The Prisoner of Guantanamo (19 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
HE
C
UBAN HANDYMAN
known around Gitmo as Harry was sixty-seven, and he had been working on the base since he was nineteen. His real name was Javier Pérez. A few decades ago an overly familiar ensign had begun calling him Harry instead of Javy, and the label stuck. Not that it bothered him. He was trained to be accommodating, having been hired by the Directorate of Intelligence only a few months before he acquired the nickname. A man earning two salaries for one job learns to be flexible.

Despite what Doc Endler smugly believed, Harry had worked with other Americans besides Falk—a naval officer during the eighties, and another Marine not long after Falk departed. Both had been lured to Havana in a manner similar to Falk's. Three customers in two decades wasn't exactly brisk business, but Harry's clientele nonetheless became the object of a small shrine in the Havana cubicle of his handler, who posted compromising photos of the three soldiers in a place of honor above his door.

For all that, Harry's value had always been largely symbolic. His bosses at the Directorate liked the idea of placing someone in the middle of a U.S. military base, even though it was a base where they could already see and hear most of what was going on. And even though Harry never yielded much in the way of useful intelligence, they figured his presence would eventually end in one of two ways: he would produce an unexpected dividend through sheer luck—by having a former client return to the base as an FBI agent, for example—or he would be unmasked by military authorities. Either would be a coup, the former for obvious reasons, the latter by throwing the base into a tizzy of entertaining embarrassment. His bosses worried little about the possibility of betrayal, since Harry's only contact with the Directorate was through the man who had recruited him. There were no other operatives whom he could identify, with the possible exception of his neighborhood pharmacist, who Harry had always suspected was an informant for the Interior Ministry.

Harry put in long hours for his two salaries, and he began the morning of his rendezvous with Falk like every other workday. He rose at four at his small home in Guantánamo City and dressed while his wife brewed coffee and buttered a slab of bread for the skillet. She went back to bed while Harry tore off pieces of the crusty tostada to dunk in his mug of
café con leche.
He left the house just as the roosters were crowing, walking six blocks to the bus stop on a route that took him past the homes of six of his children and a dozen of his grandchildren. Two other sons lived in Union City, New Jersey, and a daughter was in Miami Lakes. They mailed letters to him through the base, letters that he knew better than to bring home—one of the few secrets he had never shared with the Directorate. Having learned to memorize information from his operatives for reports back to his handler, he had no trouble reciting the letters to his wife.

The bus picked up nine commuters. Four would be retiring by year's end, but not Harry. It then headed southeast from town on a twenty-mile journey, skirting the north end of the bay and bypassing the village of Boquerón before arriving at its final stop nearly a mile short of the North East Gate. By then it was around five thirty, and the summer sun had crawled above the cactus hills. They walked the last mile on a dusty, hilly path bordered by land mines, a passage known as “the cattle chute.”

In the distant past, especially in the 1960s during the first years after the Revolution, the guards of the Frontier Brigade had made life miserable for the commuters as they approached the North East Gate. They jostled and jeered and searched everyone head to toe. Some of them used to spit, or take a swing, give a shove in the back. The dollar salary made up for it, barely, but as the years passed and the number of commuters dwindled, so did the abuse. Now the daily walk and frisking passed in tranquil silence. When Harry and the other eight cashed their U.S. Navy checks at Gitmo's bank every two weeks, they did so knowing that Cuba wouldn't be charging any taxes. They were perhaps the world's only employees simultaneously benefiting from the economic theories of Adam Smith and Karl Marx.

Once they reached the American side of the gate there was another security check, and by the time Harry cleared that—around 6 a.m.—a Marine was waiting to hand him the keys to a white Dodge van. Two other commuters climbed aboard with him. He dropped them off at the Naval Hospital before continuing to his final destination at a maintenance shed of corrugated metal. Years ago Harry had sprayed “Abato Fidel”—Demolish Fidel!—on the side of the shed in white paint. A fine bit of cover, Falk had always thought, even if Harry did it guilelessly. At the time he had been upset about food and pharmaceutical shortages in Guantánamo City. Another little quirk for the secret annals of Gitmo.

