Murder in Havana (17 page)

Forty minutes later, the ferry bumped hard into the makeshift dock. The timbers were rotted, and Pauling wondered how many more assaults by the ferry it could withstand before collapsing into the sea. What appeared to be a resort was not too distant. Stretching out to the left and right was a white sandy beach dotted with thatched-roofed huts in which men and women, mostly Caucasian, sipped drinks and ate at the resort’s tables beneath royal palms and majestic ceiba trees.

Pauling and Nico followed Celia down a rickety set of
stairs to the dock and they walked toward the resort. Celia chose a vacant beach hut and led them inside to a table and four chairs. Moments later, a young Cuban wearing a starched white waist-length jacket appeared and asked what they would like to eat and drink.

“They have wonderful lobster and shrimp here,” Celia announced. “It is the advantage of eating where the fishermen are.” She ordered a platter and asked Nico and Pauling what they wished to drink. Pauling opted for beer. Nico and Celia ordered daiquiris.

When the waiter was gone, Pauling asked, “How do you know
he’s
not a CDR?”

“I can see in his eyes that he is not.” She smiled. “The CDRs have a look about them that is unmistakable. There is fear as well as guilt in the way they look at you, fear that they, too, might be turned in, and guilt at doing it to their neighbors. No, we are safe here. We can talk.”

They covered inconsequential topics until the waiter had delivered a sizzling metal platter heaped with lobster meat and shrimp. He put down a basket of bread and their drinks. When he was gone, Pauling turned to Nico. “What is this information you have for me?”

“It is not so much information I have as wanting to speak with you about what I must do to get it, and to …” He stopped in midsentence.

“And what?” Pauling asked. “To find out how much you’ll be paid?”

Pauling’s directness seemed to offend Nico.

“Do you find it strange that he would want to know what his reward will be if he delivers?” Celia asked.

“No,” Pauling replied, “not at all.” To Nico: “Go ahead. What is it you want?”

Nico looked at Pauling with his big, round, black, doe-like eyes for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he leaned
closer and said slowly and deliberately, a long pause between each word, “I want to come to the United States with you.”

Pauling held Nico’s stare. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he did what people generally do in that situation. “You want to come to the States with me?”

Nico was unblinking. “Yes,” he said. “I want to come to the United States. Celia tells me you are a pilot and flew here, and that you will fly away when your assignment is finished. If I get for you the proof you need, I want you to take me back to the States in your plane.”

Celia said, “It is a good bargain, Max. Nico has a degree in biochemistry from our best university. He will have an opportunity to put his education to better use in the States.”

“Is that how you know each other? School together? Both biochemists?”

“No,” she said, “but we share that interest. Will you do it?”

“I’ll have to think about it. I’m not sure I’m free to. Besides, I haven’t seen anything from you yet, Nico.”

Nico glanced out the open door. “I have sources within the Health Ministry who can help me get for you the proof you need. The American company BTK is using the German company to buy into our cancer research. The government is beginning to put many projects and programs in private hands, but so much of the money does not come back to the government or the people. It goes into the pockets of the bureaucrats and—”

“Just business as usual,” Pauling said.

Nico swallowed hard. “Such an arrangement cannot be made without the personal approval of Prime Minister Castro.”

“Which means we know where most of the money is going. Into his IRA,” Pauling said, stating the obvious.

“What?” Nico asked. Pauling waved him on. Nico added, “There are those in the government who feel that Castro is planning to step down and go to Spain. If that is true, he will want to take as much money with him as possible. If he approves the sale of our research results to a private company, the amount of money that will exchange hands is millions.”

“If your cancer research is as successful as you say it is—and I’ve heard it is from many sources—”

Nico interrupted with enthusiasm. “It is very advanced. I am not a scientist. I am a bureaucrat. But I hear from the scientists about their work. You are familiar with monoclonal antibodies?”

“I’m no scientist either,” Pauling said.

