Author: Robert W. Walker
Date: 2009-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Mystery
Description: When murder meets Cuba’s first female Lieutenant Detective, Quiana ‘Qui’ Aguilera, she is faced with a triple homicide. Three dead medical personnel—two Americans and a Canadian female are fished from the Cuba Blue waters surrounding this tropical paradise. Who killed the visiting doctors and why is given to Qui to solve by a boss who wants her to fail. When the bodies are stolen from under the nose of Cuba’s most famous medical examiner, Arturo Benilo—the only man she trusts—all instinct tells the tenacious Cuban detective that there are far more rats lurking in the deep shadows of Old Havana

CUBA BLUE

ROBERT W. WALKER & LYN POLKABLA

Copyright © 2010 by Robert W. Walker and Lyn Polkabla, www.robertwalkerbooks.com

Cover copyright © 2010 by Stephen Walker, www.srwalkerdesigns.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Robert W. Walker.

1

Friday, late afternoon aboard the Sanabela II

Flowing across the sea-green coastal waters of Canal del Entrada, the mechanical cry of screeching gears aboard the shrimper, Sanabela II, trawling a few miles north of Havana, formed an oddly musical counterpoint to the shrieks of hungry seagulls hunting food along the shore. When the ship’s gears shuddered to a sudden standstill, the absence of that sound shocked the gulls into momentary stillness. Aboard the shrimper, all activity stopped. The men froze in place, afraid to breathe, afraid to hope. They stared first at the choked-off wench and then at one another. Fishing had been wretchedly poor all season; not once had the nets filled with so heavy a prize as the one promised by the old equipment groaning as the ship rocked in the waves. In the pilothouse, bearded and white-haired Captain Luis Estrada gasped. As another enormous groan choked from the wooden moorings and metal hoist, he rushed down to the main deck.

Everyone aboard knew what the subsequent silence meant.

Still, Estrada, like his crew, feared giving a moment’s vent to any jubilation. Not until a man stood knee-deep in the catch did he dare celebrate—an unwritten rule that all seamen knew only too well.

Pearls of small Christmas lights, strung from the tops of masts and the crow’s nest, created a colorful necklace for the busted-up old tub, Estrada’ cheap, efficient answer to the lighting problem whenever they worked into the night, or like today, under a dark sky threatening rain. The crew joked mercilessly about Estrada’s low-tech solutions.

The captain watched the net being slowly pulled up. Too slowly for his or anyone’s liking. He exploded, ordering, “Crank it up!”

The pulley operator shouted back, “She’s at full-throttle now!”

“It’s a full net!” shouted Adondo, his young eyes expectant.

Big Giraldo added, “Net’s heavier than my wife’s ass!”

“That’s damn heavy!” replied Adondo, laughing and adding, “but such a sweet one, that Miranda. You don’t deserve her, Giraldo!”

The jest made them all laugh, touching off their pent-up jubilation. Shouting, dancing, and singing erupted, with Adondo happily beating on oil drums with a knife in one hand and a huge tenterhook in the other.

With a burst of black oily smoke belching from the old machinery, the net lurched upward. Inside the rough-hewn many times mended net, hung a tangled web of bodies. Bloated skin mottled with dark bruises stretched over a grotesque catalogue of swollen body parts: eyes, ears, noses, limbs, torsos pressed tightly against the net, as if searching escape. The appalling package wore a ribbon of heavy chains with decorations of sea life.

The noisy celebration instantly turned into stunned silence.

Estrada exclaimed, “Madre de Dios!” Shaking his head, he muttered, “God just doesn’t like me, does he?”

2

Police Headquarters, Old Havana

“There is no cause for angry words, Mr. Zayas! After all, we’re a small police department.”

“I understand that but—”

“We’re doing everything in our power as quickly as we can.”

Lieutenant Detective Quiana Magdalena Aguilera looked up from a file she’d been poring over, both curious and annoyed at the sound of raised voices here in the Old Capitol Police Force building. Detective Jorge Peña was escorting a tall dark-haired man out of Colonel Gutierrez’s office. “These things take time.”

As the two men passed her desk, the stranger glanced her way, seeing a slim, dark eyed, black haired woman beneath the poor lighting of the old stationhouse. Her café au lait skin had the sheen of faint perspiration, ever present in this tropical climate. She noticed his blue-green eyes widen at her as if in greeting, and she smiled in reply.

The rest of the man’s conversation with Peña trailed off, lost in the sound of office noise and humming fans.

Anything to break up the tedium of her latest and most boring assignment—preparing monthly reports. Sighing, she turned her attention back to the papers on her desk. Damn, lost my place again. They do this sort of thing on computers in other countries, why not here? Castro’s celebrated full employment—that’s why a lieutenant detective is saddled with such chores. The oft repeated thought provided a backdrop to the irritating squeaking of old worn-out chairs and tired fans that did little more than move hot air from one place to another. She promised herself that this weekend, she’d go diving off the coast of Miramar. Glancing up, the clock said she could shortly escape the drab office, but knowing the Colonel, not before she finished this report. To this end, Qui—as her friends called her—took up her pencil once again and vowed to ignore any further distractions.

But a few moments later, her attention was again diverted, when Peña, returning to his desk, complained about the officious security guard from the American Interest Section poking his nose into Peña’s missing persons case.

“Peña, wanna trade? I’m sure with your experience, you’d be better suited to analyzing last month’s figures,” she called out, knowing he hated preparing reports.

Peña caustically replied, “Not done with your paperwork yet, Aguilera? With your skills, it shoulda been done hours ago! You’ve got nothing else to do.”

The insult, regardless of how true, rankled and Quiana wanted to be anywhere but here. Those still left in the squad room listened with relish, hoping for a replay of last month’s noisy confrontation.

“At least I’m making progress, Peña! How long’s it been since you’ve cleared a case?”

Peña’s face visibly darkened. “Just remember, you gotta finish the Colonel’s report before you can go home to Papa. Speaking of which, what’s for dinner tonight?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she taunted.

“Let me guess: grilled filet mignon with hollandaise sauce, roasted yam wedges seasoned with cumin and freshly ground pepper and sea salt, fresh tomatoes sprinkled with goat cheese served with a vinaigrette delicately flavored with cilantro and lemon zest, a light red wine with hints of raisins and pear, and—”

“Stop it!” shouted another detective. “You’re making my mouth water!”

“—and for dessert, flaming crepes suzette and coffee served in those cute little demitasse cups.”

His mimicking of fancy menu descriptions made the squad room erupt in laughter. No one in Cuba ate well except tourists and the elite.

“Aguilera! Come here. Now!” demanded the Colonel, shouting above the laughter.

“From bad to worse,” Quiana muttered under her breath while grabbing her notebook and pen. She walked to the Colonel’s office, a sense of dread replacing the sting of ongoing chuckles and the smug look on Peña’s face. The dislike between the two detectives paled in comparison to the aversion she felt for her boss. Beyond his dislike of women in general, his inexplicable animosity toward her made Qui regret being under the Colonel’s command.

“We have a problem.” Her superior, Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez, spoke in his familiarly irritating deadpan. “And you, Aguilera, have been requested to investigate.”

Surprised Qui asked, “Requested?”

“By the captain of a shrimp boat.”

“A shrimp boat, sir?”

“Yes, they radioed a problem.”

“So, where is this boat? Which marina?”

“No marina! It’s out on the water, a few miles off the bay. The Sanabela II, a Captain Luis Estrada…says he knows you. Says you are, errr, related. Are you?”

Estrada called himself uncle to her, but he meant it in the loosest way. She knew that in some distant past they might well be related somehow, but no one knew precisely how; he called himself uncle to anyone he had an acquaintance with who happened to be younger than himself. Such an attitude toward the entire community, well that was Old Cuba. Qui thought of people as either Old Cuba or New Cuba, defined more by attitude than age, though she must admit most men tended to act Old Cuba around women.

“No, sirs, we’re not related, Colonel. He just calls himself ‘Uncle’ to almost everyone.”

“How nice for you…well then, take a police boat out. You can get a boat, can’t you?” Gutierrez needled more than asked.

“I’ll find transport.”

“Yes, I am sure you will.”

No love lost here, she thought, seeing Gutierrez’s sour expression. It’d never set well with the older man to have a woman—ranking as a detective-placed under his authority.

“Do your best,” he finished, his words daring her to take offense. “Some sort of death aboard; can’t say for sure exactly what. The man sounded hysterical.”

“A death aboard a shrimp trawler?”

“More than one—if this ‘uncle of yours’ hasn’t exaggerated.”

“Two deaths aboard the Sanabela?” She gave a flash thought to the Sanabela’s hard-luck reputation.

“Three-if Estrada’s report is true.”

“Three?”

“Are you suddenly deaf?” he replied, “Get moving! Take Hilito and Latoya. Three deaths, three investigators, all the support you need. Go. Call in your initial findings.”

Quiana stood, saluted, turned, and made for the door, her mind racing. Finally, a major case—but a huge one, three deaths. What awaited her aboard Estrada’s boat? Must’ve been an accident: old boat, old equipment, young men—bad combination. Three deaths at once? This felt like a gauntlet Gutierrez’s had thrown down.
A challenge to her training and skills as an investigator.

Emerging from Gutierrez’s office, Qui walked toward her desk and called over to two detectives sitting nearby. “Hilito, Latoya, come. We’ve got an investigation. Let’s go!”

“Terrific!” Tino Hilito leapt from his squealing desk chair.

“We’re with you, detective!” added Sergio Latoya, stuffing paperwork into a desk drawer.

Their eagerness reflected delight at escaping headquarters. In fact, they’d been clock watching until now, fearful of the last hour before shift’s end, praying for a telephone to ring and pull them out onto the street. Everyone under the colonel’s command hated Friday afternoons when Gutierrez would emerge from his office to give them all a good talking to—a lecture on desk etiquette, filling out forms properly, often haranguing against sloppiness of dress and attitude and lack of military bearing. “After all,” he’d remind them, “this is the Policia Nacional de Revolucion.”

“Investigation?” asked Tino. “Where?”

“On a shrimp trawler off the coast. We need a police cruiser. Tino, you’re good with the water cops. Get us a boat.”

“Aye, aye, Lieutenant,” he said a bit too loudly.

Qui checked for signs of amusement but his wink was one of camaraderie. Leaning close, he whispered, “For effect,” nodding toward the watching eyes.

She glanced around, annoyed at still being the center of attention. “Sergio, go check out an evidence kit—gloves included this time!” She grabbed her gun, strapped it onto her hip.

“So Aguilera, got a real case now?” taunted Peña. “Want my notes from school?”

Quiana turned, paused, and replied, “You keep ‘em. Try using ‘em on that missing persons case you’ve got! Perhaps then, you might be able to close it.”

Turning back, she grinned at the catcalls and laughter.

Walking alongside her, Sergio watched the grin fade as her lips thinned. He assumed it a sign of frustration. “He’s just jealous, Lieutenant. Ignore him. You got your shield faster and made higher scores in training—we all know that. Besides, you got that ‘thank you’ note last week. He’s still fuming about that.”

Quiana chuckled at the image of Peña fuming over a letter of appreciation detailing her perfect scores. This from a high-ranking training officer who happened to be Peña’s role model. Tino had made sure that Peña had seen the letter, posting it on the bulletin board. “Still fuming?” she replied. “Serves him right. Payback for rudeness.”

“You get your own licks in too,” Sergio reminded her.

“True enough.”

“I’ll bring my car around to the front,” he said.

They headed in separate directions, Qui’s shoes tapping out a quick rhythm. Before she cleared the door, Colonel Gutierrez shouted from his desk, “Detective Aguilera! Why’re you still here? I gave you an order five minutes ago! Now, go, go!”

3

Aboard police cutter PNR-48, Havana Bay

Here on the water, the air smelled more like rain than it did from onshore, and the sky seemed even darker, more threatening. Quiana expertly piloted the police cruiser, pushing it to maximum speed across the choppy waters of the bay. She wanted to reach the Sanabela before daylight faded or rain fell. The ponderous government boat rocked and bucked over the surface. Sergio, never one for boats, had turned slightly green from the bouncing and the foul smell of polluted water. The sound of wind and motor had become a constant barrage of noise, making conversation impossible.

Outside the bay, in smoother waters, Quiana reduced their speed as they cruised in search of the trawler.

“Gutierrez sure seems to have it in for you,” Sergio shouted to be heard.

“Yeah,” agreed Tino. “That wily old, card-playing poker-faced bit of nastiness, our beloved Colonel, is a hungry dog, and he bites.”

“Even when you throw him scraps,” added Sergio.

Quiana laughed at the apt comparison. “Hey, are you two playing suck up?”

“Nahhh…we’re your main guys!”

“How’s your family, Tino?” she asked.

“Wife’s pregnant again. Kid’s doing better.”

“That’s good, yes?”

“Only if you got money.”

“Hey, don’t listen to him. Carmela’s having our second, too,” said Sergio, smiling. “Tino’s always complaining.”

“What’s a cop got to complain about,” she facetiously asked. “Low pay, long hours. Nobody listens anyway.”

Sergio replied, “The weight of the job can kill a man—or a woman in your case.”

Qui considered Sergio’s last remarks, although flippant, a serious matter. Other than Tino and Sergio, she had no one to confide in about the job, certainly no one in her personal life. Few people outside law enforcement understood the pressures. Still, Qui wished she had one friend or relative to whom she could openly and easily discuss such matters, but who? Her longtime friend Liliana concerned herself with her dancing career, dreams of one day making a splash on a real stage—somewhere in America maybe, and she simply did not care to understand what Qui faced on the job. Qui’s father did not want her on this job period, wishing she’d pursue any other career, something safe, perhaps photography as he had. As for her boyfriend, Dr. Estaban Montoya, he could hardly be bothered with such trivialities as her problems with Gutierrez or the department.

“I just thank God, that I have you guys to talk to once in awhile,” she confided.

“In that case, beer’s on you tonight, boss lady,” responded Sergio.

Tino, looking a bit despondent with his own thoughts, added, “I could damn sure use a beer.”

In smoother waters now, outside the bay, Qui was first to spot the Sanabela II. “There she is!”

Sergio asked, “How do you know that’s the one?”

“See the Christmas tree lights?” she replied.

“Yeah, so?”

“I recognize them. Only on the Sanabela.” Quiana went on to explain the meaning of the lights.

As she turned the boat toward the shrimper, Qui’s thoughts turned to her pending assignment aboard the Sanabela. Wanting this case to be by the book perfect, she reminded herself of each step in a successful investigation. In training, each lesson was learned in the company of other recruits, but now, although Tino and Sergio were here, she was the primary investigator, and any and all results depended on her competence. She steeled herself to deal with whatever lay ahead.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shouting. “Finally, somebody in authority,” bellowed Estrada. “I radioed when it was still daylight!”

Noting the rebuke, Qui waved at him before aligning the cruiser with trawler, gently bumping alongside the Sanabela.

“Help us tie off, Uncle!” Qui called to Estrada, who nodded to someone outside her line of vision.

Lines were tossed and Tino and Sergio coordinated with Estrada’s crew to lash the boats together.

From the side of the cruiser, Quiana looked up into the piercing eyes and the inscrutable face of Luis Estrada where he stood aboard the Sanabela. He looked older than the last time she’d seen him, still robust but pale and uncharacteristically grim.

While Tino held the ladder steady, Qui handed off the evidence kit to Estrada. As she stepped aboard the foul-smelling fishing vessel, Qui immediately wished she hadn’t eaten that pork and rice lunch at the sidewalk café in the plaza.

“So Uncle, what sort of tragedy do we have? Accident?”

“This way. See for yourself.”

