Nelson DeMille - The Cuban Affair

This was a sucker’s bet, but really a test. Did I trust Carlos? No. Was I a gambler? Yes. Did Carlos want to screw me, or did he want to incentivize me with a two-thousand-dollar tip? One way to find out. “You’re on.”

Everyone was quiet now, staring at the red ball as it sunk below the horizon. A fiery light hung for a moment above the darkening sea, then disappeared, and the day slipped into night. I did not see the green flash.

Carlos, however, said, “Yes, I saw it. So I am blessed. Or will have good luck.”

Jack said, “Lucky you just lost four thousand bucks.”

“And worth it.”

I was sure it wasn’t his money he was gambling with. Or his life.

Eduardo admitted he didn’t see the green flash, but Sara said, “I think I saw something.” She looked at me. “And you?”

“I would like to see the green flash of four thousand dollars.”

Everyone laughed. Even Carlos, who fished an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Here’s two. Two later.”

“Two is enough.”

Carlos made another round of drinks — straight rum this time — and we all sat, except for Jack, who went below and put on one of his Sinatra CDs. Frank sang, “When I was seventeen, it was a very good year...”

Carlos and Eduardo had returned to the fighting chairs and I found myself next to Sara on the upholstered bench.

The boat rocked in the gentle swells and the breeze died down. The lights of a few other boats were visible out on the dark water, and if you looked almost due south, you could imagine the lights of Havana, less than fifty miles away.

In fact, Carlos pointed his cigar and said, “That is hell over there. Here, it is heaven. But someday, in my lifetime, Cuba will be free.”

We all drank to that, and Eduardo said, “And that bastard, F.C., who has created hell on earth, will burn in God’s hell with his father, the devil.”

F.C. is what the Cuban Americans call Fidel Castro, though I don’t know why. Anyway, Eduardo’s damnation sounded very solemn in his Cuban accent.

I think I understood where Carlos and Eduardo were coming from, but Sara was a cipher. She still seemed a bit reserved, but she liked a good cigar, drank straight rum, and wore a baseball cap. She’d also slipped off her loafers and was barefoot. Jack says that women who go barefoot are hot. Sounded plausible.

Jack came up from below into the cabin to turn on the running lights and check the radar to make sure a cargo ship wasn’t bearing down on us.

We sat silently with our own thoughts, smoking and drinking, listening to Sinatra, and enjoying the majesty of the sea and sky. Life is good.

Until Carlos said to me, “I think there’s some fishing business for you to discuss with Sara and Eduardo. I’ll go below and watch TV. Jack can join me or stay in the cabin.” He looked at me. “Captain?”

I nodded.

Carlos went into the cabin for a word with Jack, then disappeared below, leaving me with his clients.

Sara said to me, “I think you’re the man we’re looking for.”

I didn’t reply.

“We can’t evaluate you any further. But you can evaluate us, and see if you’re interested in working with us.” She asked, “Do you want to hear more?”

I looked at Eduardo, whose face seemed expressionless in the darkness. He drew on his cigar and stared out to sea.

I turned my attention back to Sara. “I told Carlos I wasn’t interested.”

“But you are interested. Or we wouldn’t be here.”

Well, the moment for an important decision had arrived, as it had so many times in Kandahar Province. I stared at the red glow of my cigar, then looked at Eduardo, then Sara. “Okay.”

Sinatra was singing, “I did it my way,” and a bright moon began to rise in the east, casting a river of light on the dark water.

Sara looked at me and we made eye contact. She said, “You probably want to know who we are before you hear what we have to say.”

She had a soft voice, but it commanded attention. “That’s a good start.”

“I’m Sara Ortega and this is Eduardo Valazquez, though you should not repeat our names to anyone.”

“I ask the same of you.”

She nodded and continued, “I’m American born, an architect by trade, living and working in Miami. You can visit my website.”

“Married?”

She glanced at me. “No.”

It was Eduardo’s turn and he said, “I, too, live in Miami and my life’s work is the destruction of the Communist regime in my homeland.”

“Website?”

“No.”

Well, there were thousands of Cubans in South Florida and elsewhere in America who belonged to any one of several dozen anti-Castro groups. It was like a small industry in Miami, but getting smaller as the younger generation of Cuban Americans lost interest in the crusade. The third generation had no memory of old Cuba and no personal experience with the Communist regime to fully understand the hatred that their parents and grandparents clung to. Also, the CIA was not funding these groups like they used to, so maybe this was why Eduardo and his amigos needed sixty million dollars.

Sara said, “In my private life, I’m a supporter of Eduardo and his friends, but in my public life, I’ve shown no interest in exile affairs.”

“So you won’t be arrested as soon as you step off the plane in Havana?”

“Hopefully not.” She added, “There are many like me who keep a low profile so that we can travel to Cuba.”

“Have you been?”

“Once. Last year.” She asked, “And you?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“I hope I have the pleasure of showing you around Havana.”

Normally, I’d say, “Me too.” But I didn’t.

She also let me know, “I speak perfect Cuban Spanish and when I wear clothes bought in Cuba I can pass for a native.”

I wasn’t so sure about that.

She asked, “Do you speak any Spanish?”

“Corona.”

“Well, that’s not important.”

What was important was that this sounded like we were going on a secret assignment together, and this was the mission briefing. I said, “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

“Well, then, catch up to me. I’m in Havana. Are you?”

That was a bit sassy. “Let’s go back to Miami. Who else knows about this?”

Eduardo replied, “A few of our friends, but each person knows only what he needs to know. And only a few people know your name.”

“Hopefully the Cuban secret police are not among those people.”

He replied, “I would be lying to you if I said there was no possibility of a security leak. But our experience in the past has been very good, and our friends in American intelligence assure us that no secret police from Cuba have infiltrated our group. As for Cuban American informants in our midst, we have always identified these traitors, and they are no longer with us.”

I didn’t ask for a clarification of “no longer with us.” I did ask, however, “How about all these thousands of new refugees escaping from Cuba?”

“We have little to do with them. We help them, especially if there are family connections, but we can’t trust them all so we remain separate from them.” He added, “For the most part they hate the regime as we do, but for different reasons. My goal is to return to a free Cuba. Their goal is to get out of Cuba. To get a job in America.” He editorialized, “Unfortunately, these people have not done an honest day’s work in their lives.”

“They will when Starbucks gets to Cuba.”

Eduardo ignored that and informed me, “Everyone in Cuba works for the government, and everyone makes the same money — twenty dollars a month. Slave wages. There is no incentive. That is Communism.”