North of Havana

14

Once behind the wheel, I switched off the lights and punched through the gears, trying to get the Nissan up to speed.

Checked the rearview mirror-yeah, the car was still coming behind us. Not too fast, though.

The road was straight here, visibility pretty good: the macadam was bleached gray by tropic sun, so it stood out nicely between elevated trees on our left and, on our right, rock and vegetation that sloped toward the harbor.

"Why are you doing this?" Valdes was flustered; couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

"There's a truck ahead."

"So? This is a public road. Cars, trucks… I've even seen tractors on this road. That's why you're driving so fast?" As if I'd suddenly gone berserk.

I had the cheap little rental up to eighty and Valdes didn't like it. Truth is, I didn't like it either. I am, by habit, a slow and cautious driver. I'm the guy you see from the passing lane, hands relaxed on the wheel, matching the traffic flow, taking in the scenery; the one who slows for every intersection, every blind hill or curve. I never had an interest in that adolescent tangent which lures grown boys into hotrod behavior… which is probably why I never felt comfortable at the driving school they put us through long, long ago, Tactical Escape and Evasion: an experience that still gives me the shakes when I think of it. Seven very intense days at a sequestered road track at Summit Point, West Virginia, only a couple of hours from Langley. I learned to take curves at outrageous speeds. Learned how to escape, how to flee, how to use a vehicle as a weapon. Learned what it was like to be pursued at high speed by experts- real experts-who actually enjoyed banging bumpers while doing one-ten, one-twenty, heading into a hairpin turn at night, the blanks in their handguns blazing.

In a class of twelve, I'd finished seventh overall and left that miserable school feeling wobbly, out of my league, but happy as hell just to be alive.

The truck was up ahead, close enough now to see… I waited until I was only a couple of hundred yards away, then I switched on my lights and saw it clearly for the first time: a big stake truck, the kind they used to haul sugarcane. Way too big to ram. It had been pulled across the road, cab pointed toward the harbor, blocking both lanes. I saw the man sitting on the driver's side throw his arm up at the unexpected dazzle of light, as Valdes yelled, "You're going to kill us!"

The man in the truck apparently thought the same thing. I watched him scramble out the door, saw him dive for the ditch just as I grabbed the emergency brake lever and lifted hard…

There was a shriek of melting rubber as the rear tires of the Nissan locked… I kept my right hand on the brake lever, left hand on the steering wheel, holding the front tires straight as we continued to skid toward the truck, which was now no more than forty yards ahead…

"Mother of God!" Valdes had his knees up, arms crossed in front of his face-crash position.

My eyes were busy glancing from the truck to the speedometer, truck to the road… gauging velocity and timing and distance-all factors in executing what the professionals know as a "boot turn," named after the bootleggers of old.

Turn too soon, we'd probably flip. Turn too late, we'd hit the truck.

I kept the skid under control, fighting it a little with the tires still locked… then, when we had slowed to around fifty, I gave the steering wheel a casual quarter-turn… felt the car slide sickeningly into a slow motion spin… saw headlights pan across ditch weeds and trees and boulders as we pirouetted 180 degrees… heard Valdes yell something that I didn't understand as the headlights locked onto open road again-the truck now behind us only a few yards away-and I downshifted into first, released the emergency break… and we were driving in the opposite direction without ever having stopped.

Not a great turn, but my old instructor would have approved.

"What are you crazy people doing?" The voice of a very angry, sleepy boy-Christ, I'd forgotten that Santiago was back there.

I was charging through the gears again, gaining speed. Yes… I could see the car that had been following us. It looked to be a big black Russian Lada coming toward us down the road, now going very slowly, lights still off.

I said to the boy, "Put your seat belt on and hold tight."

"Seat belt, my ass, mister! Stop the car; I'm walking."

Valdes was now beyond panic; he was resigned. To the boy, maybe to me, he said, "The gringo has gone insane. He listens to nothing. Prepare to die."

Because I said it for myself, I answered in English. "That'll be the day."

What I was hoping was that I could take the black car by surprise. Bully them off the road, frighten them with speed. I got the Nissan up to around ninety, the speedometer showing 150 kilometers an hour, and held it there. The car rattled and clattered and missed; the damn thing just wouldn't go any faster.

I still had my lights on; was watching the approaching car maintain its slow course as it came around a slight curve, precisely down the middle of the road. No sign that the driver was intimidated; no hint that he would pull over enough to let me by.

Was I willing to risk a collision? That's what he seemed to be asking.

Behind me, Santiago yelled, "Holy Mother! You hit that ear, I'm going back to Havana. I mean it." Still angry.

No… I wasn't willing to risk it.

Began to gear down, applying the foot brake.

Valdes said, 'Wow what are you doing?" Like, what insanity is next?

