Nelson DeMille - The Cuban Affair

Jack suggested I go fuck myself, then asked me how we were going to get the loot aboard The Maine , and I told him, “I haven’t been briefed yet.”

“When you find out, let me know.”

“Someone will let you know — when you need to know.”

“And what if I don’t like the plan?”

“Whatever the plan is, Jack, I’m sure you won’t like it.”

“This is where I could get killed.”

“Or get rich.”

“Or neither. ’Cause I don’t think you’re gonna make it to the boat with the loot.”

“Problem solved.”

I ordered another beer from the barmaid, Tina, and returned to my thoughts. Before you go on any mission, you need to understand what you know, identify what you don’t know, and try to guess what could go wrong. And finally, getting there is only half the fun; you need a clear path home.

So, to replay the last few weeks, after I met Carlos in Miami, he’d come back to Key West, as promised, and Jack and I met him aboard The Maine . Carlos had brought with him the paperwork and permit for The Maine to sail to Cuba with the tournament, and also brought with him The Maine ’s new first mate, a young Cuban American named Felipe who seemed competent, and who also seemed to know that this wasn’t about fishing for peace. I didn’t know what they were paying Felipe, but I hope it included combat pay.

Felipe and Jack had hit it off — as long as Felipe understood that Jack was the captain — and they arranged to take The Maine out for a practice run. Felipe had promised me he was familiar with the boat’s electronics.

I’d asked Carlos about the three fishermen who were ostensibly chartering my boat, and he assured me they were actual sports fishermen who knew a rod from a reel so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Also, these three men, whom Carlos identified only as “three amigos,” had made arrangements to fly out of Cuba on the last day of the tournament with a destination of Mexico City. The three fishermen were going to stay at a local hotel in Cayo Guillermo, so if The Maine was sneaking out at night before the tournament ended, the fishermen would not be onboard to complicate things if we got into a shoot-out. So there would be only Felipe onboard for me and Jack to deal with if this was a double-cross. And of course, Sara would be aboard.

I had also asked Carlos if Eduardo had any intention of being onboard The Maine and Carlos said no, because Eduardo was persona non grata in Cuba and would be arrested if he stepped ashore — or if Cuban authorities came onboard and checked his ID. So despite my thought that Eduardo wanted to join us, it seemed that he would not see Cuba on this trip — and probably not in his lifetime.

I had also told Carlos about the letters to be opened in the event of my or Jack’s unexplained death or disappearance, and Carlos responded, “I would expect you to do that. But you can trust us.”

As for timing, the Pescando Por la Paz fleet of ten boats was scheduled to leave Key West on Saturday the twenty-fourth, two days after my and Sara’s Thursday flight to Havana with the Yale group. The tournament crews and fishermen would spend Saturday night in Havana for their goodwill visit, but Carlos was emphatic that neither Sara nor I would meet up with anyone from The Maine . Jack, however, wanted to buy me a drink in Havana, so we made a date to rendezvous at the famous Hotel Nacional bar. Carlos doesn’t give the orders.

Carlos had also brought with him an article from the Miami Herald about the Pescando Por la Paz, and I’d seen similar articles in the Key West Citizen . The Cuban Thaw had been big news recently, and though most editorials and articles had been favorable, the hard-core Cuban exile community remained adamantly opposed to Washington’s softening of American policy that had been in effect for over half a century. Basically, people like Carlos, Eduardo, and their amigos wanted F.C. and his brother Raúl gone — preferably dead — before any normalization took place. I myself had no strong opinion on that, as I told Carlos in the Green Parrot.

Also, I’d done due diligence and checked out Carlos’ website and Googled him, and he was legit in the context of who he said he was — a rock star lawyer for the anti-Castro groups in Miami, and he was not shy about it online.

I’d also checked out Sara Ortega’s professional website. She worked for a small boutique architectural firm and she had talent. Maybe, after I was rich, I’d hire her to build me a house somewhere. Her Facebook page didn’t show much, not even a mention of her boyfriend, and there wasn’t much about her on Google.

As for Eduardo Valazquez, he didn’t exist on the Internet, but that wasn’t unusual for a man of his age and occupation. He had, however, been mentioned in a few newspaper articles about the Cuban exile community — if this was the same Eduardo Valazquez — and I could see why he was not welcome in Castro’s Cuba.

Bottom line about Internet sleuthing is that it’s good as far as it goes, but you needed to take most of it with a grain of salt, and you needed some context to interpret what you read. In any case, my due diligence, for what it was worth, hadn’t spotted any red flags, and here I was in Pepe’s.

As for research and Intel about the People’s Republic of Cuba, as I said, I’d convinced myself that this trip wasn’t going to happen, so I didn’t do much of what the Army called “Country Orientation.” How much do you need to know about a place that sucks? More to the point, Carlos had given me a very good briefing, and he’d also assured me that Sara Ortega would be my main source of in-country information, and that aside from the Yale info packet and a Cuba travel guide there wasn’t much I needed to read. Carlos also pointed out that I wasn’t hired for my knowledge of Cuba; I was hired for my knowledge of survival in a hostile environment, i.e., Sara Ortega had the brains, Daniel MacCormick had the balls. Should work.

I’d also asked Carlos about the plan to get me, Sara, and the money aboard The Maine in Cayo Guillermo, and he assured me, “We will have the plan in place before you get to Cayo.”

“And how will I — or Sara — know what the plan is?”

“We will get word to you — and Sara.”

I didn’t bother to ask him how he’d do that, or when, and we both knew that if the Cuban police were hooking up electrodes to my testicles, it was best if I didn’t have this information.

Carlos also informed me, “We want no connection between you and The Maine, so I have the paperwork with me to buy your boat.”

“How much?”

“I have a certified check for the exact amount of your bank loan, payable to your bank.”

Well, now that I could dump this albatross, I wasn’t sure I wanted to part with her, but Carlos assured me, “There is a buy-back clause in the contract, and when you return from Cuba, you can buy your boat back for the same price.”

“Less if it has bullet holes in it.”

He ignored that and said, “The chances of the Cuban authorities somehow connecting Daniel MacCormick the tourist and Daniel MacCormick the owner of The Maine are very slim, but if they do, it might arouse suspicion.”

“I got that.”

He then presented me with a sales contract, some registration paperwork, and the check payable to my bank and drawn on the Sunset Corporation, whatever that was.

“And to be extra cautious,” said Carlos, “I’ve renamed the boat in the tournament paperwork.”

“It’s your boat.”

“And I will have the new name painted on the boat.” He smiled. “The Maine is now Fishy Business.”

“I like it.” But it would always be The Maine to me. And if I did buy it back, I’d have The Maine repainted on it, in gold, and sail it to Portland.