“Compartmentalized information, Jessica. You know that.”
“Is this an operation? Are these lost fishermen your guys?”
“You should know better than to even ask that question.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you’re trying to do here, sir,” she said.
He paused, then coughed, before speaking again. “You ever heard of O?”
“The letter O?”
“The man O!” the Deputy Director snapped.
“No, sir.”
“O is Oswaldo Guerrero. The one who cracked Operation Rainmaker.”
“I wasn’t part of that operation, sir.”
“So you’ve never heard of him?”
“Not really. I’ve heard there’s a ghost called O. A creation of the Cuban intelligence services. Just something to keep us guessing. But I never thought he was a real person.”
“O’s no ghost.”
“Is that who you’re chasing?” Jessica whispered, “Is that why I’m down here in Florida?”
“Not anymore.”
“I can stand down, sir?”
“You want off, you’re off. Enjoy the rest of your vacation. We’ll talk about what’s next once you’re back online.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sighed and his voice softened. “Have you had a chance to try out my bowrider yet? Isn’t she a beauty?”
43.
LUANDA, ANGOLA
FRIDAY, 5:38 A.M. WEST AFRICA TIME [THURSDAY, 11:38 P.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME, + 6 HOURS]
The frantic beat outside his window was loud enough to wake him. Ernesto rolled over gently, brushing against the mosquito netting hung above and around his bed. He checked the clock: 5:38. It was a bit earlier than he normally arose, but he didn’t mind. The sudden music wasn’t an annoyance; it was a soothing comfort. The sounds that filled his ears, an eclectic meld of Cuban rhumba and African techno pop, was a calming reminder of where he was living. And where he was from.
Lying in his bed, the doctor listened to the musseque, the shantytown that had been his home for so many years, coming alive for the day. The banging pots, the chatter of old women, the crowing roosters—they all reminded him of his childhood. The smells of burning charcoal and rotting garbage also invaded his bedroom through the bars on his window and evoked memories of his previous life.
—
Dr. Ernesto Sandoval had been working in Angola so long that he had begun to wonder if he would ever return to his true home. The sprawling capital of Luanda had been a disaster when he had first arrived all those years ago. The war, the corruption, the dysfunction, had all conspired to create one of the world’s most desperate and unhealthy places. That’s why his government sent armies of doctors to Angola. To help the sick. To show solidarity against the imperialists. To broadcast the benefits of Cuba’s socialist revolution. Ernesto was one of the foot soldiers in the battle against tropical disease and, coincidentally, Cuba’s ideological war against the Americans.
Not long after Ernesto arrived in Angola, so, too, did a tidal wave of oil money. And everything began to change. Extravagant high-rise hotels sprang up along the luscious cove of Luanda Bay. Luxury SUVs crowded the palm-lined Avenida 4 de Fevereiro, the beachside parkway honoring the start of the war of independence from colonial Portugal and the beginning of thirty years of nearly endless conflict. The grand avenue celebrating Marxist popular revolution was now synonymous with flashy opulence. Grilled lobster and imported French champagne could be consumed in a pescaderia in the shadow of Fortaleza de S?o Miguel, the fort built by European explorers nearly five centuries earlier. The hub of the transatlantic slave trade, a symbol of all that was supposed to be wrong with global capitalism, had become a scenic backdrop for lavish excess. This was the affluent new Luanda, the modern capital of oil executives, sovereign wealth fund managers, and mind-bogglingly rich politicians. Too much money.
The glitzy waterfront of the capital wasn’t the real Angola, Ernesto knew. A closer look at the skyline revealed many skyscrapers were only half built, teeming not with beautiful people but packed tight with poverty-stricken squatters. These crowded vertical slums housed thousands of the poor, the very ones his government had sent him to help. These people, living in the real Angola, were his patients.
—
Ernesto stared at a water stain on the ceiling and wiggled his toes, thinking about the many flights of stairs he would climb yet again today. He groaned as he sat up in bed. It was meaningful work, he knew. His life’s passion. At least for now.