Ghosts of Havana (A Judd Ryker Novel) (31 page)

“I’m sorry, Comrade Presidente.” Oswaldo bowed his head. “I’ve been awake all night, dealing with these foolish
yanqui
hostages.”

The president shook his head. “I slept like a baby.” Then he flashed a smile and waved his hand over his breakfast. “Come, eat!”

“No time for breakfast, Comrade Presidente. Security of the revolution never rests.”

“But you must have something to eat, my friend.”

Oswaldo finally conceded with a shrug. “I’ll pour us coffee, Comrade Presidente. Thank you.”

Oswaldo ambled over to a floral table by the window, set with a pot of strong coffee and a bowl of sugar. “Another beautiful day in our
Cubita bella
, no?” he said as he poured two cups.

“Yes, yes,” the president said cheerily.

“How is El Jefe today?”

“My brother is the same. His body is alive, but his mind has died. The doctors tell me he could go on like this for years. The doctors say he could even recover.”

“We have the world’s best doctors,” Oswaldo said, “so perhaps . . .”

“My brother will never be the same”—the president bowed his head—“I have accepted it. The nation will need to accept it. The revolution will need to accept it.”

“The revolution never rests, Comrade Presidente.”

“Now, tell me about these
yanquis
. What are we going to do?”

Oswaldo turned his back to the president as he dropped a spoonful of sugar in each coffee. “I’ve already let them go.”

“They’re gone?” the president gasped.

“They are already in America.”

“America?”

“Gone, Comrade Presidente,” he said as he slipped a white cube from his pocket into one of the coffees. He turned around to face the president, holding both cups triumphantly. “They were nothing. Just some foolish
yanqui
cowboys. I put them on a plane and sent them back to Washington.”

“Washington?”

“Yes, Comrade Presidente. It’s over.”

“I don’t understand, Oswaldo,” the president said, accepting one of the coffees. “You told me this was important. These
hostages were dangerous. They were
yanqui
spies sent to disturb our new friendship with Washington. That they were leverage for getting more from the Americans.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t leverage, Comrade Presidente.” Oswaldo took a sip.

“Ahhh!” The president sat back in his chair and laughed from deep down in his belly. “Of course! Of course! You are Oswaldo! You must have tricked the Americans! Or you got something valuable, didn’t you?” He sat forward and slurped a healthy gulp of coffee. “Ahhh! What did we get, Oswaldo? What did we get? A prisoner exchange? Ships of wheat? Baseball? What?”

“Something much more valuable than any of those things,” Oswaldo said, a smile forming on the edges of his mouth.

“What’s more valuable than”—the president winced and grabbed his chest—“baseball?”

Oswaldo watched the president cough and sputter. As the old man gasped desperately for air, Oswaldo calmly took a sip of coffee before answering the question, the final words the president would ever hear. “Independence, my friend. Total independence.”

81.

SANTIAGO, CUBA

SATURDAY, 8:04 A.M.

C
he! Che! Che!

Ernesto could hear the chanting in his head even before he arrived at the Plaza de la Revolución. He could imagine the people—
his people
—singing his name. As he sat in the backseat of the vintage Cadillac, waiting to be driven to the rally, he peered through his reading glasses at the speech sitting on his lap.

The Cuban Revolution is ready for the next phase! We have achieved so much, but the time for something new has arrived . . .

Ernesto hadn’t slept much since landing late the night before. The woman at the airport, one of Ruben’s people, had brought him to a safe house for rest and this morning had deposited him in the back of an electric-blue 1955 Cadillac Eldorado.

He was excited for the rally in the heart of Santiago, the historical epicenter of political opposition in Cuba, the site where
he was to make his own history, to launch his own campaign. He was ready for the new stage of his long, strange journey.

But Ernesto was also nervous. After so many years in Africa, working in the slums, healing the sick, living close to the people, he was now venturing into wholly new waters.

