North of Havana

17

Geis said, "You're not going to like what I'm going to tell you."

I knew it was about Dewey and I didn't want to hear it. I said, "Why should anything change now?"

I'd walked back to the abandoned special forces base; had been in the cafeteria for twenty minutes or so when Geis came in. I'd decided that he was right; he was my ticket out; that I had no hope of collecting Dewey and Tomlinson and getting back to the States without him.

I had paused on the way back long enough to confirm that No Mas was not among the boats moored in this part of the harbor. Had that been Tomlinson I saw sailing out under cover of darkness? Or maybe Adolfo Santoya with the boy? They could have heard the shots, assumed I'd been killed, and chosen an unlikely means of escape. Santoya had arranged to have the boat cleared. He would have known where it was.

Or No Mas could be on the other side of the harbor, gathering barnacles, anchored with other confiscated boats near Angosta Peninsula.

Geis was looking at me, then looked away. Something in the corner had caught his attention. He bent down and picked up a wad of newspapers. Held it between two fingers as if he were handling a soiled diaper. "Jesus Christ," he said, "you cut yourself shaving?"

"It's not my blood." Nor was it human blood. I'd used the newspapers to finish cleaning my hands after I'd left the happy little man and his children on the riverbank. When reduced to the context of survival, my view of nature is pragmatic, not romantic. Even so, I didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to think about it, certainly wasn't going to tell Geis. I said, "You were about to give me bad news."

"I decided to make an early-morning reconnaissance on the Santeria compound. You know, see if they had any guards posted-sometimes they use some of those Abakua, freaks, the ones I told you about. Don't want them drinking any blood from our skulls. Right? Just wanted to get a feel for the place before we made any moves."

I thought: Yeah, and shoot Adolfo and Rita if he got the chance.

Geis said, "But guess what? The place is deserted. Nobody home but this old woman who said she was a cook. Oh, that reminds me-" He reached into his field satchel and tossed me a soggy banana leaf that was tied like a bandanna. Inside was cold rice mixed with black beans and fried plantains. I began to eat even though I didn't feel like eating. Listened to Geis say, "The cook, she didn't want to talk. Had to use all my charm, but she finally told me that Taino and his people pulled out late last night. Looks like they didn't care if you and your buddy Adolfo showed up or not."

"Was Dewey with them?"

"Yep. A blonde that tall, these people don't forget."

He was right; not good news, though I had expected worse. But we had the names of a couple of towns-Candelaria and La Esperanza-and we could track them down. I started to ask a question, but Geis interrupted. "Wait. I'm not so sure that's all the bad news."

Said, "What do you mean?"

He reached into the satchel again and tossed something to me… something small and silken. I caught it and held it up as he said, "They seem a little fancy for a Cubana to own. You recognize them?"

A pair of bikini underwear, nearly new but both sides had been ripped away from the elastic band so that now it was a single piece of cloth. The underwear was jade green. Dewey had told me about buying it in Madrid.

I took a deep breath, then another, trying to stem the rage I was feeling… then wasn't so sure I wanted the rage to disappear. "Where did you find these?"

"One of the rooms. The cook told me the blond woman, as they were leaving, seemed pretty upset, but that the Mi-ami-Cuban-she meant Rita-was taking care of her. So at least they haven't killed her yet."

"Yet?"

Geis said, "They're hers?"

"Yes."

"Well… assuming what we're both thinking happened actually happened, I doubt if Taino's dumb enough to let an American girl go back to the States and tell the kind of story she might tell. Fidel wouldn't like it. It's better she just disappears."

I began to pace; had to move. "Why in the hell would they do… that to Dewey?"

"I liked the girl, but she had a pretty smart mouth on her. Taino-remember me telling you about these people?- Taino, one of his followers gets out of line, they might wake up with blood and chicken feathers on them or they might wake up with their legs on fire. It happens. I've seen the bodies. The priests don't tolerate disobedience from men, how you think Taino's going to react if a woman gives him a hard time?"

"That's no reason. With Tomlinson there?"

"Maybe he realized the Santoyas were feeding him a line of bullshit and gave up on Tomlinson. Or maybe the guy came through, finally pointed to a place on the map, so they figured they didn't need to keep him or anybody else happy anymore. They pulled out without you or Adolfo for a reason. They were in a hurry to get someplace."

