Jordan waited.
“In 1967, a man with a rifle tried to assassinate me in the Plaza de la Revolución. Had my security services not been warned by one of the man’s confederates, he probably would have succeeded. He was set up to shoot me from seven hundred yards away, and he had the skill to make such a shot.”
“What nationality was the shooter?”
“French Corsican.”
“I see. Was he killed?”
“Not immediately. He was wounded during his capture. Then he was questioned by the security services. He subsequently died during this process, but not before telling most of what he knew.”
Jordan had the feeling that the Corsican’s confession was what she had been brought here to hear.
“And?”
“The story he told was quite interesting. He had been hired to kill me by two American Mafia leaders. Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello.”
Jordan felt an unexpected thrill. “Have you confirmed that he was telling the truth?”
This time Castro’s smile had a reptilian quality to it. “He was telling the truth, you can believe me. But I wasn’t very interested in his story. The Mafia has wanted its casinos back ever since 1959. They will never get them. Sometime after I die, Cuba will revert to capitalism and the Walt Disney company will have Mickey Mouse running the damned casinos.”
For a moment Jordan wondered if the Cuban leader were drunk. In any case, he now seemed to be lost in his own memories. She decided the best thing to do was let him ramble.
“The story that interested me also involved Se?or Marcello. By 1967, I had of course heard the craziest theories imaginable about who killed Kennedy. Like Robert Ludlum stories, you know?”
“Yes.”
“Justice Warren’s commission probed many of these theories. But one name that never appeared in the Warren Commission Report was Carlos Marcello. It was as though this man had been rendered invisible during the investigations. But the Corsican told me a very simple story. He said Robert Kennedy had been in the process of deporting Marcello permanently from the United States, and the only way Marcello could stop this was to neutralize the attorney general. To do this, he decided to kill the president. It was no Machiavellian stratagem by the CIA, the military, or corporate America. It was simply a matter of survival.”
“Did this Corsican claim to have been the shooter?”
“No. That was partly what convinced me he was telling the truth. He was not claiming to be the assassin and asking to be spared because of it. He was simply emptying his brain to spare himself further pain.”
Jordan shuddered at the thought of the agony concealed behind the clinical coldness of that phrase.
“He said the shooter was a man who had trained exiles in preparation for Playa Girón at camps in Louisiana. He was one of the white-robed racists, a KKK man. He was also a former U.S. marine, like Oswald. Unlike Oswald, however, he was supposedly a man of great competence.”
“Did the Corsican give this man a name?”
The president vouchsafed Jordan another tight smile. “Sí, he did.”
“What was it?”
Castro closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “I think it best not to go that far at this time.”
Jordan struggled to contain her frustration. “If you learned this in 1967, why has it never been made public?”
“For several reasons, mi cari?o. First, my security services did not want anyone knowing that a foreign assassin had come so close to killing me. Second, quite frankly, it served the purposes of the Revolution to have the American public mistrust its leaders. Far better for the man in the street to fear that the CIA or some corporate big shots had murdered their King Arthur, and not some Sicilian gangster trying to save his business.”
Jordan sat quietly, trying to process what she’d been told, and why. “And the Corsican died?”
“Sí. Badly.”
“What do you want me to do with this information?”
The president studied his fingernails for a while. Then he said, “I want you to pass it to your husband. Tell him not to try to contact me for confirmation. I will not confirm it. I tell you now, tonight, because you presented me with a completely unofficial way to let the right people know what we know.”
Jordan didn’t know whether to thank him, ask more questions, or prepare to leave.
“You are a beautiful woman, Ms. Glass. You have aged very well since that day we met in 1987.”
“Was that the year?” Jordan asked. “I wasn’t sure.”
“Yes. I, sadly, have not aged nearly so well. Were I ten years younger I would ask you to stay the night.”
Jordan shifted on the chair. She’d been afraid this was coming. “You know I’m a married woman.”
Castro gave her a jaded smile. “Different women view marriage in different ways. I notice you have not taken your husband’s surname.”
“No. But I’m afraid I’m the one-man variety, nevertheless.”
The light of flirtation died in his eyes. “Pity. Well . . . you’ve heard what I wanted to tell you. My driver will take you back to your hotel.”
Jordan got to her feet before he could have any second thoughts and moved toward the door. As she passed the president, he touched her arm, and looked up at her.
“Any more questions before we say good-bye?”
She knew she should go on, but she stopped anyway. She fought the urge to ask what he was doing living in opulence while his people struggled, but she figured she knew the answer already. Power corrupts, regardless of nationality or philosophy. Instead, she asked, “What will you do if someone makes this information public?”
The old man shrugged. “It’s an American problem. I leave it in their hands. I only have one regret.”
“What’s that?”