Castro's Daughter (8 page)

The Trotter business had been long enough ago that he’d bounced back fairly easily, but this time was different, and this time he was truly alone except for his granddaughter, whom Otto and Louise had brought here six weeks ago for a visit.

And seeing Audie, being with her, was wonderful and sad all at the same time because she was the spitting image of Liz, who’d been the spitting image of Katy. A lot of memories had come to the surface, making it next to impossible to keep smiling and keep it light.

Already she was forgetting her parents. It was something Otto and Louise wanted to correct. They wanted to show her the pictures and the few videos that Todd had made and tell her about them.

“Later, when she’s older,” McGarvey had told them after they’d put her to bed. The night had been soft, the kind Katy had always loved. “She wouldn’t understand. You’re her parents now. Just love her, it’s all she needs.”

Reaching the west side of the island, he came in sight of the white tiled patio at the base of the lighthouse one hundred yards farther and pulled up short. The figure of a man was leaning on the railing, looking down at the sea one hundred feet below.

Apparently he’d walked up from town.

McGarvey had switched back to his Walther PPK, in the 9 mm version, more out of sentimental reasons than any other, and it was holstered at the small of his back. After the operation in Baghdad and finally Washington, D.C., when he’d been briefly jailed because he’d angered the president and a lot of other powerful people on both sides of the Beltway, he never went anywhere without it.

So he started down the path toward the lighthouse, wondering who the unfamiliar man was, and why he had come.

And McGarvey was curious, so his step quickened just a little—a sign, he supposed, that he was beginning to heal after losing his wife, daughter, and son-in-law all in the same operation. Their being so irrevocably gone still wasn’t real to him. And all the good, honest Greek food and wine, all the exercises and running and five-mile swims every day, even the shooting practice in the hills, which acted as sort of a relief valve to him, had really helped. Yet all of it had done little except hone his body and steady his aim. But at night he had his dreams—nightmares, actually—that he had to deal with during the days.

Some evenings he would walk down to the island port village and tourist center of Livadi, where he would have a light dinner with a half bottle of retsina, and try to convince himself that all he wanted, really needed for now, was some time and peace to heal. Of course, he was aware of his own failings, his impatience with doing nothing for so long after practically an entire lifetime in dangerous service to his country—for the most part as a field officer with the CIA. But like many spies before him, he also knew in his heart that he had become, had always been, an adrenaline junkie.

The biggest thing he’d learned over the past few months was that it is possible to run away from just about everything—except yourself.

The man at the rail straightened up and turned around as McGarvey came down off the path and stepped onto the patio. A tourist boat was coming around the east side of the island, making for the docks at Livadi, and it’s what the visitor had been looking at.

He was a short man, well under six feet, with a thin body, narrow pinched-nosed face, dark eyes, thick dark hair, and he seemed surprised about something. He wore boat shoes, faded jeans, and a lightweight white shirt with the sleeves buttoned up above his elbows. McGarvey figured him to be in his mid to late forties, and in pretty good shape.

He came forward and stuck out his hand. “Mr. McGarvey, I’m happy to finally meet you. Marty Bambridge, I’m the new DDO.”

McGarvey’s gut tightened. For a CIA directorate chief to come all this way, unannounced and apparently without bodyguards, was not good news. He shook the man’s hand. “How did you find me?”

“Otto gave us directions,” Bambridge said. He took out his CIA identification and held it up. “We’re in something of a hurry, so I’d like you to pack, and I’ll explain on the run.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“We’re not sure, but Otto’s wife was kidnapped two days ago, and we need your help.”

“What about my granddaughter?”

“The babysitters are taking care of her at the Farm. Otto thought it was for the best to get her out of harm’s way.”

“Where is he? Why’d he send you?”

Bambridge hesitated. “Well, that’s just the point. He flew down to Havana with a delegation from State to attend Fidel Castro’s funeral. But he’s disappeared and there’s been no further word from him or the kidnappers.”

“Was that part of their demands, that he was to go the Havana in exchange for Louise’s safety?”

“Yes, but there’s a lot more,” Bambridge said.

