“Well, that’s not surprising in that part of the world. Have you ever tried to call Miami International and been able to get someone on the phone who speaks English? And now for a word from our sponsors.”
[SIX]
When General Jesus Manuel Cosada of the Cuban DGI walked onto the balcony of the suite in which General Sergei Murov of the SVR had installed himself, he found the general in shorts and a T-shirt sitting in a lounge chair. Murov was sipping at a cup of clear liquid.
“Good morning, General,” Cosada said.
Murov raised somewhat glazed eyes to him and replied, in a cloud of essence d’alcool, “Jesus, Jesus, try to remember my cover. I’m supposed to be Grigori Slobozhanin of the Greater Sverdlovsk Table Tennis Association.”
“Why couldn’t you have picked a cover name people can pronounce?”
General Murov gave General Cosada the finger.
“Isn’t it a little early for that?” General Cosada inquired, pointing to the nearly empty liter bottle of Stolichnaya vodka sitting on the Ping-Pong table beside the general.
“It’s always too early for that stupid game. As far as I’m concerned, whoever invented Ping-Pong should be shot in the kneecaps.”
“I was referring to the vodka.”
“The last thing Vladimir Vladimirovich said to me before I left the Kremlin was, ‘Remember, my dear Sergei, when you get to Mexico, whatever you do, don’t drink the water.’”
“Sergei — excuse me, Grigori—what I came here to tell you is that we have a problem, a morale problem.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Murov said. “The next to last thing Vladimir Vladimirovich said to me before I left the Kremlin was, ‘I don’t want to hear about any of your problems, Sergei. The only thing I want to hear from you is when the Aeroflot airplane with Berezovsky, Alekseeva, and Castillo neatly trussed up in the baggage compartment is going to land at Domodedovo.’”
“Where’s that? I thought he wanted them taken to Moscow.”
“Jesus Christ, Jesus! How did you get to be a general? Domodedovo is the Moscow airport.”
“There are some dissidents and counterrevolutionaries who say I got promoted because my mother is Fidel’s and Raúl’s first cousin once removed, but I think that’s just jealousy, so I don’t pay attention to it.”
“Tell me about this morale problem. What’s that all about?”
“I guess you could say it’s a family problem.”
“What is?”
“You remember when we left Havana, it was in sort of a hurry?”
“I remember. The ride to the airport in that 1958 Studebaker Hawk of yours was terrifying. It’s just too old to drive it at more than forty m.p.h., which you were dumb enough to try to do.”
“And do you remember Raúl ordering me to give you twenty-four of our best DGI people to help you get these people on the Aeroflot plane to Moscow?”
“Jesus, Jesus! To Domodedovo. Moscow is the city. Domodedovo is the airport. Why don’t you write that down?”
“Well, when we had to push my Hawk to get it to start, Raúl was looking out the window and saw us. So he decided to be helpful and called the DGI personnel officer himself and told him to get twenty-four of our best DGI agents out to the airport.”
“So?”
“The thing is, Grigori, although the People’s Democratic Republic of Cuba has absolutely done away with class distinctions, the truth is that there are two kinds of ‘best DGI agents.’”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“One group of ‘best DGI agents’ are the ones who have worked their way from the bottom.”
“And the other kind?”
“The other kind are the ones whose fathers, or uncles, are high-ranking officials of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic.”
“I think I know what’s coming,” General Murov said.
“So what the DGI personnel officer did was assume, since Raúl himself had called, that he was talking about that second group. So he took one of those buses we swapped rum for from the Bulgarians and went out to the Workers and Peasants Golf and Tennis Club and loaded twenty-four of them onto the bus and took them out to the airport.”
“They didn’t complain?”
“Not then. When I saw who they were, I told them we were going to the Cuban Mission to the UN in New York. They all knew, of course, that meant they would have diplomatic immunity so they could get in a UN stretch limousine, head for Park Avenue, find a fire hydrant, park next to it, and when the cops show up, open the sunroof and moon the cops to show their disdain for capitalist imperialism and its minions.”
“Well, I can understand that,” General Murov said. “But what happened when the plane landed here?”
“I lied to them again. I told them that before they went to New York they would have to prove they had been paying attention in Spy School, and the way they were going to do that was to pass themselves off as poor Mexicans and find menial employment at either the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort or with Imperial Cruise Lines, Incorporated. Those who did so successfully, I told them, got to go to New York. Those who didn’t would get sent back to Havana.”
“And this worked? Jesus, Jesus, I seem to have underestimated you.”
“Well, I was, you should know, trained in Moscow.”
“That would explain it, wouldn’t it?” Murov asked rhetorically. “So, what’s the problem?”
“The Czarina of the Gulf docked here this morning. I told you Aleksandr Pevsner is going to use her to house guests at the Castillo — Alekseeva nuptials.”
“No, Jesus, I told you that,” Murov said. “Is that how you got to be a general? Taking credit for intelligence developed by other people?”
“And I suppose you told me Castillo and his fiancée flew in here late yesterday?”
“No, I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”
“Would I tell you if I wasn’t sure?”
“You just told me Aleksandr Pevsner is going to use the Czarina of the Gulf to house wedding guests. If you lied about that, why wouldn’t you lie about this?”
“You’ll just have to trust me that I’m not. Do you want to hear about the Czarina of the Gulf or not?”
“If you promise on your mother’s grave to tell the truth.”
“My mother’s still alive, so that wouldn’t work. How about on my honor as a graduate of the SVR Academy for Peace, International Cooperation, and Espionage?”
“That’ll do it.”
“Consider it given. The people we infiltrated into both the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort and Imperial Cruise Lines, Incorporated, have been told there is an emergency situation aboard the Czarina of the Gulf and they are going to have to work around the clock until it is cleared up.”
“What kind of an emergency situation?”
“I spent a lot of time and money developing this intel, Grigori, so pay attention.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Somehow — and I don’t know how; I’m still working on it — Aleksandr Pevsner has really pissed off some Mexican Indian witch doctors. So they put a curse on the Czarina of the Gulf.”
“What do you mean, a curse?”
“They call it ‘Montezuma’s revenge.’”