Hostage in Havana - Noel Hynd

The letter was from the founding partner, Joshua Silverman. Alex had been named in a legal proceeding, the letter announced, and she was asked to schedule an appointment so she and Silverman could discuss it further.

Alex phoned Silverman. A receptionist put her through. A few seconds of small talk followed, then, “Just tell me this,” Alex asked. “Is this request personal or professional?”

“Personal for you, professional for me,” Silverman said. “I can confirm that it’s a financial matter. But I’m under instructions from my client to discuss things with you face-to-face or not at all. You’re free to bring your own counsel, obviously, if you wish.”

“Is there a time element involved?”

“The sooner the better,” Silverman said, “… for you.”

Alex looked at her calendar. “What about tomorrow morning? Can we get it done in half an hour? What if I’m there at 7:45?”

“That’d work.”

Alex clicked off. Then, as long as she was dealing with pests, she thought she might as well deal with another. She input the number for Paul Guarneri.

He had been first introduced to her by the late Russian mobster, Yuri Federov, and Guarneri had also protected a young female witness for Alex the previous year. Alex owed him a dinner engagement, a marker that, she supposed, he now wished to call in.

Very well. She would go and listen.

On the phone they arranged to meet for dinner in two days. She set down the phone and marked the new appointments on her calendar: Silverman and Guarneri, with Ben visiting on the weekend.

So much for personal distractions. She clicked into her email again and caught up on what had recently transpired as the Operation Parajo strikes continued. Within the last half hour, she noted with satisfaction, Panamanian authorities had arrested three Mexicans and one Colombian-born Panamanian while driving a truck loaded with 511 kilograms of cocaine. Authorities concluded the cocaine was to be transported overland to Mexico. At the same time, a Panamanian Army helicopter crew identified a Colombian go-fast boat at a pier in Panama’s Bocas del Toro island archipelago near the Costa Rican border. The Panamanian navy intercepted the watercraft and seized more than two tons of cocaine, presumed to be on its way to Florida by way of the Dominican Republic.

Alex was pleased. She was scoring major points against the opposition. But one thing worried her. Senor and Senora Dosi – the enemy king and queen on her chessboard. No confirmation of where they were, no hint that they would be in custody anytime soon.

As long as the Dosis were out there, the battle continued.

FOUR

In Villavicencio that evening, Manuel Perez shaved. With the help of heavy soap and cleaning solvents, he washed the gray dye out of his shaggy hair, and a local barber trimmed it. His hair regained its natural dark brown color.

The assassin now looked twenty years younger than the old Argentine whom his neighbors had known in the Colombian capital. Before the mirror that night, a man of forty-one emerged, handsome, muscular, and striking. El Viejo Porteno had disappeared.

Perez was happy this evening. Word came from Bogota that both the justice minister and the driver-bodyguard had been killed in a sniper attack. Rebels connected with the cocaine traders were suspected.

The minister and his bodyguard: two for one. Good news indeed. So Perez relaxed and breathed easier. While political murders were common in Colombia, this one had a particularly high profile. Perez reasoned – correctly – that the airport and even the bus terminals would be saturated with police and army. But he also knew that these things blow over quickly. Among friends and allies, he had good reason to spend the next few evenings in the sleazy bordellos of Villavicencio and celebrate. So he settled in, planning to remain for several days.

FIVE

Early the next morning, Alex arrived in the reception area of the New York law firm Silverman, Ashkenazy amp; DeLauro. After being summoned by a sleepy receptionist, Joshua Silverman greeted Alex personally.

Silverman’s office was a vast space, twenty-five by twenty feet, with two plate-glass windows that looked northward onto Park Avenue toward the Graybar building and Grand Central. Thick pile carpeting covered the floor, and there were several leather chairs and a matching sofa. The walls were done in Asian art, Chinese mostly, which seemed contemporary and for which Silverman had probably paid a good price.

The dark green walls gave the cherry legal cabinets some pizzazz, while antique Tiffany lamps dotted the end tables. Silverman’s desk, which dominated the chamber, was the size of a small Buick. It was dark and expansive and featured inlays of cherry and mahogany. Lion heads were carved on the legs.

“May we get you some coffee? Water?” Silverman asked.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Alex said.

