Murder in Havana Read online

  Pauling didn’t know whether the Cuban knew he was working for a CIA front organization, or thought that passing out thousands of dollars to some American claiming that Chico sent him was the forwarding company’s normal way of doing business. It didn’t matter who or what he was, however. Pauling just wanted the money, and to be gone before the police decided to make another visit.

  He didn’t have time for games.

  “Look, damn it,” he said, “I need the money and I need it now.”

  Dominique started to urge him to leave when the sight of Pauling’s Glock stopped him. Pauling held the weapon at his side, but pointed it directly at the Cuban’s midsection. “Let’s not have any trouble, Dominique. You have the money, I said the magic word, and now you give it to me or—”

  “Not here,” Dominique said.

  “What do you mean ‘not here’?”

  “The money, it is in another place. Not far.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s go get it.”

  He led Pauling down a short set of steps to his car, a battered Russian Lada. Pauling kept the Glock pointed at Dominique during a ride of no more than two miles to a dilapidated shack, one of a dozen in a clearing cut from what had once been a forest. Inside was one room chockablock with ripped furniture, empty cartons, and two bicycles. Pauling watched with a combination of amusement and disbelief as the Cuban shoved aside some of the furniture and pulled a cardboard box from a hiding place covered by packing blankets. He tore masking tape off the box, opened the flaps, and began pulling out wrapped packages of American money, hundred-dollar bills. He handed Pauling four of the packages. “Twenty thousand American,” he said, nervously eyeing the weapon in Pauling’s hand.

  “See?” Pauling said. “It was easy. No need for this,” he added, indicating the Glock. “I know. You were afraid. Nothing to worry about.”

  Dominique smiled and nodded, his attention now on the packages of hundreds.

  Pauling smiled, too. “Sure,” he said, opening one of the packages and handing Dominique two bills. “For your trouble,” he said as he created some room between himself and the Cuban, laid the Glock on a carton, pulled up his guayabera, and shoved the wads of bills into various pockets of the vest. If he hadn’t spent years of his life picking up CIA cash from unlikely places, he would have found the scene mind-boggling, tens of thousands of dollars stashed in a cardboard box in a shack, handed out by a working-class guy on the CIA’s payroll who, if he wanted to, could walk away a rich Cuban—and hope the person who’d “turned” him never found him again.

  Years ago, he’d been introduced to Tony Ulasewicz, the ex-cop who became the bagman for Nixon and his “plumbers” during the Watergate fiasco. The big, affable Ulasewicz told Pauling that he’d routinely carried satchels containing as much as thirty thousand dollars in cash around the country, and was instructed that if he ever was faced with having to display a satchel’s contents to airport security, he was to dump the bag and money into the nearest trash bin. Always plenty of money around when you were operating in the shadows.

  “Gracias,” Pauling told Dominique. “Come on, take me back before you’re missed. And keep up the good work. One of these days …” He stroked an imaginary beard and sliced his index finger across his throat. Dominique grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

  Minutes later, Pauling left Cali Forwarding’s building and looked for David, who was parked where he’d originally deposited Pauling. Maybe there is something to luck, Pauling thought, relieved that the young Cuban driver had kept his word. He got in the backseat of the two-tone Caddy and asked, “You got oil?”

  “Sí, three quarts.”

  “So we’re good for another hour.”

  “Como?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

  “Where do we go now?”

  “Do you know a town called Cojímar?”

  “Sí. It is on the water. I have a friend who lives there.”

  “There’s a motel, Casa something or other. Casa Marisol?”

  David laughed. “Casa de Mar y Sol. House of the Sea and Sun. You want to see Hemingway?”

  “Hemingway?”

  “Si. It is where he kept his fishing boat and wrote his great book The Old Man and the Sea. There is a monument of him in Cojímar. All brass, very shiny, very beautiful. The fishermen gave brass pieces from their boats. It was melted down to make the monument. You want to go there?”

