Treaty Violation (16 page)

Romero gritted his teeth. “You know I can’t afford to entertain people. My salary is all I have, unlike you two.”

“We were expecting a large sum of money yesterday,” Hernandez said, “but for right now we’re strapped. You understand.”

The bulging vein on Romero’s temples indicated he was about to make a scene. President Mendoza cleared his throat and gestured to Hernandez. He took a deep breath, removed the wallet from his coat pocket, and handed a small stack of hundred dollar bills to Romero.

Romero, surprised, slid the money into his coat pocket and nodded respectfully before returning to his friends.

President Mendoza leaned closer to Hernandez. “I know you don’t like him—no one does—but he’s got us by the balls. If his party doesn’t support us, we’ll never win reelection. Just keep him happy.”

“Of course, Mr. President,” Hernandez said. He agreed that avoiding conflict was prudent, but to what extent would the party dilute the leadership with people like Romero? They were sadly approaching a day when they would choose candidates and a platform that reflected not the party’s traditional values, but the whims of the masses.

Hernandez sat at the bar. Sheena, sitting on the opposite side, gazed at him seductively. She ate a maraschino cherry and tossed the stem behind her like a piece of discarded lingerie.

Minister Hernandez eased the
front door shut. The lights were out. He breathed a sigh of relief, set the keys on the table, and walked to the kitchen to pour a drink.

“How was the party?” his wife, Ivonne, asked from the living room.

Hernandez’s eyes bulged as he turned. She was sitting on the couch in a bathrobe looking at a photograph by candlelight.

“I thought you were sleeping.” He finished his drink and approached her cautiously.

She set the photo aside and stood to hug him, and then immediately backed off. “I was right. The perfume you bought was for her,” she said coldly and walked away.

He smelled his suit coat and followed her to the kitchen. “Honey, I was at a fundraiser tonight greeting many people.”

She turned on the light and looked at him. “Do the people you greet normally leave lipstick on your neck?”

He touched his neck and looked at the oily red smudge on his fingers. “I can explain—”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said, rubbing her temples. “I know about Sheena. Everyone does. You’d make a terrible spy.” She almost smiled but instead shook her head sadly. “Just the other day, my friends asked me about the perfume you bought for me, the bottle they saw you buy at the department store.”

He reached for her, but she stepped away.

“I bought a bottle for myself so no one would gossip,” she continued and looked at him. “I come from a respectable family, but you seem intent on making a fool of me.”

“Honey, I never meant…I swear, I’ll never—”

“Save your promises,” she said and tugged his lapels. “Sheena’s a beautiful woman. You would be crazy not to want her.”

He was unsure how to respond. Was she giving him approval? Was she setting a trap? “I’ve acted like a child, a total—”

“No,” she said and forced a smiled. “You’ve been acting like a healthy man. I’m happy to see you looking so virile.” She looked away and took a deep breath. “I only wish I still aroused those passions in you.” Her facelift was obvious, but she was still gorgeous.

He rested his hands on her shoulders. “You’re the only woman I
love,” he said and wiped her tears. “The only one.”

“Am I not beautiful anymore?”

He melted when he gazed into the eyes he’d fallen in love with so many years ago. “My God, you’re more beautiful than ever.” He kissed her gently on the lips. “I’ve been a disgraceful fool. You deserve better.”

She smiled and kissed him back. “Perhaps you can act like a disgraceful fool with me sometime. You don’t know how jealous I’ve been. I want us to be happy again.”

They embraced. Hernandez thanked God for his blessings. “What do you say we take a romantic vacation after the referendum? Just the
two of us—”

A pain shot through his heart. Without Helena, life would never be the same.
Her death couldn’t have been more tragic.

