Castro's Daughter (22 page)

She was the only one using the apartment now, and she’d made sure that the listening post was not manned before she tossed down her shoulder bag, poured a stiff measure of rum, which she drank down in one piece, then poured a second and went to the French doors that opened to a small balcony.

After her meeting with the president, she needed time to think out her next moves. Away from the office. Away from the prying eyes of her staff, and especially from Ortega-Cowan, who’d reported to the OD that he would be in sometime after lunch.

Her problem as she saw it was twofold. She wanted to find out about this gold business that Rencke had brought up and that she’d found mentioned in several places from what she’d read so far in her father’s journals. On his deathbed, he’d asked that she talk to McGarvey for Cuba’s salvation. But if it were that simple—that her father meant for her to ask McGarvey to help find the gold and make sure that Cuba somehow got its fair share—then her father had been crazy at the last. Perhaps dementia or some form of Alzheimer’s, because even if there was some fortune in Spanish gold buried somewhere in Mexico or the Southern United States, a man like McGarvey would never consent to find it and make sure the Cuban government got a percentage of it. That was beyond fantasy.

The second and most urgent part of her problem was Fuentes, who was making a run at bringing her down, no doubt with Ortega-Cowan’s help. Her chief of staff had always played both ends against the middle. Forcing McGarvey down here with his help—the only way it had been possible for her to do so—had left her wide open. Raúl had all but hinted at a charge of treason, which could very well stick without her father’s protection.

Traffic was fairly heavy, and the neighborhood stank of car exhaust even with the light breeze coming off the water. All of Havana smelled that way, and most of the time, neither she nor anyone else living here noticed. It was simply a fact of life. But she had become hypersensitive in the past few days; she was noticing just about everything.

Situational awareness,
her Russian trainers had drilled her.
Without it, the field agent is as good as dead.

The two problems—that of the gold and that of Fuentes—were linked, of course. But in order to save herself possibly from jail or a firing squad, she would somehow have to actually find the gold, and then turn the problem over to her government. Whether or not diplomacy—perhaps at the UN or even in the World Court at The Hague—would result in Cuba’s improbable claim being honored would not be her problem. No matter what, she would come out on top: the hero who’d made efforts above and beyond the call of duty for her government.

She could see the smug look on McGarvey’s face, and on Rencke’s, and it infuriated her. They were arrogant, self-assured men who’d actually pitied her and her country. Rencke had told her that he could hack into Cuba’s computer infrastructure any time he wanted to, but that it wasn’t worth the effort. She wanted to show them that she was just as good as they were.

But in order to find the gold, or prove that it was nothing but another dream of Cíbola, she would need to remain free to operate. Starting right now, before her situation here became impossible.

After draining the second drink, she left the apartment and went back to her office, where Ortega-Cowan hadn’t yet returned.

From her private wall safe, she got a stack of euros and American dollars amounting to ten thousand U.S.; an ID kit, which included a Mexican passport, driving license, and several credit cards in the name of Ines Delgado; along with a cell phone in the same name—all of which she stuffed into her purse. But she left her Russian-made compact 5.45 mm PSM semiautomatic. If she got into a situation in which she had to shoot her way clear, she would already have lost. And taking a weapon across international borders was all but impossible, except for a sky marshal or someone carrying a diplomatic passport.

She had a Cuban passport, too, along with several others—for Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and even Spain. But for now, she needed to go deep. Out of sight. Under the DI’s radar.

She’d gathered all the paperwork and other things over the past several years in part because of her Russian adviser, who’d cautioned her to always maintain the means for an escape. It was a cynical thing for him to have told her, but Russia had become a cynical place, as had Cuba. And she’d also followed his advice because in her estimation, just about every high-ranking official in the Cuban government, including her father, was, deeply paranoid. And paranoid people could be counted on to do the unexpected at any moment, especially turning on an insider who they perceived was anything less than absolutely loyal.

