The Cuban Affair

“I am walking home.”

“Well, good luck with that. And if you get picked up by the police—”

“I have a cyanide capsule with me.”

That’s good news.

“They will never take me alive.”

Bite hard.

Sara said to Eduardo, “Please come with us. We will all go home together.”

“I am home.” He refilled his glass and drew on his cigar, then looked at me, then at Sara—and I knew that look. He asked, “Are you . . . working well together?”

Yes, I’m fucking her.

Sara replied, “Mac has been extraordinary.”

“Good. We made a good choice.” He added, “I admire the American Army. Excellent training. Men who are trustworthy and keep their word.”

“Thank you.”

“Men like Mr. Colby.” He looked me in the eye. “Mister Colby seems to think you and Sara have formed a romantic attachment.”

Thanks, Jack. Asshole. Or was the old fox just baiting me?

Sara didn’t help the situation by turning red. She blushes too easily.

Eduardo looked at her. “You are committed to a man in Miami.”

This isn’t Miami, se?or. I couldn’t believe the old boy was hung up on this. I mean, we’re on the lam in an f-ing police state with our lives on the line and . . . Well, officer and gentleman that I am, I said, “Se?or Valazquez, I assure you that Sara has been faithful to . . . whoever.”

“Do you both swear to this?”

“I do.”

Sara hesitated, but said, “I swear.”

I didn’t think he believed us, but he had the answer he wanted, so now we could talk about sixty million dollars.

He changed the subject and asked Sara, “Do you understand how you are to make your contact in Cayo Guillermo?”

Sara replied, “The Melia Hotel lobby bar, any night after seven P.M.”

“Correct. And your contact will say, ‘It is good to see you here.’?” He stared at Sara for some reason, as though she’d once forgotten an ID phrase.

She nodded.

He let us know, “The three fishermen are staying at the Melia. Felipe and Se?or Colby are sleeping on the boat. So when you make your escape in the darkness, the fishermen will not be onboard—they will be in their beds.”

Innocent as sleeping babies. But with some explaining to do to the police about their missing tournament boat. Hopefully, they’d just be allowed to fly to Mexico City. But if they were jailed, Eduardo and his amigos would have their diplomatic incident, and the fishermen would just be collateral damage. Se?or Valazquez and his amigos played rough. And I’d keep that in mind.

He looked at me. “Do I have your word that you will continue this mission even if . . . something should happen to Sara?”

“If I’m alive and able, I will be at the Melia Hotel in Cayo Guillermo.”

“Good.”

I seemed to be the only one who understood that we needed to get out of here, and I said, “If there’s nothing else, we’re ready to go. We need the contact information for Camagüey.”

He ignored me again and asked, “Do you think the police have made any connection between you and the boat?”

Sara replied, “We don’t think so. But it’s possible they’ll discover something if they’re making inquiries.”

Eduardo nodded. “This was always a concern.”

I asked him, “Do you have any way to contact our person in Cayo?”

“No.” He added, “I don’t know who he is.”

Then how do you know it’s a he? “Do you have any way to contact Felipe?”

“I have no way to contact anyone. Including you. So when we part, this is all in the hands of God.”

I prefer Verizon to keep me in touch. But this was one of those unguided missions, like a rocket that you have no command or control of, and no communication with after it’s launched. It would be good to know what was going on in Cayo Guillermo—like if the tournament had been cancelled and the fleet was gone, or if the police were waiting there for us—but we weren’t going to know anything until we got to the Melia Hotel. If we made it that far.

Eduardo returned to the subject of Antonio and said, “Mister Colby told me you were to meet this man—this tour guide.”

Jeez, Jack. Did Eduardo waterboard him? Or get him drunk? Or was Jack trying to get this mission scrubbed?

“What did you learn at this meeting?”

Sara replied, “We learned we were on a police watch list.” She added, “But this man is a liar and a scammer. He wanted money.”

And some love. But not worth mentioning.

Eduardo nodded, but didn’t reply.

I wondered if Eduardo was thinking about aborting this mission. Sara and I had talked ourselves into pressing on, but Eduardo might now be thinking otherwise. In fact, he said, “Perhaps the money is not that important.”

I assured him, “It is to me.”

“There are things more important than money.”

“I agree. And money can buy all those things.”

He looked at me. “We are motivated by something greater than money.”

“I’m not.”

“Our life’s goal is to destroy this regime.”

“That takes money.”

Sara said to Eduardo, “I have taken Mac to Villa Marista.”

He nodded and looked at me. “So you understand.”

Something was getting lost in the translation, but in the back of my mind maybe I did understand.

Eduardo changed the subject again and asked Sara, “Did you see your grandfather’s bank?”

“I did. I showed it to Mac.”

Three times.

“And your home?”

“Yes.”

“I, too, walked to see it.” He shook his head. “Very sad. It made me unhappy.” Eduardo Valazquez walking around Havana made me unhappy. And standing here made me unhappy. I looked at Sara and tapped my watch.

She nodded.

Eduardo said to me, “Another of our goals is to return the property that was stolen by the Communists to the rightful owners.”

“Sara has mentioned that.”

Eduardo walked over to a work bench where a tarp covered something big. Sara joined him, and I followed.

Eduardo said, “Flavio has delivered something here for you.” He pulled away the tarp, revealing two medium-sized steamer trunks. They’d fit nicely in the Buick wagon.

He stuck his cigar in his mouth, took a key out of his pocket, and opened the padlock on one of the trunks, then lifted the lid. The trunk was crammed with paper, but not the green kind.

Eduardo said, “This is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

I knew what this was, and so did Sara, but Eduardo told us, “Land deeds, property titles . . . records of the true ownership of houses, plantations, farms, factories, apartment buildings . . . banks . . . all nationalized—stolen—by the regime.”

I said, “I thought this stuff was in the cave in Camagüey.”

“It never left Havana.” He looked at Sara. “Your grandfather chose to hide it separately from the money.” He smiled. “He was a careful man who believed that one should not put all of one’s assets in one basket.”

She nodded.

He also explained to me, “Almost all Cubans believed that the Castro regime would not last more than a year. That the Americans would not allow a Communist country to exist off its shores.”

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