Valley of the Templars

14

The papal nunciate in Havana is located on a wide treelined boulevard in the Miramar District of Havana a short walk from the beach. It is a large two-story brick mansion with a turret on one side and a green tile roof. The entire front of the building is surrounded by a piazza-style porch.

The office of the papal nuncio himself, Bruno, Cardinal Musaro, was in a large bright room on the main floor that looked out onto a small orchard of orange and lemon trees. The office was lavishly furnished with Persian carpets, a seventeenth-century Spanish lacquered and gold-inlaid desk, several armchairs and floor-to-ceiling bookcases on two walls. The third wall behind the desk was taken up by a huge bow window and the fourth wall was hung with a number of priceless icons on the left and held a floral-patterned vestments cupboard on the right. The room was finished off with a nineteenth-century antique floor globe by W. amp; A. K. Johnston of Edinburgh to the right of the desk.

Cardinal Musaro, a gray-haired man with a broad, handsome face, took off his reading glasses as the semiretired archbishop of Havana entered the room, escorted by one of the nuncio’s priest attendants. The priest withdrew and Musaro gestured toward a chair in front of his desk. Both men were dressed in ordinary priestly garb that made no reference to their status.

Jaime Cardinal Lucas Ortega y Alamino, a slightly pudgy man with gold-rimmed glasses and thinning hair he regularly dyed black, sat down with a heartfelt sigh. Although Ortega was seventy-five years old- Musaro’s senior by almost ten years-both men had been elevated to Cardinal Pius II and both men wore identical solid gold Crucifixion rings on the third fingers of their right hands. They were of equal status in the eyes of the Church, so there was very little small talk between them.

“You have just returned from the Holy See?” Ortega asked.

“Yes, a few meetings.”

“How are the politics there, Bruno, as complicated as ever?”

“As complicated as ever, Jaime.”

“You spoke with Spada and his imp?”

“Brennan, you mean? Yes, I met with both of them, as we discussed earlier.”

“And?”

In answer Musaro opened his desk drawer and took out a small purple velvet box. On the top of the box, in gold, were the crossed keys and mitre that was the symbol of the pope. Musaro opened the box and put it down on the desk, facing Ortega. The former archbishop of Havana looked at it the same way he would look at a venomous snake. Inside the box was a ring identical to the one both he and Musaro wore-the Cardinal’s Ring.

“It is an exact duplicate, Jaime; no one will know the difference. I took the venom supplied by Selman-Housein to Rome and Brennan’s people did the rest. The ring contains the full venom load of eight Brazilian wandering spiders. The ring is made like a jet injector for diabetes. All it takes to fire is the pressure required to shake hands. That much venom will induce death within a few hours. There will be shortness of breath, paralysis and eventually asphyxiation.”

“Dear God,” whispered Ortega.

“God has nothing to do with it, Jaime; it is simple pragmatism. With Castro dead, the strongest independent body in Cuba will be the Catholic Church. We can control the country’s future, guide it down the appropriate path.”

“You know how many times this has been attempted before?”

“According to El Jefe, six hundred and thirty-eight, although I doubt the number is accurate.”

“Whatever the number, Fidel is still here and the assassins who made attempts on his life are not,” said Ortega.

“Most of the attempts were by the CIA or their proxies. This is not the same.”

“Why?”

“Because we have God on our side, of course,” said Musaro, folding his hands across his chest.

“You wouldn’t be the first to think that,” said Ortega, a note of bitterness in his voice. “The German soldiers in World War Two had it stamped on their belt buckles: Gott mit uns.”

“In this case, however, Jaime, it is true.”

“You’ll have to explain that.”

“We are men of the world, Jaime. I am aware of your sexual proclivities, as is the Vatican. To us it is irrelevant.”

Ortega flushed crimson. “Then why do you mention these spurious allegations of my ‘proclivities,’ as you refer to them?”

“Because Castro knows about them, too. The disappearance of the gold chalice, censer and pyx from the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception of Havana, for instance.”

