Havana Harvest (28 page)

“Cut the crap, Morton, and don't pull another cold fish act on me. You hate my guts, you mistrust my motives, and you are offended by my crude behavior. Well, I don't give a flyin' fuck, d'ya hear? You've got one week to produce your man.” He took another sip of his drink. “If he's not here next Sunday to report to me personally, I'll have Q Division deal with him.”

Morton could not believe his ears. “Q Division? Are you serious??”

Smythe struggled to his feet and stared at Morton unblinkingly. “Yes, Q Division. I want no loose cannon getting in our way, no bleedin' heart liberal to be pulling heroic stunts. I want Operation Adios to succeed.”

His mind churning, Morton tried to play for time. “Who came up with the code name Operation Adios and what is the connection?”

“I came up with it, Morton, and it is short for ‘Adios Motherfucker.’ ” Smythe fell back into his chair. “You've got till next Sunday. Otherwise you'll be drawing your pension, and your man will be history.”

“Not even you can do that.”

“Just watch me. Just watch me.” The old man grimaced deprecatingly. “Why, the way I see it, your boy ain't even a proper U.S. citizen.”

Morton looked at the man with disbelief. “You mean you'd blow his cover? After all these years?”

“The Cold War is over in case you haven't noticed, and your boy is getting on in years. Time for him to quit.” A sudden thought struck him. “Come to think of it, he doesn't really exist anyway, does he?”

The enormity of what he had done to Lonsdale suddenly dawned on Morton with such force that he almost became physically ill. “I should have known better,” he whispered, more to himself than to his tormentor.

“Known what, Morton?”

“To take your word, Sir.”

Monday

Vienna, Austria and Montreal, Canada

Air Canada has flights leaving Vienna for Toronto every Monday and Friday at forty-five minutes past noon. Lonsdale made sure to be at the airport by eleven to have time to make his final travel arrangements.

He held two reservations made via telephone: one in business class under the name of Schwartz, the other under the name of Jackson in hospitality class. He would decide at the last possible moment which of the two to activate, depending first, on how he read the security arrangements at Schwechat, and second, on passenger load. Having purchased in cash two one-way tickets from two different travel agents, he had no constraints.

In addition to the two tickets, he had three passports, including Schwartz's, which contained a picture of a gray-haired man. But he was sure the Jackson and Lonsdale passports were already on the Interpol “to watch for” list. Since Interpol meant CIA, Lonsdale would be tipping his hand to Washington by using either of them, something he didn't want to do too early.

It was clear that, despite the obvious danger, the Schwartz passport was the safest to use since he'd had no diffculty crossing the Austro-Hungarian border with it at Hegyeshalom the night before.

The old man's body would probably not be found before noon. It would then take about three hours for the Hungarian police to establish Schwartz's identity and passport number from his hotel registration card, to conduct a preliminary investigation, and to report the murder to the Canadian Embassy and Interpol.

Another three to six hours would pass before immigration officers the world over would be notifed that the Schwartz passport was no longer valid. That would mean relative safety until about six p.m. Vienna time, noon in Toronto.

He called Air Canada and was told his fight would be half empty. This helped him decide. Schwartz would leave Austria and arrive in Canada as Jackson, a common name that might just slip by undetected. With glasses and wearing the hat he had bought in Montreal covering his gray Schwartz hair, Lonsdale would have no trouble passport-picture-wise. As for the “watch-for” issue, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. He could always elude surveillance and disappear.

At eleven thirty sharp he presented himself at the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge and asked to be checked in. The attendant smiled as she took his ticket and asked for his passport. He fumbled around. “Sorry about this, but I seem to be more tired than usual,” he said in English.

“Too much wine last night in Grinzig?” she grinned, teasing him. Lonsdale laughed. “At my age even a little wine is too much.” He bent down, fumbled some more, opened and closed his sample case, let out an exaggerated groan as he straightened up and clutched at his waist. “Don't ever get old,” he said. “My arthritis is killing me.” He extracted the Schwartz passport from his breast pocket and opened it on the picture page. Instead of handing it over he waved it at her. “Will this do?” he blinked at her over Schwartz's bifocals.

She checked him in, gave him an aisle seat and, as a bonus, blocked off the seat next to him.

“You're sure I won't have trouble with my bags at security?” he asked her, pointing to his large sample case.

The attendant rose slightly and looked over her computer. “No, not at all. You should see the monsters some passengers get away with. But here,” she said sweetly and handed him a special tag, “put this on your bag and you'll sail through security with ease.”

He thanked her profusely and went to get himself a cup of tea.

Hurdle number one out of the way.

Hurdle number two was another matter. The Austrian border policeman he got was grouchy. His attitude was hostile. “Passport and boarding card please.”

Lonsdale obliged. The policeman began to sift through his documents.

“Schwartz. What kind of a name is that for a Canadian?”
A racist,
Lonsdale thought,
and I had to have the misfortune of getting involved with him.
“Jewish,” he replied.

The man smiled. “You Jewish?”

“Yes.”

“Good for you, so am I.” He stamped Schwartz's passport and waved Lonsdale on.

He had no trouble at the boarding gate. To his surprise, they were not checking passports there, and as for the X-ray machine, the only metal he was carrying was a collection of old coins.