His job was as an all-purpose repairman, sometimes for household appliances, at other times for the cars, trucks, and buses operating on the base. Being a Cuban, he knew all about keeping old things running despite minimal access to replacement parts. He had kept his own 1959 Chevy running for more than four decades—how hard could it be to keep a seven-year-old Chrysler in mint condition?

About the time Harry reached the North East Gate that morning, Falk was awakening from a troubled night's sleep. He thought first of Adnan, now residing among the ghosts, shut away at Camp Echo beyond Falk's reach. He wondered what Adnan had said or done to merit such treatment. Or was it merely his status as one of Falk's subjects that put him in jeopardy? He had scarcely had time to think about Harry. If it hadn't been for Bo he might have left the matter until after the weekend.

Needing a pretext for his visit, Falk scanned the kitchen by the morning light and settled on the blender. To make it convincing, he tossed in a banana, a cylinder of frozen OJ and half a tray of ice, then pressed the Puree button. He would at least get a breakfast smoothie out of the deal. The ice cubes leaped and jolted as the little motor whined. Eventually the slush ground to a halt in mid-twirl. Falk watched the digital time display on the microwave change to 6:04 while he waited for the blender's motor to burn out. He didn't hit the Off button until smoke began seeping from the vents in the back.

After a quick drink and a rinse of the plastic container, he carried the blender to the Chrysler and set out across the base. He felt a little foolish about the ruse. As a Marine he had never taken such measures. But that was before 9/11, Camp Delta, “Think OPSEC,” and his weekend banishment by a two-star general.

No one was on Sherman Avenue. The ball fields and parking lots of the schools and stores were empty. The base always looked odd at this time of day, when hardly anyone was out and about. The residential architecture and layout, straight out of
Leave It to Beaver,
seemed out of place on this parched and exhausted landscape, like a skin graft that hadn't taken.

Harry's shed was atop a small rise. Falk turned up a long driveway of crushed coral as a big land crab skittered out of sight, red claws waving defiantly. Harry's face poked out the door before Falk had even switched off the engine.

“Buenos días, señor!” He was beaming. You'd have thought they were old friends. “So many years, Señor Falk. And you are so important now, yet I still think of you as a soldier.”

“Yeah, well.” Falk climbed from the Chrysler. “Old habits die hard, Harry. How's your family?” The conversation felt more bizarre by the second. Falk had never asked after Harry's family before, but Harry answered without missing a beat.

“They are well. They are well, señor. Please tell me what it is you need repaired. Ah, I see. The blender, no? Adelante. Come in, come in.”

Inside it was already ninety degrees. The place smelled like machine oil. Harry's battered steel desk was covered by tools, spare parts, and repair invoices. He shoved the mess aside and set the blender in the clearing.

“Perfect, señor. So tell me, what is the news for you?”

“More of the same, I guess.” Falk looked around warily. They seemed to be the only ones here. Harry's coworkers, a Filipino and a Puerto Rican, lived on base with a few hundred other contract workers in a dilapidated high-rise called Gold Hill Towers. They weren't due here for at least another hour.

“Actually, Harry, I was more interested in any news you might have for me.”

Let's get this over with, he thought.

Harry nodded jauntily as he fingered the buttons on the blender, making tiny clicks as he progressed up the scale from Grate to Puree.

“These are all false, you know. So many names for these settings, but they all do the same thing. I suppose it is to make you feel like you are getting more for your money. It is very clever, yes?”

Falk nodded.

“I think I can fix it okay. But I may need a part from the yard. If you will follow me.”

Harry nodded toward the rear door, which led to the scrap yard. Then he smiled and raised both arms, gesturing toward the walls and ceiling as if to say, “You never know who might be listening, eh?” He had never taken such precautions before. Perhaps he, too, was spooked by the new climate. Or maybe this time the stakes were higher. He picked up the blender and they headed for the door.

