Castro's Daughter (17 page)

J-i
was Kim Jong-il, and
KM
was Kirk McGarvey, but it was the last four words in that entry that rocked her to the core. Her father had written:

She’s not ready yet.

She went to the window again and looked outside, but the compound was still quiet. Evidently the security detail had not been able to reach Fuentes, otherwise he would have been here by now. But the situation would not last, and she didn’t want to have to deal with him tonight.

Starting with the first entry in the first journal, dated June 15, 1955, in Mexico City, her father wrote about meeting a very bright and eager medical doctor from Argentina named Ernesto Guevara, known as Che, which was nothing more than a speech filler in Argentine, meaning “hey.” The next pages were filled with long discussions he and his brother Raúl had with Che, and with a dozen other people, including Alberto Bayo who’d been a leader of the Republican force in the Spanish Civil War and who agreed to help train the Cuban rebels.

But it was something near the end of the first notebook that caught her attention. Her father was writing about how to come up with the money for arms and ammunition when he met a young Mexican history major studying for his Ph.D., identified only as
Dr. José D,
or sometimes simply as
JD.

JD has a far-fetched idea that intrigued me last night, though Che and Raúl think very little of him. He talked about gold—as much as tons—buried somewhere in northern Mexico or perhaps even farther north. Not Cíbola, but caves filled with gold, brought by monks from Mexico City that in some cases should have been transshipped to Spain via Havana.

María pulled out the chair and sat down, her heart racing, her mouth dry, and she started thumbing through the notebooks, starting with the first one, looking for any mention of the gold, or of Dr. Jose D or JD. One entry in the middle of the second journal date late in December 1956 briefly mentioned the doctor:

Dr. José D wanted to come with us because he wanted to be a part of history instead of merely studying it. But Che was with me in arguing for him to stay in Mexico City, to continue his work. Che later told me JD would be a liability to us, but I thought he would have a better chance of finding Cuba’s gold at the National Archives. JD agreed and he agreed to try to keep me informed.

The next three notebooks were filled mostly with entries from the revolution and the months following when her father was trying to organize the country. But she came across two brief mentions of JD, one of them having to do with the mystery of a place called Victorio Peak in southern New Mexico.

… Doc Noss deer hunting found a rock that had been worked with tools, beneath which was a hole that led straight into the mountain where he discovered notes and maps and gold.

In the second entry, her father wrote that JD had promised a full report, but that there was some doubt as to the authenticity of the find. At the end of that entry, her father promised not to give up.

… clutching at straws. But the gold could solve a serious problem for us—whom to choose as our ally—the US or USSR. Ideology would make it easy to choose. But more importantly we need help to reverse B’s destruction of the economy. I will continue.

*   *   *

Headlights flashed across the drawn blinds, and María heard a car pull up at the front of the house. She hurriedly stuffed the notebooks in her shoulder bag and started for the door, but then turned back to the file cabinets, where she retrieved her file, put it in her purse, then turned off the light and left the room.

Fuentes was charging across the living room when she emerged from the bedroom, and he pulled up short. “What are you doing here?” he demanded harshly. She thought he looked more frightened than angry.

“The real question, Captain, is what you haven’t been doing. There is no security here other than your two buffoons at the gate. Anyone could simply walk in and take whatever they wanted to take. Souvenirs, perhaps.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You let an American spy in here, why not a tourist?”

Fuentes had nothing to say.

María arched an eyebrow. “I’m getting tired of calling you to my office to report on mistakes that you have made. But I want you downtown within twenty-four hours with a complete operational directive for security. How exactly you plan on safekeeping the national treasures here while managing what is expected to be a horde of visitors.”

Fuentes looked beyond her to the open bedroom door and the door to Fidel’s study beyond.

“Am I clear?”

“Sí, Coronel,”
Fuentes said.

And María could see the cunning in his eyes. He had become a real enemy, but rather than fire him, she wanted to keep him very close so that she would have a reasonable expectation of knowing what he was up to.

TWENTY-NINE

The fishing boat was ancient, even older, Martínez figured, than most of the derelict cars on Havana’s streets, but the diesel engine was in perfect tune and very well muffled. “Not very fast or pretty,” Luis Casas said, “but she is as reliable as a whore with the scent of money in her nostrils.” He was at the wheel, smoking a cigarette, cupping the glowing tip in his hand.

They ran without lights about one hundred yards offshore, and Martínez standing in the back, bracing his hip against the gunwale, looked through a pair of binoculars at a red flashing light a couple of miles inland to the west.

Pedro Requeiro was at his elbow. “Anything yet?”

The red light was atop the cell phone tower, and they were waiting for it to go out, which would indicate that Jorge had managed to cut power to the installation.

“No,” Martínez said, but then the light went out. “Okay, he’s done it.” The time on his watch was five minutes until midnight. He motioned for Luis to head toward the shore.

If the eight men that the de la Pazs had arranged had not run into trouble, the attack on María León’s compound would begin any minute, starting with cutting the electricity and taking out the antennas on the roof. As soon as the first shots were fired, he and Pedro would go ashore.

His speed-dialed Ruiz’s sat phone number. “It has begun.”

“I’m on the deck twenty minutes out.”

“Anything on your radar?”

“A couple of fishing boats to the west, and a strong military target about fifty klicks to the east. But I don’t think I’ve been painted yet. Leastways, nobody’s heading this way in any big hurry. How did you get word to Mac?”

“I didn’t. But he knows I’m here, and soon as he hears the first shots, he’ll understand what’s happening.”

“I’m on my way.”

