Havana by Stephen Hunter
Work back through the brush, staying out of the sunlight, the open. Reach the boat. It can still be done. The shooter cannot see me, he will not track us.
Kill him!
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a flick knife. With a snap of his wrist, three inches of naked blade spurted out like a lizard’s tongue, and locked in place.
Kill him!
At this point it was so easy. The old negro policeman had his gun out, but it rested easily against his thigh, the finger not even on the trigger. Speshnev recognized it as an old Colt revolver, but so beaten and ancient it was clearly not the gun of a pistolero. The man held it so sloppily and with so little tension that it seemed strange to him.
Speshnev looked at him. He was in his fifties, with a face much ravaged by a hard life. Yet his eyes were milky with moisture and depth, surely the sign of a humane man. The men with feelings, they all had eyes like that unless they were insane, and Speshnev had really met few who were completely insane.
He saw how it would happen. He would be upon the old dog so fast, the man would not have time to look up. The knife would flick out, go to the throat, probe and cut the carotid, and the old man would bleed out in seconds.
Then grab the boy, hold him in the treeline, and race along it till their waving and screaming caught the attention of the men in the trawler. Then they could race into the surf, swim outward, and the boat would pick them up.
Do it, he commanded himself.
Yet the old man was so relaxed and without aggression in his body, Speshnev could not find it in himself.
Do it! he commanded again, trying to find the energy for this last, horrible thing.
He was so damned good. God, he was good.
“Shoot him, for Christ sakes,” said Frenchy. “Shoot someone.”
“If he moves on the cop, I’ll shoot him, Junior. Then and only then.”
“He’s a Red agent.”
“He’s a man doing a job. We’ll see how hard he does it. If I have to, I will. You shut up and keep on the glass.”
Through the scope Earl could see the little drama playing out. The sitting policeman with the revolver, the failed, beaten revolutionary, and the Russian agent crouching in the shadows. Earl had picked him up moving west just inside the treeline, a shape flitting through shadows. It took a great game eye to pick up prey like that, through a scope, but Earl had read the land and knew how he’d have to travel to close on the fleeing boy.
He and Frenchy had moved a few hundred yards down the shoreline. They’d gone inland just a bit, where the land rose, and now were two hundred feet up and three hundred yards to the rear. They could see the two men sitting on the beach, and the shadow that had moved into place not long ago, crouching, gathering his strength.
Don’t go, Earl thought. I will kill you if you move on him.
He held the rifle just over the head, so if the Russian lurched, he’d rise into the crosshairs, and Earl would fire and the bullet would take him in the spine. He didn’t want to, but he also knew that he would.
“You could kill them both, still,” Frenchy said. “Do you know what this could mean? It could mean everything for us. It could—”
“Shut up,” Earl said.
“Earl, if you don’t do this, I can’t protect you. You know that. You are on your own. There will be consequences. There are always consequences. Oh, wait, he’s getting ready to move.”
But Earl had caught it. He watched as the form of the crouching man seemed to settle as if coiling to gather strength. Earl saw one hand low, the other high, and guessed that with one he would block and with the other, he would cut.
But it wouldn’t come to that.
I will kill you, Earl thought.
Now. The policeman rose. He leaned over the boy and gave him a touch on the shoulder as if to cheer him up. His defenses were completely relaxed. His mind was far away. He was reaching out in his compassion to settle the boy, who had begun to sob, out of delayed reaction to the events of the last few days.
“There, there,” said the old negro lieutenant. “It’ll be all right. You are so young. You have plenty of time left.”
Do it, Speshnev compelled himself.
He gathered his strength for the spring and the kill and the race to the boat, he drew the knife hand back, he studied the three steps it would take him to close the distance, he took his breath, he calmed himself, he—
He saw the ships.
Two white vessels, closing fast on the trawler, each bearing the flag of the United States of America. Coast Guard cutters.
Speshnev knew he had been betrayed, that killing the policeman to free the boy was pointless. He knew there was no exit. He knew it was over. The cutters surged toward the trawler, blocking its escape.
Speshnev faded back.
Not today, he thought.
Chapter 47
By the time the soldiers got them back to Santiago, and Frenchy had made his report to headquarters, another day had passed. Moncada still bore signs of the gunfight waged there almost a week before, except that by now the burned cars had been removed and the shot-out windows boarded up. From there, they caught a cab to go back to the hotel.
It was a time of much revelry, as if carnival had been extended magically. On all the newspapers, the headlines screamed: FIDEL FINITO. There was a famous picture, taken at the village of Sevilla, of the hangdog young revolutionary and his humane captor, the negro lieutenant named Sarria, now as famous as Fidel himself. The radios blared with official announcements from the president stating his pride in the security forces of Cuba, and saying that after the Cuban way, the bad son Fidel would receive a fair trial—this to counteract all the terrible news of the torture and murder of the revolutionaries. Meanwhile the communists, the laborites, the socialists, the ortodoxos all denounced Castro as a putschist, unwilling to apply the principles of democracy to the process of change, and demanded excessive punishment. Everybody hated him, except of course the people.