“There usually is,” McGarvey said, wondering just what insanity had to have gripped the DI to pull off such a stunt, and how the Administration was reacting. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

“Make it ten, I have a helicopter standing by for us in town.”

*   *   *

His bedroom was three-quarters of the way up the tower, with a 360-degree view of the approaches from the sea and land. After kicking off his running shoes, he went to the windows to see if Bambridge had actually come alone. Or if he had been followed.

Landing a helicopter, even one that took tourists around for a bird’s-eye view of the island was a fairly big deal, always attracting a fair amount of attention. But he spotted no one sniffing down the DDO’s trail.

He took a two-minute shower, then dressed in a pair of khaki slacks, a white button-up shirt, dark blue blazer, and loafers. Once he’d stuffed his pistol and silencer plus two spare magazines of ammunition into an overnight bag, along with a few pieces of clothing, a couple of spare passports, untraceable credit cards and driver’s licenses, about ten thousand in cash—all he had in his go-to-hell-kit—he hesitated at the door and looked back.

The islanders would be sitting up and taking notice of the man who’d leased the old lighthouse, and who one day without notice simply got in a helicopter and flew away. He wasn’t coming back here, he decided. Maybe his healing was over and done with. Maybe it was time to go home. He had an apartment in Georgetown, and the house on Florida’s west coast, and presumably a teaching post in French philosophers with emphasis on Voltaire, still open at Sarasota’s New College.

Time to go back, if for nothing and no one else but Louise and Otto and the baby, he thought, heading downstairs.

And because he had a fair idea now why Louise had been kidnapped, and it had nothing to do with Otto.

“I don’t know how long this is going to take, do you need to let someone know you’re going to be gone?” Bambridge asked. “A caretaker?”

“I’m not coming back,” McGarvey told him. “I assume we’re going to Andrews aboard a Company jet?”

“Yes. Are you carrying a weapon?”

“Among other things.”

“I was warned,” Bambridge said. “But we’ll not be bothered by customs.”

*   *   *

They didn’t talk on the forty-five-minute hike along the rocky path that wound around the hills down to Livadi, where an older French Aérospatiale EC120 helicopter with Aegean Air Tours markings on the side was waiting for them on the landing pad just to the west of the docks. Bambridge was a smoker, he explained, and his wind wasn’t as good as McGarvey’s.

They stopped within sight of the chopper.

“I’m assuming that the kidnappers contacted Otto and told him to fly to Havana,” McGarvey said. “Did they say why?”

“We had an asset in Castro’s compound. And the night the old man died, his last visitor was a woman whom the kidnappers identified as María León. Supposedly she’s one of his illegitimate children, though we’ve not been able to verify it. She’s also Chief of Operations for the DI, and this op is hers. She had Louise snatched in order to get Otto to Havana.”

“And you people let him do it?”

Bambridge was surprised. “You know him better than anybody. Do you honestly think we could have stopped him?”

“Is the Bureau making any progress finding Louise?”

“They’re looking for the Caddy the kidnappers used, but it’s disappeared. No one at the day care got a tag number.”

“Has the White House been informed?”

“No. It was one of Otto’s conditions.”

“Good, and we’re going to keep it that way,” McGarvey said. “Because they’re not interested in Louise or Otto. It’s me the DI wants, and luring Otto to Havana was the only way they could dig me out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

“Just how do you plan on doing that?” Bambridge asked.

“I’m going to Havana to ask the woman why her dying father’s last wish was to make contact with me. And then I’m bringing Otto home.”

THIRTEEN

It had been several hours since Otto was picked up at José Marti Airport and finally brought in the back of an army truck to a lovely home on the beach near Cojimar, about eight miles east up the coast from Havana. The grounds were tropically lush, and from where he was seated at a poolside table, the sound of the surf just a hundred feet away was soothing.

But each hour that went by increased his anxiety about Louise a hundredfold because the woman who’d supposedly arranged the elaborate kidnapping had not shown up to explain her purpose, and his imagination, vivid at the calmest times, was running wild.