The empty shelves are a potent symbol of what has gone wrong with the revolution. Corruption is eating the revolution from within, yet it is the people who cannot eat! . . .

Ruben had assured him those reasons were exactly why he was the perfect candidate. His big brother had made a convincing case that Ernesto’s national service, his years in Angola, his humility, his selfless patriotism, his simple life—these truths all made Dr. Ernesto Sandoval
a
man of the people
.

It was all correct, Ernesto decided. He was a simple, honest man. He could restore the country to greatness without tearing it apart. He could bridge the revolutionaries in Havana with the exiles in Miami. He was precisely what Cuba needed.

A government that cannot deliver bread, cannot deliver on the promise of the revolution . . .

His nagging anxiety was jumping from the quiet life of medicine into the shark tank of Cuban politics.

We must have free elections in Cuba! Our leaders must be chosen by the people! We must have a new government in Havana! . . .

Yes, Che Guevara had been a doctor and had famously leapt from obscurity into politics. From medicine onto the international stage. So, too, had former presidents of Chile, Malawi, Brazil, Uruguay, even the first president of Angola.

Che! Che! Che!

But what did he really know about campaigning? What did he know about rallying the masses? What did Ernesto Sandoval know about running a country?

Ruben had dismissed these questions out of hand.

“Don’t worry,
mi hermanito
,” his brother had assured him. “This is your time. We will help you. You just read the script. We will run the campaign. We will organize your supporters. We will bring out the people. We will win. And then we will govern.”

The question that Ernesto didn’t ask but was now burning in his brain this morning:
Who, exactly, is
‘
we’?
—

“We are not ready yet, Dr. Che,” the woman said from the front seat, interrupting his thoughts.

He wrinkled his forehead. “I’m ready to give the speech,” he said, waving the papers. “I’m ready to go to the Plaza de la Revolución! I’m ready to rally my people!”

“I’m sorry”—she bowed her head—“we’re going to have to delay, Dr. Che.”

“Delay?” he said, suddenly feeling nauseated again.

“Postpone, I mean. We will have to try again for a rally on . . . another day.”

“Another day?” Ernesto was confused. The acid in his stomach flared and he was short of breath. “I flew here all the way from Africa for this. Everything was supposed to be in place.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Che, no one is in the plaza.”

“It’s . . . empty?”

“We had a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The cells were not mobilized in time.”

“Cells? You spoke of these cells last night. What cells?”

“Sometimes,” she shrugged, “the money doesn’t arrive in time.”

Ernesto cocked his head to one side.
Money?

82.

HAVANA, CUBA

SATURDAY, 8.25 A.M.

M
oney!
The image of all that cash swirled around inside Oswaldo’s pounding head.
I’ve never seen so many gringo dollars,
he thought. The full duffel bag in the trunk of his car was on his mind, pounding like a bass drum, as he pulled up to the gate of the Playa Baracoa Air Base.

He had already visited the secret police headquarters, the commander of the presidential guard, the minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Party secretary, and the director of the state television studio. The air base was his last stop.

At the gate, the uniformed soldier saluted and waved him through. Oswaldo drove directly to the office of the base commander, a man he had known since they were boys in the Union of Rebel Pioneers. As he expected, the commander was waiting for him on the veranda, standing at attention.

“At ease, Commander,” Oswaldo ordered, prompting the man to relax his shoulders. The two men embraced warmly.

“Are the rumors true, Comrade Oswaldo?”

“What rumors are those, Miguel?”

“El Comrade Presidente”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“is gone.”

Oswaldo bowed solemnly and nodded. He took a deep breath. “Sudden heart attack. I was with him when he passed away. Just this morning. That’s why I’m here now.”

“He’s really dead?”

“I’ve just come from the state television studio, where I’ve cleared the official statement. They will make the public announcement at nine o’clock.”

“Nine o’clock?” the commander gasped, checking his watch. “So soon? Isn’t that risky? Wouldn’t it be better to control the information?”

