Leon Uris (19 page)

“Who?”

“Colonel Galande in Air Planning.”

Jaffe nodded in recognition.

“Two civilians. Guillon, Technical Adviser in the office of the Chief of Staff.”

“Know him slightly. He’d be a surprise.”

“Jarré, NATO economist.”

Jaffe toyed with his massive mustache. “Colonel Galande, Guillon, and Jarré,” he mused.

“We’re nervous about going to French SDECE with this,” Hooper said.

“You’ve got reason to be,” Jaffe agreed.

“There’s no way we can put a watch on Frenchmen ourselves,” Michael said.

“Léon Roux, Chief of the Department of Internal Protection of the French Sûreté,” Jaffe said. “The interior police are a different cup of tea. Roux has always played ball with us and, frankly, he’s not too fond of much of the crowd at SDECE.”

“Fly to Paris tonight. Talk to Roux and try to get him to put these three suspects under watch and do an investigation of their backgrounds ... and keep the goddamn thing quiet.”

“Roux will buy that.”

Sanderson Hooper emitted a long, sorrowful breath. “I wonder what Kuznetov is finally going to come up with.”

“We’ll know pretty soon. Devereaux is due back in Miami.”

“If he gets back,” Mike said.

Jaffe got up from the table, thinking ahead of packing, catching the ININ plane at Andrews, working out his schedule to hit Paris and see Roux right away. “Hoop, Mike, put a big circle around Jarré’s name.”

“Why?”

“Just my thoughts at the moment.”

T
HE LIMOUSINE OF THE
French Embassy stopped before the Rancho Boyeros Airport terminal. Ambassador Alain Adam walked in with Devereaux to the KLM counter, the sole scene of activity.

“What the devil do you have in this valise?” Alain asked of the bag that Juanita de Córdoba had given André.

“Just the mail. Hold onto it while I check in.”

André feigned indifference as he spotted the man with an ill fitting KLM jacket working behind the ticket agent. He was Cuban G-2 and might as well have been wearing a sign.

André set his suitcases on the scale and observed the scene of the ticket agent fingering down the passenger list, then turning to the G-2 man behind him.

“Those two bags,” the G-2 man said.

“I’ll carry them aboard.”

“They are too large.”

“I’m a diplomat.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t intend for them to leave my possession.”

“Put them on the scale.”

“No.”

“There have been bomb scares. All luggage will be weighed and inspected.”

“Sorry.”

The G-2 man stared. André yawned, bored. “Check him in,” the G-2 man finally said.

The ticket agent’s hand trembled as he went through the business of validation. “Down the corridor, sir. Departure Room Number 3.”

André held his valises and began the long, slow walk with Alain Adam. He was stopped abruptly by a guard at the head of the hall.

“You will say good-bye to your friend here. No visitors in the waiting rooms.”

André glanced about, saw the scattering of G-2 men sloppily placed everywhere. Two of them moved up behind him to cut off an exit. All the other departing passengers were being put in Departure Rooms 1 and 2. He would be in Room 3 alone. Obviously, he carried something in Juanita’s valise to implicate her, as well as a hundred other Cubans.

The gambit was opened! KLM flight lands in Miami. French diplomat missing. The Cubans would play dumb, show a passenger list without his name on it, apologize and promise an investigation, and the affair would die in mystery.

André played his first counter-card. He pulled Alain Adam aside quickly and spoke in cryptic French, “You see what’s coming off?”

Adam nodded.

“Get back to Havana immediately. Pick up Juanita and have her claim political asylum in the Embassy. Then get to Castro, Parra, or Che Guevara and warn them we are on to what is taking place. Now go.”

“André, I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“Go. Get their officials confused at the highest level. Threaten to expose them. It’s our best chance. Now go.”

Adam tried to blurt out a proper word but grabbed André’s hand tightly, nodded, and turned. André watched the Ambassador leave the terminal and saw the limousine pull from the curb and out of sight.

The circle of G-2 men closed in on him. “You go to Departure Room Number 3,” one commanded.

