Dusky MacMorgan: Cuban Death-Lift Part 2

"Sure. Tightest security precautions taken for one man in the history of the country, or something- right? Made a lot of Americans mad to think we took better care of a dictator than we do of our own Presidents. What about it?"

"That's when we made our first contact with a General F.C. Halcn, one of the top men in Castro's army. Since then his code name has been Hawk. And Hawk has proved invaluable to us. He's fairly representative of a growing disenchantment with Castro in Cuba-even among the higher-ups. The last report we got from him informed us of the agents being planted among the refugees, but it also contained the words-in code, of course-'storm nest.' That was his predetermined way of telling us he wanted out; things were getting hot for him, and he wanted us to get his a.s.s out of Cuba."

I said, "Not all that easy, I imagine."

Norm shrugged and toyed with his coffee cup. "Normally, no. But it so happened that Halcn was a.s.signed to run security operations in Mariel Harbor. So, three days after receiving his message, the CIA sent its agents in a forty-foot trawler, renamed Storm Nest, with orders to evacuate the Hawk."

"And what happened?"

Fizer looked up at me, the concern in his face obvious. "The CIA's people just disappeared. Vanished. Through a pretty complex code system, they got word to the Key West marine operator that they had arrived, and they were awaiting contact from the Hawk. And then poof, nothing."

"Maybe Castro's people were on to the whole operation and rounded up all four of them."

"That's what we figured at first, but four nights ago we got another code transmission from Halcn. He's anxious as h.e.l.l to get out and can't figure why we haven't sent anyone to get him. That's why I'm here, Dusky."

"Hold it," I said. "I want a beer in my hand before I listen to this."

Fizer gave me that college-boy grin. "Jesus, MacMorgan, you act like I'm some sort of flimflam man or something."

"Or something," I agreed. I put an unrequested bottle of Hatuey on the table in front of him, then sat back down with my own, feeling the malted carbonation of the beer sluice away the acid taste of coffee.

"Dusky, we want you to take another of the CIA's agents to Mariel Harbor. A fine officer, a Lieutenant Santarun-another Cuban by birth, and supposedly one of the CIA's best people."

"I only work alone, you know that, Norm-and that's not to say I'm even considering-"

"Just listen for a minute, dammit! We just want you to take Santarun over there. The lieutenant will do the rest. I just want you to watch and listen, and give me your impressions when you get back. For your own protection, we're not even telling Santarun that you're one of our people. And you are never to let on that you know who Santarun is. All you have to do is play the role of the slightly stupid charterboat captain-and then report back."

I watched him for a moment. He toyed with his beer-hardly touched-nervously. "You're a bad liar, Fizer. Does Santarun know that you're using him for bait?"

Fizer's dark eyes caught mine. "It was the lieutenant's idea, Dusky. Something's going on down there in Mariel Harbor, and we have to know what it is. If Castro's people knew beforehand that we were sending agents, it means that the CIA has a serious security breach to deal with. And if there is a breach, they'll come after Santarun, too. You're our ace in the hole, Dusky. They'll rig some way to get the lieutenant-some way that will probably seem innocent enough-then send you packing. They're not going to waste their time with a civilian. And that's all you'll be in their eyes-and in the eyes of Santarun. It's risky, you're right. But not for you. Like I said, it was the lieutenant's idea. We have to know, once and for all, if Castro's goons s.n.a.t.c.hed our agents-"

"Norm-"

"-because, if they did-"

"Norm-"

"-we'll have to pick up a couple of theirs and start-"

"Norm, you're still not telling me everything, dammit!"

He stared at me in mild surprise. Boyish. A "What, me?" kind of innocence.

I knew that look. I'd seen it before. Back in an attack a.s.signment in the jungles of Southeast Asia where no American was ever supposed to be. I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on the table between us. "Norm, old buddy, I was raised in the circus, remember? I grew up with the ten-in-one-show gypsters, the fire eaters, the magicians, and the backlot c.r.a.pshooters. Don't try to con a carnie, Norm. I learned to recognize a scam before I learned the Pledge of Allegiance. There's a big chunk of your story missing, old buddy. Why not just tell me straight?"

