Murder in Havana (21 page)

Unlike central Havana, the wide boulevards of the Miramar district were relatively quiet. A few prostitutes wearing Spandex tights and low-cut blouses tried to sell their wares to drivers stopped at traffic lights; one succeeded and got into a vehicle as Pauling passed. The world’s shortest ride, with a few seconds of paradise promised.

He stood across the street from the office building and sized things up. The building was unlit. So were the buildings flanking it. He waited until there was no foot traffic, then crossed the street and ducked into the alcove
by the front door. He tried the door. Locked. He took out his knife, chose a blade, and was inside within seconds. He paused to see whether anyone had noticed him and was coming to check. It didn’t happen.

The stairwell was black, but he took the steps two at a time until reaching the third floor. To his surprise, the door to Strauss-Lochner was unlocked. Grünewald had probably forgotten to lock up in his haste to get to the hotel bar. Pauling took out the penlight, flashed it quickly about the room, and extinguished it. Draperies on the windows facing the street were drawn back. He pulled them shut before turning on the flashlight again.

The suite consisted of three rooms: the reception area, Grünewald’s office, and the small storage room where Blondie probably did his brooding, according to Grünewald. He looked for file cabinets. There was a four-drawer cabinet in the reception area, and two two-drawer ones in the office.

He went behind Grünewald’s desk and tried the drawers. All were unlocked. He rummaged through them. Not much there: personal items, medications, pens and pencils, a Strauss-Lochner employee handbook, a couple of wrinkled ties that should stay in a drawer, water glasses, and two bottles of Habana Club. No surprises.

He swiveled in the chair and trained the flashlight on the file cabinet, rolled to it, and opened the top drawer. Folders were neatly labeled, titled by projects. Nothing of interest there. He tried the bottom drawer. Locked. Because sensitive documents were housed there? Better to bury such materials with unimportant documents than to make the point of their value by putting them under lock and key. It was like putting a sign on the drawer:
LOOK HERE
. He’d been taught during his early CIA days that it was more secure to send such things by regular mail, the innocuous way diamond merchants often sent their
precious gems, than to plaster an envelope with stickers proclaiming the importance of its contents.

His knife blade opened the bottom drawer in a second. One file tab immediately jumped out at him:
BTK
.

He pulled the thin folder from the drawer and examined its contents. It contained only two pieces of paper, both memos, one from Grünewald to a Dr. Hans Miller, CEO at corporate headquarters in Heidelberg, and Miller’s reply. That’s the extent of what Pauling could understand. The memos were in German. He had no idea what they related.

He took the file to the reception area where a photocopying machine sat next to the receptionist’s desk. He fired it up, copied the two pages, folded them, and placed them in one of his vest’s hidden interior pockets, turned off the machine, returned the file to the drawer in Grünewald’s office, made sure things were left as they had been, closed the door, and went down the stairs to the street. He had to walk a few blocks before coming upon an available taxi.

At his hotel, he stayed outside on the street for a few minutes and looked around. No sign of the blond one, or anyone else. There was a marked PNR car parked in front of the hotel, and he could see a couple of officers in the lobby. Cubans bragged that their crime rate was among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere, but that didn’t mean there weren’t criminal types preying on oblivious tourists.

He stepped into the lobby. His thought at that moment was that he needed to find someone to translate the memos. Maybe Celia could help. She seemed to know lots of people. He hoped she could help; he wasn’t about to stop some tourist who looked like he belonged in an oompah band and ask a favor.

He was halfway across the lobby when he heard the
desk clerk shout something in Spanish. He stopped walking and turned. The clerk was pointing at him, and two PNR cops headed across the lobby in his direction. That wouldn’t have been quite so upsetting if they didn’t have their weapons drawn and pointed at his belly. They yelled commands in Spanish, punctuating them with thrusts of their weapons. Pauling raised his hands and tried to think of something conciliatory to say. He came up blank. One of the officers pulled a radio from his belt and spoke into it. That quickly brought more uniformed police, and a detective dressed in a suit and tie, into the hotel. To Pauling’s relief, the detective spoke English: “Do not move, señor. Do not do anything foolish.”

“Okay,” Pauling said, his hands still in the air, “but what’s this about? I think you’ve got the wrong person.”

The detective’s reply was to order one of the officers to put cuffs on Pauling.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Pauling protested. “I’m an American citizen. I’m here because I delivered medical supplies to your hospital and—”

His arms were jerked up high behind his back and the cuffs were affixed.

“You will come with us now,” the detective said.

“Why? For what?”

“To be questioned, señor.”

“Questioned about what?” Pauling asked as he was ushered past a dozen curious onlookers to the street. He figured it was for breaking and entering, or whatever the phrase for simple burglary was in Spanish.

“About murder, señor. Murder.”

Price McCullough’s meeting with Castro had lasted a half hour. Because the deal had already been worked out with high-ranking types from the Health Ministry, there was no discussion of specifics as to how BTK Industries would take control, in stages, of the crucial findings from myriad clinical trials of Cuba’s cancer research and the drugs it produced. It would ostensibly be accomplished through Strauss-Lochner Resources, which would distribute $60 million of BTK Industry’s money to selected members of Castro’s cabinet. In return, Strauss-Lochner would receive 20 percent of BTK’s profits from the marketing of the new drugs in the United States where BTK was big and Strauss-Lochner nonexistent.

