‘asked us. Maybe you ought to check with the Canadians.’

  ‘That was a very unfriendly remark to make about a close ally.’

  ‘You’ve spoken freely to me, so I’m speaking freely to you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Che with his impish smile, ‘the Canadians have been saying the same about you.’

  The wonderful thing about espionage and foreign affairs, thought Catesby, wasn’t what enemies do to each other, but the way allies stab each other in the back. ‘Put a tail on this guy.’ Catesby gave the name of a junior Canadian diplomat. ‘And ask to see his sketchbook.’ It was, he knew, a malicious thing to do. But Catesby’s job was gaining the confidence of Che Guevara, not improving ties between Ottawa and London.