"Tell you what?" The mock innocence was gone, replaced by a somber, searching look.

"Tell me who else might have s.n.a.t.c.hed those three CIA people. I mean, if they've turned up missing, why not just a.s.sume it was Castro's people? Our people sure as h.e.l.l just didn't sink in Mariel Harbor with fifteen hundred other boats anch.o.r.ed around them, did they? You're not telling me something, Stormin' Norman. The CIA isn't going to take the chance of losing another good agent just to prove a point. So why not tell your old friend Dusky who else might have grabbed the agents?"

He stood up and walked across the room, draining his beer in long, thoughtful swallows. The planks of the stilthouse creaked beneath the solid weight of him.

"That's all I'm supposed to tell you, Dusky."

I shrugged. "So get yourself another boy. I'm not going into this thing with blinders on."

"It's for your own good-"

"Horsec.r.a.p!"

He studied me momentarily, and then the grin returned. "Sometimes, MacMorgan, you're a little too smart for your own good."

"We hermits do a lot of reading."

He sat back down, all business now. "Okay, you asked for it. But you have to promise that you'll play dumb with Santarun-it could get you both killed. Okay? When the CIA first realized its agents had vanished, it was pretty much-as you said-a.s.sumed that the Cuban authorities had gotten hold of them. And just when the CIA was about to raise holy h.e.l.l about it, this Lieutenant Santarun came up with a very interesting alternative explanation for their disappearance."

"And that is?"

Norm leaned back in his chair, measuring his words. He said, "It's just possible that the three agents weren't s.n.a.t.c.hed at all. It's just possible that they disappeared of their own free will."

"Double agents? All three of them?"

Fizer shook his head. "Worse than that, I'm afraid. It's just possible that they've turned renegade. And the more I think about it, the more plausible it seems. No one hates the Castro regime more than our own Cuban-Americans. CIA agents or not. They could have gone to Mariel Harbor, abandoned their orders to try to evacuate General Halcn, and disappeared into the backcountry to regroup and carry out some kind of private commando operations. I don't have to tell you the immediate effect that would have on the eight or ten thousand Americans waiting in Mariel. Any act of war by those agents would make the members of the Freedom Flotilla prisoners-and d.a.m.ned unpopular prisoners at that."

I said, "So in a way you're actually hoping this Lieutenant Santarun will be s.n.a.t.c.hed?"

"I know it seems crazy to hope that the CIA does have some kind of security leak, but we are. That will be a h.e.l.l of a lot easier to deal with. But either way, we have to find out. We have to know for sure."

There was still something else on Fizer's mind, but he didn't need any nudging now. I gave him time, and after a thoughtful moment he said: "Do you know what we're scared of, Dusky? If those agents have turned renegade, we're afraid that they're going for the biggest game of all. And if they succeed, it'll mean there are going to be a h.e.l.l of a lot of bodies floating around Mariel Harbor. American bodies. And maybe even a world war. Dusky, we're afraid those agents have plans to a.s.sa.s.sinate Fidel Castro. . . ."

4.

I first got suspicious of the television film crew when they followed me from the fuel docks down to the old submarine base at Trumbo Annex.

Two Cuban-looking guys. The one shouldering the camera pack was the bigger of the two. Black hair combed back. Open shirt with gold chains and unicorn horns curving through the thatch of black chest hair. A snappy dresser who didn't spend enough time looking through his viewfinder. He spent too much time eyeing me as I topped off my tanks with diesel fuel and loaded on the big blocks of ice for the long trip to Mariel Harbor.

So Fizer had finally convinced me.

Three agents might have gone bad. They might have shelved their duties to get a chance at putting a bullet through Fidel's beard. Or maybe there was just a rotten egg in the hallowed halls of the CIA.

Either way, I had spent the afternoon after Norm buzzed off in his whirlybird battering myself with recriminations. Why in the h.e.l.l had I given in so easily? I played with the idea of trying to back out; supported the idea with the rationale that I was letting Fizer's little super-secret organization of troubleshooters run my life.

After all, when had he called that I hadn't jumped to answer?

Not since the nasty job on Cuda Key-and that is never.

