Suspicion of Rage (27 page)

"Damn. It's so
awful"

"Well, what are we going to do now?" Karen said. "Do we have to go back?"

Mario put his arms around the girls. "Come on, ladies. I take you to Lenin Park. We going to have a good time."

They headed back for the car. Danny walked behind them. Invisible. He could feel the hatred for Mario Cabrera like a force inside him, pushing on his ribs, making his neck hot. His hands were sweating.
User. Parasite.
His father had given Mario money, and Mario was going to try to screw Angela to get out of Cuba.

Danny imagined his forefinger sending a red laser beam that focused on Mario Cabrera's head.
I have the power to destroy you. I have the power, and you don't even know it.

 

 

 

 

22

 

 

From the city, the best route to
Las Playas del Este,
the beaches east of Havana, is the tunnel under the bay. The road emerges near El Morro and becomes the Via Monumental, a four-lane highway going past the sports stadium, then south of Cojimar, where Hemingway kept his fishing boat. Anthony Quintana had not been this way for several years, but his recollection was clear. He turned onto Vía Blanca, drove for another mile or two, then headed north to Santa Maria del Mar.

He left the rental car in a lot, gave the grizzled attendant a dollar, and crossed the street to the beach. Traffic was sparse, and the flat-roofed houses and shops wanted paint. The sun went in and out of heavy clouds, and the wind tossed the fronds of the palm trees. It would rain before evening. He saw a man in khaki shorts at a pizza stand, the only customer. The man wore a black Che Guevara beret with a red star on the front.

Anthony walked to the farthest of the thatch-roofed tables. A cat with half its tail missing streaked out from under the bench seat and looked back at him, ears flattened, before vanishing into the weeds.

Everett Bookhouser came over with two red cans of Tu-Cola. "Ever since they cracked down on the prostitutes, this beach has taken a nosedive." He set one of the sodas in front of Anthony, who pushed it aside. "No, thanks. Where'd you get the hat?"

"I bought it off my landlady's kid for three bucks." Bookhouser removed the beret and tossed it to the table. He sat on the other bench. His short hair was the same gray as the clouds, and by contrast his eyes, set in their bony sockets, seemed intensely blue. "Vega and I had a talk yesterday. Did he tell you about it?"

"No."

"You don't know what he's asking for?" "No."

"A million dollars. As soon as it's in an account in Grand Cayman, he'll talk to us. He says he can find his own way out. When he gets wherever it is he's going— and it won't be the United States—he'll call." Bookhouser looked at Anthony a while longer before saying, "Was that your idea?"

"What do you mean? The million dollars? I wish I'd thought of it. Depending on how much you need him, it could be a bargain."

"Was it your idea that he avoid U.S. jurisdiction?"

"It didn't come up."

"We're not going to pay him to thumb his nose at us from Argentina or Beijing or wherever he plans to surface."

"What do you expect me to do about it?" "Change his mind."

"I did what you asked me to," Anthony said. "I put you in touch with him."

"Let me remind you," Bookhouser said, leaning closer. "If he stays here, somebody's going to try to set him up for crimes against the state. For a man of his rank, that means a life sentence—or worse. Vega is aware of this. We're making a good offer, but he has to cooperate. He contacted me. We talked. He's ours now. If he backs out, there have been suggestions made about dropping hints to State Security that Vega is on our side. I personally don't like that kind of squeeze, but there it is."

With a laugh, Anthony said, "I think you like it a lot." Bookhouser's gaze remained steady. "I want you to convince me that Ramiro Vega isn't going to scam us."

"He's being careful. He'd be crazy not to. What about my sister? Did he say he had talked to her?"

"Nope. He didn't say." Bookhouser pulled back the tab on his soda can. "I assured him of safe passage for the family. He said he'd handle it. The guy has a set of balls." Bookhouser held his soda without drinking it. "Did he tell you he might ask Olga Saavedra to go with him? Is that going through his mind?"

"I don't believe he would do that," Anthony said. "Why do you ask?"