But Valdes didn't understand what was happening; the boy certainly didn't. The methods of terrorism and assassination have been studied and dismantled step-by-step by some bright people who work in very private offices. The simplest terrorist techniques are considered classics for a simple reason: They're the ones that almost always work. From what I'd seen, there was a damn good chance that we were being set up by the passengers of the truck and the car, one being the blocker, the other the shooter. This narrow road, in terrorist terms, was a choke point-a road we had to take to reach our destination. The place they chose to trap us was the X-spot-the killing place.

A classic maneuver that is nearly impossible to escape… if choke point and X-spot have been wisely chosen.

I was creeping slowly forward as the black car now hit its lights

… saw that it was still coming down the middle of the road, refusing us passage.

"Perhaps we should stop and speak with them," Valdes said. There was a new quality to his voice-fear. Finally, he was beginning to understand the situation.

I was starting to feel it myself; a sickening sensation. I said, "I don't suppose you're carrying a gun."

"A gun?" As if it were distasteful. "No, of course not. Taino's assistants… and sometimes Molinas, they're the only ones who carry guns. Molinas, he likes guns."

Valdes: some revolutionary.

I was almost glad, though. I despised the idea of fitting a weapon into my hand. Despised the absurdity of it, that mindless potential, and the absurdity of what it implied. I thought: What is it about this place?

Mariel…

I tried to convince myself there was a plausible explanation for the behavior of the truck and the black car. Yes, they were trying to stop us, no doubt about that. But could both of them simply be blocker cars? No shooters involved? Maybe they were just cops or government security people who wanted to stop us and search us-"Why are you on the road at this hour?"

No one had fired at us from the truck. So far, there had been no shots from the black car.

If a shooter was involved, why weren't they shooting?

I shifted to neutral and coasted to a stop. Twenty, thirty yards ahead of us, the black car also stopped. The driver had his high beams on, now he switched to dim-the polite thing to do… or was it an attempt to be intentionally disarming? I watched the car very carefully as Valdes said, "What do they want?" Watched the doors on both sides of the black car open slowly… saw two men step out on opposite sides and stand there, showing me their empty hands but not obvious about it. Still… why would they make the effort? I pushed the clutch in and shifted into reverse, waiting, as I listened to Valdes say, "See? They only want to talk."

I said, "So why don't they do something?"

Each man remained behind his own door, two silhouettes because of the car lights shining in my eyes.

"Maybe they want us to get out."

"That's what worries me. Any chance these could be some of your own people?"

"Ochoa? No… why would they stop us here?" As if the question were idiotic.

Why tell him? "You're sure? How it is that Taino trusts a man like you, a nonbeliever?"

"Taino doesn't trust me, but why would he do this?"

"Maybe he sees you as a threat; sends the two of us out here in the same car."

Valdes was shaking his head in frustration-why should that matter? "You're making too much of this. In Cuba, we get stopped all the time. Wait here. If these men want to talk, I'll talk." As he leaned to find the door handle, I released the clutch experimentally-wanted to make certain reverse was there if I needed it… I also wasn't going let Valdes out of the car until I had a better sense of the situation… and in that microsecond of movement, the windshield of the Nissan exploded… safety glass showering in bright prisms as the crack of a rifle shot registered in my ears…

"What's happening?"

What was happening was someone was shooting at us from the hill to our right-that registered, too.

I yelled to the boy, "Stay down!" as I floored the, Nissan, going full speed in reverse. Valdes was hunched over, his face in his hands. I noted that he might have been hit, whether by glass or a bullet, I couldn't tell. I was counting to myself-thousand-two, thousand-three, thousand-four- then twisted the wheel hard left, spinning the car 180 degrees. I had almost completed the turn when I felt the car jolt, list heavily to the right, and heard the rending sound of raw metal on asphalt-

"Damn it!"

– Shifted into first and tried to drive away… saw a comet's tail of sparks as the car attempted to drag itself, exposed axle grinding on pavement-

"Why aren't we moving?"

I switched off the engine, yelling to Valdes, "We lost a wheel!" both of us ducking instinctively at the sound of another shot and chunks of rear window that exploded in upon us.

Heard the boy yell, "Get us the hell out of here!" He didn't seem frightened, still sounded mad.

Valdes already had the door open. I reached and dragged the boy over the seat. Waited until Valdes was out, then pushed the boy ahead of me into the gloom of heavy foliage that descended toward the harbor. Heard another shot-pa-RAP!-as the three of us began to nan… then tumble down, down into a darkness… sliding, rolling… then running again into thick jungle.

I nearly had to tackle Valdes to get him to stop. I grabbed him by the shoulders and said into his ear: "Quiet! Listen a minute-we need to stop; find out if anyone's following us."

It was too dark to be sure if he nodded.

I said, "Were you hit?"

"Something cut me. Maybe the glass. I think I'm bleeding, but just a little."

Santiago stood holding on to my belt. He'd been holding on to my belt most of the way down the bluff. We'd followed what seemed to be a narrow, twisting ravine-apparently the only way to get down on foot. We'd all done some stumbling and falling. I said to him: "You okay?"

"Those bastards were trying to shoot us." He sounded worried but still not scared. Like maybe he'd been through worse.

