Havana Harvest (24 page)

After a while he felt better, well enough to stick his head between his legs, pretending to be looking for his sample case. This improved the blood flow to his brain noticeably, relieving the weakness and dizziness he had felt since entering the café. He felt he was ready to carry on.

The clock on the wall showed eleven twenty. He paid his bill and on the way out ducked into the men's room to splash cold water on his face. He took the coins out of the sample case and put them in his coat pocket then checked the case with the wardrobe lady and left for the Basilica at a quick pace, partly to keep his blood flowing, but mainly because he wanted to get to the church before mass started.

St. Stephen's Basilica, on the west side of Bajcsy Zsilinsky Boulevard near where it intersects Andrassy Ut, has a checkered history. Commissioned in the mid–eighteen fifties, it was not finished until the turn of the century. In 1868 the dome collapsed due to “building defects,” meaning the builder had used substandard materials to make extra money on the contract.

When Lonsdale got to St. Stephen's and took in the massive neo-Renaissance structure before him, he found the inscription above the main entrance very apt: EGO SUM VIA VERITAS ET VITA. It was exactly what he needed: the way to truth and life.

Only the right panel of the entrance to the building was in use; both the left and center panels of the door were locked. Lonsdale dipped his fingers in holy water, crossed himself, genuflected as he traversed the aisle in front of the altar, and kept on walking until he reached the left nave. He strolled up and down it then knelt before St. Joseph's statue located behind a solid supporting pillar at the very rear of the church.

He had not been in a church since his wife's death over two decades ago; the rage within him would not allow for such an act of faith. Rage had given way to fury and fury to cold, calculating, murderous hatred, but, mercifully, even that had faded as the years had clicked by. However, old habits die hard, and to his surprise, Lonsdale found he still knew how to behave correctly in a church.

He had worried about there not being enough people around to make his meeting with the Cuban general an unremarkable event. He need not have. In addition to the faithful there were at least two busloads of German tourists wandering about.

Casas's choice of the Basilica as a meeting place had been excellent.

With his back to St. Adalbert's Chapel, the one he guessed Schwartz had meant, Lonsdale looked around slowly. He was sure Casas was not in the church yet, not in the left nave area anyway. But then Lonsdale had not expected him to be. He would probably arrive during mid-mass, attempt to make contact with Schwartz in front of the little chapel, and then, after mass, leave via the exit to the left of the main altar. A neat plan, Lonsdale had to admit. Far away from the main altar and separated from the principal body of worshippers and their prying eyes, the general would have plenty of time to talk and exchange written messages or coins, and money for that matter.

Lonsdale strolled back toward the main entrance and stopped to the right of it, pretending to admire the architecture, the statues, the carved marble columns, and the beautiful ceiling of a truly great church. Every now and then he'd refer to a guidebook he had bought on the way in and which he held conspicuously chest high.

To his surprise, General Casas crossed his field of vision ten minutes before mass was to begin. Lonsdale remained motionless, trying to melt into the stonework, waiting for pursuit of Casas to materialize. He was not disappointed. First came the decoy, a somewhat overweight, middle-aged man, probably a local police detective moonlighting for the Cubans or the Agency, dressed in casual wear, a brownish-orange leather jacket of all things, a dead give-away. But then, he was meant to be noticed.

The policeman watched dutifully from a distance while the Cuban walked up and down the same nave Lonsdale had inspected earlier. Casas then stopped in front of St. Adalbert's chapel, hesitated for a few seconds, and seeing that mass was about to begin, knelt down. The policeman sauntered back toward the rear of the church, passed Lonsdale by now surrounded by a group of tourists, and headed for the right exit door. On his way he managed to bump into a tourist couple to whom he seemed to mumble a few words of apology, whereupon the couple split up. The man crossed the church and sat down near the main altar from where he could see the exit at the end of the left nave. The woman went past Lonsdale to kneel before St. Joseph's statue, which enabled her to watch Casas from up close.

