Hostage in Havana - Noel Hynd

By the sound of the tires, he realized that the vehicle was outside the garage and on the city streets. Then suddenly the hood was lifted. He had fewer than five seconds to notice the inner trappings of the van. A huge fist came directly into his face with a rag in it. The rag stank like kerosene, but he knew better. It was ether. He resisted it out of instinct, but his efforts were to no avail.

He felt himself starting to slump, then lost consciousness, having no idea who these people were or where they were taking him. And once everything went black, he no longer cared.

TWENTY-NINE

Toward 7:15 the next morning, Alex emerged from the townhouse on 38th Street. Two black Cadillac Escalades with tinted windows were waiting. Alex’s bodyguards ushered her to the first one. She climbed into the backseat, and Ramirez, the looming gunman, slid into the seat on the other side. MacPhail rode shotgun up front.

They had a young driver today, a young blond man with a crew cut. He signaled to two other men in the second Escalade, and they all started to roll. Soon they were cruising through the morning traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, and within half an hour they were barreling down the New Jersey Turnpike.

Alex attempted small talk with Ramirez and MacPhail, but they weren’t talkative. She got the impression that they’d been out late. So she retreated into a book, a fantasy ghost story called Cemetery of Angels, then shifted to her iPod for the next few hours. Wary, but also sleepy, she managed to nap for part of the ride. When she opened her eyes, the Escalade was crossing one of the bridges from Washington, D.C., into Virginia.

Being back in the Washington area brought back a flood of memories, some of them happy, others bittersweet.

They arrived at CIA headquarters in Langley shortly after noon, passed security, and took a light lunch with a case officer who’d been assigned to babysit her until her meeting at 1:30. His name was McAdams. He was cordial, talked a lot, but said almost nothing. Alex knew that the important talk would be held behind closed doors.

She returned the small talk through lunch and waited.

The meeting was in a conference room on the second floor, east. Her babysitter led her to the door, but her bodyguards were asked to wait outside. Alex entered and waited.

Inside was a rectangular table with six empty chairs. The walls were light green, normal CIA decor, with, surprisingly, a window that overlooked an inner courtyard. Near it was an American flag in a stand. In less than a minute, Alex heard voices. The door opened and three men entered. All three wore dark suits, ID badges in plastic holders dangling across their neckties.

“Agent LaDuca,” said the leader, extending a hand. “I’m Maurice Fajardie, Assistant Director/DCA, Central American Affairs, Caribbean Division. These are my associates who will also be involved in this case.” He then introduced her to Curtis Sloane, in charge of overall covert intelligence pertaining to Cuba, and Tom Menendez, whose title told her that he oversaw pursuit of fugitives in the eastern Caribbean.

After handshakes all around, they sat at the table.

“So, Alex,” Fajardie began, “I hear someone took a shot at you. How are you holding up?”

“The good news is they missed,” she said.

“We’ve all been briefed on what’s going on,” Sloane said.

“You’re quite a trooper,” Menendez added with admiration.

“I feel more like a head case than anything … that or Bambi in deer season.”

There were faint smiles. She looked around the table. The two associates had their eyes fixed on her, like a couple of foxhounds waiting for a bugle.

“It was a long drive from New York,” Alex said, “so let’s get to it, shall we?”

THIRTY

Fajardie began, “The powers-that-be feel we can coordinate you into a fluid situation we’re having right now in Cuba. Part of the plan is to keep you away from whoever might be sniping at you while putting you to work in an operation.” Fajardie glanced to the others. “What do we hear from the FBI in New York?” he asked. “Anything on Perez?”

“They have a trail,” Menendez said.

“Hot? Cold?” he asked.

“Getting warmer by the day,” Menendez said. “I talked to someone on major cases just before lunch.”

“Good,” Fajardie said and turned back to Alex. “Meanwhile, we need to keep you safe and get you out of the country.” He paused. “We’ve read the background on Paul Guarneri. There’s plenty on his old man, but not much on him. He thinks there’s a pile of dough sitting somewhere in Cuba, huh?”

“That’s what he says.”

“Hard to imagine that it’s still sitting there after all these years,” Menendez said. “Fidel’s probably already spent it for him.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m just along for the ride as far as Guarneri is concerned,” she said. “My assignment is Roland Violette. I saw some initial briefing documents. I know he’s a fugitive who wants to come home. That’s the extent of my knowledge.”

