Murder in Havana (2 page)

He crossed the border at three thousand, turned right, and set the autopilot to a 210-degree heading. Heated thermals from the ground caused the small plane to bounce around, as expected on a sunny day in late July. The weather forecast for this area of Mexico, and for Albuquerque, was fair, no need to rush to get back home once he’d set down. He settled back and had an urge for a cigarette. Although he’d kicked the habit ten years ago, the yearning still surfaced at predictable times—at theater intermissions, over the first cup of coffee in the morning, and when cruising on autopilot. His thoughts drifted to
Jessica, the love of his life, or at least his second life. Together, they had moved to New Mexico from moonstruck Washington, D.C., more than a year ago after giving up government jobs and heading west in search of sanity, which they found in Albuquerque. He spent most of his days teaching well-heeled men and women to fly. Jessica went to work as an administrator at a local hospital during the week, and spent most weekends indulging her life’s passion, bird watching, which held little interest for Max unless the bird was metal and powered by a Lycoming humming at 2,700 rpms.

Pauling began his descent into the airfield hacked out of a heavily forested area outside Hermosillo, set up for a straight-in approach, cleared trees at the east end of the strip by fifty feet, and touched down smoothly. The ruts in the ground weren’t shallow, however, and he cursed as he fought to keep the Cessna straight.

The camp at Hermosillo for training anti-Castro Cuban-Americans had been established within the past year with the cooperation of Mexican authorities after media scrutiny of Florida training facilities had become nettlesome. In the time-honored spirit of all things military, the camp’s leaders eschewed naming the new facility something simple like Camp Number Four, or The Mexican Camp, favoring a more mysterious and symbolic designation. It was known as Timba Candente—“Timba,” the frenetic new Cuban dance music, “Candente,” Spanish for red-hot. Red-hot Cuban music for red-hot anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in mottled green-and-brown uniforms, with AK-47s, mortars, grenades, and World War II flamethrowers.

A man, large in all ways—head, chest, shoulders, and arms—stood at the wing tip as Pauling scrambled down. He wore military-issue camouflage pants with ties at the
ankles and ankle-high combat boots. His enormous naked torso and bald head were sunburned to leather; sweat so uniformly covered him that it was as though someone had applied it with care. He was older than he looked; a bush of white chest hair gave that away.

“Look who’s here,” he said in a gravelly voice that matched his physique. “Federal Express.”

“Hello, Morry,” Pauling said, pulling out sunglasses he’d put in a pocket after landing.

Morry grabbed a wing tip of the Cessna and moved it up and down. “What’s the matter, Pauling, they don’t pay you enough to buy a real plane?”

“You ever hear of austerity budgets? I fly cheap. But good. What’s for lunch?”

Morry, whose last name was Popovich, barked at two young Cubans in fatigues a dozen feet away, “Unload the plane.
Pronto!
” To Pauling: “These Cubans are itching to go into Cuba and fight a war, but everything’s mañana. All they think about is their
novias
back home.”

“What’s a
novia
?”

“Hey, Pauling, if you’re going to help the dump-Castro movement, learn the language.
Novia
. Girlfriend. Sweetheart.”

They walked toward a low-slung building with a tin roof and unpainted plywood walls. Two through-the-wall air conditioners powered by generators hummed like large insects. Dozens of green military tents were lined up at the western edge of the camp. Adjacent was an obstacle course dominated by a wooden tower, the top of which disappeared into palm trees.

“You convert yet?” Pauling asked as they stopped in front of a small altar of sorts, off to the side of the entrance to the headquarters building. It was a
boveda
, spirit altar of the Cuban religion Santeria. Candles,
glasses of water, and small photos of deceased family members of recruits at the facility were neatly arranged on a white sheet.

Popovich snorted. “Hell, no.” He patted his holstered side arm. “This is all the religion I need.”

They turned as a dozen young Hispanic men in combat fatigues and carrying rifles jogged by, prodded by the shouting of a Caucasian instructor who kept step with them.

“You’re wasting your time, Morry,” Pauling said casually as the unit passed.