He maneuvered easily across the deck, while she cautiously picked her way past fishing paraphernalia and other obstacles. Streaked with an enormous yellow-brown stain, the deck had forty years of smeared and ground-in fish guts and tobacco. He suddenly stopped ahead of her, and she looked up. What she saw made her gasp and wince, her hand flying to her mouth. Suspended before them at eye-level dangled a heavily burdened net that slowly twisted with the shifting winds and seesaw motion of the boat.

Incrementally, by degrees, her brain made sense of what her eyes dared tell her, that the grid of the net held a mass of entwined bodies.

“Que horror…” muttered Sergio, beside Quiana, slipping a flashlight into her hand.

Tino joined them, standing stone-like, as fascinated as he was repulsed.

Estrada said, “I count three heads.”

For once Estrada had not exaggerated a situation. No one could exaggerate this. This was real, and in real life bodies smelled and tore at one’s senses like hungry ghosts screaming at the living.

The three officers began examining every nook and cranny of the net and visible portions of the bodies.

“Obviously, no accident,” muttered Sergio.

Tino added, “Pure chance…a trawler out here, raising the dead.”

“Curse of the Sanabela,” Qui muttered. As if to punctuate her words, more half-dead eels and crabs dropped from the net, scuttling slowly into the shadows near the railing.

Tino lifted a camera and began taking photos, saying, “Still life takes on new meaning.”

Estrada shook his head at the words. Qui said to him, “Uncle, it’s how we deal with traumatic death. Bad jokes.”

Qui took a deep breath, her nose already de-sensitized to the odor. She stepped closer to the winch and held onto the solid metal to mentally ground herself. The death net continued to sway ever so slowly below the hoist and hook, making a high-pitched, irritating sound—sandpaper against raw nerves. A sound that made Qui want to reach out and stop the swaying until she remembered what was in the net.

Qui again stared through the crisscrossed netting at the tangled bodies. Two white-skinned males and a paler, snowier-skinned female. All of them showing signs of torture: contusions, burns, and marks indicating some sort of binding of the wrists. Some of the bruising created a shadowed blush about the woman’s neck, and the chain had cut deep furrows in her thigh. Cigarette burns dotted the men. The same thick gray chain snaked around the lower legs, creating a knot of bodies bound together by a massive ornate lock of a type she’d never seen before. Qui noticed Estrada also staring at the lock, and she gauged his weathered face, his whiskers drooping in the damp night, the deep fissures of his wrinkles without his customary smile to lift them. She’d caught him in an unguarded moment of total despair.

“Qui…why don’t we just do what my men want?” Estrada asked.

“What exactly do they want?”

Estrada conspiratorially whispered, “Send them back to the deep, where they came from. It’d be so easy. It’s why I left them dangling in the net. Why I didn’t bring the boat in…why I insisted it be you.”

“Would solve our problem, wouldn’t it, Uncle? Pretend this never happened?”

“Yes. What do you think?”

She looked at Tino and Sergio. Each in turn raised his shoulders. Tino finally said, “Your call, Lieutenant.”

Sergio lit a cigarette for Tino, handed it to him, and then did the same for himself.

Now standing so close to the bodies that she again smelled the waterlogged decay that had taken hold, Qui asked Estrada, “Did you or your men touch any of them—or anything within the net?”

“Are you accusing me of stealing from the dead?”

She ignored his outrage. “Rings, watches, jewelry? I need to know. Such things help us to identify the dead.”

He gave her a pained look and a little shake of the head.

“I know, I know, but I have to ask, Uncle.”

“Sure…sure you do…you’re a detective now.”

The warm waters of the Caribbean, always kind to the living, were brutal to bodies left in the gulf. The normally sun-dappled waters made a poor preserver, bloating the bodies like parade floats—filling the lining between epidermal and sub-epidermal layers of skin with gases from rotting flesh that eventually pulled apart all semblance of outer cohesion, doing strange and surreal things to the features and the body. Floaters were a common occurrence in Cuban waters for many reasons, but not many were found in this manner, meant to be a forever-lost trio.

Captain Estrada stared at his crewmen before saying, “These are fishermen, Qui. Something like this comes out of the sea no one dares touch it, not even for a new watch. This is no gift from the depths. This is evil.”

Listening to him, she felt strangely disconnected, standing here on a gently rocking boat as if she were a gatekeeper between the dead and the living. All that ground her in the present was her queasy stomach, a constant reminder that she was still among the living, that this was not some horrid nightmare from which she might awake to bright sunshine and squabbling birds. She was here, the bodies were here, and it was up to her to find out why and how these once vital people had died. She was their advocate, and she began to feel both possessive and protective of them. Odd how this sense of ownership flashed through her mind, only briefly replaced by a repeating phrase: up to me…up to me…up to me. This was what she trained for, this was what she wanted, right? But she didn’t feel that sense of detachment she’d enjoyed in training, instead she felt a ball of emotions too complex to identify at the moment. Her father had spoken about similar feelings during the revolution, a war fought without a given battlefield, but rather guerilla-style, scattered across the island world of Cuba. Once he’d spoken of a day when he stood amid a field of bloodied bodies—still wired from an adrenaline high. He’d avoided speaking of it for years, saying no words existed for so eerie a sensation. But now, she knew what he’d meant—a co-mingling of gratefulness and elation at being alive, feeling an irrational invincibility—perhaps even invisibility to the enemy, and an overwhelming sense of guilt at surviving. He claimed the more bloodshed he’d seen, the more a profound sense of isolation set in along with depression and hopelessness, all due to a disagreement that had ended in mass death.

She mused: I don’t believe that a soldier’s death in guerilla warfare is the same as stone cold murder. A seagull’s shrieking dive to snatch an escaping crab ended Qui’s reverie.

She looked at Estrada. “Murder is an evil business, Uncle. No doubt of that.”

Clearing his throat, Estrada repeated, “I also asked for you, Qui…” he repeated, “’cause my men… they wanted to disobey me, to throw these children of God back into the ocean.” He raised his shoulders and frowned. “They fear for what will come of this.”

“I don’t blame them in the least,” she quietly replied, momentarily considering the possibility of her failing the dead, being unable to solve their murders.

He stared deeply into her eyes, searching her meaning. “Then you think the crew is right? That this…this can only bring evil on us?”

Qui knew what he suggested but feared to vocalize: If a future accident befalls any one of us, will it truly be an accident? “Uncle Estrada, you’ve already spoken to my colonel, and he’s sent me here. No throwing them back, no cutting loose the net, not now. Maybe before, but not now. It…it’s gone too far.”

Everyone aboard heard her words.

She meant them to hear.

Pointing now to the cache of death, Qui demanded, “Open the net! On the deck, Uncle. Let’s get on with it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, do it. Now.”

Estrada swallowed hard but gave the signal. The pulley operator yanked a switch, and the net bottom fell out. Bodies, chain and lock, dead shrimp, and assorted sea life spilled from the net like a mosaic created by a madman. The bodies slid on the wet sea life, rippled toward them, making everyone start, and at once creating a kind of creepy knell, lock and chain having careened into a bulkhead.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Tino from atop the nearest bulkhead. Intent on photos and observations, and not paying attention to the conversation, he’d been standing almost under the net when it opened, and had to move quickly to escape the deluge Qui’s orders had created. His shoes and pant legs were shiny with splashed fluids and be-speckled with bits of gore.

Sergio, staring at the disturbing montage, muttered, “Medical examiner’s not going to like this.”

Except for a growing cloud of scavenging sea gulls, silence again settled over the boat.

Feeling brutalized, her brain screaming, Set up…set up!, Qui was hit with the certain knowledge that Gutierrez knew what she’d find aboard the Sanabela, that Estrada had filled him in on more detail than the colonel had shared. She imagined his grin at her horror and loathing. I can do this, she told herself. It’s what I trained for.

From the evidence kit, Sergio handed her a pair of surgical gloves. “Time to go to work?”

With growing paranoia, Qui knew this crime scene must be treated with absolute precision. Proper procedure adhered to with greater care than with any of her previous cases. She turned to Tino, who was about to light up another cigarette, and barked, “Tino, we need to call a medical examiner—now! Radio for one to meet us at the marina. You take the police cruiser. Sergio and I’ll stay here with the bodies.” Turning to Sergio, she continued, “I need you, Sergio, to pilot us into harbor, and oh, Tino—”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Meet the medical examiner and brief him. Also, I need you to find us a slip!”

“I can do that.”

“Make it as close to the Capital headquarters as possible. Understood?”

“Got it, Lieutenant.” He rushed off and climbed aboard the police boat, where he cast off tie lines, freeing the vessels from one another.

Qui now quietly said to Estrada, “Uncle, please allow Sergio to pilot the Sanabela into harbor.”

Her tone, body language, and action informed the crew that they were no longer taking orders from Estrada—that the lone woman on deck was in charge. Qui sensed a feeling of relief come over everyone, pleased that someone in a position of authority had taken charge. She had in effect cast an official cloak over the terrible find.

Estrada replied, “For now, Lieutenant, you are my captain.”

4

At Havana’s Police Capitol Headquarters

Alfonso Gutierrez sat in the darkening office as twilight had turned to evening, imagining what Detectives Qui Aguilera, Hilito and Latoya must, at this moment, be going through. He felt only a twinge of guilt at having withheld information as to what they’d face out there on the water.

Earlier, after Estrada had described the nature of the problem on his government-contracted boat, Colonel Gutierrez did what he always did in a difficult situation: call General Cavuto Ruiz, Commissioner of Police and Military Matters in Castro’s cabinet.

Gutierrez sat behind his desk, fingering a wrapped cigar here in his second home. He thought about how he perspired just talking to the general, how he held the phone tightly in his grip, knuckles pale against his dark skin whenever he spoke to Cavuto Ruiz.

His mind raced with the strange order coming from some source above Ruiz—high up in the hierarchy of Cuban officialdom, a snake with many heads—an octopus with twice the tentacles—he thought. While Ruiz claimed the order as his own, Alfonso knew better. Someone else had forced the order on the dangerous General Cavuto Ruiz. Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez deplored any light being cast on him or his day-to-day operations, but with such machinations going on over his head, he feared it out of his hands. Still, he must avoid the spotlight.

“Damn it, why was Aguilera placed under my command?” His outbursts were so numerous that his civilian secretary just outside his office merely frowned.

Six major districts lay across the islands, five of which were softer environs than Havana, each a relative paradise according to crime statistics. Why had they not placed Tomaso’s daughter in any one of these safe havens? Why was there a push to make her so visible? Politics, he imagined. Another attempt on Fidel’s part to show the whole damn world how bloody soft he was on women’s rights. The whole thing stank of politics, but now this strange and queer order: assign Aguilera to a triple homicide? What kind of sense did that make? Not only was she a new detective, but she’d never worked a murder case on her own.

With Luis Estrada’s call—an unreliable yet long-time police informant on the docks—what option was left Gutierrez but to call Ruiz? Cuban waters…three dead, likely foreigners. This could become an international incident, something no one wanted. When Ruiz came on the line, Alfonso did all he could to pass the case onto Ruiz’s plate, as Ruiz had direct connections to the secret police. Who better to handle what could prove to be an international brouhaha. But Ruiz had immediately bounced it back to Alfonso. It was as if Ruiz were reading from a script.

“Put the woman detective on it, what’s her name?”

“Hey? The woman?”

“Yes, damn it. Are you deaf?”

“That Aguilera woman? But, General—”

“Didn’t she get her Lieutenant’s status?”

“Her investigator’s badge, yes.”

“Recently?”

“Well, yes, but to throw her into a triple homicide with God only knows what sort of complications? I don’t think this is the wisest—”

“Alfonso, no one’s asked for your fuckin’ opinion. Just do it.”

“I’d have to team her up with Peña, and then perhaps she—”

“No, no Alfonso, no! This is to be a test case for the woman. She does it alone.”

“Alone…by herself? She’s only had minor cases. Never murder. It’ll look as if I want her to fail.”

“Your views about women on the force in any capacity, Alfonso, are well known. This will do nothing to your reputation and may, in the end, prove you right.”

“Do you think so?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Hmmm…then it’s you who expect her to fail?”

“Who can know these things, my friend?”

Then the phone went dead.

Gutierrez understood the mandate—Aguilera is to fail and I must ensure it. He smiled thinly, contemplating success. If it goes well, not only will she fail, but women in the department will be seen as a bad idea. Aguilera would be demoted to some place like Santa Clara, Pinar del Rio, or even the stinking backwater Isla de la Juventud—where she can chase down Cubanos illegally associating with tourists and look good doing it. This last thought had made him laugh, a cruel and ugly sound in the dimly lit office. In fact, he was still chuckling over the entire situation as he took out a Fuentes cigar and lit it, savoring the smell of the rich tobacco.

Once he’d gotten off the phone with Ruiz, Alfonso shouted for Detective Aguilera to come into his office, where he’d given her the order, all the while thinking how delighted she’d be to finally have a major case. And, what a case it would prove to be! He thought how unsuspecting she’d be of all these intrigues from above. “She’ll fail,” he’d said in a self-satisfied tone when she left headquarters. He’d done his part, sending her out to the shrimp boat.

“Still,” he muttered, “it could all blow up in my face when she fails. Fingers may point to me for assigning her this case. A minefield if not properly handled.”

He blew smoke toward the ceiling where the fresh acrid curls added to the dark smudge, residue of countless cigars burned while plotting strategy and anticipating success. He did not taste the cigar; it’d become a prop in his delaying tactic: smoke just one more Fuentes, after running out of excuses to avoid going home to his wife, Angelique, whom he’d long since stopped loving.

A knock came at Gutierrez’s door, and he expected Flora, his timid secretary to be standing there, but it was Detective Jorge Peña instead—his favorite in the department. Peña also disliked the feminizing of the old police station and its ranks, but even more, he disliked Aguilera’s besting him on occasion.

“Hey, boss!” shouted Peña.

“Ahhh, my best man! Come in! A welcome intrusion.”

“Some of us are going to San Souci…drinks, dancing, like that. Join us?”

“Not a bad thought. Maybe.”

“And a visit with Roberta or Teresa?”

They laughed, remembering their last party with these two.

“Yeah, OK…guess I will join you. Can catch up to my wife—the fat cow—no doubt at her father’s. Going on about her latest knitting or quilting project.”

“That’s no way to talk about your wife, Colonel. She’s not fat. Show a little respect.”

“What respect does she or that old man have for me? Even today on her birthday?”

“But…won’t they miss you if it’s her birthday?”

Gutierrez shook his head, stood and paced to the window overlooking the darkest corners and blackest edges of Old Havana. “Ahhh, they won’t miss me so much, and she always has the ready excuse that a big case has fallen into my lap, and this time it’s true.”

“A man in your position, sir, you’ve got to be careful. Appear the family man…the loving husband,” cautioned Peña. “Did you get her a gift?”

Alfonso’s frown deepened, an unconscious response to Peña’s question. “Cõno,” he muttered while jotting a note to buy a present. “Yes, it wouldn’t do to anger her father, but…still…it’s a waste of money. She won’t appreciate it, and her father, the bastard, will buy her something I could never match on my miserable salary.”

“Hey, her old man can’t live forever,” Peña reminded him.

“Maybe not…but more likely I’ll go first.”

“Not a chance, boss.”

“Yes, when this merciless ulcer bleeds me dry,” he bitterly replied, patting his cadaverous stomach. “My brother, Diego, now there is a prophet. Right all along.”

“Right, sir?”

“Yes, when he predicted that one day I’d have poisonous thoughts toward Angelique.”

“But you did love her, right?”

“You kidding? She was beautiful before she got old. And damn, the excitement of dating the daughter of the wealthiest man in our district.”

Both men had the same unspoken thought: Only by marrying her had Gutierrez achieved his appointment in Havana.

