God, Jordan wished she’d stayed in Mississippi.
Her mind returned to the afternoon’s photo shoot, which had begun as a study in anticlimax. Raúl Castro was a poor substitute for Fidel, or at least the Fidel that Jordan remembered from her visit twenty years earlier. But as she was concluding her work, the president himself had stepped into the room unannounced and told her he remembered her from their previous meeting. Back then, the Cuban leader had been vital and filled with restless energy, and he’d flirted shamelessly with Jordan. The man facing her now was only a shadow of his younger self, a bent figure with a grizzled beard, swept aside by the tides of history.
Speaking softly in Spanish, Jordan told him that her husband had asked her to inquire whether he might answer a couple of questions. Having been briefed before the meeting, Fidel knew that Jordan was married to an FBI agent. In response to her request, he gave her a noncommittal tilt of the head and asked what the subject of her questions might be.
“John F. Kennedy,” she said. “New evidence has been discovered in America.”
Castro gave her a polite smile, but she thought she saw a flicker of interest in his eyes. “You speak much better Spanish than you once did, I believe,” he said.
“I got a lot of practice in El Salvador and Honduras in the 1980s.”
“Excellent. Tell me about this new evidence.”
Jordan had lowered her voice. “I’m not free to do that. But my husband would like to know if an American pilot named David Ferrie once ran guns to your government, before you aligned yourself with the Soviet Union.”
Castro considered the question for some time. Then he said, “This is true. Se?or Ferrie was an unstable man, but in those early days we could not be selective in our choice of allies.”
“Thank you. The Bureau also has a reliable report that when you heard of the death of President Kennedy, your first reaction was to say it was a terrible thing for Cuba.”
Castro nodded firmly. “This is also true. Kennedy’s administration worked against us, and even tried to kill me, but privately we were working toward a sort of détente between our countries. Also, the man who stood waiting in the wings in America—and the men behind him—were far worse than the Kennedy brothers, from my perspective. It was Cuba’s good fortune that those men became ensnared in Vietnam. Otherwise, I fear we would have been next on the menu, and the world itself might now be only a memory.”
Again, Jordan thanked him for his candor while struggling to remember the questions John had given her. Pulling out a notecard didn’t seem like an ideal move in a situation where informality was the lubricant for conversation.
“At that time, you also seemed to imply that the CIA or a right-wing cabal was behind the assassination.”
Castro tilted his palm from side to side. “At that time, you must remember, this was a reasonable suspicion, given the events at Playa Girón—excuse me, the Bay of Pigs. And of course the Caribbean Crisis—our blockaded missiles—and the subsequent activities involving Operation Mongoose. It was very easy to see Lee Oswald as the dupe of more devious men. He tried to emigrate here, but we wanted him no more than the Soviets.” Castro waved his hand dismissively. “But that is ancient history. I no longer believe in a CIA conspiracy regarding Kennedy. Such men could not have kept that secret for so long.” The president regarded her curiously, then said, “Does your husband have a new theory about the events in Dallas? What has been discovered?”
Jordan tried to keep her answer as short as possible. “I’m afraid I don’t know that myself. But my husband and some of his colleagues now believe that the president was killed by a Mafia figure that Robert Kennedy was trying to deport from America. Do you have an opinion on that?”
The old dictator’s eyes seemed to deepen as he studied her. “I’ve had a good deal of experience with gangsters, mi cari?o. They are venal men. They care only for themselves; they have no morals or mercy. If you seek a man who would murder the president of his country—one who is not a political extremist—then a gangster fighting to survive would be very easy for me to accept. Which mafioso do they have in mind?”
“The boss of New Orleans. Carlos Marcello.”
Castro’s eyes filled with some of the intensity she remembered from an earlier decade. “Ah, sí. Some of my people had dealings with this man. He was a crony of Santo Trafficante, who I held in jail here for some time. Marcello had an interest in the Lansky casinos, and . . .”
“Yes?” Jordan asked, willing him to continue.
“Marcello’s people also had dealings with Se?or Jack Ruby, who paid a visit here in connection with the release of Trafficante during the early days of the Revolution.”
“Do you know whether Marcello and David Ferrie knew each other?”
“This I do not know, I’m afraid. But”—the president smiled—“I will inquire among certain men of my acquaintance.”
“Thank you. Can you tell me anything more that might be helpful?”
“Perhaps. But first you must tell me something. I watched you while you were photographing my brother. You seem very sad, mi cari?o. Not like the girl I remember from before. Has your trip been made unpleasant in some way?”
Jordan felt heat come into her face. “I lost a friend today. A young woman, only thirty-five.”
The old man’s eyes released the tension they had held. “I see. I am sorry. I experience the same thing often now . . . more with each passing year.”