Tempest

by Mark Dawson

  “They had her,” Caprice corrected. “Past tense. They don’t have her anymore.”

  “You got her back?”

  “Of course I did.” She stood. “What was the plan? Shall I have a guess? He’d give you Melissa, you’d tell me that you got her back, then you’d engineer a situation where I’d bring Danny somewhere that Navarro was waiting. He ends up with Danny and the tapes, with me as an added bonus. You go back to Langley, you tell your boss that you struck out, that Danny was a dead end, and eventually the whole investigation into Lincoln gets closed down.”

  Logan pressed his lips together and turned to look out of the window.

  “What was your price?” she asked him.

  “The IG was going to be moved out. I’d get her job.”

  “And money?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “How much? What were we worth?”

  “Three hundred thousand.”

  “You can forget all about that now. That deal is off the table. I have another one for you. This one is non-negotiable, and”—she raised the pistol—“you have to accept.”

  She got up and went to the bag that she had left on the bureau. She opened it and took out the other tape from Dak Son. She tossed it over so that it landed on the bed next to Logan.

  “Now you’ve got both tapes.”

  “What am I going to do with them?”

  “Use them just like you planned to. Bring the case against Lincoln. Take him and Navarro down. I promise that this is the best offer you’ll ever get. The alternatives don’t look anywhere near as good for you. If you don’t cooperate, the recordings go to the IG anyway, together with copies to the press. Your role in all of this will be publicised.” She nodded to the table that sat between them; Logan followed her gaze and noticed the phone that had been left there. “All of this is being recorded. Actually, that reminds me. Give me yours, please.”

  He did as he was told.

  She took it from him. “What’s the code?”

  “6903.”

  Caprice tapped out the numbers and the screen unlocked. “Thank you.”

  “You think Lincoln will just lie back and let all that happen? They’ll kill me first.”

  “What do you think I’ll do?” She held up his phone. “What will I find on this? Your family? Where you live? Where your kids go to school? There’s nowhere you could go that I couldn’t find you. I own you. You are going to do everything that I tell you to do, and that starts now.” She tossed his phone over to him. “I need you to make a phone call.”

  106

  Danny and Melissa brought their things to the hallway. Danny had his rucksack from before. Alfredo had delivered the items that Melissa had requested earlier; they had arrived in bags marked with the logo of Clandestina, the boutique shop near Plaza del Cristo. Melissa had packed the new clothes into a second rucksack that she now carried over her shoulder.

  “Ready?” Danny said.

  “I think so,” she said.

  Danny opened the door and led the way outside. A car was parked at the kerb and Alfredo was waiting inside.

  “This man,” Melissa said as they made their way along the sidewalk. “Is he trustworthy?”

  “Alfredo? He’s a friend of a friend. He’s helped us ever since we got here.”

  Danny opened the door, waited for Melissa to get inside, and then slid in next to her.

  “Good morning,” Alfredo said.

  “This is Melissa,” Danny said. “My daughter.”

  “Hello, Melissa. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Where is Beatrix?” Danny asked. “She said she would be here.”

  “She sends her best wishes,” Alfredo said. “She says she will see you aboard the boat in Santiago.”

  Alfredo drove them to Centro Habana. It was a busy, gritty district that was away from the tourist trail. There were bars and restaurants with groups of locals gathered around them. He picked his way through the narrow streets until they reached Calle Infanta. The district buzzed with life.

  “We go here,” Alfredo said, pointing to a restaurant.

  SalchiPizza was a restaurant and community bakery. There were pictures of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X at the entrance. A group of plastic-topped tables had been arranged at the side of the cobbled street. Four white plastic chairs had been placed around each table, and every chair was occupied. Diners were eating delicious-smelling pizzas, some of them enjoying raucous games of dominoes as they dined. The street echoed with the sounds of clacking tiles, laughter and arguments. The dominoes players were all men, ranging in age from late teens through to old age.

  A new game began at a table near them. The four players placed their domino tiles—their fichas—face down on the tabletop. A very fat man slid them around the table with both hands to mix them up, keeping up a constant banter that taunted his tablemates. The players pulled out their fichas and stood them up in grooves in the table like hands of cards. They each pulled a tile from the leftovers in the middle of the table and matched them to decide who went first. From there, the play moved fast. Danny found it hard to follow, but apparently they were playing in two-person teams, like bridge. They built patterns of dominoes on the table, matching tiles from their hands to somehow line up with the strings already on the table. The humour and aggression escalated as they played.

  Somebody protested volubly at one of the far tables. Danny turned and saw an elderly man slam both hands down on the table, causing all the tiles to bounce. The other three men were on their feet now, too, all yelling at the same time in Cubano Spanish. One of them was wearing a New York Mets ball cap, had a salt-and-pepper beard and a single ring in his right ear. He was in his early fifties and held an empty rum glass in his hand. Danny found it hard to be sure, but it looked as if he had just won his game.

  Alfredo led the way between the tables toward the man. They spoke in fluid Spanish that Danny was unable to follow, and then both men shook hands and turned to face them.

