Murder in Havana Read online

  Pauling shrugged. Although combat missions were a thing of his past, he liked dressing like a military jet jockey even though the planes he flew these days were more often piloted by doctors in Bermuda shorts or women in flowered dresses, bored with garden clubs. He joined Gosling at the table.

  “I have to admit, Vic, I’m surprised to see you here. What’s it been since you left the agency, three years, four?”

  “Three and a half this month.”

  “Writing another book?”

  Gosling laughed and shook his head. “I’m a one-book author, Max. One was enough. I took a lot of heat over it.”

  Pauling didn’t display his skepticism.

  Gosling’s book, published three years ago, was titled Inside View: The CIA Exposed. Gosling, British-born and -educated, had worked for MI-6 before marrying an American woman and moving to the States, where the CIA recruited him. He and Pauling had worked a few cases together, initially in Central America, later in Moscow.

  When the book was published, Gosling allegedly resigned from the CIA under a cloud for having violated the agency’s own version of the Mafia’s omertà—code of silence. He went on radio and TV talk shows billed as the man who’d dared to let the sun shine into the intelligence organization, naming names, exposing some of its dirty tricks and tactics, and, in general, acting the traitor.

  But Pauling came to the conclusion after reading Gosling’s book, and hearing and seeing him on radio and TV, that he was telling tales out of school but not out of line, stories that in the end made the agency look good. Nothing he said was truly damaging to the agency or its mission; it all sounded far more revealing than it actually was. Which meant, in Pauling’s experience, that the book and Gosling’s subsequent promotional media appearances were, in fact, a typical CIA operation. They had one of their own out in the public soaking up information from people who believed they were talking with a fellow critic of the agency, opening up, spilling secrets or rumors they would never have divulged to anyone else. Typical agency machinations. During his career, Pauling had worked with intelligence Joes from other countries and never trusted a single one, any more than he trusted buildings painted yellow (explain that, Dr. Freud). America’s intelligence community might screw up big-time, but at least its agents were—well, American. As for yellow buildings: his negative feelings about them were as irrational as his hatred of green cars and restaurants displaying color photos of food in their windows. If those were his only phobias, he could live with them, and had done so quite comfortably.

  “I’m surprised to see you back in the saddle again,” Gosling said after a lunch of pork, red beans, and steamed plantains that went down surprisingly well.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way. The deal is good. The money is good. What about you? You’re—?”

  “Doing what you’re doing,” Gosling said. “Yes, the money is bloody good. Just part-time. Like you.”

  Drop the Brit stuff, Pauling thought. You’ve lived here long enough not to say “bloody” anymore.

  “I didn’t know you were the military instructor type,” Max said.

  “I’m not. They needed a communications setup here.”

  When Gosling was with the agency, if he’d ever left, he was known as an electronics expert, someone who could install taps under adverse conditions and troubleshoot phones—cellular or otherwise—telephone answering machines, radios, TV sets that were really radios of a different ilk, computers, and any other electrical device. Pauling remembered an incident in Moscow when a tap Gosling had installed became disabled. He fixed it with foil from a pack of cigarettes; that they were Russian cigarettes only added to Gosling’s pleasure.

  “What are you doing when you’re not setting up communications systems?” Pauling asked.

  “Working for Cell-One.”

  “The private security outfit?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Victor Gosling, private eye. You want to talk about good money? Their clients throw money at them. Fortune 500 types. Titans of industry and all that.”

  “Sounds like a sweet deal.”

  “That it is.” Gosling cleaned the remaining gravy on the plate with a swipe of his bread. “You know, Max,” he said, “it just occurs to me that we have a project you might be interested in.”

  Pauling responded with a raised eyebrow.

  “Are you, ah—are you up for other assignments?”

  “That depends.”

  “It’s private sector. The client has deep pockets.”

  “What does it involve?”

  Gosling looked around. The room was empty except for the Cuban-American cooks. “Why don’t we get together another time and talk about it?”