Nico thought for a moment. “The use of monoclonal antibodies is the most effective treatment for many cancers today. These antibodies target certain cancer cells, without destroying the healthy ones. What our laboratories have managed to do is to make these antibodies four, five, even six times better. To be able to do that is very important.”

“Millions?” Pauling said. “It’ll be worth mega, mucho millions to whatever private company gets the goods.”

Nico looked to Celia to see whether he should continue. She nodded.

“I don’t know whether you will believe this, Mr. Pauling, but there is more to my helping you than being able to go to the United States. I am Cuban. I love my country and my people. When Fidel Castro took power after the Revolution, he promised to do many things, including devoting whatever resources are necessary to cure cancer. I want that cure to come from the Cuban people, from
our
doctors and researchers, not from an American or German company. If the information I give you will help ensure that, I will feel as though I have made a contribution to my people.”

Pauling tended to be skeptical about patriotism as a motive for spying and leaking information to the enemy. It had been his experience that money was the most compelling reason for deciding to become a turncoat. But he had dealt with men and women during his career whose patriotic fervor was legitimate, individuals whose sense of right overrode other considerations. The jury was out on Nico. Pauling simply didn’t know him well enough to pass judgment.

Obviously, Nico had just as many questions about Pauling. He asked, “What will you do with the information I give you?”

“Use it to expose how an American company is planning to gobble up your cancer research,” Pauling replied.

“You will do this?”

“Me? Personally? No. I’m working for another American company that doesn’t want to see it happen.”

“Why? So that it can do the same thing, ‘gobble up’ our medical research?”

Nico had a point, Pauling knew, but what Gosling and Cell-One did with the proof that BTK Industries was using the German company as a front wasn’t his concern.

“I don’t know,” Pauling answered truthfully.

“This Cell-One,” Nico pressed. “It is part of the CIA?”

“CIA?” Pauling guffawed with too much vigor to be believed. “Of course not.”

“I do not wish to offend you, but Celia has told me you once worked for the CIA.”

“Past tense, Nico. A long time ago. No, I’m not with the CIA. This is strictly a private assignment. Now, are you finished asking questions? I’m getting annoyed. Either we trust each other, or we don’t. Your call.”

Nico looked at Celia, whose expression was noncommittal. “All right,” he said. “We will trust each other.”

“Good. When can you get me the proof?” Pauling asked.

“Soon. There are documents that are secured, locked from sight, but there are ways for me to get to them. It will cost money.”

“For whom?”

“Those I will have to pay to allow me to photograph the documents.”

“Nothing for you, of course.”

“Yes, there will be something for me.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand, American.”

And a one-way ticket to Disney World
, Max thought.
A bargain. Ten thousand dollars to derail a multimillion-dollar deal
. “Ten grand for you, Nico. How much for these other people you’ll have to pay off?”

Nico shrugged. “Maybe ten thousand more. There is one man, the doctor in charge of all cancer research in Cuba. His name is Dr. Manuel Caldoza, a fine man and a brilliant researcher.”

“Are you saying he’ll sell out?” asked Pauling.

“Perhaps, but not for money. He works for the state, of course, as we all do. But his loyalties are not to Castro and the government. I believe he is aware that there are plans to sell the work of his laboratories and his staff to foreign interests.”

“Are you saying that he doesn’t want that to happen?”

“Yes. Like me. He is very proud of what his team has been able to accomplish in cancer research. He recently was in the States to give a paper at a medical convention. His work is respected all over the world. But the government restricts his travel, like that of our athletes and performers.”

“How far do you think this Dr. Caldoza would go to keep Strauss-Lochner and BTK Industries out?”

Nico shrugged. “I can try to find out.”

“Quietly.”

“Yes, I will be careful.”

Pauling drained his glass. He ate some shrimp and lobster. He tore off a piece of bread and started chewing, his facial muscles reflecting difficulty.

