She nodded.
“Are there any new surprises in Cayo Guillermo that I should know about?”
She stayed silent for a few seconds, then replied, “When you ask a question like that, you know the answer.”
“Then why would I ask?”
“The answers are all there. I told you, you’re very smart. You just need to take what you know and come to a conclusion.”
This was sounding like Cuban Zen. “Is it something that will please me more than the money?”
“No.”
So that ruled out me killing time on a nude beach in Cayo Guillermo before our 7 P.M. rendezvous at the hotel. Well, I didn’t want to ruin my surprise, so I dropped the subject.
We drove in silence, then Sara said, “I am sorry about the money.”
Not as sorry as I am. But right from the beginning the money seemed more illusion than reality; like El Dorado, the City of Gold, shimmering in the distant hills. How many men died looking for that?
I said, “I’m sure that the exiles and their families will be even sorrier to hear that their money is still in Cuba.”
“We’re going to come back for the money someday. Soon.” She asked, “Will you come with me?”
“No.”
“Think about it.”
“Okay. No.”
“Think again.”
“Maybe.”
“You have adventure in your soul.”
And rocks in my head.
CHAPTER 44
It was 1 A.M., and the traffic was thinning, and there were fewer signs of human habitation along the highway. The terrain was getting hilly and I noticed that the engine strained on the uphill. Was it ironic that this wagon was powered by a boat engine? Was it Karma? Or was it just Chico’s cheapest option? Well, you get what you pay for. Except in Cuba.
Sara said, “Two things have made this trip more important than money.”
“The day at the organic farm, and—?”
“Us, Mac. We found each other.”
“Right.” With some complications.
“And we are bringing home the remains of those men.”
No argument there. But like everything else in this country, there was undoubtedly a price tag on those skulls, and that made me think of a nation of people who were so desperate that they had become accomplished scammers to survive. Like Antonio. And it occurred to me that maybe those skulls weren’t those of American POWs murdered in Villa Marista prison; that some con artists had capitalized on the story and sold Eduardo and his friends a bill of goods and seventeen random skulls. There was no shortage of executed prisoners in Cuba, and no shortage of Cuban American exiles who’d believe anything that would help topple the regime. But would Eduardo be so gullible? Well, when—or if—we got those skulls out of Cuba, we’d find out, scientifically, what we’d risked our lives for.
And while I was not taking anything at face value, what about those twelve steamer trunks filled with money and hidden in a cave in Camagüey? Did they really exist? And if they did, were they still there?
This country was like an elaborate magic show, a grand illusion, a game of three-card monte, and a Hogwarts for con artists. And I thought the Afghanis were slippery.
Well, the property deeds seemed real enough.
I glanced at Sara. She was real. And she had confessed all her lies. What more could I want?
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about Antonio coming to your room at midnight and seeing the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.”
“Do you think he’ll notify the police?”
“That depends on whether or not he wants to tell them he had a date with you, and that you jilted him.”
She nodded.
“I myself would be embarrassed, and probably not tell the police that I’d been scammed. But if he’s a good police informant, he might make that call and give the police a heads-up, and by seven A.M., when we don’t show up at the pier, there’ll be no question that we’re gone.”
She thought about all that and replied, “We didn’t get much of a head start.”
“No.” And we were already on a police watch list, thanks to Antonio. And we had a few other problems with this road trip. Like if the police had already made the connection between me and Fishy Business, which would lead them straight to Cayo Guillermo. And we wouldn’t know we had that problem until we got to Cayo, and by that time . . . Well, as they say, you should never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.
Another problem with this Misión Imposible was us arriving in Cayo and discovering that the fleet had been booted out of the country. And the third possible problem was Eduardo, wandering around Havana, or beginning his cross-country walk home.
Eduardo was the only person in Cuba—except for Jack and Felipe—who knew where Dan MacCormick and Sara Ortega were going, and he even knew what we were driving. And if the police picked him up, and ID’d him as Eduardo Valazquez, the notorious anti-Castro enemy of the state, they’d ask him why he was in Cuba as they were electrifying his nuts. Eduardo had assured us he would take the poison—but you never know.
And then there was Chico and Flavio, both of whom knew a little more than I wanted them to know. And I shouldn’t forget the old man with the cane. I was sure that Eduardo’s amigos in Miami and Havana had vetted all three of them, but . . . everyone in Cuba, as Antonio said, had a second job. And everyone sold each other out.
Sara said, “Someday, Antonio and everyone like him in Cuba will face a day of judgement.”
Actually, I would’ve liked to have been in Sara’s room at midnight to deliver my own judgement to Antonio’s nuts. But the mission comes first.
Sara was looking in her sideview mirror, and now and then she glanced over her shoulder.
I asked her, “Do the Tráficos use unmarked cars?”
“They do.” She added, “They drive mostly Toyota SUVs.”
Sara was a wealth of information. Some of it obtained from Marcelo last year. Some of it obtained from her briefing officer, the retired CIA guy. And some information had come to her from Eduardo, Carlos, and their amigos in the exile community. I wasn’t as well-informed as she was, but I noticed that if I asked, sometimes I got an answer. So I asked, “Did Eduardo know your father or grandfather?”
“He knew both.”
“Right. So one or both of them must have told Eduardo that those property deeds were hidden in a church, not in the cave.”
“I guess.”
“But you didn’t know that.”
“I . . . may have known. But forgot.”
“Or those deeds were in the cave, and someone has already been to the cave and cleaned it out.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that Eduardo has been playing this game long before you or I were even born.”
“This is not a game.”
“It is. But who’s calling the plays?”
“Not you.”
“Right. I’m just the running back. You’re the quarterback, and Eduardo is the coach.”
“Good analogy.” She advised me, “Don’t think about this too much.”