Ortega’s flush darkened even more. “That was a common thief; he broke into the cathedral at night. He was never caught.”

“All thieves in Cuba are caught, Jaime; that’s why Cuba has so many prisons. No, it was a ‘special friend’ of yours, Jaime, one of the assistant priests. I believe his name was Domenico Montera. You had him transferred to your alma mater in Quebec.”

“That’s a lie!”

“True or false, Fidel knows about it, too. He holds it over your head like a Damocles sword.”

“For the love of Christ, Musaro! You’re giving me a motive to assassinate the man, not an alibi!”

“On the contrary, Ortega, it is the perfect alibi.”

“How so?”

“Fidel hates you, you hate Fidel, but you spread his theories of the people’s revolution with almost as much fervor as he does. You are his creature, Jaime, and everyone knows it from the highest to the lowest, and everyone knows something else, as well.”

“What is that, Cardinal Musaro?” Ortega asked sullenly.

Musaro answered, something close to pity in his voice, “Que no tienen el coraje de matarlo. You would not have the courage to kill him, Jaime.” Musaro paused. “And that makes you the perfect candidate.”

“Because no one would believe such a coward would do such a thing?”

“Your words, not mine, Jaime.”

Ortega eyed the box on the table and the heavy, solid gold rectangular ring inside it. “Will he feel pain?”

“Not initially. As you know, Castro has suffered from diabetes for a number of years and has peripheral neuropathy in both his hands and feet and has considerable nerve damage as well. He will feel nothing as you shake his hand.”

“He will feel pain eventually, though?”

“Excruciating,” answered Musaro. “It will look very much like a stroke. He will be unable to talk, but essentially his entire body will be suffering from severe inflammation. His lungs will fill with fluid, and he will suffer extreme pain in all his joints. Eventually he will be unable to draw breath and he will die of asphyxiation.”

Ortega reached out and snapped the box shut, then slipped it into the pocket. “Good. I will do it.”

“You know when it is to be done?”

“The feast of St. Lazarus. It has been his favorite saint’s day since his diverticulitis. I am always invited to give the blessing. The older he gets, the more Catholic he becomes.”

“A common trait among old men,” said Musaro. He sat forward in his chair, placing his hands flat upon the polished inlaid desk. “The Feast Day of St. Lazarus is on the twenty-first day of the month. The deed must be done on that day. A great many people are counting on it, Jaime. A great many people are counting on you, Jaime.”

“And my reward for committing murder?”

“On the night of his death, you and I will be flown to Rome on an Air Canada 777. On the day after your arrival, the cardinal electors will meet to select a new dean since the ever-controversial Cardinal Soldano is over eighty and no longer eligible to vote in any future conclaves. You will become the next dean of the College of Cardinals.”

“It is an elected position. How can you guarantee such a thing?”

“There are currently ninety-four cardinal electors. I am owed favors of one kind or another by seventy-six of them, more than enough to obtain a two-thirds majority of sixty-two.”

“You’ve taken care of everything,” said Ortega.

“I am the apostolic nuncio, the envoy of the pope and therefore the envoy of God to this country.” Musaro lifted his shoulders and smiled, the light from the big bow window behind him turning his hair into a halo with a tropical Garden of Gethsemane at his back. His voice was soft but filled with the power of a man saying Mass in a cathedral. “‘Deos enim religuos accepimus, Caesares dedimus’: The gods were handed down to us, but we created this terrible Caesar ourselves, Jaime, and having created him, we have the responsibility of removing him from this world. Alea iacta est, Jaime. For Fidel the die has been cast and you have been chosen to be his Brutus. Deus animae tuae misereatur. May God have mercy on your soul.”

It took another three days for the Tiburon Blanco to make its way up the broad valley of the Agabama to the small town of Condado, once a rail center for agricultural goods from the small surrounding farms. The rail line that had once served the town had died with the revolution, the tracks overgrown with weeds, an ancient steam engine enduring a humiliating and rusting demise, the single glass eye of its enormous headlamp pointing the way down a track that was no longer there. Mountains rose on three sides, and only a few miles ahead the valley narrowed to its end. Ahead lay the much narrower Valley of Death, the river winding and curling deep into the heart of the Sierra del Escambray.

