Ghosts of Havana (A Judd Ryker Novel) (21 page)

“Look, Ryker,” Parker interrupted, “I know what I said before. That I asked you for new ideas. But things are moving fast. Melanie Eisenberg is holding a press conference tomorrow morning. She’s going to declare that the capture of innocent Americans in international waters is an illegal act and that the United States won’t negotiate. She’s shutting down any possible overture we can make publicly until this thing cools off. Your baseball idea is dead. Forget it.”

“So you want me to work on another plan? Something covert?”

“No time for that either, Ryker.”

“So . . . what do you want me to do, sir?”

“I need someone I can trust to go talk to the Cubans directly. Like, right now.”

“You’re sending me to Cuba?”

“In a way, yes.”

Judd stood up from his chair. “Should I go pack?”

“No,” Parker said, shaking his head with impatience. “The way you’re getting there, you can’t bring a suitcase.”

“How am I going?” Judd didn’t like the sound of this.

“You’ll see, Ryker,” Parker said, revealing nothing with his facial expression. “You’re leaving in five hours.”

“When?”

“I’ve arranged a special undercover departure out of Andrews at oh five hundred. When you get there, you need to negotiate the release of the four men from
The Big Pig
. I want them home as soon as possible. That’s your new assignment.”

“What, exactly, am I offering the Cubans in exchange for the hostages?”

“You’ll figure that out with O.”

“What’s O?”

“Not what, Ryker,
who
. Oswaldo Guerrero, Cuba’s head of military intelligence.”

“I’m going to meet Cuba’s chief spy?”

“That’s right, Ryker. Face-to-face. You’re going to be the first American to ever meet O.”

45.

HAVANA, CUBA

THURSDAY, 11:57 P.M.

O
swaldo Guerrero sipped his tiny cup of thick coffee. The breeze off the Bay of Havana kept him cool, but he didn’t feel at all relaxed tonight. The café overlooking the beach was still jammed with locals enjoying a warm evening and loud conversation. Despite the crowd, Oswaldo sat alone and undisturbed. The staff—the few that mattered—knew to give this regular customer his privacy. Even those who weren’t directly on his payroll knew to give the short man with powerful arms plenty of space.

After the waiter silently delivered another cup, Oswaldo dropped a white sugar cube into it and slowly stirred with a dainty spoon for nearly a full minute. The ripples of the muscles on his tan forearm highlighted the scars of past battles. His flat, crooked nose, dead black eyes, and a shiny gold front tooth suggested this was a man with an eventful past. He gently set the spoon aside and took a sip.

Off in the distance, the lights of Morro Castle taunted Oswaldo.
The Americans.
Los yumas. Los yanquis.
These gringos
rotting in his cell didn’t know anything. Just more fools. He should slit their throats and toss them back in the sea where he had found them. They should die like the dogs that they are. Just like all the others that came before them trying to poison his homeland with their money and their selfish ways.

If the Americans were going to call him El Diablo, then why not show them what a real Devil can do?

“Ach!” he scolded himself for being emotional. Those four dupes in Morro Castle were nothing. But what about their reckless bosses back in Washington? He knew the Americans were up to something. They always were. Their bravado, their crude schemes, the arrogance and ignorance of
los yanquis
. How did such a country become so rich and powerful when they couldn’t even see through the lies of the traitors in Miami? How could they not see the dance of the exiles? How could such a country be so mighty yet unable to keep a simple secret? The United States was a lumbering beast, a giant shadow hanging over his beautiful island, his
Cubita bella
. The fools in his prison cell were just another insult!

Every four years, a new team of American politicians arrived with new ideas, some new gesture that was supposed to impress him, some new threat that was supposed to scare him. Now they were trying to lure Cuba into capitalism by pretending to be friends. The gringos called it
normalization
. None of it will work. He sipped his coffee.

Oswaldo Guerrero could see through it all because he had seen it all before. The gringos didn’t know their history. That had been his comfort in the past. But history was precisely what unsettled him about tonight.

