by Ted Bell
“Mercedes Ochoa,” el jefe said.
“You recognize her.”
“Of course.”
He held the picture up close. Manso had looked at the picture a thousand times. As a boy, it hung on the wall above his bed.
The two young lovers were standing arm in arm outside the camp in the Sierra Maestra. The woman so young, so beautiful. Beaming in the bright sunlight of a jungle clearing. So proud. The man smiling, too, and powerful. A conqueror emerging from the jungle, poised on the verge of perfect vengeance. A victor’s eyes, even before the fight.
“There are other pictures, Jefe,” Manso said. “Keep looking.”
Fidel looked up and saw that Manso had the golden gun aimed squarely at his heart. He looked at all the pictures. He sighed and laid them carefully on the bed.
“So, it’s true then,” Castro said.
“You knew all along?”
“I suspected.”
“My mother was nothing to you. Just another tissue you used and threw away.”
“That is not true.”
“Liar.”
“Think what you want. Shoot me now. But spare Fidelito.”
“Ah, of course. Your real son.”
“I ask you to spare his life.”
“For the good of the country, then, I want you to say to the cameras all the words I have written. Then, if you still want to die—”
“You will grant your father’s last wish? The son will live. The father will die. Do you swear it?”
“I swear it, Father.”
35
Rafael Gomez was on the floor playing dolls with his daughters when the telephone rang.
Rita picked it up on the third ring. She was in the kitchen making Gomez’s favorite Sunday supper, arroz con pollo.
“It’s for you, honey,” she said. He noticed she’d started calling him “honey” and “baby” again. Pretty good progress. He’d cut way back on the suds factor. Nada on the vodka. Came straight from duty to the house with no detours to the USO. No hanky-panky with Rita under the covers yet, but he was getting close. Second base maybe, rounding for third.
Life was good when you were a millionaire. Even if you couldn’t spend it, you knew it was there. “Who is it, sweetie?” Gomez asked. “We’re pretty busy with Barbie and Ken down here. They won’t put on their bathing suits and we’re all going to the beach.”
“Who is calling, please?” he heard Rita ask, the phone cradled under her ear, stirring something garlicky in a big pot.
“It’s Julio Iglesias,” she said, covering the mouthpiece and making a face.
“Oh, okay. Good. I’ll take it up in the bedroom. Thanks, hon.”
She gave him a look as he got up and left the kids on the living room floor. That was okay. Plenty of quality time on the way. He was going to make them all so rich it didn’t matter. In the bedroom, he plopped down on the bed and picked up the phone.
“This is Elvis,” he said.
“Hola, the king himself. I am honored.”
“What’s up, Julio?”
“It’s Iglesias.”
“Sorry. Listen, Iglesias, I’m kinda busy right now, so—”
“Oh. You’re busy. Well, in that case—”
“No, no. I just meant, well, it’s a little hard to talk now, you know?”
“It’s a little hard to talk to you anytime, Elvis. Is your wife giving you our messages? We haven’t heard shit from you in over a week.”
“Maybe because there’s nothing to say.”
“Everything is okay?”
“Everything is perfect.”
“You are ready?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“Perdón? What?”
“It means of course I’m ready. The bear is ready.” Gomez, thinking about the big white teddy bear, couldn’t help laughing at his own bear joke.
“Well, good, really good. Because, to tell you the truth, Elvis, we’re getting kinda close here.”
“Close?”
“Sí, amigo, close.”
“Like, uh, how close are we getting?”
“I think the cockroaches should be all packed and ready to check out of the motel. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I understand. It’s checkout time.”
“Sí. But not tonight. When I have the exact checkout time, Julio or I will call you. You have the RC?”
“Yeah, the RC, it’s out in the garage.”
“You remember what to do when you get the call?”
“I hit the little button on the left and when it starts to blink I put in thirty hours.”
“Perfecto. You are not so stupid as Julio thinks you are.”
