Castro's Daughter (3 page)

He was a career intelligence officer of medium height, with a thick barrel chest, a square-jawed face, and wide, smiling eyes under a high golden tinged forehead and coarse, richly black curly hair. His passion was opera, for which it was rumored he knew by heart the score and libretto for every major work performed in the last two hundred years. He was also a patron of the country’s four professional orchestras and one seriously depleted opera company, many of whose members had fled to take jobs, mostly in Spain.

But in María’s estimation, he was a conniving, two-faced
hijo de puta
whose smile concealed deeper, darker purposes—almost always for his own personal gain—and who needed to be constantly guarded against. Exactly why she had picked him for her chief of staff three years ago: She wanted a conniver who would get results no matter the obstacles. And he’d done a fine job for her, his training at the hands of the Russian intelligence apparatus in Moscow first-rate.

He looked up when she came to his open door, said something to whomever he was talking to on the phone, hung up, and got to his feet. “I was just about to call you,” he said.

“I’ve already heard. Who was that on the phone?”

“General Muñoz’s chief of staff. We’re at DEFCON Two, and I was ordered to start the call up.” General Ramiro Casas Muñoz was chief of the DI; Defense Condition Two was just one step below the actual military invasion of the island, and all military and intelligence personnel were being called for duty.

“That’s stupid. Fidel wasn’t murdered.”

“We can’t be certain.”

María had turned to go to her office, where she kept a set of military fatigues with her insignia of rank and the DI badge, when Ortega-Cowan stopped her.

“There was a shooting at the compound a couple of hours ago.”

She came back, her stomach suddenly hollow. “What are you talking about?” She’d been out there, of course, but she could not tell that to her chief of staff. She was sure that he didn’t know the relationship she had to Fidel.

“I don’t have the details, but Captain Fuentes sounded excited. He’s on his way right now—it’s one of the reasons I was just about to call you.”

Nor could she tell him that she’d ordered Fuentes to come here first thing this morning because of sloppy security out there. Neither man knew her entire story, though they were both cut of the same conspiratorial cloth, and both of them thought they knew everything. They wanted her job—that had always been obvious—and she had a feeling that now that Fidel was dead and Fuentes was freed from his compound security position, he might think he had the opening he was waiting for. And of course, Ortega-Cowan was a typical Cuban male, full of machismo, who thought from the beginning that María’s post should be filled by a man, not by a woman.

As long as the two of them never got together, she would be safe, and perhaps now was the time for her to get rid of one of them. There would be a lot of confusion in the coming days. Who could tell what might happen?

“I want to talk to Captain Fuentes when he gets here,” María said. “Not a word about the shooting to anyone.”

“Of course,” Ortega-Cowan said. “Shall I sit in with you?”

“I’ll handle him myself, probably nonsense. You know how he can get.”

Ortega-Cowan nodded. It was unspoken knowledge that Fuentes was a homosexual, but he’d been Fidel’s choice for chief of his personal security, and everything had been left at that; speculation was not encouraged. “Staff meeting at ten?”

“Oh-nine-hundred,” María said, and she walked back to her office to change, and to ponder not only her father’s last request, but also the business of a shooting out there. It must have happened just minutes after she’d left. Curious.

Something wasn’t right, and although she’d prefer to think that it was some trick that Fuentes had worked up, she wasn’t sure, because there was no motive she could think of. Fidel was dead; there was no one left for the captain to impress.

*   *   *

She changed into her crisp fatigue uniform, ordered up a pot of strong
café con leche
from the cafeteria, and was just going over the first overnights from the watch—and especially the collated data from the dozen and a half signals intelligence ground stations around the island—when Ortega-Cowan showed up at her door two hours later with Fuentes, who carried a canvas shoulder bag.

If they were in any sort of collusion, she couldn’t make it out from the expressions on their faces, except that Ortega-Cowan was curious and Fuentes was excited. And maybe smug?

“I’ll be in my office if you need anything, Colonel,” Ortega-Cowan said, and he turned and walked away.