Something was different. Was today a genuine opportunity? Or was this just another gringo trick? Was this latest incident real? Or just more scheming by scoundrels in Washington, D.C.?

Oswaldo sipped his coffee again. Deep down, he knew what had really changed was not the Americans. They were very much the same.
Los yumas.
Overconfident, inept, stupid.

What had changed, what he could never admit except within his own private thoughts, was Cuba.
His Cuba.
As certain as
los yanquis
were about themselves, Oswaldo was certain that the Cuban Revolution was coming to an end. Their allies in Moscow had abandoned them. Beijing had become a den of capitalists. And their last remaining friends in Caracas had lost their minds. Even at home, his great leaders were on the verge of death. One thing the Cuban Revolution could never defeat was mortality.

And the youth, the engine of the revolt, the fuel that burned the fire of revolution, was different today. They just weren’t like him and his peers. They were distracted. They were selfish. They were weak.

Oswaldo Guerrero, from the time he first joined the secret intelligence service at the age of sixteen, had been a loyal believer in the cause. His mother had thrown flowers on the rebel jeeps when they first arrived in Havana. Oswaldo attended special state schools to learn Cuban revolutionary values. By the time he was five years old, he had memorized El Jefe’s “Declaration of the Socialist Character of the Revolution.” At the age of seven, he joined the Union of Rebel Pioneers, then graduated to the Rebel Youth Association when he turned thirteen. He was working for the state before he even learned to shave.

Oswaldo Guerrero was raised on
patria o muerte
—nation or death! That was his motivation for continuing to fight the
Americans. To always be on watch, to uncover their plots, to be ruthless with the enemies of the revolution. Above all, to protect Cuba’s independence. The Americans had occupied Cuba in 1898, 1906, and 1917. They tried to invade again in 1961. And
los yanquis
kept trying. But men like him had always fought back. Patriots like him had always defended Cuba’s total independence.

While Oswaldo was an idealist, a son of the revolution, he wasn’t blind. He saw what was happening to his own country. One of the benefits of being at the top of the national intelligence services was a unique window into what was really going on inside Cuba. He could see, underneath the peeling paint, the shiny new tourist hotels, the smiling faces, there was growing unhappiness. Under their breath, in the corners of the plazas and cafés, people complained about the revolution.

Dissent was in the air. It was getting louder. The hardships of life, the sacrifices, were all becoming too much for the masses. And, worst of all, the lure of the bright lights of American consumerism was too much for ordinary people to resist.

He knew that Cuba, despite men like him, was slowly losing its independence. It wasn’t
los yumas
who were taking it. No. Cuba was giving away its total independence by rotting from the inside out.

Several years ago, when Oswaldo first concluded that the revolution was doomed, he knew the best option was to repair relations with their big neighbor. To find some way to reach an accommodation to avoid a cataclysmic rupture. He would do this on Cuba’s terms. On
his
terms. But how to trust them? How to know which gestures were tricks and which were real?
They were all tricks.

So what was different about this latest offer? Who was this Judd Ryker? Oswaldo had nothing on him in his files except some useless academic publications. If the Americans were serious this time, then why were they sending some professor? Was this his final opportunity to make history? Oswaldo drained his coffee and motioned to the waiter for another.

Or, maybe he should slit this Judd Ryker’s throat? Sending their envoy back in a body bag would get their attention in Washington! That would let them know that they still have something to fear from El Diablo! That Cuba hasn’t yet given up. That the Americans can keep trying but they haven’t beaten Oswaldo Guerrero.

He leaned forward on the table and laughed to himself, his gold tooth flashing like one of the city’s lights. When the gringo professor arrives, he decided, he knew what do to with him.

PART THREE

FRIDAY

46.

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND

FRIDAY, 4:56 A.M.

J
udd Ryker felt like Jonah being swallowed by the whale as he stepped onto the steel ramp yawning open at the back of the massive C-140 Hercules. The cold gray plane was mostly empty, his footsteps echoing through the vast cavern of the cargo bay.

“Good morning, sir!” snapped a young Air Force officer who had suddenly appeared.

