She walked across the street to the funky old Hotel Plaza just off the broad Avenida Carlos J. Finlay. It was just the sort of place that Ortega-Cowan would never think to look for her.
By five, she had checked in and paid for three days in advance under her real name. After she washed up, she went down to El Dorado, the hotel’s main restaurant, where she had chicken cordon bleu with a decent pinot grigio and then went up to her room and lay down for a few hours’ sleep.
The highway back to Havana was one of the better in Cuba, but she figured it would take her at least five hours to drive there.
She dreamed about McGarvey. They were having drinks at a sidewalk café in Paris, and he was smiling at her. Although she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, she was certain that it was something nice.
She awoke at eleven, took a shower, and dressed in the blue jeans and sneakers. She folded her uniform and put it in the chest of drawers along with the boots, and bag in hand took the stairs down to the deserted lobby. Five minutes later, she reached the rental car and headed northwest through the outskirts of the city, some neighborhoods still busy, reaching the Santa Clara Highway by eleven thirty, and sped up to a reasonable hundred kilometers per hour, the night overcast, the air thick.
FORTY
McGarvey spent the afternoon catching up on his sleep at the Renckes’ brownstone while Otto and Louise worked on the computers, trying to find everything they could about the legends of Spanish gold in the southern United States, especially in southern New Mexico. But by six, he got up and looked in on them.
“Anything?” he asked.
The ground-floor workroom had actually been the brownstone’s sitting room, where in the early 1900s, the owners could receive guests. Now it was filled with electronic equipment. Some of it, including four wide-screen monitors and keyboards, was arrayed on two long tables, while antisurveillance equipment and sophisticated encryption devices sat on the floor or were mounted on racks against the walls. The windows covered with heavy drapes had been fitted with devices that prevented the detection of sounds, including voices by laser beams that could measure microvibrations in the glass, and by a white noise generator that blocked any other sort of mechanical eavesdropping. The entire house, attic to basement, was sheathed in a light copper mesh, most of it simply nailed to the wallboard and painted over. It had taken Rencke nearly two months to finish the job, which resulted in the entire structure being protected by a Faraday cage — totally impervious to electronic snooping.
“Possibly something,” Otto said, looking up. “I went back to the Victorio Peak legend I told Colonel León about. The one on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. There was evidently gold there, but it was apparently pulled out by the air force in the sixties and carted off shortly after F. Lee Bailey filed a lawsuit that would have forced the government to allow him to send a search team onto the base. But that died down, and the present whereabouts of the treasure is unknown. Probably in some high-security storage facility somewhere.”
“Was there more?” McGarvey asked.
“Milton Noss — his friends called him Doc — was the first one to find the gold, and he may have pulled out a few ingots. Where they are now is anyone’s guess. But he also found four leather-covered codices which he supposedly buried somewhere in the desert nearby.”
“Also lost?”
“Yup,” Louise said. “Lot of that going on.”
“But before he buried them, he wrote down what he called a ‘cryptic message’ he’d found in one of them.”
McGarvey moved around behind Otto so he could read what was on the screen.
Seven is the holy number … in seven languages, in seven signs … look for the seven cities of gold, seventy miles north of El Paso del Norte in the seventh peak, Soledad. These cities have seven sealed doors, three sealed toward the rising of the Sol sun, three sealed toward the setting of the Sol sun, one deep within the Casa de la Cueva de Oro at high noon. Receive health, wealth and honor.…
“None of that suggests anything about Spanish gold hidden by Spanish monks from Mexico City, and nothing about transshipment through Havana,” McGarvey said.
“No, but if you believe the message in the codices, the cache in Victorio may have been only one of seven. Could be a lot more out there, kemo sabe.”
“We’ll have to go to Mexico City,” McGarvey said.
“The National Archives. The curator there is Dr. José Diaz, and he’s agreed to talk to us about early Spanish explorers from New Mexico to Colorado. We’re from the Library of Congress Special Research Branch.”
“Do you think he believed you?”
“Doesn’t matter, we have an appointment with him tomorrow afternoon at six. I’ve booked us a suite at the Marquis Reforma.”
“Fair enough,” McGarvey said. “But first I have to get a few things from my place.”
“Do you think the Company is watching your apartment?” Louise asked.
“I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”
* * *
McGarvey’s third-floor brownstone apartment was located on Twenty-seventh Street just below the end of Dumbarton Avenue N W with a nice view of Rock Creek Park. It was actually less than a mile as the crow flies from Rencke’s house near Georgetown University, but he went over to Twenty-ninth Street, where he caught a cab, and had the driver drop him off around the corner from his place.
He’d bought the small, pleasantly furnished place after his wife and daughter were assassinated and before he went to ground in Greece. The house on Casey Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast that he’d shared with Katy was still up and running, with a service coming once a week to clean and make any necessary repairs, but he wasn’t quite ready to return there yet, nor did he want to sell it. For now, it was tough enough returning to Georgetown. He had a lot of memories here, too.