  “Fine.”

  “Are you flying back to Albuquerque today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like a passenger?”

  “Sure. Where are you living these days?”

  “California. San Jose. Splitting my time between there and London. Cell-One’s headquarters is there, in the old country. Offices in California and New York, too. I was supposed to be picked up tomorrow but I’m finished here. I can catch a commercial flight home out of Albuquerque.”

  “Happy to have you,” Pauling said.

  And don’t think I buy into the happenstance of meeting you here. A Mexican training base for Cuban-American freedom fighters is no place for coincidence, Pauling thought. Like the song says, you can take the man out of the spook business, but you can’t take the spook out of the man.

  That the comparison probably applied to him as well, he preferred not to contemplate.

  M—I’ll be late. Staff meeting at the hospital. Cooked chicken breast in fridge, fresh tomatoes on counter, mozzarella in fridge. Should be home by 10.

  Love, Me

  “The domestication of Max Pauling,” Gosling said, reading the note Jessica had left for Max on the kitchen table.

  Pauling laughed politely. “Didn’t one of our distinguished predecessors say that gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail? Domestication? It agrees with me. Drink?”

  “Please.”

  “Sorry, but we don’t stock Pimms at this bar.”

  “Good God, Max, just because I was born a Brit doesn’t mean I only drink Pimms Cups. I don’t enjoy bangers and mash either. Since I’m in the States, I’ll have bourbon, if you have it. Neat.”

  “Just joking. I have bourbon. Wouldn’t want to seem un-American.”

  Pauling poured a single-barrel whiskey over ice for Gosling, made himself a vodka and tonic. They sat at the table; Gosling offered a toast: “To friends.”

  Pauling nodded and they touched glasses.

  “So, Max, tell me all about your idyllic life these days.”

  “Not much to tell. I’d had enough of the game. So had Jess. She was with State, the Russian section. We packed it in and headed out here. Jess is working for a local hospital. I teach flying and—”

  “And run munitions into Mexico in your spare time.”

  “Not in little green bags. As I said, the money’s good. Jess isn’t thrilled I’m doing it. She’s afraid I’ll get the itch and sign on again—long-term.”

  Gosling sipped, then said, “You already have the itch, Max. It never leaves you. You know that. The question is whether you’ll decide to scratch it, or live with it.”

  “I can live with it. Sorry she’s not here. I’ll whip something up for dinner. You want to check flights to California?” he asked, pointing to a wall phone.

  Pauling took two steaks from the freezer and went to the deck to fire up the grill.

  Gosling joined him in a few moments. “Nothing tonight,” he said.

  “You’ll stay over. I’d like you to meet Jessica anyway.”

  “It will be my pleasure.”

  They ate on the deck and continued drinking throughout dinner. It was a cool and clear night, the western sky a stunning black scrim for the light show provided by thousands of stars.

  “So,” Pauling said, “tell
me about this project.”

  Gosling grimaced as he looked into the kitchen through the sliding glass doors.

  Pauling smiled. “Want me to sweep the place, Vic?”

  “Always a good idea,” Gosling replied.

  Pauling shook his head and said, “Doing what we did really screws us up, doesn’t it? A tap in every phone or microwave oven, some guy in a raincoat behind every tree. Jesus! What a way to live.”

  “Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Swept the place. Just because you’re ex-agency doesn’t mean that they—or others—are no longer interested in you.”

  Pauling slapped the glass-topped table. “No, I haven’t swept the place, Vic, and I don’t intend to.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Gosling, the bourbon thickening his speech just a little. “Tell you what. Let’s forget the project for tonight. I’ll get to meet your ladylove, sleep soundly on your couch, and tomorrow you can take me for a spin in your plane. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fly.”

  Translation: We’ll talk when we’re up in the air.

  Pauling was putting glasses in the dishwasher when Jessica came through the door. She saw Gosling sitting on the deck and asked the question of Max without speaking.

