The pilot shrugged and winked, then marched away.
Ernesto settled into the first seat, the soft leather caressing his skin. He buckled the strap and looked out the window. Beyond the lights of the airstrip was pure darkness. Nothing. He was excited and nauseated at the same time. This was the moment he had been waiting for all those years but also, at his core, the moment he dreaded most.
Ernesto didn’t remember much about his father or his brother from his life back in Cuba. He had heard all about his big brother, Ruben, from his mami, about his heroic flight to America, his big success in the big country. Then his mother passed away and he was, not for the last time, all alone.
But the stories of his family were more legends than anything real. Like the fictional adventures from his boyhood love of King Solomon’s Mines, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and, of course, his favorite: Peter Pan.
The rest of his life had been a virtual flash: grade school, the army, a failed marriage, medical school, deployment to Angola. He was ecstatic to be sent to Africa, hoping that his life would become meaningful. That his own voyage would rival that of Allan Quatermain into the darkest bush. That he would earn his nickname Che, just like Ernesto Guevara, another doctor who traveled to the deepest jungles to fight poverty and injustice.
Yet Angola hadn’t turned out to be anything like he expected. It wasn’t exotic or daring. In fact, it was a lot like back home in Cuba, only a bit poorer. Ernesto made the best of his duty and embraced a simple life that was worth living. But the African chapter of his life had passed quickly. And now it, too, was nearly over.
Suddenly, before Ernesto knew what had happened, what his life had become, nearly six decades had elapsed and he had grown from orphan to old man. It was all honorable, a life of small victories in the slums of Luanda, but was it meaningful? Was it genuine? He didn’t know yet.
The call, so many years ago, had been a jolt.
—
Hermanito, it’s me. Ernesto, it’s your big brother, Ruben.”
The tears had flowed. That contact had come, out of the blue, just as Ernesto’s marriage was crumbling, he was embracing the rigors of medical school, and he was trying desperately to put his life together again for the second time.
“I have a business in America. I have money,” Ruben had told him.
“I don’t need money,” Ernesto had replied.
“Soon, I will have power.” Ruben told him to be patient. “I have a plan.”
Ernesto’s role in the plan was to finish medical school, to become a doctor. To build a reputation. To complete his duty. And, most of all, to lay low until Ruben called again. Until it was time.
That time was now. The second call had finally come.
—
As the Falcon rumbled down the airstrip and zoomed westward over the Atlantic Ocean, Ernesto sensed this was the beginning of his third life. A life that would bring him back to Cuba, back together with his brother Ruben, back to a life of true meaning, of a true patriot. Of greatness.
“Flight time to Santiago will be eleven hours and forty-six minutes,” the intercom announced.
Ernesto anticipated a glorious return. Heaving throngs at the airstrip as he descended the steps, waving and shouting his name—Che! Che! Che! Housewives, working men, pretty girls, the real Cubans. His people. Ernesto wasn’t used to the limelight, but the idea was beginning to electrify him.
Just one question nagged at Ernesto as he watched the lights of Luanda disappear forever, despite assurances from Ruben that everything had been taken care of, that all the pieces were in place, that he would be welcomed home as a hero. Dr. Ernesto “Che” Sandoval, sitting comfortably in a luxury seat on a private airplane, was flying home to Cuba still wondering, deep down, whether his big brother’s plan would actually work.
63.
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, FLORIDA
FRIDAY, 12:05 P.M.
The sun was beating down fiercely on Ricky, but the wind kept him cool. He pulled on the brim of his Marlins baseball cap with his left hand since his right hand was firmly on the fanboat’s steering stick. Lashed to the seats of the boat were five identical black hard-shell suitcases. All empty.
Ricky expertly piloted the fanboat through the infinite swamp, past reeds and sawgrass that looked identical in all directions, to a place that didn’t appear on any map outside of Ricky’s own memory.
Out here, in the middle of the Florida Everglades, static maps were mostly useless. The swamp ebbed and flowed, changing with every storm, the landmarks always shifting, always evolving. This is what made the Everglades the perfect place to hide. Or to get lost.