“How much do you know about Cuba?” Fajardie asked. “Politics. Background. History.”

“My boss in New York brought me up to date. And I’ve got my own personal opinions that the embargo on Cuban goods has done more harm than good, particularly to the Cuban people. But that’s just me, and I have some unpopular ideas.”

“That is an unpopular idea around here,” Fajardie volleyed back. “I think the island deserved the embargo for going Commie. But we’re here to discuss something else. Fugitives. Turncoats. Traitors. That’s the order of this bright day in June, isn’t it? We’re also in the territory of these two gentlemen. So Curtis will give you the background on fugitives in Cuba in general, then Tom will bring you up to date on a dismal excuse for a human being named Roland Violette.” He paused. “We’ll give you a hardcopy file and some secured flash drives to take with you, but you can only apply them twice. You’re traveling with a laptop or do you need one?”

“I have one.”

“Secure?”

“I wouldn’t be using it if it weren’t.”

Another short beat, then, “Okay,” Fajardie said softly. To his left, Menendez was looking at an open file, glancing up and down intermittently, while to his left, Sloane sat stiffly in place.

“Sorry,” Fajardie said. “I have to ask you to sign these.”

He handed her some confidentiality bonds. She looked at the documents, scanned them, and pulled her silver Tiffany pen from her purse, the one with her name on it. She signed and laid the pen on the table. She handed the documents back to Fajardie, who then turned to Sloane and said, “Okay, Curtis, amuse us.”

Sloane cleared his throat, consulted his notes, and began. “By our count, 258 fugitives from U.S. law currently reside in Cuba. Our numbers are approximate because we don’t have that many eyes on the street in Cuba, and some of our files go back forty, fifty years. People die, they disappear, they get off the island and disappear to other places. Like Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala.”

“Even Panama?” she asked, bemused.

“Even Panama,” he said. “Particularly Panama. But every once in a while one of these individuals wants to repatriate. For whatever reason. They’re sick, they’re ailing, they want to see a parent before they die. Change of heart even.”

“All of which factor into Violette’s case, from what I know,” she said.

“Possibly,” Sloane said. “We’ll get to him in a minute. Take a recent template for his case though. Luis Soltren. That name mean anything?”

She racked her brain. A light went on. “A highjacker, right?”

“Very good!” Sloane said. “Luis Armando Pena Soltren. Age sixty-seven. Soltren surrendered to U.S. law enforcement in October 2009 after arriving on a flight from Havana. He’d been in Cuba since 1968 when, in November of that year, he and three other men forced their way into the cockpit of a Pan Am flight and diverted it to Havana. Smuggled weapons on board in a bag of disposable diapers. Such hijackings were frequent at the time, with thirty successful or attempted diversions to Cuba in 1968 alone. Anyway, there are scores of other Americans living in Cuba outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Most have been there for decades. Some are in plain sight; others live deep underground. The best-known American fugitive is the former Joanne Chesimard. She’s sixty-two now and was a member of the radical activist organization called the Black Liberation Army. She was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of a New Jersey state trooper in 1977. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was last seen in Cuba in 1984.”

“Chesimard is definitely one of the top people on the list of fugitives,” intoned Fajardie. “If you pick up any scent, you’ll want to report it.”

“She’s been living in Cuba for decades under the protection of Castro,” Menendez added. “In the beginning, the fugitives were treated well. Fidel used them to flip a finger at the U.S. As years went by, he got tired of them. Most were common criminals, and even the political ones were troublemakers.”

“Most of these men and women have been there for a long time,” said Fajardie. “Worthless bunch of losers, if you want to know. Many of them, like Soltren, hijacked planes, sought refuge, and have been living there ever since they escaped the United States. Some were members of Puerto Rican separatist groups or black nationalist organizations.”

“So there’s no extradition treaty?” Alex asked.

“That’s a laugh,” Fajardie said. “Cuba and the U.S. have had an extradition treaty since the 1920s. In 1971, the two countries signed a pact that dealt specifically with extraditing hijackers. But the U.S. hasn’t extradited anyone back to Cuba, so Cuba hasn’t extradited anyone back to us. The biggest fish of all was a guy named Robert Vesco. Heard of him?”

“Sure. Financial crimes are my turf, remember?” she said.

“Vesco fled to Cuba in ‘82 after a series of charges were brought against him in the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean,” Fajardie said. “He stole $200 million from investors in the 1970s. After receiving the protection of the Cuban government, Vesco was sentenced to prison in Havana in 1996 and died from lung cancer in Havana in 2007.”