“So what’s been the result?” asked Alfonso. “Dead-ends; a dead end marriage in a city full of dead ends, and the proud husband in a dead end job. No promotion in years, and now stuck with Aguilera’s brat.” His stomach shuddered, contracted, seized up, and he cringed again, a reminder of the ulcer that just wouldn’t heal. He opened his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and gulped some of the vile liquid the doctors recommended. He puffed a few more times to rid his mouth of its noxious taste before turning again to engineer Quiana’s failure.

He confided his concerns over the matter with Detective Peña, who appeared sympathetic. “Come on, boss. Let’s talk on our way to the cabaret. Earlier we get there, the likelier we’ll run into the women.”

Alfonso gathered up his spotless white coat and wide-brimmed fedora. A pencil-thin man with sharp angles and high cheekbones, he still cut a good figure for a man soon facing fifty. They used his personal car, a 1958 cinnamon-colored Windsor with blindingly shiny chrome, kept in mint condition.

Along the way, Gutierrez unburdened himself, explaining, “About this triple-murder case, Peña. I was ordered to turn the case over to Aguilera, bypassing you. I worry that this’ll come back to haunt the department. She’s hardly ready for a case like this.”

Peña suggested, “Perhaps if old Arturo Benilo were assigned the case as well? Then…then—”

“Then at the very least it’d have the veneer of respectability.”

Peña added, “Despite what anyone thinks of him, the man’s reputation is impervious to assault.”

“True. As the Chief Medical Examiner of Cuba, his name could indeed lend credence to the investigation.”

“Exactly, anyone wanting to attack you, can go see Benilo!”

“Ahhh…you make a lot of sense, Peña. You’re a good man.”

“You can have Aguilera exactly where you want her—far away.”

Gutierrez visibly relaxed behind the wheel. He loved driving this car, and he loved winning. Peña recognized an old and familiar glint in Alfonso’s eye. It was a look that said, ‘I’ve outfoxed my enemy’.

5

As the trawler began its journey to shore, the crew became increasingly restless, anxious at the prospect of these horrifying deaths becoming common knowledge—with them at the center of it. It was a kind of notoriety that turned an unwanted spotlight on a man. The kind of spotlight that scrutinized every aspect of his life. Qui, too, felt a pulsating fear of what would come of this once they reached the marina, once officials and civilians alike spread the word of the ugly business aboard the Sanabela II. Qui imagined that her working methods and her judgment would be examined and questioned no matter what course she chose to take. She mentally braced for harsh criticism.

Surely, rumors would spread that Luis Estrada’s ill-named and cursed boat had now fulfilled all prophecy concerning it. The first Sanabela had been ripped apart during an ill-timed, ill-conceived plot to carry six Cuban families to Florida in a bid for sanctuary under cover of a tropical storm.

Luis’s father, Miguel Estrada, had been convinced to challenge nature and the Florida Straits in a bid for ninety nautical miles. But his gamble had ended in death for all aboard—every man, woman, and child gone to the deep. When the younger Estrada named his boat in memory of his father’s vessel, people talked of his tempting fate, and now this. Was the entire Estrada family and all who associated with it cursed?

Now as they neared the world of Havana, Qui kneeled near the bodies, doing a preliminary examination with gloved hands. The wind had shifted, and her nostrils filled anew with the stench of what was left of the three relatively young-looking, pale-skinned victims. The smell of decaying flesh made it hard to concentrate on processing the scene, setting the ‘grid’ as she’d learned to call it.

A few breaths, just a few more breaths, and the scent will be less noticeable.

With both hands, she worked one body loose from the heap and turned it over. With the movement, came an audible poof—an escape of gas—followed by an even louder collective gasp from the crew, many of them crossing themselves. This response sent old Estrada into a minor tirade, shouting at his men. “Los estupidos! I must work with imbécils! This is the dead! They have no power over you! They cannot harm you! Have you never been with the dead, you fools?”

“I know what my mother and my father taught me,” countered one crewman.

“The man who goes too near the dead,” began another, “he can be next.”

“Go with God,” muttered a third, hurriedly crossing himself.

The crewmen had huddled at one end of the boat, as far from the dead as possible given the confined space. Estrada jabbed a huge finger and shouted, “What are you fearing, fantasmas, brujas? Ghosts? Foolish sailors! Superstitious shrimpers—you’ve got no brains, the lot of you!” He pointed to his own head. “God help us. All of you, go put your faces to the sea!” But even Estrada knew that his words fell on deaf ears, that he could not combat the old African gods and ancient religion that was the underpinning of so much of Cuban belief: Santeria and Abukua.

Qui admired how Luis managed to forego the superstitions common to many. He was a special sort, this man, one who made his own rules and openly complained of government ineptness and cultural mores and what he considered fairytales, despite the danger of doing so. However, Qui wondered how much of his bravado would be suppressed if he were not given protection as a snitch from her Colonel Gutierrez—a fact she’d only recently discovered. How much of his words were for show, as a cover, and how much was true dissent—impossible to say now. Still, his roguish reputation as a scoundrel of sorts, somehow above reproach remained intact. In every way, Luis resembled his independent and daring father. Having heard stories about his father since a child, Estrada now believed he must uphold the family’s honor against his father’s unfair image and infamy.

Qui looked back to the body she’d earlier focused on. Blond hair lay matted and layered with seaweed, and the blue eyes of this one looked similar to those of a German or American tourist. This victim was perhaps in his late twenties, early thirties. Definitely a foreigner.

The second male victim also seemed foreign born and of a similar age. Qui then turned her attention on the female victim, who also appeared in the same age range. However, bloating has a way of erasing age lines, and Qui decided that their true ages would be hard to estimate with any accuracy— better left to a forensics expert. A quick body scan showed one of the young woman’s hands had been crudely amputated. Additionally, all three victims showed signs of acid burns, an obvious attempt to destroy their fingerprints.

“Going to be hard to identify,” she commented. Someone should shed a tear for these dead, she thought. “Uncle, help me turn the woman.”

“Hey, hold on!” It was young Adondo, who’d inched closer. “I know this one. Sh-sh-she is Canadian.”

“How do you know?” Qui demanded, eager to discover how and to what extent Adondo knew the victim.

“I don’t really know…I mean…I saw her once in the museum.”

“What museum? There are twenty museums in Old City alone.”

“Museo Historica—”

“Nacional de Ciencias?”

“No, not Natural history? The other one.”

“Oh, yes, de las Ciencias!”

“Sciences, yes, that’s the one.”

Like everyone in Cuba, Qui knew that fishermen had no money for museums. “When? When did you see her inside?”

“I was not inside!” he protested the accusation. “I was just sitting on the steps in the sun. She tripped and I-I caught her fall.”

Quiana read his body language and voice. Her training said he was not telling the truth, not entirely anyway. Adondo knew more than he was saying. “Then you actually met her?” asked Qui.

“Yes, we… we had words.”

“About?”

“Her ankle bracelet…pretty sandals.”

“An anklet…sandals?”

“Yeah, I liked the way the straps went up her leg.”

Qui thought this line of questioning useless, when Adondo added, “A pendant from her ankle bracelet came off. It was a leaf.”

“A leaf? What sort of leaf?”

“Maple leaf. Said she was Canadian.”

She looked over her shoulder at Adondo and asked, “Did you learn her name?”

“Denise.”

“Denise? No last name?”

“She had Denise on her nametag. Her last name was long… and, ahhh…strange.”

“Nametag?”

“On her blouse.”

Qui pointed to the male victims. “Was she with these others?”

Adondo shrugged. “Maybe. She was with a group.”

“Did they all wear tags?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“And you have no idea of her last name?”

“No. Maybe started with a B…”

They were interrupted when Estrada gasped. When they looked, he pointed to a perfectly executed tattoo on one of the other bodies—a tattoo of the World Trade Center.

“Oh God…Americans,” Qui blurted out. “Why’d it have to be Americans?”

6

Still aboard Sanabela II, Qui called headquarters to report her initial findings, and to her surprise, she was quickly put through to a waiting Gutierrez, except that the background clatter was hardly the old stationhouse; she could hear the throbbing sounds of a Rumba band behind his voice. Her captain assured her in a polite voice, “I’ve called in the best medical examiner in all of Cuba. He will meet you at the dock.” With that, he’d abruptly hung up to the sound of animated voices and laughter.

Quiana knew that the colonel had been speaking of Dr. Arturo Benilo, Chief Medical Examiner of Cuba, who had seen everything in his forty-some years in medico-legal work. Trained in Europe—in Paris and later in Soviet Russia—there seemed little in Cuba’s post-Revolutionary history that he did not know something about. As a young man, Benilo had fought zealously alongside Che Guverra and Fidel Castro in the overthrow of Batista on New Year’s Eve 1958, when Havana had fallen to the revolutionaries. Since then, Arturo’s deep-seated cynicism proved infectious to those already flirting with pessimism. Doom and gloom naysayers had nothing on Benilo as no one so condemned the current climate and regime as did the old doctor when in the company of trusted friends, or so it was rumored. Anyone else would have had his head handed to him in a basket, but Benilo had shown himself to be in the ranks of the untouchables. Most who spoke out—especially those with a forum in an underground newspaper or pamphlet—met a quick disappearance explained away as “just another disaffected soul who tested the waters to Miami.” The ocean around Cuba covered many such sins.

While Gutierrez had been abrupt, he’d given her this golden nugget, the help of Benilo. Why? It was uncharacteristic of the colonel. Was Alfonso being polite or politic in calling in Cuba’s best ME? Calling in a man of his reputation on a capitol case made sense—but still…
What game was he playing? She hated that her suspicion of his motives colored everything. She hated that her relationship with her superior had never been good, had never lived up to her expectation. And she felt ambivalent about Benilo’s coming in on her case. On the one hand, Benilo was the best and that could only help; on the other hand, there were others he could have called, why specifically Benilo?

Peering through the pilothouse window, Qui stared at the silhouetted skyline, the lights from the spiraling hotels of old Havana, built before 1958, like twinkling stars against the violet-colored sky. The sight proved almost as compelling and magical now as it had when her father had taken her out into the gulf for a nighttime birthday celebration when she was a child. It took her breath away to see the soft contours from this vantage point. How she loved Havana, her home, and Cuba, her country. But even as these calming thoughts filtered in, she smelled anew the diesel fuel and rot of the floating debris within Havana Bay, reminding her why she also hated Cuba. Its corruption and pollution reminding her of the wretched poverty and endemic problems that would only yield to ingenuity, patience, intelligent planning, and most importantly large influxes of cash. She sighed in frustration.

Qui’s momentary reverie was broken by the blaring horn of a police harbor boat. “Ahhh…the escort Tino’s arranged,” she said to Sergio beside her. The police boat blared its horn again, and her captain motioned for the Sanabela to follow. Sergio leaned out and waved in acknowledgment.

On shore, she saw a thin, tall man, who for a moment she mistook for her father—a ridiculous thought she immediately dismissed. No way had her father rushed from Miramar to her side to ‘fix’ whatever problem his ‘little one’ faced—in spite of his habit of interference. Her mind instantly readjusted: must be the elder statesman of forensics, Dr. Arturo Benilo. Curious about Benilo, she looked forward to meeting her father’s old yet estranged friend. According to her father, Benilo— reputed to be manipulative, cautious, and practical—always kept his cards close to his chest.

She stepped from the pilothouse and made her way to the deck, thinking this long day was about to become even longer.

Dr. Arturo Benilo ME stood on the docks, bored, staring out at two approaching boats, one a police harbor boat, the other an old shrimp trawler. He’d been told that the crime scene was on that shrimper.

For some time, he’d curiously watched a single silhouetted figure moving about at the bow of the old tub being guided ashore. As the boat neared, he recognized the pose of a woman in trim dark pants and blouse. Her pose and movements looked startlingly familiar, reminding him of his long ago lover, Rafaela, a blonde blue-eyed beauty as fiery as the idealism that inspired the revolucion. She’d chosen his best friend, Tomaso Aguilera, marrying him instead of Arturo. Years later, Rafaela had died giving birth to Quiana. As he continued to watch the approaching crime scene, he realized the figure must be Rafaela’s daughter, Quiana Magdalena Aguilera, all grown up. Standing erect, she could not hide the grace that’d been her mother’s, and he wondered if she was as beautiful as Rafaela.

While not altogether surprised to learn from Hilito that the lead investigator was a woman, Dr. Benilo had been startled to know he was about to meet Tomaso Aguilera’s daughter. He’d previously heard of her advancement in the police force. “Ahhh…irony…figures,” he muttered. “Things come full circle.”

Her pacing suggested nervous energy at a low boil, reinforcing his memories of the beautiful Rafaela. He felt an instant certainty that Quiana, like her mother, was also the essence of pride and self-reliance. Perhaps, at times, a stubborn pride with her mother’s sudden flashes of lightning arrogance, but did she have the confidence and personality that made everyone who knew Rafaela forgive her temper?

As the floating crime scene made final approach, Benilo took a deep breath and steeled himself for this challenge to his office—investigate a triple-homicide alongside a rank beginner, suggesting no one wanted to uncover the real answers. Add to this the twist of Rafaela’s daughter as lead investigator, representing a challenge to him on a personal level. He sighed and muttered, “It’s going to be a long night.”

When the Sanabela suddenly and noisily bumped against the dock, Qui grabbed the weathered boat railing with both hands. As the Sanabela settled, Qui promised herself to observe and learn what she might from this man Benilo. Taking a moment to call in her position, Qui let a seemingly disinterested Gutierrez know they’d docked and that the ME had arrived.

She watched Tino grab the tossed lines and secure the boat in the slip. Suddenly, another man came rushing forward, from a recently arrived jeep. He’d climbed out, hands waving, shouting, “You can’t dock that broken-down old hulk in my marina! Toss off those lines! Go away!”

Tino held up his badge to the man, who fell silent in mid-shout. The dockmaster slinked off toward the safety and order of his world—a nearby small shack, his kingdom.

Given the laws in Cuba, the dockman knew that if it suited their purpose, the police could put Estrada’s boat in his living room, or do far worse to him. Qui considered the cost of exerting such power in rampant disregard to people—how much good will was lost in the community when police did as they damn well pleased. Little wonder people feared the police.

To Estrada standing next to her, Qui said, “Uncle, your boat is now officially impounded. I’ll do all I can to release it as soon as possible, so your life can return to normal.”

“How do you define normal?” he sarcastically replied, thinking of his loss in under-the-table sales of specialty seafood. Anticipating his men and their families joining the population’s thirty percent going hungry, he said, “I curse those who’ve made fishing illegal, a senseless stupidity on an island.”

“Careful uncle, people can hear us,” she cautioned. “I’m sorry this has befallen you.”

“What am I to do while Sanabela is in police custody?”

“Take time with your family.”

“Which one?”

She grinned knowing he had family and ‘family’ all over Cuba. This was more like the ‘uncle’ she knew.

Her smile evaporated at the sound of rising voices once again on the dock. A crowd had gathered round to observe, question, wonder, and gossip—an audience to the night’s curious entertainment. Qui was grateful Tino had earlier cordoned off the area, keeping the avid onlookers at a distance. The growing audience had become vocal, asking what had occurred on the boat.

Catlike, Qui jumped from the boat, and as she approached the men, hooting and whistling erupted from the crowd. Many in the crowd were out of work day laborers. A large element of the population made no distinction between the regime soldiers and the capitol police, despite realities, which made for a lot of catcalls and asides.

“Hey, beautiful police woman!” came one lone cry from amid the herd where safety in numbers did not always protect.

“Arrest me!”

“What? You need the state to feed you today?” Qui replied, smiling.

Laughter erupted from the crowd.

“Do you have handcuffs?” asked another.

She dangled a huge pair of cold metal cuffs overhead. “You bet!”

“Hombres!” shouted Tino at the crowd. “Show some respect!”