  “Vic Gosling,” Max said, kissing her on the cheek. “A buddy from the agency days.”

  “The book?” she said.

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  Gosling came into the kitchen and Max introduced them.

  “I see why Max looks so happy,” Gosling said.

  “Does he?” Jessica asked. “Look happy?” She laughed, put her arm around Max’s waist, looked into his face, and said, “That’s what I like, a happy man around the house.”

  She didn’t add that he hadn’t seemed especially happy lately until he started making the runs into Mexico—which didn’t make her especially happy. She knew men like Max Pauling only too well. She’d once been married to an FBI agent who spent most of his time working undercover, and who seemed truly happy only when he was in danger, using his wits to survive. Max was cut from that same damnable cloth, she knew, happiest when infiltrating Russian intelligence cells or turning some Central American bureaucrat into an informer. Danger acted like an Adrenalin I.V., providing a burst of satisfaction, even happiness of the sort she knew she could never provide. No woman could.

  Max poured another round of drinks for himself and Gosling, and served Jessica a pony of brandy. They sat on the deck and had an easy conversation—a little politics, some background exchanged, nothing too heavy, a few amusing stories, gentle kidding between the men about past exploits.

  “That’s all history,” Gosling said, “old war stories.”

  Pauling said, “Cold War stories. Boring.”

  “I’m trying to convince your man to help me out with a project,” Gosling said. “You know, Max, I was thinking of you for it before I bumped into you in Mexico. Déjà vu, it’s called.”

  “Or preview. If you believe in that sort of thing,” Pauling said.

  “What kind of project?” Jessica asked. Pauling read the edge in her voice.

  Gosling shrugged. “I’m working for a private investigation agency,” he said. “No need to check your clearances, is there?” He laughed. “Max has been telling me I’m paranoid, which I suppose I am. Hard to shake it. Right, Max? At any rate, I’m working for Cell-One. We have a Who’s Who of corporate America as clients, top companies. One of them has given us an assignment that Mr. Pauling here, with his experience, might find interesting.”

  Jessica silently awaited a further explanation. It wasn’t to come. Gosling yawned, stretched, and said, “Getting close to my bedtime. Hope you don’t mind, Jessica, having an unannounced overnight guest. I sleep well on couches.”

  “No need for that,” she said, forcing lightness back into her voice. “We have a real guest room, an office most of the time—but with a comfortable pullout.”

  He followed her into the room carrying his small blue canvas overnight bag. “Sleep as late as you want,” she said. “I leave for work at eight.” To Max: “Do you have students tomorrow?”

  “Two, in the afternoon. I thought I’d give Vic a spin in the plane in the morning. He wants to learn how to fly.”

  “I thought you already had a spin in the plane,” she said, “coming up from Mexico.” Had Gosling outlined the assignment to Pauling during that flight? She didn’t bother asking. Check clearances indeed! The games little boys play.

  “That was all business,” Gosling said pleasantly. “I’d enjoy a purely personal joyride. Good night. You’re the perfect host and hostess.”

  Max and Jessica sat on the deck for another hour. She didn’t ask about the project until they’d gotten into bed.

  “You told me you never trusted him, Max,” she whispered. “The book was a phony, you said.”

  “It was,” he whispered in reply. “But no harm in hearing him out. It’s private work. I am still employable, I think. Or I’d like to think so.”

  Her silence was verbose.

  He kissed her on the lips. “I love you,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she said, turning her back to him, sighing, and snuggling her head into the pillow. Max didn’t know whether that meant she loved him, or herself. But as long as love was in the air.…

  They heard the shower go on at six. When they emerged from their bedroom at six-thirty, Gosling had made coffee and was sitting on the deck, a steaming cup in front of him.

  “Sleep well?” Jessica asked.

  “Extremely,” Gosling replied. “Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to coffee.”

  “Not at all,” Max said. He suggested that Jessica shower. “I’ll get breakfast.”

