Hostage in Havana - Noel Hynd

“What about the twenty-six years before that?” she couldn’t help asking.

“What about them?” he stiffened.

“Just asking,” she said. “Earlier, you seemed quite content here, from what I saw in your file. Now it’s a different story.”

“Ah,” he scoffed. “Different times. Rica was alive. Life was merrier.”

For several seconds, Violette stared at Alex in an unfocused way, as if trying to see through her or discover some inner truth that he hadn’t found in the Pepsi bubbles. Then he ducked his eyes and picked up what remained of his thought patterns. “None of us are perfect people,” Violette said. “Not me, not you, not Rica. She spent me into oblivion, changed the course of my life, ran off with another man, then came back. But she also brought me more happiness than I’ve known with any other woman. It’s all over now. I know that.”

There was a white stubble on his face that, when the light hit it in a certain way, made him look like a very old man. He rubbed the stubble.

“Know what Mark Twain wrote about Eve?” he asked. “Eve in the Bible, I mean. What Adam said when Eve died?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Alex said.

“Adam looked at Eve’s grave and said, ‘Wherever she was, there was Eden.’” He paused, and for a second Alex thought she caught a hitch in his voice. Then he went on. “I’ve been waiting for Rica to speak to me since she died. But she doesn’t say much, except in my dreams.”

Alex nodded. “You’re bringing documents with you?” Alex asked.

He nodded. He indicated the box he had with him.

“I need to glance at them,” she said.

“So do it,” he answered.

He pushed the box toward her. The box made her nervous. If the police came in and swept the place, she would be busted for espionage for sure. But she had the idea that Violette wasn’t letting it out of his sight, and she didn’t want to let him out of hers.

So Alex opened it. Keeping the contents out of sight of any onlookers, she quickly glanced through it. The documents were all in Spanish. Alex fingered her way through for two minutes. From the corner of her eye, she saw Paul rise and move toward the entrance. He was watching the door for her. Meanwhile, Violette grew increasingly twitchy and jittery.

She tried to comprehend what the papers were all about. Police stuff. Communist party stuff. Army stuff. She ran her eyes across the dates. Some were fresh, some were from the last five years. It wasn’t Alex’s place to verify the authenticity of the documents, but at first pass they looked good. Not fantastic, but good. Middle-range stuff. Probably worth the trip, probably worth coddling the defector, assuming they got back safely. Who knew how the CIA would inventory the stuff. Again, not her concern. She closed the box and gave it back to him.

“There’s more,” he said. “I wouldn’t be dumb enough to bring it all at once.”

“How many more boxes?” she asked.

“Three.”

“Where’d you get it?”

He paused. “Friends. Women mostly. Various parts of the government. They work in offices and photocopy stuff for future favors.” He smirked.

“What sort of favors?”

“Me helping them get off the island,” he said.

“You’re barely able to get yourself off,” she said. “How do you get anyone else out?”

He shrugged. “?Quien sabe?” he asked. “Who knows? That’s what I tell them and they believe me.”

“Just business?” she asked.

“Just business,” he answered.

“Okay, then. Be here at 7:00 p.m. two days from now,” she said. “With whatever you’re going to bring with you. One backpack, that’s it, and that has to include the papers. All four boxes or there’s no deal. I’m supposed to tell you that if you’re not here, the deal is dead, and there’ll never be another one. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll be here. I’ll be here.”

Violette finished his drink and the meeting too. He took back his box and stood. For an instant, his cuff slid away from his sleeve and Alex caught a glimpse of the Patek Philippe on his wrist, the one that had been his undoing in Spain three decades earlier. She wondered if he had been nuts way back then too.

Then he was out the door.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Alex and Paul met that evening at 10:00 p.m. on the southwest corner of the Plaza Vieja. The square was busy with tourists, which made the pickup all that much less conspicuous. A white Nissan pulled to the curb in front of Alex. The man behind the wheel was a glowering hulk with a Havana underworld look to him, the type that Alex had not seen during the day. Paul obviously knew him, and she didn’t ask from where.

Paul approached the car, gave a raised hand to the driver, and guided Alex to it. He let her slide into the backseat ahead of him. The driver checked his passengers and then checked his rear view mirror. “?Listo?” he growled. Ready?