Qui’s amusement with the situation grew in relation to the jeering. She doubted that one female lieutenant on the Havana Police Force could make a significant difference, in the uneasy citizen-police relationship—especially with the Secret Police terrifying Cubanos at every turn—but her nature dictated a more humane approach, concession over threat, compromise over force.

“Tino…I’ll handle these gentleman,” she said, and then spoke in a more serious tone to the crowd. “Look, we’re just trying to do our jobs, OK? Do yourselves a favor and break it up! You don’t wanna get me angry, do you?”

This brought on a raucous outburst of good-natured laughter and a bit of cheering from the men. They liked her; she was different.

“I’ll take that as a ‘No.’ This is a difficult situation. Murder…a crime scene that—”

“Why should we care?” called out someone from within the crowd.

Qui shook her head. “I warned you once. I won’t do it again.” Invoking the mantra of cops everywhere, she continued, “This is police business.”

Tino said to her, “No one’s gonna leave till they see more.”

“Yeah, we’re up against the universal drug…curiosity. OK!” she shouted for attention. “So long as you behave yourselves, stay and watch!”

Turning back toward the boat, she saw the mysterious Dr. Arturo Benilo quietly slip aboard Sanabela.

7

Acknowledging no one—not even Captain Estrada, Dr. Arturo Benilo stepped aboard the trawler. He’d successfully maneuvered through all the hoopla of the crowd without notice, his hefty black valise—stuffed with medical paraphernalia—shifting his weight from side to side. He knew the value of anonymity and silence and used each whenever it suited, and now it suited.

At mid-ship, Benilo turned to watch Detective Aguilera take leave of the crowd. She’d seen him and would soon be on his heels, but he wanted a moment alone with the dead, as was his preference and custom. New and eager to do well, the young detective would probably irritate Benilo by introducing herself and reading from her notes, details she’d uncovered about the victims—all of which would color his initial impression of the scene and the dead. Accustomed to detectives like Jorge Peña, who sleepwalked through an investigation, Benilo so far found her enthusiastic, a rare trait in a cop in today’s Cuba. Because a crime scene inevitably turns into a spectator sport, Benilo had to admire her deft handling of the curious crowd. Amused by her clever tactics, it was not lost on him that she’d won her point without arguing—so like her mother.

Flashlight in hand, Benilo picked his way to the mire of bodies. He sadly shook his head over the sight of the three victims and said a whispered prayer. He prayed for the violation he was about to do, and for safe passage of their souls to whatever might exist on the other side.

With his prayer ended, Benilo kneeled and placed his old ratty medical bag, carried since medical school, beside him. He opened it and pulled out a large sterile cloth from a polyethylene bag. He carefully spread the cloth next to the dead, meticulously arranged protective gloves, vials, slides, and needles on the white cloth when Benilo’s flash illuminated the hefty restraining chain about the ankles, and the lock that held it in place. The peculiar ornate lock startled him, giving him pause. It recalled an evil he thought long buried.

Captain Estrada, who stood nearby, cleared his throat as if about to speak. Benilo looked up from his kneeling position, his eyes silencing the captain. Silence in the face of such death felt right, but Benilo, like everyone else, also believed that every word anyone spoke got back to the Secret Police. In fact, he saw at least two men in the heckling crowd who, although dressed in street clothes, were most certainly Secret Police—but not so secret, Arturo thought. A case like this…what else do you expect, Arturo? His eye returned to his task.

Benilo erupted. “You, Estrada, isn’t it? Find me some bolt cutters, now!”

The bolt cutters dropped immediately onto the deck beside Benilo as if materialized from thin air. Benilo looked up into Estrada’s wry smile. “Thought you’d ask for these.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Benilo decided Estrada was not the fool he’d assumed.

Ignoring all else now, including any peripheral concern about the SP sniffing about, Benilo worked with agile hands, a skill born of decades of hard-won experience. He drew blood from the three corpses with a deftness most medical people lacked when dealing with the living.

Having quietly taken a position between the two men, Qui waited for the right moment to speak. In rapt attention, she watched the legendary examiner—a true modern-day shaman with an enigma lying at his feet. An air of sadness surrounded Benilo along with the distinct scent of rum. No doubt, he’d been interrupted from his evening meal when ordered here.

Sergio, who was taking formal statements from the crew, called for Estrada. The moment Luis stepped away, Benilo asked without lifting his eyes from his work, “You are Tomaso Aguilera’s daughter, yes?”

“Yes. And you are Dr. Arturo Benilo, Chief Medical Examiner for Cuba, and—” she paused, choosing her words carefully “—at one time, my father’s best friend.”

“Friend, yes, a long time ago…before you were born.” Benilo now looked up at her, his glance disconcertingly direct and intense from beneath hooded eyelids. He continued, “Tell me what you make of this case. If I am not mistaken, this is your first murder investigation.”

Qui frowned at the mention of it being her first murder case. She began filling him in on what little she’d discovered of the Canadian woman named Denise from Adondo, while the medico-legal man carefully labeled each vial of blood, matching each with the name John Doe #1, John Doe #2, and now ‘Denise’ Doe. She saw that he’d already placed corresponding toe-tags on each victim. He now inched his fine-point Sharpie pen along, jotting a date and time on the final vial of blood extracted for analysis and tests.

When Qui finished her report, Dr. Benilo replied, “Very good, Lieutenant. I’m impressed!”

“Thank you, sir. Coming from you—”

“—and to impress a jaded old dog…well, that’s no small matter.” The unexpected twinkle in his dark eyes caught her off guard. “Tell me, please…. Why do you think their fingertips are damaged?”

“To slow identification.”

“On the one hand, yes,” he quipped, “but what of the other one, the missing hand?”

“Maybe she wore a ring the killer couldn’t get off any other way?”

“Perhaps,” he replied, turning and examining the woman’s remaining hand. “Perhaps a threat to amputate further.” At Qui’s grimace, he added, “A possibility we must consider.”

“A horrible act…ruthless…. What’d her killer want?”

“Who can say at this point, but whoever did this guessed wrong about a number of things: Estrada’s nets, today’s technology.” He carefully fingerprinted the woman, using a state of the art digital finger-printer about the size of a PalmPilot. “I have ways of bringing them back.” He smiled at Qui, then continued collecting impressions from all three victims.

Qui pondered his promise as she watched him work. She’d read about this new fingerprinting device but never expected to see one used in one of her cases. “How does it work?” she asked.

“Like ground-penetrating radar, imaging through layers of rock to determine what is below before you dig, this device captures the deep imperceptible image of the prints below the destroyed surface by lifting them off the sub-epidermal layers.

After glancing around, he surreptitiously removed the memory chip of the fingerprint device and quickly dropped it into his jacket pocket. “For safe keeping, just in case,” he softly answered her unasked question.

Fascinated at his take-charge command of the situation, as well as his high-tech tools, Qui felt a growing confidence that her case would be solved. She was not surprised that his medical bag contained the very latest instruments of evidence detection. While it was true that the Cuban citizenry lacked most modern conveniences, the military, and by extension the Havana police, proved as up-to-date as New York, London, or Moscow. This was especially true when it came to cell phones, evidence collection, medical facilities, and electronic gadgetry—much of it coming out of the European market. Like her father, Benilo doubtless knew things and had connections rooted some fifty odd years in the past. The two of them, Papa and Benilo, they know where the bodies are buried, she thought.

After a while, Benilo sighed and quietly said to Qui, “Someone may believe he has committed the perfect crime here.”

“Perfect crime? I don’t understand?”

“If Estrada’s net had been a few feet to the right or left… or a few more days in the water….” Benilo paused as if lost in thought.

“Oh yes, I see. It’s possible then that the bodies might never have been discovered, in which case—”

“And, even if they were discovered months from now, they’d be damn near impossible to identify save for dental records.”

“—we’d never have known a crime was committed,” she concluded.

“Now you understand. Someone’s gone to a great deal of trouble. Meant to be both thorough and quick, near impossible to achieve.”

“All to hide the results of a triple murder. Some kind of professional job we’re looking at, isn’t it? Cuban underworld, smugglers, a drug cartel, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” replied Benilo, still labeling vials and bags.

Feeling increasingly comfortable around Benilo, she felt a glimmer of hope that indeed she would avenge the murders of Denise and her as yet unidentified companions.

In a gravelly whisper, Benilo said, “Pinpoint the method and—”

“The how and the why of it—” Qui added.

“—the motive.”

“—and you arrive at—”

“The suspect.”

8

In a palatial home outside Havana

“You fool! You weren’t supposed to kill the girl, and what do you do? You kill her and her two American friends as well! You idiot.” The man on this end of the cell phone conversation paced the length of his marble hallway, his cell phone sporting a Plantronics headset with a boom microphone, hands gesturing wildly in the air. As he paced, his bathrobe lifted with the air stream pouring from an air conditioning vent.

The voice on the phone replied, “You wanted results, didn’t you?”

“Results yes, not murder!”

“We kept a lid on things.”

“A lid? After allowing everything to get out of control? Some lid!” he shouted, frustrated, storming out to the pool and staring out over the bay.

“I call it taking responsibility under difficult circumstances, and I am not used to having my judgment called into question!”

“We’ve got three dead tourists come back to haunt us. Vanished without a trace, you said!”

“Alejandro made that promise! Not me.”

“OK…Ok tell me this—where are the bodies now?”

“In the custody of authorities.”

“Exactly! On their way to Benilo’s freezers, and you know what that man is capable of finding?”

“Ahhh…he’s an old man resting on his reputation.”

“That old man is a bloodhound. If my dog dropped a single hair on my shoe, that anal-retentive asshole can trace it back to me! That means he can put murder on my doorstep!”

His longhaired Afghan wolfhound, fur dancing with his trot, came begging for attention. Still on the phone, he angrily swatted at the dog.

“I swear nothing’s gonna get back to you, sir. I’ll protect you. There’s no way any of this can touch you.”

“What exactly are you doing to make this go away?”

“I’ve already taken steps.”

“Smart steps? Like putting Benilo on the case?”

“There’d’ve been no keeping Benilo off this case, once it came to light, sir. Even so, it was not my idea to assign Benilo in the first place.”

“No, but you thought the woman, this Aguilera woman, would be the perfect choice, when others could’ve been bought off.”

“There’s no evidence that she can’t be bought off, but our first hope is she will prove unsuitable.”

“She is Tomaso Aguilera’s daughter! Do you think the daughter will be any different from the father? Are you incapable of putting two and two together? You’re beginning to sound like that conniving brainless bastard Gutierrez.”

“Sometimes, Alfonso Gutierrez makes sense.”

“Now I know we’re in trouble if you think this.”

“Sir, my men and I will not let you down. I promise.”

“You’d better know what you are doing, else you know what hell awaits you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” The icy calm tone said more than his threats.

The phone went dead.

To the man on the other end, the sudden silence felt like an omen, a sword dropping. “Well, fuck you too!” replied Cavuto Ruiz.

American Interest Section, Miramar

Satisfied with his meeting with the Canadians, Julio Roberto Zayas had returned to his office and now sat staring at a file grown fat over the past few days. Far from the simple case it had at first seemed, this problem of the two missing American doctors had taken on an ominous cast. Frustrated at every turn by local authorities, he again reviewed what he’d amassed so far on his own.

Staring at the photos of the three missing, Zayas honed in on the Canadian doctor, a clinical researcher for Ferris BioChemical in Montreal. Listed as AIDS clinicians associated with Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, the two Americans looked like a pair of baby-faced high schoolers, not doctors. While the information supplied by the medical conference coordinator—a Doctor Cortez—proved sketchy, it revealed all three as energetic, adventurous, and perhaps a bit naïve. Cortez had actually done a better job of learning their movements than had the local police who so far remained useless.

Taking Cortez’s suggestions, Zayas had interviewed hotel staff, learning the trio’s fascination with Havana nightlife, and their habit of dining together far from the conference venue. One staffer at the hotel reported them as coming in late one night intoxicated, boisterously displaying their freshly acquired Cuban curses and dance steps. Further, it was reported that the three of them had apparently been long-term friends.

Doctor Denise Beisiegel proved the most adventurous of the three, not only touring Havana clinics but also visiting a nearby village. Still, Zayas’s investigation revealed that when the three had disappeared, they were more or less, ‘on the town’. The last sighting of the trio had been at the casino bar called King Arthur’s Den within the Excalibre Hotel and Casino.

Zayas now leaned back in his chair, swiveled to look out the office window at the final vestiges of sunset, recalling the curious experience he’d had at the Excalibre when he’d gone searching for answers.

Both the Excalibre’s manager and the Den’s manager were rough-looking fellows trussed up in suits and ties—straight out of a Hollywood mafia film. One was a Cuban national, young for manager of a large hotel, Angel de Sedano; the other, manager of the Den, a Russian named Gregor Kamarovsky. When Zayas had questioned them regarding the missing doctors, the two men held a brief discussion in Russian. With a background in intelligence analysis, Zayas did not let on that he understood every word of their hurried conversation.

“It’s not our problem.”

“Yes, it is. He’s standing right here and wants answers.”

“We talk to him we’re walking dead.”

“Or worse, Castillo Atares!”

“We gotta tell him something.”

“Leave it to me.”

Turning back to Zayas, de Sedano said, “It will take time to check records—determine who worked that night. I assume you want to talk to the staff?”

“Certainly, as soon as possible. I’d like to interview anyone working that night. Right now perhaps?”

“I’ll have to check with the night manager. I don’t know where he keeps records of who worked that night.”

Zayas’s turned to stare at Gregor, whose face was becoming increasingly pale. “Surely among your staff, you know who was worked that night?”

Gregor shrugged and confessed, “I know who was on that night.”

de Sedano became agitated at this and said, “Well, then, Gregor and Mr. Zayas, I leave it to you to sort out.” He nodded at both his bar manager and Zayas.

“Thank you for your cooperation. The American Interest Section wants these doctors located as soon as possible.”

“Use this room. I’ll send coffee, rolls—you American cops, you like doughnuts, right? I know our kitchen has croissants.”

Turning back, he added, “I’ll be in my office if you need me for anything.”

Kamarovsky suggested, “Mr. Zayas, can I offer you a drink?”

“No, no drinks, thank you, just personnel, one by one,” replied Zayas taking a corner table.

“Well then…I will leave you to it and good luck in your investigation, Mr. Zayas,” replied Kamarovsky. “Won’t do Cuba any good to lose tourists.”

“Not tourists, doctors here for a conference.”

“And out for some fun?”

“Yeah…some fun.”

After some minutes, the coffee and croissants materialized as promised. Next, Kamarovsky began escorting staff members to the table. Zayas spent the following two hours learning nothing in the way of a direct lead, but a picture emerged of three fun-loving, long-term friends acting as if on vacation, embracing all that was Cuban. As Zayas knew, vacationers anywhere could easily become oblivious to dangers around them. Perhaps this had been the case with the three young doctors after leaving Excalibre. But Zayas felt a gnawing undercurrent here. Something Gregor and Angel feared.

Still, staring out his office window at the cooling Havana night, Zayas wondered what frightened the two men. He knew of only one ready answer and it was spelled SP.

Qui had done more than simply listen to Dr. Benilo as she’d originally planned; she engaged him—anxious to learn all she might about forensics, the police science he had near single-handedly imported to Cuba from Europe and Russia. She quietly asked now, “How do you keep current on pathological medicine and forensics from here in Cuba?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Whenever possible, from smuggled copies of The Journal of the American Forensic Society and science journals in French and Russian. This information-running represents my chief bootlegging operation along with my supply of French wines. Now, are you going to arrest me?” He glanced at her, reading her expression.

“Nahhh…black-market reading material…. Not my department.” She grinned at him, filing away the doctor’s ‘secret’ crime.