I was making myself think it through; to be anything but clinical was to think about Dewey, what had happened to her, what was going to happen. Said, "Last night, when you were waiting for us on the hill, did you see their vehicles leave? No cars passed us, either direction."

Geis said, "I was sort of wondering about that myself." Meaning that he hadn't.

"Those two villages, Candelaria and La Esperanza, is one of them on the water?"

"Yeah, well, there're a couple of Esperanzas. But one of them, it's west, down the coast about eighty kilometers. It's on the water. Like a fishing village with some islands off it."

"Can you drive to those islands?"

"Shit, the roads in that section are so bad you can barely drive to Esperanza."

Which explained why Taino and company hadn't left by car; they'd gone by sea.

I threw open the door so hard that its window shattered. "We need to find a boat. Can you get us a boat?"

The expression on Geis's face illustrated a hard-edged amusement-you're giving orders? "A boat? Sure, I can get a boat-but not officially. Between you and me, Fidel didn't exactly sign off on this little project of mine. He doesn't want me screwing with one of his favorite Babalaos."

Something else he had refused to tell me about. But he would tell me. I would make him tell me everything.

I said, "Then I'll find a boat for us unofficially."

I found what I was looking for aboard a scarred-up Grand Banks, a forty-six-footer, that hadn't been in Mariel Harbor long enough to be thoroughly scavenged. On the stern, the port of registry read Grand Cayman, so the owners had probably made the same mistake Tomlinson had-strayed too close-or maybe got nailed by the Cubans for carrying drugs.

That would have been a double windfall for Cuban authorities. They had a boat to keep and sell, same with the drugs.

It had taken awhile to find what I wanted. I had stripped to my underwear and swum out to the little pod of confiscated boats while Geis sat in among trees, smoking a cigar. First, I climbed aboard a shrimp boat out of Brownsville, Texas. The thing had been completely stripped. Nothing usable, nothing of value left aboard. Checked the fuel tanks. Empty.

Tried a beat-up wooden sailboat next, about a thirty-two-footer. It still had its canvas, but everything else was gone. The sailboat could be useful, but I wasn't going to attempt to sail it along fifty miles of Cuban coastline. There wasn't time.

Before I slipped over the transom of the sailboat and headed for the Grand Banks, I took another look toward shore. Couldn't see Geis but knew he would still be there. It was the reasonable thing for him to do.

At first it had bothered me that he had agreed so quickly to my plan… but then I realized that I provided the perfect cover or an ideal alibi for him. He had said himself that Castro didn't believe there was a plot to assassinate him. But there had to be more to it than that. It had to have something to do with Taino, or maybe all Santeria priests. It was possible that Castro had forbidden Geis to take any kind of action whatsoever against a Babalao, but Geis, being Geis, was finding a way to circumvent those orders. Whatever happened next, from stealing a boat to murder, he could place the blame squarely on me. Could say he'd been on my trail the whole time but got to me just a little late.

That was fine. He could use me; I would be using him.

The galley and staterooms of the Grand Banks were a mess. The authorities had torn the vessel apart looking for something-yeah, it was probably drugs-but hadn't yet come back to finish stripping out the valuables. Which is the only reason that a sixteen-foot Avon inflatable, with a hard-shell deck, still hung from davits, ready to be swung off the stern and lowered. It had two six-gallon gas tanks in it, both nearly empty.

Trouble was, there was no motor on the boat. I assumed the Cubans had already taken it but searched the aft storage lockers anyway… and found a beat-up forty-horsepower Mercury outboard wrapped in plastic sheeting.

A spare motor. Anyone who owned a Grand Banks would have had something new and flashy on their runabout. But the old forty would do if I could get the thing started. Too much engine for a boat as light as the Avon, but I preferred to have it overpowered rather than underpowered.

I crab-walked the motor to the stern and screwed it tight to the little boat's transom. Checked the oil plug and cowling before attaching the fuel line and lowering the boat into the water. I pumped the fuel-line bulb hard, pulled the choke, then yanked the starter rope.

It took me five or six tries, but when the carburetor was getting a steady flow of gas, the engine caught and held, gurgling, missing, blowing blue smoke out its exhaust. It probably had some water in the gas from condensation.

I ran the boat to shore, where Geis stood waiting.

"I'll be damned," he said. Quite a surprise-I'd done what I'd said I was going to do.