“What’a you mean?”

“Training this ragtag army to topple Castro. It’s going to happen without one shot fired.”

“Is that so? What the hell do you know?”

“Read the papers, Morry,” Pauling said as they entered the building. “We’re gradually softening up on Castro: the administration, Congress, public sentiment. Elián helped. McDonald’s and Motel 8 will do the invading.”

“Bull! The only way that scumbag dictator will leave is when we take him out in a box.”

Pauling smiled. “And not good for your career, huh, if the diplomats and pols win the war?”

“Bull! If it isn’t Castro, it’ll be some other tinhorn troublemaker. Chávez in Venezuela. Gadhafi. What are you doing, Pauling, going soft?”

“No, I’m not getting soft, Morry. Getting a little older, maybe, and wiser. What’s for lunch?”

A young Cuban in uniform tossed a snappy salute at Popovich and Pauling as they ducked through the door. The interior consisted of one large room with scarred dining tables and folding chairs. Two weary ceiling fans were hung low enough to decapitate tall people, slowly. At one end, more tables created a separation between the main room and a kitchen. On one wall was a large
blowup of a map of Cuba; multicolored pins clustered in various locations indicated, Pauling assumed, potential targets, although he’d never bothered to ask. He’d had his fill of pins in maps when he was with the CIA and had functioned in a similar capacity with the State Department. War games. Pins. He’d outgrown them.

They went to the kitchen area where three Hispanics stirred something in large vats and turned innominate meat on a grill. A crude, handwritten sign was strung across the wall:
“Este año con valentia, disciplina y honor Cuba sera libre del tirano Castro.”
It hadn’t been there the last time. “What’s it say?” Pauling asked.

“Cuba will be free from Castro’s tyranny this year. Discipline, honor, the usual bull.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” said Pauling.

“What’s for lunch? You want to know?” Popovich said, ignoring the comment. “Cuban
cuisine
. They call it
El Campo
. Country food or something. Beans. Black beans and red beans. Rice. And always
el plátano grande
—plantains. They fry ’em, steam ’em, squash ’em, boil ’em. No American food, Pauling, because your friends back in Langley think it would be bad for morale if officers eat different from the troops.”

“They’re right,” Pauling said with a smile. “And by the way, I don’t have friends back at Langley.”

“Oh, I forgot. You
retired
.” Popovich had a way of making a point by stressing certain words, stretching out their pronunciation, and smirking as he did so. “You keep in touch with Hoctor?”

“No.” Tom Hoctor had been Pauling’s “handler” for much of his career as an operative for the CIA.

“How’s retired life?” Popovich asked.

“Nice.”

“Except you’re playing messenger for your ex-employer. That doesn’t sound like retirement to me.”

“Just dabbling,” Pauling said. “I like to fly.”

They turned at the sound of the screen door slamming.

“Vic?” Pauling said to the tall, trim man who’d entered.

“Hello, Max,” Vic Gosling said, crossing the room and shaking Pauling’s hand. “I heard you were coming in today.” His accent indicated he was British, or American-pretentious.

“I thought you were out of the loop,” Pauling said. “I am, most of the time. Is Morry here playing the perfect host?”

“I been teaching him Spanish,” the burly Popovich said. “He’s a slow learner.” With that he left the building.

“Staying for lunch?” Gosling asked as he pulled out a chair and folded himself into it. He wore faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt not marred by any designer name, and white sneakers. He noted Pauling’s blue air force jumpsuit with the faded outline where wings had once been sewn. “You look like you’re still flying combat, Max,” he said.

Pauling shrugged. Although combat missions were a thing of his past, he liked dressing like a military jet jockey even though the planes he flew these days were more often piloted by doctors in Bermuda shorts or women in flowered dresses, bored with garden clubs. He joined Gosling at the table.

“I have to admit, Vic, I’m surprised to see you here. What’s it been since you left the agency, three years, four?”

“Three and a half this month.”

“Writing another book?”

Gosling laughed and shook his head. “I’m a one-book author, Max. One was enough. I took a lot of heat over it.”

Pauling didn’t display his skepticism.