Maybe that is why the streets were so full and the music so loud, maybe that is why the rum flowed so freely and the fireworks detonated so brightly. Whatever, it was a slow journey through the packed streets to the great Hotel Casa Grande at the Plaza de Armas. Both men were exhausted and dirty and wrung out from what had passed. But finally it was Frenchy who spoke.
“I just want you to know what you threw away. You threw away any chance of succeeding with the Agency, of rising in it. Do you understand that, Earl? You are a very great man, a hero, but you are a stubborn son of a bitch and you have betrayed me and made me look foolish.”
Earl let him blare on.
“Do you realize that this means no move to Washington? No big house in McLean? No good school for your—”
“Are you done yet? I’m tired.”
They reached the hotel.
“Earl, I’m very sorry. I tried to help you. I still can’t believe you did this to me. Earl, I can’t help you any more.”
“You see this rifle gets back to the marines at Gitmo, right?”
“Fuck the rifle. There’s more important issues than the rifle.”
“Not to me. You see this rifle gets back or I’ll take it personally.”
Frenchy swallowed at Earl’s hard glare and the implied threat, and said nothing.
Earl turned, left the car, and climbed up the stairs to the porch. He needed a shower and a night’s rest before heading back to Havana, by what means he was not yet sure. He just knew that’s where the airport was.
“Señor?”
“Yeah?”
Three Cuban state policemen in those brown-green uniforms were waiting up there for him.
“You have a visa?”
“What?”
“A visa, señor?”
“I came in with a congressman. It was an official—”
“You have no visa, señor, you must come with us. This is against the law.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It
Then two other policemen joined the three, then three more. Swarming him, they moved him to the black paddy wagon that had just arrived, and took him away.
Chapter 48
The cab dropped Frenchy at the United Fruit Company executive mansion up in Vista Alegre, above the hot and fetid city, where he was staying in a VIP suite. He walked in, dragging the carbine and the sniper rifle, the Super .38 hanging in his tanker’s holster in plain sight, hot, sweaty, dirty, his young face covered with stubble, aware exactly of how glamorous he was.
People looked, people gasped, people pointed. He seemed to have become the man he had always dreamed of being: cool, elegant, wary, tough, savvy, capable. A hero. There were several young American women staying there, various daughters or mistresses or new young wives of important United Fruit execs, and he could tell that at least two or three of them watched him as he sauntered into the bar and ordered a quick beer, the two rifles leaning against the next stool. He knocked back the cold drink and settled in for a moment or two of reflection. What he was thinking, however, was: They think I’m such a cool customer!
God, he enjoyed his little performance!
He knocked down the last of the beer, picked up the rifles, sauntered back through the lobby to the concierge and said, “Luis, don’t wake me. I’m going to sleep for the next six years.”
Luis nodded, but alas also had something himself to present Frenchy. The Medal of Honor, like Earl’s? Not quite. No, it was a yellow telegraph message. He looked at it.
HELO FLIGHT SET GITMO 0900 HRS STOP
MEETING AMBASSADORS OFFICE HAVANA 1500 HRS
STOP MANDATORY YOU ATTEND STOP EVANS
Shit.
Already it was beginning. How would he explain? Was it a failure with total catastrophic ramifications or was it just a setback of some sort? He didn’t know. He’d been out of the America House so long he’d picked up no gossip or context. He had no idea what was going on, what was being said, what he could expect.
He went upstairs, peeled off the dank jungle clothes, and climbed into the shower. The water, piercing and furious, restored in him the illusion of good health, and he dried.
He thought he ought to call Roger. He didn’t like the tone. MANDATORY YOU ATTEND. Roger almost never spoke harshly or gave direct orders, so it bugged Frenchy that he was taking such an attitude. He picked up the phone, dialed the number and waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody picked up.
All right. He dialed Roger’s apartment. No answer there either.
He checked his watch. It was about four. There was no reason for Roger not to be there, unless he was off at a match somewhere, and it seemed unlikely he’d be playing tennis so soon after the Moncada business, but you never knew.
He dialed a secretary he knew.
“Hey, Shirley, what is—”
“Walter,” she hissed. “What are you doing? You can’t call me.” The phone clicked as she hung up.
He dialed back.
“What the hell is—”
“If I get caught talking to you, I’m screwed, too.”
“What?”
“Call me tonight at my place.”
The line went to dial tone again.
Frenchy slept for a few hours, went out for a late dinner, ate alone in the nicest restaurant he could find, and then thought about, but decided against, a whore. He finally got back in around eleven. He dialed Shirley at her apartment.
“What is going on?”
“There’s a big flap. The word is, you’re out.”
He didn’t say a thing for a while. It did happen: a big screw-up, a blown assignment, especially if you weren’t one of the old boys with the Harvard/OSS pedigree, could spell the end. They didn’t like it when other people failed. They were allowed to fail, but nobody else was.
“Who says?”