"Céspedes doesn't trust her. She's terrified of prison, and she wants to get the hell out of Cuba. Put those together, and you have someone who could be persuaded to turn on Ramiro Vega. I told Vega about it. He didn't seem too worried—but he doesn't reveal a whole lot, does he? You said she wanted to ask you for a favor. Why don't you go ahead and talk to her? Find out what it is. And tell Ramiro to keep his mouth shut, even with his wife, until we get the details figured out. What's he got against coming to the United States?"

"We're the enemy," Anthony said. "He doesn't like us. If he leaves Cuba, it's because he's sick of watching it rot. I believe he'll talk to you, but he'll give you as little as he can. Whatever that is, it must be worth a great deal to someone in Washington."

"Not a million dollars, it isn't. We could offer two hundred thousand and his freedom."

"Tell him yourself," Anthony said.

Swiveling around sideways, Bookhouser squinted at the long stretch of deserted white sand and the waves curling and falling back. The bridge of his nose had a break in it. He said, "Please don't get cute with me. You tell your brother-in-law that I want him where I can find him, whether that's Times Square, Disney World, or one of our embassies overseas. His choice. Otherwise, we can and will make it so hot for him that he will be wearing his flak jacket indoors. Are you hearing me?"

It took some effort for Anthony not to reach across the table and grab a fistful of Everett Bookhouser's shirt. "I'll pass him the message."

"Good. When are you meeting Garcia?"

"Tonight, providing I have something to give him."

Bookhouser looked around. "I'm trying to keep Ramiro Vega out of harm's way. Believe that or not." Putting his back to the pizza stand, where some teenagers had lined up at the window, he said, "This is what I want you to tell Garcia. Admit that Navarro talked to you about Omar Céspedes. Tell him that Navarro wanted you to find out if Céspedes was planted or if he decided on his own to defect. You told Navarro to go screw himself. If you started asking Ramiro questions like that, he would kick you out of Cuba. You came to Havana and forgot all about it. Then Garcia showed up asking what Céspedes had told the CIA. You didn't know, but you said you'd find out, so you called your grandfather."

Bookhouser paused for a sip of his cola. "The following part is true. What Céspedes told us has to do with the Cuban oil shortage, which is chronically bad. There's no cash to buy oil on the open market, and with twenty billion dollars' worth of unpaid foreign debt, loans are out. So Castro is getting a cut fate on Venezuelan oil in exchange for supporting Hugo Chavez. Cuba has already sent medical doctors and technicians. The next step is to send agents to infiltrate the opposition. Naturally the United States is interested in keeping Venezuela from turning into another Cuba."

"And interested in Venezuelan oil," Anthony added.

"Aren't we cynical? You can tell that to Garcia if it helps your case, but oil isn't our motivation. The Venezuelan economy is going to hell, thanks to Chavez, and if Castro keeps meddling, it could destabilize the entire region."

Anthony smiled. "García won't buy it. Anyone who reads a newspaper could come up with that story."

"Probably, but Céspedes is giving us the details. We're getting the names of Cuban agents and where they're being sent. Your grandfather doesn't know who they are, or he would have told you. I think it's enough to satisfy General Garcia."

"Who is he doing this for?" Anthony asked. "Himself? Or the Cuban government?"

"That's a damned good question," replied Bookhouser.

The teenagers had taken their pizza and sodas to the beach. The sun was dodging the clouds and dropping patches of light on the ocean. One of the boys pulled his T-shirt over his head. His ribs showed in his skinny torso. A girl ran down to the water and shrieked when a wave splashed her bare legs. The wind carried their laughter to the palm grove on shore. Anthony wondered where Danny was, if he was having fun. It was a strange thing, but Danny rarely laughed. Anthony didn't know why.

He felt his headache coming back and pressed his fingers against his temple. "What does Ramiro know that's worth so much to you? He has no contacts in the Cuban intelligence service. He's a bureaucrat who keeps the electricity turned on."

"Well, it's this way. We get. a guy like Céspedes, and maybe we can believe him, maybe not. Some people— some even in Washington—will accept anything that fits their idea of what's going on in Cuba. I for one don't like acting on sketchy information." Bookhouser swung a leg over the bench. "I need to get going."

"Just a second." Anthony looked up at him. "Did you check into the visas I asked about? For the Leivas."

Bookhouser dropped his beret over his gray buzz-cut. "First you get me a reasonable answer from your brother-in-law, then I'll see what I can do."

