The Cuban Affair Read online

  I actually had a real passport, and I’d made Jack get one in case a customer wanted to sail to a Caribbean island. I said, “We’re good.”

  The sun was red now, dropping into the sea, and we all looked out at the sparkling horizon. I can’t believe I get paid for this.

  On that subject, Carlos said, “If I see the green flash, I’ll pay double. If I don’t, this trip is free.” He looked at me.

  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.”

  CHAPTER 8

  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 do
ne 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.”

  Actually, I’ve had a few months where a twenty-dollar profit would look good. That’s Capitalism.

  Eduardo continued, “The people are hungry. There is malnutrition.”

  “Sorry to hear that. But to return to the topic of security and this . . . mission being compromised—”

  “You think like a military man,” Eduardo said. “That’s good.”

  “Right. So—”

  “There is always a chance that we will be betrayed. I will not lie to you. We have lost people in Cuba.”

  I had a flashback to the battalion ops bunker where some colonel was saying, “I won’t lie to you, Mac. This is going to be tough.”

  I looked at the cabin and saw that Jack was still there, having a smoke. I could see the flickering light of the TV coming from the stateroom below. Maybe Carlos was watching reruns of “I Love Lucy.”

  This might be a good time to announce that the sunset cruise was over.

  Sara said, “I’d understand if you didn’t want to go to Havana with me. There’s an element of danger, and maybe the money isn’t enough of an incentive. But for me, it’s personal, so I’m going.”

  “How is sixty million dollars personal?”

  “The money will be returned to those it belongs to—including my family. And some of it will go to our cause. And, of course, you will be paid.” She added, “Carlos says you want five million. Will you take three?”

  “Let’s talk about the element of danger.”

  “We’ll come to that. But first, now that you know who we are, we’d like you to know how we became who we are.” She nodded to Eduardo.

  Well, as I said, I could almost guess Eduardo’s history, but I know that the Cuban exiles like to tell their story, and he began, “My father, Enrique, was a landowner in Cuba. Mostly sugar plantations and sugar mills. When Castro took power, my father and my older brother, also Enrique, were arrested, held in prison, starved, then shot by firing squad. Their last words, according to witnesses, were ‘Viva Cuba.’ ”

  Eduardo paused, then continued, “The Communist bastards would sometimes drug those who were to be executed so they had no last words. Or they would starve them, or even bleed them. They wanted no martyrs, no defiant words at the execution wall.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “But there’s more. My mother and I were forced out of our home into communal barracks, and sent to work in the fields we once owned. My sister, who was ten years of age, became ill and was taken from us and never seen again. My mother died of overwork—or maybe a broken heart. With my family all gone . . . there was no reason to stay, so I escaped and made my way to a coastal village, where I and a few others stole a small sailboat. But there was no wind and we were six days at sea. An American Coast Guard cutter saw us and brought us aboard, as they did in those days before the rules changed, and they took us to the Coast Guard station in Key West.” He paused, then said, “I will be forever grateful.”

  And forever pissed off. And who could blame him? I didn’t grow up in South Florida, but I’ve been here long enough to hear similar horror stories from people of Eduardo’s age. Like Holocaust survivors, they’re not forgetting, and there’s no reason they should. But it’s a heavy thing to live with. I didn’t know what to say, except, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I believe that God saved me so I could bring justice to all who have suffered at the hands of these godless monsters.”

  I really didn’t want to engage in this conversation, but I asked Eduardo, “If you and your friends ever overthrew the regime, would you take revenge? Like shoot Communists?”

  “Every one of them.”

  Sara interjected, “All we want is justice. The return of our property, and the right to return to Cuba. We seek the establishment of human rights, and the freedoms we have here.”

  That should be easy after Eduardo shoots all the Commies.

  Eduardo said, “Sara has designed a beautiful monument to be built in Havana, dedicated to all the martyrs who have been murdered by the regime.”

  I’m never sure what to say when I’m in the presence of anyone who’s committed to a cause. My mother says I’m self-absorbed. She’s probably right. But I had to say something appropriate to what I’d just heard, so I said, “I hope you get to build that.”

  Sara finished her rum, then said to me, “As for my family, my grandfather was a bank president, working for an American bank in Havana. I can’t tell you his name or the name of the bank and you’ll understand why.”