He was safely in his seat ten minutes before take-off, but dared not breathe a sigh of relief until half past two: the time he estimated they exited Austrian air space.

He asked for a double vodka and Perrier, gulped it down, made his seat go as far back as it would, closed his eyes and set his mind on replay. The things Casas and he had discussed in Budapest were all jumbled up in his mind and needed sorting out.

Casas had told Lonsdale that he had flown from Prague to Budapest via Czechoslovak Airlines, just as Schwartz had said. He was traveling on a diplomatic passport, which made his luggage exempt from search of any kind. He always traveled with a maximum of two small bags, like Lonsdale's, and everyone assumed his briefcase, resembling Schwartz's sample case, was full of important papers, when actually, Casas was steadily smuggling rare coins and priceless ivory fgurines from Africa to Hungary. Schwartz then took over, exporting these items to Canada under a license from the Hungarian National Museum.

The general was scrupulous in his affairs. Cuban soldiers were allowed a bounty of twenty-five per cent of everything they “liberated” in Angola. Casas followed the rules carefully and had arranged for Schwartz to remit from BCCI Montreal to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior's account at the Banco Nacional de Cuba in Havana, three-quarters of what Schwartz paid for the coins and figurines.

The balance Schwartz kept for Casas in Montreal. Thus, technically, Casas was absolutely on side. The Cuban government got paid its due and the general, though his funds were being kept for him by Schwartz in U.S. dollars, was not in possession of foreign currency, a criminal act punishable in Cuba by deprivation of personal liberty, in other words, prison.

Lonsdale and Casas had tried to estimate how much money was involved. They calculated that, during his thirteen-odd trips to Hungary in the last year and a half, Casas had sold Schwartz about four million dollars' worth of coins and carved ivory fgurines of which a quarter was Casas'. All this he had sacrifced to spook Fernandez!

How much money old man Schwartz made on the deal they could only guess at.

The entire operation, except the arrangement with Schwartz, was known to the Cuban government and had its wholehearted support. It was brilliant in its simplicity because it depended on only two men.

As for the drug thing, that was a highly complex and entirely different matter. It required close coordination between the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, including Department Z, and the army, and the cooperation of more than two hundred people, of whom no more than twenty were in the know.

Casas had spent a good hour explaining to Lonsdale the rationale behind Cuba becoming mixed up in drug traffcking and the complicated logistics involved. He had then pulled a three-ring binder with a fuorescent orange cover from his briefcase. It was the complete operations manual of “Golden Gate,” the code name for Cuba's drug-running operation. “Only ten copies of this are
known
to exist,” he had said, sounding exhausted from the pain and the tension. “I'm giving you my copy, which I always carry with me in case I need to look up some detail. Guard it with your life.”

In return, Lonsdale had given his newfound friend the addresses of a series of dead-letter drops throughout the Republic of Cuba regularly serviced by the CIA. He also provided Casas with recognition codes and escape routes that he had developed specifcally for the general prior to his departure from the Bethesda office.

Lonsdale began to enumerate the escape routes in his mind, but didn't make it beyond number three. He fell asleep.

The stewardess's gentle touch on his shoulder startled him. “I didn't mean to disturb you, Sir, but would you care for some lunch?”

Lonsdale realized that he was famished. During the last thirty hours he had only eaten twice—a light breakfast at the Hotel Citadella and another at the Vienna Hilton, where he had spent the previous night.

“I'd love some lunch,” he answered eagerly.

“We have chicken or beef.”

“Beef it is. And some red wine, please.”

He wolfed down his meal, had a cognac with his coffee, and was fast asleep by the time the cabin was darkened for the movie.

He awoke to the sound of the cabin crew clattering the dishes used for serving afternoon tea. He felt refreshed, but agitated. He fgured his subconscious must have been reminding him of the problems he was going to have to face in very short order. He waved off the proffered tray of Viennese pastries and hunkered down to some serious decision making.

At Toronto he would have two choices: go on to Montreal and see Micheline, or rent a car and drive to Washington. There was also a third obvious choice, that of calling Morton and demanding to be brought up-to-date, which his inner voice vehemently opposed. Under the circumstances he felt that, discretion being the better part of valor, he would follow his instincts rather than logic.

Since he had no more than a couple of hundred dollars left—and, foremost, because he was desperate to see Micheline again—he opted for Montreal.

At most major airports of the world there are designated lines for returning citizens to facilitate their reentry into their own country. Not so in Canada where those “coming home” must line up with the rest of the travelers. Lonsdale assumed this was due to the essentially self-effacing nature of the country's citizens.

The immigration hall at Toronto's Pearson International Airport was a zoo. There were more than a thousand people milling about.

Sporting Schwartz's hat, he lined up behind a five-member African family, obviously about to take up residence in Canada. Their turn at seeing the immigration officer came about forty minutes after Lonsdale had gotten into line behind them. The harassed offcial applied himself to the paperwork, which took him ten minutes to complete.

Lonsdale was next. He handed the man his Jackson passport. The officer, relieved to be dealing with a simple case, hardly looked at it. “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he mumbled then looked at the customs declaration Lonsdale had meticulously completed. “Anything to declare?”

“Nothing.”

“How long will you be staying in Canada?”

“About an hour; long enough to rent a car and drive to Buffalo.”