Havana Harvest (10 page)

De la Fuente guffawed, pretending to have just heard a great joke.

“Operation Adios is blown,” he stated in a matter-of-fact voice.

“How?” In spite of his considerable self-discipline, Spiegel, who was De la Fuente's CIA control, turned a sickly grey.

Spiegel had started dealing with the Castro government as soon as the U.S. embargo had come into effect. Through his Spanish company, Celsa, he supplied Cuba with goods of U.S. origin obtained in Canada, in Holland, in the U.K., and wherever available. Celsa was, in a way, a predecessor of the Ministry of the Interior's Department Z, which Spiegel helped create when it became apparent that Celsa could supply only a fraction of Cuba's needs.

Celsa continued to flourish not only because it provided very efficient service, but also because it supplied difficult-to-obtain non-humanitarian goods: tires for Havana's aged police Harley Davidsons that required specially constructed Firestones, reliable spare parts for Fidel's fleet of Oldsmobiles, replacement parts for the industrial culinary equipment at major hotels … The list was endless.

Fidel's people considered Spiegel to be totally reliable because they thought his economic well-being depended heavily on the Cuban government's good will toward him. Did he not demonstrate his loyalty time and again by paying in advance for material destined for Cuba and then absorbing the loss when these were seized? At least that's how the Cubans interpreted the situation. The truth was that the losses were always made up to Spiegel by the Agency, since the “seizures” were pure theater, arranged to make Spiegel's “legend” seem even more authentic.

Spiegel had been put in place by the CIA in anticipation of the emergence of an influential mole, a deep-cover asset. De la Fuente, the mole, was hypervaluable to the CIA and arrangements to keep his identity secret were commensurate with his importance. His existence was known only to the director of Central Intelligence, to the chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, and to his control, Spiegel.

Spiegel's father, a talented Jewish tailor from Hamburg whom polio had left with one leg shorter than the other, was forced to flee Germany when Hitler came to power. He crossed into France and ended up in the mess that was Dunkirk where the British were trying to save hundreds of thousands of their troops before the Germans drove them into the sea. A kindly sergeant had thrown his coat over the trembling young refugee's shoulders and helped him get on board one of the evacuation vessels.

In London, Spiegel senior got a job as resident tailor at a well-known West End men's wear shop. A year later he married his assistant, a Spanish seamstress. Their son, Ivan, was born ten months following their wedding.

Ivan Spiegel was lucky. He had a great talent for languages and as a child, picked up English, German, and Spanish with ease. He was also very intelligent. This prompted his parents to send him to the best “public” school they could afford and then worked their fingers to the bone to keep him there. They hoped their son would win a scholarship to either Oxford or Cambridge thereby ensuring his social and economic success.

But a life of hard work was not for Spiegel. He breezed through high school with excellent marks then took a year off to live with his mother's family in the south of Spain. There he found his true vocation the year the Americans tried to invade Cuba: smuggling.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco meant that the Castroites were cut off from most of the U.S.-made goods they needed to keep their country's infrastructure going. Spiegel recognized the opportunity and began to sell such goods to the Cuban government through Celsa.

By the end of the decade, Celsa had become well established and very profitable. Spiegel turned the running of the operation over to his uncle and returned to England where he started Delta Transport in the UK. Delta became a huge success within five years, then the roof caved in on Spiegel.

Spiegel was the most unlikely CIA agent, which is what made him so valuable. The way he was recruited was equally atypical.

After one of his frequent business trips, mellow and somewhat tipsy from the excellent wines and liqueurs he had consumed with his midday meal on board a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to London, Spiegel headed for the immigration lane at Heathrow reserved for British subjects. He stepped up to the desk of the Immigration officer whom he knew by sight from previous trips and handed him his passport and landing card.

From his perch, the official squinted down on Spiegel and gave him a warm smile. “Mr. Spiegel, welcome home.” He beckoned to a commissionaire standing against the wall near the exit. “I understand you have been corresponding with the Airport Authority about speeding up admission procedures at Heathrow by establishing a 'fast lane' for first-class and frequent-flier passengers. The Authority finds your suggestion has merit and would like to have more input from you on the subject.”

Flattered by the compliment and impressed by the unexpected bureaucratic efficiency, Spiegel responded expansively. “Any time old boy, any time.”

“Splendid,” the Immigration officer continued, holding on to his passport. “The Authority wishes to inconvenience you as little as possible and has arranged for a limousine to give you a lift to London. Someone from the Authority will accompany you so you'll be able to exchange views without having to give up any of your precious time.” He handed the passport to the man who had come up behind him and then turned back to Spiegel. “Please follow the commissionaire.”

Somewhat bewildered but pleased, Spiegel surrendered his roll-on and stumbled along behind the man. Since no one was waiting to drive him home, the arrangement suited him fine. His guide knew his way around the labyrinth that was Heathrow. Within minutes Spiegel found himself being helped into a shiny, black, vintage Rolls Royce.