Gosling’s book, published three years ago, was titled
Inside View: The CIA Exposed
. Gosling, British-born and -educated, had worked for MI-6 before marrying an American woman and moving to the States, where the CIA recruited him. He and Pauling had worked a few cases together, initially in Central America, later in Moscow.

When the book was published, Gosling allegedly resigned from the CIA under a cloud for having violated the agency’s own version of the Mafia’s
omertà
—code of silence. He went on radio and TV talk shows billed as the man who’d dared to let the sun shine into the intelligence organization, naming names, exposing some of its dirty tricks and tactics, and, in general, acting the traitor.

But Pauling came to the conclusion after reading Gosling’s book, and hearing and seeing him on radio and TV, that he was telling tales out of school but not out of line, stories that in the end made the agency look good. Nothing he said was truly damaging to the agency or its mission; it all sounded far more revealing than it actually was. Which meant, in Pauling’s experience, that the book and Gosling’s subsequent promotional media appearances were, in fact, a typical CIA operation. They had one of their own out in the public soaking up information from people who believed they were talking with a fellow critic of the agency, opening up, spilling secrets or rumors they would never have divulged to anyone else. Typical agency machinations. During his career, Pauling had worked with intelligence Joes from other countries and never trusted a single one, any more than he trusted buildings painted yellow (explain that, Dr. Freud). America’s intelligence community might screw up big-time, but at least its agents were—well, American. As for yellow buildings: his negative feelings about them were as irrational as his hatred of green cars and restaurants displaying
color photos of food in their windows. If those were his only phobias, he could live with them, and had done so quite comfortably.

“I’m surprised to see you back in the saddle again,” Gosling said after a lunch of pork, red beans, and steamed plantains that went down surprisingly well.

“I wouldn’t put it that way. The deal is good. The money is good. What about you? You’re—?”

“Doing what
you’re
doing,” Gosling said. “Yes, the money is bloody good. Just part-time. Like you.”

Drop the Brit stuff
, Pauling thought.
You’ve lived here long enough not to say “bloody” anymore
.

“I didn’t know you were the military instructor type,” Max said.

“I’m not. They needed a communications setup here.”

When Gosling was with the agency, if he’d ever left, he was known as an electronics expert, someone who could install taps under adverse conditions and troubleshoot phones—cellular or otherwise—telephone answering machines, radios, TV sets that were really radios of a different ilk, computers, and any other electrical device. Pauling remembered an incident in Moscow when a tap Gosling had installed became disabled. He fixed it with foil from a pack of cigarettes; that they were Russian cigarettes only added to Gosling’s pleasure.

“What are you doing when you’re not setting up communications systems?” Pauling asked.

“Working for Cell-One.”

“The private security outfit?”

“Yeah. Mr. Victor Gosling, private eye. You want to talk about good money? Their clients
throw
money at them. Fortune 500 types. Titans of industry and all that.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal.”

“That it is.” Gosling cleaned the remaining gravy on the plate with a swipe of his bread. “You know, Max,”
he said, “it just occurs to me that we have a project you might be interested in.”

Pauling responded with a raised eyebrow.

“Are you, ah—are you up for other assignments?”

“That depends.”

“It’s private sector. The client has deep pockets.”

“What does it involve?”

Gosling looked around. The room was empty except for the Cuban-American cooks. “Why don’t we get together another time and talk about it?”

“Fine.”

“Are you flying back to Albuquerque today?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like a passenger?”

“Sure. Where are you living these days?”

“California. San Jose. Splitting my time between there and London. Cell-One’s headquarters is there, in the old country. Offices in California and New York, too. I was supposed to be picked up tomorrow but I’m finished here. I can catch a commercial flight home out of Albuquerque.”

“Happy to have you,” Pauling said.

And don’t think I buy into the happenstance of meeting you here. A Mexican training base for Cuban-American freedom fighters is no place for coincidence
, Pauling thought.
Like the song says, you can take the man out of the spook business, but you can’t take the spook out of the man
.

That the comparison probably applied to him as well, he preferred not to contemplate.