The Prisoner of Guantanamo (16 page)

“What's the little house on the bluff, just past it?” Bo asked.

“Used to be an officer's place, long time ago. Now it's Camp Iguana, which is why there's a fence.”

“Where they keep the kid prisoners?”

“Three of them. Ages twelve to fourteen when they got here. But that was a year ago.”

They, too, had come from the battlefield of Afghanistan, and their continuing presence had created an international stir. The authorities kept saying they'd be sent home soon, but for now they remained. Falk had heard that for entertainment they sometimes coaxed iguanas through the fence, onto the small lawn where they tossed around an American football and stared at the sea.

“Maybe they saw something,” Bokamper said. “The night Ludwig went out.”

Falk shook his head. “Doubtful. They keep 'em indoors after hours. Besides, you'd probably have to move heaven and earth to see 'em.” All the same, it was worth checking.

He scanned the beach. A few towels were spread on the sand. A striped umbrella sprouted like a blossom. Only one swimmer was out, head bobbing in the gentle waves. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see from this vantage point, but it wasn't this tameness. The wind the other night had been stronger, but nothing out of the ordinary.

They continued past the big bluff beneath Camp Iguana until the sprawl of Camp America came into view. Beyond it sprouted the plywood guard towers of Camp Delta and the long cellblock rooftops, gleaming in the sunlight.

Falk tacked toward open water until they were far enough at sea to spot the opening to the little bay at Punta Barlovento on the Cuban side.

“Where's the fenceline?” Bo asked. “Oh, wait. I see it. And a watchtower.” The tower was about a half mile beyond the line, and closer to the shore than Falk would have guessed.

“One of their morning foot patrols found the body,” Falk said. “That must have been a shock.”

“No wonder they're so pissed. A whole division of Marines probably could have come ashore.”

There was little purpose in going farther. They were probably approaching acceptable limits as it was, so Falk turned the wheel through the wind and headed for home, sails flapping as they came about. Once they were running with the wind and the current it was as if someone had shut off a noise machine. The boat moved with ease, traveling faster down the coast but with none of the buffeting.

“So what did all this tell you?” Bokamper asked, no longer having to shout.

“That I'm hungry.”

“Nothing else?”

Falk shook his head. “Bad idea, I guess. But a nice day for a sail.”

“Anything that gets you off the Rock for a while can't be all bad.”

They reached the mouth of the bay in practically no time, and not long after that they were within sight of the marina. It had been nearly four hours since they departed, and the sun was drifting lower.

“Will we make it to dinner?” Bo asked.

“You will. I've got a date with the general.”

“You're moving up in the world.”

“He wants to know what you guys are up to. What should I tell him?”

“Hell, he probably knows more than I do. But at least you'll get decent chow.”

“You should eat at the Jerk House instead.”

“Sounds like another name for the officers club.”

“You're not the first to make that observation. It's a Jamaican barbecue joint, near the Tiki Bar.”

“Sounds perfect. But one last question before we dock back in OPSEC Land.”

“Go ahead.”

“Now don't get offended, but I've been meaning to ask since I got here, and this might be my last chance for a while.” He paused, as if to soften the blow. “You haven't heard from the Cubans lately, have you?”

Well, now. Talk about unexpected.

A fresh gust out of the east fluttered the edge of the jib, and the wheel hummed in Falk's hands. He found himself relieved, in a way. It was good to get the issue out in the open, although he wondered uneasily whether Bo's question had been a lucky guess or informed supposition.

“Funny you should ask,” he said, his mouth going dry.

He didn't want to be sailing anymore. He would rather be off the water, with a beverage stronger than beer at hand, plus another few hours to kill. This was the stuff of barroom confessionals, of quiet nights when you put everything on the table and hoped for the best. A sunny day on the water wasn't engineered for such a weighty topic. The subject of Cuba loomed so large in their past that it might capsize the entire day.

Then again, maybe they really had come to the right place, because he needed only to glance toward the green hills beyond the marina to see where it had all begun.

“You better tell me all about it,” Bo said. “And we better both hope Fowler and Cartwright haven't already heard it from someone else.”