Lonsdale noted that both the man and the woman were carrying bulky camcorder bags, large enough to conceal a walkie-talkie or a pistol or both.
He has the radio and she the weapon
, Lonsdale's inner voice announced. He took out his pen. On the inside of the guidebook cover he wrote in Spanish: “Schwartz is dead. You are under surveillance by a fat policeman in a light brown leather jacket and a tourist couple with bulky camcorders concealing a weapon and communications equipment. Backup car with radio must also be in vicinity. Slip away and meet me in Room 218, Citadella Hotel, Buda side between three and four this p.m. We will talk about Captain Fernandez. Come alone. Knock five times. Destroy this note. B, Your friendly CIA contact.”

While waiting for the credo, the recital of Catholic Dogma, Lonsdale, playing the art-loving tourist, slowly edged toward Casas. By the time the faithful began the common recital, Lonsdale, with his back to the tourist woman and his body shielding his activities from her, was standing behind and slightly to the right of the general. He waited for a bunch of tourists to come alongside him, then dropped his guidebook on the floor, and kicked it over to the Cuban. “General Casas,” he said in Spanish, “don't turn around. Just pick up the guidebook and read page one.” He joined in the recital of the credo, and slowly walked past the kneeling woman as if on his way to communion.

But the woman must have sensed something. She reached for her camcorder, but was too slow. By the time she got it going Lonsdale had his back to her, well on his way toward the exit. He appreciated the woman's predicament—stay with Casas or follow Lonsdale? He bet on that she would stay with Casas and send her companion after Lonsdale. Her choice mattered little. What did matter was to entice one of the two into following Lonsdale, thereby making Casas's getaway easier.

Sunday Afternoon
Budapest, Hungary

In his room at the Citadella Hotel, praying that he had judged his man correctly, Lonsdale sat sweating, waiting for General Casas to show. He had gone over the events of the afternoon a dozen times, analyzing how he could have handled matters differently, trying to identify areas of weakness in his game plan.

He had left the church through the exit at the end of the nave without looking back and had crossed Bajcsy Zsilinszky Boulevard to walk quickly up the street opposite to the Basilica. At the first corner he had taken a sharp right and a right again, which brought him to one of the entrances of the Revai triangular building.

He had been lucky. There had been no need to ring the doorbell; a shabbily dressed woman was just letting herself in and Lonsdale slipped in behind her. She eyed him suspiciously. He gave her an engaging smile and bent down to stroke her little terrier, which was yapping at Lonsdale with determination. The dog quieted down and the woman was mollified.

“What do you want here?” she asked, but her tone was not unfriendly.

He told her about how as a child his boy scout troop had lined up mornings in the building's courtyard before marching into the Basilica to attend ten o'clock mass.

“I live in Canada now and came back here for a visit. I wanted to see the courtyard again. It brings back memories.”

She watched him as he began to look around.

He turned to her and pointed at the little fountain in the middle of the courtyard. “Just as I remember it. Thank you for letting me re-live my youth a bit.” He made as if to leave.

She smiled. “Take your time, there's no rush.” She pointed to her dog. “Toto likes the fresh air.”

“No, no. I must go. I'm late as is. There's another way out of here in the back, isn't there?”

“Yes there is. Come, I'll show you.”

He followed her across the courtyard and opened the door for him. This allowed Lonsdale to look up and down the street. There wasn't a soul in sight.

He gave the surprised woman a peck on the cheek, walked to the nearest major intersection, hailed a cab, and had himself driven to the Western Railway Station where he bought two first-class tickets on the express to Vienna, one for Sunday evening at half past seven, and one for Monday at ten minutes past nine a.m.

His problem was Schwartz, or more precisely, Schwartz's corpse. The maid coming to turn down the old man's bed was bound to stumble on it unless the Do Not Disturb sign stopped her from going in before morning. But that would be stretching it. Best to play it safe and leave the city somehow by Sunday night.

He took another cab, this one to Gerbeaud, the famous pastry shop, on Váci Street. From there he walked two blocks to the Taverna Hotel. He used the basement garage entrance to avoid the front desk and took the elevator to the fourth floor. He raced up the stairs to the next floor and opened the stairwell door. All clear. Six strides got him to his room.