“You tell Julio I’m happy to kick his sorry ass any time he’s ready.”
“I am kidding you, Elvis. Relax. You sound so tense.”
“Tense? Why should I be tense? I kill a coupla thousand people every day.”
“You sound like you have second thoughts, señor. Perhaps we should talk about this. You know, the money, it is not released to you until we are satisfied you have accomplished your mission. You know that?”
“I don’t have the money? What the fuck are you—?”
“I didn’t say that. You have it. But you can’t get to it until I give you the account password. It’s a numeric code that allows you to withdraw. See what I mean, Elvis?”
That’s when Rita stuck her head in the door.
“Honey—dinner’s ready. Can you get off the phone, please?”
“Yeah, I’m just—gimme a sec, okay, sweetie? I’m just finishing up here.”
“As long as you’ve got him on the phone, tell Julio I loved that old album he did with Willie Nelson,” Rita said, and slammed the door.
Christ. This spy stuff was tough. He looked at the phone in his hand and saw that it was shaking again.
“Listen, Iglesias, I’ve done my part. Your bug bomb is hidden where nobody on earth could find it. You call me, say the word, and the bugs will vacate that fucking cockaroach motel like Chinamen with their pants on fire in a fuckin’ firecracker factory.”
“Bueno, bueno. I’m sure you will not let us down. After all, you have a lot to lose, señor.”
“I ain’t jeopardizing a million bucks, pal, believe me.”
“I’m not only speaking of money, señor.”
“What the hell—?”
“If you do not do exactly, I mean, exactly, as I say—if there is even a hint of stupidity or cowardice or duplicity, you will lose a lot more than money, Señor Gomez.”
“You want to tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”
“You have an Aunt Nina in Miami. She won’t suffer. A nine-millimeter to the back of the skull. They’ll find her someday, stuffed in a rental car trunk at the bottom of a canal somewhere in the Everglades.”
“Are you—”
“Then, of course, there is Rita. She will be last. Before she goes, she will witness the deaths of your two young daughters. Their names, let me look at my notes, yes, their names are Tiffany and Amber. First Tiffany, then Amber, then Rita. They will all die slowly. Have you got all that, Elvis?”
“I think you guys are smoking something, right? Just screwing around with me to—”
“Good luck, Elvis. I just want you to know what you’re dealing with here. We’re watching your every move. Be a good boy. We will be in touch very shortly.”
“Oh, man. Fuck me,” he said, and put down the phone. “Fuck me all to hell.”
Gomez went down the stairs and out to the garage. He reached up to a high shelf and pulled down a big old Maxwell House can half full of nails and stuff. There was a half-full pint of Stoli inside, too. He sat down at his workbench and tipped the bottle back.
Good old Vitamin V. Yeah, it helped. Steadied his nerves. If he was ever going to get the goddamn million dollars, staying steady was critical.
Not to mention keeping his goddamn family alive. God, you mind your own business
, join the Navy, get married, and then wake up one day and find yourself mixed up in all kinds of shit. Everything goin’ along just fine and then, whammo.
36
He had the little sloop close-hauled, on a reach out across the sparkling blue bay. There was a freshening breeze blowing out of the northeast and he had Kestrel heeled hard over, making a good eight knots through the water, bound for Hog Island. Ahead, a vicious riptide flowed out to sea between Hog and its nearest neighbor, a small island called Pine Cay. He needed to tack the boat just before he entered the rip and then it was an easy downwind run up into the Hog Island lagoon.
“We’re going to come about in a few seconds,” Alex said.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Vicky shouted from her perch on deck just aft of the mast. She was slathered in oil, her face to the sun, long tresses streaming behind her. She was wearing a bright red two-piece bathing suit with a see-through linen top over it and she had simply never looked more beautiful.
“You can get ready to duck,” Alex said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster at the moment. Kestrel’s boom was solid spruce and nearly as thick as a telephone pole. And in this strong breeze, it was going to come screaming over the deck when he tacked the boat. Alex knew how hard the wooden boom was. It had slammed him unconscious once during a violent storm in the Azores, putting him out for three hours.
