Barefoot With a Bodyguard (25 page)

Gabe had his cover set up flawlessly, as he always did going into a situation like this. It had taken some research, a few trips to the Casa Blanca administrative offices to flirt with the pretty brunette in sales, and hours of combing through the Radio and TV Martí Web site for English transcripts. Now, he was ready.

Nailing an appointment with someone at the Miami-based broadcasting network was almost as difficult as slipping into Cuba itself; security was serious. But that wasn’t Gabe’s concern. He had an appointment, a bulletproof ID package, and a goal for his meeting. He just wasn’t sure he had the right person.

Amber Martinez was a low-level administrative assistant in the IT department of the news conglomerate, not a high-profile reporter who might have real information for him. But Gabe had worked hundreds of informants in his day, and he knew they lurked in the most unexpected places.

And he couldn’t go barging in demanding to meet her. This took finesse, and finesse was Gabe’s middle fucking name.

Actually, today his name was William James Bishkoff, executive public relations director for Casa Blanca Resort & Spa, seeking promotional coverage for his hotel property.

The Miami sun kicked his ass as Gabe crossed the parking lot, but he kept the uncomfortable suit jacket buttoned and his tie tight. The dress shoes squeezed feet that had been bare more than anything for the past few weeks, and his face still stung from the morning’s razor. But Bill Bishkoff would never go to a meeting with a client unshaven or underdressed.

He sailed through the metal detector, showed his ID to the front desk, and waited for his contact from the features department to greet him in the lobby. As he waited, he watched the monitors that lined the wall, all of the major news stations running silent with Spanish subtitles, the last monitor on TV Martí, blaring its audio in Spanish.

It took him back. Back to—

“Mr. Bishkoff?” A young man, fresh out of college at best, hustled toward him and held out his hand. “Welcome to Martí. I’m John Ramirez, an intern in features.”

An intern? So, not even out of college. Should make things easy. “John, thanks for taking the time to see me.”

“I’m sorry the features editor is in a meeting this morning, but if you have a press kit or something, I’ll take it in and we can get back to you.”

Not a chance he’d be put off that easily. “I do, but it’s all on my tablet, and I’d like to walk you through it. Do you have five minutes?”

The intern gave a fake smile. “Could you e-mail it to me? We get a lot of information for features, which”—he gestured toward the serious newsman spewing angry Spanish on the TV—“as you can see, aren’t the highest priority around here. But of course we’ll look at your material. For a resort, right? We’ll consider it for our new travel segment.”

“I would imagine that part of your news is heating up right now. Soon enough, the last barricade will be down, and tourists will be going both ways to and from Cuba.”

“That’s happening,” he agreed. “Which will be great.”

“And when they do, we want the Cuban vacationers to find their way to our resort.”

He nodded, clearly not interested in the pitch, probably hungry for lunch and pissed that his boss couldn’t be bothered to meet the resort PR person hawking American sunshine and villas that only about one percent of Cubans could afford—if and when the country opened up.

Gabe got that. “Listen, why don’t we download my presentation onto a flash drive and you can be on your way?”

John’s youthful features lit up at the way out of an actual meeting. “Go ahead and do that.”

“Okay, hang on for a sec.” Gabe started patting his pockets, then reached inside his jacket, swearing softly. “Have you ever been to any of the little islands off the Gulf Coast, John?” he asked, feigning frustration as he looked for a jump drive he knew he didn’t have. At least, not one he’d use…yet.

“Just Sanibel, but I stay local,” he said.

“The resort is something,” Gabe said, moving to his laptop case and looking in every crook and cranny. “I could set you up with a full comp weekend for you and a friend. You have a girlfriend?” He rechecked every pocket.

“Uh, yeah, I do.”

“Would you like to take her to a villa on the beach, all expenses paid?”

“Are you trying to bribe me?”

Gabe laughed heartily. “Dude, you have a lot to learn about how PR works. That’s what we do. It’s called a press comp. I’ll arrange one in your name, if you could just”—he gave up the search—“let me borrow a jump drive?”

“Sure,” he said, eyeing Gabe. “You could really do that? I’m only an intern, you know.”

“And I bet you make plenty of decisions about which products and places actually get a coveted spot on that new travel segment.”

He gave a modest shrug. “Some. We’re probably going to start taking advertising, and that’s what I’d really like to do.”

They’d take advertising because federal funds for the station would go bone dry when Cuba opened up to American travel and TV. “You can count on my company for that.” Which would probably help his little résumé. “Where can I get that jump drive? Or do you want me to wait?”

“No, no. Come with me to IT. If there’s one thing we have, it’s flash drives.”

“That’s how a lot of your news gets delivered, right? Since the Cuban government jams your transmissions so much?” He hoped against hope that Amber Martinez was indeed who Mal meant when he’d mentioned Amber Bock beer in their conversation. Otherwise, this was just another lap in the wild-goose chase he’d been on for a long time.

But he’d never stop until he found that goose.

“Usually, yes,” John replied.

“How do you get the flash drives into Cuba?” Gabe asked as they went through a set of steel doors.

John gave him a look and chuckled. “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

Gabe almost laughed out loud at the cliché that he used himself—and meant—so often. “But all that’s going to change soon, right?”

“From what I understand, it’s a slow process, and the people who work here are really dedicated to getting news from the free world to their families and countrymen.” His little speech sounded canned, like he’d heard his boss say it a thousand times.

“I already know there’s an underground group of volunteers who distribute the flash drives,” Gabe said.

“That’s no secret,” John said, stopping at the last door in the hall. “But who they are is. This is IT. They should have a drive we can borrow.”

Gabe would have to work smart and fast. “Great,” he said, scanning the office cubicles inside, the fluorescent lights off, but each individual area lit by computer screens. The hum of conversation and the general buzz of business hovered over the cubes as they walked past a few.