She’d told herself that actually, she was practicing sound tradecraft by maintaining alternate identities in case she had to go into the field.

Oretga-Cowan was just getting off the elevator at the end of the corridor to the right, in deep conversation with a pretty young woman who was one of the Directorate’s researchers, as María grabbed her fatigue uniform and boots and stepped out of her office. Before he had a chance to look up, she turned the other way and disappeared around the corner and down the stairs to the ground floor.

Someone would mention to him that the colonel had been in her office, but suddenly left again. He was smart; he would begin to sense that something was wrong. And when she hadn’t returned for her meeting with Fuentes, he might suspect that she had skipped.

And she was going to lead him to exactly that conclusion.

Back at the safe house, she telephoned Cubana de Aviación, booking a round-trip first-class seat for the morning flight to Mexico City, using the Delgado credit card. Flight 130 left at six thirty, which meant she had to be at the airport no later than five. Which would be easily doable.

Ten minutes later, making absolutely certain that no one had followed her, she left the safe house again and drove over to La Maison, which was a mini complex of upscale shops in an old mansion in Miramar, where she picked up a skirt and white blouse, along with a Hermès knockoff scarf, a pair of faded jeans, decent sneakers, and a few bangles. At another shop, she purchased a nice leather overnight bag and a pair of big glitzy sunglasses with rhinestones, and at a third, some panties and bras.

Her bag would be searched at the airport, and those sorts of items would be expected. Without them, questions might be raised, among them: How could a woman make a trip from Havana to Mexico City without at least a change of underwear?

Once again back at the safe house, still hopeful that Ortega-Cowan hadn’t jumped the gun and sent someone looking for her, she changed back into her fatigue uniform and packed her civilian clothes into the bag, including the things she’d just purchased, along with one of the courtesy toiletries kits from the bathroom.

It was nearly three by the time she left the apartment and drove out to the air regiment at Playa Baracoa, where she presented herself to Lieutenant Abeladro, the on-duty operations officer who jumped up from behind his desk and came to attention.

“I need to get to Camagüey in a big hurry,” she said. “Do you have any training flights scheduled for this afternoon?”

“No,
Señora Coronel.
As you can see, it is quiet here today.”

“Well, schedule one—I’m not going to wait all day. Your pilot is to drop me off and return in twenty-four hours.”

“My captain is off base at the moment, but I think I can find him,” the nervous lieutenant said, and he reached for the telephone. The only other person in the room that looked out toward the active runway was a clerk typist, who suddenly began typing furiously on an old IBM Selectric.

“This is official DI business, so the need to know is limited. Do you understand?”

The lieutenant wanted to say no, but he nodded. “I’ll have to log the flight.”

“Routine training mission on my personal request,” María said. “I’ll sign the flight orders. Now, get on with it, Lieutenant.”

María went outside to wait by her car and smoke a small panatela. Timing was everything. She needed to be on the ground and lost as Ines Delgado in Camagüey before Román sat up and took notice that something was wrong. That gave her a little more than two hours before she was supposed to be back in her office to meet with Fuentes.

It might take him a half hour or so to find out that she had cleared out of the safe house apartment, and maybe that much longer to find out where she’d flown to, but by then, she would have dropped out of sight. And in less than eighteen hours, she would be even more lost in Mexico City, from where she would launch her search.

A dark gray Gazik came from a small hangar across the field and drove directly to a much larger hangar, the main doors of which were trundling open, and disappeared inside.

María was just grinding out her cigar when the lieutenant came out and had her sign the flight order on a clipboard. “If you’ll give me just a moment, Colonel, I’ll drive you over to the ready hangar.”

“I’ll drive myself. I want to leave my car overnight.”

“Sí, Señora,”
the lieutenant said, and he came to attention and saluted.