Being back outside was a relief, although the sun already glared harshly off cracked windshields and battered sheets of metal.

“Over here, I think,” Harry said, glancing over his shoulder back at the shed.

“Yes,” Falk answered, finding that the tension was contagious. He had known all along that this meeting could mean trouble. It was why he had put it off. But only now had he considered the real implications: Whatever Harry said next could change his life, and probably not for the better.

“Do you remember your friend Paco, in Miami?” Harry's smile had lost its wattage.

“I remember him well. You're also a friend of his?”

“Of course.” Another glance toward the shed. Harry probably wouldn't know Paco from the minister of the interior. “He wishes to see you again. Soon. He says to me, and these are his exact words, ‘Tell Mr. Falk to drop whatever he is doing and visit me in Miami.' Same accommodation as before, he said.”

Presumably meaning the same ratty hotel near Little Havana. Damned if Endler hadn't been right, which made Falk wonder again about the origins of his weekend leave. It made him wonder about a lot of things.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No.” Beaming again. Relieved, perhaps, that he'd remembered all his lines and that the performance was almost over. “But he insisted you come. And if you don't …”

“Yes?”

Harry assumed a grave and careful manner, fondling the blender pensively.

“Then he says he will tell all of your cousins and uncles that you have been an unfaithful friend.”

“Well then, I'd better go see him, hadn't I? Tell him I'll be in Miami tomorrow. Maybe even tonight.”

If Harry was surprised, he didn't show it.

“I will tell him,” he said. “And your blender. When you return, it will be fixed.”

“Very good.”

Falk turned to go, taking the path around the shed.

“Perhaps I will even add another setting or two,” Harry shouted from behind. “Make it even more clever than before.”

“Yes,” Falk said, not bothering to turn. “You do that.”

         

E
VEN WITH A GUARANTEED SEAT
, Falk needed to arrive at the Leeward Point terminal an hour before take-off to deal with the security rigmarole. If his flight was like most planes out of here, it would be packed with noisy Navy families of sniffling children and screaming infants, the overhead bins bulging with strollers and portacribs.

He had just enough time to swing by Bo's on the way to the ferry to pass along the latest development with Harry. Endler, doubtless, would be pleased to have his hunch confirmed. Cartwright answered the door in his pajamas, coffee mug in hand. He seemed surprised by the visit, even wary. When Falk asked for Bo, he shook his head.

“He took off pretty early this morning. Got a phone call around five.”

Endler, perhaps?

“Tell him I stopped by, and that I'll see him Monday.”

“Will do.”

He barely made the ferry. Dolphins were already leaping in the bay, flashing into the sunlight while Falk stood at the sternward rail, watching the base recede in their wake. He wished he'd had time to see Pam. It would have been even nicer having her next to him at the rail, headed to the States with him.

The waiting room at the hangar was a zoo, and Falk stood outdoors with the smokers as long as possible, which left him last in the boarding line. A soldier thoroughly checked his bags and his briefcase, but didn't show the slightest interest in the letters for Ludwig or any of his papers. He had made a copy of all his notes before dropping off the originals the night before at J-DOG headquarters, in a big envelope for Van Meter.

The tarmac was already soft from the heat, and the runway was rank with jet fuel. The idling engines were loud enough that he could barely hear when an MP next to the stairway said something as he was about to climb aboard.

“What?” he shouted over the noise.

Instead of yelling again, the MP pointed toward the hangar, and Falk turned to see Bo sprinting toward them, with another MP in angry pursuit.

They both reached Falk at about the same time, although the running MP got in the first word.

“Sir, you're unauthorized!”

“I told you, goddamn it, I've been cleared.” Bo flashed a piece of paper that Falk glimpsed just enough to see General Trabert's letterhead. It seemed to do the trick. The pursuing MP even saluted, then retreated to a safe distance while Bo leaned closer to shout in Falk's ear. The engine wash flapped their shirts like flags.

“Hell of a morning, huh? What happened with Harry?”