Actually, she wasn’t. She had a middle-range headache brewing and some stiffness in her left shoulder, an affliction that had grown worse recently as some internal flesh healed from a recent bullet wound. This appointment wasn’t helping.

Silverman seated himself behind his desk. He took a long look at Alex, then threw her a question that seemed to come out of the blue. “I’m told you’re a religious woman,” he said. “Should I believe that?”

“I am a Christian if that’s what you mean. Who told you?”

“A Russian told me,” he said. “About a year ago. And if I told you that a piece of business has come forth from our Geneva office, would that suggest why you’re here?”

Alex drew a breath. “It might.”

“Last week one of our associates in a Swiss firm read the last will of Yuri Federov,” Silverman said. “Mr. Federov named you as a beneficiary.”

Silverman stood and leaned forward, handing Alex copies of the papers. She stood, took them, and sat down again. She scanned them quickly. The will was written in French, English, and Russian. Reading such documents, and the legalese therein, was hardly her specialty, since, strangely enough, she had seen very few in her life and none had been happy occasions. It would have taken her several minutes to wade through this one, but it quickly became unnecessary.

“This is for you, Alex,” Silverman said. “Congratulations. I hope you will treat it well and use it wisely. That was what Mr. Federov intended.”

He handed her a small envelope. Her name was written on it in handwriting that she recognized as Federov’s. She glanced at Silverman as she put a finger into the envelope and pulled it open.

Within was a letter from the law firm in Switzerland. It was in French and addressed to her. She scanned it. There was another piece of paper, folded in half. A check. She unfolded it.

Silverman said, “I’m sure you will handle it wisely.”

She barely heard him. The check was made out to her, drawn on Credit Suisse’s offices in New York. She saw a line of zeroes. Then her eyes froze on the second line, the one that conveyed the amount.

Two million dollars.

“Your life just changed, I know,” Silverman said. “It must feel strange.”

“What’s this about?” she asked. “I don’t get it.”

Silverman shrugged. “What’s it about?” he mused. “Who knows? That’s not my department. The funds come with no strings attached and no further message from Mr. Federov. Apparently he had great affection for you and wished to leave you a gift, something that would impact your life in a positive way. That’s all I know. Other than that, all federal, state, and city taxes have already been deducted. It was apparently the intent of Mr. Federov to leave you a flat two million dollars. I also need a final signature from you on a letter, confirming that you’ve met with me and received the check. I have the letter prepared. It will need to be notarized. I have a notary on call.” He paused. “I assume you’re willing to sign and accept.”

She was hearing all this but had trouble believing it.

“Of course,” she said.

“Then let’s proceed.”

Twenty minutes later, back down on Park Avenue, Alex was still stunned. She stopped outside the office building, trying to put things in perspective. Yes, this had really happened. The check was in an envelope in her purse, along with a business card from a banker named Christophe Chatton at Credit Suisse in New York. Chatton would be at Alex’s disposal if he could assist in any way with the management of the money.

As she took a few steps away from Silverman’s building, her purse had never seemed so heavy. Was this Federov’s strange final way of corrupting her, she wondered? Or was he expecting her to use it to buy his redemption?

She had two million dollars about to go into the bank. And now, it seemed, she had two million new things to think about.

Manuel Perez rested, never leaving the small compound where he lodged. Respectfully, with even a small touch of sympathy, he watched the televised state funerals for the men he had killed. A day and a half later, confident that no one was looking for him, he was ready to travel.

His escorts were part of a network of cocaine traffickers loyal to one of the big cartels from Medellin. They didn’t know what Perez had done or for whom, but they treated him with courtesy. They showed him to a van. The driver was a muscular young punk, about twenty, with black hair, a silk shirt, and a cocky attitude. His name was Mauricio. He was Mexican, Perez noted. Perez didn’t like the looks of him, his surliness, or his singsong Mexican working-class accent.

The plan was to ferry Perez by highway to Cali, and from there he would fly out of the country. They began their trip by the roads that went through the farm areas south of Bogota. Half an hour later, Perez began to talk to Mauricio. The two men discovered they shared a common background: fatherless and dirt poor in the state of Guerrero in Mexico. The driver’s eyes kept shifting between the road ahead, the road behind, and the ominous single passenger in the backseat. A backup team of bodyguards followed in case there was trouble with police or army roadblocks, but no trouble ensued. Perez started to warm up to his chauffeur and wondered if the kid knew who he was and what had been his business in Colombia. Eventually, Perez asked.

