Havana Harvest (40 page)

By the time Lonsdale booked into the Stafford in London's Piccadilly district it was almost nine o'clock Saturday morning. Luckily, his room was ready.

He had hoped to get some sleep on the way over, but his mind had refused to cooperate. The pace he'd set himself had begun to take its toll, and he couldn't switch off. After a fast shower and shave he swallowed half a 300 mg Melatonin pill, set the alarm on his watch for two thirty, stuck the Do Not Disturb sign on his door and slept. He awoke a few minutes before the alarm went off, refreshed and alert.

At three p.m. on the dot he was at the front desk.

“Is there a Mr. Dee in the house?”

“Sir, he has booked one of the conference rooms and is waiting for you there,” the concierge replied.“Please follow me.”

Seated in a comfortable armchair, Spiegel was reading the
Daily Mail,
his spectacles perched on the very tip of his generous nose. “Would you like some tea?” He held up a paper-thin porcelain cup by way of greeting.

“Tea would be nice.”

“Please arrange for fresh, hot tea,” Spiegel said to the concierge.

“Right away, Sir” answered the man with the dignity only an English butler can muster.

Spiegel turned to Lonsdale “What's your name?”

“John.”

Spiegel's nostril twitched in disdain. “John it is then. My name is Jim.”

“Jim it is then, Ivan,” retorted Lonsdale. Spiegel did not look pleased and Lonsdale was glad. Smythe seemed not to have divulged his identity to Spiegel.

“I'm relieved to have this opportunity of meeting you.” Spiegel tried to sound friendly.

“Relieved?”

“Yes. Things are not going well.” He took a piece of paper and a small tape recorder equipped with a plug-type earphone from his pocket and handed them to Lonsdale. “Listen while you read.”

Lonsdale sat down opposite to Spiegel, plugged himself in, and pushed the appropriate button.

“Greetings, you old woman chaser,” said a heavily accented, unmistakably Cuban, male voice. “I'm sending this message through Harry Dee. We won't be able to complete the deal we're working on because, as you know, my partner's employee was sent on an unauthorized trip, which complicated things. I think my partner and I will receive official termination notices in a few days. There may be one way out. If we could organize the paperwork to come from Switzerland to Panama we could connect Terry's father with the deal and negotiate ourselves out of our difficulties. If we cannot do this, you will have to ask for help from my partner's friends. You will have to speak to my partner's mother about this. I hope to see you soon.” Lonsdale closed his eyes. All of a sudden he was very tired again.

There was a knock on the door. Tea had arrived.

When they were alone again Spiegel turned to Lonsdale. “Do you understand what he is saying?”

“I think so.”

“Then tell me.”

“De la Fuente thinks Operation Adios is compromised because of Fernandez's defection and expects that he and Casas are going to be arrested within days. He feels that if the paperwork could connect De la Fuente's father-in-law to the Panamanian bank account with the drug money in it, we could ask him to intervene and negotiate a light sentence, perhaps limited to deportation, for Casas and De la Fuente. Failing this we need to speak with Casas's mother to get the names of close friends of the general, presumably in the military, with whom we could organize some sort of an extraction operation.” Lonsdale leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I should've set up a sting against the minister with the help of Casas. This would have delayed the general's and Charley's arrest and given me more time.”

Spiegel did not follow. “Who's Charley?”

Lonsdale caught himself. “Sorry. Charley is my name for Oscar De la Fuente.”

Spiegel smiled. “It's still not too late, you know,” he said softly.

“For what?”

“For stinging the minister.”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn't even know where to start.”

Spiegel smile widened to an almost obscene grin. “But I do.”

“Oh yeah? I bet!”

“Listen up, Lonsdale!” Spiegel's mild-mannered behavior disappeared in a flash, shattering Lonsdale's composure in the process. “Let me tell you a story, which, by the way, I only heard recently, about what happened in Zurich one fine day, a dozen years or so ago.”

Jesus Montalba, Cuba's minister of the Interior, was very happy. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the jewels in the display window of the shops along Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse glittered invitingly. It was May and warm. He and his beautiful daughter, Tere, were out for an afternoon's window-shopping, which was all he could afford. Ministers of the Castro Regime did not have the means to buy even the least expensive item of jewelry on the world's most expensive street.

Never mind. They were having a great time anyway.

His invitation to the Internal Security and Human Rights Conference in Gstaad, which he had received months ago, had been for two persons, all expenses paid. Since he was divorced and had no current steady girlfriend, it occurred to him that his twenty-five-year-old daughter, herself recently divorced and down-in-the-dumps, might just be the ideal companion for the five-day trip.

She'd been thrilled and eagerly accepted the invitation. Neither of them had ever been to Switzerland.

Montalba and Tere flew to Prague via Cubana Air Lines, and the conference organizers had picked up their tab from there onward. They were as anxious to hear his comments about human rights violations in Cuba as he was to make them. Since the Gstaad trip was costing Cuba nothing, Montalba decided to tack an inexpensive three-day sightseeing tour of Zurich and the surrounding area onto it. He had arranged to stay at the Hotel Eden, a modest three-star hotel, where he shared a room with his daughter, thereby keeping costs to the absolute minimum.