  “Right, but I don’t care about Hemingway or any monument. I don’t have to be there until tonight. Twelve midnight.”

  “What do we do until then?”

  “I don’t know, but let’s get out of here. Oh.” Pauling extracted one of the packages of money given him by Dominique, peeled off three hundred-dollar bills, and handed them to David. The young man seemed almost embarrassed to be taking more money.

  “Go on,” Pauling said. “You’re earning it.”

  David put the money in his shirtfront along with the previous cash that Pauling had given him, and started the engine. Before slipping the gearshift into DRIVE, he turned and asked, “You want him gone, sí?”

  “Want who gone?”

  David stroked a beard that wasn’t there.

  Pauling smiled. “Yeah, I want him gone.”

  “Good,” David said. “Me, too. If he”—another stroke of the chin—“wants to find you, you must be a good guy. Okay, we go to Cojímar.”

  Jessica Mumford felt utterly helpless.

  There was no one to call to find out about Max. Victor Gosling said he lived in San Jose, California, she remembered, and tried to get a number for him there. No listing. She did come up with the phone number at the firm for which he worked, Cell-One, and called the New York office.

  “I have no record of any Victor Gosling, ma’am,” said the woman who answered. Jessica pressed, but to no avail. The voice in New York said she’d checked the employee roster for the company’s offices not only in New York, but also in London and San Francisco. No Gosling.

  Jessica knew the number in Pittsburgh of Max’s former wife, Doris, but there was nothing to be gained by calling her. She would know no more than Jessica was learning from TV news and the papers.

  That left Annabel Reed-Smith in Washington.

  “Annabel, it’s Jessica.”

  “Hi. You must be frantic. Have you heard anything from Max?”

  “No. I’m so worried. Have you talked to Mac?”

  “I got off the phone with him just a little bit ago. The delegation was sequestered and everyone has been confined to rooms in the hotel. The Cubans are concerned for their safety.”

  “Concerned that Max might try and kill them, too,” Jessica said glumly.

  “We know Max didn’t kill anyone,” Annabel said. That, she knew, was her own assumption, the one she preferred to the alternative.

  “I thought Max might have contacted Mac. He knows where he’s staying.”

  “He hasn’t, Jess. I asked Mac about that. He hasn’t heard from him. He did tell me that Cuban television is running the story and Max’s picture every half hour, it seems.”

  “Has Mac told anyone there that he knows Max, Annabel?”

  “He didn’t say, and I didn’t think to ask. I would doubt it. Why?”

  “I just thought that because of Mac’s stature—I mean, he’s part of the delegation, and he’s friends with President Walden—that he might have some clout with the Cubans.”

  “I doubt anyone has clout with the Cubans at the moment, Jess. Mac says this is a political issue, that Castro is making propaganda points because of Max’s former involvement with the CIA. Price McCullough’s murder came right on the heels of the attempt on Castro’s life. He’s making political hay by linking the two events. Mention the CIA, Jess, and it sends Castro off and running.”

  “Frothing, you mean. I wish Max would call. I’m surprised he hasn’t. I know he’s on the run, but he could get to a phone, if only for a minute, unless—”

  �
�Unless he’s—I’m sure he wants to call, Jess, and will do so the minute he gets a chance. Look, I’ll be in touch with Mac on a regular basis. He can’t leave his room so he’s a captive audience for my calls. I’ll keep in touch with you.”

  “Thanks, Annabel. I appreciate it.”

  Jessica hung up, went to the deck, and looked out over Albuquerque and the surrounding mountains that never failed to inspire. She was going to ask Annabel whether the friendship that she and her husband enjoyed with the president could be put to some use on Max’s behalf, but it seemed inappropriate.

  Just talking with Annabel had been therapeutic for Jessica. She’d calmed down, and felt her heart and pulse rates lower. In this more tranquil state, she was able to better focus on Max’s survival skills, rather than succumb to macabre visions of him lying in some Havana gutter, shot down by the authorities. The truth was, if there was anyone she’d ever known who had the ability to handle such a situation, it was Max Pauling.