“Hey, can I borrow an empty flash drive?” John asked the first person they came upon who wasn’t on the phone or wearing headphones.

He gave a shake of his head. “None empty. Talk to Joella or Amber.”

Amber. Bingo. Gabe stayed close on John’s heels, acting like he was just so flat-out fascinated by the tech department, but his brain was whirring with possibilities. Amber had some connection…he hoped.

“What up, Johnny?” A young woman stood in a tiny, messy cubicle, her spiky dark hair reminding Gabe of a twenty-five-year-old version of his cousin Vivi back in her skater-girl days.

“I need a clean flash drive, Amber.”

This was his target. “Hi, Amber. I’m Bill.” He slid just a little in front of John and gave his deadliest smile. “The flash-drive borrower.”

She did a little double take, as if she’d been ready to dismiss him, then changed her mind. “Hi, Bill The Flash-Drive Borrower. What’s your deal?”

Gabe kept his smile. “I’m giving away free weekends in paradise. You want one?”

She lifted a dark brow, playful and pretty. “Really?”

“He’s in PR with a resort over near Naples.”

“Which one? My granny lives there.”

“It’s on Mimosa Key, you know it?”

She nodded. “It’s pretty there.” She gave Gabe an alluring smile. “Are you really giving away free trips?”

“Press comp packages,” John said. “So don’t try and flirt your way into my freebie, Martinez.”

She laughed and put her hands on her hips. “I can try.”

“And you can succeed,” Gabe assured her. “Especially if you let me sit in here for a few minutes and download my presentation.”

“Oh, hell, for a trip to a resort, you can give
me
the presentation,” she said.

John rolled his eyes. “Give him an empty flash drive.”

Gabe pulled out his phone and pretended to be checking messages while he took the guest chair in her cubicle, clicking on one of his favorite apps to send a text. Surreptitiously, he aimed his phone directly at John’s pocket while Amber unlocked a file cabinet.

As Gabe took out his laptop, John’s phone beeped twice. He read the text and sighed. “I need to sign for a package in the lobby,” he said. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Bit…Bishk…”

Gabe laughed. “It’s just Bill, and I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ll make the copy of this presentation and leave it at the front desk for you. Do you have a card?”

“Sure.” He brought out his wallet and gave Gabe a card. Gabe handed him one back, complete with the Casa Blanca logo in the corner and a number that rang only at Nino’s desk.

“If you like the presentation, call me and I’ll arrange your trip.”

John shook his hand, considerably warmer than when Gabe first arrived. “Great, thanks.”

After he was gone, Amber handed him a tiny thumb-sized drive from a small pile on her desk. “You can show me the presentation,” she said. “I’d like to see this place.”

“Sure.” The longer he talked the better, and if that failed, all he needed was for her to leave for two minutes, maybe three. Her cube was situated privately enough, and the position of her computer would work for him.

He loaded up the canned Casa Blanca PowerPoint, glancing up to catch her looking at him. Hard. Interested.

He gave a slow smile. “How long have you worked here, Amber?”

“Since I got out of college about three years ago.”

Why would Malcolm Harris have her name? “You a tech guru?” he asked.

“Not really. I’m in what you’d call distribution.”

The first point on the chain of smuggling flash drives full of news and information into Cuba. But a PR guy at a hotel wouldn’t likely know that, so he just nodded. “Have you always been in this department?”

“I interned here, like Johnny, when I went to UM.”

“Good school,” he said, giving her an impressed nod.

She shrugged. “I was born and raised in Miami, so I’d really love to move somewhere else.”

She had zero trace of an accent, but few young Cuban-Americans did. And based on her looks, name, and choice of jobs, he was certain of her descent. “Parents or grandparents move here?”

“My grandparents brought my mom over on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. She was ten and had to leave two brothers who are still there.”

He gave her a look. “Is she going to be reunited with them when the diplomatic knots get untied?”

“She hopes they’ll come here, but nobody really knows what’s happening yet. Still too soon to get hopeful.”

He looked up from his computer screen, studying her, guessing her weakness and soft heart. “That’s why you work here, then.”

Amber laughed. “It sure isn’t for the money. Like, I couldn’t ever afford to stay in a resort like that.” She pointed to his laptop monitor showing a stunning shot of the endless white sand and turquoise water of Barefoot Bay. “Holy crap. I’d love to go there.”

“I’m trying to get it featured in one of Radio and TV Martí’s travel segments, so when Cubans come to America, they’ll visit us.”

She gave him a screwed-up face, then shook her head, her expression a blend of amusement and disdain. “You know that Cuba is a poor country,” she said, as if speaking to a five-year-old.

“I know.”

“And that very few Cubans actually get our news,” she added. “And they aren’t, you know,
resort
goers.”

He knew that, of course. Every job, every undercover operation he’d ever been involved in, had some thin ice, and he was skating over it right now with this “advertising” shit. Of course, no resort in the free world would spend time and money promoting to poverty-stricken Cubans who weren’t even sure how the new world order would shake out for them.

But it had gotten him this far, and now a good old-fashioned sob story would do the rest.

“Amber.” He leaned closer and held her gaze. “My boss is Cuban, second generation, just like you. And Hector is trying to find his cousin, who he’s lost touch with for ten years. Hector’s cousin—Jorge Salazar—you don’t know him, do you?”

She gave a sympathetic smile. “There are about ten thousand Jorge Salazars in Cuba, Bill.”

Which was why he picked the name. “Anyway, my boss is hoping that this footage will reach his cousin somehow, so he will know he has a place to go in the United States.”

“If the whole deal goes through with these two governments, your boss’s cousin will be able to come to the US openly and easily. How would Jorge know the footage is for him, and why would Hector go to this trouble?”