"We're going to need fuel. There's not much more than a pint in either one of these tanks."

"Fuel, that's always a problem. But we've got something a little more pressing than that. There's a two-man coast guard outpost at the mouth of the harbor, the Guardia Frontera. We try to run past them without stopping, don't have some official papers to show them, we're going to have patrol boats after us."

I'd already considered that. What I thought might work is that I'd swim back to the sailboat, cut the anchor line and raise the sails. Lash the rudder so the boat would sail north toward the mouth of the harbor, then dive overboard. Sooner or later, the men at the coast guard station would notice her and come out to investigate. With their attention diverted, we might be able to slip past them and out to sea.

But Geis said, "Yeah, but where we gonna get fuel once we leave Mariel?" He was looking at a coil of rope on the deck of the Avon. "I think I've got a better idea."

"What's that?"

He used the automatic rifle to gesture. "Put your hands out in front of you, let me tie you up. I'll tell them you're my prisoner, that I'm in a hurry."

"They're not going to believe that. If I were under arrest, you'd take me to Havana by car, not boat."

Geis's smile told me how naive I was. I watched him turn his head to look toward the abandoned naval academy, as he said, "See that cliff? Sometimes they take prisoners up there, sometimes they take them for boat rides. Depends on how important the person is and if he's actually been arrested or not." He laid his weapon across a log and came toward the Avon. "Now-you want to hand me that rope?"

There were four men at the Guardia Frontera outpost, not two. They had been sitting around in cane-back chairs but now stood as they noticed us approach. Their office was a one-room block building that sat out over the water on cement pilings, everything painted military green. A small patrol cruiser, gray with big white numbers, was bumpered off a pier that jutted away from the platform; some kind of high-bowed cutter with a 50-caliber machine gun was mounted forward and another aft near the red, white, and blue lone-star flag of Cuba.

Geis was sitting in the back of the inflatable, steering. He nudged me and whispered, "There's the boat I'd like to take… only it would attract too much attention." He didn't seem to be joking, like he was actually thinking it over.

"That would be crazy."

Small snort of laughter. "If you'd stayed in the business longer, you wouldn't worry about little things like that." Now he brought the Avon around, starboard side against a floating dock where a couple of dinghies and a dugout canoe were tied. He was already calling orders to the four men, bluffing it out in loud Spanish: "I'm going to need some gasoline right away. And a bottle of water. A couple of bottles, if you have it… yes, and some cigars, too. I'll pay-for the cigars, I mean. Not for the gas. Come on! I'm in a hurry."

He was so convincing that, for a moment, I thought Geis knew the men, that he'd given them orders before. One of them was already hustling toward a big gas storage tank that stood higher than the block building.

But no…

The officer in charge-he had red lieutenant's bars sewn into his epaulets-wasn't intimidated; not much, anyway. The officious type, with his uniform neatly pressed and an attitude, wearing a. 45 in a webbed holster. He stood there with his hands on his hips; told his men to stop what they were doing-one was getting water for us now-before he asked Geis, "Who are you?"

"You don't need to know who I am." Geis was reaching into his back pocket; took out a laminated card. "All you need to know is this."

I saw the lieutenant's face blanch slightly as he read the card, then handed it back. I wondered what it said-probably something about the office of the president and please extend every courtesy to this man… A typical clandestine device. But the guy still wasn't going to allow himself to be bullied. "Then you must have your department telephone me and ask for these things. You will need a proper requisition. We can't just hand gasoline out without the proper forms."

A bureaucrat.

Geis,. the MP5 slung over his shoulder with the barrel down, looking pissed off and bearish, threw a line around a cleat and stepped onto the dock. "Mister, I'm not going to stand here and repeat myself. I don't have time. Get the gas, get the water-or I'm going to make a telephone call and have you arrested."

In Cuba, that word-arrested-has so much weight because it has so many meanings. I was watching the lieutenant's face and saw it jar him. "I'm not saying you can't have what you need, please understand." But then he regained his composure, adding, "As to the phone, it's for official use only. I can't allow unauthorized personnel to make or receive calls."

Geis's face was getting red. I wondered if that, too, was a device; part of his many acts. I watched him advance toward the lieutenant, as he said, "What I understand is that I have a prisoner and I'm in a hurry and you are interfering with my orders which come from the Maximum Leader himself."

Maximum Leader-Castro's title of preference.