“Let's come about, then. We're closing on the dock, and you know how sound travels over water.”

“Think OPSEC,” Bo muttered again. Only this time he meant it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
T BEGAN DURING
Falk's Marine days, when he was sent on the Gitmo equivalent of a snipe hunt.

He had been on base for all of three weeks when he made the mistake of asking his barracks sergeant how one might apply for permission to visit Havana—the real Cuba, as he thought of it, the one with mambo orchestras and women who danced with fruit on their heads. His sergeant, having encountered this callow brand of nonsense before, knew exactly what to do.

“Oh, it's easy,” he said. “Tell you what, Private Falk. I'll even let you out of this morning's three-miler if you want to get the ball rolling now. How 'bout it?”

Falk nodded, hardly believing his luck. Hook, line, and sinker.

The sergeant turned, scribbled something at his desk, then sealed it in an envelope.

“Take this note out to MOP 31 at the North East Gate. Jenkins will drive you. That's where they arrange it. Who knows, maybe you'll be spending the weekend in Havana.”

On the ride to the observation post even the usual clouds of vultures had looked like harbingers of good news, and the sentries at the North East Gate seemed eager to help, smiling as they tore open the note. Then they loaded a rucksack with fifty pounds of stones and showed him the message:

“Here's another one who thinks he can visit Fidel. Award the customary door prize and return him by the usual means.”

“Can't go there, son,” a sympathetic Georgian drawled as he heaved the pack onto Falk's shoulders. “Not 'til Castro's dead, anyway. Try Little Havana in Miami next time you're in the States. It's the next best thing, and you'll be bored in an hour. Which leaves plenty of time for the beach and the women. Have a nice hike.”

Falk slogged the five miles back to the barracks in the heat of the day, suffering more from the simmer of embarrassment than the sunlight. It took him another week to work up the nerve to ask if there really was a Little Havana. With no family to visit he decided to follow the Georgian's advice.

He got his chance a year later, by hopping a Navy flight to Jacksonville and catching a Greyhound to Miami. He found a cheap motel near downtown, just south of the Miami River. Then he set off on foot, passing beneath the long shadows of the trestled I-95 before reaching the main drag of Eighth Street, or Calle Ocho, which took him into the heart of Little Havana.

At first he was wholly unimpressed. There was heavy traffic and lots of sprawl—low-slung homes, cluttered stores, and signs in Spanish—pretty much like the rest of Miami he'd seen to that point. But he had come this far, so he kept walking, and in an hour or so he began to warm to the small touches that set it apart—tiny cafés with service windows open to the sidewalk, offering thimblefuls of
café cubano
or fried
croquetas
displayed in glass cases; the bodegas and
joyerías,
and the storefront cigar factories that smelled of cured tobacco; produce vendors with yucca, mango, and plantain.

The heartbeat of this commerce was salsa, blaring from what seemed like half the doorways. As he walked west, one song seamlessly gave way to the next, as if bands were marching past him in the street.

But the hypnotic background noise that drew him deeper was the sound of Spanish. Only by mastering it would he ever feel at home here, and suddenly that seemed like a smart thing to do. He still dated his passion for foreign languages to that moment, when he realized that such skills were even more important than passports or plane tickets.

He lingered a while at Máximo Gómez Park, where the click and clatter of dominoes punctuated the conversations of elderly men hunched over the tables as they plucked tiles from small wooden racks. No one seemed to mind the Marine with the buzz cut gaping over their shoulders. He might as well have been invisible. The language barrier again. Or maybe they were just accustomed to any Anglo viewing them as curiosities.

Falk was puzzled by the shaded boulevard of stone memorials on Thirteenth Avenue. The first and tallest was a marble column dedicated to “Los Mártires de la Brigada de Asalto” from April 1961. The Bay of Pigs? Had to be. It was topped by a forlorn “eternal flame,” barely noticed by the kids roaring past on bicycles. Far more impressive than any man-made object was a huge spreading ceiba tree with shoulder-high roots.

