Leon Uris (17 page)

“This, gentlemen, is the first time I came to learn about the West. I read Western literature and philosophy and religion. Along with general history we made an intensive study of each Western country, its political system and, most important, the lives and behavior of the Western leaders. We knew how they would react to each issue. And mainly, we learned their weak points.”

The six-o’clock chimes played out “Rock of Ages” from Bethesda’s chapel.

They all stood and gathered their notes. The four ININ men had come to respect Boris Kuznetov for he had sobered them on the depth, skill, and devotion of the enemy.

Boris smiled. “I look forward to seeing Olga and Tamara these evenings. Your Americanization program has given me two new beautiful women.”

The tapes were locked into an attaché case. The room was thoroughly searched for loose scraps. Unneeded notes were placed into a basket shredder and chopped into a billion bits and mixed so they could never be read again.

They shook hands with Boris.

“Have a good Sunday,” Boris said.

They left and Boris was wheeled out. The room was sealed.

M
AGGIE, THE COOK
OF Juanita de Córdoba, made many trips to the stall of Jesús Morelos in the three weeks André Devereaux had been in Cuba. As often as not she brought home a chicken containing a message sewed up in its innards. Each new message gave another clue indicating that the Soviets were indeed bringing missiles into the country.

Yet the key link of an actual eyewitness remained missing.

The four Soviet ships left Viriel and were replaced by four others. André knew that the missiles would soon leave the Viriel docks on their trip to Finca San José. He became enormously anxious about what appeared to be a major Cuban and Soviet blunder.

In mapping out the routes to Finca San José there was but one choice. The missile carriers were compelled to travel from Viriel to Havana, through the edge of the city, then south on the airport highway.

Traffic into Havana was on a road that ran between Morro Castle and La Cabaña, then under the harbor through a tunnel. The tunnel emptied into Havana on the sea-front road, the Malecón.

By his own calculation of the size of the suspected missiles, they were too large to fit into the tunnel. This miscalculation would force the carriers to take a secondary road into Havana that led right into the old city. Here the missiles would have to travel through a labyrinth of small narrow streets.

If André’s reckonings were true, it was just possible the error would force the Russians to parade their secret cargo under their very noses.

In addition to Jesús Morelos, a number of other friends of Juanita de Córdoba lived in the old town. She told them what to look for and to sleep with one eye open.

The word passed from Viriel that the cargo had left the port under heavy guard on large carriers and was heading for Havana.

A young medical student, Arnaldo Valdez, lived with his parents in the La Lisa section of Havana, but often spent his nights with his sweetheart, Anita, who had a small apartment near Avenida de Agua Dulce in the old city.

During the day curious activity had taken place on the streets near her flat. Anita and Arnaldo spoke about it when he arrived in the evening, and they both concluded that it could be the clearing of a route.

It was after midnight, as Anita slept and Arnaldo studied at the desk in her bedroom, that he heard a distant sound of motors.

As he buttoned on his shirt, Anita awoke, frightened.

“For God’s sake, Arnaldo,” she pleaded, “don’t go out on the streets.”

“I must. You know what our instructions are.”

“But I’m afraid.”

“Shhhh. It will be all right.”

He left her stunned on the landing, looked up the stairs, blew a kiss and disappeared out onto the street.

In the old days something would be going on all night. Raucous revelry, laughter, whores, fights. But since the Revolution the streets were empty and listless soon after dark.

In the shadows of the arcaded sidewalks, Arnaldo wove his way through a maze of streets and alleyways past sleeping dogs and howling cats, moving ever closer to the sound of the motors.

Even as the streets began to rumble under the weight of abnormal loads no one was curious these days. The lights of Havana, save for a few squalid joints, remained dark.
“HALT!”
the sign before him warned,
“THIS STREET IS CLOSED FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN!”

Arnaldo peered around the corner of the arcade and pondered his move. There were no headlights, but the convoy could not be more than a few blocks removed.

Across the darkened avenue he could make out the wooden booth of an old lottery stand. He darted out and crossed the street and dived under the counter. There he crouched into a ball and labored to quiet his gasping lungs.