Celia laughed. “Che Guevara once asked why the Cubans can’t make decent bread.”

Pauling pulled the remainder from his mouth and put it on his plate. “What’s the answer?”

“Rice,” she said. “We prefer rice.”

“Oh,” he said. “What’s next?”

Nico said, “I mentioned to you a man who works for the German company Strauss-Lochner. His name is Grünewald. I can introduce you to him.”

“I’ve already met him,” Pauling said.

“You have?” Ceila said.

“Then I suggest you talk to him,” Nico said. “He is an unhappy man alone in Cuba. I have had drinks with him. He drinks too much. When he does, he says things he shouldn’t about his company.”

“About fronting for BTK Industries?”

“Almost.” Nico grinned. “He would say things to you, Celia. I think he appreciates a pretty woman.”

“Maybe I’ll go back and see him,” Pauling said. “Even if I’m not pretty.”

“Maybe I would be more successful than you,” Celia said playfully.

Pauling asked Nico, “Have you met a young guy who looks as though he might be German? Blond hair cut like a bush on top, wears a black suit and sandals. I figured he might work for Grünewald.”

“No,” Nico said.

“You’ve seen him again?” Celia asked.

“This morning, at the hotel. He paid my room a visit,
tossed things around, didn’t take anything. Not that there was anything to take.”

“I don’t know of such a person,” Nico said.

“If you find out anything about him, let me know.”

“We have a deal?” Nico asked.

Pauling took the last piece of lobster from the platter and savored it. “Delicious,” he said, with genuine appreciation. “Do we have a deal? Yeah, we have a deal—provided you produce what I need. And, Nico, do it fast. I too am a man alone in Cuba.”

Nico extended his hand. Pauling took it, let go, and stood. “All right, kids, picnic’s over. Work to do. Life can’t be all picnics and rice.”

The courier from Washington arrived at the U.S. Interests Section in downtown Havana at noon. He handed over the diplomatic pouch he’d carried from Washington to a clerk in the secured message room. The clerk signed for it and took it to her superior, who opened it and sorted the contents for delivery to appropriate people within the building.

Chief of section Bobby Jo Brown received his batch of documents, sat back, and started to read, yawning as he did. Most were on State Department stationery and were marked
CONFIDENTIAL
. Some bore the red stamp
TOP SECRET
. Few called for immediate action; they were concerned more with administrative matters and all-points directives that bore little resemblance to the reality of operating the Interests Section in Cuba. State tended to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to its stations around the world, whether what they demanded of them was practical, or even doable.

But one piece of paper captured his attention. He picked up the phone and called an extension within the building. The call was answered on the floor below by Gene Nichols, a seventeen-year CIA veteran who’d spent the last eight of them in Havana. A few minutes later he walked into Brown’s office and closed the door.

Brown handed Nichols the document he’d just received from Washington.

Nichols handed it back after reading it. “There’s nothing to report,” he told Brown, who’d been posted to Cuba a little less than a year ago. “He’s being watched. We had a little problem this morning.”

“What problem?”

“He was picked up at his hotel by Celia Sardiña. She was in a car, a jeep actually, driven by a Cuban male, identity unknown. They headed west out of the city. We had someone on them but he got stuck behind a couple of those damn ox-drawn tobacco carts and lost them.”

“No idea where they went?”

“No.”

“None of our CDRs reported on them?”

“Negative again.”

Nichols’s alleged assignment to the Interests Section was as consular officer handling the hundreds of visa applications filed each day by Cubans seeking entry to the United States. There were always throngs of them outside the concrete building with its tinted glass that prevented anyone from peering inside. Dozens waiting to be interviewed slept for days in their cars, or on the ground in a tiny nearby park at Calzada and K. But like more than half the staff, Nichols had other duties, primarily recruiting Cuban CDRs to share their information with him and his employer back in Langley, as well as with Fidel Castro’s government. He had hundreds of them on the payroll, in Havana and across the country.