Ghosts of Havana (A Judd Ryker Novel) (18 page)

Onlookers started to emerge from other parts of the marina. Another security guard, driving a golf cart, appeared from around a corner. Jessica hysterically pointed back toward the docks. “They need help! That way!” The golf cart sped off.

A carbon-black and cherry-red Kawasaki Ninja suddenly veered toward her.
A crotch rocket,
she thought.
Perfect.
Jessica waved both her arms and the motorcycle came to a violent stop right in front of her.

“There’s been an accident! They need help!” she cried, pointing behind her. The rider yanked off his helmet. His blond buzz cut, muscular build, and thick neck told Jessica immediately that he was an athlete or ex-military. “What, lady?” he squinted at her. “What are you saying? Are you okay?”

“There!” she shrieked. “Give me your helmet. They need you there!” She kept pointing behind her.

The man thrust his helmet into her grasp and ran in the direction of the dock. Jessica took a deep breath, composed herself, then slid the helmet on her own head. She carefully tightened the chin strap, mounted the Ninja, and slipped the old man’s cell phone into her bra. Jessica twisted the throttle grip twice, feeling the vibrations of the racing engine surge through her body. Then she kicked down on the gearshift and zoomed off.

Once she cleared the marina gate, Jessica leaned into a tight turn toward the main road. She righted the bike and assessed her options.
Where’d you go in such a hurry, Ricky?
Then she saw a sign for the highway, I-595 West.
That’s it.

Jessica rocketed up the highway on-ramp. She weaved
carefully through traffic, keeping her eyes far ahead. After a few minutes, she spotted the school-bus-yellow Hummer cruising in the far left lane. Jessica eased the Ninja behind a black SUV in the same lane a few vehicles back.

She tailed Ricky at a safe distance for fifteen miles until he followed the highway onto the Everglades Parkway. He was taking Alligator Alley, the flat road that cuts across the vast swamps of southern Florida.
Where the hell are you going, Ricky Green?

Jessica dropped farther back as the traffic lightened, just enough to keep Ricky’s taillights in view. Soon, they were deep into the Everglades, an endless horizon of pitch-black nothingness on both sides.

The hypnosis-inducing road left her alone with her thoughts . . . On the orders of the Deputy Director of Operations, Jessica had gone to Marathon in the Florida Keys to figure out what happened to
The Big Pig
and the four American fishermen. She had traced Ricky Green and the seized fishing boat back to Ruben Sandoval, but then . . . nothing. She hit a dead end. She had Sunday back at Langley still digging. Then, out of the blue, her husband called to ask her to go to the fund-raiser for Brenda Adelman-Zamora to look for any clues linking the congresswoman to Sandoval. And, of all people, Ricky Green turns up at the party! Did that make sense? Was Ricky the connection between Adelman-Zamora and Sandoval?

She should call Judd and tell him what she knew. But Jessica also knew she couldn’t tell her husband what had just happened—that she had almost gotten killed while doing his favor, that she had wrecked a powerboat, that she was now on a racing motorcycle, chasing a man who’d shot at her, into the
deepest swamps of South Florida while a total stranger was watching their children. No, she couldn’t tell Judd anything until she knew more. Until she knew where this was all headed. What was she really dealing with?
Who was Ricky Green?
And what the hell was 2506?

37.

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

THURSDAY, 8:46 P.M.

S
unday set down his phone and checked the clock on his classified computer screen. His assessment of potential links between Iran and underground Somali banking networks was due by midnight if a summary was going to make it to the Director of National Intelligence’s morning briefing. He had promised his boss that he’d have something for the DNI on time. He had never missed a deadline.

Sunday had been nearly finished and starting to dream about finally climbing into bed when his phone had rung. It was a number he didn’t recognize, but the 305 South Florida area code was enough of a coincidence that he answered. It was Jessica Ryker with an urgent request.