Now he peeked around the tight confines. The stand was dilapidated. He poked with his penknife and pried a couple of boards apart, allowing him enough of a crack to see the street.

A platoon of motorcycles was almost on him, gunning up a roar, followed by the shuffling feet of soldiers at fixed bayonets probing around for loiterers or watchers.

Arnaldo curled into a ball of fear, mumbling prayers as the rumbling grew more pronounced. With a face of frightened sweat he lifted his eyes and knew he was going to dare a look.

An enormous tractor, the largest vehicle he had ever seen, pulled a trailer of six axles. Each axle had eight wheels. In a blur of cold excitement, he tried to remember his instructions from Juanita. Look at the tires! Look at the tires!

Yes! See! They are squashed half flat under the agony of the load. The great tube lay on the trailer bed. It was two arcade lengths and covered with canvas, and as it inched along the street was indented by the tire marks.

The tail was uncovered. Arnaldo tried to draw a picture in his mind of its size and shape.

But he could no longer see. The caravan passed on, with a dozen armored cars and an open truck of Russian soldiers following the missile carrier.

He waited for total silence, but there would be none for his own breath and heartbeat were audible. At last the motors faded from earshot.

He was about to crawl from his cover but hedged. For certain, G-2 men would be sweeping the area. The thought of the Green House sickened him. That was where his brother had been beaten to death.

The lottery vendor’s stall seemed to be the safest place. Tuck in and stay till daylight. Anita would be frantic, but it was all for the best.

In the old days before the Revolution it was a common sight to find drunks asleep in the streets. But this morning Arnaldo Valdez was discovered by a pair of militiamen and dragged to his feet and shaken rudely.

He played the part of a sick man with a hangover and grinned at his captors sheepishly. “I am a medical student, comrades. Please let me clean up and get to the university.”

“Drunks are a disgrace to the Revolution. You are going to the police station. They’ll sober you up all right. Pancho, call for the wagon!”

“I beg you, señores. If you don’t give me a break, I’ll be thrown out of school.” Then Arnaldo wept, and not all his tears were phony.

“Who wants doctors like you in Cuba?” the militiaman scorned.

“Let the stupid bastard go,” the second said. “Who wants to fill out all those damned reports?”

“No! A medical student should not behave like a drunken pig.”

“Oh, very well. I’ll call for the wagon.”

Anita appeared on the scene. She walked to Arnaldo and slammed him over the head with her purse and kicked his shins.

“Dog!” Anita screamed.

A delighted crowd gathered.

“You leave me for that other woman and get drunk! Liar! Dog!”

She grabbed his ear, literally jerking him free of the militiamen’s grip.

“I worked to the bone to send you through medical school and this is the thanks I get! Bum!”

The crowd laughed and whistled as she banged him around the arcade. Arnaldo doubled up, shielding his face and stomach.

“I promise I’ll study. Day and night I’ll study!”

“He goes to the station.” One militiaman asserted his authority.

“No,” the crowd groaned. “No!”

“He’s getting a beating enough.”

“Dog! Bum!”

“Let him go,” they chanted.

Anita kicked him down the street and around the corner as the crowd gathered around the militiamen and argued heatedly. By now the police were dumbfounded. As they shrugged and continued their rounds, they were applauded for gallantry.

In her room, Anita wept and kissed him for every blow she had rendered. “I almost lost my mind,” she cried, “I almost lost my mind. Oh, my darling, darling, darling.”

They kissed and rolled in the bed and fell to the floor. He laughed convulsively. “I saw them! I saw them!”

And she sat beside him on the floor and laughed with him until their sides ached and tears drenched their cheeks.

T
HE APARTMENT OF
T
ERESA
Marín was but a block away from the French Chancellery. Teresa was one of Fidel Castro’s most trusted personal secretaries. In fact, he had her placed in the exclusive building in order that she might oversee an apartment on the floor below belonging to Fidel. It was a place where he entertained his mistress of the moment.

The first loyalty of Teresa Marín, however, was to the activities of Juanita de Córdoba.

Midway between the French Chancellery and Teresa’s apartment house stood the Chinese Embassy on an acre of land surrounded by a high pink wall. Its flat roof held a field of radio antennae, which delivered high-frequency transmissions around the clock to China.