Coming around the corner, he spotted a plain gray Taurus with government plates parked across the street, one man behind the wheel, but he ignored it and went inside.
No one had been here. In addition to the alarm system, none of his telltales had apparently been tampered with. Though he supposed that a good second-story man from the Company could have tossed the place, he didn’t think Page would have authorized it. There’d been no reason.
From a steel fireproof box with a combination lock he’d kept in plain sight on a closet shelf, he took out a spare 9 mm Walther PPK — a pistol he’d always favored because of its compact size, accuracy, and reliability — a suppressor, a spare passport in the name of Kevin McCarthy, along with a New York driver’s license and credit cards in the same name — and five thousand dollars in cash.
He still had the Federal Air Marshal ID he’d used to get down to Miami, which he would use again tomorrow, enabling him to fly to Mexico City armed. The DI’s presence was strong down there, and he wouldn’t put it past María to have an all-stations alert for him, with orders to shoot on sight. Mexico had become a very dangerous place, so it would be easy to cover up his and Otto’s murders as drug related.
He took a quick shower and changed into a pair of faded jeans, a white polo shirt, Top-Siders, and a black blazer, his pistol in a belt holster at the small of his back. His overnight bag with a few items of clean clothes and his shaving gear he’d brought back from Miami were at Otto’s, so there was nothing else he needed here.
Outside, McGarvey walked across the street and got in the Taurus on the passenger side. The driver, wearing a khaki sport coat, was of medium build, with a nondescript face and thinning dark hair. He didn’t seem surprised.
“May I see some identification?” McGarvey asked pleasantly.
The man was careful to keep his hands on the steering wheel, but he didn’t seem particularly nervous that he’d been outed. “All I’m carrying is a Langley driver’s license. Mr. Bambridge sent me over to be on the lookout for you.”
“Just you?”
“Three of us — four hours on, eight off. My shift started at six.”
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“Now what?”
“I’ll report to Mr. Bambridge that you showed up, stayed around twenty minutes, and left.”
“Were you ordered to follow me if and when I showed up?”
“No.”
“Trust me, son. Don’t.”
The agent hesitated for just a moment, but then he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
McGarvey got out but turned back before he closed the door. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense for Marty simply to want to know if and when I showed up at my apartment.”
“I’m just following my orders, sir.”
“I’ve heard that before,” McGarvey said, and he shut the door and walked away.
The only explanation he could think of was that Marty figured that if McGarvey was going to make another move, he would have to return to his apartment for clothes, money, papers — exactly what he had done.
Watching his back, he walked around the block — traffic reasonably light at this hour — and at the last corner, he held up and looked down the street. The Taurus was still there, which made even less sense. Unless they were double-or triple-teaming him, in which case, someone on foot would be tailing him, and possibly someone in a van or a car with civilian plates. But he’d spotted no one in his 180.
Still, when he turned around and walked away, he took care with his tradecraft, until two blocks away he entered a small Italian restaurant just beginning to fill up, walked straight back to the kitchen and out the rear door into the alley. He didn’t think Marty would have gone to the trouble and fantastic expense to task a satellite, so from this point, he felt that it was reasonable to assume he was out clean. For now.
FORTY-ONE
It was coming up on five in the morning when María pulled into the short-term parking lot at Havana’s José Martí International Airport and left the Hyundai, its gas tank nearly on empty, in the middle of a row near the back. She was dead tired from the long drive but hyped up that she was close to getting out of Cuba.
She’d given a great deal of thought last night to what she was about to do, what her father’s deathbed order had really meant, and the terrible chance she had taken getting McGarvey down here and then letting him and Rencke escape. At this point, she had no other choice than to move forward. Mexico City first, and then she would have to get help because she couldn’t take the next steps on her own.
It was impossible for her to stay in Cuba, and she would never be able to return unless she succeeded in what she felt was most likely a fool’s errand. And yet the look in McGarvey’s eyes, the set of his shoulders, his arrogance and self-assurance stuck in her mind. She wanted to feel the same thing, and going ahead with this insanely quixotic quest was just about the only way she figured she could not only redeem herself, but also solidify her position and safety now that she no longer had her father’s protection.
And when the time came, if it came, she would personally sign the orders of execution for Ortega-Cowan and Fuentes.
She had pinned her hair up and covered it with the Hermès, and she headed across to Terminal 3, where on the upper level — busy at this hour of the morning — she showed her passport and driver’s license at the Cubana de Aviación counter to pick up her boarding pass. At the security checkpoint, she had to show her passport again and the boarding pass before her leather bag and purse were scanned and she walked through the arch.
She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming after her until she was all the way through and on her way down the broad corridor past the gift shops, restaurants, and bars all open and crowded. She stopped to buy a bottle of water and glanced back toward the checkpoint, but no one she could identify as DI agents had shown up. To this point, it was still business as usual here; no one paid her the slightest attention.