He also wasn't sure what to make of the Paseo de las Estrellas, a puny, latinized version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Was Celia Cruz Cuban? He didn't think so. And he was downright jarred by the sudden presence of a McDonald's in a big parking lot with a life-size statue of Ronald McDonald. Or did one call him “Ronaldo” here?

Falk wandered the aisles of a supermarket called the President, shopped aimlessly for music, then ate a Cuban sandwich just to see what it was made of. After a bus ride to the beach and an afternoon swim, he returned that night to try out a dance club he had spotted. That was when the place won him over.

He couldn't salsa, of course, any more than he could understand a word of what anyone said. But a few beers and an excess of earnestness boosted him across both humps, and before long he felt he had arrived on some far frontier.

Later he would try to determine what must have made him such an easy target that night. Perhaps it was his military haircut. Maybe it was something he said. Whatever the case, after the first hour a friendly fellow sauntered over with a beautiful woman on his arm and addressed Falk in perfect English. Hungry for conversation, Falk opened up in a hurry, and he found the man to be immediately likable.

His name was Paco, a jovial sort with a little potbelly and a pack of Kents poking from the pocket of his guayabera. He had come to Miami in '81, he said with a groan.
Mariel, what a mess.
That bastard Fidel emptying the jails, which made it hard on everyone, all of them tarred by the same brush until things finally got sorted out. Now he had it made, of course. He loved America, even if he still got homesick sometimes.

“You think you've got it bad,” Falk said. “I
live
down there but can't even see the place. I'm stationed at Gitmo.” Then the rest of his tale spilled out—the Marine who could only peek through a chain-link fence, denied the passage that might satisfy his curiosity. Oh, well. Maybe someday.

“Oh, no,” Paco said, eyes alight. “You are one of the lucky ones. If I ever tried to visit, they would keep me. Fidel would throw me in jail! But you? You can actually
go
!”

“No, I can't. I checked, believe me.”

“Oh, not as a soldier, of course. But as a tourist! It can be done very easily.”

“Legally?”

Paco held out a hand, waving it back and forth.

“Más o menos.” More or less. “Some friends of mine run a travel agency. They arrange it all the time. Lots of Americans do it. They don't even stamp your passport.”

Thanks, but no thanks, Falk said. It sounded like a quick way to land in the brig, and Paco had the good sense not to insist. But the next day on the beach Falk began to reconsider. When you're eighteen, “more or less” sounds like pretty good odds. So he returned that night to the same club, and there was jolly old Paco, only this time with a different woman.

“Sí,” he said. “I will be happy to help you. Let me call my friends and arrange it, because their English isn't so good.”

They set up the trip for December, two months down the road. Falk worried a little about the expense, but Paco took care of that as well, securing cut rates for the flight and the hotel, bargain prices that Falk hardly believed were possible.

“It's because they want dollars,” Paco explained. “Fidel, he is so hungry for them, especially now that the Russians are leaving.”

In his first few days back at Gitmo, Falk considered backing out. But the more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. There was nothing like the hint of the forbidden to turn a mere vacation into an adventure. It would be his own way of settling the score with his smug sergeant. Besides, he had already put down two hundred bucks in cash, and he couldn't afford to go anywhere else.

His misgivings returned not long after his flight from Miami touched down in Mexico City. As promised, someone from the travel agency met him at the terminal, although the man seemed to be in a great hurry.

“Your passport, please.”

Falk handed it over. The fellow took it, then handed him an envelope. Inside was his ticket to Havana along with another passport—British, not American, yet with Falk's picture. Now where had they gotten that? Then he remembered Paco's request for photos, which he had said were for vaccination records.

“What's this?” he asked in bewilderment. The name on both the passport and the air ticket was Ned Morris, with an address in Manchester. “I thought they didn't stamp 'em, so just give me mine back.”

“Later. When you return,” the emissary said, melting into the crowd before Falk could protest further. Falk realized he didn't even know the man's name. But just as he was about to panic, a second man arrived at his shoulder and, placing a reassuring hand at his back, said, “This way. You must hurry. Your flight, it is soon leaving. Your passport will be returned on the way home. It works this way for everyone. Your bag, please.”

