The Successor (24 page)

“Do you have that picture?” Delgado asked.

Delgado had told Padilla to secretly take pictures of all the other men early on, but had never asked for one until now. “Yes.” Padilla pulled the photograph of the attorney out of his pocket. He’d snapped it one evening downtown with a telephoto lens as the attorney was coming out of the Ministry of Justice. Padilla gazed at the grizzled face of the man with the silver, slicked-back hair for a few moments, then held it out. “Here.”

“Is this the only one?”

“No.”

“I’ll keep it then.” Delgado slipped it into the pocket his sunglasses were dangling from.

“Yes, of course.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ernesto Martinez.”

The general nodded. “I’ll do some checking for you.”

Padilla’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you, General.” He shook his head and looked out to sea again. “I feel terrible doing this. It’s probably nothing. Mr. Martinez is probably very loyal and I’m overreacting.”

Delgado wagged a finger at Padilla. “Don’t feel terrible, you’re doing the right thing. You have to be careful.
We
have to be careful.” He hesitated. “You’re a good man, Dr. Padilla. Go home and kiss your children, then make love to your wife. They’re the most important things in the world. Never forget that.”

Padilla looked over at the general through the moonlight. He’d never asked the general anything personal, mostly because one of the first things the general had ever said to him was that they could never be friends. Not because they couldn’t find things in common, but because it protected them not to know anything meaningful about each other. Delgado had told him that the state’s interrogators could pick up on how well you knew someone, no matter how good a liar you were. And once they did, they wouldn’t stop until you told them everything.

“Are you married, General?” Padilla watched Delgado’s eyes narrow, watched his expression harden. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I was once,” Delgado answered, his gaze turning distant. “She was beautiful, the love of my life. We had four children.” He swallowed hard. “They all died two years ago in a plane crash. I still remember the last time I kissed Maria. I’ll never kiss another woman.”

Padilla glanced down at the sand under his feet and pushed it around with the toe of his shoe. He’d never imagined that the general could be a sentimental man in any way. Which, of course, he realized now was silly. Delgado had to be
extremely
sentimental to be willing to risk everything for a free Cuba. The general probably had a damn good life, as senior as he was. He could have most anything he wanted, but he’d chosen to risk it all for 11 million people he didn’t even know.

Sometimes life worked in mysterious ways, Padilla thought to himself. If Delgado’s wife and children hadn’t died, he probably wouldn’t be willing to take such a huge risk, fearing the retribution they might suffer. But now the general was a lone wolf, with only himself to worry about.

“Now that I think about it,” the general spoke up, emotions trickling through his voice, “why don’t you get me the pictures of the other four men, too? Much better to be too careful than not careful enough.”

Padilla considered the request for a second. For some reason he didn’t want to do that. “I don’t have any reason to think the others might be doing anything wrong. I mean, I really don’t think Ernesto’s done anything wrong, either, but I—”

“Get me the pictures,” the general instructed. “We’ll meet tomorrow right here, same time.” He hesitated and touched his cap. “Until then, Doctor.”

Padilla watched the general disappear into the darkness. It was the second time in a few hours that he’d felt a deep, overwhelming terror. It hadn’t been
what
the general had said, it had been
how
he’d said it.

14

TYPICALLY,
Lloyd Dorsey didn’t get behind the wheel. Typically, Bixby drove the Caprice Classic while the senator read reports and belted out directives over one of three cell phones to his aides back at the Russell Office Building—a stone’s throw from the Capitol. Having three cell phones wasn’t about making sure Dorsey had coverage wherever he went. It was about each woman he was having an affair with being identified by a separate number so he was certain not to mix them up when they called—he had a name taped to the back of each phone and made sure to check that name before answering any ring. If they felt scorned in any way, they might go to a reporter, which could be disastrous. He’d almost had to deal with exactly that situation once a few years ago. But he’d managed to squirm out of the tight spot by giving the reporter an exclusive on a pending piece of controversial anti-immigration legislation he was going to sponsor—which he hated doing. Hated ever giving anyone an exclusive about anything in his life. In return, the reporter had told the woman she didn’t have anything anyone would be interested in.

The cell phones weren’t in his name, they were in Bixby’s wife’s name. So any reporters snooping around on their own wouldn’t find out how many different cell bills he had and ask him an embarrassing question out of the blue at a press conference. God, he hated reporters, always had. Even the good ones, even the one who’d helped him out of that tight spot. Life on the Hill would be so much better without them. He laughed at the irony. Maybe there were a few good things about Communism after all.

Dorsey switched lanes without flicking on his turn signal and almost ran into another car in his blind spot. “Damn it,” he muttered, swerving away from the sharp sound of a horn. He was definitely out of practice.

Over the last two months it seemed as if he’d driven himself more miles than he had the previous ten years put together. All because the men he was working with didn’t want to take any chances of being discovered. Dorsey had tried to convince them early on that Bixby was unquestionably loyal and would never try to expose them. That Bixby would stay in the car the entire time they were meeting and never try to see their faces, even if his bladder was bursting and they’d forbidden him to pee in the flower garden or anywhere else on the grounds,
for Christ’s sake
. But they’d shaken their heads and sternly forbidden Dorsey to let anyone else accompany him.