“Walter, everybody says.”
“Shit.”
“There’s a guy here.”
“A guy?”
“Yeah, he’s thrown the whole place for a loop. He’s one of your guys. Nobody will say his name. I only know he’s here and he’s got everybody scared to death.”
“Tall guy. Real undistinguished looking. Could be a salesman. Nothing special about him, except the way people scurry and defer, as if he’s some kind of great man.”
“That’s the customer.”
“And bald?”
“Yeah, bald.”
Shit thought Frenchy. The man called Plans was back in town and he smelled blood.
Chapter 49
Nobody could ever accuse Speshnev of missing a boat. He hid in the jungles for the rest of the day, and as he supposed, at twilight, when all was deserted, the old trawler Day’s End ventured close to shore again, just in case. Its officer was just being thorough. Speshnev signaled him, and ventured out to the craft. There were no Americans about this time, and the voyage back, under motor, took two days, during which he and the young officer, Lieutenant Orlov of Soviet Naval Intelligence, had a great time, as Orlov had not heard his own language spoken in a year.
Upon his return to Havana and his little room behind a barber shop in the old part of the city, Speshnev showered and shaved, took the last of his cached funds and went to a casino. He ran $600 into $6,000, then went to two more casinos where, at each, he ran a thousand into four thousand. Then he checked into the Nacional, the biggest suite available, and slept and slept and slept. Then he made certain calls, monitoring certain situations, bought a new suit (white linen), a straw hat, and a very fine pair of British shoes. He smoked a cigar, had a fine lunch, and then went to see Pashin.
The man kept him waiting in the trade legation’s outer office for quite some time, and then at last admitted him. Pashin didn’t look up; he was busily writing some document with a fountain pen, clearly purchased from a nice store.
Speshnev sat down.
Pashin looked up.
“Did I tell you to sit?”
“No, but I decided to do so anyway. It’s more disrespectful that way.”
“Do you know what I’m writing?”
“Yes, I suppose I do. You really should let me edit it. I can improve it. I can make it sing. Do you know that I have published two novels and in certain circles am considered a master?”
“What am I writing?”
“The report to Moscow Control, with copies to all fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers and hangabouts of the Pashin clan. About the feckless Speshnev and his multiple failures. How the heroic Pashin tried desperately to rein him in, to keep him headed in the right direction, but the old goat simply insisted on going his own way, and how his mission has collapsed into total failure. How he should be recalled immediately, immediately. Is that not right?”
“You make a joke of everything.”
“Actually, no, I make a joke of nothing, except young snots with party connections who get in my way and make my life difficult. Defeating the Americans was difficult enough; now I also have to defeat you, Pashin.”
“There are men outside waiting to escort you to the tanker Black Sea, currently awaiting your arrival. Does that improve your mood?”
“It has no relevance to my mood whatsoever.”
Pashin said, “I’ll just go straight to my favorite part: ‘Entrusted with the political responsibility of guiding the subject, Comrade Speshnev instead guided him into a foolhardy and premature adventure, which resulted in catastrophic results for our cause, which has been set back many years, if not forever. Then entrusted with the responsibility of rescuing the subject from the mess that he himself had created, Comrade Speshnev instead guided him into capture, where he currently resides, utterly useless to us and quite possibly soon to be executed. In all his responsibilities has Comrade Speshnev failed, and all his enterprises have achieved humiliating failure.’”
“Why do you bureaucrats like so many big words? You call the knucklehead a ‘subject.’ He is a foolish boy who will be much
“Save it for your barracks-mates, Speshnev. You came, you failed, and now you must return. That is the law. Old romantics like you, coming into a modern operation like mine, with the support of other old dreamers. It sickened me, but I just let you destroy yourself as I knew you would.”
Speshnev said nothing, but reached into his suit pocket, extracted a photo, and pushed it across the desk.
“I must say,” he said, “you do take a pretty picture. When your mouth is closed, you actually have quite a handsome face. I think you’ll agree that it’s a good photo and the old fellows at Control will find it so amusant.”
Pashin just stared at it, hard. A vein in his head twitched a little. He swallowed.
“That does look like an excellent choice of wines. A St. Emilion, eh? My, haven’t you turned aristo in the west? Say, the American is a handsome chap, too. You two boys aren’t, ha ha, a little too friendly, are you? The handsome ones so frequently are, I don’t know why, it’s very mysterious. Still, that may not hurt you in the service, as many of our senior members have peculiar tastes. But I wouldn’t think you—”
“Silence!” bellowed Pashin. “I will have none of this. Who do you think you are? What do you think you’re doing? You were not authorized to—”
He ran out of words.
“Havana,” Speshnev explained, “is quite the city of sin in the western imagination. Many American husbands come here to philander. Thus many American wives have need of a skilled corps of private detectives, able followers and discreet photographers. Fortunes change hands in that way every day, and so I just hired one with some of my casino winnings. You seemed not to like me so I thought I’d best protect myself. But I must say, you even surprised me in your rush to self-destruction.”