In the time that had passed since his arrival in Cuba, Holliday had developed a deep mahogany tan. In a pair of grease-covered cotton pants, rubber tire sandals and an old Bruce Springsteen Darkness Tour T-shirt, he almost looked like a local. It was Eddie who suggested that he wear a bandanna low over his fresh scar and his ruined eye. The bandanna looked a little odd, but the scar was too terrible to miss and too easy to describe. If they didn’t need supplies for the boat, the prudent thing would have been for him to stay behind. They had filled the boat’s huge hidden tanks at the little harbor in Tunas de Zaza just before reaching La Boca and the mouth of the river, so at least fuel was no problem.

Arango guided the boat upriver toward the town with special care. Even with the shallow five-foot draft, the Tiburon Blanco had almost grounded several times as they approached Condado. As the summer progressed, the water would become even shallower, making passage up or downriver impossible. The old man eventually found a short stretch of stony beach and Eddie threw out a concrete block anchor to make sure the boat didn’t drift away downriver if Arango decided to take a nap.

Both men said good-bye to Arango, dropped off the side of the boat and down onto the beach. They began the half-mile walk into town, empty knapsacks carried over their shoulders. They found a narrow dirt road between fields of early wheat and tobacco and followed it, dust rising in puffs from their sandaled feet. The sun was relentless in a hot blue sky and Holliday no longer wondered why the average Cuban walked so slowly; to go any faster was to invite a heart attack.

“You trust him?” Holliday asked.

“Arango? Of course,” said Eddie.

“He was plenty upset by those pirates,” said Holliday. “What’s to stop him from heading back downstream and abandoning us?”

“Four things,” answered Eddie with a grin. “Uno-he only has half his money. Dos-it takes at least two people to fire that machine gun. Tres-he knows I would find him and cut out his heart. Quatro-I have the glow plug relay fuses from both engines in my pack. He is not going anywhere.”

The town was small and almost deserted and its largest industry appeared to be a trucking company using old military vehicles to transport produce grown in a number of large greenhouses. The town square was almost empty as though the people had left on the last train out of town decades before. Doors were closed, windows were shuttered and the only movement came from little spirals of dust whirling in the hot breeze.

They found a carniceria that had some relatively fresh meat to sell, and the butcher gave them directions to a farm stand on the other side of town where they managed to find what they needed in the way of fruits, vegetables and even a clutch of fresh eggs. The old lady running the little stand was careful to pack the precious cargo in a paper bag lined with straw.

Their errands done, the two men headed back to the boat. “Hola! Arango! We’ve found the huevos you wanted,” called out Eddie as they eased themselves over the gunwales. Both men froze as a figure stepped up out of the well leading down to the cabin. His skin was the color of teak, his hair snow-white. He was as tall as Eddie but not even close to being as muscular. He had dark, deep-set, suspicious eyes beneath heavy black eyebrows that were starkly at odds with the whiteness of his hair. He carried a big Makarov pistol in his right hand.

“Where is Arango?” Eddie asked harshly. Holliday was acutely aware that he was unarmed.

“El esta abajo, dormido. Borracho,” answered the white-haired man.

“Prove it,” Eddie said.

Without taking his eyes off them, the man with the white hair used his left hand to slide back the cabin door. Arango’s snores were loud and regular. “Esta usted satisfecho…mi hermano?”

“Speak English,” said Eddie.

“Why should I speak your Yucca friend’s language? It is the language of the enemy.” The white-haired man sneered. His English was at least as good as Eddie’s.

“Because it is polite,” said Eddie. “Or have you forgotten simple manners along with everything else our parents taught us?”

“Your parents?” Holliday said.

“Yes, mi colonel,” said Eddie, his voice brittle with anger. “May I present you to Domingo Romano Cabrera Alphonso? My brother.”