Randy White: Dead Silence

Farfel’s former assistant, Hump, the son of a dead friend, had made a cinematic gesture, framing the scene. “I like photos,” he said in his simple way. “I own a camera.”

The Venezuelan ignored the man. His deformity was unsettling.

This was back in December, Hump and Farfel, former members of the Cuban Socialist Party, talking with the young Venezuelan and the New Yorker on a seawall where the Gulf Stream swept close to Havana, a river of green on a purple sea.

“Maximum leverage without killing. You told me no one can be killed.”

“But burying a woman-”

“Exactly.”

“You’re asking me to imagine-”

“To imagine the worst way to die. People will say fire. They will say falling from the sky in a plane. Cancer… a few will speak of disease.”

Hump and Farfel had exchanged looks, as if old pros on the subject of torture and death. They were.

“To understand fear, listen to your spine, not your brain.”

The idea had floated in silence. Buried alive.

Even the New Yorker, a cold one, had grimaced.

“When FBI agents get the assignment, they’ll feel like they’re suffocating. If we tell them to shit, they’ll ask what color.”

“I don’t know…”

Hump had said to the Venezuelan, “We do,” as he removed his cap, looking at the man’s face for a reaction.

He got it.

The Venezuelan swallowed and turned away. “I’m not criticizing. But as a practical approach-”

Farfel said, “You’re an expert? In Florida, a convict buried a rich man’s daughter. This was years ago. A fan for air, some water. She was buried four days. The rich man delivered the cash. The FBI helped him deliver the cash. They concentrated on saving the girl. Not searching for the kidnappers. Understand the concept? We put the victim’s life in their hands. They’ll be so busy, they won’t waste time looking for us.”

“Did the daughter live?”

Farfel took a deep breath, his expression asking Why do I bother?

Hump answered, “Yes, the girl lived,” speaking in his simpleminded way, sounding disappointed.

For five weeks, the foreigners had delayed, insisting on more time. Even the New Yorker, who’d started it all, appearing in Farfel’s shop one morning, then pressing a note in his hand instead of a tip.

Reading the note, Farfel had felt like a man again. He’d told Hump, “I don’t care if it is a trap,” as they walked to their first meeting.

It wasn’t a trap.

Castro’s personal possessions, files included, had been stolen by the Americans and shipped to Maryland in industrial cartons. Four cartons to a container, thousands of items and documents that had been grouped, not cataloged. Collectively, the Americans were calling them the Castro Files.

A carton labeled C/C-103 (1976-’96) contained details of experiments the Soviets had conducted on American POWs in Vietnam, then Angola, Panama and Grenada. Administrators of the study, working as private contractors, had continued the experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pain and fear: What were the human limits? The study ended in 1998 when the last POW from Vietnam finally gave-up and died.

The Cuban Program. The Soviets called it that because Castro had provided three unusual interrogators with special skills. The men were scientists, in their way, and were so determined, so exacting, that they soon usurped control from their Russian bosses.

One of the interrogators was a small, fastidious man named Rene Soyinka Navarro. He was the son of a Russian mother and a Cuban KGB officer.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, Navarro had been hired by Al-Qaeda as a expert contractor, an interrogator who could obtain information from even the most determined prisoners. To those countries, he had brought along an apprentice, the son of a fellow interrogator named Angel Yanguez, Jr.

From his late father, Yanguez had inherited a genetic deformity- Seborrheic keratosis -in the form of a cutaneous horn just beginning to grow. He’d also inherited the nickname Hump, which he didn’t mind, unlike Navarro who despised his nickname, Farfel. It had shadowed him since Hoa Lo Prison in Vietnam, where POWs had named him for the Nestle’s Quik TV puppet that clicked his wooden teeth shut at the end of every sentence. Navarro, who wore dentures, made a similar sound when he wanted to emphasize a point.

In Vietnam, prisoners had referred to the Cubans, collectively, as the Malvados -fiends.

The New Yorker’s note had read: “Americans once begged for your mercy. Are you willing to beg for theirs?”

How could the New Yorker know the truth about Navarro if the documents didn’t exist?

The New Yorker and Venezuelan weren’t partners. They were working for someone. Farfel had overheard them whisper a name in English. The name sounded like Tenth Man. Possibly Tenman.

The Venezuelan was a twenty-three-year-old maricon, his face smooth, like an angel’s. He was a Communist, a young fool with ideals. The New Yorker was a Muslim who used whores and marijuana but not alcohol. They had no interest in the Cuban Program. Carton C/C-103 contained something else their employer wanted. Something worth only money, Farfel believed, if they weren’t willing to kill for it.

Didn’t matter.

The grave will be dug.

Since the Soviet collapse, Farfel and Hump had been in government protection, living like peons in Havana. False identities, menial jobs. Humiliating after living like gods in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq.

Now, though, they were working again. Professionals with unusual skills.

On a snowy January evening in Manhattan, I was in the Trophy Room of the Explorers Club when I saw, through frosted windows, men abducting a woman as she exited her limousine.

It wouldn’t have made a difference, but I knew the woman. She was Barbara Hayes-Sorrento -Senator Barbara Hayes-Sorrento-a first-term power-house from the west who had won the office once held by her late husband.

Well, not much difference. The senator was my dinner date for the evening. No romantic sparks, but I liked the lady.

It was six p.m., already dark outside. The Trophy Room was a cozy place. Fireplace framed by elephant tusks, maps of the Amazon scattered around, a mug of rum-laced tea within easy reach. I was the guest of an explorer who was also a British spy: Sir James Montbard. Friends called him Hooker because of the steel prosthetic that had replaced his left hand.

Hooker was a secondary reason for visiting New York. The primary reason was the hope of a new assignment from my old boss, a U.S. intelligence chief. Clandestine work sometimes requires a cover story. Friends sometimes provide it.

It was no coincidence that Barbara Hayes-Sorrento was free for dinner, or that my neighbor, Tomlinson, had been in the city until the day before, lecturing on “psychic surveillance” at an international symposium.

I had kept my social calendar high-profile, and I’d stayed busy.

Hooker and I had been planning a trip to Central America. He believed that warrior monks had sailed west in the 1300s, escaping with plunder from the Crusades. He said it explained why, two centuries later, the Maya believed in a blond, blue-eyed god, Quetzalcoatl, and so made a fatal mistake by welcoming the murderous Conquistadors.

I wasn’t convinced. But renewing contacts in Latin America was important now, so I’d agreed to join his expedition. This was our third night at the Explorers Club using its superb library.

When Hooker excused himself to freshen his whiskey, I stood, stretched and strolled to the window because it was snowing-a rare opportunity for a man from the tropics. I had an unobstructed view of the street below. It was 70th Street, a quiet one-way, two blocks from Central Park. It connects Park Avenue and Madison.