María waved Fuentes to a seat across the desk from her. “You reported a shooting after I left,” she said before he was settled.

“Yes, Colonel. We caught a spy trying to escape. He managed to kill one of my officers, and when he fired on us, we shot him.”

María sat back. “A spy in El Comandante’s compound is nothing short of incredible. CIA?”

“Presumably,” Fuentes said, but he didn’t seem concerned, which was bothersome.

“Don’t play games with me, Captain,” María said harshly. “You have sixty seconds to explain to me why I shouldn’t have you arrested and tried for gross dereliction of duty bordering on treason.”

Still, Fuentes didn’t seem to be bothered. “We’ve had one of the house staff under investigation for the past year and a half. His name was Carlos Gutiérrez, and he was hired as a gardener about the same time El Comandante retired.”

“He’s dead?”

“Most unfortunately. But it’s not likely, had he survived, that he would have told us anything under interrogation.”

“We have the drugs.”

“We found a hollow tooth with cyanide.”

“I’ll want to see the report of your investigation, but what the hell was he doing out there? He could hardly have been gathering anything important, other than Fidel’s health. Unless he he’d been put in place as an assassin. Was that what happened this morning?”

“No. Dr. Céspedes is certain El Comandante’s death was from natural causes. He’s been failing for months now. In any event, the gardener had no direct access. They were never alone together.”

“How do you know that he was CIA?”

Fuentes took a satellite phone from his bag and laid it on the desk, and María immediately recognized it for what it was.

“Encrypted?” she asked.

“I think so, and the machine needs passwords. Our technical department might be able to figure it out. But it’s almost certain that he called his report in to Langley that El Comandante was dead and was given instructions for his escape.”

It didn’t add up for María. “It would have been stupid for him to try to run. He’d done nothing wrong, unless his call had been detected and he became aware of it.”

Fuentes took a flip cell phone out of his bag and placed it on the desk. “We’ve kept him under surveillance, as I’ve said. And we’ve been extra alert the past few days because of El Comandante’s condition. We searched his quarters, but we couldn’t be as thorough as we wanted, lest he become suspicious of us. And it was driving us crazy why he was there. What did he hope to learn?”

“And?”

“One of my officers spotted him taking photographs with this cell phone.”

“Of what?” María asked.

“You.”

María powered up the phone, careful to make sure her hands did not shake, and brought up the half dozen photographs of her and her car, one of which included the tag number. “Are you sure that he managed to send these to Langley?”

“We found a USB cord in his room, which would certainly suggest that he had the opportunity to do so.” Fuentes shrugged.

He was enjoying himself, and it infuriated María. But looking at the photographs again, she couldn’t see that any real damage had been done. “Were there any indications that he knew my rank?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

“Or why I was out there this morning?”

Fuentes hesitated. “No, but I’m wondering the same myself. Is it anything you can share with me, Colonel? You were the last one to see El Comandante alive. What were his last words?”

María waved the question off. “Minutiae,” she said. “He wanted to know what SIGINT we’d gotten from Miami in the last twenty-four hours.”

“That makes no sense.”

“The final ramblings of a very old man who’d been accustomed all his life to knowing everything.”

Fuentes was skeptical.

“He died in the middle of my report,” María said. “And that bit of information, Captain, will never leave this office. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly.”

She’d been taught by her Russian masters that the secret of keeping a subordinate in line was to keep him forever off balance. She’d become adept at it. “I originally wanted you here this morning to discuss your security procedures, but that has become a moot point. So now let us discuss your next assignment, which will depend on your skills.”

Fuentes was clearly distressed, but María held back a smile. She’d never liked the man, and maybe having him here at headquarters, close at hand, would force him into making a mistake that she could use to get rid of him.

“Talk to me, Captain,” she said. “Tell me what you want.”