But the officer wasn't going to budge. His men were listening, judging him, judging his behavior. He said, "But I, too, have my orders. You come to me, you're carrying an illegal weapon. You're in a boat that I recognize; you've stolen it. You don't offer your name or the nature of your business. You could be anyone. And you have no forms! But here's what I will do. I will telephone my superior officer and he will say if you may have the things you need."

Geis watched the officer disappear into the office before turning to me and saying in English, "If his boss has half a brain, we'll get the gas. These people are scared of their own shadows. Mention arrested? They fall apart."

I said, "I don't like it. Let's get out of here." I didn't, either. Didn't like the contest of egos Geis had gotten into with the officer; didn't like the way the three guardsmen were standing in a tight klatch, eyeing us. Two of them with side arms, their hands resting on the grips.

Geis was shaking his head. "Hey-it was your idea to take a boat. You going to give up so easily?"

"We can find fuel someplace else. Or find another boat. You don't have access to a boat?"

"Three of them. Two back in Havana, another at Cojimar. But that would add thirty, forty miles to the trip. You want to take the time?" Geis seemed to be enjoying my uneasiness. Acting as if he could play it one way or another; didn't matter to him. I didn't like that either. All I wanted to do was get down the coast and try to find Dewey, but

Geis was treating it as sport. He loved this sort of thing. It was his life. Everything else was just role-playing. These sorts of situations were probably the only time he felt… real.

I said, "When we pull out of here, you and I need to have a talk."

"Sure. Anything you say." Still enjoying it, but something predatory in his tone now. "Before I untie your hands or after?" Then he looked away when he heard the lieutenant call, "Excuse me, sir."

The lieutenant was standing in the doorway of the office, still holding the telephone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece as he said, "My captain says that we can give you fifteen liters of gasoline, but only if you promise to have your department send us a letter of requisition."

"As soon as I get back to Havana," Geis said. He gave me a private wink as he added, "You have my word on that."

"But there may be a problem. The man with you-is he an American? My captain says that the police have been directed to find and detain a large American man who fits the description of your prisoner. It came in the bulletins this morning. Apparently he damaged his room at the Havana Libre and left without paying his bill."

Geis had crossed the floating dock and was now going up the steps toward the office. "Is your captain a complete idiot? Tell him not to worry about it. This man was with me last night, he didn't damage anything."

The lieutenant said something into the phone, then put his hand over the mouthpiece again. Thought about it a moment, his expression changing, before he said,"My captain asks how do you know the damage occurred last night?"

Geis was still walking toward him. The three guardsmen were moving, too; spreading out a little, sensing trouble. They kept moving as Geis said, "The man's already my prisoner. What the hell difference does it make when he damaged anything? Just get my goddamn gasoline so I can get out of here!" I noticed that Geis had changed his grip on the automatic rifle; had his hand on the trigger guard, the weapon still upside down and slung over his shoulder, but the barrel slightly higher now. A very subtle change. I thought: Jesus.

I watched the lieutenant say something into the phone, disappearing into the office as he did. Then he reappeared a few seconds later, his right hand pulling the. 45 from its holster, crouching, his dark eyes very bright… and Geis shot him with a three-round burst without seeming to move the rifle, the lieutenant's chest fluttering with black star-bursts that launched him backwards into the room. I was still looking at the empty doorway as Geis continued to fire-down on one knee now-pivoting toward the three guardsmen whose bodies appeared momentarily electrified, one by one, as the rifle's ambit swept across them, arms and legs flailing as if attempting flight, each man frozen for a microsecond in a wasted posture of defense, small clouds of red mist lingering in the air as they were thrown across the platform… then one of the men attempted to crawl toward the water until Geis shot him with another burst. The other two men lay contorted, still; appeared as if they were liquefying in the heat, melting into the crimson cement.

"Shit-forgot about one little detail." Geis was standing now, talking to himself. I watched him sprint into the office, worried about something… then came out much more relaxed, unwrapping a fresh cigar. Tilted it into his mouth. Looked pleased. "It's okay. No cause for alarm. He'd already hung up the phone." He lit the cigar, then calmly took a fresh magazine from his satchel and punched it into the automatic rifle.

I thought: For a hotel bill?