With the Chinese cluttering up the air, it was impossible to monitor the area. What better place than in the apartment of Teresa Marín for the French espionage ring to place their own transmitter?

Near the end of the third week of André’s visit to Cuba, Juanita paid what appeared to be a normal social call to her old friend, Teresa Marín. One floor below, Fidel Castro made love to a new woman.

At the moment Fidel was making his conquest, a high-speed, low-frequency transmitter came from its hiding place in Teresa’s apartment and flashed a message to a receiver in Miami:

CONFIRMING THE INTRODUCTION OF SOVIET INTERMEDIATE RANGE MISSILES AT FINCA SAN JOSÉ AND PERHAPS REMEDIOS AREAS. MISSILES NOT YET OPERATIONAL. BASES APPEAR TO BE IN EXCLUSIVE HANDS OF SOVIET TROOPS.

The message was signed with André’s ININ code name, Palomino.

M
UÑOZ AND THE
S
OVIET
Resident, Oleg Gorgoni, stared into the eternally black, angry eyes of Rico Parra, who appeared intense even when drinking his morning
cafecito.

The Russian hammered home his position. “Both Devereaux and the French Ambassador have a history of complete sympathy to the Americans. Devereaux has been in Havana almost three weeks. For what?”

Rico played with his beard. “Routine business.” “In the light of our present activities,” Gorgoni continued, “we cannot consider his visit to Cuba at this time as coincidental.”

“Well, Muñoz,” Parra said, “you’ve had him under watch. What do you think?”

“We could find nothing specific. Only suspicions.”

“Since when do we let suspicions stop us?” Gorgoni demanded.

“Since we started playing with high-ranking diplomats, Comrade Gorgoni.” Rico threw up his hands. “I have no love lost for the Frenchman but I am reluctant to act without proof.”

“There will be proof enough when you open his attaché case.”

“And if there isn’t? He’s just hot for Juanita de Córdoba, and when he gets to Cuba he finds reason to stay.”

“Is their affair such an innocent little game?” the Russian said.

Rico’s eyes seemed even blacker. “You’re treading on quicksand, comrade. She is a great and respected woman. But ... suppose we do get rid of Devereaux. What about French-Cuban relations?”

“Did Castro give you authority to act or not?”

“Yes, but I’m giving the damned authority right back to him.”

“Comrade Parra! The Frenchman cannot be allowed to leave Cuba with a suitcase filled with intelligence.”

Parra shrugged and gestured. “So, what if the Yankees discover the rockets? Just what will they do? What did they do when the surface-to-air missiles were installed? Eh? Nothing, they did nothing.”

“SAM’s are defensive weapons,” Gorgoni answered; “this is different.”

“What about the Soviet jet bombers in Cuba? Are they defensive? Again the Americans didn’t do anything, and they won’t do anything now,” Parra bragged.

“Moscow is very concerned. Once we make the missiles operational it will be an accomplished fact. But they must be made operational first. You know as well as I of the increased American U-2 flights over Cuba. What are they looking for? Bananas?”

Rico Parra slammed his fist onto the desktop. “Do the Yankees have missiles in Turkey pointing at the Soviet Union? Yes or no?”

“One question does not answer the other. We must have time to make them operational. Devereaux leaves tomorrow. What will Castro say to you when the Americans threaten to invade Cuba? What will become of Rico Parra then? Think, comrade ... think of the consequences to you if Devereaux carries out information of this.”

Rico Parra thought. “Uribe!” he shouted.

His fragile secretary, Luis Uribe, hurried into the room.

“Did you reach Castro?”

“I called the apartment, also Che and Raul. He is on his way to Santiago for a speech but apparently stopped off en route to see one of his woman friends. He can’t be located.”

“What kind of crazy country are you running here when you can’t find your own President!” the Russian said angrily.

“Comrade Gorgoni,” Parra answered indignantly, “we are Cubans. Uribe, keep trying to locate Castro. Muñoz, you will go to the airport tomorrow. As soon as Castro gives me the green light I will call you. Pick up Devereaux and take him to the Green House.”

A slight smile crossed the baby face of Muñoz.