FOUR

Emerging from the colonel’s office and stalking down the corridor, Fuentes knew damned well what the bitch was trying to do to him, had been trying all along, but it still wasn’t straight in his mind why she wanted him out. Uncle Fidel had trusted him, and yet he’d called a nobody director of operations to his deathbed, and the why of that alone was enough to drive a man crazy.

Passing Ortega-Cowan’s open door, their eyes met, and Fuentes resisted the urge to step inside and have a little talk. Of all the people with any influence in the DI, María’s chief of staff was the only one he had common ground with. But not now; the fact that they could be allies was something best kept from the colonel until it was time for them to strike.

Outside, he got into his battered Gazik, which was one of the jeeps the Russians had left behind, but before he could drive away, Ortega-Cowan came out. The parking lot was at the rear of the building, while the colonel’s office was in front. They went to a bench in one of the gardens.

“You didn’t look too happy up there, Manuel,” Ortega-Cowan said. “Mind sharing with me what’s going on?”

“She wants to get rid of me,” Fuentes said bitterly. He needed to complain to someone.

“I meant about the shooting.”

And Fuentes told him everything, leaving out no detail, including the photographs of María and her car that had presumably been transmitted to Langley, and about her reaction.

Ortega-Cowan was impressed. “This just might be what we need to take her down.”

“What are you talking about? She means to use the fact that I let a spy so close to El Comandante to have me demoted, possibly even court-martialed.”
And she’d be well within her rights and duties,
the errant thought flashed in his head. But the kid’s eyes were enchanting, and Fuentes had seen him a couple of times tending the less prickly of the plants while wearing nothing but brief shorts and sandals. He’d been dazzled.

“Use your head. Until now, the identity of all our directorate chiefs has been kept a secret. Just like in the Mossad. But if the CIA has her photographs, especially in connection with Fidel’s compound, on the very morning of his death—within minutes of his death—and pictures of that goddamned fancy car of hers, they’ll sit up and take notice.”

“So what?”

“If she’s identified, she’s out,” Ortega-Cowan said. “And maybe I can help.”

“How?”

“Never mind for now. But what exactly was she doing out there this morning? Who called her?”

“El Comandante asked for her.”

“By name, or simply as the director of operations?”

“By name, and he even knew her private number by heart. Told me to tell no one else, just fetch her.”

“And no one else was alone with them in the bedroom?”

“No.”

“Which, of course, you had not bugged.”

Fuentes flared, and for a moment he forgot himself. “He was going to come back and I was going to be his new Minister of Foreign Relations.”

Ortega-Cowan smiled, but not derisively. “He told you that?”

“No, but it was obvious he wanted to return to government. And my English is nearly letter perfect.”

Ortega-Cowan looked away. They could hear the traffic around the plaza, and already the parking lot was beginning to fill as the call-up continued. The coming days were going to be a frenzy of activities. “That was then and this is now,” he finally said.

“But you have something in mind.”

“Of course. If I can pry the colonel out of her position, I’d have a good shot at taking over the directorate. No one else is qualified. If that’s the case, would you serve as my chief of staff?”

“It’s not what I wanted, but I’d take it.”

“But I’d have to watch my back, right?”

Fuentes smiled. “Naturally.” What he really wanted, what he’d realistically hoped to get, was the directorate. And a promotion to chief of staff would put him only a heartbeat away. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to be patient. First we need to get past the funeral, and stand down from the general alert. Could be weeks. And then we can find her weakness.”

“Might not be so easy.”

“You’re wrong,” Ortega-Cowan said. “Uncle Fidel didn’t call his chief of DI operations to his deathbed to discuss Miami signals intelligence. The question is exactly what they talked about.”

Fuentes was at a loss, but Ortega-Cowan was waiting for an answer. “A deathbed confession?”

“You may be close, because what does a person knowing he has only hours, maybe minutes, to live, want to talk about? Want to get off his chest? It’s either a confession of some past wrong—an infidelity, maybe?—or some last-minute instruction. One last order?”

“But what?”

“We’ll find that out eventually, but first we need to learn why it was Colonel León he called.”