Hostage in Havana - Noel Hynd

She looked back at the man who stood next to her. He was looking at his commander and had removed a set of handcuffs from his belt. She wondered if she should just run. She glanced at the door. The officer with the shotgun was staring at her. No chance.

Major Mejias was on the phone. He looked serious and seemed to dwell on something in her passport, some detail. Then he had a sneaky smile. He laughed to whoever was on the other end. He looked at Alex, then looked away, then back to her. He rang off, came back to her, and still in Spanish asked, “So. You are Anna Tavares?”

A beat. “I am Anna Tavares.”

“And that is your actual birthday?”

“Of course.”

He closed her passport and stared into her eyes, as if he were trying to burrow into her to find a hidden truth.

“What work do you do back home in Mexico?” he asked. “?Trabajo?”

“I work for a newspaper.”

“Which one?”

She had rehearsed the lie. “El Universal,” she answered quickly.

“You’re a writer?” he asked.

“I work in the financial department.”

He held her passport. “If I phoned there, your paper, they would know you, Anna Tavares?” he asked.

“Of course they would,” she lied boldly. “Once you got past the switchboard. You know what Mexico is like.”

His eyes narrowed. “I know quite a bit about the world beyond Cuba,” he said.

“What are you suggesting, Major?”

“Nada,” he said. Nothing.

“Then what’s the problem? Have I done something wrong?” She was ready to bolt to the door, as hopeless an act as that might be.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Mejias said. “You have the same birthday as my daughter. Same day, same year. Extraordinario. I just called her to tease her.” He handed back the passport.

“You called your daughter just to tell her you had a woman in front of you the same age as she?” Alex asked.

“I did.”

Alex knew better than to say anything else, though much ran across her mind.

“You are very pretty,” Major Mejias said. “Same as my daughter. I like to talk to pretty women. Maybe you would like to stay and have a drink with me. We can talk about the world. How would that be?”

“Am I free to go?” she asked indignantly.

“Why wouldn’t you be?”

“Your men are blocking the door.”

“They won’t be as soon as I tell them not to,” he said.

“And when might that be?”

“I don’t know,” he said. After a pause, he asked, “Does the name Roland Violette mean anything to you? What if I told you Roland Violette was dead?”

She felt a surge within her. She kept a lid on it. She had been in these situations before and knew the tactic. He was looking for any reaction, any weakness. She shrugged. “I’d say send my condolences to his family,” she answered boldly. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Mejias stared deeply into her eyes, then broke a grudging smile. “See that the Violette name remains unfamiliar to you,” he said. “You’ll live a longer, happier life.”

He handed back her passport and signaled to his officer at the door. The officer stepped aside.

“Adios,” she said.

“Hasta la vista,” he said. He tipped his cap.

She was out the door in a flash. As soon as she was around the corner, she weaved in and out of shops and pedestrian traffic till she was convinced she was alone.

FORTY-EIGHT

Five minutes later, sweating and breathing hard, Alex was walking down a quiet side street. She spotted Paul, arms folded, leaning against the fifteen-year-old Toyota version of a Jeep. The vehicle was a clunky old beast with a canvas top and open sides.

“Good to see you,” he said.

“Are you always so blase?” she snapped.

“Not always, no.”

“You had an easier time than I did,” she said.

“But your passport worked,” he said, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

“They stopped me. They examined my passport and quizzed me about Violette,” she said sharply. “I was able to BS my way past them, but not by much. And if Violette is in play, that means Cuban intelligence knows what’s going on. That means they have at least a vague idea of who they’re looking for. You might be clean but I’m not.”

He blew out a long breath. “I hear you. Anyone follow you?”

“I don’t think so.” She settled slightly. “I did my best to lose anyone following.”

“We need to get moving,” he said.

He held out a hand to help her up into the Toyota. She accepted it. There were no seat belts, and the car had a strange smell, as if fish had been stored there at one point and forgotten. As she settled into the shotgun seat, Guarneri came around the vehicle and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“How was the squeeze through the window?” she asked.