  “This is Ernesto,” Alfredo said. “He will drive you to Santiago de Cuba.”

  “I have excellent car,” Ernesto said in passable English. “It is old but very reliable. I drive it home to Baracoa to visit my grandchildren. Santiago? No problem.”

  “They need to leave now,” Alfredo said.

  Ernesto shrugged. “That is fine. You must follow me this way.”

  107

  Navarro arrived at Miramar a little after the time that Logan had suggested. He parked and made his way to Casa Pilar, crossed the terrace and took the same table as he had for their first meeting. Logan didn’t appear to have arrived yet. Navarro sat down and caught the attention of the waitress. She came over to the table. She had the usual dour expression that characterised the Cuban service industry, with a pencil behind her ear, her black bobbed hair parted around it. There was a coffee stain on her white blouse.

  “Yes?”

  “Coffee,” he said. “Black.”

  The woman noted the order on her pad and made her way to the station where they kept the coffee.

  Navarro stretched out his legs. The last two days had been difficult. He was not used to being outsmarted, but there was no way of pretending otherwise: that was exactly what had happened. ARIEL had used herself as a lure to draw the team away from MIRANDA, had drawn them into a trap and then dealt them a serious blow. Farrow, Morley and Harker had each been injured by the booby traps that she had left at the house. Morley had been lacerated by shrapnel and Harker had suffered burns. Farrow, though, was dead; he had succumbed to his wounds in the back of the car as Hook had tried to tend to him. They had found a quiet spot outside Havana and had burned the car with his body inside it. They wouldn’t be in Cuba long enough for the police to work out what had happened, if they managed to do so at all. Harker was driving Morley to Guantanamo now. The plan was for him to be treated in the infirmary there before they were flown out via the base’s airstrip. The others—Millman, Schroder, Ramalhete, Hook and Mazzetti
—had taken up spots around the city. Navarro knew it was a long shot that they might be able to pick up PROSPERO now, but they had to try.

  The waitress delivered the coffee and Navarro took a sip. He thought about what he was going to say to Lincoln. He knew that he was going to be furious. Navarro had failed, and had failed miserably: Nakamura was gone, his daughter was gone, one man was dead and two more were badly hurt, and all of their frustrations had been authored by a single woman, working—as far as he could ascertain—as an independent.

  Logan had promised a composite of ARIEL, but he hadn’t delivered it yet. Navarro would chase him for it and then have Mazzetti run it through the files at Langley to see if they got a hit. The woman had made them all look foolish. He wanted to know who she was.

  He felt old. There had been too little sleep since they had arrived on the island, and he was suffering because of it. He was ready to leave. He had decided that he would go to Vegas for his steak even if he wasn’t able to satisfactorily conclude his business here. The way he saw it, he deserved it.

  Where was Logan? He had asked for this meet, but, as Navarro looked at his watch, it was increasingly evident that he had been stood up.

  Navarro idled through the messages on his phone for five minutes, then called Logan. There was no answer. Irritated, he put his phone away and finished his coffee. He left a bill on the table to pay for the drink and made his way through the terrace back toward the car.

  Navarro got into his rental and pushed the key into the ignition.

  “Hello.”

  He looked up into the mirror and saw a woman sitting in the back of the car. It was the waitress from Casa Pilar. She was holding a pistol in her right hand, and it was pointed into his kidneys.

  “You know I know how to use this,” she said. “Right?”

  “I do,” he said. “What do I call you? Caprice?”

  “That’ll do.”

  “I’m assuming you got to Logan?”

  “Last night. He was first on my list. You were next.”

  “You made him call me? To set this up?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”

  “I would much rather it hadn’t been necessary, but you seemed intent on harming someone who was under my protection.”

  “He was threatening someone I work for.”

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “He wasn’t. He only wanted to go home to see his daughter. You backed him into a corner.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that this is all over now.”

  “Is that right?”

  “For you, yes. You’re going to be my message to Lincoln.”

  “Is that right? And how’s that?”

  “He needs to know that Danny and his daughter are my responsibility. If anything happens to them—if they go missing, if they’re hurt, if I suspect that he is even looking for them—I’m going to take that personally. The same thing will happen to him that is about to happen to you.”

  “And that’s a threat?”

  “It’s a guarantee.”

  He shook his head at her presumptiveness. “You’re a piece of work.”

  “How was your coffee?”

  “What?”

  “You finished it, didn’t you?” He felt a shiver; she was smiling at him in the mirror. “You stopped me from finishing a job in Hong Kong. Jimmy Wang. I poisoned the wine he was drinking, and I still had some of the poison left. It seemed appropriate to give it to you.”

  He swallowed on a dry throat. “What do you mean?”

  “Ricin,” she said. “You don’t need very much for it to be effective, and you had a big dose. I’ve used it before—quite recently, as it happens. You’ll start to vomit first; then you’ll get diarrhoea. You’ll be dehydrated; then your blood pressure will drop. You might have hallucinations, and then you’ll start to have seizures. Your liver, spleen, and kidneys will stop working, and then you’ll probably die. There’s no antidote. I’d drive straight to hospital if I were you. You’ll have a chance there. Cuban healthcare is excellent.”