Falk didn't want to hand it over, but by now they were at the security gate at the mouth of the concourse, and the man was gesturing for him to place it onto the conveyor belt.

Almost before he knew it, the plane was taking off. Falk scanned the ticket again and saw that the price was about three times what he'd actually paid. A special deal, Paco had said. En route he began expecting the worst. He was certain there would be a welcoming party from the Cuban Army—Falk led away in handcuffs while the flashbulbs popped for the Commie newspapers. Castro's prize Marine, bagged like a chump.

But there was nothing of the sort, and by the time the taxi reached the hotel he had begun to relax. Sure, it was a shady arrangement, doubtless involving kickbacks and bribes. There would probably be extra charges from the hotel now that they had a captive audience. So what? He had already seen other Americans here, along with about half of Europe. None of them were talking about Castro, and none seemed the least bit troubled.

As he strolled around town he occasionally got a creepy feeling that someone was following, but otherwise he had a fine time despite the terrible food, which reminded him of Marine chow. Instead of local fare, all the hotels and restaurants offered a bland version of Anglo cuisine.

He quickly got used to being called Mr. Morris. It seemed to fit with the methods he had used for shedding his family. Just put a few words on an official document and they magically came true. What better way to hide yourself? He decided he could be quite comfortable being Ned Morris for a while.

Then he met Elena. He smiled at her at breakfast from a few tables away, and that seemed to be the end of it, because the next time he looked up she was gone. He was disappointed at first, thinking he had been onto something. But that night at the Amigo Club he saw her walk by while he was speaking pidgin French to a reasonably attractive woman who had been speaking pidgin English. There was that smile again as she headed for the bar. A few moments later she passed in the other direction.

“'Scusé moi,” he offered clumsily to the Frenchwoman, then muttered something about “visiting the loo,” figuring that from time to time he ought to sound British.

He found her at a corner table with two friends. No dates in sight. Her English was basic, but seemed to get better the more she practiced. He bought her a drink. They danced. Her face tilted toward his, full of promise, her perfume like something that a blossom offered to the night air after a full day in sunshine. She moved against him on the dance floor, a perfect fit. When they returned to the table her friends were gone.

Later, in his room, the possibility that a camera might be behind the mirror never occurred to Falk, nor did it for any of the next five nights, all of which they spent together. He would not learn of that little trick until the photos arrived a month later, by which time she had already convinced him of her sincerity with letters sent via relatives in Puerto Rico. She said that she worried that anything mailed directly from Cuba might get him into trouble.

She did not write to Ned Morris, of course. Because by the third night Falk had been smitten enough to confess all and to tell her his real name.

Elena, too, eventually confessed her duplicity, although not until months later, in a letter stained with her tears. So she said. But by that time the damage was done. The photos had arrived, wrapped inside a typewritten letter posted from New Jersey—sent by pals of Paco's, Falk presumed. It included blunt instructions that Falk should visit Gitmo's machine shop next time he was in the neighborhood—after destroying this letter, of course. Failure to comply would result in copies of the photos being sent to Falk's commanding officer, along with a photostat of Ned Morris's passport.

That was when he met “Harry,” the commuting handyman extraordinaire, a Cuban who came to work each day from his home in Guantánamo City. Harry set up a schedule for once-a-month verbal reports. The Cubans never asked Falk for much, and he often wondered why they bothered. Everything he told them they doubtless already knew. Perhaps someone in Havana simply liked being able to say he had an insider at Gitmo. He forwarded small items about ship arrivals, base scuttlebutt about transfers and troop strength, all of which they could see for themselves from their watchtowers. Just as well. This way he needn't feel guilty. Well, not too much. At least not for a while. Because by the third month his conscience got the better of him, and he decided to come clean.

The last person he would have told was his sergeant. No sense in rewarding the very man whose practical joke had helped push Falk over the line. Instead he shelled out for a long-distance call to Ted Bokamper, who by then was an up-and-coming young star at the Department of State, already working for one of the better-connected undersecretaries.