“No, Miguel. It’s too late for that. The rumors are already on the streets. Already in the barracks. What kind of state secret could we keep if even you, Miguel, have already heard, no?” Oswaldo pretended to be irritated, but he knew all too well how Miguel had already known about the president’s death.

“What about the Party? Has the politburo decided what to do next?”

“No. El Comrade Presidente was very clear with his final wishes. Once he was gone, he wanted Cuba . . . to hold free elections.”

“Elections? Oswaldo, had he gone mad? Have you all gone mad? That is just what the imperialists want! Elections will bring chaos!”

“That’s what El Comrade Presidente wished. He insisted that elections were the next phase of the glorious revolution. The will of the people must be heard. That’s what I have told the politburo. That’s what we are going to require of the army. To enforce the will of revolution.”

“You are ordering the army to enforce free elections?”

“Yes, Miguel! That’s why I’m here. And that’s why I now must go!” Oswaldo said as he turned to leave.

“Where are you going now, Oswaldo?”

“To the airfield! I need a plane, Miguel!”

“Take the presidential jet. It’s ready. And now—”

“No, Miguel,” Oswaldo scolded, “That would be disrespectful. I need something modest for this important journey.”

“I have a Cessna we captured from the terrorist traitors in Miami.”

“Yes, Miguel! I will fly myself in the Cessna!”

“But to where, Oswaldo?”

“I need to inform our closest friends and to seek their continued support for the revolution!”

“Venezuela or Bolivia?”

“Yes, Miguel! I’ll be back!” he said as he ran out the door.

But in his mind, Oswaldo knew he was taking the plane on a one-way journey to Costa Rica. To a secret jungle airfield in the southwest of that country. To a modest villa high in the mountains above the little village of Ojochal. For six months. To lay low, out of sight. Before he and his duffel bag full of all those American dollars could move, incognito, to Madrid or Mexico City. Or maybe even one day . . . to Florida.

83.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA

SATURDAY, 9:12 A.M.

J
essica glared at the screen on her phone, unsure of her next move.

She and Judd had flown back from the
Granma Nueva
to the United States in silence. The only words were Judd’s as they took off:

“So, you fly helicopters?”

Jessica had just nodded in response, and thrust the cyclic control stick forward, pitching the Raider’s nose down and shooting them both back toward Florida, toward their children, closer to their next, unavoidable, confrontation.

Judd and Jessica were both processing what had just happened. Each was still unsure whether his or her own mission was fulfilled or not. The Rykers each stared ahead, recalling the chain of recent events, counting the lies, reliving how close they came to being killed in that floating Cuban tin can. How they nearly wound up dead and dumped in the Caribbean by the Devil of Santiago. Both still unclear what they had just accomplished. Or what was coming next.

Just as the sun peeked over the horizon, they had crossed back into American airspace and landed at Homestead Air Reserve Base. They then drove in the rented Mustang convertible north, past Miami, back to Fort Lauderdale. Again, in total silence.

Four times on the seventy-minute car journey Jessica’s phone had rung. Each time,
DANIEL DOLLAR
flashed on her little screen. Each time, she pushed
DIVERT TO VOICEMAIL
.
Not yet,
she told herself.

Once back at the house, she had dismissed Aunt Lulu and put
Justice League
cartoons on the television for her children, then climbed in bed for a hard-earned nap. Judd had joined her, too, exhausted from the all-nighter, drained from the agony of their unresolved chess game.

—

N
ow, waking in crisp sheets next to her husband but still yet to face him, she glared at that tiny screen, knowing that it was better to get this first battle over. Before turning to the bigger one with Judd.

She got up without waking her husband and walked out onto the terrace, overlooking the water. She dialed a number.

“Coney Island Pizza.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “I have a special order for urgent delivery.”

“We’re closed.”

“Closed?” she asked. “What—”

The phone went dead.

Before Jessica could redial or react, she heard a loud, gruff voice calling her name from inside.

“Someone’s in the house!” Judd was up.