Ghosts of Havana (A Judd Ryker Novel) (3 page)

It had required a thick dollop of good luck.
A suspicious amount of good luck.
And so, too, had his previous mission three months earlier to rescue an American ally in the West African nation of Mali.

Judd knew that luck was random. Luck was
always
random. Before he’d arrived at the State Department, he had been a professor at Amherst College, a number cruncher, a leading expert at teasing out patterns in data to uncover what was really going on. And, like any decent scholar of statistics, Judd knew that randomness always—always—washed out in the end.

So, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, wedged into a middle seat in row 64 of a South African Airways Airbus A330, Judd Ryker had finally admitted to himself the only possible way it could make any sense at all. The source of his luck could only be . . .
Jessica
.

His wife never conceded what she did,
exactly
. She never spoke the letters
CIA
, never said the word “spy,” never mentioned anything about operations or cover. But she didn’t have to.

Zimbabwe, Mali. How far back did it go? Was their whole relationship, going back to their very first meeting in the Sahara Desert eleven years ago,
built on a lie
?

Judd should have been furious, he knew. His wife—his most trusted confidante, the mother of his two children—had been deceiving him for years. She had always been private and a bit of
a loner. He accepted that. It was one of her attractions. But now he knew that she had been playing him like a puppet master. Worse, if Jessica had manipulated him into an unwitting role in a political assassination in Zimbabwe, then his own wife had tricked him into murder.

As jarring as these realizations were, Judd marveled to find that he wasn’t upset. Once he pushed through the confusion, he was, deep down . . . grateful.

Who had ever heard of a college professor running his own special one-man team inside the U.S. government? It was ridiculous, he now knew. Judd’s experiment at the State Department, his Crisis Reaction Unit, the baby he had created from scratch, had been
set up
to fail. How could he have expected to succeed without help, without some hidden hand? How could Landon Parker, the Secretary of State’s powerful chief of staff, who had created S/CRU and hired Judd, not have known this, too?

Lying in the warm comfort of his bed, Judd realized his world was suddenly turned upside down. But he wasn’t angry, because, on the most essential issue, Jessica had been utterly convincing. While he was only now learning her true identity, he still believed that their marriage, their family, their life together, was all real.
Her love was real.

Jessica’s big brown eyes opened.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hi.”

“You sleep?”

She nodded. “You?”

“Yeah. I think so,” Judd said.

“Are we still . . . good?” she asked.

Judd paused. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m glad we got it all out in the open last night.”

“Me too.”

“It’s better this way,” she said.

Judd scooted over in the bed and kissed her softly on the lips.

“Better,” she repeated. “I feel . . . free.”

“Me too,” Judd said.

“But, Judd”—she shook her head—“what are the new rules?”

“Rules? Can’t we just be honest with each other?” Judd started to feel sick. “Isn’t that what last night was about? Finally coming clean?”

“Not possible, sweetheart,” she said. “I think you know that.”

“Then let’s just promise to stay out of each other’s business.”

“Also not possible,” she said. “We’re too good a team. If there’s anything to learn from the past few days, it’s that.”

“Okay,” he sat up. “So what are the Ryker family rules of engagement?”

“I think we need three.”

“Three? You’ve already thought a lot about this, Jess.”

“Of course I have. Rule one is easy:
Assist
. We help each other. That’s been working so far. I think we can achieve a lot by working together. I’ll help you with S/CRU and you can help me rebuild my career once I’m active again.”

“Rule one is
assist
,” Judd nodded. “Fine. Agreed. What’s next?”

“Rule two is
avoid
. We can help each other but let’s not work the same issue. I can help you on your problem. You help me on my problem.
But we don’t play each other
on the same problem.
Got it?”

Judd exhaled. “
Avoid.
Okay . . . makes sense. What’s your last rule? Does it start with an
a
?”

“Of course it does. Rule three is
admit
. If we find ourselves somehow forced to compromise on rules one and two, we have to be open about that.
We have to tell the other.
”

“No more lies?” Judd asked.

“No more lies,” Jessica said.

“
Assist. Avoid. Admit . . .
Those are your rules of engagement, Jess?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Do you agree?”