The person waiting for him in the car, dressed with the casual elegance of a country squire returning to London from a weekend's shooting, greeted him with friendly formality. “My name is Samson and, contrary to what you may have been told, I work in the Foreign Office, not for the Airport Authority.”

“What does the Foreign Office have to do with the airport?” The bewildered Spiegel was baffled.

“Very little, actually.” Samson pressed a button to raise the glass partition to separate them from the driver.

“What am I doing here with you then?” Spiegel was sobering up rapidly.

“Forgive the subterfuge, but I had no other way of arranging this meeting without tipping my hand.”

“You could have called me at the office or at home—I'm in the book.”

“Mr. Spiegel, the Cuban intelligence services are regularly monitoring your calls. I did not want them to know about my wanting to meet you.”

“You must be joking.” Spiegel was aghast and suddenly very sober. “What do you want from me?”

“A small favor.”

“Such as?”

“Our cousins, the Americans, may need a go-between, a sort of reliable messenger, through whom to maintain contact with one of their people in Havana. They're looking for an intelligent, Spanish-speaker with no visible ties to the States who would have logical reason to visit Cuba on a regular basis. We were asked to help find such a person and we thought of you.”

“Who is 'we'?” Spiegel asked, though he had realized, as soon as Samson had called the Americans “cousins,” that he was dealing with a representative of the British Secret Intelligence Service, people he had been trying to avoid all his life.

His first reaction was to try to find a way out. “I don't think I'm suitable for this kind of work. I'm a chatterbox, and I don't know how to keep secrets.”

Samson rewarded the feeble attempt at weaseling out with a baleful look. “On the contrary, Mr. Spiegel. As far as we can tell, you've been a paragon of discretion with regard to your affairs.” Samson's words had an ominous ring that sent shivers up Spiegel's spine. MI6, or whoever the hell Samson was working for, must have been delving into Celsa's activities, and that meant trouble.

Spiegel was trapped and he knew it. “Suppose I decline to cooperate?”

“That's entirely up to you, Mr. Spiegel. We certainly do not wish to, and we cannot coerce you into helping our cousins. We're asking for a favor, a favor—if granted—that will have beneficial effects on the operations of your company.”

They must need my services badly,
Spiegel thought, and then asked, “Really. Such as?”

“You will have no difficulty having your company's truck transportation licenses in the United Kingdom renewed, your goods destined for Cuba, presently in bonded warehouses in Rotterdam and Rijeka,” Samson consulted the file on his lap, “valued at about six hundred thousand dollars and three hundred thousand dollars respectively, will not be seized under the U.S. Trading-with-the-Enemy Act, the vessels on which Celsa's goods are being transported will not be put on the U.S. blacklist. As far as your person is concerned, you will not be denied entry into the United States.” Samson stopped talking and looked at Spiegel expectantly.

Spiegel got the message.
We know all about you. If you don't cooperate, we will make sure that everything I have just enumerated
will
happen.

“How long do I have to give you my answer?”

“Why don't you come around to the office tomorrow afternoon for tea?” Samson dug into his pocket for a business card and handed it to Spiegel. “Shall we say around three-thirty?”

The card read “B. Samson, Group Head, The Foreign Office” and gave an address near Downing Street and a telephone number.

After a sleepless night at his luxurious Belgravia flat, purchased recently as a step toward social respectability, Spiegel came to the conclusion that not cooperating would mean economic disaster and an end to his social ambitions. So he made sure to be at Downing Street the next day at the appointed time, expecting to meet again with the low-level bureaucrat he took Samson to be.

He was surprised by the speed with which he was processed through reception formalities, impressed by the waiting room to which the commissionaire showed him and blown away when a woman, whom he characterized as a member of the horsy set and who turned out to be Samson's secretary, announced that Sir Brandon was looking forward to meeting him again.

Spiegel suddenly realized that the Rolls and driver of the previous day were Sir Brandon's own, not government issue as he had assumed, and that, since knighthoods were not doled out to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, Sir Brandon Samson's card had completely misled him. The man was a senior civil servant with a touch of commendable modesty.

Once Spiegel had told his host that he was willing to accept the assignment, tea with Sir Brandon turned into a very civilized half-hour's affair during which Spiegel was told to be patient. Someone would contact him from the cousins' side in due course.

As he was being shown out, Sir Brandon remarked in an offhand sort of way, “You might find that you'll start receiving invitations to cocktail parties at foreign embassies. If I were you, I'd go to as many of these as I could.”

Spiegel got the message once more and made sure he did.

Six months went by during which Spiegel attended more than two-dozen diplomatic functions. In the seventh month he got his third invitation to the U.S. Embassy. Half an hour after his arrival he was discretely collared by the commercial counselor, taken upstairs, and handed a bulky, heavily sealed envelope marked “I. Spiegel, Eyes Only.”

A couple of hours later a fully briefed and very tired Spiegel left the embassy in deep shock. He had just discovered that the CIA mole he was to service was none other than his friend, Deputy Minister of the Interior, Oscar De la Fuente, with whom he had been dealing for the last two years.