Sunday had listened carefully to the Purple Cell leader. When she was done speaking, he set aside his DNI project, forgot about sleep, and opened a new window on his computer. Figuring out if “2506” meant anything relevant should have been easy. A
search of the CIA databases should have turned up the answer in a few minutes. But today . . . nothing. He rubbed his eyes. It was almost as if he were being deliberately blocked from the Agency’s archives.
Or were the records stripped?

Sunday logged off of the CIA network and on to a Department of Defense database of covert operations. Again, nothing of use.

“Hey, you still chasing the Ayatollah’s Somali pirates?” boomed a voice from above Sunday’s head.

“Go away, Glen,” Sunday said, shaking his head at his colleague, who was leaning over the cubicle wall.

“Aw, don’t be like that, S-man. If you’re still here digging, that means you haven’t finished your assessment.” Glen waddled around the wall and peered over Sunday’s shoulders at the computer screen. “You need some help?”

“No.” Sunday turned off his screen. “If you want to help me, you can start by going away.”

“You’re no fun anymore, Sunday. I thought Nigerians were supposed to be party animals.”

“I’m American.”

“Whatever.”

“I grew up in California.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. So that’s why you’re no fun?”

“No time for fun. I’ve got to finish this by COB.”

“The CIA doesn’t have a ‘close of business,’ Sunday. Didn’t they tell you that, like, on the first day?”

“Go away.”

“No, sir,” Glen said with a mock salute. “We are twenty-four/seven! We never close! Not the Central fucking Intelligence Agency. Not even on Christmas.”

Sunday turned his back on Glen.

“Hey, if you’re Muslim, they probably have you working on Christmas, right? Used to call that shift the Jew Crew around here.”

“I’m ignoring you,” Sunday said.

“I guess it’s more Muslims than Jews now, dontcha think?”

“Glen, I’m going to turn my computer back on and finish my work. If I turn around again, I expect to see that you’ve gone away.”

“Okay, okay,” Glen huffed. “Don’t get so damn testy, Sunday. I thought you Nigerians were supposed to be laid-back.”

Sunday waved Glen away over his shoulder. “Shoo.”

“I know you’re supposed to be compartmentalized on this Iran thing, but I’m not going home yet. If I can help, let me know. Maybe run some Google searches or something.” Glen laughed to himself and wandered away.

Google?

Sunday closed the Pentagon database on his classified computer and opened a web browser on his unclassified machine. Into Google he typed
2506
. The search results were long lists of addresses. Nothing notable. He was about to close the window when he glanced at the search results at the bottom of the screen. There was something he didn’t expect: an orange-and-blue flag of a silhouetted soldier with a bayonet-tipped gun and a banner reading
BRIGADA ASALTO 2506
.

A Spanish Assault Brigade 2506? He typed this into a new search field and the result:

Brigada Asalto 2506 was a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the communist Cuban government.

Ay!
He carried on reading.

It carried out the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion landings in Cuba on 17 April 1961.

The Bay of Pigs?

38.

EVERGLADES CITY, FLORIDA

THURSDAY, 10:04 P.M.

J
essica blocked out the bone-deep cold she felt from wearing a damp cocktail dress on a high-speed motorcycle for the past ninety minutes. She had tailed Ricky Green all the way from Port Everglades, onto Highway I-595, down Alligator Alley, and again when he turned south toward Everglades City. The road was so flat and straight, Jessica turned off the Kawasaki’s lights and just followed the red rear lights of the Hummer.

As she passed the
WELCOME TO EVERGLADES CITY
sign, she thought “City” might be an exaggeration. The town was more like a small island with modest sixties-style clapboard houses, amply spaced on large plots of land. Sure, it was late, but the streets were wholly abandoned.

They passed the turnoff for the Everglades Airport, and just as the town appeared to end in darkness, Ricky veered off the main road and down a dirt driveway.