“Fine if you don’t mind a few nicks and scrapes.” He showed where his arm had been scratched and his shirt torn. “And if you don’t mind a couple of Cubans laughing at you as you go up over the sink and out the window,” he said. “But it’s better than a bullet, so I’m not complaining.”

“Do me a favor,” she said. “Just get us out of here.”

“That’s what I’d planned.” He turned the key and the Toyota clanked to life. “Okay, look,” he said, “before we get moving, let me bring you up to speed, and you bring me up to speed. I have an uncle on the island. Uncle Johnny – Giovanni. You know about him if you’ve read the FBI file.”

“He’s the one who went in the other direction,” she said. “Right?”

“If you mean pro-Castro, Marxist, and worked for the government, yes,” he said. “He was a young Commie, and now he’s an old Commie. And his health is failing. He and my dad were estranged for years. That’s where I was.”

“Where?”

“Visiting. My uncle lives about eighty miles from here. Along the shore beyond Matanzas.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“Yesterday. I went straight out there the day we landed,” he said.

“Instead of looking for me?” she asked.

“I looked, but I had to keep my head down too. You and I had our backup plan, and it worked.”

“Sure – and I forgot to thank you for leaving me on the beach,” she snapped.

“You left me on the boat!”

“You ordered me out!”

“And I saved your life doing it,” he said.

“My life wouldn’t have been at risk if it weren’t for you!”

“So we’re even,” he said. “And you said yourself that your head would have a hole in it if I hadn’t phoned you at just the right time in New York. You owe me.” His tone was midway between playful and deadly serious.

In the same spirit, she punched him in the shoulder. “How’s that?” she said.

“That’s great. Makes me feel like I’m back in Brooklyn.”

She shook her head, exasperated.

“Look. Are we on vacation here?” he asked.

“No, we’re not on vacation!”

“Then you can’t blame me for doing what I came here to do, same as you’re doing what you came here to do. Now, I got an aging red uncle. I hate his politics, but he’s also flesh and blood. Flesh and blood of a generation that’s in short supply for me, so we got to do what we got to do. Okay?”

“Okay.” She paused. “You said you had two uncles here.”

“That’s right. Salvatore’s the other one.”

“Where’s he?”

“Here in Havana. Been here for years.”

“How old is he?”

“You read the FBI report. Born in 1931. You do the math. Why are you asking if you know the answer?”

“Am I going to see him?” she asked.

“If things go smoothly.”

“There’s that phrase again.”

“There’re those questions again.”

“Do I get to talk to Uncle Salvatore?”

“If you want.”

“Will he answer me?”

“If he feels like talking.”

“You’re full of charm and evasion, aren’t you, Paul?”

“Consider it intentional and call it ‘a sense of purpose.’ Can we let it go at that? We pick up the money, I do with it as I need to, you babysit and evacuate your CIA stooge, and we all get out of here in one piece in four days if we’re lucky – or in forty years if we’re not.”

“You’re not answering my question. Why?”

“Because I don’t want to. How’s that for a game plan? I help you, you help me.”

“It’ll work,” she said.

“The guy you’re here to help is more disreputable than the people I’m here to help. So don’t give me grief about my family or what I need to do.” His voice settled slightly. “Okay?”

“Okay. But you’re still a pig. Boorish, crass, self-serving, and self-possessed.”

“Sorry you feel that way. You’re everything my wife wasn’t. I like you. Ready to travel? You and I are going to drive out to my uncle’s place. It’s on a strip of land past the tourist spots. It’s called Playa del Rio. It takes three hours, and we can stay there overnight.” He paused. “It’s a few miles from where we landed.”

“We’re going back there?”

“Not much I can do about it. We’ll go by different roads part of the way at least. You got something better to do?”

“I need fresh clothes.”

“Of course. No hay problema. Where exactly is your posada?”

“Not far from here. It’s on the Calle San Martin,” she said. “Treinta y uno. One block that way, turn left, then straight three more blocks.”

“Let’s do it,” he said.