After he went back inside, María drove over to the hangar and parked out of the way of the small Czech-made Aero L-39C Albatros that a ground crew was prepping for flight. The aircraft was a two-seat trainer/fighter jet that could do well in excess of five hundred knots. Once they were up, flying time to Camagüey—which was only a little more than 550 kilometers to the southeast—would be about one hour.

The young pilot, whose name tape read
MACHADO,
looked up when she walked over with her shoulder purse and the leather overnight bag. He came to attention and saluted.

“Pardon me,
Señora Coronel
, but you should be dressed in a flight suit.”

“Not today,” María said. “I need you to get me to Camagüey as quickly as possible. So let’s get on with it, shall we?”

The pilot seemed uncertain, but he was a young lieutenant and she was a colonel. One of the flight crewmen helped her up the ladder and strapped her in the rear seat. He handed her the purse and leather bag, which she put on her lap, making for cramped seating, but there were no storage compartments in the jet. Finally, he helped her with the flight helmet, which he plugged into a panel at her left.

The pilot checked that she was properly strapped in before he climbed aboard, and within minutes, a towing tractor had pulled them out of the hangar, the engine was started, and they taxied down to the active runway.

“Are you ready,
Señora Coronel?
” his voice came over her helmet comms unit.

“Sí,”
María said, and suddenly they were hurtling down the runway and lifting off, the city of Havana spreading out behind them, the waters of the Straits of Florida impossibly blue.

*   *   *

Camagüey, a colonial city founded in 1528, was a rat warren of narrow, twisting streets—a good place for someone on the run to get lost in. The pilot taxied over to a commercial hangar that at one time was used by the thirty-first Regimiento de Caza, which flew MiG-21MFs before the air force was downsized to only three bases. A man in white coveralls came over with a ladder and helped María out of the jet.

“I want you back here at sixteen hundred tomorrow,” she told the pilot. “Do not be late.”

A driver took her across to the civilian terminal, where she entered through the restricted baggage area, none of the employees paying her any attention. She found a bathroom, where she changed into her jeans, a blouse, and the sneakers, and then went into the arrivals hall. It was practically empty at this moment, again no one paying her the slightest attention; she was merely a passenger on her way somewhere.

At the Cubacar counter, she rented a small Hyundai Atos with less than five thousand kilometers on the odometer with her Delgado credit card and driving license. She drove into the city and parked near the train station. Inside, she bought a one-way ticket for tomorrow’s noon train to Santiago de Cuba under her real name.

The city was near enough to the American base at Guantánamo that when Ortega-Cowan got this far, he would be convinced that she was a traitor and would have DI officers all over the place, waiting for her to show up.

She walked across the street to the funky old Hotel Plaza just off the broad Avenida Carlos J. Finlay. It was just the sort of place that Ortega-Cowan would never think to look for her.

By five, she had checked in and paid for three days in advance under her real name. After she washed up, she went down to El Dorado, the hotel’s main restaurant, where she had chicken cordon bleu with a decent pinot grigio and then went up to her room and lay down for a few hours’ sleep.

The highway back to Havana was one of the better in Cuba, but she figured it would take her at least five hours to drive there.

She dreamed about McGarvey. They were having drinks at a sidewalk café in Paris, and he was smiling at her. Although she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, she was certain that it was something nice.

She awoke at eleven, took a shower, and dressed in the blue jeans and sneakers. She folded her uniform and put it in the chest of drawers along with the boots, and bag in hand took the stairs down to the deserted lobby. Five minutes later, she reached the rental car and headed northwest through the outskirts of the city, some neighborhoods still busy, reaching the Santa Clara Highway by eleven thirty, and sped up to a reasonable hundred kilometers per hour, the night overcast, the air thick.

FORTY

McGarvey spent the afternoon catching up on his sleep at the Renckes’ brownstone while Otto and Louise worked on the computers, trying to find everything they could about the legends of Spanish gold in the southern United States, especially in southern New Mexico. But by six, he got up and looked in on them.