"Forget it. I'll put them on a boat. As long as they reach U.S. soil, they don't need a visa."

"They could also be intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard and turned over to the Cubans."

Anthony let out a short laugh. "You're a son of a bitch."

"Maybe, but I'm
our
son of a bitch, not Fidel's." Bookhouser poured the rest of his soda into some weeds at the base of a palm tree. "I'm constrained in what I can tell you. Nobody really knows where you stand. Bill Navarro didn't want to use you for this at all. He thinks you're a closet communist. What I think is, you're trying very hard to have it both ways. There will come a time when you can't do that anymore. In this game, everybody has to choose sides."

Bookhouser flattened the Tu-Cola can between the heels of his thick, muscular hands. Holding the mangled aluminum basketball-style, he flexed his knees and aimed the can at a rusting trash bin. It clattered inside. "Keep in touch."

 

Anthony left his car in the lot and walked to the blue Etecsa booth outside a boarded-up tourist hotel down the street. The wind was coming in from the north, and he felt the chill. He inserted his phone card, dialed a number, and counted the rings on the other end. He was about to hang up when Hector answered.
 

Anthony asked if he had talked to the old man.
 

"Yes, but he doesn't know anything. I was able to contact a friend in the company."
 

Meaning the CIA.
 

"What did he tell you?"

"Omar is talking about that restaurant in Juraguá. You know. The vodka drinkers were building a big restaurant, but they ran out of money and went home. So it's sitting there for fifteen years. That place."

Hector was being more obscure than usual: vodka drinkers. The Russians. The uncompleted nuclear reactor outside the town of Juraguá in Cienfuegos province.

"I know the place," Anthony said. "What about it?"

"They say Omar is talking about it. He's a cook. He went to a famous cooking school. What's that city that starts with an M? He went there and got an advanced degree in cooking, and he used to work at the restaurant. That's why he knows about it."

Anthony had to think before he deciphered Hector's meaning: Omar Céspedes went to Moscow and studied ... what? Nuclear engineering? "Hector, don't worry about the phone. I'm on the beach, and no one's around. Let me understand you. They want to finish Juraguá?"

There was a long pause, then a sigh, as though Hector would rather be talking in circles. "That's what I heard."

"It would be suicidal." Three U.S. presidents had promised dire consequences if the Cubans ever attempted to finish the Chernobyl-style reactor. "Are they taking Céspedes seriously?"

"I don't know. What did they do with the stuff for the oven? You know, to make it hot?"

"The Russians never shipped it."

"There isn't any?"

"If we can believe Vladimir Putin, there isn't."
 

"They have some in the hospitals, no?"
 

"It isn't the same."

"You can make a dirty bomb from that stuff. Señor Ernesto says the Beard would give it to the terrorists for free—"

"Do you believe that?"

Hector hesitated. "He might. He's getting old. If he could make a final strike at the Americans, he could die happy."

"I've heard that theory already on Radio Mambi in Miami," Anthony said. "Did Céspedes mention Venezuela? The Cubans helping Chavez in exchange for oil?"

"My friend didn't say anything about that."
 

Anthony wondered if Hector's friend simply hadn't mentioned it, or if Céspedes hadn't talked about Venezuela at all. Anthony didn't mind lying to Garcia, but the best lies lay close to the truth. Otherwise, something would invariably get screwed up. If Garcia knew he was being lied to, the consequences could be serious. Anthony could sense rumblings, the ground shifting, about to crack open. He needed to know which way to jump.

Leaning against the phone booth, he noticed a few wet circles appearing on the dusty sidewalk. A drop of rain hit the plastic side of the booth. He asked Hector, "So that's all you have for me?"

"It's not easy." Hector's tone said he was miffed that his efforts weren't appreciated. "Everybody's got their mouths shut. No interviews, nothing on TV or in the papers. They don't even admit Omar is in town. Usually people talk to me, but this?
Ooof.
Do you want me to keep trying?"

"Only if you can get it to me soon. I'm meeting the Chinaman tonight. Hector, I need a favor."

"Anything."

"Find me a boat and a captain, will you? Something fast. I can't say we'll need it, but I'd like to have the option."

"Yeah, yeah, no problem. Maybe two, then if you want to go south, you can." "Thanks."