He checked his tell-tales, matchsticks and bits of paper he had placed in and on his bag before leaving the room the night before. They were still in place; no one had tried to look through his things. Within two minutes he had his toiletries packed and was on his way down the stairs to the garage. He walked back to the Forum Hotel to retrieve his sample case, and a cab got him back to the Citadella Hotel by ten minutes to three.

Since Casas was not likely to show much before three thirty Lonsdale had too much time to fret and to second-guess while rubbing Instant Gray Grecian Formula into his hair to enable him to use the Schwartz passport in case he had to flee.

Was Casas going to come or would he send a Cuban goon squad to exterminate Lonsdale? Would the Agency's local thugs find him before he and Casas could exchange confidences? Would the Hungarian police come looking for him for the murder of old man Schwartz? Worst of all, would Casas simply not show and withdraw beyond Lonsdale's reach forever, thereby making his efforts an exercise in futility, which thus far, had cost the lives of Siddiqui, Schwartz, and the female assassin and—soon perhaps—Lonsdale.

So he waited and worried, sweating with fear, wanting very much to leave the room, but not daring to take the chance of missing Casas. No, that would spook the Cuban for good. The only way to play the game was to sit and wait, thereby showing the general that Lonsdale was willing to put his own safety at risk for the opportunity to meet and talk. He tried reading the magazine he had picked up in the lobby, but his brain refused to cooperate. It kept thinking that he was a ridiculously easy target for the opposition, whoever the opposition might be.

He wondered how many times he had put himself in harm's way, and for what? They had operated on his face and had put him in the employees' protection program only to return him to active duty under another name so that he could continue to fight the good fight for freedom. This had meant the end to his “first” life.
Better than being dead
, he reasoned, but not by much. Alone and without any background in his new world in Washington, he had to make new friends somehow. But that had taken an agonizingly long time because of the lingering, bitter ache in his heart.

He had watched his parents grow old and frail from afar and had not been able to attend their funerals. His new friends, all with Agency backgrounds, viewed him with mistrust, jealous of this mysterious parvenu who had appeared so suddenly in their midst from nowhere and who had then been appointed to a senior position to rule over them.

He couldn't blame them for not trusting him because he did not trust
them
.

“So where does that leave you, asshole?” he muttered. “Alone as ever,” he answered his own question. But maybe, just maybe, from now on things might be different. There was Micheline, someone from the past, someone to whom he could reveal himself, someone he could perhaps even trust.

Five sharp raps on the door—they sounded like pistol shots—snapped Lonsdale out of his reverie and brought him to his feet. His watch said three fifteen: his gut announced the end of the world. Bracing himself he called out, “Come in, it's open.”

Briefcase in hand, Casas stormed into the room, slamming the door behind him, and headed for the bathroom. Then he checked the cupboard and looked out the narrow window. Dispensing with preliminaries he bluntly turned on his host.

“Who killed Schwartz, and who's following me?” he asked in Spanish.

“Is or was?”

“Was. It took me an hour, but I managed to shake them.”

“Frankly, General, I don't know. It may be your own people; it may be the Colombians or even the CIA.”

Casas was taken aback. “The CIA? I thought you were the CIA.”

“I am, General, but I work for the drug-liaison division, the one that ensures that the FBI, the DEA, and the CIA coordinate their activities and that they don't get into each other's way.” Lonsdale tried to sound helpful and friendly.

“Are you telling me they sent a glorified narcotics agent to contact me?” Casas was furious. “I provide you with information you can use to bury Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolutionary Movement, and the CIA sends a … a lowly administrator to interview Cuba's most-decorated and popular soldier-general and a member of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee. You arrogant, insensitive bastards.” Casas was working himself into a fit. “Is this what I'm risking my life for? Are you the people who are going to help me expose Fidel?” He took a deep breath, fighting for control. He advanced menacingly toward Lonsdale, who stood his ground in silence. “Answer me,” he hissed through clenched teeth.