The one who spoke seemed to be in charge. André approached him slowly and shook his head, No. “Your boss, Muñoz, is no doubt waiting in one of the back offices. Now you just run in there and tell him that we are on to his game and the French Embassy here cabled to Paris last night about this situation. Until he wishes to discuss it with me I intend to wait in a departure room with the other passengers.”

With that, André shoved past the man and entered Room 2, which was filled with activity. The confused Cuban ran to Muñoz in a back office and reported Devereaux’s words. Muñoz betrayed his own sudden confusion with shaky hands and nervous breaths. He chewed his bottom lip, then snatched the phone.

“Put me through to Rico Parra!” he shouted.

R
ICO
P
ARRA FLUNG OPEN
THE door to Casa de Revolución. The living room had deteriorated from the days of its former owner. Juanita de Córdoba was seated on a high-backed chair. The chief guard, Hernández, hulked behind her with a sub-machine gun at her head.

“She has no weapons,” Hernández said.

Rico signaled the man to leave with a jerk of his head.

“I am flattered by your display of arms,” she said, “but it was unnecessary. I am quite harmless.”

“You are as harmless as a cobra,” Rico answered.

“As you wish.”

“Yes, as I wish. I did not survive as a guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra Mountains out of stupidity. Well, what the hell do you want?”

Juanita unfolded her legs and stood, running her fingers over an antique desktop. Even in this tense atmosphere, the dark unkempt room, the devouring woods, even so he was aware of the female opposite him. Her body was closely hugged by a pair of silk slacks, the buttocks round yet firm. The long polished nails, the flair of her jewelry, the severe hairdo, her scent. Rico’s eyes played on her bare midriff and to the halter top of thin enticing material, quite open and only tied in a bow loosely to hold her bosom.

“Of course you must know why I am here,” she said.

“It’s too early in the morning for games. You tell me.”

“You told me you have control over certain foreign diplomats. I wish to bargain for one of them.”

Rico slipped a cigar from his dungaree pocket, bit off the end, and spat it to the floor, then chewed on it without lighting it.

“André Devereaux is to leave Cuba safely.”

“If he does?”

“You have yourself a Little Dove.” She walked to the bedroom door and opened it.

Rico knew she would always hate him as intensely as she loved the Frenchman and all that he would really have of her was a shadow.

“Well,” she said, “this is what you want, isn’t it? Let’s seal the bargain.”

He giggled his strange giggle, then lifted his bearded face and laughed. “Do you really think I’m going to let him out of Cuba!” he bellowed. “He’s a spy for the Yankees. And what about you and this sacrificial act of yours? Maybe you’re out to save your own damn skin. Well ... Rico Parra is not going to be used like that. I don’t protect traitors!”

“I don’t know if André Devereaux has been here on an intelligence mission or not,” she said.

“Liar!”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “But if he has, then certainly he would not carry information out of the country on his person, would he? Wouldn’t he have already sent it by radio or through diplomatic courier?”

“You’re too damned logical for a woman.”

“In any event, Devereaux can do you no more harm unless you are foolish enough to try to kill him. Then, indeed, there will be consequences. As for me, Rico Parra, I am not a traitor to Cuba.”

“And if he goes ... he tries to send a boat for you ... yes!”

“I’m certain you will replace my servants with your own. I expect to be under constant watch as part of the bargain.”

“You’ve really thought this out, haven’t you?”

“I never took you for a fool.” She walked into the bedroom. Rico trailed after her gnashing at his unlit cigar. He leaned against the doorframe and tucked his thumbs into his pistol belt and glared.

Juanita stood beside the bed and undid the bow of her halter. It opened. She let it fall to the floor and stood proud in her nakedness.

Rico flushed. Currents of lust and anger and confusion ran together within him. Juanita walked to him surely, took the cigar from his mouth and tossed it away. She took his crude hand and lifted it to her breast.

“As long as we’re going to do it,” she said, “we might as well enjoy it.”

His free hand raised suddenly and slapped over her mouth. “Pig! Aristocratic pig!” Her head snapped back from another blow and her hair was strewn awry. He slapped her again. Her head trembled but she neither retreated nor cried. Rico flung her on the bed hard. “You hate me! All right, woman! You want an animal!”