“Do you think rule three is really necessary, Jess? It’s a big world. Lots of problems. What are the chances that we both find ourselves working on the same country
again
?”

2.

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

TUESDAY, 5:54 A.M.

N
ot dead yet.”

“I know that, goddammit,” swore the Deputy Director of Operations. “I don’t give a frog’s ass about El Comrade Jefe. We know he’s staring at the ceiling and drooling all day. He’s still eating and shitting through a tube, right?”

“Yes, sir,” said the team leader, a tall, muscular man with a flattop brush cut.

“So fuck El Jefe,” the Deputy Director scoffed. “If he’s out of the game, then we focus squarely on his little brother. El Comrade Presidente controls the security forces, secret intelligence, and the Party. So we aim our sights on ECP. You got that?”

“Yes, sir. ECP, sir.” Around the windowless room, a dozen heads, a mix of men and women of different ages, all nodded.

“So what’s the latest on his medical prognosis? When’s El Comrade Presidente going to start pushing daisies?”

“We have no indications of ECP having any specific health problems, sir.”

“How’s that possible?”

“He takes Mexican generics of Lipitor and Levitra,” one of the analysts offered.

“Christ! He’s got cholesterol and can’t get his dick up? That’s it?” A thick vein, like a lightning bolt, appeared on his forehead, never a good sign for the team in front of him.

“Other than vitamins, yes. That’s it, sir.”

The Deputy Director aggressively rubbed his bald head. “Don’t these Cuban fuckers ever get sick and just die? What the hell do they eat down there? How old is he now?”

“ECP just turned eighty-six, sir.”

“Christ!” He wiped his hand on his pants. “Are we sure there aren’t any more brothers? Are we sure their mama didn’t have some other half-brother spawn hidden in the jungle? Is there some goddamn cousin waiting to come down from the Sierra Maestras to play Jesús when we least expect it?”

“No, sir. No cousins. Not as far as we know.”

“Fine,” he exhaled. “So, then, who’s next on the list?”

“You mean the successor to ECP, sir?”

The Deputy Director’s face fell lifeless, his eyes dead and his jowls drooping low. This was a common reaction from the longtime intelligence chief, a sign his staff recognized as a prelude to an explosion of anger. “That’s the whole fucking purpose of the Caribbean Special Projects Unit!” he shouted. “That’s why you’re here and not pumping gas at some strip mall in Leesburg, goddammit! That’s why you’re all here!”

“Sir—” The team leader cleared his throat. “Sir, we have no clear successor to ECP identified.”

“No one at all?”

“We believe the Communist Party leadership has kept succession deliberately in the dark. It’s a tactic to prevent factions and
infighting. If no one knows who’s next in line, then everyone stays in line.”

“I don’t care what the fucking Cuban politburo knows or doesn’t know. But we are the C-I-fucking-A. We should know. That’s our job. That’s
your
job.”

“Yes, sir.”

No one spoke up.

“What about O?” the Deputy Director asked.

“Oswaldo Guerrero?”

“That’s what I asked.
What about O?
”

“Oswaldo Guerrero is their military intelligence chief in charge of running counter-destabilization operations. He—”

“I know who O is! He’s the fucker who keeps embarrassing
this
goddamn team. He’s why all our people keep getting killed. O’s the reason Operation Rainmaker failed.” The Deputy Director made a fist and ground his teeth.

“Sir, we still don’t know much about him.” The analyst rifled through a stack of papers. “Oswaldo Guerrero, trained in Moscow, new-generation intelligence officer, we believe he’s connected to the Party, the army, the navy—”

“I know all that, goddammit!”

“Here’s the only confirmed image we have, sir,” the analyst said, holding up a grainy photo of a dark-haired man with a small, gentle face, the sole discernible feature a crooked broken nose.

“He looks innocent,” the Deputy Director whispered. “But he’s the Devil.”

“Yes, sir.”

“O is the goddamn
Diablo
!” he said, his voice rising again.

“Yes, sir. That’s what we call him in the Caribbean Special Projects Unit. El Diablo de Santiago.”

