Spy in a Little Black Dress

XII



And other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your evening at the theatre?”

Jackie couldn’t believe it. Here was Emiliano, making a joke, after hearing about her close call the previous evening at El Teatro de Cinema. It was so unlike him that she laughed twice over—once because the joke was so apt, and once because Emiliano’s sudden exhibition of a sense of humor was so delightfully unexpected.

She had been glad to pick up this morning’s paper, Prensa Libre, and read—in her rudimentary Spanish—that the fire at El Teatro de Cinema had been extinguished in time, so, surprisingly, only minimal and readily repairable damage had been done. She was not surprised, however, to see that there was no mention of an attempt to blow up the cinema and assassinate El Presidente. With the newspapers under such close governmental scrutiny, Jackie hadn’t thought that any news of Batista’s narrow escape would ever see the light of day. After all, why put the idea in some fanatic’s head or encourage others to try their hand at putting an end to El Presidente’s latest political incarnation?

“I’m sorry that I underestimated the threat and allowed you to go to the theatre by yourself,” Emiliano said in a sudden shift from the jovial to his usual sober self. In some ways, Jackie thought, Emiliano reminded her of Jacques, able to turn on a dime and go from one emotional state to a diametrically opposite one. With Jacques, it had been carefree Jacques versus secret agent Jacques. With Emiliano, it was serious Emiliano versus, well, a slightly more relaxed version of Emiliano that disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared, causing Jackie to wonder whether this fleeting manifestation was just a hopeful fantasy on her part.

Whatever the case, Emiliano was here now and was taking her to the much-anticipated rendezvous with Fidel Castro. On the way, he once again acted as her tour guide to this glamorous city of polo players, race-car drivers, and international playboys. Jackie welcomed this opportunity to have him fill her in on some of the historic locations, places where musicians had fashioned their melodies and poets had crafted their rhymes. To Jackie, much of Havana was turning out to be a dream city composed of the myriad romantic longings of its citizens, all set to an Afro-Caribbean beat that set the pulse racing and the toes tapping.

After breakfast, Emiliano had picked her up in a cab—Jackie assumed that his old Chevrolet might have conked out. He had the driver take them to the Vedado again, explaining that he wanted to show Jackie something more plush than a cigar factory on this return visit. Now she could see that this northwest part of the city was home to luxe shops and posh restaurants, as well as many office towers and apartment houses, making Havana the rival of any major city in either hemisphere when it came to luxurious living.

They were now walking through a beautiful outdoor flower market, a veritable Eden plunked down right in the middle of this urban landscape. It was crowded with tourists taking pictures and sailors from many nations buying tokens of affection for the young women who escorted them, many of whom looked to be of dubious propriety. The market vendors offered a profusion of mariposa, heliotrope, and yellow morning glory, among other tropical breeds—a riot of colors that was difficult for the eye to take in at one time and a variety of scents that was intoxicating. In her colorful, flower-print summer dress and matching ballet flats, Jackie felt that she blended right in with her surroundings.

“Such beautiful flowers,” Jackie marveled as she looked around in awe.

“Would you like me to buy you one for your hair?” Emiliano asked her with a shy smile.

Jackie felt like blushing, not for her part, but for Emiliano’s. She could well imagine how difficult this intimate gesture was for him.

“I’d like that very much,” Jackie said.

They stopped at the next vendor, where Emiliano asked Jackie to pick out a flower that she liked.

“This is beautiful,” Jackie said, pointing to a precious-looking white butterfly jasmine.

Emiliano smiled. “That’s the official flower of Cuba,” he told her.

After a brief but brisk session of haggling with the vendor, Emiliano purchased the flower, then handed it to Jackie to fix in her hair with a bobby pin. She took out a makeup mirror and gave it to Emiliano to hold while she manipulated the mariposa in place until he pronounced it, “Perfect.”

“Thank you,” Jackie said simply, and Emiliano nodded in response as they walked on.

After a few blocks, Emiliano stopped and said, “I just want you to know one thing about the man you are going to meet.”

Jackie looked up at him.

“He is no political dilettante. No mere dabbler in causes,” he continued. “Four days after the coup—ten days before your government officially recognized Batista—Fidel stood up in one of Cuba’s highest civil courts and denounced El Presidente. He even asked for a public trial for him. That is the man you are going to meet.”

Jackie looked at Emiliano. He sounded almost as passionate as he had when he was reading that stirring exhortation from Les Misérables to the cigar-factory workers. It was the same kind of passion that had animated Rosario during their conversation in the pickup truck. She wondered about this Fidel Castro, and what it was about this man that brought out such strong emotions in others. Well, she would soon find out.

Once past the flower market, Emiliano guided her beyond the spacious thoroughfares of the Vedado to a series of streets that ran in a slightly narrower fashion. Once again, he stopped to tell Jackie something important.

“This place where we are headed is very close to the local police precinct. It is also not far from the headquarters of the Service of Military Intelligence. The Colonel Sanchez you met the other night is a member of this secret service. The interrogation cells there are stained red with the blood of many innocent victims. So you see, Fidel and the members of the resistance are operating right under the very nose of the lion.”