  And she’d say a little prayer now and then, assuming God listened to prayers offered for former CIA agents.

  James Walden conferred in the Oval Office with his national security advisor and his chief of staff, Charlie Larsen. Paul Draper had just gotten off the phone with the Cuban foreign affairs minister Diego Vasquez, and had reported the gist of the conversation to the president, concluding with, “He wouldn’t confirm that Castro met with Senator McCullough before his death, although he did allude to some assurances McCullough had given on your behalf.”

  “Did he get specific?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about Pauling?”

  “Still on the loose, sir, if he’s alive. Vasquez says they’re intensifying the search. According to him, the Castro government is fully convinced that the CIA, using Pauling, was behind the attack on Castro. They’re planning a big rally when Pauling is apprehended.”

  “This is outrageous,” Walden said. “Pauling is supposed to have saved Castro’s ass when he knocked the assassin’s gun away. Isn’t that what our sources say?”

  “It doesn’t matter what actually happened, Mr. President. You know that. Castro will twist the truth to suit his own purposes. He’ll hold Pauling up as another symbol of the big, bad United States and the CIA trying to destroy his regime.”

  Walden swung around in his chair and faced the window. He said without looking back at them, “Get Director Brown on the phone for me.” George Brown had been nominated to be director of the CIA by Walden early in his administration and, after undergoing a rough Senate hearing, was confirmed. “And cut me some slack today. I need think time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How far is Cojímar?” Pauling asked David as they drove away from Cali Forwarding.

  “Not so far, only twenty, twenty-five miles.”

  “That’s if we go back through Havana,” Pauling said. They’d driven southwest to reach the airport. Cojímar was east of Havana, on the northern coast. The most direct route was through the city.

  “We have time,” Pauling said. “Go a different way, not through the city.”

  “The roads are bad,” David said.

  “That’s okay. Will this wreck make it?”

  “Wreck?”

  “This car. Will it get us to Cojímar?”

  “If we buy oil.”

  “I’ll leave that up to you, David. I’m in your hands.”

  Pauling’s luck was holding. The hands into which he’d placed himself were good hands, indeed. As it developed, David hated Castro and the situation in Cuba. He’d had an uncle who’d been arrested for subversive activities, jailed, and never heard from again. A cousin with whom David was especially close had been raped by a member of Castro’s military police. David had told friends harboring similar feelings that if given the chance to shoot the dictator, he would gladly do it.

  There was also the matter of his sexuality. David was gay, although he maintained what appeared to be heterosexual relations with young women in order to avoid public discrimination. His discreet homosexuality branded him a maricón, a “queer,” as opposed to overtly gay men known in Cuban society as bujarrones, or “butch.” He’d seen the early 1990s film Strawberry and Chocolate, many times. It depicted a homosexual love affair between a gay intellectual and a heterosexual Communist Party militant. It played to packed houses in Havana; why Castro had allowed its public showing puzzled many. Despite the movie’s success, homosexuals were still banned from Communist Party membership. Not that this bothered David. His only political leaning was to see Castro dead and gone.

  They drove south on Avenida de la Independencia, a heavily traveled major road, until reaching the town of Santiago de las Vegas, where David turned east onto a lesser road leading to Managua. From there, he continued east until heading north at Cuatro Caminos, staying off the busy Via Monumental by following narrow, rutted dirt roads winding through rich farmland. In need of gas and oil, they joined a line of cars at a Servi-Cupet station. Pauling, who spent much of the trek crouched in the backseat, stayed in that position while David inched forward in the line. It took almost forty-five minutes to reach the pumps, to fill up, and add another three quarts of oil to an engine that increasingly sounded as though it was about to give a last gasp and die at any moment.

  “Get some extra oil,” Max ordered. “I don’t want to stop at a station again.”