Jessica waited until the lights of the Hummer had disappeared from view, then she hid the motorcycle in the bushes and followed the dirt path on foot. After about a hundred yards, she
came upon the parked Hummer and could see moving lights through the brush in a clearing ahead. She could hear Ricky banging on metal and grunting but couldn’t see what he was doing. Jessica pushed deeper into the brush to try to get a better look.

Suddenly, she heard a motor start up, followed by an incredibly loud hum, like a giant hair dryer. A second later, she was blasted by a gust of warm tropical air. Jessica shielded her eyes and backed away from the bushes. Was he taking off on a seaplane? Or a boat? It sounded like both.

As the noise and wind receded, she returned to the Hummer and ran down the path that Ricky must have taken toward the machine. She arrived at the shoreline just in time to see Ricky strapped high in a chair at the front of a low, flat boat with a massive spinning fan at the back.
A fanboat.

Fuck! Where the hell is he going now?
Jessica wondered as Ricky evaporated into the infinite darkness of the Florida swamps.

39.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

THURSDAY, 10:16 P.M.

J
udd still hadn’t heard anything from Jessica. He had hit a dead end trying to uncover more on the Americans from
The Big Pig
.

Judd turned away from his whiteboard, with its photos of the men and the lines of the web that still didn’t make sense.
Maybe I’ll never know
the truth,
he thought. Even if he didn’t know who these guys were or what they were up to, he knew he had to focus on his task: a hostage negotiation strategy for Landon Parker. He still needed a backchannel to Havana. And he needed a plan before the end of the day.

Judd had discovered in the archives that every White House since John F. Kennedy had tried to establish a secret dialogue with the Cuban government. LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Bush, Clinton—they all tried. And they all failed. Even the coldest of the Cold Warriors, Ronald Reagan, had attempted to find common ground with Havana by negotiating to end the presence of Cuban troops in Africa. Reagan had to strike a deal with El Jefe. The result of eight grueling years of talks was the departure of Cuban troops
from Angola, a withdrawal of South African forces, and the creation of a newly independent Namibia. It was a complex triple agreement of historic proportions. But that diplomatic success in Africa never led to a broader détente between Washington and Havana. Instead, the Angola negotiations followed the same pattern as other attempts at dialogue: Small steps in confidence building eventually gave way to animus.

Judd had read through the history of failed diplomatic overtures to Cuba. It was a long record of missteps and misunderstandings. Minor advances toward compromise were simply swept away by political expediency. Hard-liners on one side or the other had found it too easy to scuttle any progress.
Why should Landon Parker believe I can do better? Why should I think I can?

Judd had scrawled down the basic outlines of a plan on a single sheet of paper.

1. Good faith
   
2. Discreet negotiations
   
3. Plausible deniability
   
4. Incentives to deliver
   

Judd was stuck on number one. What kind of new gesture could the United States make that might entice the Cubans but not enrage Capitol Hill? How to thread the needle between the old men in Havana and the old men in Miami? How to find common ground between El Comrade Presidente and Brenda Adelman-Zamora? Judd jotted down a list of the least-controversial options that he could present to Landon Parker:

music, baseball, biotech sugar.

It was a pitiful list. Sugar might even be too contentious. Judd changed it:

biotech sugar
tropical agriculture.

Still pathetic. But at least it was something to propose. The topic was beside the point, he reminded himself. It could be anything. He just needed to manufacture a new reason to talk to the Cubans. Any cover for making a deal to recover the Americans.

Were they hostages? Or ploys? Or pawns?
The uncertainty burned at him. Judd turned back to his whiteboard, staring at the photos of the four men. What were they really doing in the Florida Straits? Why was Landon Parker so anxious to help them? What was their connection to Ruben Sandoval? And who was Richard Green?

Who the hell were these people?

40.

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

THURSDAY, 10:42 P.M.

S
unday dug deeper into the CIA archives on the Bay of Pigs. Most of the records on Brigada Asalto 2506 had been redacted or were so old that they had been boxed up and taken to off-site storage, probably some warehouse in a nondescript office park off a northern Virginia parkway. There was no way he’d get to the original records tonight.