Noel Hynd - Hostage in Havana

“And you knew about this all along,” she said.

“No. I knew the money was buried with my uncle, but I didn’t know where the grave was until two days ago. Uncle Johnny has lived with the knowledge for a lifetime. He’s old now. He wishes to travel to get medical care.”

“I thought the medical care was supposed to be good here.”

“It is. But it’s better elsewhere – if you have money.”

“How can he leave?” she asked.

“He doesn’t have to. There are clinics. Doctors come here. It’s a black market of sorts.” Paul paused. “Johnny also wants his family to be taken care of. So he told me what happened, where the cemetery plot is, and what’s down there.”

“So you’re going to be the facilitator of that?” she asked. “Grave robbery. Would that be too strong a term for it?”

Guarneri thought about it. “Let’s call it archaeology,” he suggested. “Recovery of historical artifacts.”

“From a grave?”

“The museums of the Western world are filled with such stuff,” he said, dismissing it. “Ever see the King Tut exhibit?”

“Yes, and I’ve been to Egypt too.”

“Then you’ve seen the artifacts from the Pyramids. And the mummies.”

“I know where you’re going with this,” she said.

“Of course you do. Excavating those tombs is no worse than what we’re going to do. Did you object when you looked at the mummies and the relics from their graves?”

She looked at him and sighed. “You have a silver tongue, Paul.”

“I think of it as a rather cozy idea, myself,” he said. “One brother guarding the other’s fortune for half a century. The dead guarding the money and reaching out from the grave to enrich the lives of the living. I like it.”

Paul triggered thoughts in Alex’s head about the money Federov had left her. She wondered if he knew and was flirting with the topic. Part of her wanted to pursue it, but the wiser voice inside her suggested that she let it go. For now, at least.

A thought hit her. She opened her cell phone and looked to see if there was a message from Roland Violette. There was none. She began to wonder if her mission was doomed to fail. Well, if he didn’t show up, that wasn’t her fault. But why, she wondered, would he have dropped off the cell phone if he wasn’t planning to defect?

She closed the phone and looked up.

Paul was reclining comfortably on a pillow, watching her. “Anything from your spook?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Who knows, with someone as unstable as that?” he said. Paul continued to gaze at her. “So?” he finally asked.

“So what?” she answered.

“So this trip to the cemetery tomorrow night. You’ll go with me?”

“I’m not comfortable with it, for more reasons than I can count.”

“Compared to our hard landing in Cuba,” he said, “it should be a cakewalk.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” she said.

“Hang around long enough,” he promised, “and you’ll probably hear it again.”

Another thought hit her. “Tell me again,” she said. “How did you get away from the boat when we landed? There were police everywhere.”

“The same way that you did. I jumped in the water and swam.”

“But as I was swimming the gunfight was still going on,” Alex said.

“You can thank me for that,” he said. “I provided cover for you.”

“Which way did you swim?” she asked. “I never saw you.”

“The opposite as you,” he said. “Intentionally. I explained all that.”

“But I still don’t understand how you eluded them.”

He went to the closet. He unbuttoned his shirt, slid it off, and pulled on a T-shirt for sleeping. Alex watched him in fascination, wondering if he was going to change completely in front of her.

“Like I said before, there was a low mist on the water. When I guided the boat out farther, I realized the mist was getting thicker. Almost a fog. That’s when I hung over the far side of the boat. But I turned the outboard motor back on so the boat would continue to move – out to sea. By the time the Cubans got to it, they had no idea where I was. Nor could they see me.”

“So you hit a beach farther up toward Matanzas?”

“Yes. I hid out during the day and let the sun dry my clothes. There were a lot of police and militia around. In the late afternoon I found a farmer with a truck. I hired him for a hundred U.S. dollars to drive me out here to Johnny’s and keep his mouth shut.”

“So what did you and Johnny do your first night here?” Alex asked.

“You know.” He shrugged. “We just sat around and shot the breeze,” he said. “Lot of catching up to do.”

“And what about yesterday?” she asked. “Something seems off. Did you stay here last night as well?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because I want to know. What did you do during the day yesterday?”

“Same as you,” he said. “Laying low. Trying to avoid the police and the shore patrols.”

“But did you try to make it into Havana to find me at the hotel?” she asked.

Paul said, “It’s not easy to travel in Cuba, so my intent was to get somewhere and stay off the streets. So no, I didn’t get to Havana until last night.”

“Then where did you stay last night?”

He paused. “At the Ambos Mundos,” he said. “Two floors above where you found me today,” Guarneri said. “It’s pretty run down, as you noticed, but perfectly acceptable for Cuba. Hemingway lived there for a while. I don’t think they’ve changed the plumbing or the TVs since Papa put the gun to his head.”

“Don’t change the subject. Apparently they haven’t changed the window grates in the men’s room either,” she chided. “So did you check in under your real name?”

“You think I’m crazy? I used my Canuck passport. Why are you always asking so many questions?”

“Because I’m trained to.”

“Okay, that’s healthy enough. So are you finished asking me questions so that I can ask my ‘wife’ one?”

“Sure,” Alex said. “Go for it.”

“There’s only one bed in this room. Will I have the pleasure of my wife’s company in it?”

She laughed. “We can share the bed, but we’re not having sex,” she said. “Is that where you were going with that?”

“I thought I’d try to steer it in that direction.”

“I thought you would too. You actually steered it off the road.”

He laughed. “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying. Anyway, I’m going to go down the hall to take a shower. Unless you want to go first. The water is warm, not hot. There are towels and soap in the bath area. It’s rustic but it works. It has a certain primitive charm. You might like it. So? Who first, me or you?”

“I’ll go,” she said.

“Want me to show you where?”

“If I can find my way from the beach outside Matanzas to Havana I can find my way down the hall to the shower,” Alex answered.

“I’m sure you can,” he said.

From her bag, she took a pair of thin shorts and a cotton T-shirt to change into for sleeping, plus her toiletries. The shower room had a 1950s feel to it, one pipe coming out of the wall, above a tile floor with a drain. She undressed and blasted her body and hair with the tepid water. There was a plastic container of a Mexican shower soap hanging on a metal hook. She unhooked it, washed thoroughly, and felt refreshed.

She dressed in the shorts and the T-shirt. She toweled her hair and combed it out. It was still wet when she returned to the room. Paul had left the door half-open to maintain a breeze.

While he was in the shower, she could hear the water running. She eyed his belongings, one bag and some clothes, where he had left them across a chair and dresser. She went to the door and glanced down the hall. She walked quietly down the hall to make sure he was in the shower. He was.