Castro used the occasion of meeting with the former U.S. senator to pontificate on the superiority of the Cuban medical establishment and its scientists. McCullough listened patiently, feigning intense interest as Castro became more splenetic in a diatribe hailing all that his Communist regime had done for the people of Cuba and lambasting the corruptions of capitalist America. Of course, the hypocrisy of his adamant anticapitalist stance wasn’t lost on McCullough, who was about to hand over $60 million, most of which, he was certain, would go directly to a Castro account, unnamed but numbered, somewhere in Spain or Africa.

The meeting ended when Castro stood without as much as a good-bye and left the room, followed by his translator and his minister of health. McCullough continued to sit alone in the room, unsure what to do. Maybe Fidel had temporarily run out of words and had departed to get a fresh supply. Or maybe a man just had to wait. His dilemma was solved when the stooge in the straw hat and tan suit appeared and motioned for him to follow. He was taken to the Mercedes that had delivered him to the mansion, and driven back to Hotel Nacional. There, others in McCullough’s delegation took note of his ebullient spirit. One would think he was campaigning for elected office once again, given the way he slapped backs and flashed what had always been a winning smile.

Castro, too, was in good spirits as he entered his office in the Central Committee of the Communist Party building. His sudden, often inexplicable shifts in mood were familiar to those who worked closely with him. He’d been combative during the meeting with McCullough, and retained some of that seeming anger during the short ride back to Plaza de la Revolución. But once there, he was in a playful frame of mind, even joking with aides and a visitor, a high-ranking official from Algeria where many of Cuba’s famed “Flying Doctors” had been providing medical services since 1963. In fact, thousands of Cuban doctors were currently serving in twenty-two Third World countries. The Algerian was among many government leaders who’d come to Cuba to celebrate Castro’s birthday.

“I am asked,” Castro told his Algerian visitor, “what was lost and gained in the Revolution. I tell them that the Cuban people gained better education, health care, and sports. What was lost? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

He laughed at his own joke, and so did the Algerian.
Castro’s aides knew it was one of their leader’s favorite jokes. They also knew that only he was allowed to tell it.

Others were not as full of joy as the ex-senator and the Maximum Leader.

In the back room of the art gallery on Calle Obispo, where the anti-Castro forces in Cuba maintained their satellite telephone system, the gallery owner sat with three others, one of whom, a young man, had just arrived with a cassette tape. They huddled around a small table as the tape began to play in a battery-powered recorder.

Castro: “I made a pledge when the Revolution was successful that I would cure cancer. I keep my word. Our scientists are the best in the world. We are on the verge of eradicating cancer as we did with malaria and polio and diphtheria and measles. We have one doctor for every two hundred citizens, twice as many per capita as your country.”

McCullough: “Your system of health care is the envy of every nation in Latin America.”

Castro: “Of every nation in the world. Medical care is available to every citizen free of charge. My people are healthy and happy because they do not need to worry about paying for health, unlike the situation in your country where millions of the poor do not have care. We have managed this despite your embargo that is hateful and cruel.”

McCullough: (Unintelligible)

Castro: “I will tell you and the American hatemongers again—”

He continued to berate the United States without a word of protest from McCullough. Then:

Castro: “You will give credit to Cuba and our scientists for discovering these cancer cures.”

McCullough: “Of course, Mr. Prime Minister. That’s
part of the agreement, when we can market the results of your research in the U.S., buying it ostensibly from our German colleagues.”

Castro: “And your friend President Walden, he will be encouraged to change your Congress and the embargo against my people.”

McCullough: “I’ve agreed to that, too, Mr. Prime Minister. The embargo has been a mistake from the beginning. I believe I have enough influence on the president, as well as with certain members of Congress, to bring about a change.”

A series of quick thoughts had come and gone in McCullough’s mind as he had given these assurances to the dictator. One man couldn’t do it all. But it wouldn’t take any influence on Walden to get him to alter his posture on Cuba. It would add to his already sizable legacy if relations could be profitably established with Castro and Cuba during his administration. McCullough also thought of what Walden had confided to him at Camp David. As they sat in the secluded wooded area, late at night, he’d whispered, “Castro’s getting ready to pack it in, Price. Our intelligence tells us that he’s close to relinquishing power to his brother and getting out while the getting’s good.”

That Castro was now calling privately for an end to the embargo, not in the usual public display meant to show his tough stance against the yanqui Imperialists, but in real terms, was telling. Everyone knew that the embargo was the best thing that had happened to Castro. It gave him a scapegoat to blame for all that was wrong within his country. Improve relations? He
was
getting ready to leave.

The tape went silent until the sound of a chair moving, and a door being closed, were heard.

The gallery owner stopped the tape and looked to the young man who’d brought it.

“This meeting was today?” the gallery owner asked.

“Sí.”

“Who taped it?”

“I would not like to say. A friend. In the government.” He stroked his chin, then ran his index finger across his throat.

“Yes, of course.”

“So, the rumors must be true,” a shopkeeper said. “He will sell everything he can, take the money for himself, and flee.”

“What do we do with this information?” the one woman in the room asked.

“There are people who must be informed,” replied the gallery owner. “Now!”