So I had spent a tawny, late day in April getting the stilthouse squared away, storing this, locking that, b.i.t.c.hing at myself all the while for giving in too easily.

But finally, I had to admit it to myself. I was actually relieved.

How many days could I have spent alone on my shack upon the sea?

Maybe a week. Maybe two. But then I would have gotten antsy, anxious for another mission.

So now I had one.

Too early, maybe.

But in the deepest part of me, I was glad. Because once you know the strange dark joy of a dangerous job, you can never be satisfied without it.

And I had been hooked long ago. Maybe even as a kid, working the trapeze in the circus; knowing that the slightest mistake could mean death. And once you have lived in the deadly glimmer of the razor's edge, everything else seems pallid in comparison.

The only thing that really bothered me was having to work with a stranger-one Lieutenant Santarun, an unknown factor. Fizer didn't know much about him-only that it was Santarun who had presented the theory that the three agents might have a.s.sa.s.sination in mind. Nothing concrete, Fizer had said. Just a hunch. But a hunch that had to be pursued. So I was to be the slightly stupid charterboat captain out to make a few quick bucks, and Santarun was to be a Cuban-American citizen in search of relatives.

Unless things got rough. Too rough for Santarun. And then-and only then-could I come from the safe cover of anonymity. For me, it meant leaving at home the obvious offensive weapons of the professional killer: the brutal AK-47 Russian a.s.sault rifle I had smuggled back from Nam, and the Navy-issue .45 of my SEAL days. But as a SEAL I had been trained to recognize the options, and make those options d.a.m.ned deadly. And aboard, I carried options enough.

At the fuel docks, it was the guy carrying the camera pack who first got me suspicious. As I said, he spent too much time watching me and not enough time looking through his viewfinder. Even so, he kept the lens of the remote unit trained on me-even while his partner, a stocky guy with the plastic grooming of an anchorman, seemed to be interviewing another charterboat captain fixing to leave for Mariel Harbor.

So I ignored it at first. Just pulled on my aviator Polaroids and tugged my old khaki fishing cap with the long visor down over my ears while I finished fueling. After all, the film-at-eleven newshounds hadn't been exactly strangers in Key West lately. The motels were full of them, all strutting up and down Duval, wearing their press tags, looking bored and officious and getting sloppy drunk on expense accounts. The exodus of refugees from Mariel Harbor had brought them on the run to Key West with the same fervor of a shyster lawyer chasing an ambulance. Blood is news. And news is money.

So I ignored them while I paid Harry at the docks for my four hundred gallons of diesel, then throttled Sniper on down to the cement wharves at the old submarine base where I was to meet Fizer and pick up Santarun.

And by the time I had thrown a couple of half hitches around the big bra.s.s bollards, the two of them were there again, pulling into the parking lot in their rental Chevy. I watched the biggest one as he put a fix on me from the corner of his eye while the smaller one rounded up a couple of weary-looking Cuban-American men to interview. Same ploy.

The short, stocky one held the microphone in the face of his "interviewee" while the remote unit swept across me and Sniper.

It didn't make any sense. They had to have proper press credentials or the guard wouldn't have let them on the naval base. But why in the h.e.l.l would anyone want film of me?

I didn't like it. Not a bit. So I went below and began stowing away the boxes of canned goods and beer I had brought for the trip, giving them time to make a move. Key West seems to get stranger and stranger every year; an island that has become so gaudily faddish, so populated with the weird and undecipherable that you stop trying to find motive in the actions of others. Overhead, I could hear the chopping ignitions of a Coast Guard helicopter-escorting in another load of refugees, probably. And from the nearby docks where the immigration people were processing the new arrivals came the frenzied, heartfelt chant: Libertad, libertad, LIBERTAD . . .

Through the starboard port I could see the refugees standing in a long line across the docks, barefoot and worn by their struggles to get out of Cuba, but smiling as they chanted in the heat of the afternoon sun.

I watched them, wondering all the while if America would, indeed, become the land of liberty for them. And as I wondered, I wished them well-all but the Castro agents I knew stood among them; those who had come to America seeking nothing but the opportunity to destroy.

