Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (14 page)

As an example of this insanity, just yesterday I passed by the
smoking room and heard two of our military attachés saying the authorities in Madrid and Havana have confirmed the Cubans in the United States are finally uniting under one leader. They did not say his name, but said the man in question has great influence not only with exiled Cubans, but with all of Spanish-speaking America. They then said, with an amazement that betrayed their complete misunderstanding of the American ideal of liberty, that this man was even gaining adherents among the Anglo people of the United States
.

At that point, one of the attachés added a fact which frightened the rest of them—a Pinkerton surveillance report had confirmed the Cubans had taken in great amounts of donations and were planning to amass arms and supplies in Florida. The senior man, a colonel, predicted the long-simmering guerrilla conflict would soon erupt again into large-scale war on the island. The junior officer, along with several of the diplomatic staff, suggested drastic action be taken now to peremptorily eliminate the threat this persuasive leader posed, or the newly united Cubans might impress the U.S. Congress enough with their sophistication and sincerity to obtain
yanqui
military support
.

My curiosity could not be held at that point, and I peeked around the corner to see the colonel wave his hand dismissively, saying there was no need to worry, that an operation had already been decided upon and initiated, and the threat would be eliminated soon. He then proudly said the empire would remain whole and the Cubans would remain in their proper place
.

I didn't hear what the drastic action was, for they stopped talking when one of them noticed me watching from the hallway and the door was instantly closed. But by the sound of it, I think it involves violence of some sort toward the Cuban leader
inside
the United States. May God forbid these short-sighted men ever carry out their schemes—especially here in this neutral country. I fear the outcome for all of us if they do. This is but one example of the delusional lunatics around me here
.

Oh Peter, I wish you were here to take me away, if only for an evening, from this madness. I am desperate to be held by you, and to
be able express my affection in more than mere words
.

And just so you know, I am taking this letter to the post office myself, to preclude prying eyes, for I think they are reading my letters going out with the embassy's mail
.

With love and longing
,

Maria

The letter was a bombshell, stunning me to insensibility for a moment. My stomach clamped into a knot as I perused the letter again, visualizing her writing it, trying to discern any hidden meanings. That she realized her mail might be scrutinized by the staff said a lot about her situation and her nerve in circumventing it.

Maria hadn't mentioned names, but I knew that particular colonel and his aide from the Washington cocktail circuit. They had both served against the rebels in Cuba, as had most of the Spanish army's officer corps during the twenty-four-year-long insurrection for independence, both during the years of open combat and those of smoldering espionage and sabotage. Over delicate flutes champagne, I'd heard the Spanish officers dispassionately discuss the rebels in dismissive tones, calling them “creole mongrels, who were devoid of civilized behavior, and deserving of no respect or mercy.”

And I knew the Cuban rebel leader to whom she referred: José Julian Martí, the most accomplished poet, author, journalist, and orator of all Latin America. Exiled from his native island by the colonial authorities, he had subsequently lived in Spain, France, Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela, before settling in New York City for the last twelve years. From that metropolis in the nation of free speech, Martí spoke and wrote to urge Cuban exiles in the United States and elsewhere to unite in their support for a free and independent Republic of Cuba.

In addition to his international status, Martí was a dear friend of mine. In fact, I owed my life to him for the assistance he had rendered to me while I was on intelligence missions inside
Cuba in '86 and '88. Martí was the best hope for an independent Cuba to be democratic, honest, and energetic, free from the tyrannical oppression seen elsewhere in the Hemisphere.

I had been completely wrong about everything for the last four days. I'd made a terrible mistake, a fatal error of judgment about the target and the perpetrator.

The perpetrator was Colonel Isidro Marrón, of the dreaded Spanish secret police. The target was my friend José Martí—and he was going to die in three days.

Xel-ha Anchorage, Mexico

Tuesday afternoon

13 December 1892

The bridge messenger reported
Gneisenau
had weighed anchor and was steaming northeast at twelve knots—so Blau had chosen to refuel at Spanish Havana instead of British Jamaica. There he would meet with the German consul and complain up a storm, which would then be sent on to Berlin and eventually Washington. There would be complaints and recriminations to deal with later, but what was done was done, so I continued checking the correspondence for something else of value which would help me understand Marrón's plan.

Quickly tearing open Maria's latest envelope, I found it contained only a brief note saying she had accelerated her travel plans. She was leaving for Cuba immediately, via train for Tampa, thence the Plant Line steamer
Olivette
for Key West and Havana. Once in Cuba, she would spend the Christmas season with another of her cousins, and then take a passenger ship for
Spain, where she would see me in January, when
Bennington
arrived in the Mediterranean.

There was no mention of the plot to kill Martí, but there was a postscript alluding to it.

I apologize for the haste of my journey, but I need to flee from the political madness around me here, for it has gotten worse. I want to be with gentle people who long solely for peace in Cuba and in Spain. The violent talk by pompous little men sickens me
.

I considered the timing of her note. It took three days to travel by train from Washington, D.C. to Tampa, a trip I've made many times over the years. From there,
Olivette
's transit was overnight to Key West for a port call, departing the next afternoon with another overnight passage to Havana at dawn. Five days of travel, if the weather was good and there were no complications for the train. The letter was dated December sixth—seven days earlier, and two days before I received the admiral's summons while at Kingston. If Maria had departed Washington the day after the letter was written, she might very well be in Cuba by now.