Abruptly, he started walking again. It took Jackie a moment or two to take in the information that Emiliano had just imparted. He was now a little way ahead, and she ran to catch up with him, clutching her camera bag, which she had taken along as part of her cover as a journalist. Inside it, along with the trusty Speed Graphic—a parting gift from Jacques before he took off for Balazistan—was the thirty-five-millimeter film reel of Dracula. Given the key it held, there was no way that she was going to let it out of her sight. It sat in the messenger bag she had taken last night, which in turn was nestled inside of her capacious camera bag.

Finally, they arrived at their destination: a wide building of pink-washed stone. A sign next to the door read

DANCE ACADEMY

ONE FLIGHT UP

And next to it was an arrow pointing upward.

“Here we are,” said Emiliano as he opened the door for Jackie and led her up a winding set of stairs. As they climbed, an arresting female voice floated down to them. Although the voice sounded young, it sang of a sadness that could come only from years of experience with love and loss. On the first-floor landing, Jackie was able to see into the rehearsal room where the voice came from. She was surprised to see an exotically beautiful young woman who sang from somewhere deep in her soul.

“That’s the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard,” Jackie remarked to Emiliano. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Celia Cruz. She sings with a local band, but she’s going to be world famous one of these days. You mark my words.”

After listening, entranced, for a minute more, Jackie and Emiliano resumed their climb, and the singer’s voice was quickly replaced by the pulsating sound of mambo music coming from the next flight up.

The stairway ended at a room that appeared to take up the entire third floor. It was long and narrow and high ceilinged, with three large windows at either end that bounced sunlight off the whitewashed walls, making the room seem extra-bright.

The parquet floor, buffed to a high gloss, was difficult to see because of the dozens of couples dancing on it. At the far end of the room—the front, actually—the dance master and dance mistress mamboed together as an example for their pupils to emulate, for this was indeed the Dance Academy that had been advertised on the first-floor sign. Two more dancers—one male, the other female—circulated through the room, showing individual couples what they could do to improve their dance steps.

Jackie looked around for a band, but there was none to be seen. Instead, the music was provided by a large antique Victrola standing in one corner of the room, its megaphone-like horn broadcasting the mambo beat.

Emiliano gave Jackie a moment to take in the room, then said, “Would you like to dance?”

Jackie tried hard to cover her surprise at the invitation. Stuffed-shirt Emiliano was asking her to dance with him?

As though he had read her mind, Emiliano added, “This is just for the purpose of cover, of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Jackie with a small smile. She put her camera bag down on one of the many chairs that lined the long walls of the ballroom, then fitted herself neatly into Emiliano’s arms—which felt enjoyably muscular through the thin sleeves of his linen sports jacket—as he led her across the dance floor. To her surprise, he was an excellent dancer, although with just a hint of the stiffness that she saw now as his courtly deference to the opposite sex. In some ways, Emiliano seemed like a man from a different century entirely. She had no trouble envisioning him as Don Quixote de la Mancha paying gentle court to his Dulcinea.

As they danced in time with the mambo music, Jackie noticed something curious happening. One by one, couples melted off and drifted in the vicinity of a doorway in one corner of the ballroom that seemed to lead up to the third floor of the building. As the remaining dancers widened their steps and spread out to hide the gaps in their ranks, Jackie’s practiced eye could gauge that about half the couples in the ballroom were no longer to be seen. Where had they gone, and to what purpose? she wondered.

She didn’t have to wait too long for an answer. With one practiced movement, Emiliano had led Jackie so they were now positioned with easy access to the doorway. He stopped dancing, and Jackie felt a pang of disappointment. It was romantic being held in his arms and, for a brief moment, forgetting that there was an ulterior reason for her being here, in this room, with him.

Emiliano motioned for her to go through the doorway, but Jackie stopped to retrieve her camera bag before following him up the stairs. In case things went wrong—and Jackie had to admit to herself that in situations such as this, that was a likely possibility—she didn’t want to be far from her camera bag and the film reel it concealed.

The room that Emiliano led Jackie into was almost as large as the ballroom below. Unlike the room on the third floor, though, this one was as dark as the other one was light. Its windows were shuttered, and there didn’t seem to be any exit other than the one they had just come through. One end of the room was piled high with ballroom chairs that had been taken down to accommodate those assembled here. They had grouped themselves in a semicircle around a speaker who wore a white muslin dress. It took a moment for Jackie to recognize her as Rosario, the blond-haired beauty who had rescued her from Three Stooges at the crocodile farm.

Emiliano sat in a chair at the back of the semicircle and patted the one next to him for Jackie to take. But Jackie held up one finger—indicating to him to wait “one minute”—and sidled over to the nearest window, where she opened the shuttered blinds and looked out. She saw that there was a fire escape leading down to the alley below. This was standard CIA protocol she had been taught at the Farm. Never enter a room without taking note of all possible points of egress. In an emergency, just such foreknowledge could save your life.