Vicky scrambled to get back down into the cockpit, but she slipped on the steep pitch of the wet deck and screamed, grabbing a stanchion at the last second.
“Hang on, darling,” Alex said over the wind. “Hold on to something. Always.”
“One hand for yourself and one for the boat,” Vicky said. “Temporary lapse of nautical memory.”
Kestrel was not big, only about twenty-six feet overall, but she was beautiful, with white topsides, teak decks, and a lovely old mahogany cabin top. A Sitka spruce mast soared overhead flying a snowy white mainsail and a big Genoa jib, now filled with wind.
There was nothing much below save a V-berth forward, a small head, and an alcohol stove. When Alex had the boat in England, he sometimes took short cruises around the Channel Islands, the places where he’d grown up. Then he’d sleep aboard the little boat and do all the cooking on the small stove. Now he kept Kestrel stowed in a sling inside Blackhawke’s massive hangar deck.
“How fast are we going?” Vicky cried, arching her back and letting her long hair trail over the gunwale.
Alex didn’t reply, he was looking aloft at the slight flutter of luff in the mainsail. He hauled in on the mainsheet. Vicky could not tell if he was still angry with her after last night’s conversation. He’d been very charming all morning, and she thought he was probably embarrassed at his outburst.
He’d knocked on her cabin door at eleven, carrying a tray with tomato juice, lemon wedges, aspirin, and Alka-Seltzer. There was a silver vase with three yellow roses. Her favorites.
“Look alive, matey! We shove off at noon sharp,” he’d said after delivering the goods and just before pulling her cabin door closed behind him.
She’d downed all three hangover potions and staggered to the shower, letting the steaming hot water work its wonders. By noon, she was in reasonably good shape. The prospect of a quiet picnic on a desert island lifted her somewhat soggy spirits.
“All right,” Alex now said, “we’re going to come about now and tack for Hog Island. Get ready to duck when I tell you.”
“Ready, Skipper,” Vicky said, nervously eyeing the big wooden boom that would soon come swooping across the decks.
“Ready about?” Alex cried.
“Ready about,” Vicky replied. She uncleated the mainsail sheet, as Alex had taught her on the sail across the bay. After the tack, she would haul in on the sheet and take a few wraps around a winch on the opposite side. She’d done a little sailing with her father on the Potomac, and it was coming back to her. Alex seemed surprised she knew a sheet from a halyard.
“Hard alee!” Alex said, and put the tiller hard over, swinging Kestrel’s bow up into the wind and then over onto a dead run straight for the small island. Alex eased the main and jib sheets and the little sloop surged forward.
Vicky had ducked just as the thick boom came slashing over her head. Pine Cay was now on their starboard side and looked quite beautiful. The entire island seemed to be covered with tall Australian pines. She could almost hear the wind whistling through the swaying trees. It looked enchanting and she found herself wishing it were their destination. “Hog” wasn’t nearly as romantic-sounding as “Pine.”
Hog Island, in fact, was distinctly unlovely. She could make out some scrub palms along the shore and the backbone of an old wooden boat half-sunk in the sand.
“What a pretty little island that is,” she said, pointing at the one called Pine Cay. “Maybe next time we could have our picnic there?”
“Yes, darling,” Alex said. “Next time. Hog Island may not be the prettiest, but it’s the only one inhabited by a blind pig”
Alex freed both halyards and dropped the mainsail and jib to the deck. Kestrel ghosted up into the little crescent of a lagoon. Nearing shore, the boat slowed and Alex scrambled forward to the bow. He picked up the small Danforth anchor and flung it overboard.
“Sorry, but we’ll have to anchor out here. It’s as close in as I can get with our deep keel. Go ahead and swim ashore. I’ll follow with the picnic basket.”