In her mind, Cuba was a safe haven with friends and relatives, and a tropical refuge from the onset of the cold North American winter. For me, Cuba was the home of the enemy, the realm of Marrón's clandestine Special Section of the Orden Público, and a place of shadowy peril.

I returned to studying the murder of Drake. Somehow, an elaborate ruse had been planned and carried out, with both German assassin and Mayan victim conjured up as a decoy from the true operation. The evidence uncovered in Drake's cabin and the ensuing events, all logically pointed toward Venezuela, the Germans, and Mexico. Each piece fit perfectly.

There was no link to Cuba or Spain. Not one.

Then I looked at each component with a freshly critical eye. The section of the German chart had been found stuffed in a pillowcase on the bed. I'd assumed the chart was Drake's, but anyone, including the killer, could have put it there.

The message in German naval code was locked in the cabin safe, thus unavailable to the killer. But the message didn't specify the target or the perpetrator. I'd assumed it was a German operation, because the message was in German.

And I had assumed the Germans killed Drake to prevent him from alerting the world to what I thought might be their plans to build a naval base on the Caribbean coast of Mexico.
Gneisenau
's appearance at Key West, her sudden departure, picking up Nicolay, and her subsequent arrival in Yucatán, all supported my theory.

But what if the message was merely a report to Berlin of what the Germans had learned about what the Spanish, with whom they had close ties, were about to do in the U.S.? That intelligence would meet with quiet approval in Berlin, for the Germans were pro-Spanish in Cuba. A victory by a fellow European monarchy over her Cuban colony would ensure stability for the growing German commercial investments on the island and serve as a warning for German colonies around the world.

And if the Spanish discovered the Germans knew about their operation against Martí, there would be little fear of them having that knowledge. The Spanish knew the Germans would stay mute publicly, for it was in their own interest.

My previous theory about Drake still seemed valid when looked at with Cuba in mind—working in the German telegraph office, he came across an unusual cable message which, combined with snatches of overheard conversations, made him deduce what was about to happen.

For the Spanish, Drake was more than a loose end, he was a loose cannon. Unlike the Germans, Drake would not stay mute. His going to the press would be a disaster, preventing the Spanish plan from coming to fruition, and igniting the wrath not only of Washington, but all of Latin America.

My new analysis logically led to the question of how the Spanish stopped Drake. Once he got to the U.S. mainland it
would be too late. They had little time and few options to stop the threat to their operation.

I saw the method instantly, for I've done similar things—against the Spanish, inside Cuba. It was a classic false flag ploy, designed to lead any suspicion about the perpetrators in the wrong direction. The reader may well ask, why not make it look like Cuban rebels had done the murder? The answer was twofold: there was no ready motive, for Key West is extremely pro-Martí and Cuban independence; and Americans were beginning to be suspicious of German expansion in the world, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. The Germans were convenient suspects.

The Spanish assassin must have boarded in Venezuela. Was that planned ahead of time, as his transport to the United States to kill Martí? Or was it a last-minute decision?

Once Drake was dead in his cabin, the assassin needed only to plant the German chart section in the pillowcase, complete with notations in German about meeting the Mayan rebel leader Dzul. Add to that the open knowledge the Imperial German Navy was touring the Mexican coast on their annual emigrant registration mission, and the lie gained the weight and momentum needed. That was all it took to shift the blame.

It was damned impressive, really, when one realized how quickly they had to react to the threat, prepare the men involved, and execute the operation. There was only one entity in the Spanish intelligence apparatus which had the ability to pull it off.

I knew that group well, Marrón's sinister little group with the mission of eliminating the island's independence movement. They were attached to the uniformed men of the Cuerpo Militar de Orden Público, a police regiment centered in Havana. Marrón's agents were extremely effective at penetrating the Cuban patriots' organizations with
agents provocateurs
, at employing complicated plots and ruses, and in using methods calculated to instill terror, such as assassination.

But the Orden Público didn't only function on the island.
They had expanded into other places where Cuban exiles fomented their homeland's independence from Spain. Most ominously, the Orden Público's Special Section operated surveillance and assassination agents against the Cuban rebel leadership inside the United States. Yes, this entire scheme was typical of them, and most especially, their leader, who was known in Havana as “The Henchman.”

Marrón had been my nemesis since 1886, when Rork and I narrowly escaped with our lives from his Havana interrogation dungeon. Six months later, his thugs came to my home on Patricio Island in Florida to kill me and my family.

I thought I'd killed Marrón during a mission in Havana in 1888; I was quite certain of it at the time. But later intelligence reports, including one passed along from Martí, showed the colonel had survived, albeit with a disfigured face to remind him of the experience.

I sat there at my desk, feeling sick in my gut and trying to remain calm while trying to formulate some sort of a plan of action. Martí was the target—but where? He had written me in early September from Santo Domingo, where he was trying to rally support for the Cuban cause. His note indicated he would be in Florida later in the year and perhaps we could meet for dinner if I was in the area. I went through my files and found the letter, but it revealed no dates or locales, only that he was to be in Florida from late November through mid-December.

But where in Florida? Cuban exiles were everywhere, particularly in Key West, Tampa, Ocala, Saint Augustine, and Jacksonville. Martí had visited them all in the past and presumably was doing so again. Key West would be where I'd start. First, I needed to brief the admiral and check ashore for word of Martí's itinerary. Then we'd find my friend and warn him.