Forty-five minutes ago he’d crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge headed east—away from Washington—and reached Maryland’s Eastern Shore just as the sun was caressing the horizon in the rearview mirror. Now he was cruising slowly through the darkened streets of Centreville, a three-hundred-year-old fishing village of a few thousand people built on the headwaters of the Corsica River. He was close.

A half mile on the other side of town he made a left onto a narrow, bumpy road, then drove exactly two miles down the lonely, tree-lined lane as the caller had directed him to this morning. Drove until he found a private drive marked by a little yellow sign that read
GOLDEN RETRIEVER CROSSING
where he turned left again. A few minutes later he pulled up in front of a huge brick colonial.

He climbed out of the car—stiff from the ride—reached into the back for his cane, then limped up the unlit slate path between the boxwoods. Pretty shrubs, but he hated the way they smelled. Like urine, he’d always thought. His grandparents had lived outside Philadelphia on a big spread on the Main Line that had lots of boxwoods, and he’d remembered hiding from his dad in between them during a game of hide-and-seek when he was a boy. Always hated that ammonia smell. Like hundreds of cats had marked in there.

Dorsey didn’t need to knock. The big wooden door swung open toward the inside before he reached it. An older man he recognized ushered him into the foyer, then, after closing and dead-bolting the front door twice, led him through the dimly lit, rambling mansion to a den in the back.

“Sit down.” The man gestured at a captain’s chair positioned in front of a large window that looked into the next room—not the outside.

Dorsey sat down in the wooden chair slowly, fascinated.

“It’s one-way glass,” the man explained, sitting down beside Dorsey in another chair. “They can’t see us.”

Dorsey nodded without taking his eyes off what was happening on the other side of the glass. Two men sat facing each other. One of the men was older, like the man who’d greeted him at the door, and wore preppy clothes—a button-down, blue oxford shirt, khaki pants, and Docksiders. Also a man Dorsey recognized from before—an associate of the man sitting beside him.

The man sitting in the opposite chair had ramrod-straight posture, a crew cut, and was younger—late thirties, Dorsey guessed. A U.S. naval officer—decked out in his dress whites, cap resting in his lap. As he looked closer, Dorsey saw that the man must have had a bad case of acne as a teenager. There were deep pockmarks on his cheek, scars that had never healed.

The man sitting beside Dorsey reached for a control panel on the wall and flipped a switch. Now they could hear the conversation in the other room.

“Give me the update,” the older man was saying.

The naval officer glanced at the glass.

Instinctively, Dorsey looked away, not wanting to catch the man’s eye. Which was silly, he knew. The officer couldn’t see him. It was like when people were on a speakerphone and they still talked softly to other people in the room even after they’d turned on the mute button.

“The audience must be ready,” the officer said loudly, still looking at the glass.

“There’s no need to worry about that. It’s just a mirror. There’s no one watching us, we’re the only ones in the house.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

Dorsey noticed a guilty grimace crease the officer’s face.

“Come on,” the older man urged. “I’m not paying you five hundred thousand dollars for your silence.”

“Five hundred grand’s probably nothing for you. I should get more.”

It was interesting, Dorsey thought to himself, watching the exchange. The naval officer clearly didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be giving away whatever his secrets were. You could almost see the sadness etched into the lines around his mouth and eyes. But the money was too tempting. Everybody had his price for everything.

“The update.
Please.
”

The officer took a long breath, then nodded, accepting his deal with the devil. “They’re almost ready to go. The U.S. civilian will be meeting with—”

“Christian Gillette,” the older man broke in. “That’s the U.S. civilian, correct?”

Suddenly Dorsey realized who the naval officer was. He was the deep throat inside the Pentagon, in the basement of D-ring. The man who knew about President Wood’s assassination order—and probably much more.

“Yes,” the officer confirmed, “Christian Gillette.”

“No chance that Mr. Gillette isn’t the real one? No chance he’s a diversion?”

“No chance. The people in charge of this thing did set up a couple of diversions, just in case the people in Cuba figured out what was going on. The diversions include a couple of other civilians and two senior government officials. But Gillette’s the real McCoy.”

“Who were the government officials?”

The older man was looking for credibility, Dorsey knew. It didn’t really matter who the government officials were, he was checking the story out. He’d probably try to confirm what the officer said through another source. It was what these kind of guys did.

“The undersecretary of the treasury and some Federal Reserve guy. I think it was the president of the Atlanta Fed.”

The man sitting beside Dorsey reached for a pad and pencil and jotted down a few notes.

“Where does it go from here?” the older man asked. “What’s the schedule?”

“Gillette will be meeting with one of the Secret Six very soon. They’ll meet—”

“Wait, wait,” the older man interrupted. “Secret Six?”

The naval officer nodded. “That’s the name of the civilian group inside Cuba that will take on senior positions after the military has killed the Castro remnants. If Gillette approves of them,” he added. “There’s two backup civilian teams inside Cuba, but if Gillette gives the go-ahead on these people, they’ll be it.”

“Do you know who the Secret Six are?”