“Listo,” Paul answered. The car pulled from the curb and they were off, quickly disappearing from the tourist world into the shady backstreets where darkness reigned, where there were few strollers. A number of people stood in dark doorways, including a woman in more-than-suggestive clothing. The driver watched the doorways, and Paul sat sideways in the backseat watching for followers. There were none.

“We’re good,” he finally announced, calming. The drive to the Colon Cemetery took twenty minutes. The cemetery occupied several city blocks and the driver circled it twice. Once they passed a small red Opel truck going the other way. The driver flashed his lights.

“That’s our contact,” Paul said softly. “We’re good so far.” They spent a quarter hour driving around the grounds again and the high brick fence and iron gates that sealed it off. At one point, the thuggish driver stopped short and did a U-turn, obviously to see if they were being followed. They weren’t. When they were on the north side again, Alex recognized the Opel truck parked by one of the smaller gates. Alex’s driver pulled up on the wrong side and parked nose to nose with the truck. For a moment they sat. Then Paul was the first to jump out.

From the truck emerged six sturdy men with big shoulders and dark expressions. Two of them were obviously the leaders, and they seemed to know Paul well. Their names were Jorge and Enrique. Alex stood behind them. From the back of the truck, one of the men pulled a canvas sheet away from some equipment. Alex saw shovels, rakes, and hoes. Jorge walked down to the gate, looked both ways, then pulled a set of keys from his pocket. He reached the gate and unlocked it. He pushed it open.

“Amazing how far money can go in Cuba,” Paul said, “particularly if it’s a bribe.”

“What about the local police?” Alex asked.

“We’re good with them. It’s the national police we’d have a problem with. Got to work fast. Let’s go.”

In the shadowy darkness, the men moved like phantoms, each with a shovel. They were inside the gate like a bunch of ghosts. The driver remained outside and tossed Paul a cell phone. Paul caught it.

“Around 3:00 a.m.,” the driver said.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Our pickup,” Paul answered.

Then they began to walk, a spooky trip through the old cemetery, guided only by the dim flashlights they carried. The two Cubans who led the way walked to the top of a steep sandy hill in the southeast quadrant of the cemetery. It was pitch dark and well past midnight by now. They stopped to make sure that everyone was together. There were eight of them, including Paul and Alex. Then they proceeded.

The path wound down a slope, past a jagged audience of markers and monuments that took eerie, shadowy shapes in the dim moonlight.

“Down there, Senores,” said one of the Cubans, pointing. “We’re still with you,” Guarneri said.

Alex’s eyes finally adjusted. She watched the Cubans lead the two Americans down to a flat area at the foot of the long, sandy hillside. They faced north and could see the lights of Havana burning beyond the walls of the cemetery. They continued to walk. The terrain was soft, uneven, and marked with litter and brush. The Cubans knew where to step and where not to. Jorge carried the best light, a hand lantern in one hand, and a shovel in the other. Alex was aware of her heartbeat. There were moments on every assignment when, if everything blew up, nothing but disaster could follow. This was one of those moments.

“Watch their feet,” Paul said to Alex. “Step exactly where they step.”

She obeyed, carefully following the leaders’ footsteps one by one.

They found a set of steps, boards across sandy soil crossing another incline. They walked on rotting slats. Jorge clicked his lantern to a higher beam for a few seconds and slashed the pathway with a quick yellow light.

They continued downward. They passed a small sea of wooden crosses, jagged and crooked. The headstones and statuettes made another small army of witnesses in the moonlight and the reflected shadows of the torches. They walked another fifty yards. After a few more moments, Jorge stopped. He looked at a formation of crosses and monuments. He pointed to a patch of clay and dirt. They went fifteen paces in that direction until they came to a grave within a low fence.

Alex saw the name C. Fernandez on a tombstone that bore an ornate cross. Just C. Fernandez and the dates 1931 – 1959. She drew a breath. She knew the moment she dreaded was at hand.

“There, Senor,” Jorge said softly.

He indicated the tombstone and a flat stretch of earth.

“Okay,” Paul said softly. “Let’s get this done.”

The Cubans went to work. They pulled up the small fencing. Four of them wobbled the tombstone until it loosened from the earth. It was of heavy granite. Eventually it came free. It took all six Cubans plus Guarneri to lift it and lay it to one side. Once they had done that, the six men went to their shovels and began to dig.

The earth came up easily. The diggers worked efficiently. Paul took Alex by the hand and guided her to a space a dozen feet away.