  Eduardo’s cigar had gone out and Sara relit it with her own. There was some obvious affection between them. She continued, “My grandfather often said that most people in Cuba were in denial about Castro’s forces, which were growing stronger in the Sierra Maestra mountains. And the Batista government and the newspapers mocked the revolutionaries, and my grandfather said there was a false sense of security in Havana.”

  Substitute Kabul for Havana and I’ve been there.

  “But my grandfather was a smart man and he could tell that the days of the Batista government were numbered even before Castro’s forces moved out of the mountains toward Havana.”

  All this talk about Castro, Batista, and 1959 made me think about The Godfather Part II, which I’d just seen again on TV a few weeks ago at 2 A.M. I remembered that Michael Corleone had come to the same conclusion as Sara’s grandfather: Batista was finished.

  Sara continued, “My grandfather gathered all the American and Canadian dollars in his bank, and also jewelry and gold coins kept in the safe deposit boxes. He also asked his customers to transfer their other assets to his bank so he could have it all flown to his bank’s headquarters in America. Everything was packaged individually with the names of the depositors on the packages, and receipts were issued by my grandfather.” She looked at me. “This money never got out of Cuba.”

  “And here we are.”

  She nodded. “There were also land deeds and other monetary instruments in these packages, as well as about sixty million dollars in currency, which was a lot of money in 1958.”

  “It’s actually a lot of money now.”

  “Yes, but then it was worth almost a billion dollars in today’s money.” As the granddaughter of a banker, she reminded me, “There is over half a century of lost interest on that money.”

  “That’s what happens to money when you hide it under the mattress.”

  “It’s actually hidden in a cave.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know that.”

  “There are over twenty thousand caves in Cuba. Cuba is riddled with caves.”

  “And I assume you know the one where your grandfather deposited his clients’ assets.”

  She nodded.

  “How do you know that no one’s made a withdrawal?”

  Eduardo replied, “The cave was sealed by Sara’s grandfather. It is still sealed.”

  I didn’t ask him how he knew the cave was still sealed, but he must know or we wouldn’t be talking about going to Cuba. I was starting to see a picture of me with a pick ax.

  Sara poured herself a Coke and continued, “On New Year’s Day 1959, Castro’s forces entered Havana and Batista fled the country. My grandfather wasn’t immediately arrested because he worked for the American bank, and Castro was telling the world that his revolution was not Communist. Which, of course, was bullshit.”

  The obscenity coming from Sara’s nice lips caught me by surprise and I smiled, but she wasn’t smiling, so I nodded.

  “My grandfather was questioned by the revolutionary police about the bank’s assets, and he said that his wealthy depositors had sent their money out of the country months before because they were frightened
about the revolution. He actually kept a second set of books to show to the police. In fact, a few wealthy Cubans had gotten their money out, but most delayed too long in getting themselves out.”

  Eduardo interjected, “The collapse of the Batista government was very sudden. Havana celebrated New Year’s Eve as Castro’s forces began marching on the city and Batista’s soldiers began to flee. The upper classes, government officials, and senior military who couldn’t escape were arrested. We know that some of these people were bank depositors who may have revealed under torture what they knew about Sara’s grandfather hiding his bank’s assets.”

  It wasn’t looking good for Sara’s grandfather, but she had a happy ending. “My grandfather, with the help of his bank in America, was able to board one of the last commercial flights out of Havana. He arrived in Miami with nothing, except my grandmother and their three sons, one of whom was to become my father.”

  “Your grandparents were lucky.”

  “Yes, and my grandfather continued his career in Miami. He called it a temporary corporate transfer. He died in Miami ten years ago. My grandmother is still alive, as are my parents, waiting to return to their home in Havana.” She added, “We’ll see this house when we go there.”

  Or send me a picture.

  She continued, “Before the revolutionaries closed the American bank, my grandfather was able to wire transfer all the records of these assets to the bank headquarters in America. The families who escaped to America were located and given receipts—or still had their original receipts. Those who remained in Cuba and who survived may also have their original receipts. In any case, there’s a record of everything in the American bank headquarters, and the money will be returned to its rightful owners or heirs.”

  Minus some expenses, like my fee. “Okay, so the paperwork’s in order, and all you need now is the money.”

  “It’s waiting for us.” She looked at me. “My grandfather was a very brave man. He risked his life to protect his clients’ property and his bank’s property from falling into the hands of the Communists. So you can see why this is personal for me. I want to finish my grandfather’s work.”