“In the American jeep?”
“They all had Cuban markings. Besides, I ditched it a few miles outside of town. I just got out of there on a bus down to Holguín, and from there to Santiago de Cuba.”
“I thought you were dead meat in Cuba.”
“I was dead meat anywhere,” Basulto replied. “At least it was home. I knew my way around. I still had a lot of friends. Not everyone was in love with Uncle Fidel. Not then, not now.”
McGarvey shook his head. There were holes a mile wide in his story. There was a hell of a lot more to it than Basulto was telling.
“I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not, see!” the Cuban cried, clenching his fists. He was shaking. “The bastard killed Roger … the only good man I ever knew. And it was his own people who did it. I didn’t know what to do except keep my ass down. I couldn’t play their games any longer.” Basulto pulled up short.
There was a longish silence then, in which Trotter and Day seemed literally to be holding their breath. Another car passed on the road, and from out in the hall a clock chimed the hour. It was one o’clock in the afternoon already.
“That was twenty-five years ago,” McGarvey said, appealing directly to Trotter.
“Within a year he had a marijuana operation going, from what he tells us. They ran the stuff up into the Florida keys. By the time the Cuban authorities got around to him — remember, they had their hands full at the time — they decided he was doing them a service and left him alone.”
It was too loose. There were too many unanswered questions. A man who had worked for the CIA, and who had participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, suddenly makes a success of himself in the drug business in Castro’s Cuba?
“He was arrested about seven months ago in Miami by a DEA team and was jailed pending trial,” Trotter said. “That’s when he began making noises.”
“Darby Yarnell,” Basulto blurted. “In jail, I saw him on the television. It nearly knocked me over.”
McGarvey sat forward very fast. “What about him?” Yarnell was a power in Washington politics. Even from afar, McGarvey had heard the name.
“He was the one working with Baranov in Mexico City. He killed Roger Harris. He’s a goddamned Russian agent.”
8
Basulto was scheduled to leave with Day for the airport, but once there they’d separate, two of Trotter’s babysitters picking up the burden of getting the Cuban back to Miami.
“We’re keeping him on ice there. Less conspicuous,” Trotter said. “The question is, will you be able to help us?”
“With what?” McGarvey snapped. He glanced at Basulto. “He’s just trying to save his own ass with this story. You can’t actually want me to run off half-cocked chasing goblins … twenty-five year old goblins.”
A sudden intensity came to Trotter. “Kirk, we did the preliminary checks. Darby Yarnell worked for the CIA in the late fifties and early sixties. He was stationed in Mexico City at our embassy. He was involved in the Bay of Pigs business.”
“Then send the Company after him. It’s in their bailiwick.”
Day and Trotter exchanged glances.
“Yarnell and Powers are … friends. They worked together in the old days. They still see each other occasionally, on a social level.”
“What the hell are you trying to tell me, John? Yarnell worked for this Russian. Are you saying Powers is a double as well?”
“Good God, no,” Trotter blurted, rearing back as if what McGarvey had just said was blasphemy.
Basulto laughed out loud and rubbed his hands together. Day paled.
“If there is anyone in this mess who’s clean, it is Donald Powers,” Trotter went on. “And we want to keep it that way. The scandal … if it got out, would wreck the agency. Simply wreck it!”
“Powers has fought the Russians for his entire career, from what I understand,” Day interjected. “He’s hurt them too badly, too many times, for him to be suspect in this.”
“Of that I can personally vouch,” Trotter said. “I worked with him. We all know his reputation.”
“Kim Philby had a wonderful reputation with the British, too.”
“Come now, McGarvey, you can’t possibly compare the two,” Day said.
“No,” McGarvey said, sitting back. “But what do we know about Yarnell?”
“That’s just it, Kirk,” Trotter said earnestly. “Superficially Yarnell’s past is an open book. But on closer examination, the man is something of a mystery. One moment he is working as trade adviser out of the Mexican embassy, and the next he’s in Helvetia training a contingent of the Cuban invasion force. In between, we suspect, he made a number of trips to Washington. For what? To see whom? There are no easy answers.”
“If you can’t unravel his past, how the hell do you expect me to do it?”
“We can’t get too close to him,” Trotter said. “Not without him finding out. He has his finger in nearly every Washington pot.”
“Including the bureau, John?”
Trotter nodded. “Including the bureau. And the agency. If word got back to Powers that we were investigating his friend, he would naturally get involved himself.”
“There cannot be a hint of scandal, I won’t allow it,” Day said.
“Which is why I went to see Leonard,” Trotter said, nodding toward Day. “Personally.”
McGarvey nodded toward the Cuban. “How about this one? How reliable is his story? How reliable is he?”
“Not at all,” Trotter said. “But his life is on the line. All we have to do is throw him back on the streets and he’s a dead man.”
“I’m not shitting you here,” Basulto cried. “I’ve got my own life to consider. It’s a trade I’m offering you, see.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” McGarvey snapped. “Trade for what?”
“He wants a new identity, a new track, new town, a job …” Trotter said.
“In trade for what?” McGarvey asked incredulously.
“Yarnell’s head on a platter …”
“Hold on. All we have here is an accusation. Nothing more.” McGarvey wasn’t buying this at all. He looked at his watch. It was time to be getting back. Perhaps he’d take Marta out for dinner tonight. To make up for last night.
“We think there is sufficient evidence to proceed with an investigation,” Trotter said softly.
“I’m convinced,” Day added.
“On the strength of this …”
“Directly after the Bay of Pigs business, Yarnell was assigned to the embassy in Moscow.”
“So what?”
“His product was said to be fantastic. Never been beat.”
McGarvey held a sharp reply in check.
“Baranov, the Russian he was seen with in Mexico City, was reassigned back to the centre in Moscow at exactly the same time.”
“Circumstantial.”
“In the early seventies, when Yarnell was assistant DDO at Langley, the Company went into its slump. The lean years, remember? Then in 1978 Yarnell was elected senator from New York. That was your era, Kirk. Who do you suppose pulled the plug on Chile?”
“It was within the Company.”
“Directed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence …”
“Of which Senator Darby Yarnell was a member,” Day put in.
“It all fits, Kirk,” Trotter said. “Circumstantial perhaps, but just because someone the likes of Basulto makes the accusation, if it turns out to be true it doesn’t matter.”
McGarvey turned back to the Cuban. “Why didn’t you keep your mouth shut in Miami and take your fall like a good boy? The worst that could have happened was deportation to Cuba. You would have been back in business within a week or two.”