At some time during the shooting, or maybe in the silence that followed, I had stepped from the boat to the dock. Had also ripped my wrists free of the rope. Couldn't remember doing it. Looked at Geis standing among the bodies. He was smoking, looking at the sky, looking at the water; his little vacation time. "You're insane. You really are, Geis. You're nuts."

He puffed on the cigar, gave me a private look. "Yeah, well, that's what they said about Charles Manson."

A joke?

He gave me a smile-of course it was a joke.

I knelt by one of the guardsmen and touched my fingers to his jugular. Dead. Heard Geis say, "Take their money, their weapons, anything else valuable you can find," as I moved to the next man, then the third. Felt a frail pulse… then nothing. I was almost glad. Tell Geis that one was still alive, and he'd walk over and finish the job.

I said, "I think you've already robbed them of enough," as I stepped into the office. The lieutenant was dead, too. All dead.

"Fine. I'll do it; damn right I will. Can you believe that asshole? Said I couldn't even use the phone. All over Cuba-hell, it was the same in Canada-you wait in some government line and the person you're waiting to see always ends up being the same sort of jerk. The lieutenant, but with a different face." Listened to him say, "Every fucking country I've been in, that's the kind of asshole who screws up the works. Government paper-shufflers. Things would go a lot smoother, be a lot more profitable, if they just left it to people like you and me. People who can get things done."

I was standing, looking up the dirt road that wound into the rain forest. There was a donkey tied in the shade of a mango tree, a couple of bicycles, and a rusted Lada painted military green. No one else around. The harbor was quiet, no activity, but a couple of boats out on the Gulf Stream. A sportfisherman trolling-had to be out of Marina Hemingway-and an oil tanker several miles out.

I said, "How are you going to explain this?"

Geis was collecting the side arms and ammunition in a pile. Money and cigars, he put in his pocket. Turned to me and said, "You know how much they had between them? Three dollars U.S., plus some bullshit Cuban pesos that no one. even bothers using anymore."

"These men are going to be relieved in a few hours. Tomorrow morning at the latest. How are you going to lie your way out of this one?"

He had gone from man to man, very quick and meticulous; also collected his wasted shell casings. "What do you mean lie? That's the great thing about my job. It's the only honest work around. If I've got a reason to do something, I do it. What? I'm supposed to stand there and let that idiot arrest you? I told him I was under direct orders of the Maximum Leader and he still gave me a hard time."

"You explain it to Castro and he makes everything okay."

"That's about the size of it. He's done it more than once. I'm involved with national security. That covers a lot of ground."

"Then get him on the phone. Tell him. Tell him we don't want every boat and plane in the country hunting for us, because that's what's going to happen if we don't take care of it right now."

Geis had the pistol belts over his arm, was carrying them down to the Zodiac. "I'd like to do that, Ford. I really would. But the thing is, the old man and I, we sort of had a falling-out about this Santena business. And I just don't want him to know I'm on the job."

Yeah, I was his cover; brought along to take the blame. No doubt about it now.

He said, "But that'll change come tonight or tomorrow when he sees that I was right and he was wrong. After that, everything will be official again. The old man's number-one guy. Until then, it's just you and me. We're on our own."

Because there was nothing else I could do, I went and found a couple of jerry cans and filled them with gas. When I got back to the dock, Geis was standing at the front wall of the building. In blood, he'd written one large number, one large letter: 8A.

Said to me, "There? That make you feel any better? Let them think the revolutionaries did it."

I started down the steps toward the Avon. Noticed that

Geis was staring at the patrol boat. Told him, "If you take that, you're going without me."

"It'd be a lot faster. A lot more comfortable, too."

Was he serious? No… Letting his playful side show; a man happy in his work. He said, "But I guess I should trust your superior aquatic skills. Hey-want to blow it up just for old times' sake?"

I was in the skiff, transferring fuel. If I pulled away and left him, would he shoot? Of course he would shoot.

He said, "I suppose you want to drive, too."

"That's right. I'm driving." I capped a jerry can and started the outboard. As Geis stepped aboard, he held something out to me-the. 45, an American-made Browning. The lieutenant, with his ego, had probably enjoyed flashing it around.

I hesitated-what the hell was Geis trying to prove?- then took the weapon. As I pulled away from the dock, I twisted the tiller throttle into neutral for a moment, listening. Up at the office, was the telephone ringing?

Geis seemed to hear something, too. He said, "If we're going to go, let's go."