Except for the drama on the back road where he’d been picked up by the army and the DI Gazik had been destroyed, he’d been treated with a pleasant indifference.

The windows were open throughout the house, no screens or bars, but he was sure there were patrols on the grounds, in addition to the pair of tough-looking armed minders who were never farther than ten feet away.

In any event, he wasn’t here to attempt an escape; he’d come to find out what had possessed a high-ranking director of the DI to pull such a crazy stunt. And sitting now, sipping a cup of thick Cuban coffee with natural raw sugar, he was no closer to making sense of it than he had been when he’d first watched Louise’s video and talked to her kidnappers, which seemed like a thousand years ago.

Otto looked up as a slender woman, long black hair, oval face, large dark eyes, came from the house, said something to one of his minders, and then came over to him. She was dressed in a white polo shirt and khaki slacks, sandals on her feet. He recognized her from the pictures their asset in Castro’s compound had managed to send to Langley, and he got to his feet. “Colonel León,” he said.

“Sí,”
María said. “We never counted on someone taking my photograph at my father’s compound.” She extended her hand, but Otto ignored it.

“Nice spot you have here,” he said. “Lots better than the average Cuban will ever see.”

“It’s the same in the States, and just about everywhere else,” María said. She motioned for Otto to sit down, and she took a seat across from him.

A young boy, maybe in his early teens, dressed in a white jacket came out with a silver tray on which was a bottle of Máximo Extra Añejo fine Cuban rum and two glasses, but no ice. “Good afternoon, Señora Coronel,” he said brightly. He set the tray on the table. “You’re home early. Shall I pour?”

“No. Leave us now.”

“Shall I tell Cook there will be two for dinner?”

“Yes, please,” María said, and the boy left.

Otto got the impression that the boy and the two minders—the only ones he’d seen in the house—were happy, not at all oppressed by their boss. Which was confusing, because he’d wanted to believe that the woman was a monster.

María was looking at him, a faint smile on her lips. “I’m not what you expected.”

“No. But then I suppose that insanity has a bunch of different faces, not all of them ugly.”

“A left-handed compliment, I suppose. But there’s nothing insane about this operation, except for its difficulty and, I suppose, improbability.”

“Your people kidnapped my wife—you can’t expect me to cooperate.”

“You’re here,” María said. “Anyway, you must have figured out that she wasn’t the target, even though she probably has some interesting information we could use.”

It was what Otto had been telling himself from the start. “Neither am I,” he said.

“Actually, no—although I know some people in our Technical Directorate who would like to spend a month or two talking to you.”

“I’d love to get at the DI’s computer system, but what I have in mind wouldn’t take much more than an hour or two, ya know.”

María poured a couple of fingers of rum into each glass, and handed Otto one. “This is among our better rums,” she said. And she delicately sipped hers. “But I’ve always been curious about something. With your expertise, I’ve always assumed that you could hack into our systems just about any time you wanted to do. Why haven’t you?”

Otto sipped his rum and nodded. “This is very good,” he said. “It’s never been worth the effort, at least not on my watch. And a lot of your data is stored the old-fashioned way—on paper in file cabinets—and we would have to run the risk of burning some of our assets to get at them. Again, not worth the risk. The Russians didn’t leave you enough for us to worry ourselves.”

María looked away for a moment. “It’ll have to end one day. The embargo. It’s so stupid.”

“We never pointed nuclear missiles at you.”

She looked back. “We didn’t invade your country. And we don’t maintain a military base on your soil.”

“We were willing to help in the beginning,” Otto said. “But your father chose the Russians instead of us.”

“Your government supported Batista—”

Otto waved her off. “Save it for the faithful. It’s not why I’m here, and frankly, I don’t give a shit about your internal politics. If you guys ever straighten out your act, you’d be surprised what we could do for you.”

“No thanks,” María said bitterly. “We’ve seen what you’ve done for Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“They have free elections,” Otto said. He finished his drink, Louise’s sweet face popping up in his mind’s eye, and it took everything he had not to jump up and start hopping from foot to foot as he usually did when agitated. The only other alternative was to grab the liquor bottle and try to beat her to death with it.