  As Jessica was about to leave for work, Gosling thanked her again for the hospitality. He then cocked his head, nodding in agreement with something he was thinking. “Leave it to Max Pauling to fall in love with the most beautiful woman in the State Department.”

  Jess didn’t feign modesty. “Thank you,” she said. “Please visit again.” She accepted Max’s kiss and was out the door.

  “I meant it,” Gosling said when she was gone.

  “I’m sure you did,” Max said. “Because you’re right.”

  Max had met Jessica Mumford and her friends Mac and Annabel Smith a little over a year ago in the John Quincy Adams State Drawing Room at State, where a new Russian minister-counselor of trade was being fêted. Jessica was there because of her job in State’s Russian section. Max had just returned to Washington from an extended stint in Moscow, operating as a State intelligence officer under embassy cover.

  His attraction to her was immediate and powerful. She was tall and willowy. She wore her blond-and-silver hair short and wet. Her profile was clean and strong, cheekbones prominent, nose appropriately long and fine. He circled, planned his angle of attack, moved in, said the right things knowing she wouldn’t respond to anything less—inane banter wouldn’t have done it—and took her to dinner, silently relieved that Mac and Annabel couldn’t join them. Things progressed urgently from that point despite his having to spend time undercover in Moscow. Eventually, he ended up saving Jessica from her ex-husband, the FBI agent, who turned out to be a snake, and a crazy one at that. Rushing to her rescue cemented the relationship. Nothing like a genuinely lovely woman to buff up an old knight’s armor and make it shine again.

  “Marriage on the horizon?” Gosling asked.

  “Some day maybe. You never remarried, did you?”

  “No. I was grotty as a husband. They deserved better.”

  “They?”

  “I gave it a second shot. It lasted slightly longer than an hour.”

  Max thought of his own former wife and the two kids they’d created together, but didn’t mention them. Instead, he asked, “Ready for your first flying lesson?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gosling said.

  Pauling handed over the controls to Gosling once they were airborne,
but it was obvious the “student” had little interest in piloting. He suggested Max take over. Once he had, Gosling said: “About this project, Max. Ever hear of Signal Laboratories?”

  “Yeah. Big pharmaceutical company. Heavy on research. Blue chip.”

  “Exactly. Global. They’re a client of ours, have been for a few years. Ever hear of BTK Industries?”

  “Another client?”

  “No. A competitor of Signal. They’re both leaders in the development of anticancer drugs. Maybe that’s not the right term. Too simplistic. Of course, I’m no scientist. What it boils down to is that they’re in a race to develop the next generation of monoclonal antibodies, hopefully the magic bullet to cure one kind of cancer or another.”

  “Uh-huh.” Pauling had set the autopilot and relaxed, his hands off the yoke, an urge for a cigarette coming and going. “I get it,” he said. “Your client wants you to steal lab secrets from the competitor.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Isn’t BTK headed by ex-senator McCullough?” Max asked.

  “You’re absolutely right. He chairs the board and is the major stockholder. The last of the old liberals.”

  “Nothing sadder, someone said.”

  “Hubert Humphrey, I think.”

  “He doesn’t sound like a liberal to me. He’s big business. Sounds more like a conservative Republican.”

  “Texas liberals are different from other liberals, Max. Lyndon Johnson did okay in business. At least Lady Bird did, with a little help from LBJ’s political clout. At any rate, our client Signal Labs is convinced that BTK Industries is playing dirty pool in Cuba.”

  “Cuba?” Pauling’s laugh was strictly involuntary. “What the hell does Cuba have to do with cancer research?”

  “Aha,” Gosling said. “It’s always a pleasure to enlighten people about something they don’t know. Cuba, my friend, that decrepit, backward banana—well, certainly not a republic—happens to have first-rate medical research, including work being done on the development of anticancer drugs. Cuba may be a Communist government headed by that bearded bastard, Fidel, and it may be on its ass economically—especially since the Soviets pulled out—but its medical research is world-class. Trust me, Max. I’m telling the truth.”