“You may finish,” Jose answered.
The drinker turned to the window and spotted a man lurking outside. He checked to see if Garcia was still at the rear table. A figure appeared at the door and entered. The man at the bar looked at the new arrival and gave a decisive nod.
Jose was about to speak when the man at the bar drew a pistol, held it low across the bar, and aimed it at Jose. He raised a finger to his lips to indicate silence. Everything would be okay if Jose remained silent.
Meanwhile, the lone man in the suit got up, yawned, and stretched. Manuel Perez closed the door behind him. He went straight for Garcia, who was straightening his jacket.
“?Que quiere usted, Senor?” Garcia asked. What do you want?
What he wanted was not conversation. Perez reached a hand into his jacket and quickly pulled it out again. It now held a small powerful pistol, one of those Italian ones that are just perfect for killing in tight areas.
Garcia yelled in terror when he saw the weapon. He tried to bolt but Perez fired. The first bullet caught the old revolutionary in the stomach and hurled him backward over a table. Then Perez pounced on his fallen prey and pushed the nose of the pistol to Garcia’s head. He fired point blank.
Two loud pops got the job done.
Perez turned and was quickly out the door. His accomplice gave Jose a curt nod and packed away his own pistol. He was out the door as quickly as Perez, disappearing into the shadows of a pleasant summer night in Havana.
Alex tried to sleep, but a violent fight between two feral cats just beyond the open screened window woke her up at 2:00 a.m. The animals screamed like banshees and the brawl recurred around 3:40. The next morning at 5:00 a.m., sunlight flowed in brilliant yellow into the living room through the same window, followed by the incessant crowing of several roosters.
The Cuban family gave her breakfast. At 8:00 a.m., Guillermo walked her to the bus stop on the road that led out of the village and westward into the town of San Ferrer. He explained that she should go to San Ferrer first, then take a connecting bus in San Herlito, two stops down the road, which would connect to Havana.
Guillermo stayed with her. A dozen people assembled to wait for the 9:00 bus. Then a blue vehicle appeared at a bend down the road, and Guillermo explained that this was the bus Alex wanted.
“Thank you for everything,” Alex said. “And thank your family again for me.”
Guillermo nodded. But Alex could tell that the boy had something more to say.
He made sure no one else could hear. “At Dona Ramona’s dress shop yesterday,” he said, “my mother saw your gun. She told my father.”
Alex tried to take it without missing a beat.
“That will be our secret won’t it, I hope?” she said.
“Yes, it will,” the teenager nodded. “My parents won’t tell anyone.”
He then reached into his pocket. He pulled out two envelopes. They were letters, sealed, unstamped, and addressed.
“My mother has a brother who lives in Florida,” he said. “And she has a grandfather who lives in New York. Maybe you can mail these letters to them when you get back to America.”
Alex took the two envelopes. “One way or another, Guillermo,” Alex said, “I’ll see that these get to the proper destination.”
Guillermo nodded. He smiled. “Good-bye,” he said in English.
“Adios, Guillermo,” she answered in Spanish. “Vaya con dios.”
“Con dios,” he nodded. She carefully put the envelopes at the bottom of her tote bag, near her gun, and zipped the bag shut again. She gave the boy a hug and released him.
The bus was a Toyota, made in Japan, battered but not as old as some of the automobiles on the street. Alex mounted, found a seat, and waved to her host. Guillermo raised a hand and waved back, seeming sorry to see her go. Then he turned and walked away. Moments later the bus accelerated and was gone. Alex settled in for the three-hour journey to Havana. She leaned back in her seat with a smile. She knew that at about that moment, back at the Valdez home, Maria, straightening the kitchen, would find the hundred-dollar bill that Alex had left beneath her breakfast plate.
FORTY-SIX
When Alex arrived in Havana late that morning, it was obvious that early summer had arrived. She stepped off of the bus at the Plaza de Armas, the administrative center of the capital. The Plaza de Armas was also the city’s oldest square, a beautifully landscaped park where booksellers bartered with tourists and residents. The trees had flowered and the old square was open and alive with people. She drew a breath and took in the new part of the world that was before her, a city that was vibrant but had the feel of being frozen in another era.
In her new cotton dress and with her tote bag slung over her shoulder, she blended in. On her head, she wore her blue Monterrey Sultans baseball cap. She moved along a street that was populated by people and bicycles and a few moving cars. Many of those that moved were pre-1959 American models.
Alex sighed. More than anything, she felt as if she wanted to call a time-out, to step outside of herself and her assignment for a few weeks, a few days, or even a few hours. The horror of what had happened on the bay two mornings before was still with her.
She crossed the square and walked down two streets before finding a bar that was open. It was on another square, filled with pedestrians and small stores that catered to tourists. Postcards, camera equipment, and snacks to go. Alex sat down at a small wooden table outside on the sidewalk. She ordered a coffee with some pastries. Her morning was slowly transformed into something modestly more pleasant than it had been. She watched the street. Out of nervous habit, her hand checked in her tote bag for her gun.
Now. What to do?
She formed a plan. She would not go to the hotel that had been her and Paul’s designated meeting place – but rather to one nearby. She would register. Mexican passport, Mexican credit card, but no one would be the wiser as to who she was as long as her IDs hadn’t been blown. She thought back again to Paul’s “catastrophe plan” involving the Hotel Ambos Mundos, and Fajardie’s “disaster” advice involving Elke at the Swiss Consulate. She hoped that Paul was still alive and she would attempt to make that rendezvous later in the afternoon. Between 3:00 and 5:00 he had said.
As for Violette and Figaro – they were who she was here for. She would still try to snag Violette, coax him onto the airplane leaving the country. And she would stay alert to any attempt by the phantom-like Figaro to contact her and accompany her to the U.S. as well.
But a further thought occurred to her. What if Paul had escaped but had been wounded? What if he were in a hospital somewhere? She thought this over carefully. To attempt to find him might result in her giving herself away. Yet Paul would need her help to get out of the country. Then again, if he had been captured as well as injured, then there would be no way she could be expected to bring him back to the U.S. And he wasn’t even alive as far as she knew. Well, she would wait and play her hand cautiously, she decided, keeping her eyes wide open.
Patience, she reminded herself. Patience could save her life in such a situation. Today, she calculated, was June 12. She had been on the island for two and a half days. Now she would rendezvous at the Ambos Mundos today and tomorrow. Then she would have to play it by ear.
She knew from the smell of the salty air that she was not far from the harbor. She paid her bill at the cafe and departed.
A sign pointed her to the seafront. She followed the path out to the rocky shore, where she felt the warmth of the sun on her arms and face, combined with the salty spray of the surf crashing on the stones at water level beneath a promenade. Across the water, on the other side of the canal, was the ancient fort of San Carlos, built as a defense by the Spaniards at the end of the eighteenth century and later used as a prison by the dictators Machedo and Batista – and then by Che after the Revolution. The area reeked with history. With the exception of a few modern boats, the scene before her probably hadn’t changed much in a century and a half.