Mambo Page 26

  Peering through his glasses he saw that the documents described a huge military exercise scheduled for dawn tomorrow. It involved the movement of troops from the Santiago de Cuba Province. Infantry battalions, as well as aeroplanes, were to move inland from the coastal region of the province, which lay on the island’s southern seaboard. Ships of the Cuban Navy were also scheduled to sail around the tip of the island at Guantanamo, bound for Holguin Province. This would expose the coast of Santiago de Cuba, leaving it defenceless. Not that Castro expected an invasion force; but one had always to be prepared.

  The same documents described other military exercises in Havana Province. These were less extensive than the movement of troops from Santiago to Holguin, but they were impressive just the same and involved the transportation of more than seven thousand men from Havana Province to Matanzas; there, in the mountainous region surrounding Matanzas City, exercises would keep these troops occupied at a distance of some fifty miles from the Central Highway.

  “All this involves thousands of soldiers and reservists,” Castro said.

  “Indeed,” the General answered.

  “Why? Why this undertaking?”

  “Readiness, Commandante. Alertness. A standing army must flex its muscle, otherwise it withers.”

  “Readiness is important, but does Raul know of these manoeuvres?”

  “Of course,” said the General. “It was Raul’s idea.” Lies came to him with great difficulty.

  Castro tossed the papers back at the General. The pain that shot suddenly through his stomach was like a fierce little cannonball. He imagined it leaving a scalding trail of debris on its passage through his guts. He spoke with some effort. “I do … not … recall my brother ever … mentioning these exercises before now, General.”

  “But Commandante,” Capablanca said. He was tense, slightly panicked. He hadn’t expected resistance; he’d imagined that the debilitated and confused Lider Maximo would give his consent willingly. He needed the Commandante’s authorisation of the documents; without that imprimatur, those officers loyal to the Party, and to El Viejo himself, would refuse to participate in the exercises. They wouldn’t raise a finger unless one or other of the Castros authorised it. Such disobedience on the part of the misguided loyalists would mean chaos, disorder, bloodshed. The General pictured slaughter on the beaches. God knows, there would be unavoidable bloodshed somewhere down the road but the ship coming from Honduras had to arrive without impediment. That was a matter of the utmost importance.

  Besides, there was form to consider; and form was one of the General’s obsessions. With the authorisation of Castro manoeuvres would have the appearance of legitimacy. This was important because the General did not want history to perceive him as a common adventurer and scoundrel. Everything he did had to be just so, everything by the book.

  He had another important reason, one of sly importance, for getting the Lider Maximo’s signature on these papers.

  A space had been left on the third page for an extra paragraph to be inserted; this paragraph, when the General added it, would contain Castro’s authorisation for a cruise missile, formerly the property of NATO, to be fired from a location outside Santiago de Cuba …

  Of course, no missile would ever fly. The authorisation was the only thing required; the apparent intent was all.

  Now Castro waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal. He was reluctant to give his approval to the manoeuvres because he didn’t like interfering with his brother’s gameboard. Raul played toy soldiers, not he.

  “Cancel them, General. Postpone them until Raul returns.”

  “Commandante,” said the General, trying to conceal the small panic he felt. “You must approve these –”

  “I do not have to do anything, General. Now do as I say! Postpone the manoeuvres!”

  Capablanca glanced at the doctor. Zayas understood the look; he reached inside his black bag and took out a hypodermic syringe. He inserted the needle into a small phial of colourless liquid, filled the syringe, then held the needle close to the Lider Maximo’s arm.

  “What is it, Zayas? What’s in the syringe?” Castro asked. His eyes opened very wide.

  “A simple painkiller,” the physician said.

  “I am not in pain!” Castro would have decked the doctor, had it not been for the terrible weakness he felt. His belly creaked like the rotted wood of an old ship and he had the feeling of hot liquid rushing through his intestines. He’d have to get up, rush for the hundredth time to the john.