“That’s a big roger, sailor boy,” Vicky said. She climbed up onto the top of the cabin house, removed the linen top she’d been wearing over her bikini, and gracefully dove over the side into the crystalline blue water. Alex noticed she swam with long powerful strokes. She reached the shore in seconds and ran from the surf, sprinting across the hot sand.
She stretched out on the white sand in the shadow of the half-buried fishing boat and watched Alex wade ashore. He was struggling through the surf, trying to balance the wicker basket he held on his head.
“Come on, MacArthur, you can make it!” she shouted.
Alex emerged grinning from the surf and ran to her. He placed the picnic basket beside her and ran his fingers through his damp black hair.
“Would you mind unpacking everything?” he asked. “I want to go check on something.”
“Looking for Betty?”
“No, Betty will arrive as soon as she smells food. I’ll be right back.”
She opened the basket and pulled out a blue and white beach towel. There was a large H with a small crown above it embroidered on the towel. Spreading it on the sand, she began to unpack the basket. She pulled out a bottle of still-cold Montrachet, a baguette of French bread, and several kinds of cheese. She wasn’t very hungry following her night on the town, but the wine certainly looked good. Where was the corkscrew?
Alex walked along the shoreline until he spotted it. A lone blackened palm standing amidst the charred and scrubby vegetation. He walked inland and soon found the crater the surface-to-air missile had made when it crashed. It was about six feet across and three feet deep. He sifted through the sooty palm fronds and twisted shards of metal until he found what he was looking for.
A jagged piece of the missile with identifying marks. The piece was badly burned, but he could see something stamped into the metal. It wasn’t a Stinger after all. It was a Russian bloc SAM-7. The section in his hands looked as if it might have been one of the fins. With any luck, it might be enough for the “bomb baby-sitter,” as Tate had called the deputy secretary of defense, to help put the pieces of this puzzle together.
“Well, that was certainly mysterious,” Vicky said when he returned. “Marching off down the beach, clearly a man on a mission. What’s that?” she asked, looking at the piece of black metal in his hand.
“Piece of evidence,” he said.
“Really? Of what?”
“Attempted murder,” Alex said, and knelt down on the blanket. “I think he would have got me, too, if Betty hadn’t rattled him.”
“Betty rattle
d a murderer?”
“This piece of metal is all that’s left of a SAM missile a chap fired at me the other day. Betty knocked him down once, but he still managed to get a shot off.”
“Hold on. Someone actually tried to blow you out of the sky? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Vicky, I sometimes get involved in negotiations for a third party. As frequently happens, one party feels my demands are unreasonable. They’d like me out of the loop.”
“So, they tried to kill you? Alex, does this have anything to do with that briefcase?”
“That possibility is under investigation. Meanwhile, I thought it best we make Blackhawke our address for a week or two.”
“Keep us out of the loop,” Vicky said, looking at him evenly. “You said us.”
“It’s me they’re after. Would they try to get to me through you? I’d be less than honest if I said no.”
After considering this for a few moments, she smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Then she spread some Brie on a piece of the baguette and handed it to him. “Eat up. Wine?”
“Yes, please,” he said, eating the bread and holding out a wineglass.
She filled his glass with the cold white wine. It was wonderful with the bread and cheese. She’d already had two glasses herself. After feeling absolutely horrible all morning, she was now starting to feel pleasantly indolent and relaxed. The sun and salt were beginning to work their way into her. The idea of two weeks like this was beginning to seem perfect.
It was the first time she’d seen Alex in a bathing suit. He looked good, she decided. Especially the legs. His body was hard and maybe too lean but for the bundled force gathered at his upper arms and shoulders. He caught her staring at him and brushed some sand off her cheek with his hand.
“You were a very naughty girl last night, Victoria.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were. And I’ve half a mind to give you a good sound spanking.”
“Only half?”
“Shh, here comes my savior! Betty! Over here! Get out the oranges. Those are her favorites.”