“The majority of fugitives just tried to lay low,” said Menendez, “hoping that when the Castro brothers finally drop dead, relations will improve. But there’s not much in the way of statute of limitations for most of these people. Murder. Air piracy. Fraud. They’re looking at prison time if they come back here.” He paused. “Then again, they get old and start to think. The right to die on one’s native soil. That’s a pretty strong pull. You wouldn’t think it would be, but it is.”

“On the contrary,” Alex said, “I would think it would account for a lot.”

“And that brings us to Violette,” Fajardie said. He turned to Menendez. “Tom, talk to us.”

“Roland Violette,” Menendez began. “Soviet mole. Traitor and first-class CIA rat.”

“I second that,” Sloane said.

Fajardie said, “And me, three, and Alex, four. Now run with it.”

Menendez threw a stack of surveillance photos onto the desk. “Here’s the ugly story,” Menendez said. Alex listened as she looked through the photos. “Roland Violette was nearly born a CIA agent. His father spied for the CIA in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Colombia during the ‘50s and ‘60s, so as a kid he learned Spanish like a native. Mixed race, by the way. His father was part-Haitian, part-Anglo, but his mother was something darker. Very pretty woman, a quarter Martinican, a quarter South American Indian of some sort, the rest Spanish. Pretty volatile mix if you ask me.”

“I didn’t, but go ahead,” Alex said.

“In 1957 Roland went to Camp Peary in Virginia. He was born in 1940, so he was seventeen at the time.” Menendez steadied his gaze at her. “You know about Camp Peary, right?” he said.

“The Farm,” she answered, “as it’s called by those who know and loathe it. It’s the CIA training facility in York County, Virginia, the one whose existence the CIA has never admitted. Specializes turning misguided, maladjusted individuals into misguided, maladjusted CIA officers.”

Nods all around, some laughter, six eyes on her, two-and-a-half smiles: Fajardie was less amused than the other two. “That’s the place,” Menendez said.

“I even know why they call it ‘The Farm,’” Alex offered.

“Okay, why?” he asked, testing her.

“During World War II, beginning in 1942, Camp Peary became a stockade for special German prisoners-of-war. Most of the POWs at Camp Peary did farm work within the camp during the war,” she concluded. “Hence, the name. But back to Violette.”

“Well, despite his family tree and years on The Farm,” Menendez said, “Violette was one of the most damaging moles in CIA history. Starting in 1974, he sold out every spy the CIA and FBI had in Central America. He began at the CIA, recruiting locals in South America to spy on their own governments, but he didn’t have much talent. Luckily for him, his assignment was with a Cuban military attache to Honduras named Rafael Figueredo. Figueredo had already been convinced to spy for the U.S., but he wasn’t useful until he was transferred to Violette’s CIA department. In Violette’s hands, Figueredo, who was code-named Vesper, was reassigned to the Cuban Foreign Ministry. There, he went to work and routinely photographed sensitive documents and files. So even though Roland Violette had never successfully recruited a single spy, his handling of Vesper earned him a promotion. He became the counterintelligence branch chief of Cuban operations, where he had access to information on every aspect of U.S. operations in Central America, Cuba in particular. So that brings us to 1977. Violette ran into skirt trouble.”

“Imagine that,” Alex said. “A man with skirt trouble.”

“Violette was having an affair with a wealthy Costa Rican woman named Rica. He brought her to D.C., and it wasn’t long before she started making trouble. She must have been one tropical storm in the bedroom, because she immediately demanded that Violette divorce his wife. Instead of dumping a troublesome mistress and cutting his losses, he did what Rica asked. You know what divorces are like: it nuked almost all of his savings and his assets. Yet Rica continued to spend money as if she and Violette were printing it at home, which, by this time, Violette was probably wishing he could do. His Costa Rican cutie quickly dug Violette into nearly $50,000 of debt. He became so desperate for funds that he borrowed from every friend he could tap, maxed out all his credit cards, and even considered robbing a bank. But then he remembered that the Soviets paid $75,000 for the identity of American spies working in their country. He arranged a meeting with Sergei Vassiliev of the Soviet Embassy in Washington. They met at a bistro in Georgetown, negotiated, and Violette gave up three CIA spies working in Moscow and one in Warsaw. Three men, one woman. In exchange for this information, Violette received $200,000.”