  The needle pierced flesh, found the vein; after twenty seconds Castro, who resisted enforced sleep fiercely, closed his eyes. His head rolled to one side and saliva collected at the corners of his lips as he snored.

  The doctor raised one of Castro’s eyelids, then let it flop back in place. “Give me the documents, General.”

  General Capablanca did so. The doctor, with meticulous penmanship, forged the Lider Maximo’s signature. It was a passable fraud.

  “I haven’t been his personal physician for years without learning a great deal about our fearless leader,” Zayas said. “Now open the middle drawer of the desk.”

  Capablanca, surprised by both the skill and gall of the physician, went to the desk. Inside the middle drawer was the Lider Maximo’s personal seal. The General removed it. He took the document from the doctor, who was still admiring his own forgery, and pressed the metal seal over the fake signature.

  “There,” said the General, relief in his voice. “It’s done.”

  Zayas looked down at the doped leader. “When he wakes, I’ll shoot him up again.”

  The General said, “I’d prefer him dead. But I have my own orders to follow.” He walked towards the door where he stopped, turned briskly around. “Your role will not be forgotten, Zayas. By tomorrow night, Cuba will be free of this madman.”

  “I’m happy to help a new regime, General. People who love freedom must unite against despots.”

  General Capablanca stepped out of the room. In the corridor, Castro’s bodyguards stood tensely.

  “A minor gastric disorder,” said the General in a booming voice. “In a day or so he will be as good as new. For now, he sleeps.”

  The bodyguards relaxed. They trusted Capablanca and they trusted Dr Zayas. They had known them for years. All, therefore, was well.

  14

  Miami

  On this strange dawn enormous cloud formations, lit by a pale sun, formed a purple mass over Miami. Motionless, the clouds might have been solid matter, cliffs and rocky promontories afloat in the sky. Later, the day would grow warmer and the bulk would disperse in violent lightning and rain, the whole discordant Floridian symphony of weather.

  Magdalena Torrente, driving her BMW towards Little Havana, took no notice of the heavens. She crossed the Rickenbacker Causeway at the speed limit. Traffic was still light. She’d been drawn out of sleep by the telephone, and had reached for the instrument with a sense of dread. Nothing good ever came from phone calls at seven a.m. Anything that happened before then had to be ungodly. She’d heard Garrido’s voice. He needed to see her at the restaurant. He wouldn’t say why. The old man had grown increasingly fond of cryptic behaviour. He’d been playing the secret game for too many years. So, still sleepy, she’d showered, brewed coffee, dressed, left her house in Key Biscayne.

  She drove on Brickell Avenue, heart of revitalised Miami, leafy between high-rise buildings. The Bayside Market Plaza was new and bold. Drug money had infiltrated everyday life. An illicit, cocky prosperity flourished here. But this was something else Magdalena didn’t notice as she drove toward Calle Ocho. What did Garrido want at this hour? Why had he called? His voice was quiet, almost a whisper – she couldn’t tell much from it. On Calle Ocho she passed closed shops; a couple of druggies, locked in their own time zone, stared morosely at her.

  On the side-street where Garrido’s restaurant was situated she parked the car, got out. She wore blue jeans, soft leather boots that came just above the ankles, a
black silk jacket, lemon shirt. She was incongruous in this neighbourhood of steel-shuttered windows and graffiti and funky yards filled with empty wine bottles and needles and tyres.

  She entered the restaurant by the front door. The big empty room, which wasn’t open for breakfast trade, smelled of last night’s onions and chillis. Chairs were inverted on tables. Garrido, in the white suit he always wore, sat in an alcove at the rear. Beside him was a hefty man she’d never seen before – unusual in itself because Garrido always preferred to meet her alone.

  Garrido looked up when she approached. She felt a dryness at the back of her throat, a sudden pulse in her chest. Something in Garrido’s face unnerved her, although she wasn’t sure what – the light in the eye, the set of the mouth, something. He was different this morning and she didn’t like it.

  “Sit down, my dear,” he said.