“Good morning,” Judd replied wearily. “I’m Judd—”

“Yes, sir. Dr. Ryker from State. We’re expecting you, sir.”

“You’re taking me to Cuba in this?” Judd waved his arms around the empty cavern.

“My orders are to brief you on our exact destination only when we are wheels up.”

“But you are taking me to Cuba?” Judd narrowed his eyes and rubbed his neck, which was starting to ache.

“I couldn’t say, sir. I’m just following orders.”

“I don’t understand.” Judd winced at the confusion.

“It’s nearly oh five hundred,” the officer said, showing Judd his watch. “Preflight checks are complete. As soon as you get strapped in, we can go. I have to ask you to remove any cell phone.”

Judd handed over his phone reluctantly, but he ran through in his mind the most important numbers that he had memorized: the State Department’s Operations Center hotline and Jessica’s temporary cell.

“I’m ready.” Judd steeled himself. “Anything else I need to know?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t have any baggage,” Judd said.

“Of course not, sir. I’ll be back once we’re in the air.”

The officer exited the plane and Judd buckled himself into a jump seat along a side wall of the C-140. He watched the giant ramp close, leaving him alone in the dark in the belly of the whale. A pang shot through his spine.
What have I gotten myself into?

A few seconds later, a fluorescent light flickered on, illuminating the cargo hold, but not relieving Judd’s sudden anxiety. He then heard the engines fire up and the loud whirring of the four huge propellers.

After a long taxi, the giant plane rumbled down the runway, the walls shuddering violently during takeoff. Within moments, the C-140 reached altitude and leveled off, allowing both the plane’s fuselage and its sole passenger to relax.

Judd slumped back in the jump seat. Exhausted, alone, and ensconced in the white noise of the engines, he fought off the urge to sleep. He hated tight spaces. It wasn’t quite claustrophobia, but, growing up in rural Vermont, he was always more comfortable out in the open, plenty of air, plenty of sky. Tightly packed
trains were bad; small, crowded airplanes were worse. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about that in the back of the cavernous C-140. At least—

“Sir!”

Judd opened his eyes.

“Sir! We are beginning our descent.”

Judd blinked a few times. He realized that he must have dozed off.

“Where are we?” Judd asked.

“Sir, you need to put this on,” the officer said, handing him an orange jumpsuit.

“I’m not wearing this. It looks like a prison uniform.”

“I don’t know, sir. My orders are to have you wear it before we allow you to deplane.”

“What? I don’t even know where we’re landing.”

“Yes, sir. We will be arriving at GTMO in”—he checked his watch—“fourteen minutes.”

“GTMO?”

“Gitmo, sir.”

“You’re taking me to Guantánamo Bay?” Judd’s eyes widened and his heart raced.

“Yes, sir. That’s our destination.”

“Why would a State Department official wear a prisoner uniform at a military detention camp?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. I’m sure you’ll be briefed on arrival,” he said. “I only know that I have strict orders that you wear it before getting off the plane at Gitmo. The jumpsuit and this.” The officer held up a small black cloth hood.

A hood!
Judd’s abdomen convulsed.
What the hell have I got myself into?

47.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

FRIDAY, 8:03 A.M.

A
ssistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Melanie Eisenberg tapped the microphone on the podium and checked her hair in the monitor. The Press Room was littered with television cameras and journalists. Behind Eisenberg, the back wall was covered with a navy blue curtain and an oval sign showing the world map and
DEPARTMENT OF STATE / WASHINGTON
. An American flag rested on its pole, perfectly positioned to appear over Eisenberg’s right shoulder in the television frame. The front of the lectern displayed a circular State Department logo, an eagle gripping an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other.

“Are we ready?” Eisenberg barked at an aide off to the side of the stage, who nodded.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, holding her chin high, “we have a simple statement this morning. As many of you know, Cuban authorities seized a private American fishing vessel operating in international waters on Wednesday evening. In the
interest of prudence, we have refrained from making any public statements until we had ascertained all the facts.”