Nodding, Benilo continued to work as he spoke. “During my university days in France, I never had to curb my curiosity or appetite—not for wine, not for women, and certainly not for knowledge.”

“Many university students prefer wine, women, and song.”

“Cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women, yes, the common pursuits of young men everywhere. But properly appreciating tobacco, music, a good French wine is like the pleasures of being with a woman—that comes with age.” Benilo leaned back and looked up at her, before adding, “None of it to be rushed. Benilo leaned back his eyes unwavering. “None of it to be rushed, Detective.”

Discomfited by his gaze, Qui became aware of the doctor as a man, a sexual man. Was he flirting or just being Cuban? While old enough to be her father, he was handsome in a rugged, darkly mysterious way.

He continued speaking. “From enjoying the appearance of the package and its unwrapping, to slowly releasing its anticipation-building aroma, and then the final savored scent, body, and taste. Done slowly and with full concentration, there are few comparable pleasures.” He blinked, then smiled at her. “An indulgence I refuse to give up.”

“The wine or the women, Dr Benilo?”

Responding, Benilo looked up again, and shook a gloved finger at her. “At my age Detective? The music. What else?” He smiled at her, this time, it seemed to her with a look of amusement.

She returned an innocent, amused smile. Her father’s estranged friend was not what she expected.

Being thorough, Benilo pulled out a digital micro-camera from his bag and began taking close-up photos of the victims—scars, the tattoo, marks made by the chain, and a final image of the lock. “If only technology could keep pace with our needs, I’d take dental X-rays here and now. However, for the time being, that much will have to wait for the lab.”

She wondered what other high-tech gadgets he might have in that bag of his. To others who knew little of forensics, Benilo likely appeared grotesque—a curious sniffing fiend picking over the dead, examining the result of some demented mischief. However, Qui knew better. Far from a ghoul, he represented Cuba’s best, a professional who’d threaded his way through the landmine of Cuban politics to become a major player in the network—or rather the web—of officialdom.

The old ME now studied each victim’s eyes. “Please, more light here.” He pointed with a pen.

Qui kneeled and flashed her LaserTec to the eyes in question. She surmised because the soft tissues of the eyes had not been completely damaged that the victims had not been in the warm seawater as long as she’d first imagined. To verify her impression, she asked, “How long in the water? Best guess.”

“Estimating in the field under poor lighting conditions, not a good idea,” muttered the doctor, not wanting to make a judgment call. “Then again light in the darkness is a wonderful thing.” He eyed her flashlight possessively and took it from her, examining it. “Damn sure could’ve used a light like this at Santa Clara. Lost a lot of lives there to darkness, ineptness, lack of sutures, and infection.”

Finishing his close examination of the eyes, he reluctantly returned the gun-handled flashlight. Complaining about his knees, he pushed off the deck, stood, and stretched. Qui straightened and the flash in her hand bobbed, creating a crazy light show that danced across the deck and superstructure.

Benilo quietly asked, “How is your father these days?”

With a furrowed brow, Qui replied, “Papa is well….” She shrugged. “But you know my father—perhaps better than I.”

Benilo raised his eyebrows. “You think I know him better than you? That may’ve been true once, but we’ve lost touch. Fine man…strong, robust when I knew him. In his prime, but then so was I.” He threw up his hands in a gesture of mock humor.

“If you’d visit him, you’d find out firsthand how he is. He’s spoken of you on occasion.” Having reached the stern, Qui leaned against the railing.

“Really? I imagine the occasion was not so pleasant then.”

She frowned, “I think he’d like to see you.” She added, “He has no one to reminisce with, and me…well, ancient history holds no appeal. In some ways, he’s stuck in the past.”

“Too many old men are still living in the days of the Revolucion de Cuba.”

“Precisely why he needs you; he lives with too many ghosts. You…his old friend, you are real.”

“I see his photos in the galleries in Havana from time to time. I imagine he still carries a camera everywhere?”

“Everywhere…even while gardening,” she chuckled.

“So he’s still managing the bed and breakfast and the garden after all this time?” Arturo asked, recalling the lovely house in Miramar, where he’d last seen Tomaso after Rafaela’s funeral. They’d argued then, both men in tears amid Rafaela’s Mariposa garden. From all reports, Tomaso had tended her garden ever since—now his only battlefield.

“Yes, and he still enjoys art, food, and a good game of chess.”

“Ahhh, chess…he was a formidable opponent.” Benilo’s eyes crinkled in amused thought. “Tomaso had such dreams for you, Quiana. You were his angel, and now what have you become? A cop in Old Havana.” He looked anew at her, as if sizing her up all over again. She stood in disarray, her slacks stained with fish gore and smelling of death. “Your father hoped you’d become a doctor, teacher, artist, musician maybe…perhaps even a great dancer in the Cuban National Ballet.”

As she’d listened to Benilo, she recalled how, as a child, she’d danced for her father. “Doctor, I am proud of what I’ve become, a Lieutenant Detective, and one day I’ll make my father proud, so don’t go judging me.”

Reading between her words and recalling Tomaso’s arrogance, Benilo surmised that things between father and daughter were strained, at least on this issue. “I know of your promotion. I commend you, if it comes without strings.”

“Strings?”

“Then the Secret Police have not approached you?”

Popular opinion held that all police were corrupt and most influenced by the SP. Qui considered his unmasked question in silence. Everyone in Cuba feared the secret police, which openly and defiantly operated throughout Cuba. They did so with impunity, answering only to Fidel’s highest—and by extension most corrupt—generals who ran the Internal Affairs of State and Department of Presidential Security. She suspected that the American Secret Service operated with similar brashness. “No, Doctor, the SP has no hooks in me.”

“I suspect your father’s reputation has shielded you from some aspects of police life.” He sighed and in a softer voice for her ears only continued. “The days of Batista we once thought over, are not over. Look…out there.” He pointed to a well-lit pleasure craft.

In the distance, Qui watched the slow movement of the boat he referred to, doubtless filled with tourists having dinner and drinks, enjoying the best of what Cuba had to offer…in real estate, food, hotels, services, goods, nightclubs, all off limits to Cubanos. One country, several societies: the rich, the politicos, the tourists, and the people—once again victims of the economy. An economy once driven by greed and now by ideology. This time victimized by the very regime that’d promised sweeping changes, only to end up like a cardboard house after a hurricane, flat and useless.

Qui understood precisely what Benilo was driving at and unconsciously stepped closer to whisper. “Perhaps you’re right. In many ways…back to where we started.”

“History repeats. Look, like all half-assed dictatorships Cuba has many security units, mostly arranged according to function: riot control, illegal drugs, counter-intelligence, VIP protection…you name it.”

“I’m aware of this. All these units have fuzzy and overlapping jurisdictions.”

“Yes and disputes are settled according to the gauge of ‘my general can beat up your general’—that is, whichever commander is more buddy-buddy with Castro this week takes precedence.”

“Yeah but this is my case—my jurisdiction—until somebody’s general orders me off.”

“Touché!” Not to appear conspicuous, they walked back to the work at hand, where Benilo returned to the previous topic. “Trust me, you should just walk away.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I have a detective’s pay and a shield, so I’m afraid I am this case.”

“Perhaps, if I were in your position, I’d want this assignment too; it is, after all, fascinating. Life never ceases to surprise me, and it appears that fate has created common ground between us, Detective.”

“Some common ground,” she agreed, nodding, “my father and three dead foreigners!”

He smiled at her jest and took a deep breath. Looking fatigued, he muttered, “You know, Detective, doing well in Cuba means doing well in a minefield.” He continued to organize his things, beginning to pack any items he no longer required. “And if not careful, you and I will be caught in that minefield. Things are not as they seem, not at all.”

She felt a need to distance herself from the cynicism of the old coroner. “Myself…I want things simple and clear, black or white, not all mixed.” Recognizing her own petulance, she became annoyed. Still, I know…nothing in Cuba is simple: not the food nor the music, not the culture, the politics, and certainly not the people. She added, “How’d we arrive at politics anyway?”

“Politics is life. People living in concentrated areas dealing with one another and life as best they can. Quarrels, squabbles, disease, and despots come about as a result of such concentrations of people as what makes up Cuba, Havana especially. And out of heated argument and dictatorial government crawls the snake we call politics.”

They were startled by Tino’s voice, amplified through a police bullhorn, screaming. “Stop! Get that boat outta here! Away from the Sanabela, now! Immediately, or be subject to arrest!”

As the boat veered off, a series of boos and hisses erupted.

“So, Doctor, this?” began Qui, pointing to the retreating boat. “This too is about politics?”

“Curiosity is human nature, and human nature is political. It’s all about politics.”

“I believe there’re areas that are a-political.”

“Hmmm…dreams perhaps.”

She protested, “What about art?”

“Political.”

“Literature?”

“Very political!”

“Music, theatre?”

“All political. It’s the nature of the beast. Politics rules our lives, and ever so often, we have a duty to rebel against it. Read Shakespeare.”

Qui shook here head. “All this talk of secret police and cover-ups and politics is beginning to get on my nerves.”

He glanced at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Nothing in Havana happens without a political tendril. If you don’t know that, your career as a PNR detective is doomed.”

Qui gritted her teeth, holding annoyance at bay. “Doctor, please, can we drop the intrigues and concentrate on solving this case?”

“Sure, we can pretend… no dead foreigners here in Fidel-land.”

“OK, it’s political. Still, it’s my case, assigned by my colonel, and I’ll see it through!”

9

In a rich coffee-brown, book-filled study

The elder Cuban business sovereign huddled over his desk, his face half-hidden in the semi-darkness he preferred. A ragged scar ran down his neck from his right cheek, a leftover from the days of the revolution—the result of a machete attack from a subordinate who took issue with his orders. No one’s fool when it came to seizing opportunity, he’d fought on both sides, first with Batista, then later when fortunes changed, with Castro—politics less important than the power that winning conferred. The mutinous soldier had paid with his life along with any peasant who stood in Humberto Arias’s way. All the bodies disposed of not far from the local church. With the remains, he’d also hidden Cuban historical relics. Over the years, he secretly retrieved items that became the foundation of his current lucrative international antiques business.

He offered his visitor a fine cigar from a gold inlaid box.

“Ahhh…my friend, Alejandro,” he warmly began, “This is good news…that we will soon have the bodies in the hands of the SP. That man Benilo is dangerously clever—never underestimate him, never!”

“You can stop worrying about that old fool. Cavuto and I will not let you down.” The tall handsome Alejandro Valdes, known for his ability to ‘fix’ anything, deeply inhaled the full-bodied, rich aroma of the tobacco used to make the Fuentes, a prize the rest of the world hungered for at almost any price.

Alejandro had recently decided that a fundamental conundrum existed in his life: His boss, whom he’d originally intended to kill, had become first his mentor, then in all respects, his father. As a young man, Alejandro had been on a quest—in search of the man who’d ordered the brutal murder of his mother and others taking sanctuary in his village’s most sacred place—the cathedral. Surviving only because he’d hidden beneath her body, the memory of that terror still burned within. Often, the cries of those murdered woke him, their spectral voices pleading for vengeance. As a man, he’d tracked down the remnants of the revolutionary unit responsible for the wanton horror of these killings. One by one, Alejandro murdered each member of that wicked rouge unit, until only their leader remained—the man who was now his ‘father’. And all the while, the old man never suspected that his ‘adopted son’ had been a witness to his wartime atrocities. Ironically, with no son of his own, Arias had made it clear he considered the younger man his heir apparent—a twist of fate that the ‘son’ could never have predicted.

Adding to his dilemma, Alejandro had come to realize he loved the lifestyle of the rich and powerful, and he was reluctant to do anything to jeopardize its continuance. But what had become of his original plan? He’d gotten close to Arias, taking on more and more opportunities connected to the old man’s Havana operation as it related to Alejandro’s SP position with the express purpose of creating the appearance of loyalty. At Arias’s direction, many activities went unreported and many lives were ruined by the SP’s frightful attention. Over the years, Alejandro had lost count of the instances of mis-directions and legerdemain that enabled Arias to become a major player in the Cuban underworld.

Alejandro’s cunning plan so far had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; however, his plan of assassination, rather than being quickly accomplished, had instead permutated into something else, something complex, something tangled. It’d taken years to reach this point—to be this close to his target—and for what? Killing this man was no longer the simple matter it ought to have been.

Rolling the Fuentes between his fingers and lifting it to his lips, Alejandro tasted its sweetness, so like that of his only love—Humberto’s youngest daughter, Reyna—to whom he gave a fleeting thought as the smoke curled about his darkly alluring features. Just the thought of her brought a half-smile to his face. Falling in love with the bastard’s daughter had not been by design, yet their coming marriage ensured his closeness and access to the position and power he’d craved.

With patience grown thin after so many years, he’d begun to plot Arias’s demise. How many times had he killed the old bastard in his mind? So often that when drunk, he’d wax poetic saying, “Let me count the ways.” These thoughts filtered through his mind even as he enjoyed the man’s largesse. Leaning forward, he lifted the rum-filled Waterford crystal snifter and drank. He imagined himself on the other side of the desk, his hands on the controls, his fiancée proudly at his side.

“So tell me,” Humberto began, “do you have this pathologist Gomez…what’s his name? Trebeca in your control?”

“The SP has enough on Trebeca to send him away for two lifetimes. He’ll do whatever I tell him.”

“So when’s this press conference you’re orchestrating for the public? And are you sure this will work?”

“Don’t you see…when the SP announces to the world that these deaths are the result of a drug-smuggling deal gone bad, it will divert attention from us.”

“Clever…but still I see loose ends. That damned lock…and perhaps Montoya.”

Not wanting to pursue the subject of the lock, Alejandro asked, “Are you suggesting that Montoya should take a permanent vacation?”

“Only if he becomes a liability. He says a single word to his lady—this detective Aguilera—even in pillow talk, and we could be tomorrow’s headline.”

“I was against putting the woman on the case from the beginning, but at the time—”

“I know, but neither of us knew she was involved with Montoya.”

“Ahhh…that Montoya wouldn’t jeopardize the money,” replied Alejandro, sipping at his drink. “I know him.”

“Then that only leaves the lock.”

“Stop worrying. It’s already taken care of. The cop, Tino Hilito will be switching your lock so it can’t lead back to you.”

“Then you are telling me, Alejandro—”

“I’m telling you there is no way any of this can be traced. You’re safe.” Alejandro smiled, thinking that the astute Benilo and the equally shrewd woman, Aguilera, would most certainly trace the lock directly to his mother’s murderer. In this way, Alejandro believed he could successfully betray the old man without implicating himself, or destroying his relationship with his fiancée—his guarantee of access to Arias’s fortune. Furthermore, this plan relieved Alejandro of the onus of direct murder while allowing him to slip naturally into the chair he longed for.

“So, Alejandro, my boy, when will you and Reyna set the bans for your marriage?”

“Reyna is making arrangements as we speak.”

“Good! I hope you two give me grandchildren before I depart this world. It’s the bull who makes the calf.”

Alejandro understood the insult to the childless Gutierrez who was married to Humberto’s older daughter, Angelique. “I plan to do all in my power to ensure that happens.”

Each man now leaned back in his chair, a sense of comfort pervading the study as, together, they enjoyed their smokes.

10

Aboard the Sanabela

Qui asked a series of questions where she and Benilo stood over the bodies. “What about the bruising on the bodies? The burn marks. What do you make of it?”

Instead of giving her a direct answer, he pointed to Denise’s lifeless eyes. “The woman’s green eyes tell a story.”

“Read it to me then.”

He continued, “She was repeatedly strangled if you go by the bruises about her throat and the near microscopic splotches of blood in the corneas—petechical hemorrhaging. Look closer.”

Qui kneeled and stared for a moment at the minute flecks of copper-colored spots. “Repeatedly? I don’t understand.”