  She eased into the alcove, conscious of the stranger watching her approvingly. When she caught his eye he winked, smiled. She was sometimes amused by the effect she had on men; even Pagan, even dear Frank, when he’d come to see her in London, had been strangely subdued in her presence – except for his bold parting kiss, which had been interesting to her only as a memory. There was nothing left inside her for Frank Pagan or any other man but one.

  Garrido kissed her hand. “My dear, I want you to meet a good friend. A trusted friend. Sergio Duran. He is with us.”

  Magdalena barely nodded at Duran, who nevertheless insisted on placing a kiss of his own on the back of her hand and saying how delighted he was to meet her; she was as beautiful as he’d heard, even more so. It was Latin overstatement, that blend of flattery and machismo, and she was unmoved by it.

  “Why this hour of the day, Fernando?” she asked. “What’s the big deal?”

  Garrido was quiet a moment. He looked moody, distant, and even the chocolate-brown dye he used on his hair and moustache appeared to have shed lustre. “Sergio returned from Cuba last night,” he said finally.

  “And?” she asked.

  “Perhaps I’ll let Sergio tell you himself.”

  “Fine.” She looked at Duran, who wore a blue and grey plaid jacket and styled his hair like frothed milk. “I’m listening, Sergio.”

  Duran’s voice was deep and low, more a rumble than anything else. It reminded Magdalena of a radio announcer. He took out a cigar, one made by the Upmann Company of Havana, and he lit it. He had huge fat hands.

  “Fernando asked me to go to Cuba on his behalf. He needed somebody to check on a few things.”

  “Check on what things?” Magdalena asked, and looked at Garrido, who inclined his head as if to say Listen, Duran will tell you everything you need to know.

  Duran blew smoke upward, steering it away from Magdalena’s eyes. “He needed certain information. He asked me to provide it.”

  “Exactly what are your credentials for gathering information, Sergio?” She was on edge now and couldn’t say why exactly. The hour of the day was part of it, certainly, but she knew that these two men between them had something to tell her and there was an awkward kind of pussyfooting going on, an evasion of the point. She was impatient, almost rude in the way she threw questions at Duran.

  “I am a private detective right here in Miami,” Duran said.

  “I see. So you’re qualified to snoop around.”

  “Magdalena,” Garrido said, a plea for patience and tolerance in the tone of his voice.

  “It’s okay, Fernando. Miss Torrente is right one hundred per cent. I’m a qualified snoop.”

  “And what did you snoop in Cuba, Sergio?” Magdalena asked.

  There was silence. Why did she feel she was a patient in the presence of two specialists who have studied her X-rays with the utmost care and whose prognoses are bleak? They were about to tell her she was terminal.

  “Considerable sums of money have gone to Cuba in recent years,” Duran said. “Fernando asked me to ascertain, as far as I possibly could, exactly where the cash had ended up.”

  Ah: so it came down to that old bone, Garrido’s mistrust of Rafael, his paranoia. She should have known. He wasn’t happy about Rosabal – specifically her relationship with him – and so he’d sent his own personal spy to Cuba! She wanted to shout at the old man, and reproach him bitterly for his distrust, but for the moment she kept her silence.

  Duran went on, “The disposition of funds was always in the hands of one man. Rafael Rosabal. It was left to him to assess the needs of the various underground groups and disperse the cash according to these needs. A big responsibility, of course. A job requiring some measure of good judgment.”

  “And?” Magdalena asked. Why did she feel so goddam awful all of a sudden? Something monstrous, just beyond the range of her vision, was taking shape in the shadows of this room. Her forehead was flushed and hot. She put the palm of her hand to it.

  “I have discovered beyond doubt that a full accounting is difficult –”

  “What does that mean? Be precise, if you can.”

  “Money is unaccounted for –”

  “Why? Why is it unaccounted for?”

  Duran sucked on his cigar; what Magdalena read in his eyes was an odd little look of pity. It was visible pity, the kind felt by a man who so rarely experiences such sensations he doesn’t know how to hide them. He said, “As far as I can tell, millions of dollars are missing.”