Hernandez had rushed to the emergency room when he heard the news about Helena falling from Cesar Gomez’s penthouse. He couldn’t describe the pain he felt when he saw her lifeless body on the operating table—the white robe soaked with blood, her limbs broken from the fall. She’d died instantly, but the doctor found scratches on her neck where her necklace had been, the pearl necklace Tyler had given her. Everyone assumed Cesar had done it, but the scratches were only minutes old. Eyewitnesses saw Cesar in a bar two hours before she fell.

To his shock, the police ruled her death a suicide. With no additional evidence, he couldn’t prove otherwise, but he convinced them to declare her death an accident. She couldn’t have killed herself, he knew it, and he wouldn’t let the Catholic Church condemn her soul. Her funeral made matters worse. Nosy journalists probed for details and wrote stories full of lies. They had no respect for their privacy. Hundreds of people who probably never knew her laid flowers—violets, her favorite—at the site of her death.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Hernandez said as they embraced. He allowed the pain to permeate his body. “We should have done more to help her.”

Ivonne leaned back, surprised. “Helena couldn’t have asked for a more loving father. You did everything you could. She adored you.”

Hernandez felt tears welling. “I know, but sometimes I
feel like—”

“Like what?” she asked, concerned.

“Like we should have been stricter with her.”

“Honey, you can’t feel guilty. Helena was an independent woman. That’s what made her beautiful.” Her smile reversed. “The cocaine, that’s what got her into trouble. If all the love we gave her didn’t save her, nothing would.” She dried his tears. “Just make sure you put that monster Cesar Gomez behind bars.”

He nodded. They embraced. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she said.

“Starting today,” he said and wrapped his arm around her as they walked to the bedroom, “we’re going to turn this marriage around.” They stopped at the door. “Mrs. Hernandez, would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow evening?”

Ivonne sighed. “Mr. Hernandez, I’d be honored.” She kissed her index finger and touched his lips. “Wait here,” she said and arched her eyebrows suggestively. “I have a surprise.”

Hernandez felt the spark that had been missing for years. He was wasting his time with Sheena and the other mistresses. The woman he really loved all along was standing before him. Despite the pains of life, their love was the bond that held him together and gave him the strength to live.

Ivonne returned with a pillow and a blanket. “Enjoy the couch,” she said.

He flinched when she slammed the door in his face.

A Panamanian National Police officer wearing a shabby
khaki uniform waved Nicholas past the front gate of Fort Amador.
The former U.S. military base had been a jewel of the former Canal Zone: plush base housing, a nine-hole golf course, an officer’s club, and a yacht club overlooking the southern entrance to the Canal. Now, however, preventive maintenance didn’t reign supreme. The buildings needed painting, the grass was uncut, and tree branches littered both sides of the roads.

As Nicholas waited for an oncoming car to pass through the single lane gravel road detour, he noticed the row of abandoned white cement barracks wounded with bullet holes from the U.S. invasion in
1989
.
AC
-
130
gunships had blasted the buildings before U.S. tanks forced out the Panamanian Defense Forces.

Farther down the road lay the tomb of Omar Torrijos, the dictator who participated in the
coup d’état
on October 11,
1968
, then a lieutenant colonel. As Panama’s beloved “benevolent dictator,” he initiated massive public works projects with loans that made Panama per capita the most heavily indebted country in the world. Torrijos also invited a flood of illicit activities—drug trafficking, money laundering, weapons smuggling, whatever the mind could imagine, activities that fathered Panama’s persistent notoriety.

Torrijos’ greatest achievement was snatching the Panama Canal from Jimmy Carter in
1977
. The conservatives were still bemoaning this act of treason when Nicholas joined the agency. Some reputable thinkers had decreed the
1977
treaties unconstitutional, but Carter won the day. The two treaties—one for operating the Canal, the other for the defense and neutrality of the Canal—made Torrijos a national hero. The prospect of controlling the Canal lifted the spirits of many Panamanians, but the reality of low profitability and high maintenance costs would quickly shatter their hopes for a free lunch.