“Brought to asphyxiation again and again, made to black out. To quickly create disorientation, wears the victim down, oxygen deprivation—hypoxia. Most people exhibit symptoms similar to intoxication: euphoria, intellectual impairment, finally a loss of consciousness.”

“The men weren’t tortured in the same fashion?”

“No, their bodies were riddled with injection marks.”

“I didn’t see any injection marks.”

“Here, shine your light on this.” He leaned over and held up one man’s arm, handing her a small magnifying lens like those used by a jeweler. He added, “See the marks about the armpits?”

Qui kneeled, examined the marks, and said, “Yes, I see.”

“I found the same about the genitals and within the recessed area about the naval.”

“Addicts?”

“Who shoots up within a few hours all over the body? Someone wants us to think addiction is the root of this evil.”

“Then my instincts are accurate. The two Americans died a kinder death than the Canadian.”

“Yes. Without a doubt.”

“So cruel.”

“But quite effective.”

“Then you’ve seen this kind of thing before?”

“Not in a long, long time.”

“Where?”

He paused, “Damn, you’re persistent.” Finally, he added, “Remember, I fought and served at the side of the revolutionary leaders.”

She stared into his eyes. Was the old doctor pointing a finger at Fidel himself or his henchmen? Why kill a trio of young tourists, especially Americans? An icy finger of fear scraped along her spine. “How far up does this go?”

“Who can say if it even goes there? Who can say whether they were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for political reasons? Who knows? Perhaps taken for assassins targeting Fidel himself?”

“Yeah, they really look like assassins,” she sarcastically replied. “I’ll ask again, does it reach into the regime…if so, how deep?”

“Careful. Except for the rantings of one tired medical examiner called away from his dinner, you have no evidence it even goes in that direction.”

“True,” she replied, standing, stretching, and inhaling the odor of sweet tobacco curling about her head; Benilo had lit a pipe, now clenched between his teeth. The ME said, “There are advantages to an outdoor crime scene. For one, you get a view.” He brandished his pipe like a pointer, indicating the horizon. “She was alive when she went in the water.” He said it so calmly that she had to replay it in her head for the significance.

“How can you tell this with the naked eye?”

“Educated eye,” he said, index finger to temple. “Come, I’ll show you.” He tamped out his pipe before pocketing it.

After leading her back to Denise’s body, Benilo had her lean in close and with his gloved hand over Qui’s, said, “Now press hard against the chest wall.” Their hands together, they pressed. “Hard as rock.”

“Now let go,” he instructed.

When she did so, Qui found no hand impression, no return of the flesh. “Like touching a wall.”

“Now do the same with the two men.”

She followed his suggestion. Qui applied minimal pressure against the male victim’s chest; it was pliable, spongy—just the opposite of Denise’s. The other male’s chest reacted the same, moving eerily, sinking with her touch, then slowly rising as if moved by the breath of life. Fascinated, Qui asked, “Is this always the case?”

“You can not get that sort of lifelike response from a person whose lungs are filled with sea water. Can’t absolutely prove it, but it’s the obvious guess.”

Qui swallowed hard, shaken. She’d learned in training that any substance used to excess became poison, and here the poison was her beloved blue sea. “You’ve seen this before?”

“Yes…during the revolution.” As if confessing for crimes in his own past, Benilo added, “Something struck me as familiar about this scenario from the beginning, actually. Still, can’t prove a thing without an autopsy.”

“But what did her killers want? What could three tourists possibly know that would result in their being tortured and killed for it?”

“Tourists generally have one thing desperados are interested in.”

“Money?”

“What could they have, these foreigners, but money? But I agree…this elaborate torture and disposal of the bodies doesn’t fit the typical street-thug profile.”

“I’ll need your autopsy findings as soon as possible to better my aim when I go to point a finger.”

“Or that blue gun of yours,” he countered. “A Walther PPK 380 isn’t it? Fine weapon. I’m something of a collector.”

“Why am I not surprised?” No one aboard had missed her blue steel Walther in the gloom of twilight, as it proved the only metal on the old hulk free of grime or rust, and therefore capable of reflecting light.

“I’ll need a full report and soon,” she reiterated.

“Hey, Detective, tests take time in a laboratory with too little equipment, outdated materials, and overworked people, but for you, I’ll make it my priority.”

Even as he grumbled, she knew he ran the best-equipped, most-efficient police lab in all of Cuba, but Qui didn’t challenge him, allowing him instead to itemize his litany of complaints.

“Thank you, Dr. Benilo, for putting this at the top of your agenda.” Hesitating, Qui added, “And my colonel thanks you.”

“Yes, I know your colonel well.”

She suspected that a single word from Benilo could get her removed from this case. “Frankly, I’m convinced that Colonel Gutierrez wants to see me fail,” she confided, “but I’ll prove him wrong, especially now…with your help.”

“A distinct possibility.” He paused before adding, “How like your mother you are.”

This silenced her. She knew few people who’d known her mother. Part of her wanted to know all that he held in his memory of Rafaela, the great unknown in Qui’s life. A voice from deep within whispered, Listen now to Arturo…he means you well. The ghost of her mother insisted she pay attention; odd, Qui thought, after all these years of telling her father to stop talking to ghosts, to hear one herself.

“A warning, Quiana,” Benilo said. “You understand this case will either make your career or put you into the uniform of a tourist cop? Grief will come at you from all directions. This moment decide: fold or play your hand.”

“I’m going nowhere, Doctor, so just tell me what you need from me.”

“Allow me to do my job.”

“I won’t stand in your way.”

“No matter where the evidence leads—no lies, no evasions, no euphemisms, no cha-cha-cha around the truth?”

“That’s for politicians.”

“Then it’ll be up to us, Quiana, to uncover the truth of these three deaths.”

“God willing, yes.”

“If we can do so before we’re made invisible—two more ‘disappeareds’ just for doing our jobs.”

“You think you can shock me, don’t you, Doctor?” She ripped away her glove and extended a hand to him.

Refusing her hand, Benilo instead looked about. “Too many eyes,” he whispered.

She nodded, instantly realizing that it’d be best that no one think them closer than two professionals.

No paranoia in Cuba, she thought sadly. It’s just a way of life.

Music wafted over the marina from other boats, from radios in windows, all the music competing with wild African rhythms and jumping musical notes like hard rain. But one melody came clearer, overpowering, pointed: the haunting sounds of music from the nearby Hotel Valencia street café and bar, a familiar tune all over Cuba—‘I got it bad, and that ain’t good’—a strangely evocative leftover from the big band era before the revolution, a tune that made her imagine moments of peace and passion and warmth and love even as the lyrics proved ironic—in sharp contrast to her case.

The last time I heard that tune, she recalled, I lay in the arms of Montoya.

A part of her wished that she were there now, wrapped in the arms of her on-again, off-again lover, Dr. Estaban Montoya. Enraptured by his eyes, his Antonio Banderos voice in her ear, telling her, “All you need is me. We can find bliss as Dr. and Mrs. Montoya. But, only when you abandon this foolish career and make a family.” Another part of her wished for the power to turn back time. She sensed in every fiber that Estrada’s cache of death had already changed her life forever. It could so easily destroy her career as a detective, which in itself frightened her. If Dr. Benilo were right, it could also cause a hailstorm to rain down over all those she loved and cared about, or it could end in her disappearance or death. No one in Cuba was absolutely untouchable except Fidel himself.

A cool breeze swept in, chilling her, even more than these thoughts. Benilo abruptly interrupted her reverie. “Ehhh, Quiana, time you go do your paperwork.”

“What?”

“I’ll finish here. We both have hours of work ahead before sleep.”

Again, he was right; she’d have reports to complete. “How do you go about describing this on a police report?” She didn’t expect an answer.

“You fill in the blanks, which is normally all they want of you, Detective.”

“You’re right, reduce this to simple words on a form. But I am reluctant to shut down the crime scene.”

“I understand your concern.”

“Do you really?”

“Actually, I do,” he fired back. “A good detective is reluctant to give up his…ahhh her crime scene.” He again looked into her eyes. “It’s the poor ones, the ones who only want a paycheck to fill their guts with rum who can’t wait to give up the crime scene. Trust me, you’ve done a far better job than any detective I know.”

“But is it enough?”

Together the medical examiner and the detective stood in silence, contemplating one certain fact: the two of them must create a force unto themselves in this complex murder investigation.

On the dock, Sergio and Tino gossiped with two of the ME’s morgue attendants, who impatiently awaited release of the bodies. While Tino continued swapping stories with the attendants, Sergio’d heard Benilo’s suggestion that they shut down the crime scene.

When Benilo and Qui finally stopped talking, Sergio abandoned the gossip and asked, “Lieutenant, want a lift back to your car? It’s on my way.”

“Yes. Give me a minute here.” Qui felt grateful not to have to find transport this late. She turned back toward the now familiar yet still repellant sight of the bodies, “Dr. Benilo, I will call tomorrow to hear what progress you’ve made.”

“Not likely I will know more until the tests are complete, and trust me, that won’t be tomorrow. But I assure you if something helpful is revealed—” He frowned as if puzzled, then said, “OK, I concede. Call me tomorrow.”

With this and a quick turn as if to dismiss her, the ME wheeled to talk to his attendants, who’d rushed in with the first stretcher and body bag. The two assistants looked as if dressed for partying, their lively multi-colored shirts surreal—incongruous with this evening’s grisly toil.

“I will meet you shortly,” said Benilo. “Take extra precautions against bruising and breaking any bones, you fellows. No careless handling. We’re dealing with triple-murder, so gentlemen, fall back on your training.”

“No Doctor, you needn’t worry with Enrique and me. We know what we’re doing.”

The one called Enrique scowled at his partner and whispered something that made them both laugh.

“Do as little harm as possible surgeons and doctors are taught in medical school,” Benilo said to Qui. “They need to teach the same when dealing with the dead. A little respect is all I ask.” Then he again shouted to his men. “Find Dr. Vasquez and tell her it’s going to be a long night. Take the bodies into the autopsy room and leave them.”

Qui heard Tino ask the attendants, “What else does he think you’re gonna do with three dead bodies?”

Quick-witted Enrique joked, “Take ‘em to the Palacio de Rio of course.”

“To the dance floor?” asked Tino.

“Who else is gonna dance with Pedro?”

The three laughed raucously at their repartee.

“I’d rather dance with a real live woman!” said Enrique.

“Hey, Lieutenant Aguilera,” said Pedro. “Bet you do a mean tango! Why don’t you join us at the Palacio later?”

Tino waved them off, saying, “She’s too good a dancer for the likes of you guys. Forget it, you haven’t a chance with this lady.”

Laughter erupted from the men within earshot, even Enrique and Pedro, who’d been the brunt of Tino’s jest.

Carrying the evidence kit and extra bags, Tino walked over to Qui. “Lieutenant, the evidence is bagged and tagged, ready to go.”

“Good. Check it in while I start the paperwork, OK?

“Sure thing. I’m gonna catch a ride with Enrique and Pedro now. They’ll drop me at the station.”

“Before or after the Palacio?” she kidded.

Tino laughed in reply just as Pedro slammed the doors, temporarily entombing the bodies.

Qui felt the sudden heavy silence of that ambulance interior—how effectively it’d ended all laughter and the night music filling the Havana streets. It made her think of the old Spanish proverb: Only the dead know peace. But did they know music, laughter, and the coolness of a breeze in the night? She spent a silent moment in prayer for Denise and her two friends, whoever they were.

11

Officer Sergio Latoya drove Quiana toward Old Havana and the police station where she’d early that morning parked on a side street held for official vehicles.

“Hey, Sergio, this is not a formula one car and you’re not in a race! Slow down or we’re gonna end up on Benilo’s slab.”

“Oh, sorry Lieutenant. Forgot you’re so fragile,” he retorted, slowing a bit. Sergio spoke of baseball, a passion, and he spoke of Carmela, his very pregnant wife, and his anticipation of the birth of his second child, but he seemed as nervous as if it were his first. “You should get married, Lieutenant. A family is a good thing.”

“I have a family, my father. Remember?”

“Hey, he’s your father! Not the same thing! I mean a husband, children. Makes a big difference in your life. Sure, we need a bigger place, but show me working folks who don’t?” A characteristic lighthearted laugh chased his words.

“Have you been talking to Montoya? Has he bribed you?”

He expertly wheeled the car around a stalled vehicle. “But really, you should think about it. Time is getting on for you, and Time…that fellow? He doesn’t slow down for anyone, not even for the famous investigator Quiana Magdalena Aguilera!”

“Stop it, Sergio! There is always time! There’re no babies in my immediate future.”

“Ahhh but kids are fun. They make life interesting.”

“Somebody else’s kids maybe.”

“My Carmela, now there’s a woman who loves children.”

“Me, I’d go crazy having children underfoot all day long.”

“But the joys of—”

“Part-time joy suits me just fine.”

“Part-time?”

“When a kid gets fussy, hand ’em back to the parents and quickly leave! That’s my policy!”

Sergio laughed.

“So how’s Carmela doing anyway? She’s due when?”

“In a month,” he replied. “Too soon, we’re not ready for the little one yet. Well…she is, but I’m not!” He drove with great élan and abandon, enjoying himself.

“Thank God we’re here,” she gasped. “Drop me at the door, and I’ll make out a report before driving home.”

He turned and drove past a series of dark little courtyards and a bar to arrive at the PNR station. He pulled up too fast for her liking, and with a sudden controlled halt, they’d finally stopped.

“Sergio, we shouldn’t’ve let you take that driving course! You’re a menace now! This isn’t the cinema!”

“Hey, I saw Bullet twenty four times! Lieutenant, you need help with the paperwork?”

“Got it covered.” She recalled Benilo’s admonition: fill in the blanks. “Go home to your wife, drive slower!” Qui chided him, laughing. They made a good team, she thought as she got out, bid him good-bye and made for the steps. She turned in time to see Sergio speed off, leaving a trail of dust in the air kicked up by his spinning tires, leaving her wondering how many sets of tires and brakes he’d cost the department.

She found the stationhouse at this hour a morgue, only a handful of people on duty and these moved like zombies, but she thanked the gods that neither the annoying Peña nor Gutierrez were on hand. She quickly made out her police report on the triple-murder and placed it into the colonel’s in box and was outside again, climbing into her car, fatigue setting in when she saw Tino Hilito rushing to get home as well. He’d obviously taken care of the matter of the chain and lock, as he’d come out of the back door near the evidence cages. He didn’t notice her as she was too far away and too tired to shout.

However, as her car engine kicked over, he drove by and waved, not slowing. She waved back, before seeing a strange note on her passenger seat. How did it get into her locked car? Had someone slipped it through a crack in the window? She checked. Not so much as a slit in any of the four windows. So how had it gotten here, and should she read it here and now on this darkened street where the shadows cut clear to China? She swallowed and glanced around, checking the back seat as she did so. She was alone. Utterly and completely alone. Hilito’s taillights long gone.

The street stood deserted and silent save for music spilling out through the threshold of a nearby bar with a buzzing neon sign spelling out Bebida Calienta. She knew it to be a local hangout for unsavory types and street snitches, even as it thrived near the stationhouse. A number of places reputed to be untouchable criminal dens lined the narrow streets of Old Havana. Under the best of conditions, she didn’t care for this side street, but she felt confident no one would bother a woman driving a police-issue vehicle and packing a Walther PPK 380. This is ridiculous! Read the note now, here, or take it into the station to read it. Sitting here isn’t helping. She opted to read it. Carefully unfolding the unusually thick paper that spoke of expensive stationery, she tilted it into the light from the café and read…

Come home soon! I have a present for you. Found it in your favorite color—
something for my special girl to model. I’ll wait up! —Montoya

Aha, Montoya. Must’ve found a moment…came down to fetch me only to learn I was gone. Must’ve smooth-talked the vehicle dispatcher into letting him drop the note inside.