He leaped on her and tore her slacks off and flung her around the bed. Juanita broke into a half hysteria and reached up desperately and grabbed his beard. With a surge of strength she pulled him by the beard until he was forced to lower himself on top of her. Her teeth sank into his shoulder, cutting through his shirt. He screamed in pain.

“I’m an animal too!” Juanita cried and she bit into him again forcing him to stop his attack.

They lay side by side laboring for breath, then laughing and crying half madly ... then tore at each other again and wrestled to the floor. She traded savagery for savagery, her nails found his face and clawed and she ripped his beard and she bit until he pinned her down. The blood spurted from his wound on to her face and neck. He held her solidly, both of them panting and groaning ... and after a time ... they quieted.

And suddenly Rico Parra began to weep. “I can’t do anything. I am unable to now. I have this trouble all the time.” He released his grip.

Her fingers went into the tangle of black hair, this time tenderly and she stroked him softly. “Rest and then I will help you.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll show you how. I’ll teach you everything.”

They both became aware of someone else in the room. Hernández, the guard, stood open-mouthed over them. Rico staggered to his feet and Hernández backed out of the room quaking. “Compadre,” he begged, “I did not know....”

“What the hell do you want!”

“Uribe telephoned from your office and asked if you were here. He said it was very urgent ... from Muñoz at the airport.”

“What did you tell him!”

“Nothing.... I did not tell him you were here. I swear it!”

“Get out!” Parra screamed, kicking Hernández in the backside.

He swayed for a moment and wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand and looked down on the floor at Juanita, then staggered toward the telephone and lifted the receiver.

“Don’t call,” Juanita de Córdoba pleaded ... “don’t call.”

A
N HOUR PASSED.

A second hour passed. André sat on the wooden bench in Departure Room 2, holding the valises on his lap, with the cold glare of G-2 men never leaving him.

The room stifled and smelled from lack of air, while the officials and militia played out a sordid departure ceremony for the Cuban passengers.

An ugly, harsh woman from G-2 shrilled out their names. Immigration officials called the refugees up, and police went through a set of forms to list next-to-kin still in Cuba.

A representative of the National Bank cleaned their financial slates.

Terrified Cuban families were ordered into side rooms and stripped naked for inspection.

A pile of confiscated clothing, jewelry, watches, wedding rings, religious medallions, and literature grew higher on the counters. Much of what was there would be picked over by the militia and officials later. The rest would end up for sale in the foyer of the national Capitol.

“Your attention, please! KLM Flight 438 for Miami will be delayed for technical reasons.”

A groan went up from the weary, and in a moment rumor spread of a bomb plant. Hunger and thirst took its place alongside of fear among the passengers. They lined up to be able to use the toilet one at a time in the presence of a guard.

Muñoz’s face was wet with perspiration in the suffocating office. The KLM representative argued heatedly over the further delay of the flight.

Muñoz stared out of the window at the standing aircraft. “I said I would tell you when the plane can leave. Now get out!”

Large rings of sweat circled down beneath the armpits of his shirt. He tried to find a fingernail which had not been chewed to the quick. When the phone rang he grabbed it so quickly the receiver slipped out of his moist hand.

“Hello!”

It was Luis Uribe again, for the tenth time.

“Have you found Rico?”

“No, but something else has come up. Che Guevara has just called,” he said in reference to another of the strong men of the regime. “He said that the French Ambassador had just visited him and told him he knew there was a plot to kidnap Devereaux.”

“Well, what were Che’s instructions?”

“He told me to tell you that in the absence of Parra and Castro it becomes your decision as head of G-2.”

Muñoz hung up slowly, walked to the door and opened it and called in his waiting lieutenant.

The reeking man on her emptied the last of his strength into her.

Juanita wept softly.

“I disgust you,” Rico mumbled in exhausted self-pity.

“No ... I am crying because I am happy,” she sobbed, “because I am so happy.”

“Attention! Attention! KLM Flight 438 for Miami will depart immediately. Passengers may proceed to the boarding gate.”

A
NDRÉ CLEARED
M
IAMI CUSTOMS
and went directly to the lobby on the main floor and checked into the Airport Hotel under the name of De Fries.