“So that’s why I’m asking,” the Deputy Director said, trying to calm himself down. “Is O . . . Oswaldo Guerrero . . . El Diablo . . . whatever the fuck we call him”—he jabbed his finger between the eyes of the face in the photograph—“Is this man next in line to run Cuba?”

“We . . . don’t know, sir.”

“Well, then, is he a recruitment target? If we can’t beat him, can we turn him?”

“The HUMINT asset assessment is negative. Human Intelligence sources suggest he’s a nationalist. Loyal to ECP. Raised through the commie schools and clubs, recruited early, now a lifer. He’s a true believer.”

“Pshaw!” the Deputy Director scoffed. “True believers. I don’t think there are any pure idealists anymore. Everyone’s got a weakness. Even our man O.”

The Deputy Director started to pace the room, his staff clearing a path.

“So, what’s our leverage?” he asked. “He’s got to have something hidden. Everyone does. What’re his anxieties? What’s his fetish?”

“We haven’t found anything. Our past attempts to plant—”

“Fuck me,” the Deputy Director interrupted and held up his hand. The room fell silent while he rubbed his head again. After a moment, he stopped, then scanned the room and made eye contact with every member of the Caribbean Special Projects Unit. “Those Girl Scouts over at the State Department may think they can snuggle up to ECP. That Cuba will change if we just play nice and pretend foreign policy is about friendship circles. We can shake their hands, let them hug the Pope, even allow them to host POTUS for goddamn tea and biscuits. We can stick our fucking
heads in the sand. But the United States of America hasn’t surrendered to that pissy little island yet. In this building, we still know who those communist bastards really are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want a list of all potential successors to ECP, with an assessment of their recruitment potential and some leverage points on each one. I want to know who they are, what they dream about, where they shit, and what they think about when they jerk off. And I want this by the end of the day!”

“Today, sir?”

“That’s what I said! You think I called you all to the office before dawn by accident?”

“Is there some special urgency we should know about, sir?”

“Cuba is going to blow up. It could be any day. It could be any minute. Things are heating up in Havana. They are ready to explode in Santiago.”

“Explode, sir?”

“I can feel it. Everything looks calm, but underneath the surface Cuba is a tinderbox. The only thing missing is the spark.”

3.

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

TUESDAY, 6:05 A.M.

F
ull boat. Jacks over sixes.” Brinkley Barrymore III gently laid down his fan of cards. The total lack of satisfaction on his face aggravated the other three men even more.

“Hijo de puta!”
hissed Alejandro Cabrera as he threw down his cards and took a healthy swig of his rum and Coke.

“Captain Barrymore, you are one lucky motherfucker,” Crawford Jackson said. “Was your ass born in butter?”

“Yes, it was!” Al said. “His mother gave birth to him right into a big silver bowl of
mantequilla
. He’s been swimming in that shit ever since.”

“Jealousy is an ugly sentiment, gentlemen,” Brinkley said, sweeping up the poker chips. “Thou shalt not covet.” He plucked a Cheez Doodle from a bowl in front of Al and popped it into his mouth. “That’s God’s word.”

“The Bible says you’re not supposed to covet your neighbor’s house,” Dennis Dobson said. He scanned his friend Brinkley’s newly renovated basement, outfitted with a sixty-five-inch high-definition television, stainless steel fridge, full bar, billiards,
and the centerpiece: a bright-green-felt-topped professional poker table. “But I sure as heck would rather live here in your man cave than my place.”

“Thank you, Deuce,” Brink said, holding up his cocktail. “I can always give you my contractor’s phone number.”

“Fuck you, Brink,” Al snorted.

“I can’t believe we played poker all night again. Beth is gonna kill me. I’ve gotta go home,” Dennis whined, looking at his watch. “Heck, I’ve gotta go to work.”

“Too late,” Alejandro said. “You can sleep tomorrow. We’re playing another hand. Deuce, go get Craw one more beer.”

Dennis dropped his shoulders. “I’m too old for this.”

“Michelob Ultra,” Crawford said, flashing a thumbs-up.

“How do you drink that piss?” Al sneered. “Deuce, make me another Bacardi and Coke. And none of that diet shit. Give me the real thing.”