The Midnight Swimmer (36 page)

Che’s office seemed narrower and more austere than it had before.
The stained-oak ceiling beams slanted towards the outer wall giving the impression of a poet’s garret.
Guevara, framed by the dark woodwork behind him, looked like a figure in a seventeenth-century Spanish painting.
There was, thought Catesby, a striking resemblance to the freed slave Juan de Pareja in the painting by Velásquez – a natural dignity and poise that neither chains nor death could contain.

Che was writing something.
His pen moved quickly and fluently as if there was neither need nor time to pause for thought.
He finally picked up the page and read: ‘Cuba does not recognize the right of the United States, or of anyone else in the world, to determine the type of weapons Cuba may have within its borders.’
He put the page down and looked at Catesby.
‘What do you think?’

‘There are people in Washington who would find that provocative.’

‘It isn’t a provocation.
It is a statement of fact.’

Catesby shrugged.
He wasn’t there as Guevara’s foreign policy adviser.

Che leaned back in his chair, an ornately carved Spanish colonial antique that would go for a bomb at Sotheby’s.
‘I suppose you want to know more about Sophie Devereux.’

‘I thought that was why you invited me here.’

‘Sophie Devereux was a killer.’
Che paused and stared at Catesby.
‘Have you ever killed anyone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how did you feel?’

‘Shaky, a bit sick inside.
Even though it had to be done.’

Che nodded.
‘During the guerrilla war we had a spy travelling with our column.
He was betraying our positions to Batista’s air force.
He eventually confessed.
He knew he had to die – we all knew he had to die.
It was embarrassing – no one wanted to do it.’
Che paused.
‘So I ended the problem by giving him a shot with a .32 pistol through the right side of the brain.
His eyes were open and looking straight into mine.
I aimed at his forehead and the bullet exited through his right temporal lobe, just behind the ear.
He gasped for a little while as the autonomic nervous system closed down – and then he was dead.’

The clinical description reminded Catesby that Che was a medical doctor.

‘His name was Eutimio,’ continued Che in a soft voice, ‘he had knelt down before me, not to beg for his life, but that I look after his children – which I have.
The sky darkened and a heavy
thunderstorm
broke just as I prepared to shoot him.
The thunder claps were so loud that even those
compañeros
who were standing next to us did not hear the shot.’
Che’s voice lowered to a whisper.
‘One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.’
His voice rose back to normal.
‘But I digress, you want to know more about Sophie Devereux.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sophie is not one who kills out of duty or necessity.
She kills for money – and more malevolently, for the thrill, the excitement.’
Che looked at Catesby.
‘Sophie is beautiful and bright, but not a woman who lives for anything beyond her own beauty and power.
We, you and I, are different.
We live for our ideals – and I am sure, that some of those ideals are ones we share.’

Catesby smiled.
There was a side to Che that was silky, feminine and seductive.
Some felt threatened by it.
The image of Che’s face, framed by its untidy black ringlets, affected the USA like a full moon affects a werewolf.
It was an affront to the tidy conformity of
shopping
mall and church.
Che’s androgynous allure was even more dangerous.
Desire was something dirty that you had to keep under cover at the Quorum Club.

Guevara offered a cigar that Catesby refused.
Then lit one for himself.
‘We think,’ Che took a puff, ‘that Sophie Devereux was the
person who spread the poison on the inside of Fidel’s wetsuit.
Have you been to Cayo Coco?’

‘No.’

‘We must take you there sometime.
It’s part of a string of coral islands to the east of Havana – the perfect place for scuba-diving.
The water is a brilliant turquoise and jade.
Its only disadvantage is being too close to the Florida Keys.’

Catesby could see a pattern emerging.

‘In any case,’ continued Che, ‘Fidel is no fool or he would no longer be alive.
Whenever a beautiful woman sleeps with him he does not assume that she is only interested in his manly charms, considerable as they are.
Fidel certainly would never eat or drink anything that such a woman had been near.
But this woman was so beautiful that he also checked his clothes, his socks – and even his wetsuit.
He noticed something inside the wetsuit that looked like fungus – and knew that it was poison.

‘Well,’ Che took two long puffs, ‘Fidel was more amused than angry.
He is very gallant in these matters and wanted another night of love with the guilty party.
So, without Sophie knowing, he found another wetsuit and they both went off for a morning’s diving.
And it ended up being a very interesting morning indeed.

‘Sophie suggested that they explore a coral reef that was a
kilometre
offshore.
They motored out to it, just the two of them, in a small rubber dinghy.
By now, Sophie must have been wondering when the wetsuit poison was going to have its effect.
In any case, they landed the dinghy on a small island – about the size of this room – that Sophie had pointed out.
I thought that Fidel was far too reckless, but he enjoys playing these games.
There was another femme fatale who tried to poison him last year.
She hid pills in her cold cream jar.
When Fidel found the pills he handed her his pistol and said, “Here, shoot me.”
She didn’t have the nerve, but Fidel would never have tried that game with Sophie.
He knew instantly that she was much colder, much tougher-minded – a natural killer.