Torrijos died in a plane crash. Rumors surfaced that the
CIA
was responsible, but the rumors were discordant with the fact that Torrijos for the most part had been a cooperative puppet, to include allowing the United States to use Panama as a staging base for the covert wars in Central America. Nicholas never met Torrijos, but he met his successor, Manuel Noriega, who was Torrijos’ director of intelligence, responsible for the dirty work, like killing those who were fighting to reestablish democracy. Noriega was on the
CIA
’s payroll, as well as those of many other intelligence agencies.

Nicholas remembered the meeting with Noriega well. K and Tyler were there. They’d met farther down the road past the causeway at Noriega’s home on Flamingo Island, an old World War II artillery site. K had assigned Nicholas and Tyler to transport weapons and supplies
to the anticommunist guerrillas. Nicholas admired the way K arranged the deal and manipulated Noriega—Pineapple Face, as he was called, because of his acne scars. K was at master at making people understand that they worked for him. Noriega was no exception. He looked powerless in his khaki uniform, even behind his pugnacious frown, as he grunted obscenities and downed glass after glass of scotch.

The mission was a success—the U.S. eliminated the Soviet influence in Central America—and Tyler took the lead after K reassigned Nicholas to El Salvador. Nicholas never saw Noriega again, but he remembered him as a vile yet romantic creature. Despite his cruelty and failures as a leader, Noriega understood that Panama was an exploitative society where the fair-skinned oligarchs would never allow the dark-skinned masses to participate in the power structure, except at the barrel of a gun.

A dust cloud from an oncoming car forced Nicholas to roll up his window, a fitting metaphor for the dust that had settled long ago on Panama’s stage. Even though the play had ended years before, a few actors remained, performing a sequence of disjointed scenes in pursuit of a satisfying conclusion. Nicholas’ cue began after he passed through the bumpy detour, parked at the Balboa Yacht Club, and descended the stairs to the pier.

“Cesar sent me,” a swarthy man said from his taxi boat.

Nicholas nodded and hopped in. Waves from a passing cruise ship gently rocked the boat as the driver throttled the engine. Nicholas donned his sunglasses and waved at the tourists on the cruise ship. The boat driver ignored them and spat in the water. The single engine revved as the boat bounced over the waves toward the sailboat anchored about one hundred yards from shore. At the destination, Nicholas stood and handed the driver five dollars.

“Greetings,” Cesar Gomez said and stroked his mustache. “How nice of you to stop by.” He snapped his fingers. Eddy helped Nicholas into the yacht. “Welcome aboard,” he added. They shook hands. “You remember my associate.”

“Of course,” Nicholas said to Manuel.

The group looked unusually sporty in their sunglasses and tropical shirts, even Eddy. Manuel said hello, lit a cigarette, and dropped the pack into his shirt pocket.

The yacht was exquisite. The varnished wooden deck led to a pilothouse filled with advanced communications and
GPS
equipment. The cabin below probably slept twelve comfortably. Nicholas looked up at the sun and felt the penetrating rays on his face. Drug trafficking aside, this wasn’t a bad way to live.

“Eddy, a cold beer for our guest,” Cesar said and looked at the empty bottles on the table. “Grab a few more while you’re at it,” he added in a professional tone.

The sound of women laughing escaped when Eddy opened the door to the cabin below.

“You mentioned having another shipment ready by Wednesday,” Nicholas said, getting down to business.

Cesar nodded with a smirk. “I heard your last shipment had a few problems.”

“Minor complications,” Nicholas said.

Cesar assumed a serious demeanor. “What did you have in mind?”

“Why don’t we try the same thing?” Nicholas asked. “Same time, same place.” He glanced at the cruise ship entering the Canal as his deception plan took shape. “The Colombians won’t get lucky twice in the same week,” he added.

Eddy returned with four bottles of beer. Cesar grabbed one and raised it for a silent toast. Nicholas and Manuel returned the gesture. Eddy tapped his foot nervously. Cesar groaned and gave Eddy a beer. “Leave us alone, Eddy.”