“This is an abomination,” she said. “You know that, right?”

“Of course it is, and of course I know,” he said. “But we need to do what we need to do.”

Alex settled in on the edge of a large flat stone. A chilly breeze swept across the cemetery from the east. Paul put an arm around her as she shivered. Against her better judgment, she felt comfort from his arm; then her eyes rose and, by chance, saw a small speck of light flashing in the sky toward the horizon.

“Paul?” she asked.

“What?”

She indicated. A helicopter.

“It’s over the harbor,” he said. “Shore patrol. Cuban navy. I wouldn’t worry about that one.”

“You sure?”

“No,” he said, “but we’ve made our move. I think we’re clean. There’s no turning back now.”

The crew dug for an hour, little mountains of dirt rising up on both sides of the violated grave. From time to time Paul walked over and looked into the deepening hole. Each time, he would wander back and not say anything. Then, suddenly, they both heard a distinctive crack from the shovel. The Cubans had hit the old bronze coffin.

Jorge quickly looked at Paul.

“Stay here,” Paul said to Alex. He went to the gravesite. Enrique took the lantern from Jorge. Three Cubans climbed up out of the hole. Alex watched them. Paul gazed down.

“Keep going,” he instructed. “Get the soil off the lid.” Alex felt another uneasy surge in her stomach. She heard the shovel blades rapping the metal of the casket. The field of death was very still, very quiet. Even the tortured souls and spirits weren’t immediately to be heard from. Three diggers remained in the grave. They enlarged it so that the lid could be lifted from the coffin. Their arms flew in a nightmarish ballet. It took another thirty minutes to create the space they needed.

They knelt down to work. From Alex’s vantage point, she could see that they were removing the lid from the coffin. She lowered her eyes and tried to suppress her disgust before it turned her physically ill. She stepped farther away and folded her arms in front of her. She wondered why God could have put her in this place unless it was to learn, to think, to reflect.

Nervous, Alex left her seat and paced with short steps, staying out of the way, but watching everything that transpired. Eventually, she heard a loud creak and knew that the lid had come off. She heard a low conversation in Spanish. Paul was leading it. Somehow, they loosened the lid and passed it upward. It clunked onto the ground next to the mounds of dirt. Then Enrique tossed Paul a canvas satchel, and Paul went back down into the grave. The diggers stood by, looking downward.

Paul was in the grave, working. She could only see him from the shoulders up.

Working? Robbing? Stealing? Defiling? Recovering? Whatever one wanted to call it. To Alex, he was down there for a long time, which was actually only about thirty seconds. Against her better judgment, against everything that she considered sacrosanct, Alex rose and walked to the open grave. She looked down into the hole as the torchlight swept its contents. Nothing she had ever experienced prepared her for what she saw.

The body that had rested there for five decades was preserved better than anyone could have imagined. The upper part of the skull was skeletal, but the dried flesh of the forehead was in perfect condition. The rest of the cadaver was well preserved also. Alex could see the contours of the head and face, the skeletal knees that had worn through the fabric of the funeral dress, the bones of the wrists and the hands. The nails on the hands shown as if the body had just had a manicure. Much of the rest of the burial clothing was intact. And Salvatore Guarneri’s feet were bare. He had been buried shoeless.

In the midst of this, Guarneri was balanced on the firm side of the casket. His hands were quickly working. He was reaching beneath the head of the corpse and removing the tightly bound stacks of currency. Alex had never seen anything like this in her life and hoped never to again. From the satchel that Enrique had provided, Paul had also pulled a pair of small pillows, sturdy ones, which he would use to replace the money.

Like a spectator transfixed by a traffic accident, Alex continued to stare until she couldn’t take any more and turned away. For a moment, she thought she would throw up. She drew two sharp breaths and suppressed the nausea.

The dark ballet in the grave was over within two minutes, with Paul making sure that he had everything that he was there to get. Alex walked back and looked down again, against her better instincts, but wanted to be a reliable witness. Then, with the pillows in place and the money secured in the satchel, Paul did something that surprised Alex even more. From one of his pockets, he pulled what appeared to be a Holy Card, the type of thing that Roman Catholics issue at their funerals. He tucked it into the remains of his late uncle’s jacket pocket. Then he turned. Alex and Enrique offered him a hand up. He accepted both.