The naval officer looked around warily, as if he wasn’t certain how far to go with this. “Look, I—”

“Unless you want me to make you take the polygraph, you will answer me.”

“All right, all right. Yeah, I know.”

Dorsey glanced over at the man beside him. “What was that all about?”

“The officer gets half a million dollars for five interviews,” the man explained. “A hundred thousand per. This is his fourth one. Our agreement with him is that we can stop and give him a polygraph test anytime we want during the interviews. If he fails it, we don’t pay him. And he knows we’ll out him as a spy.” The man smiled thinly. “It’s a perfect game of chicken. It works because he knows we need him, too. The likelihood of us finding anyone else with this kind of information who’d be willing to help us is very small. We’ve told him we’re working with someone else inside the Pentagon, with someone else on the team, but he knows all of those people and he could probably tell from our answers that we were bluffing.” His smile grew wider. “Of course, he needs the money more than we need the information. That’s what tips the balance of power. We figured all that out before we decided who to approach.”

It was the first time Dorsey had ever seen the man come close to smiling. He was obviously pleased with himself.

“Come on,” the interrogator in the next room urged. “Tell me who they are.”

“There’s a prominent doctor,” the naval officer began, looking at the ceiling as though he were trying hard to remember, counting with his fingers. “A very senior attorney from the Ministry of Justice, the deputy minister of foreign investment and economic development, the number three or four guy at the Central Bank of Cuba.” He hesitated for a few moments, looking at the hand he was counting on and the four extended fingers. “Um, the deputy minister of agriculture, I believe…and somebody in the Ministry of Science and Technology.”

Again Dorsey was aware of the man beside him scribbling on the pad. He could hear the pencil tip scraping on the page. He hated that sound, always had. It made his skin crawl.

“Why the doctor?”

“He can travel easily. Just tells the Cuban intelligence people he wants to see another surgery and is real open about where he’ll be.”

The older man nodded several times as if he were irritated at himself, as if he should have figured that one out on his own. “Ah, got it.”

“They still watch him when he’s out of country, but not very carefully.” The naval officer chuckled derisively. “The Cuban intel guys in the U.S. aren’t very good at high-level surveillance, or hiding who they are. They’re really nothing but buffoons. They’ve got no high-tech equipment to speak of, just old Soviet stuff. So we can get the doctor out of his hotel anytime we want without them knowing. Anyway, that’s who Gillette’s going to meet with first.”

“When?”

“It hasn’t been decided yet, but it’ll be soon.”

“How soon? Like in the next forty-eight hours?” the older man asked, a worried expression coming to his face.

The officer held up his hands. “No, no. Gillette hasn’t even had his ops briefing yet. They’re bringing him down to Maryland for that tomorrow. I’d say the meeting will be in the next few days. But remember, the doctor’s got to get out of Cuba without raising any suspicions, too. He can’t just say, ‘I’ve gotta go tomorrow.’”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Don’t make me do that,” the officer begged. “He’s a good man. He hasn’t done anything—”

“The doctor’s name.”

The officer scratched his temple. “Nelson Padilla.”

“Where will they meet?”

“Hasn’t been determined yet, but probably a major city. Someplace the doctor can say he’s going to witness an operation. Boston, New York maybe.”

“Miami?”

The officer hesitated. “Maybe.”

The older man leaned forward and pointed, his eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me everything here?”

“Of course.”

“Because our information from another source says it’s Miami.
Definitely
Miami.”

“I, I don’t know that, but I’ll find out. I’ll tell you as soon as I know anything for certain.” The officer shut his eyes tightly.

As if he knew he was going to regret this, Dorsey thought.

“It probably will be Miami,” the officer admitted. “It’s ninety-nine percent. Kind of has to be, you know? At least someplace close to that.”

The older man inside the room leaned forward in his chair, excited. “Good, good. Of course, we know what happens after that meeting between Gillette and the doctor. We just have to be damn sure we know where the meeting with the doctor will be held
as soon as possible.
You got that,
son
?”

“I do, I do. But it’ll be tough. Hell, those of us in the D-ring crew may not ever know for sure, at least not until it’s in progress. That’s going to be handled by—”

“Dex Kelly?” the older man interrupted.

The officer nodded. “The president wasn’t stupid. He gave you guys lots of room, gave you your assassination order, but he set up a couple of barriers. Us and Kelly. Us to make certain nobody got the assassination order, Kelly to keep you guys in the dark about at least a few things up until the last minute.”

The older man spat. “Fucking Kelly. Traitor. Stupid, too. I’m not worried about him screwing us,” he said, more to himself than the officer. “I’m worried about him screwing the whole thing up. He doesn’t know how to keep Gillette safe. The whole thing could blow apart if somebody else gets to Gillette first.”

“You mean the Cubans?”

“Of course I mean the damn Cubans,”
the interrogator roared. “They’ve got people on the inside in Washington. We’ve known that for forty years. Not deep, but deep enough. Shit, they don’t have to be very deep with a guy like Dex Kelly running this thing for the White House.” The older man glanced up. “How’s Zapata doing? General Delgado. You guys still sure he’s in?”