She found her boarding gate area and sat down near an emergency exit in case she needed to run. It was just before five thirty, and the pilot and his flight crew showed up and the gate agent admitted them through the door to the Jetway. More people were arriving, some of them with children, and a few minutes later the agent announced Cuba Air’s flight 130 with nonstop service to Mexico, first in Spanish then in English, and invited first-class passengers to board.
Still no one paid her the slightest attention as she got up and joined the short line. With luck, Ortega-Cowan had fallen for her ruse in Camagüey, and at this moment had the train station staked out, with men also at Santiago de Cuba, in case she’d given them the slip.
The Airbus A320 was in reasonably good condition, and when she was seated alone in the fourth-row window seat on the right side, the handsome flight attendant brought her a glass of champagne.
“Welcome aboard, señora,” he said. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“No, I’m fine for now,” María said.
“May I stow your bag for you?”
María hesitated for just a moment, but then smiled and nodded. “Please. Is this a full flight?”
“No,” the attendant said.
“Then I may spread out here?”
“Sí, you’ll have this row to yourself this morning.”
It took twenty minutes for the boarding to be completed, and many of the people filing past her watched with a little resentment because of where she was seated and the fact she was drinking champagne, and that she was young, good-looking, and obviously rich.
Finally the front hatch was closed, and as the aircraft pushed back away from the gate and trundled down the taxiway to the runway, the attendants gave the seat belt — oxygen mask — emergency water landing drill, and María allowed herself to relax just a little.
She looked out the window, but there were no chase cars coming after them, and minutes later they were turning onto the runway, and immediately began their takeoff roll. She wondered if she would ever see Cuba again. She hoped so, because this was her country, and now that her father was finally dead, a lot of people, including her, had high hopes for the new revolution that was on the verge of unfolding.
But the key was going to be money. It had been about money when the Soviets propped up the sugar industry, but now it was more important than ever. She had seen reports, suppressed by the government, that people were actually starving to death. Not so many as in North Korea, but it was happening, and it made her want to cry. And made her want to try this crazy stunt that had nearly a zero chance of success.
But she’d heard the enthusiasm in Rencke’s voice, and the look in McGarvey’s eye, and it was enough for her.
* * *
An hour later, the island behind them, the Yucatán Channel below, María pulled out the file she’d taken from the cabinet in her father’s office, opened it, and began to read. The first pages were copies of her fitness and training reports, some of them in Russian with side-by-side translations into Spanish, many of them from her early schooling by private tutors. A single-page report outlined the rape, and her father’s handwritten instructions at the bottom.
No immediate disciplinary action will be taken. But the boys involved and all of their family members will be closely monitored for further actions against the state.
María looked up. The order had been cold, dispassionate. Her rape had been an “action against the state.” No father’s rage, no concern for a daughter’s well-being or continued safety at the school.
And yet from the moment she’d learned that Fidel was her father, she’d hung on every word he spoke in public because it was all she had. Unlike leaders just about everywhere else in the world, in Cuba, Fidel was a private citizen. Very few newspaper or magazine articles were written about his personal life, no streets or plazas were named in his honor, no statues had been erected, and he’d never lived in any grand castle or mansion.
And now he was dead. Gone from her forever.
She flipped to the next page, and for what seemed to be the longest time, she could only stare at the handwritten letter, dated simply Noviembre, with no year. But it had to have been fa
irly recent, because her father’s hand had shaken when he wrote it.
But the salutation clutched at her heart, and she had to look away for another longish time, because he had written: Mi queridisima hija, My most beloved daughter.
When she was finally able to turn back, she read the short letter in which he sent her apologies for all the years of being a neglectful father, and for all the letters he’d written but never had been able to send.
Perhaps we will finally meet and I can hold you in my arms, and smell your sweet perfume and look into your beautiful eyes.
The next letter was dated in January, again with no year but the same salutation, in which he wrote to her about the isolation he was feeling after the illness that had forced him to step down.
I have always loved you, and someday I will tell this to you in person.
The remainder of the documents in the file were letters to her, dated with months but no years and the same opening, but from the things he wrote about, she could see that they were in reverse chronological order: the Bay of Pigs, the missile crises, defections, and finally one dated on an October thirty-six years ago, when she’d been born.
“Mi queridisima hija,” he began, and he wrote about missing her birth in Santiago de Cuba in which her mother had died, but he was out of the country in Moscow and word had not gotten to him until it was too late. Conditions of state meant that their relationship had to be kept secret until someday in the future, but he would make sure that she was well cared for and would never want for a thing.
Except for a father.
She closed the file and looked out the window again. It was the first mention she’d ever heard about her mother, whose name she’d never known. There were times when she was young when she’d dreamed about her mother, being held in her arms, being told about becoming a woman, which was extremely important. Custom dictated that Hispanic females be prim and proper virgins before marriage, but Eves to their Adams afterwards. But no mother had been there to teach her.
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