‘In any case, they started diving on the coral reef – which is beautiful.
Fidel was impressed that Sophie wasn’t frightened by the sharks that came to investigate as they swam along the reef.
Owing to the sharks there aren’t many other fish, but the coral is an example of great natural beauty – so many pulsating colours.
You ought to see it.
In any case, Fidel’s eyes were drawn to a huge conch that was
stunningly beautiful – and a rarity too, for that species of conch is virtually unknown on the reefs of Cayo Coco.
He gestured to Sophie that she should take it for a prize.
She shook her head and pointed to Fidel, meaning it was his.
She then swam away towards the surface.
Sophie is a very swift swimmer and reached the dinghy well before Fidel.
She pushed it back into the water, started the outboard and was motoring out to sea while Fidel was still ten metres away.

‘Our security boys on Cayo Coco beach saw what was happening and were quickly in pursuit.
And it was at that very moment that the Florida speed boats arrived.
Great big steel ones with twin-mounted .50 calibre machine guns in their bows.
They sprayed the tiny island with gunfire, but Fidel, for once, had done the sensible thing.
He dived back into the water and kept well below the surface for the rest of the battle.
Our boats were outgunned and far less fast than the gangsters.
But they didn’t get away completely.
We called in the air force and one of the boats was sunk.’

‘Was it the boat that picked up Sophie?’

Che shrugged.
‘Who knows?
By the way, we later discovered that the trophy conch was a bomb with an anti-disturbance device.
It would have killed Fidel if he had touched it.
Unfortunately, we had to blow it up in place.
It would have been a lovely souvenir for the Museum of the Revolution.’

‘What happened to Sophie’s other lover?’

Che’s face was a blank.
‘What other lover?’

‘The government minister who committed suicide.’

‘I think you have been misinformed.’

Once again Catesby felt he was lost in a corridor of mirrors where the reflections were not so much false as distorted.
He looked away, but felt Guevara’s eyes boring into him.

‘Who,’ said Che, ‘told you about this minister who killed himself?’

Catesby wasn’t going to answer.
He didn’t want to implicate Katya even further.
He changed the subject by gesturing to the handwritten page on Che’s desk.
‘In this statement you read to me, you said that only Cuba had the right to decide which weapons to keep within her borders.
What weapons were you talking about?’

Che smiled.
‘You must know.
I revealed most of the plan last time you were here.’

‘Are the nuclear missiles already operational?’

‘You know that I can’t tell you that.’

‘If you don’t want to get bombed and invaded by the United States, it might be a good idea to pretend they are operational.’

‘The situation is difficult.
We need to give a more precise
definition
of peaceful coexistence.
Peaceful coexistence among nations does not mean coexistence between the exploiters and the exploited, between the oppressors and the oppressed.’

Catesby felt a chill run down his back.
He agreed with Che’s words, but not the likely consequences.
You can’t always have peace and fairness on the same plate.

‘You look worried,’ said Che.

‘No, just thoughtful.’

‘You need, William, to stop thinking of yourself as a spy.’

‘What should I be then?’

‘A back-channel diplomat.
Someone who does not officially exist, but who can be trusted to convey messages between the powers.’

Catesby felt a certain unease.
Che was echoing the advice that Henry Bone and Bob Neville had given months before.
It was too much of a coincidence.

Che looked closely at Catesby.
‘I believe you’ve heard of
Aleksandr
Semyonovich Feklisov?’

Catesby nodded.
Feklisov was one of Russia’s best spies.
He was thought to have run the spy ring that passed on US atomic secrets to Moscow in the late forties.

‘Aleksandr is now working in Washington under the name of Fomin.
But a certain powerful American knows who he is and what he is doing – just as I know what you’re doing.
Maybe one day you will meet Aleksandr.’

‘You seem to have forgotten that I do not work for you, Dr Guevara, I work for the British government.’

‘I have never doubted that for one moment.
I am not asking you to work for me.
Nor am I asking you to be a mere messenger.
I respect you – and feel that I can trust you, not only to convey my words, but also to interpret them accurately.’

Catesby understood the situation.
The role of the back-channel diplomat wasn’t to repeat the words, but to explain what they
really
meant.

‘Feklisov tells us,’ said Che, ‘that the Americans have suspended U-2 flights over Cuba.
He says the suspension is the result of an accidental U-2 flight over the Soviet Union for which the USA had
to make a humiliating apology.
And also because another U-2 was shot down over China.
It shows that Kennedy is weak.’

Catesby looked out the window.
It was still the hurricane season and the sky was overcast.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘the Americans are not overflying Cuba because of the weather.’

Che puffed his cigar.
‘You think so?’

Catesby was tempted to say
I know so
, but shrugged instead.
He didn’t want to give too much away.
He knew that the flights had been re-authorised for nearly a week, but there hadn’t been a hole in the cloud cover.

‘If they do overfly,’ said Che, ‘we will shoot them down.’

‘So you control the surface-to-air missiles and not the Russians?’

Che smiled.
‘It depends on the weather.’

It depended, thought Catesby, on a lot of things.
The most
interesting
aspect of international relations wasn’t the conflict between enemies, but the conflicts between allies.
You only had to go to an embassy cocktail party to see those conflicts in the flesh.
It was easier for Western diplos to talk to the Russians than to talk to each other.