  With the Caddy serviced and four cans of oil in the trunk, David returned to rural roads where he dared not exceed ten miles an hour for fear of collapsing the car’s suspension. Eventually—it had been six hours since leaving Cali’s building at Aéropuerto José Martí—they arrived at the coast just west of the fishing village and seaside resort of Cojímar. There, in 1994, thousands of Cuban balseros, rafters, launched their makeshift craft into the warm waters of the Florida Straits in the hope of catching the Gulf Stream—destination, Miami. Forty thousand Cubans set sail for the United States that year, more than twenty thousand of them rescued at sea and shipped to Guantánamo naval base. Thousands died at sea.

  Casa de Mar y Sol was a small, one-story motel directly on the beach, across the road from a cluster of ramshackle, five-story walk-up apartment houses, home to more than a hundred thousand Cubans. “Siberia,” David said, laughing and pointing to the apartments. They continued past a long row of red-tile-roofed cottages, their façades stripped of paint by the salty sea spray blowing against them with regularity. Above them rose a hill on which a stone fortress, the Cuban flag waving in the breeze atop it, stood silent sentry over the town and shoreline. Pauling asked about it.

  “El Torreon,” David explained. “Built to guard this coast many years ago.”

  “Is it empty?” Pauling asked.

  “Oh, no. The military is still there.”

  A good place to avoid, Pauling thought.

  David pulled up in front of the motel.

  “Go around to the side,” Pauling said.

  David did as instructed and turned off the ignition, the engine shuddering like a death rattle before going blessedly silent.

  “Okay,” Pauling said, “here’s what I want you to do. Go inside the motel and book a room. Get one that opens onto the beach, not in the front. Book it in your name. Comprende?”

  “I understand.”

  “Go to the room and stay there a few minutes. I’ll be here in the car. Open a door or window on the beach side, come back out, and tell me where to go.”

  “Okay.”

  Pauling lay on the backseat and waited. So far, so good. He’d made it to Cojímar, and had the money he needed. He could hole up in the room until midnight when he was to meet Nico—provided he showed. It occurred to him that with his picture splashed all over Havana, and the charge that he’d killed Senator McCullough, Nico might get cold feet and decide that meeting up with a wanted killer might not further his career. But he couldn’t worry about that. He either showed or he didn’t.

  Pauling was thinking of Celia, a mixture of thoughts, when David op
ened the driver’s door. Pauling sat up. “All set?” he asked.

  “All set.”

  “What’s it like inside? Busy?”

  “No, not busy. Nobody there.”

  “Nobody asked you questions?”

  “No questions.”

  “Good. There’s a door?”

  “Sí.”

  “Go back inside and stand by the door. I’ll be there.”

  The room was surprisingly large; the few pieces of furniture made it seem even larger. There were two cot-sized beds, a white Formica dresser, two straight-back chairs, and a television set with a twelve-inch screen. Pauling looked for an air conditioner that wasn’t there.

  He removed his wide-brimmed hat, pulled off the shirt, and sat on one of the beds. David stood by the door opening to the beach. Pauling realized he had to decide what to do about the cabby, send him on his way or keep him around.

  “You want to stay with me?” he asked.

  “If that is what you want me to do.”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Pauling said, reasoning that if Nico showed, they’d need some way to get to—get to what? How to leave Cuba now loomed as his biggest challenge.

  “David, you said you have a friend here in—what’s this town?—Cojímar.”

  “Yes.”

  “What does he do?”

  “It is a girl.”

  Pauling raised his eyebrows. “A girlfriend?”

  “Sometimes,” David said, grinning.

  “I’ve got a problem,” Pauling said.

  “I know,” said David.

  “No, no, another problem. I’m a pilot. I flew to Cuba in a twin-engine plane, but I can’t use it to leave. It’s back at the big airport.”

  “The policía will be there.”

  “That’s my problem. I need a way to leave Cuba tonight, after I meet someone here. Got any ideas?”

  “You need a boat.”

  “Yeah, a boat. A good boat. A big boat.”

  David sat on the second cot, his brow creased in thought. “My girlfriend,” he said to himself.

  “What about her?”