“I know you’re important. I’m supposed to get you to the airport,” Mauricio said.

“Do you have a gun?” Perez asked.

“Not with me. Not allowed while I drive you.” Mauricio tipped his head toward the car behind them. “If there’s trouble,” he said, “they’re the shooters, not me.”

“You like guns?” Perez asked.

“Love them.”

Perez nodded. “A man needs his guns in this world,” he said philosophically.

At the airport, before Perez stepped out of the van, the bodyguards went into the airport lobby to trawl for potential trouble. They saw none. Returning, they gave Perez the all-clear signal.

Perez drew a breath. This was the tricky part. Getting home.

He tapped his driver on the shoulder in a friendly gesture of thanks. He gave his pistol to Mauricio as a souvenir and gift. Then Perez walked into the lobby as routinely as any other passenger. He used his escape passport, an American one under the name of Martin Lopez, to check in for a flight to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The flight was announced. Perez departed. In Tegucigalpa, he connected to Mexico City. When the aircraft touched down in the Mexican capital, Perez heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn’t wait to embrace his family. Sometimes these business jaunts were pure torture, and he agonized about the day he might never return from one.

Here in the capital, Perez had a luxurious and spacious home. He was anxious to return to it. His wife, Nicoleta, worked for an American pharmaceutical company. Their three daughters were twelve, nine, and five. They were dark haired and very pretty, like their mother.

He lived quietly in the wealthy suburbs. All who knew him, even his family, thought of him as a business graduate from the huge university in Mexico City, who now ran a successful and highly visible shipping and import-export business. His company, as everyone knew, dealt in dried fruits and processed foods from Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina. They knew he traveled a lot, and of course, judging by his wealth, he was successful. But no one knew what else he did for a living.

After breezing through customs and emerging into the terminal where friends and families waited for arriving passengers, he spotted a strikingly pretty Latina sitting beyond the edge of the crowd. She had light brown skin, with a delicate face behind large round sunglasses. She was wearing a short blue summer dress and matching espadrilles.

Immediately Perez noticed that her legs were spectacular, beautifully tanned from toe to mid-thigh. Exactly what he loved. A private security man flanked her. In her lap she held an expensive leather purse, one of those beautiful designer bags from Italy or Spain. She sat with her legs crossed, clutching a pack of Marlboros and nervously fidgeting with it.

Perez smiled, stopped, and studied her. She was the sexiest, most beautiful woman he had ever seen. On the woman’s hand, there was a ring with an expensive sparkle. The stone must have been five carats. She was obviously waiting for a lucky someone.

Then she looked at him. She smiled and came quickly to her feet.

“?Nicoleta!” he proclaimed.

His wife opened her arms and rushed toward him.

He opened his arms in return and embraced her. It always felt so good to return safely from a dangerous mission, like a warrior back from battle. The bodyguard, a Chilean named Antonio, protectively stood by, then guided the couple to a waiting Cadillac Escalade.

It was wonderful to be home.

SEVEN

Two evenings later, Alex and Paul Guarneri met for dinner at Peter Lugar’s Steakhouse in midtown Manhattan. Guarneri had offered to send a car and driver, but Alex preferred to travel by subway and then on foot.

Guarneri was already at the restaurant at 7:30 when Alex arrived. The maitre d’ obviously knew Guarneri and escorted Alex quickly to his table, which was one of the better ones – in the back, spacious but private, and out of the view of most of the other diners.

Guarneri was fifty-something, dark and handsome, with gray at the temples. He had a strong face. He was reading the menu when she saw him and had put on a pair of reading glasses, which gave him an almost scholarly look.

He looked up, smiled broadly, and put the glasses away. Alex always knew when a man had some personal interest in her. There was something about the focus of the eyes, the body language, and the tone of voice. She had sensed it from the start. She felt nothing in return.

“Well, well,” he said, on his feet and giving an appreciative nod to the maitre d’. “My favorite federal employee. Welcome. Nice to see you.”