Martínez broke the connection, as Pedro finished attaching the 9.5 horsepower outboard to the four-man inflatable, and he helped ease it over the side of the slow-moving boat. They were headed toward the beach directly below the León compound, the diesel at dead slow, its exhaust noises almost nil.

“Ernesto is on his way?” Pedro asked.

“
Sí
. Twenty minutes.” Martínez looked at the man’s weathered face, crinkled now in a slight smile. “There’s room in the plane to take you back to the States.”

“What would I do there? Go back to washing dirty laundry?”

“It’s going to get hot after tonight.”

Pedro laughed. “This is the tropics. But you know all about that.”

“The war won’t end tonight. Maybe not in our lifetimes.”

“Perhaps not, but you’ve told us that this battle is worth the effort.”

“Sí.”

“Then let us take it to them.”

THIRTY

María had stormed off just after dark, and hadn’t returned yet. The cook and houseboy had retreated to their quarters, leaving McGarvey, who’d been unable to sleep, seated outside at the pool, drinking a Red Stripe beer. Otto had been locked in his room, insurance against McGarvey trying anything, and a second pair of security officers had shown up around nine, one of them manning the radio room.

The sea breeze had died to nothing a couple of hours ago, and the night was hot and humid under an overcast sky, only occasionally lit by distant lighting to the northwest out in Hemingway’s Gulf Stream, and McGarvey felt that something was about to go down. Soon. He could almost sense Martínez somewhere close.

He glanced over at Gonzáles leaning against the slider frame just inside the dark living room, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. The only light came from the west wing, where Otto was being kept and where the compound’s communications and security center was located.

McGarvey thought that Gonzáles and Toro had seemed nervous all day, and especially since María had taken off and the second pair of muscle had shown up. The entire compound should have been lit up like day, no shadows to provide places to hide. And at the very least, he should have been locked up in his cell, not allowed to have the run of the house.

Except for the beach, which was lit up as if for a party. If something was going to happen tonight, the security staff expected it might be coming from the sea.

In the distance to the north, McGarvey thought he might be hearing the sounds of a diesel engine running at dead idle, and somewhere in the opposite direction, toward the highway, he was sure he could hear something else; something new, a very faint clank of metal against metal.

Gonzáles may have heard something, too, because he turned away for just a moment.

“Señor,” McGarvey said, getting up. He started toward the security officer.

Gonzáles snapped around, suddenly alert, wary.

“Do you speak English?” McGarvey asked.

“Yes.”

“Will Colonel León be returning tonight? There’s something I need to tell her.”

“I’ve not been told.”

“Can you find out? It’s important. Something she needs to know about the gold we were talking about this afternoon.”

“Stop there, please,” Gonzáles said, and McGarvey stopped a few feet away as the guard took a cell phone/walkie-talkie out of his pocket and keyed the
SEND
button. “Ramiro.”

The walkie-talkie was silent.

“Ramiro, this is Salvador, come back.”

At that moment, the lights on the beach went out, and Gonzáles swung his rifle off his shoulder as he fumbled with the walkie-talkie. Before he could bring it to bear, McGarvey was on him, snatching the weapon and slamming the insole of his foot into the man’s left leg, dislocating his kneecap.

Gonzáles cried out as he fell back, grabbing for the rifle, which discharged one shot, catching him under his chin, the back of his skull blowing out.

Someone came running from the west wing at the same time as what sounded like a powerful engine came to life, and the lights on the beach flicked back on.

McGarvey stepped into the living room into the deeper shadows of a corner a couple of feet away from the open slider, when a series of three explosions came in rapid succession outside in front, in the direction of the west wing. The sounds of the engine—which was likely driving the compound’s emergency generator—died, and the lights went out again.

“Salvador!” someone shouted from the corridor.

McGarvey got the impression of a hulking dark form emerging into the living room, and a second later, a flashlight came on, the beam finding Gonzáles’s body.

“Puto,”
the man swore. It was Toro.

McGarvey fired two shots from the hip about where he figured the security officer’s center mass would be: one to the left of the light beam, the other to the right. Toro grunted and his pistol discharged as he was driven against the wall, and he dropped the flashlight, the beam skittering across the floor.

Someone opened fire from out front in the direction of the highway, what sounded like at least a half dozen guns, the bullets slamming into the front of the house, window glass shattering, and a floor lamp exploding a couple feet from where McGarvey stood.

The two security guards in the west wing began returning fire, the chatter of their Kalashnikovs distinct, as McGarvey, moving fast, made his way across the living room and momentarily held up where Toro’s body lay partially blocking the corridor.

More firing started up outside from farther away, up toward the highway. Kalashnikovs, which probably meant Cuban troops catching the rescue party Martínez had organized from behind.

“Otto, down!” McGarvey shouted, and he ducked back around the wall.

“Right,” Otto replied from his cell.

One of the security officers fired a long burst down the corridor. When the man’s weapon went dry, McGarvey stuck his Kalashnikov around the corner and fired a short, controlled burst. A man cried out in pain, and the firing from inside the house stopped.

Outside, the battle was heating up, the rescuers turning their attention away from the house in an effort to defend themselves from the attack at their rear. It sounded to McGarvey as if they were greatly outnumbered.

McGarvey raced down the corridor into the west wing, where at the open door to the radio room, the guard illuminated by the dim light coming from the front panel of what was a battery-driven portable radio looked over his shoulder, a microphone in his hand.

The man said something urgently as he turned around, a pistol in his other hand, but before he could fire, McGarvey squeezed off a half dozen rounds, two catching the man in his shoulder and driving him to the left, a third catching the side of his head, and at least two slamming into the radio.

The fight outside was intensifying but moving away, back toward the highway. The rescuers were sacrificing themselves to give McGarvey and Otto time to get away.