Back on the wide cement loading runway which fronted Trumbo Annex, the two Cuban guys with the television equipment were still at it. They moved among the steady rush of the departing and the arriving, conspicuously staying within viewing distance of me and Sniper-and equally as conspicuously trying to pretend as if they weren't.

I climbed up on the wharf and began to amble toward them. I still had about fifteen minutes before Fizer was supposed to arrive with Santarun, and I had decided to make the most of it. When the big guy with the gold chains and the vee of black chest thatch saw me coming, he immediately swerved the camera away, trying to ignore me. About ten feet from them I stopped, studied the sky, studied my worn Topsiders, a sham attempt to look inconspicuous, turning the tables on them. The stocky anchorman was interviewing an elderly man who, apparently, had just arrived. The exchange was in rapid Spanish. I don't know why, but people who speak Spanish seem to talk faster and louder than people who speak other languages.

So I had no problem hearing what they were saying, and, even with my bad Spanish, understanding what they were talking about.

Typical broadcast questions. And typical broadcast answers.

But that still didn't explain why they had been trying to get some film of me and my vessel.

But they would explain.

You could bet the bank on that.

The big guy with the gold chains was all attention now, focusing through the viewfinder, watching his squat companion work.

They knew I was only ten or fifteen feet away.

You're d.a.m.n right they knew.

I watched them for a while, saying nothing, then my eyes caught the progress of an emaciated stray dog weaving along the docks. Too many stray dogs in Key West. The hippy kids and the drug lovers all come to Key West with a dog because they think the presence of a big pet suggests that they are sensitive, humane.

They're humane, all right-until the pet inconveniences them in some way, or they have a chance to go cruising. And then it's goodbye pet. They let the dogs loose then, ignoring the fact that stray dogs don't live long on a island teeming with heartworms, fast traffic, and crowded pounds.

This dog was some mixture of shepherd and collie; a fine, tall dog so skinny that his loose skin hung upon his ribs. He came angling across the wharf, tongue out, eyes gla.s.sy, then suddenly cut between the two Cubans-ruining, apparently, the camera shot.

"Oye! Perra . . . remara!"

The big guy with the camera pack gave the stray a solid kick in the stomach, tumbling it. The dog whimpered, got back up, and trotted off, not even bothering to look back. Its tongue was still out, its eyes still gla.s.sy.

I squatted down, and the dog came weaving toward me. It hesitated, then allowed me to scratch its ears, finally relaxing beneath my hands.

Tough life, hey partner?

He looked up into my eyes seeming to answer, then nudged my arm with his nose. It was wearing one of those cheap leather collars with no identification tag, and the collar was so tight that it had grown into the skin around the neck. I took out my Gerber belt knife, cut the collar, and pulled it gently away. The dog's tail thumped his grat.i.tude. I looked over toward the two television guys.

"Hey!"

They pretended to ignore me. The old man was gone now, and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, conferring.

"Hey, you! Cabrn!"

The Spanish insult brought the big guy whirling around. He glared at me, then looked quickly away.

"How would you like someone to kick you in the stomach?"

The two of them pretended not to hear me, then moved toward the stairs of the old barracks on the wharf where the public restrooms are located. I watched them head up the steps, then quickly walked my starving friend back to Sniper, opened up two big cans of stew, and in another bowl put some water beside him on the dock.

I'll be back in a minute to see if you want dessert.

The dog stopped wolfing the food only long enough to watch me head for the old barracks.

The hundred-watt bulb which lighted the stairway was unshaded; and the halls of the deserted building were littered with trash and cigarette b.u.t.ts. There was anti-Castro graffiti on the walls, and someone with a belly full of yellow rice and beer hadn't quite made it to a suitable place to upchuck.

All compliments of the wave of humanity attracted by the Freedom Flotilla.

I moved quietly up the cement stairs, holding the railing, taking my time.

At the top of the stairs on the second floor I could hear muted Spanish coming from beyond the door of the public restroom. I put my ear to the door and listened, deciphering only bits and pieces of the conversation; a word here, and a word there. But then one word in particular caught my attention: ". . . MacMorgan . . ."