Havana Harvest (48 page)

The food was barely adequate: four ounces of bread in the morning, for lunch some sort of pasta, at times with a sprinkling of meat, with the occasional slice of avocado thrown in to prevent scurvy; and three large soda biscuits for dinner.

Casas had always been wiry and fit with not a single ounce of superfluous fat on his bony frame. Because in prison he had continued his disciplined regimen of daily exercise, consisting of thirty minutes' running in place followed by calisthenics and then fifty push-ups, he had begun to lose weight and was starting to look emaciated. Nor were his appearance and mental condition helped by the lack of sleep and the endless and repetitive questioning to which he was subjected almost daily.

He felt alone in the world: in semidarkness when in his cell, isolated between interrogation sessions, and surrounded by guards who would not speak to him. He never saw his fellow inmates even when being taken for questioning. The guard accompanying him would whistle tunelessly and, on hearing the tuneless whistling of another guard-prisoner combination, would push Casas's face into the nearest corner, nose against the wall, while the other prisoner passed behind his back. Because Casas was right-handed, his guards always stood to the left of him, just in case. Nor did they wear side arms. If a prisoner wanted to make a run for it, they would let him. The cell-blocs were sealed by steel grills at each end and there was no way out.

It seemed to Casas that his cell was getting colder as the days went by. Then he realized that this was only an illusion. It only felt that way because he was losing weight, not sleeping, worrying, and afraid of dying—for nothing! Dying would prevent him from defending himself against the accusation that he was working to destroy La Revolucion and La Patria as a CIA agent. Time and again his interrogators asked when, how, and by whom he had been recruited. They said they knew De la Fuente was a CIA agent, and for years at that. They said the drug operation was a CIA plot to discredit Fidel. It seemed they were going to execute him for all the wrong reasons.

He had no idea what was being said about him by the common people in the street. The authorities had allowed him no contact with his family, and the lawyer appointed to defend him had been given permission to speak with him only once, two weeks after his arrest.

The guard rapped on his door. “Prisoner 2704. Step away from the door.”

He did, and to his surprise, the door swung open. The guard deposited an open paper box on the floor, just inside the cell.

“It is from your mother. Feliz Navidad.” The solid metal door clanged shut.

The box contained a small chocolate Christmas log, his favorite holiday dessert, thinly sliced to ensure it was not being used to smuggle something in to him. There was also a slip of paper, apparently from a letter his mother had written:
“Jesus es tu pastor”
it said.
“El te cuida siempre porque estas inscrito en la palma de su mano, para guiarte y salvar tu alma. Que, al fnal, es lo más importante. Adios. Tu Madre.
”

“Jesus is your pastor. He watches over you always, for you are inscribed in the palm of his hand, to guide you and to save your soul. Which, in the end, is the most important of all things. Goodbye. Your Mother.”

With trembling hands he helped himself to a slice of the wonderful pastry his mother had baked for him. Then he reread her note and had two more pieces of cake.

The jolt of sugar in his system gave him a surge of energy. He got off his bunk and began to pace about again, continuing to eat cake until there was no more left.

He lay down on his bunk, tucked his shoes under his head, pulled the quilt over himself, and stared at the ceiling while fighting the panic caused by the realization that everybody had given up on him—even his own mother!

Christmas Week
Havana and Varadero Beach, Cuba

The Tremblays had returned to Cuba. Jose Hernandez, the Cuban consul general in Montreal, who considered them valuable business contacts, somehow got them on board an Air Transat charter fight at the very last minute. They arrived at the Havana Riviera Hotel a few minutes before the Christmas Eve party for tourists was to begin and planned, so they told everybody who would listen, to stay in Havana for a few days with the friends they had made on their previous trip. Of course, they made frequent use of Juan Antonio Montané's taxi, who, in turn, dutifully reported his renewed contact with the Tremblays to his CDR president.

What he failed to report was that the Tremblays spent long hours with their “old” friends, the three Israeli tourists, walking around Havana and eating in restaurants in the La Caba#241;a—Havana del Este district.

On Wednesday, Juan drove the Tremblays to Varadero Beach and supervised their settling-in at the modest, clean boarding house Hernandez had found for them where they were received as if they were family. The boarding house, only a short block from the beach, was run by the consul's sister and her husband, Emilio Granda.

Meanwhile, Reuven Gal few from West Palm to Key West in a private plane and boarded a yacht that took him to a place called the Mule Key, an island in the Florida Keys within the boundaries of the Key West National Wildlife Refuge, an area placed off limits by the U.S. Government. Mule Key is supposedly uninhabited except for two Park Rangers.

In reality, the Agency, using a dozen cigarette boats with special markings to allow easy identification by satellite cameras and anti-drug trafficking surveillance aircraft, has an extensive people-smuggling operation on the island.

Gal loved living on the edge and looked forward to the adrenaline rush that his body would generate when he was in action. But he was also a careful and savvy field commander who knew that clandestine operations usually failed either because an important practical detail was overlooked at the planning stage or because too much reliance was placed on the ability of the participants to improvise—or both.

Determined to make sure this would not happen during Operation Nameless, he chose the final team with extraordinary care.

His squad leaders, the Mossadniks, were already in Cuba pretending to be tourists. That left two drivers and four “foot soldiers”— all Cubans—to be smuggled into Fidelandia via cigarette boat at the rate of two per voyage.