By scrimping and saving and exaggerating his expenses on previous trips he had taken on behalf of
La Patria
, Montalba had managed to assemble a stash of one thousand American dollars in cash, something that was totally illegal in Cuba and punishable by five years' labor on a
granja
, or farm. Whenever he went abroad he would take the money with him (ten one hundred dollar bills carefully hidden in his wallet) hoping to find a small, worthwhile investment of some kind: jewelry, art, or silver. Thus far, he had found nothing that had tickled his fancy.

“What are you thinking about, Papa?”

He covered up instinctively. “I was thinking about where to take my beautiful daughter for lunch.”

She looked at her watch. “No wonder I feel hungry. It's past noon.” They were standing on the southeast corner of the Bahn-hofstrasse where it met the Parade Platz. “Look,” she pointed at the building behind them. “Lind und Sprüngli, the chocolate people who make those fine sweets that we ate on the plane from Prague.”

“Let's buy you some chocolates,” he said and, hand in hand, they approached the display window. “Even better. I'll buy you lunch in the restaurant upstairs.”

“What restaurant?”

“See what it says over there?” He pointed to the sign next to the door.

“I don't speak German.”

“It's in English too, Tere,” he admonished her gently. He had been paying for English lessons for her ever since she was born.

She shrugged. “Anyway Papa, what does it say?”

“It says they have a restaurant upstairs.”

They studied the menu and selected their food in a way to make every Swiss Frank count and managed to enjoy a very decent meal at the end of which Tere ordered a chocolate soufflé. It would take twenty minutes their waitress said, but Tere insisted and, as always, her doting father relented. Then an idea struck him. “Darling, while you wait for your dessert why don't I complete a little errand. I just remembered I promised to buy one of my colleagues a stamp collector's album.”

He ignored her pout and stood up. “I'll be back by the time you fnish your soufflé, and we'll have our coffee together.” Before she could reply he was gone.

“Nice story, but what has it got to do with me?” Lonsdale asked.

“De la Fuente's wife has been after her father to buy her a house in Varadero,” Spiegel went on. “He keeps putting her off, says he has no money, but she's convinced he has plenty stashed away in Switzerland. She's now told Oscar that she thinks she knows where the money is and would he please do something to get his hands on some of it.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I met Oscar in Havana before he left for Angola to see Casas.”

“OK. Then tell me: where does Teresa Montalba think her old man's money is and how much of it is there?”

“She thinks there are millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account her father opened when he left her to eat her soufflé alone at Lindt und Sprüngli's.”

Lonsdale roared with laughter. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned–not even when she is your daughter. Just because he left her alone for a few minutes.”

“Stop it.” Spiegel held up his hand. “I felt the same way you do when De la Fuente told me the story. But guess what! Bodner & Cie, Banquiers, one of Switzerland's finest boutique banks catering to an exclusive clientele, has its offices in the Lindt und Sprüngli building's third foor. It is quite possible Montalba saw the firm's nameplate on his way to the restaurant and took advantage of the opportunity. At least, that's what Señora De la Fuente thinks.”

Lonsdale thought he got the picture. “Let me guess the rest.” He leaned back, smiling. “You want me to go to Zurich, see Mr. Bodner of Bodner & Cie, and persuade him to reveal whether or not his bank does business with a Señor Montalba, who also just happens to be the Cuban minister of the Interior. Knowing the Swiss, Ivan, I would say my chances of success are slim to none.” He pursed his lips and then added as an afterthought: “Especially now that I'm a rogue agent.”

Spiegel was not bothered. “You may be right. That's why I brought you some ammunition.”

He extracted a large manila envelope from the briefcase at his feet and handed it to Lonsdale. “I explained to my contacts at MI6 that I needed help and they were kind enough to provide me with this. Have a look at the pictures inside.”

Lonsdale did. The six glossy, high-resolution, 9 × 12 photographs of a balding, surprisingly fit-looking middle-aged man cavorting with a number of naked pre-teen boys disgusted him and made him very sad.

“Those are Herr Bodner's pictures you're looking at,” Spiegel said quietly. “I'm sure you'll put them to good use.”

Monday Zurich,
Switzerland

“Bernard Lands” had to appear to be respectable and high profile. So, on Sunday night Lonsdale, using the Lands alias, checked into Zurich's most prestigious hotel.

The Baur-au-Lac enjoyed institutional status among the rich and famous. Its elegant garden pavilion is a favorite of the world's beautiful people who meet and mingle there during the summer season's afternoon
Thés Dansants
. Unfortunately so do the world's jewel thieves who religiously attend the antique jewelry auction held annually in the hotel's magnificent salons.

Early Monday morning Lonsdale called the Liechtenstein law firm that had been recommended to him. Mario Dreyfuss, the man he had been told to contact, was not expected before eight thirty, but would call Mr. Lands at his hotel at that time.