Jackie went to check out the other set of windows but found her arm captured by Emiliano, who silently urged her to take a seat—and at once. Jackie did so with a slight shrug of the shoulders to indicate that she was doing so under minimal protest. She sat there and listened as Rosario, standing at the front of the group, read off a list of offenses that El Presidente had committed since seizing office earlier in the year.

As Rosario continued, Jackie took the opportunity to examine those seated around her. They all seemed to be her age, in their early to mid-twenties. But judging by how varied they were in their demeanor and mode of dress, Jackie saw that they were a diverse group of men and women—workers and college graduates, campesinos and poets, professional men and laborers, as evidenced by the musculature beneath their shirts and the calluses on their hands. Yet there was another thing that they had in common, Jackie noted, other than their youth. It was the shining light in their eyes, the pure fervor of the revolutionary convinced that his cause is just. It was a source that, if tapped by the right individual, had the potential to change the world.

When she was finished, Rosario’s place was taken by a man dressed in a tan suit. Before he launched into his speech, he removed his jacket and handed it to a man seated in the first row. The speaker was handsome in an unassuming way and had an unassuming manner to match. He was neatly barbered, with a small mustache and a head of thick dark hair. He spoke in a soft voice and was somewhat halting in his manner. Hardly a galvanizing speaker, was Jackie’s first impression of the man.

But then something curious happened. The man continued to speak in his soft voice. And the people seated around him leaned forward to catch his every word. This seemed to spur on the man, who slowly raised his voice and addressed his audience with increased passion.

Jackie looked around and saw from the rapt looks on their faces that everyone in the room was mesmerized by this man’s words. He grew more ardent with each passing moment. Although she had no idea what he was saying, the fervent way he spoke needed no translation. She found herself at risk of being carried off by the soaring power of his voice.

And then all the little hairs on her arms rose to attention as, with a thrill, Jackie realized that the speaker was the very man she had come to Cuba to meet—Fidel Castro. Very soon now, she was going to be able to fulfill one-half of her mission: speaking to him and finding out what his intentions were should he ever manage to overthrow El Presidente and become the new—and hopefully more democratic-minded—leader of Cuba.

But before that could happen, the windows at the other end of the room—the ones left unexamined by Jackie—burst open, allowing shafts of sunlight to spear the darkness, followed by men who were even now catapulting into the room behind the beams of illumination. Some were dressed in uniform. Others wore rumpled dark suits. All had guns drawn or rifles raised, and they were being led by the man Jackie recognized as Colonel Sanchez. Apparently, this member of the secret service had finally caught on to the fact that the rebel headquarters in the city lay only a stone’s throw from his own command center.

There was a mass scraping of chairs as the revolutionaries rose and bolted for the doorway, hoping to get downstairs and outside the building before this flying squad from the Service of Military Intelligence could round them up. Jackie watched as two men from the front row grabbed Fidel by both arms and dragged him toward the exit. But the doorway was a narrow one, and there was a bottleneck as all the rebels tried to flee the room at the same time. Jackie’s natural instinct was to follow them down the stairs. But instead, she held back and put a hand on Emiliano’s arm, silently urging him to follow her lead.

Between the shafts of sunlight, there were still deep pockets of shadow, and it was into one of these shadows that Jackie now dissolved, with Emiliano instinctively at her side. She followed the pocket to the wall against which all the remaining ballroom chairs had been piled, found the slight gap between the wall and the chairs, and slipped into it. After Jackie’s slight tugging on his sleeve, Emiliano did too.

Trying to control her heavy breathing and rapid heartbeat, Jackie looked out through the chairs and watched horror-struck as Rosario, the last rebel out of the room, was nabbed by Colonel Sanchez, who seemed to wear a look of vindication on his face. There was something unusual about that moment of capture, but Jackie had no time to think about it now, as she was too busy trying to plot their escape from this room.

She waited until Sanchez and Rosario started down the stairs in the wake of the other members of Sanchez’s flying squad. Then Jackie put one finger on her lips as a signal to Emiliano to step as quietly as possible, and they emerged from behind the relative security of the chairs. She needn’t have worried about making any noise, however, because sounds of absolute chaos came from the ballroom below as terror was unleashed on the remaining dancers.

Jackie walked quickly over to the windows that she had checked out upon first entering the room. The shutter was easy to raise. Jackie lifted one, then stepped through the window onto the fire escape, first stopping to make sure that her camera bag was secure. She motioned for Emiliano to step over the sill and join her. The fire escape creaked and vibrated and shook in place. Jackie guessed that it was now only rust that was holding the structure to the wall. Best to get off it as quickly as possible. She pointed downward, then started down the rickety iron ladder to the landing directly below.

As she clambered down the rusted ladder, she began to replay in her mind the end of the scene that she had just witnessed. There was Rosario trying to flee from the flying squad. She was the last through the doorway and would have made it had not Colonel Sanchez seized hold of her from behind. He grabbed her around the waist and flung her around, spinning her so fast that her blond hair, obviously a wig, flew off her head to reveal a thick mane of dark brown, curly hair. Now, why would someone with hair like that want to disguise it?