Gal opted to accompany the drivers on their insertion trip, which went off without a hitch. He then returned to Mule Key and repeated the trip twice more, staying in Cuba after the third voyage.

On Thursday, in the port of Matanzas, the purchasing clerk of the Havana Cab Company, accompanied by two drivers, took delivery of a panel truck and two cabs that had arrived a week earlier on board a Greek freighter. It was unusual that the paperwork for such a release should be completed in less than a month, but it was the holiday season and the customs and freight people needed the “bonuses” the cab company clerk was willing to pay for speeding things up.

The three vehicles were driven along the Autopista Nacional toward Havana and met, approximately halfway to the capital, by Juan and two Cubans. The men got into the panel truck and the clerk who had been driving the truck into Juan's taxi.

One of the men, using props he had brought with him in a small suitcase, then “transformed” into a woman in the truck because two men frequenting a “hot-pillow” place in Cuba would look suspicious. The couple then drove the truck to La Posada Monumental, a motel just off the Havana-Varadero highway. They were in luck; they found an empty unit on their frst try and, breathing a sigh of relief, drove the truck into this “love nest's” garage.

Meanwhile, the two cabs were driven to a restaurant nearby the motel where their drivers ate a late lunch, while Juan dropped the clerk off at the Caves of Bellamar, a popular tourist spot near Matan-zas about forty miles east of Havana. At the entrance to the caves, the clerk was accosted by a local who offered him a room at his modest boarding house. The clerk accepted to stay overnight. At three a.m. he was led to a spot on the beach and rowed to a cigarette boat that took him Mule Key.

La Monumental is a rent-by-the-hour roadhouse for amorous Cubans, a rectangular-shaped building constructed around an inner courtyard situated in the middle of a quarter-acre lot surrounded by a nine-foot wall. It contains units along the four walls of the quadrangle, each consisting of a garage, a small entrance hall, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The bedrooms have mirrors on the walls and ceilings. Discretion is assured.

The routine is to take one's lady friend to La Monumental after a night's dining and dancing, drive into one of the garages, pull down the overhead door and then help the lady into the bedroom. While she showers, her beau would order drinks by telephone then adjust the light and sound systems to his taste and get ready for his paramour. Their lovemaking over, the couple would call for the bill, pay in cash through a small trap door in the wall contiguous with the inner courtyard, and leave the way they had come—without being seen by anyone.

One could stay at La Monumental
para un rato
, which meant a maximum of two hours, or for
una media noche
, six hours.

The couple in the maintenance truck opted for two hours, ordered their drinks, went into the garage, deployed a thick tarpaulin under their vehicle, and got down to work quickly and in absolute silence. First they freed up the two metal plates that constituted the false bottom of the panel truck and folded them back to reveal the space beneath into which ten grenade-launcher-equipped Galil assault rifes, ten SWAT-type commando helmets, fully equipped for two-way hands-free communication and infrared goggles, ten respirators, ten flak jackets, four sets of “dragon's teeth,” and some ammunition had been secreted. After checking that the equipment was not damaged, they folded the metal plates down and replaced the bolts that held them in place. Next they covered the false bottom with the thick tarpaulin, carefully precut to ft. Total elapsed time: one hour, forty-nine minutes.

The occupants called for their bill, and left a few minutes past three in the afternoon. They found themselves a “dollar” restaurant and had an ample late lunch. Around six they drove to La Posada Canada Dry, a motel near the Canada Dry bottling plant in the Ayes-taran district, this time for six hours' sleep. By that time they were just about all in. They had spent most of the previous night hiding in an abandoned tobacco barn near Ovas in Pinar del Rio Province where their guide, who had smuggled them into Cuba on board a cigarette boat, had left them to wait for Juan.

From La Canada Dry they proceeded to yet another motel just past La Monumental, where they spent six hours cleaning, checking and loading weapons, and verifying that the communication features in the helmets worked. They also inspected the “dragon's teeth” assemblies designed to allow a vehicle to pass over them in one direction, but to cut the vehicle's tires to ribbons if it tried to cross the opposite way.

After breakfast on Friday they responded, as pre-arranged, to a call from Juan who was having mechanical trouble inside the British Embassy's Chancery compound. This required the maintenance truck to enter the compound.

While the mechanics were “repairing” the broken-down vehicle, Juan, helped by one of the embassy guards, transferred a television set, a few radios, and a case containing four Galil assault rifes and some ammunition to the truck. Once the taxi was “repaired,” it was driven downtown, with the truck following it.

Meanwhile, the drivers of the two specially equipped cabs were crisscrossing Havana and scouting the target areas.

The vehicles were then parked in predetermined spots and left unattended while their drivers had dinner. After finishing their meal they returned to their respective vehicles in which each found an additional passenger waiting for them, freshly in from Florida via cigarette boat.

The two sets of three men then went through the process of going from motel to motel to extract and store the weapons, ammunition, grenades, and other gear hidden in the false bottoms of the cabs. This process had to be conducted with care because, to look believable, each cab had to appear to be containing two women and one man.

New Year's Eve, Lonsdale had a team of ten fully equipped, highly mobile, and action-craving men in Havana: three Israelis, including Gal, six Cubans, and himself.