Cuba (4 page)

crowd. He waggled the bat, cocked it, waited

expectantly. His stance was perfect, his weight

balanced, he was tense and readywhen he batted

Hector could see Ocho’s magnificent talent.

He looked so … perfect.

Ocho let the first ball go by … outside.

The second pitch was low.

The opposing pitcher walked around the mound, examined

the ball, toed the rubber.

The fact was Ocho was a better batter than he was

a pitcher. Oh, he was a great pitcher, but when he

had a bat in his hands al caret his gifts were on

display; the reflexes, the eyesight, the

physique, the ability to wait for his pitch….

The third pitch was a strike, belt-high, and Ocho

got around on it and connected solidly. The

ball rose into the warm, humid air and flew as if

it had wings until it cleared the center field fence

by a good margin.

“He caught it perfectlyea”…Mercedes said,

admiration in her voice.

Ocho trotted the bases while everyone in the

bleachers applauded. The opposing pitcher stood on

the mound shaking his head in disgust.

Ocho’s manager was the first to greet him as he

trotted toward the dugout. He pounded his star on the

back, pumped his hand, beamed proudly, almost like a

father.

“S

CUBA 21

“What else

is

happening”…”…Hector asked.

“The government has signed the casino agreement.

Miramar, Havana, Varadero and Santiago.

The consortium will provide fifty percent of the cost

of an airport in Santiago.”

“They have been negotiating for whatthree years?”

“Almost that.”

“Any sense of urgency on the part of the Cubans?”

“I sense none. The Americans were happy

with the deal, so they signed.”

“Who are these Americans?”

“I thought they were Nevada casino people, but there were people in

the background pulling strings, criminals, I think.

They wanted assurances on prostitution and

narcotics.”

The Cuban government had been negotiating

agreements for foreign investment and development for

years, mainly with Canadian and European

companies. Tourism was now the largest industry in

Cuba, bringing 1.5 million tourists a year to the

island and keeping the economy afloat with hard

currency. Now the Cuban government was openly

negotiating with American companiesea.with all deals

contingent upon the ending of the American economic

embargo. Fidel Castro believed that he could put

political pressure upon the American government

to end the embargo by dangling development rights in

front of American capitalists. Hector

Sedano thought Fidel understood the Americans.

“The tobacco negotiator, Chancehow is he

progressing?”

“He is talking to your brother Maximo. Then he

is supposed to see Vargas. Tobacco will

replace sugarcane as Cuba’s big

crop, he says. The cigarettes will be

manufactured here and marketed worldwide under

American brands. The Americans will finance

everything; Cuba will get a fifty-percent share of the

business, across the board.”

“Is this Chance serious?”

“Apparently. The tobacco companies think their days

are numbered in the United States. They want

to move off-

shore, escape the regulation that will eventually put

them out of business.”

Hector sat silently, taking it all in as the

uniformed players on the field played a game with

rules. What a contrast with politics!

Mercedes was a treasure, a person with access to the

highest levels of the Cuban government. She brought

Hector Sedano information that even Castro

probably didn’t have. The big question, of course, was

how she learned it. Hector told himself repeatedly

that he didn’t want to know, but of course he did.

He glanced at the woman sitting beside him. She was

wearing a simple dress that did nothing to call

attention to her figure, nor did it do anything

to hide it.

She was a beautiful woman who needed no

makeup and never wore any. Every man she met was

attracted to her, an unremarkable fact, like the

summer heat, which she didn’t seem to notice.

Extraordinarily smart, with a nearphotographic

memory, she had almost no opportunities to use

her talent in Cuban society.

Except as a spy.

“Will Maximo be at

Mima’s

party tomorrow?”

“He said he would.”

“Should I be shocked if he acts possessive?”

Mercedes glanced at him, raised an eyebrow.

“He would not be so foolish.”

Well, just who was she sleeping with? Hector glanced

at her repeatedly, wondering. She appeared to be

concentrating on the ball game.

The only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn’t

sleeping with him, and God knows he had thought about

that

far more than any priest ever should. Of course,

priests were human and had to fight their urges, but

still…

Castro … Of course she slept with himshe was his

mistressthat was how she got access. But

did she love liim?

Or was she a cool, calculating tramp ready

to change horses now that Castro was dying?

No. He shook his head, refusing to believe that of

her.

Where did Maximo fit in? As he sat there

contemplating that angle, he wondered how Maximo

saw her?

Mercedes left after watching Ocho pitch an inning.

He faced three batters and struck them all out.

When the game was over, Hector Sedano stayed in

his seat and watched the crowd file out. He was still

sitting there when someone shouted at him, “Hey, I

turn out the lights now.”

The darkness that followed certainly wasn’t total.

Small lights were illuminated over the exits, the

lights of Havana lit up the sky, and lightning

continued to flash on the horizon.

Sedano lit another cigar and smoked it slowly.

After a few minutes he saw the shape of a man

making his way along the aisle toward him. The man

sagged down on the bench several feet away.

“Good game tonight.”…The man was the stadium keeper,

Alfredo Garcia.

“Yes.”

“Your brother, El Ocho, was magnificent. Such

talent, such presence.”

“We are very proud of him.”

“Why do you call him El Ocho?”

“He was the eighth child. He has the usual half

dozen names, but his brothers and I just call him

Ocho.”

“I saw that she was here, with her security guards

circling. … What did she say?”

