Noel Hynd: Hostage in Havana

“That’d work.”

Alex clicked off. Then, as long as she was dealing with pests, she thought she might as well deal with another. She input the number for Paul Guarneri.

He had been first introduced to her by the late Russian mobster, Yuri Federov, and Guarneri had also protected a young female witness for Alex the previous year. Alex owed him a dinner engagement, a marker that, she supposed, he now wished to call in.

Very well. She would go and listen.

On the phone they arranged to meet for dinner in two days. She set down the phone and marked the new appointments on her calendar: Silverman and Guarneri, with Ben visiting on the weekend.

So much for personal distractions. She clicked into her email again and caught up on what had recently transpired as the Operation Parajo strikes continued. Within the last half hour, she noted with satisfaction, Panamanian authorities had arrested three Mexicans and one Colombian-born Panamanian while driving a truck loaded with 511 kilograms of cocaine. Authorities concluded the cocaine was to be transported overland to Mexico. At the same time, a Panamanian Army helicopter crew identified a Colombian go-fast boat at a pier in Panama’s Bocas del Toro island archipelago near the Costa Rican border. The Panamanian navy intercepted the watercraft and seized more than two tons of cocaine, presumed to be on its way to Florida by way of the Dominican Republic.

Alex was pleased. She was scoring major points against the opposition. But one thing worried her. Senor and Senora Dosi – the enemy king and queen on her chessboard. No confirmation of where they were, no hint that they would be in custody anytime soon.

As long as the Dosis were out there, the battle continued.

In Villavicencio that evening, Manuel Perez shaved. With the help of heavy soap and cleaning solvents, he washed the gray dye out of his shaggy hair, and a local barber trimmed it. His hair regained its natural dark brown color.

The assassin now looked twenty years younger than the old Argentine whom his neighbors had known in the Colombian capital. Before the mirror that night, a man of forty-one emerged, handsome, muscular, and striking. El Viejo Porteno had disappeared.

Perez was happy this evening. Word came from Bogota that both the justice minister and the driver-bodyguard had been killed in a sniper attack. Rebels connected with the cocaine traders were suspected.

The minister and his bodyguard: two for one. Good news indeed. So Perez relaxed and breathed easier. While political murders were common in Colombia, this one had a particularly high profile. Perez reasoned – correctly – that the airport and even the bus terminals would be saturated with police and army. But he also knew that these things blow over quickly. Among friends and allies, he had good reason to spend the next few evenings in the sleazy bordellos of Villavicencio and celebrate. So he settled in, planning to remain for several days.

Early the next morning, Alex arrived in the reception area of the New York law firm Silverman, Ashkenazy amp; DeLauro. After being summoned by a sleepy receptionist, Joshua Silverman greeted Alex personally.

Silverman’s office was a vast space, twenty-five by twenty feet, with two plate-glass windows that looked northward onto Park Avenue toward the Graybar building and Grand Central. Thick pile carpeting covered the floor, and there were several leather chairs and a matching sofa. The walls were done in Asian art, Chinese mostly, which seemed contemporary and for which Silverman had probably paid a good price.

The dark green walls gave the cherry legal cabinets some pizzazz, while antique Tiffany lamps dotted the end tables. Silverman’s desk, which dominated the chamber, was the size of a small Buick. It was dark and expansive and featured inlays of cherry and mahogany. Lion heads were carved on the legs.

“May we get you some coffee? Water?” Silverman asked.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Alex said.

Actually, she wasn’t. She had a middle-range headache brewing and some stiffness in her left shoulder, an affliction that had grown worse recently as some internal flesh healed from a recent bullet wound. This appointment wasn’t helping.

Silverman seated himself behind his desk. He took a long look at Alex, then threw her a question that seemed to come out of the blue. “I’m told you’re a religious woman,” he said. “Should I believe that?”

“I am a Christian if that’s what you mean. Who told you?”

“A Russian told me,” he said. “About a year ago. And if I told you that a piece of business has come forth from our Geneva office, would that suggest why you’re here?”

Alex drew a breath. “It might.”

“Last week one of our associates in a Swiss firm read the last will of Yuri Federov,” Silverman said. “Mr. Federov named you as a beneficiary.”

Silverman stood and leaned forward, handing Alex copies of the papers. She stood, took them, and sat down again. She scanned them quickly. The will was written in French, English, and Russian. Reading such documents, and the legalese therein, was hardly her specialty, since, strangely enough, she had seen very few in her life and none had been happy occasions. It would have taken her several minutes to wade through this one, but it quickly became unnecessary.

“This is for you, Alex,” Silverman said. “Congratulations. I hope you will treat it well and use it wisely. That was what Mr. Federov intended.”

He handed her a small envelope. Her name was written on it in handwriting that she recognized as Federov’s. She glanced at Silverman as she put a finger into the envelope and pulled it open.

Within was a letter from the law firm in Switzerland. It was in French and addressed to her. She scanned it. There was another piece of paper, folded in half. A check. She unfolded it.

Silverman said, “I’m sure you will handle it wisely.”

She barely heard him. The check was made out to her, drawn on Credit Suisse’s offices in New York. She saw a line of zeroes. Then her eyes froze on the second line, the one that conveyed the amount.

Two million dollars.

“Your life just changed, I know,” Silverman said. “It must feel strange.”

“What’s this about?” she asked. “I don’t get it.”

Silverman shrugged. “What’s it about?” he mused. “Who knows? That’s not my department. The funds come with no strings attached and no further message from Mr. Federov. Apparently he had great affection for you and wished to leave you a gift, something that would impact your life in a positive way. That’s all I know. Other than that, all federal, state, and city taxes have already been deducted. It was apparently the intent of Mr. Federov to leave you a flat two million dollars. I also need a final signature from you on a letter, confirming that you’ve met with me and received the check. I have the letter prepared. It will need to be notarized. I have a notary on call.” He paused. “I assume you’re willing to sign and accept.”

She was hearing all this but had trouble believing it.

“Of course,” she said.

“Then let’s proceed.”

Twenty minutes later, back down on Park Avenue, Alex was still stunned. She stopped outside the office building, trying to put things in perspective. Yes, this had really happened. The check was in an envelope in her purse, along with a business card from a banker named Christophe Chatton at Credit Suisse in New York. Chatton would be at Alex’s disposal if he could assist in any way with the management of the money.

As she took a few steps away from Silverman’s building, her purse had never seemed so heavy. Was this Federov’s strange final way of corrupting her, she wondered? Or was he expecting her to use it to buy his redemption?