She re-read the note and tossed it back on the seat. Should’ve recognized the paper he uses, extravagant man! No reason to get scared. Must be catching Benilo’s paranoia. She took a deep breath that ended with a yawn. As she drove off, she thought of her last duty tonight—the police report. Too tired to think straight, she hoped what she’d filled in for the colonel would suffice. But even so much as a spelling error or simple mistake of grammar and Gutierrez’d be on her. Yeah, he’d just love that.

She rolled her windows down and a gust of wind blew Montoya’s note onto her lap. A sign? “Home, Montoya, bed, sleep…” she softly chanted into the surrounding darkness. Another good reason to have polished off the paperwork tonight; tomorrow she might well be sleeping in a bit, running behind.

Qui kept two apartments, one in the Old City, the other at her father’s bed and breakfast. She used the little flat, her government-issue residence, in Old Havana to crash whenever it grew so late she could not see to drive out to Miramar.

Tonight, despite the lateness of the hour and a mix of adrenaline and fatigue filling her mind and body, she welcomed the drive, which always calmed her. At the moment, her deeper need was to be close to those she loved, her father and Montoya. She imagined the two men in jovial banter, drinking rum, and playing dominoes or chess to pass the time until her arrival.

Although her father wanted her to marry and give him grandchildren—a frequently repeated request—he knew that she did not love Montoya unreservedly. She and Montoya were good friends, intimate friends, and while Estaban wanted their relationship to go to another level, she remained unsure. His self-serving expectation was that she, his chosen one, would eventually come around to his thinking, to do as he wanted; he was after all a successful doctor, accustomed to telling people what was in their best interests. In his mind, they were already married, the actual ceremony a mere formality…a matter of time; in fact, he already bossed her about, making demands—none of which sat well with Quiana.

While not quite perfect, for Estaban the situation was more than acceptable. When asked by others about their setting a date, he’d smile tolerantly and reply, “Soon…soon. These things take time,” and smile tolerantly.

Qui, on the other hand, felt uneasy at such a question, because for her, their relationship provided more friendship rather than the passionate partnership for which she had always longed. Perhaps it was a foolish romantic fantasy; however, foolish and romantic is exactly how she believed a person in love should feel. At twenty-nine-years old, she’d had her share of affairs and relationships, but if she were honest with herself, she’d never tasted true love. In her mind—love without judgment, love without restraint, love without chains—either existed or failed to flourish. She wanted the kind of love poets spoke of, and all things beneath that protective, nourishing umbrella. At the end of the day, she remained unsure that what she and Montoya had was enough to last a lifetime.

With the dark Cuban night closing around her like a silk shawl, she drove toward Miramar, following her favorite route paralleling the coast. As the Peugeot wound along, the sea air swirled in, lifting her hair and dissipating the foul mixture of chemicals, fish, and death that’d permeated and clung to hair, skin, and clothing. Driving like this filled her with a quiet contentment, a mystical grace painted by a sapphire sea, an indigo sky, and a hide-and-seek moon that played among deep lavender clouds. The hypnotic sound of the waves, constant and reassuring, calmed and soothed her mind and body.

When she pulled into the parking area, she saw Montoya’s immaculate two-tone baby-blue and white Ford Fairlane. She climbed from her car, her body screaming for a shower and a set of cool sheets. She found the two men just as she’d imagined earlier. Still on a high, she began telling them of her day and the case that Gutierrez had assigned her. As she spoke, her father listened with the solemnity that she’d come to expect whenever the topic turned to police matters. At the same time, Montoya became increasingly agitated, pacing and finally bursting out in a flood of words, “Qui, I think I might know those people. They are the missing doctors—”

“Missing doctors?”

“It’s all over the medical community; three doctors from the conference missed their plane, and they’re making a big deal of it.”

“What conference, what doctors, Estaban? What’re you talking about?”

“Two officials came to question me at the clinic, because one of the doctors, a Dr. Beisiegel, spent an afternoon at the clinic last week. She was part of a big medical conference that just ended.”

“What two officials?”

“From one of the embassies! The American Interest Section even, a security guy named Zayas, I think was his name. Who knows? Who cares?”

One of the things that annoyed her about Estaban was his apathy, which went hand-in-hand with a kind of smug complacency. It was at odds with Montoya’s professional bearing, competence, and position. If men like him, in leadership roles, failed to give a damn, then what hope had Cuba of progressing?

“If it is a missing persons case,” she ventured, “why didn’t the police question you? Why embassy people? And who’s this security guy with the American Interest Section?” She recalled seeing someone Peña called “Zayas” this morning at the stationhouse, the guy Peña’d given the brush off. Was it the same man Quiana wondered.
Peña might break the case before her, she suddenly feared. “Tell me exactly who questioned you? And come to think of it, if you think this could be my murdered victims as you say, then you can help by coming down to Arturo Benilo’s morgue—”

“Me…morgue? I hate morgues.”

“But you’re a doctor!”

“Who only deals with the living! I was never any good with corpses, not even in medical school.”

“But you’re in a position to help, to identify—”

“Don’t you understand, Qui, I don’t want to be involved, especially if it turns out to be the foreign doctors. It’s not good politically for a man in my position to…to attract attention.”

“Damn you, Estaban, it’s the right thing to do. Help me out here!” Fear of Peña’s possibly getting her case made her edgier than usual—fueling her anger at Esteban’s indifference.

Tiring of the heated exchange, Tomaso cleared his throat, and with a flourish of his hand, suggested, “Estaban, my boy, go look at the body. It may not even be the same woman, and that will end your involvement. Be done with it…”

“I’ll think about it,” Montoya spoke to Tomaso now while eyeing Qui, “but your daughter, she should think long and hard about what’s best for her and me, because—”

Qui put a hand up to him, the universal gesture of ‘don’t go there’ and he stopped short. From between thinned lips, she pleaded, “Just tell me what you know of this lady doctor from Canada.”

“Am I being interrogated?”

“Just help me out here. Please.”

“So far as I know, the three missing are all doctors. Here for the International Virology Conference.”

“The International Virology Conference?”

Tomaso busied himself by putting away his chess set, ears alert, sizing up Montoya’s ability to handle Qui.

Montoya continued between sips of rum. “I spoke to them earlier this week at the conference. Dr. Beisiegel came to the clinic.”

“Why?”

“To see how we deliver HIV-AIDS healthcare at the neighborhood level. She asked some very pointed questions.”

“Like what?”

“About our AIDS research, specifically the HIV vaccine, and our work with monolaurin.”

“Mono-what?”

“Monolaurin, a drug that our bodies produce when we ingest coconut oil. Nowadays, we routinely manufacture it in the lab.”

“To treat HIV?”

“For treating a variety of viruses, including HIV.”

“OK, so tell me more about the Canadian doctor.”

Montoya looked uneasy. Shaking his head, he replied, “She was just another researcher for a Canadian pharmaceutical company interested in our success with monolaurin and the vaccine.”

“What about the two Americans? Were they with her at the time?”

“No. Not at the clinic.”

“Montoya, is there nothing more you can tell me about this doctor?”

“She was a Canadian researcher. That’s all I know.”

Qui reached down and removed her shoes. Tomaso handed her a glass of rum. She looked at it with distaste, setting it down and saying, “Thanks anyway, Papa.” The last thing she needed was alcohol.

“Qui, this whole thing is horrible!” Then with a sideways glance at her father, Montoya stood, paced, and went on a non-stop tirade. “You must give this over to someone else! You cannot hope to uncover the truth of their deaths—this is your first major case, and as much as I love you, you’re hardly experienced enough to get to the—”

“Hey, Montoya, calm down,” she interrupted, but he only continued, a locomotive out of control.

“—cause of these brutal murders. They’re foreigners, well-connected doctors from America and Canada if indeed she is the same one I met! Nothing good can come of this. Murdered? Mother of God! This is bad, Qui. Get rid of it! For all of us who love you, give this case to someone else!”

“Easy Estaban!”

“This is a disaster for Cuba. Qui, drop it, you have to drop it as fast as possible!”

“Hey, calm down! I have help! Doctor Arturo Benilo has been assigned, and who can ask for better?”

At this, she noticed a look her father shot her, a look she could not identify. Qui felt certain he’d most certainly have something to say about her case, because everything in her life seemed open to comment, even interference, from Tomaso Manuel Aguilera, a man used to getting his own way.

“Look, I want you both to understand something,” she said in a firm voice. “It’s my case and will remain my case until Gutierrez re-assigns it. Got it!”

“But, Qui, he won’t, don’t you see?” Montoya stammered. “He’s happy to watch you fail and—”

“Who says I will fail?” Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “I need your support on this, Estaban. If we were married, is this how you’d treat me? Undermining me?”

“If we were married, you wouldn’t be a cop. You’d have no need of work. You could just learn to cook and—”

“And be a proper married woman?”

“—and take care of our children and—”

“Enough of this,” said Tomaso. “We’re all tired, and this is not the time to repeat old arguments.”

Qui replied, “I got it. I got it already. You don’t either of you want me on the case, because you expect me to fail. You want me to drop the case, and I want you to drop this discussion,” she demanded. “Now I’m going to shower and to sleep.” She hugged her father as she passed by, “Goodnight, Papa. I’ll see you in the morning. Good-bye, Montoya.”

Montoya shrugged at Tomaso, who advised, “She’s angry; give her a moment. Let her cool down.”

Montoya, a look of defeat in his eyes, sat down and lifted his rum. The two men sat quietly, each lost in contemplation at the disturbing news Qui had brought home.

His drink gone, Montoya stood and said, “Good night Tomaso.”

Tomaso advised, “A warning, Montoya, she’s like her mother, spirited, easy to anger—like a scorpion. Best not provoke her any further.”

Not a man to take advice, Montoya nodded and left in pursuit of Qui. Tomaso stared at his retreating figure, a gift-wrapped package now in Estaban’s hands. The older man shook his head, thinking that once again the doctor was assuming Qui could be distracted from her convictions with material things. Qui’s attention might be temporarily distracted; however, her loyalty and affection could not be bought. The younger man couldn’t be further from understanding her, so how would Montoya ever win her?

In a moment, Estaban stood knocking at Qui’s door, the pretty package in hand. He caught her undressing, a sight he relished.

“Baby, sweetheart, you should listen,” he began, holding the present behind his back. “A thing like this case of yours…just being involved as a secondary, could bring you harm.”

“I’m primary investigator on this one.”

“My God…but this will be a…a volcano with everyone getting burned. I just don’t want you to get hurt! That’s all I’m saying.”

“Montoya, as lead investigator on the case, it’ll take an act of God or Gutierrez to remove me from it. So say no more.”

“We can get Tomaso to make a few phone calls.”

“No, damn it! You will not start this bullshit now, not again!”

“We’re not talking simple murder! This is an international incident—three foreigners dying on Cuban soil while attending a medical conference? This can only make Cuba look bad. Fidel will be involved, and you’ll be the focus of everyone’s attention.”

“I understand your concerns but—”

“This is something the State should handle, not the police. Too many unknowns. Americans, that alone means trouble.”

“Montoya, I asked you to drop it.” Her eyes flashed where she stood now in bra and panties.

“You’re so gorgeous dressed like that.” He began to approach her when her angry eyes stopped him.

“Come on, Qui, bodies tossed in the sea like trash?” He paused to enjoy the sight of her, then attempted to drive home his point. “This is a dangerous game, Qui! Whoever’s behind this isn’t gonna stop at a badge, a uniform, a Walther PPK, or a beautiful woman.”

“Stop it or go home. I will not hear anymore of this!” She even more fiercely glared at him, fist clenched, teeth gnashing.

“Damn it, Quiana, I am squarely on your side. I love you.”

“Damn funny way of showing it.”

“Here. I got this earlier. I wanted us to enjoy it. Together,” he handed the package to her.

Grabbing it, she exclaimed, “Why do you do this? Give me presents when I am angry with you?”

“I got it before all this started,” he protested. “Go shower and model it for me. I’ll go read a journal unless you want me to join you—wash your back maybe?” he cajoled.

“Showering I can do for myself without anyone’s help. Right now, I need to be alone, period.” Grimacing, she stalked off to shower, taking the pale blue, beautifully wrapped box with her. Damn him to hell, she sourly thought.

After several minutes under hot water and finishing with cool, her anger as well as the stench of death had vanished. Toweling her hair, she glanced with distaste at her choice of plainclothes detective wear amid her underwear in a heap on the floor. How many washings would it take to get the smell out, she wondered. The odors clinging to her couldn’t be pleasant for Estaban, or were they? He’d never made a single complaint.

She reached for the package and undid the careful wrapping, wondering anew how Montoya afforded this sort of indulgence. She reached in and lifted out the most beautiful nightgown and negligee she’d ever seen. The gown, made of soft smooth blue satin, felt cool to the touch. She pulled it over her head, adjusted straps to fit, and gazed at her reflection. It seemed made for her alone, her nipples showing clearly, the fabric curving snugly over her breasts, just tight enough over her hips to outline her derriere. Too much sitting. Need to get more exercise. The high leg opening revealed plenty of skin. The delicate pattern along its edge drew the eye to the line of the leg. She smiled at her mirror image, enjoying this look, all of her earlier frustration morphing into something akin to a grudging acceptance of Montoya’s concerns, her displeasure buried, but not entirely vanished. Faintly patterned and nearly transparent, the sheer silk negligee caressed her skin—this final sensation burying the last vestiges of her annoyance. The thing must have cost a fortune. He knew she’d disapprove of his extravagance but love it all the same.

Oh Montoya, if only my misgivings about us would dissolve as easily as my annoyance with you. She vowed that for the rest of the night, there would not be a single serious word between them. This would be a night he’d remember for a long, long time. She smiled as she turned off the light, extinguishing all thought of the outside world, to join him where he awaited her in bed.

12

Earlier, receiving dock, Benilo’s morgue

“What do you mean, the bodies are not here?” shouted Arturo Benilo at the morgue assistant. “I watched them leave the marina! Two Americans, and a Canadian woman! Bloated, white as milk. Lost? Who the fuck lost them?” He was not used to working with this new young man, Jesus del Campo, and Benilo’s palpable anger over the absurd absence of not one but three bodies threatened to burst a vein in his neck.

“No, no, no, doctor, sir, I didn’t lose nobody…I mean no bodies.”

“Then by God produce them, Jesus! Where are they?”

“The bodies never really got here!” replied the boyish wide-eyed Jesus.

“What do you mean, ‘never got here’?”

“Some men had a hearse and papers. I didn’t know where you were so…”

“Where? Where did this body-jacking occur?”

“Out in the parking lot. The bodies never saw the inside the morgue.”

“So never officially in your possession?”

“That’s correct, sir”

Benilo had become immediately suspicious the moment he learned of this outrage. “This is not done,” he muttered. “Why the hell wasn’t I called?”

“I…I couldn’t reach you. They had papers.”

“Papers, really?”

“Orders. Enrique and Pedro had their hands in the air.”

“What else? Details. Give me de-”

“They moved the corpses into an unmarked van. Said the killings resulted from—”

“Illegal drug business?”

His face a study in surprise, the young assistant exclaimed, “How’d you know?”

“Said they’d take care of any details, yes?”

Jesus kept nodding. “Said they’d prepare the bodies for shipment home.”

Conveniently losing them in a sea of shipping containers, thought Benilo. Could be months before they resurface, if at all.

Jesus continued to fight for breath. “I-I swear to you, there was no stopping them. Any resistance…I mean…I could not—”

“Silence! How am I to think with your babbling? Quiet!” Benilo’s face went from consternation to concentration. “Jesus, no one’s got authority to take bodies from here—or evidence of any kind!”

