The right seat was empty, not unusual for this sort of short-hop flight; the Brotherhood liked to keep their movements and activities as private as possible. He was not flying alone, of course; as usual the man with the cases was strapped in to the bucket jump seat in the cargo hold with strict instructions not to let his precious cargo out of his sight. As well as the man with the cases, the hold held two tons of live rock lobster, five tons of pineapples and four tons of avocados, none of which any Cuban citizen would ever see, much less eat.
Knowing that, Capitaine Julio Ortega Montez reached into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt and pulled out a package of Rothman’s cigarettes, a carton of which one of his fellow pilots had picked up for him on his last Canadian flight. Smoking on any flight was strictly forbidden, but what were they going to do, fire him? There weren’t that many experienced pilots left in Cuba.
At fifty-five years of age, Julio had been flying his entire adult life. He soloed at the National Flight Academy at the age of eighteen in a Czech-made L-29 Delfín jet trainer, then worked his way up through a variety of MiGs until his body couldn’t take the g-forces anymore.
He spent some time behind a desk, but after less than six months they had him flying Air Cuba passenger flights. When he turned fifty they switched him to short-hop cargo runs to Mexico and occasionally to Venezuela. He only made fifty dollars a week when he was working, and eighty dollars a month when he was off, but that much money could go a long way in Havana these days and he augmented his government pay with a variety of black market “imports” and “exports.”
A hundred cohibas he got from a contact at Habanos for five dollars U.S., he sold wholesale to a smuggler in Mexico for ten dollars apiece. There were ways around the revolution if you were smart enough.
His father had worked in the Havana Engineering Office during the Batista years, and from the stories he’d told Julio, everything had come full circle again. Under Batista, Cuba had been oppressed under a vicious, corrupt dictator who used the police and the army to punish his enemies while he consorted with gangsters.
After a few years of idyllic solidarity in the early days under the Comandante, Cuba was now once again ruled by a dictator who used the police and the army to punish anyone he even thought was his enemy and was surrounded with corrupt officials and gangsters in uniform who spirited millions out of the country every month on flights just like this one. Fidel had promised the country a socialist paradise and had given them a thug’s cesspool instead.
Ortega laughed. What could you expect from a senile old fool who’d supported Gaddafi right up until they’d pulled the bald, sociopathic mass murderer out of a drainage ditch and filled him full of holes?
Ortega snuffed out his cigarette in a small glass jar with a screw top he kept in the cockpit for just that purpose. He laughed again. He supposed that crazy old dictators had to stick together. The pilot checked his watch; the ninety-minute flight was almost over; he could already see the green line of the mainland coming up ahead of him.
The pilot began to sing an old Mercedes Sosa song his mother had taught him—“Alfonsina Y El Mar”: “Por la blanda arena, que lame el mar, su pequeña huella, no vuelve más”—“On the soft sand that is licked by the sea, her small footprint will never return.” Sad songs for sad times. Ortega sighed and began his final approach to Cancún International Airport.
The four-seater Polish Wilga cruised at five hundred feet over the rugged, jungle-covered hills. “Are you sure about this?” Black asked, putting his hand on Montalvo Arango’s scrawny shoulder from the rear seat of the little plane.
“The caves near Aserradero is what the man said, senor,” said Arango, raising his voice over the rattling tumble of the unmuffled engine. “I only know what he tell me.” For five hundred dollars they had convinced a reluctant Arango to come with them, but only with the promise that if the Tiburon Blanco was stolen the British government would replace it. Without batting an eye, Will Black solemnly agreed.
“You know what he’s talking about?” Black said to Laframboise. “It all looks like Cambodia down there to me.”
“Sure,” said the pilot, his right hand gently tweaking the stick in front of him. “This whole area is full of sinkholes and caves.”
“Any of them particularly well known?” Carrie asked.
Laframboise laughed. “If this guy’s on the run, dearie, I doubt he’s going to hide out anywhere famous.”
“True enough,” said Carrie, “but is there anyplace local that’s got some kind of story attached to it?”
“What kind of story?” Laframboise asked.
“A ghost story maybe, a kid getting lost. Some old legend.”
“La caverna de los asesinados,” said Arango, crossing himself. “In the time of the bandito war.”
“They murdered men there?” Black said, doing the translation in his head: the cavern of the murdered ones.
“The militiamen trapped them there. The militia were only boys, fourteen, fifteen years old. Edito’s brother, Domingo, was one of them. Their leader made them throw gasoline bombs into the cave. Those who were not burned to death were killed as they tried to escape, then thrown back into the flames. No one will go there for fear of los fantasmas inquietos.”
“The restless ghosts,” said Black.
“Sí.” Arango nodded.
“Well, Domingo Cabrera would certainly remember it,” said Carrie, seated beside Black. She glanced down at the rolling landscape below. “The question is, how do we find it?”
“It is sixteen miles east of Aserradero,” said Arango.
“Are you sure?” Black asked the aging man.
“Yes, I am sure,” said Arango.
“Why?” Carrie asked. “I thought you told us Domingo Cabrera didn’t tell you where they were going when they left with his brother and Holliday.”
“There was no need for him to tell me,” said Arango darkly. “I was the militia leader who ordered those young boys to burn the Batistardos out of the cave. I was the one who threw the first cóctel Molotova into the cave to show the boys how it was done.”
There was a long silence in the cabin of the little aircraft, the roaring of the engine filling the air. Finally Black leaned forward and spoke to Laframboise. “You know where he’s talking about?”
“Near enough.” The pilot nodded.
“Any place to land?”
“There’s a river but it’s too wild and narrow to put down.”
“Anywhere else?”
“I heard stories about a guy with a hunting lodge and a private airstrip in that area. He was a doctor and a friend of Batista. His name was Martinez, I think.”
“Dr. Enrique Gomez Martinez,” said Arango. “He died in la guerra de los bandidos. He got rich giving the rich women of Habana abortions they did not want their husbands to know about.”
“Can you find the airfield?” Black asked Laframboise.
“No sweat,” said the pilot. “Easy-peasy.” He laughed. “They still say easy-peasy?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” said Carrie.
“Okay. Just sit back and enjoy the view and I’ll see what I can do.”
Four hours after the Air Cubana flight piloted by Capitaine Julio Ortega Montez landed at Cancún International Airport, a silver-sided truck bearing the familiar blue-and-white starburst logo of the Meade Optical Corporation went through the Matamoros-Brownsville border crossing. After a brief Level II inspection of the driver and his assistant’s documentation, the truck was passed through, then traveled its regular route to the cargo terminal at Brownsville–San Pedro Island Airport.