“What makes you think she tells me anything?”

“Come, my friend. Someone whispers in your ear.”

“And someone is whispering to Alejo Vargas.”

“You suspect me?”

“I think you are just stupid enough to take money from the

Americans and money from Alejo Vargas and think

neither of them will find out about the other.”

STEPHEN COONTS

“My God, man! Think of what you are

sayingff”…Alfredo moved closer. Sedano could see

his face, which was almost as white as his shirt.

“I am thinking.”

“You have my life in your hands. I had to (rust you

with my life when I first approached you. Nothing has

changed.”

Sedano puffed on the cigar in silence,

studying Garcia’s features. Born in America

of Cuban parents, Garcia had been a priest.

He couldn’t leave the women alone, however, and

ultimately got mixed up with some topless dancers

running an “escort”…service in East St.

Louis. After a few months the feds busted him for

violation of the Mann Act, moving women across state

lines for immoral purposes, i.e.,

prostitution. After the church canned him, he jumped

bail and fled to Cuba. Garcia had been in Cuba

several years when he was recruited by the CIA, which

asked him to approach Sedano.

Hector Sedano had no doubt that Garcia had the

ear of the American governmentin the past four years

he had supplied Sedano with almost a million

dollars in cash and enough weapons to supply a small

army. The money and weapons always arrived when and where

Garcia said they would. Still, the question remained, who

else did the man talk to?

Who did his control talk to?

Hector had stockpiled the weapons, hidden them

praying they would never be needed. He used the money for

travel expenses and bribes. Without money

to bribe the little fish he would have landed in prison

years ago.

Hector Sedano shook his head to clear his thoughts.

He was living on the naked edge, had been there for

years. And life wasn’t getting any easier.

“Castro is dyingea”…he said. “It is a matter of

weeks, or so the doctors say.”

Alfredo Garcia took a deep breath and exhaled

audibly.

“I tell you now man-to-man, Alfredo. The

records of Alejo Vargas will soon be placed in

my hands. If you have

betrayed me or the people of Cuba, you had better find

a way to get off this planet, because there is no

place on it you can hide, hot from me, not from the

CIA, not from the men and women you betrayed.”

“I have betrayed no one,”.alfredo Garcia said.

“God? Yes. But no rnan.”

He went away then, leaving Sedano to smoke in

solitude.

Fidel Castro dying! Hector Sedano could hear

his heart beat as he tried to comprehend the reality of

that fact.

Millions of people were waiting for his death, some

patiently, most impatiently, many with a feeling of

impending . doom. Castro had ruled Cuba as an

absolute dictator since

1959: the revolution that he led did nothing more than

topple the old dictator and put a new one in his

place. Castro jettisoned fledgling

democracy, embraced communism and used raw

demagoguery to consolidate his total, absolute

power. He prosecuted and executed his enemies and

confiscated the property of anyone who might be against

him. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, many

to America.

Castro’s embrace of communism and seizure of the

assets of the foreign corporations that had invested in

Cuba, assets worth several billions of

dollars, were almost preordained, inevitable.

Predictably, most of those corporations were

American. Also predictably, the

United.states government retaliated with a

diplomatic and economic blockade that continued

to this day.

After seizing the assets of the American corporations

who owned most of Cuba, Castro had little choice:

he had to have the assistance of a major power, so he

substituted the Soviet Union for the United

States as Cuba’s patron. The only good thing

about the substitution was that the Soviet Union was a

lot farther away than Florida. Theirs was

never a partnership of equals: the Soviets

humiliated Fidel at almost every turn in the road.

When communism collapsed in the Soviet Union

in the early 1990’s, Cuba was cut adrift as

an expensive luxury that the newly democratic

STEPHEN COONTS

Russia could ill afford. That twist of fate was a

cruel blow to Cuba, which despite Castro’s best

efforts still was a slave to sugarcane.

Through it all, Castro survived. Never as popular

as his supporters believed, he was never as

unpopular as the exiles claimed. The truth of the

matter was that Castro was Cuban to the core and

fiercely independent, and he had kept Cuba that

way. His demagoguery played well to poor

peasants who had nothing but their pride. The

trickle of refugees across the Florida

Straits acted as a safety valve to rid the

regime of its worst enemies, the vociferous

critics with the will and tenacity to cause serious

problems. In the Latin tradition, the Cubans who

remained submitted to Castro, even respected him

for thumbing his nose at the world. A dictator he

might be, but he was “our”…dictator.

A new day was about to dawn in Cuba, a day

without Castro and the baggage of communism, ballistic

missiles, and invasion, a new day without bitter

enmity with the United States. Just what that day would

bring remained to be seen, but it was coming.

The exiles wanted justice, and revenge; the

peons who lived in the’exiles’ houses, now many

families to a building, feared being dispossessed.

The foreign corporations that Castro so cavalierly

robbed wanted compensation. Everyone wanted food, and

jobs, and a future. It seemed as if the bills for

all the past mistakes were about to come due and payable

at once.

Hector Sedano would have a voice in that future,

if he survived. He sat smoking, contemplating

the coming storm.

Mercedes was of course correct about the danger

posed by Alejo Vargas. Mix Latin machismo

and a willingness to do violence to gain one’s own ends,

add generous dollops of vainglory, egotism, and

paranoia, stir well, and you have the makings of a

truly fine Latin American dictator,