  “Missing? What does missing mean? How can millions of dollars go astray? What are you saying, Mr Duran? How can you even make such an estimate anyway? It isn’t the kind of situation conducive to accurate book-keeping, is it?” Her voice was shrill and rising. She knew where Duran was headed now. She saw it as clearly as if there were a map in front of her.

  Duran spoke slowly. “Rosabal dispersed funds to the various groups, certainly,” he said. “But in his own way. Sometimes he’d give money liberally to one group and deny it to another, claiming a shortage of funds. At other times he’d give very little to all the groups, and tell them there was nothing in the kitty, that cash hadn’t come from the Community in Miami. He relied on the fact that no one group would know what the other groups received.”

  “What exactly are you trying to tell me, Sergio? That Rafael pocketed money for himself?” She made a sound of disbelief, a gasp.

  “Be patient,” Garrido said, and patted the back of her hand, which she drew away at once, causing the old man to look rather sorrowful.

  Duran continued. “It appears that Rosabal promoted a system in which he sometimes seemed to be favouring certain groups by saying he’d managed to squeeze out a little more cash for them this time around – but he’d always ask them to keep the favour quiet. Don’t tell anyone else, he’d say. Don’t start squabbles. This way he created confusion and divided loyalties. Am I making this clear for you?”

  “Garrido,” and she turned her face to the old man. “How could you do this? How can you oblige me to sit through this?”

  Garrido said nothing. That silence again; it beat against Magdalena with the certainty of a tide.

  Duran went on, “A rough estimate of monies embezzled would run into the millions.”

  “You said yourself that an estimate was impossible.” She was Rosabal’s advocate now, his protector, defender.

  “I said it was difficult, not impossible. It would take a very long time to be exact, I agree. My own estimate is a ball-park figure, that’s all. More, less, what does it matter in the long run?”

  “How can you malign him in this way?” she asked. “Both of you, how can you castigate him like this? Don’t you understand the risks he’s taken for our cause? He met regularly with underground representatives, people in the democratic movement, he carried US dollars to these people, he went to places where discovery would have meant the death-sentence for him – how can you possibly accuse him of embezzlement?”

  Duran shook his head slowly and looked depressed. “There is other evidence, Magdalena.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m info
rmed he’s been making investments for the last few years through banks in the Channel Islands. He always goes there briefly whenever he makes a trip to Europe. He visits discreet bankers who invest considerable sums of money on his behalf in France and Switzerland and the Far East.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Duran shrugged. “We have reliable sources.”

  “Spies.”

  “Spies is as good a word as any.”

  “How do you know he isn’t investing money on behalf of the cause? You don’t have any evidence he’s investing this cash for himself.”

  “Not directly, no. All I can tell you is what I already said – funds are being diverted. And the likelihood that the cash has been invested for the cause is, let’s face it, slim.”

  Garrido, like a patient country doctor schooled in platitudes, spoke soothingly when he interrupted. “Sometimes too much money is too much temptation. A man can find weaknesses in himself he never suspected.”

  “I believe in Rafael,” she said. She was hoarse; tension had dried her throat and mouth.

  As if he hadn’t heard her, as if he were just too wrapped up in his own ambitions to pay Magdalena any attention, Garrido continued in a mournful voice. “It’s more than just the money. It’s the violation of the trust we put in Rosabal. He was supposed to be our representative in Cuba. He was supposed to be spreading funds to make the democratic underground strong. He was the big man, the force behind the movement to overthrow Castro, he was preparing a coup, assembling a democratic alternative to Communism, and when the time came …” The old man paused and looked sad. He touched his lips with a linen napkin. “I was a part of it. I was going back to Cuba to serve in this new government. Now what? Now what, Magdalena? Where is the dream now? How can we know if there is any kind of strength or unity in the anti-Castro cause? How can we know if Castro is ever going to be deposed? Do you see what Rosabal has accomplished with his treachery, Magdalena? Confusion. Disappointment. Unhappiness.”