Valdes stood quietly for a moment, breathing heavily before he whispered, "Why are they doing this?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know why."

"You're sure it's not Taino?"

"He has no reason. He needs me. He knows he needs me."

"You're going to have to do better than that."

"It's true. Trust me."

"I'm not in a very trusting mood. Tell me why he needs you. Be convincing."

Very long pause. To tell me would be to compromise his anonymity. Finally: "The only way our revolution can get arms and outside funds is through me. I… work for a department that deals with merchant shipping."

"If you have a way to bring money and weapons into this country, you're more than just a worker."

"That's true. I'm head of a department."

"For which harbor?"

Again, the long pause. "For all of Cuba."

Jesus… in charge of all maritime commerce? That had to be a massive government bureaucracy; almost a Politburo position. Valdes was telling me that he was one of the country's major players. He had to have huge political connections, almost had to be a member of the party.

He was risking all that to help these third-rate revolutionaries? I couldn't decide whether to be impressed or to dismiss him as an idiot. But Valdes had certainly eliminated Taino as a suspect. I said, "See? I'm starting to trust you more already," then stood listening for a moment. There was at least a mile between us and the road… no sound at all coming from the ascendant darkness. Why would they have abandoned the attack so quickly?

Still whispering, I said, "What about Angel Santoya's people? Maybe they thought Rita was in the car with us."

"No, it's not them. I'm certain of it."

Something about the way he said that bothered me. A little too confident?

Or maybe it bothered me because it was something I didn't want to hear. If it wasn't Taino, if it wasn't Angel Santoya, then there was only one plausible explanation. It had to be one or more men from a small, select group that was a lot more professional and dangerous than a crazed religious leader or a doddering old man.

It had to be the holdover Russians, Castro's own dirty tricks team and personal hit squad. It had to be Rojo Seis… Red Six.

But why?

That was something else I didn't want to acknowledge. There could be only one reason for killing me-revenge. Revenge for something that had happened nearly two decades ago, probably before those now in charge were even members of the cadre.

It seemed ridiculous; simply made no sense unless… unless it was true that the collapse of Cuba's infrastructure was so complete that each agency cell could now operate independently… didn't have to answer to anyone, didn't have to ask anyone… was free to do whatever it took to survive, free to strike out on its own against any perceived threat.

A team as small as Red Six would venerate its own history… and probably never forgive its own losses.

Or maybe it wasn't even that compelling. These days, what role did Cuba play in world politics? No more Angola, no more Nicaragua, no more Grenada-these guys had to be bored, restless as hell; probably lay around on the beach all day having Rambo fantasies, hoping for something interesting to do. Probably young enough and dumb enough to wish they'd operated during the days of Vietnam, Mariel, and Star Wars.

Christ, for people like that, nailing me could be like some kind of practice exercise. A live-fire version of hare and hounds; a way to keep their skills sharp. Castro didn't have to have anything to do with it. Nor did politics. With them it would be personal… and no one else would ever have to know.

"Shit!"

Valdes whispered, "What's wrong?"

I said, "I think we'd better split up. You take the boy, find somewhere safe and wait it out."

"Because you think I'm the target-that's why you want to be on your own?" Reasonable to suspect and not very flattering.

I said, "If I thought that, I'd take the boy. No. It's me they want. You two need to get out of here. Work your way around to Angosta, stay at the Santeria place. They might keep the roads under surveillance all night… maybe all week. That's what I'm telling you."

I knew he had to be thinking of the hit man in the alley, Rosario; putting it all together.

"But why? The only reason you came was to bring money for Tomlinson."

"I know. But it's more involved than that." I was thinking about Dewey and Tomlinson. Could I rely on Valdes to carry a message? Tell them to catch the first plane out of Havana, no questions asked, and I'd meet them back at Dinkin's Bay. Decided… yes, I could depend on Valdes.

He had that quality about him-an idealist, just as his former wife had said, but also rational… authentic. Told him, "You and the boy need to get out of here. Trust me."

"Perhaps I'm also not in the mood to trust. I think you should either explain or we shouldn't split up."

I was surprised when Santiago said, "If he promises not to drive anymore, I'd rather stay with the Yankee."

I began to press the issue, then stopped…

Had I heard something?

Yes… the sound of a small rock tumbling through rain forest mulch… a thudding, muffled, heartbeat sound.

Was someone up there?

Now I heard a twig crack… silence… then another twig.

No doubt about it, someone was moving slowly down the bluff, coming toward us. Or maybe several people…

I took the boy by the shoulder, pressed him to Valdes, then nudged them both downhill toward splotches of gray that were visible through the trees: Mariel Harbor.

I said to Valdes, "Head for the peninsula, I'll catch up. When you get to the water, make some noise. Splash around. Whoever it is, maybe they'll be a little less careful when they pass me."

Valdes hesitated-the guy was so scared he was trembling. "You're not just some guy who came here to help a friend. Are you?"

I gave him another little push. "If we get through this, I'll tell you the whole story."