  He put his hand to his brow; did he feel sick now, or was he imagining it?

  “Goodbye, Navarro,” she said.

  She opened the door and slid out of the car. Navarro looked in the mirror, caught a glimpse, and turned around so that he could look back through the rear window. He couldn’t see her at all. He found that his breath was short now, and sweat was gathering beneath his knees and shoulders, droplets of it rolling down the middle of his back and his calves. He reached for the ignition with trembling fingers and started the engine. The hospitals were in central Havana, and that was twenty minutes away. He reached down for the gearstick, the plastic knob sliding through his slick grasp. He felt sick, a wave of nausea that rushed from his gut and raced up his throat. He reached for the handle to open the door, fumbled it, and, before he could do anything to stop it, he threw up into his lap.

  Part IV

  Santiago de Cuba

  108

  Danny and Melissa Nakamura waited by the gangplank that offered access to the passengers who were returning from a tour of Santiago de Cuba. The liner that was tied up behind them was massive. The Celestyal Crystal measured more than five hundred feet from bow to stern and had more than a thousand rooms. Alfredo had provided them with tickets that entitled them to two junior balcony suites. They had already been aboard and had been impressed with what they had discovered: they had large rooms that would have been able to accommodate three passengers each, with sea views through generous portholes. Beyond their rooms, the liner had several dining lounges, a pool and a spa. If nothing else, the crossing to Montego Bay promised to be enjoyable.

  They had arrived in Santiago two hours earlier. It had been a twelve-hour drive from Havana in Ernesto’s blue 1950s Ford Fairlane hardtop. The car was beautiful and in excellent condition despite its obvious age. They had stopped to stretch their legs at Santa Clara, and Ernesto had shown them how he kept the car in such good shape: toothpaste. He first wiped the bodywork with water and a rag, then performed a second pass with a terrycloth towel before detailing it with toothpaste on the towel. The paste worked like finishing wax. Danny had been less impressed with the admission that Ernesto used Coca-Cola to prevent rust and shampoo as brake fluid.

  Ernesto had driven carefully. He kept the car between fifty and sixty, and that was only on the better roads. Many of the stretches were inhospitable and, occasionally, little better than dirt roads. Their progress had been a little slower for those parts of the trip. They had arrived at the dock tired and dusty, but grateful for his hospitality and diligence.

  The crew member at the end of the gangplank came up to them. “Time to come aboard,” she said.

  “How long do we have?” Danny said. “We were hoping to meet someone here before we left.”

  “We’ll be leaving in thirty minutes,” the woman said, “but the plank goes up in ten.”

  Danny thanked her and turned back to the open space that faced the liner.

  “I thought she was going to meet us here?” Melissa said.

  “That’s what Alfredo told me. He said she’d see us at the boat before it left.”

  “I don’t see her,” Melissa said.

  “No,” he said. “Neither do I.”

  Part V

  Cienfuegos

  109

  Beatrix had taken a ViAzul bus from Havana to Cienfuegos. The city was one hundred and sixty miles to the south of the capital, and the trip had taken four and a half hours. She had arrived at seven in the evening and had found herself a room in a house owned by a local family. It was not unusual for Cubans to make a little extra money by renting out rooms in their homes, and this couple—José and Celia, together with their two small children—were no different. They were hospitable to a fault and had refused Beatrix’s offer to pay above the pitiful amount that they had charged her. Instead, she had hidden fifty American dollars b
eneath a carving in her room before joining them for breakfast.

  She left them with a full belly to wander the streets. The locals proudly described their city as La Perla del Sur, and she could see why. It was beautiful and more relaxed than Havana. The centre of town was full of beautiful French architecture that was better maintained than similar buildings in the capital. She walked Cienfuegos Boulevard before buying a coffee in José Martí Square.

  She was outside the cathedral when she felt the buzz of her phone in her pocket. She took it out and saw two messages from Alfredo. First, he reported that Danny and Melissa had joined the cruise that would take them to Jamaica and Montego Bay. That was good. They would be safer there, especially given the warning that Beatrix had delivered to Dwight Lincoln. That was the subject of the second message. Edward Navarro had just been discharged from Hospital Hermanos Ameijeias with a clean bill of health. He had driven himself there and reported that he had been poisoned with ricin. Alfredo knew a nurse who worked in the intensive care ward, and she had confirmed that the American had been hooked up to an IV drip and then subjected to a battery of tests, all of which had come back negative. Beatrix had known that they would, of course. There had been no ricin. She still had a small bag of it in her pack and had considered whether her message to Lincoln would be best delivered by way of the death of his oldest associate. In the end, she had concluded that it would be more inflammatory than instructive. Instead, she had—she hoped—impressed upon Navarro that he had been spared an unpleasant end thanks to her indulgence, and that he would be well advised to enjoy his latter years peacefully rather than to try her patience for a second time. Lincoln might have come after her harder if she had murdered Navarro, and now he would serve her purpose as a messenger. He would be a demonstration of what Beatrix was capable of achieving if the wrong buttons were pressed.