Paul pulled the Jeep out onto the narrow street and executed a U-turn. He drove back to the main square and merged into the light traffic. Within five minutes, he had pulled up in front of the hotel. He leaned back in the front seat and cut the engine.

“I’ll wait,” he said.

“Thanks. I’m not going to check out, I just checked in. I’m just going to grab some things.”

“That works,” he said.

She jumped out of the Jeep and easily took the two flights of stairs. Having reunited with Paul, and having survived a passport check that afternoon, she felt better about things, about this assignment. Maybe things would work out, though a ton of questions remained.

In an open second floor hallway, out of precaution, she went to a window on the front of the building. She pushed aside the flimsy curtains. She looked down and could see the old Toyota.

Paul was standing outside it now, watching his back also, fingering an unlit cigar, and looking as if he was going to smoke it.

She watched him as he walked away from the car for a moment. Her suspicions were again aroused. Where was he going? He stopped at the pushcart of a street vendor. She watched as he bought a bag of ice, several bottles of chilled water, and a touristy straw hat that he popped onto his head. He put the water and ice in a plastic bag and walked back to the car. He must have felt her eyes on him, because he looked up, saw her, gave her a grin and a wave.

She waved back. She scanned the street too. Paranoia? Maybe. But no one appeared to be trailing them. She went back to her room and then to the closet. She pulled out her second and third dresses. She threw them, undergarments, and her few toiletries into her tote bag, along with her gun.

Glancing at her watch, she realized it was check-in time with the elusive Roland Violette – it was his window to phone. She checked her cell. No calls, no messages. Nothing. She bounded down the stairs.

When she arrived back on the street, Paul gave her a big smile, as an old buddy might, more than a working companion.

“You set?” he asked. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” she said.

The cigar was still in his hand, unlit. “You mind if I smoke?” he asked.

“Go for it.”

She climbed into the vehicle. He watched her, then came around to the driver’s side. He stood outside the vehicle for a moment, clipped the end of the cigar, and lit it. He took an extra moment to make sure the puro was drawing, then slid in. Then he flipped the match out of the Jeep, tilted his hat back, and started the engine.

“Ready to roll,” he announced.

She settled into her seat, one leg up on the dash, her skirt pulled back slightly. She pulled her new baseball cap tight, let the bill ride low over her eyes, and poked her sunglasses on her face against the glare of the setting sun. She felt wired again. Perhaps she enjoyed Paul’s company and the excitement of his presence just a little too much. But then, she realized as the car broke loose from traffic in Havana’s old town, she felt more alive than she had felt since before she had moved to New York.

FORTY-NINE

Paul guided the Toyota through the back streets of Havana.

Alex took it all in with fascination. Like much else in Havana, the poorer neighborhoods were a confrontation with time. Like the better-kept sections, these neighborhoods were sprawling, eclectic, and disorganized. Grand old mansions with majestic high columns had been converted into small apartments, an air of neglect existed immediately adjacent to suggestions of past splendor. All of this splashed up against a vibrancy of the streets, music coming out of small storefronts and homes, men at tables playing dominos, and kids kicking soccer balls or playing impromptu games of beisbol in the streets and alleys. Old church towers functioned as landmarks every few blocks, rising above most other buildings. They were ornate and suggestive of the Moorish architecture that had been imported from Spain. Some churches had their doors open and obviously still had congregations.

“Didn’t the Marxist government crack down on religion?” Alex asked.

“Yes, but not successfully,” Paul answered. “The churches were never officially banned, but always harassed. Like everything else, religion in Cuba is a mass of contradictions. The constitution recognizes religious freedom and diversity, but the government does what it can to keep a lid on it. Meanwhile the old buildings remain because no one would be foolish enough to knock down a sturdy old building when it’s so difficult to build a new one.”

They approached the entrance to the big highway that traversed the island, la autopista. Guarneri made a move to access it westbound, then at the last second gave the wheel a sharp twist.

The Toyota hit a low divider, jumped into the air, and bounded over. Suddenly they were headed ninety degrees in a different direction.

“Paul! What’s the problem?” Alex asked, startled.