“Yes, sir.”

“This office…my office is supposed to be above reproach, above political nonsense, above the secret police, and even above Fidel—at least in theory. God damn them!”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“I assume they had guns and wore army fatigues?”

“Yes, guns…army fatigues. Said it was by order of some major general.”

“But you saw no reason to demand a copy of the orders?”

“They insisted I didn’t need one; said that you knew all about the transfer.”

“They said all that?” Benilo paced in a small circle of thought. Then he asked, “One man big, husky, did all the talking, right?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And the other fellow, was he huge, like a bull?” asked Benilo, his mind churning over these developments.

“Yes, exactly.”

“And the big man, he showed you—”

“—the papers, yes. He didn’t really show me the papers, but he waved them, yes.”

“And the paperwork? It looked like—”

“Like…like regular hospital transfer papers, nothing special.”

Even as Jesus answered this last question, the ME’s mind was already elsewhere. Secret police. Just as I feared…the same instinct as the lowliest crewman aboard the Sanabela.

“Why does a man have to be so damn right?”
Benilo stalked into the building and down the hall toward his office, an uneasy Jesus following him. “And Quiana? What of our pact to work closely together? She’ll think I am part of this.”

“Sir?” asked Jesus. “Is there anything I can do? Should I inform Dr. Vasquez she can go home now.”

“Yes! Damn…yes! Tell her the autopsies are off for now.”

His body language clearly saying he was relieved, Jesus rushed off.

Alone in his dimly lit office, the full weight of this night’s events settled on the doctor’s shoulders. “Now the game begins in a dark evil. Quiana is in far more danger than she knows. Her cunning and skills will be tested, perhaps to the death by bastards afraid to face me.”

Their lovemaking ended as it usually did with Estaban completely spent and snoring while Qui wondered if there’d ever be a time when she came first.

To further complicate her night, she’d only slept a few hours when she awoke with the case on her mind, her clock showing 2:48AM. She rolled over finding Montoya gone. Early day at the clinic she guessed. She turned over and attempted a return to sleep but failed. Climbing from bed, she threw on a robe, smiling at the negligee and gown on the floor. She hung them in her closet before going in search of a snack.

Walking quietly down the hallway, she hoped not to run into her father. She loved him, but she couldn’t take him at three in the morning. It was not an unwarranted concern, as her father’s insomnia often had him roaming. Sometimes she’d see him in the veranda; sometimes, in the lobby where a huge portrait of her mother hung. When he thought no one about, Tomaso talked to the picture; something he’d been doing as long as Qui could recall.

She thought her father lonely, a man who’d never healed from the loss of his wife, his beloved Rafaela—her mother. He’d never dated and while he had an active social life, there was no special woman in his life. Whenever she questioned him, he’d smile sadly and say he loved her mother too much, that it wouldn’t be fair to another woman as he would always compare her to Rafaela. Qui had often wondered what her mother had been like to inspire such devotion, from her father and now too, it seemed, from Benilo. But that devotion over time had deepened into an inner isolation her father thought well hidden but painful for Qui to watch. By steady increments, she’d distanced herself from him, leading her own life and living in her own quarters within the bed and breakfast. They were still close, and she worried about him as he’d grown older, as he’d slowed down at every activity, save conversing with her mother’s portrait and maintaining her garden.

She opened one refrigerator and found it stuffed full; thirsty, she grabbed a cold can of coconut water and popped the lid.

Her father’s sudden words startled her. “I want you to drop this case they’ve assigned you, Qui.”

His voice came at her from the gloom of darkness in a corner shadow where he’d been sitting in the dark. She almost dropped the can.

“Damn, you scared hell outta me! Why not give a warning?”

“I mean it, Qui. This is some sick vendetta, putting you on a triple homicide. You’re not ready for this.”

“First Montoya and now you!”

“I tell you it is insidious!”

“I’m not a child anymore, and this is my big chance, Papa.”

“It’s a scheme to harm the both of us, this family, this place!”

“I’ll go to hell and back before I give it up!” she countered. “So save your breath.”

“I tell you, there’re people in government who’ve for years wanted my property, and my reputation disgraced.”

She’d heard this for years. “This is not about you or this old house!”

“I still have enemies who—”

“Papa, please!”

“—enemies who harbor evil thoughts about me. This case places all of us in jeopardy—you, me, Maria Elena, Yuri, possibly even Montoya. You must turn this over to…to someone like Peña.”

“Peña, that pea-brained clock-watching rum-sucking ass-kissing suckup? Papa, have you gone senile?”

“You’re so stubborn, just like your mother!”

“Papa, if I find out you’ve interfered, I swear I’ll move out completely! Now not another word. I’m going back to bed. I have to get up early to see what your old friend Benilo has uncovered.” She started back toward her apartment.

“You’re making a bad choice, Qui.” He’d taken a step toward her, then stopped, shaking his head, his voice softer, he added. “Just know this, if you need help, I am here and so is Yuri. With his background, he could be a good ally.”

At his comment, she turned and walked back to him. “I know you mean well, Papa, but you have to let me succeed or fail on my own. You’re right about Yuri, thanks for the reminder.” She gave a thought to Yuri, a Soviet ex-patriot who’d arrived in Cuba along with Soviet missiles, now a family friend, working for her father. She hugged him saying, “Good night, go to bed, and stop worrying about me.”

Watching her leave, Tomaso wondered how bad the mess was that she had been handed. “No good will come of this,” he muttered to a shadow in the darkened corner. Yuri leaned forward, his face coming into the light. “Quiana’s no one’s fool. She may surprise us all.”

13

The following morning…

Having gone in early to work on her case, Qui anticipated leaving soon for the morgue. However, Gutierrez found her first and called her into his office, and with Peña sitting in a corner, the colonel insisted on a time-consuming verbal report of the facts she’d already detailed on paper. Then, he asked for her personal observations. She gave him a play-by-play of what she and Benilo had found on the boat, her words sounding like a tale of horror out of a gothic novel. But curiously enough, the colonel proved more interested in the problem that had gotten back to him from an irate dockmaster. He wanted to know more about the complaints of this petty tyrant than he did about the murder victims. He claimed that Qui had no people skills whatsoever, and she should take a lesson by studying detective Peña.

Qui left in sheer frustration with the man’s incompetence and dislike of her; she hadn’t even spoken to the dockmaster, Tino had, but she was the lead investigator, so no use protesting. She pictured the colonel’s negative attitude as a cloud of flies floating above rotting flesh—the image so apt and so ridiculous she had to smile in spite of her mood.

Breathing the clean mid-morning air, after escaping the oppressive atmosphere of the Capitol
Police Headquarters, Qui’s sour humors dissipated—her frustration replaced by a sense of expectation of what she’d find at the newly built, thoroughly sleek, high-tech medical complex where Benilo’s morgue made up two thirds of the basement.

An hour later…

“Wait a minute, Dr. Benilo, you didn’t just say what I heard you say, did you?” Qui asked, looking into the bowels of the crowded-with-bodies morgue and back to Benilo.

“Afraid so.”

“The bodies—all three—gone, poof, disappeared like that?” She rushed about the shrouded bodies, tearing away sheets to stare into dead faces—none familiar.

“Stop that! You’re making a disarray of things!” shouted Benilo. “They’re not here! You have my word.”

Dumbfounded, her eyes screaming confusion, Qui’s mind raced with questions. “If the bodies are not here, where are they?”

“At this point, I don’t know.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night.”

“But how?”

“Before I arrived from the boat; they were taken.”

“Who’d steal bodies and why?” Secretly, she wondered, Just how involved are you, Dr. Benilo in this magic act?
Three murders and now the bodies are missing? What next? What fucking next?

“Trust me, Quiana—”

“Lieutenant Aguilera….” She set her jaw and glared.

His hands rose in the air, either as a gesture of defense or defeat. “I had nothing whatever to do with it, and I am as filled with questions as you, and the short answer is Secret Police.”

“So you do know something, Doctor?”

“If I were a part of this outrage-think! Would I be standing here telling you I suspect the SP of stealing bodies?”

“Imagine if this gets out to the Canadian consulate or the press, or worse, the American Interest Session?”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “How will it play in the International media?”

She paced like an angry lioness. “You realize that without the bodies, there can be no final results. Everyone will blame me.”

“Ahhh, so this is about you and your career?”

“Yes, among other things, yes! Hell, we can’t even prove there are three murders now, can we?”

Benilo went about his morgue straightening all the sheets she’d torn away. “If you’ll curb your impatience and just listen, I’ll answer you.”

She stopped pacing and turned to him. “Go ahead.”

“While the bodies were hijacked, the evidence was not.”

“Then we do have a case, after all?” She followed him from body to body as he re-arranged sheets over disturbed corpses.

“What pisses me off,” said Benilo, “is the thought of those two imbeciles—Enrique and Pedro. They left to go dancing without even reporting to me! Not a damn word! So they’re fired.”

“With the Secret Police involved, they probably had little choice.”

“Cowards. They’re fired. End of story.”

“Perhaps they were ordered to keep their mouths shut?”

““Munoz and Torres know which way the wind blows,” muttered Benilo. “Still, cowards!”

“No…not cowards, cautious men—acting no differently than Estrada’s crewmen or anyone in the face of the SP.”

“They work for me and I expect loyalty. They have more to fear from me than the SP!”

She could not help but laugh at this. “At least they are smart enough to avoid going the way of the vanished ones.”

“True.”

From somewhere deep in the autopsy room, a dripping faucet created a staccato beat that echoed Qui’s growing headache. “Got any aspirin?”

“Here, my secret stash,” Benilo handed her a green container and a glass of water.

“Thank you Doctor.”

“Remember, Quiana, for all we know, the bodies could be below a hundred feet of ocean, and this time permanently, or incinerated in some old cathedral basement, or even turned into sausages at a meat-packing company.” Benilo realized what he was saying caused her to wince. “Sorry, but it’s so.”

Qui replied, gulping, “Please, tell me you don’t believe their bodies are being sold as sausage.”

Benilo shrugged in response. He then stretched and complained, “I must look every bit as old as I feel this morning.” He gulped down the last of his coffee. If last night on the dock with Jesus went horribly awry, trying to explain it today proved even worse.

She held his gaze, studying, sizing him up, trying to find some chink. Was he holding back or telling an outright lie? Benilo stared back, his deep eyes resolute. She wondered if he were among that small percentage who, without a doubt, could beat a lie detector.

“Come, I’ll tell you what I think happened. The coffee’s good; have some. Got no sleep last night—half-asleep now. Need more caffeine.”

Together, the old coroner for the state and the Havana detective left the morgue, each contemplating the strange twist of events, in so short a span of time.

“Christ,” Qui muttered as she slowed her pace alongside an obviously fatigued Benilo. Much as she wanted to hurry him up, she knew there was no rushing him.

“We’ve got the photos, Qui, and the fingerprint evidence.” They left the morgue, going to his office.

“Ahhh…yes, the fingerprints pocketed at the scene? You anticipated problems from the beginning.”

“Call it a hunch. But hijacking bodies? No predicting that! Someone’s interested in a major cover-up.”

“Cover-up? Are you serious?” She asked as they entered his office. “That’s an understatement, Doctor.”

Instead of answering her, he went to a file and unlocked a drawer. “I want to show you something.”

This man’s so slow! Why doesn’t he just tell me! She decided to calm down and pour a cup of coffee. She sat and sipped at the hot thick brew, the taste telling her that Benilo was right about one thing. Smiling, she raised her cup in a toast, “Good coffee—a rarity in a government facility.”

“The one last thing I have control over—the coffee,” Benilo grimaced as he spoke. “At least it doesn’t just disappear.” He dropped three files on the desk between them. “Missing persons reports on our three victims.”

Instantly excited, she opened the reports and three photos of bright-looking, smiling faces beamed up at her—the same three faces she’d seen in death grimaces aboard the Sanabela. “Damn,” she muttered, “and look who was assigned this missing persons case—” Her finger led his eye to the name: Jorge Peña

“Gutierrez’s fair-haired boy,” said Benilo.

“Who is this Dr. Cortez who filed the missing persons report?” Qui asked, still scanning the files.

“He’s some sort of medical researcher and the conference coordinator, handles arrangements for conferences; coincidently married to my senior pathologist, Dr. Vasquez.”

“Yes, I’ve seen her name on pathology logs in the past.”

“He informed me that these three didn’t show up for breakfast, then missed their flight, so naturally, he became frantic. Three missing foreign doctors on his hands. I asked for a copy of the report from your boss.”

She recalled Peña ushering out the handsome stranger from the American Interest Section, also curious about a missing persons case. “Gutierrez had these reports before assigning me this case. It was a set up.”

“Tried to make fools of both of us, Lieutenant, but they have badly underestimated us.”

She liked the tone of this. “Yes, we’ve got the evidence, and evidence never lies.”

“The damn fools can’t even get evil right. And they didn’t count on my being thorough. Think I’m an old fool ready for pasture, ha!”

“So when do we have something tangible?”

“Soon, but beware of making this personal lieutenant. No vendettas. Emotions can’t rule us.”

She replied, “I just want to do my job and do it professionally.”

“Tests are already underway.”

“But what’s to prevent the SP from snatching the results?”

“Conducted under aliases. Only I know the fictitious names, and they were requested under Vasquez’s name rather than mine.”

“So soon…we’ll have results they can’t ignore.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“Frightening…that they can make three bodies vanish.”

His eyebrows lifted at this, but he said nothing.

“What’s next?” she asked.

“Lunch, I’m hungry.”

14

Thoroughly frustrated with the lack of response on the part of local authorities, Julio Zayas feared the worst. Since his first meeting with those actually charged with locating the missing—a Detective Jorge Peña and an unprofessional oaf of a colonel named Gutierrez—nothing whatsoever had occurred. Not so much as a courtesy call. Believing a face-to-face meeting might shake loose some information, he’d taken a cab from his Miramar headquarters to the Old Havana police station. Actually, the cab was a private car transformed into a cab, a 1957 Ford Thunderbird convertible, painted blindingly yellow with stylized fiery plumes billowing along each side as if emerging from the engine. The ‘cab’ was in beautiful condition, the interior redone to perfection in a blood-orange shade that complemented the hue of fire along its sides.

Arriving at the Capitol Police Headquarters in the flamboyant cab attracted no special attention here as it would in Miami. Zayas paid the driver, waved him off, and started up the steps, through the entryway, and past the too busy desk clerk. He thought the jurisdiction here must suffer badly with such incompetent cops as Peña and Gutierrez at the helm. Still, he’d never known a police department without its share of such people. Gritting his teeth, certain his decision to force another meeting would come to a bad end, Julio nonetheless pressed on. Hell, two American citizens—professionals—continued on the Missing Persons bulletin at the American Interest Section.

As Julio made his way through the maze of desks for Gutierrez’s office, Detective Peña immediately leapt up and intercepted him. “Ahhh, Mr. Zayas, you’re back. How can I help you?”

“I’m here to see your boss.”

“Well…ahhh…I mean he is rather busy at the moment, but I am at your service.”

“Look, I’m concerned about your progress, or rather lack of progress in locating my American doctors. I’ve not heard a single word—have you any leads, anything at all?”

Before Peña could respond, the sound of retching followed by rushing water preceded Gutierrez’s sudden appearance through a door marked BANO.

Gutierrez’s head was tilted downward, his eyes averted, so that when he looked up, he found himself face to face with Zayas, who said, “Colonel Gutierrez, just the man I’m here to see.”

“Ahhh, yes, Mr. Ahhh…Zayas, right? I was just reviewing the case.”

Zayas nodded, acknowledging the man’s words and noting his disheveled appearance.

“Come…my office,” Gutierrez weakly replied. “I’ve new information. Peña, bring your files…come along.”

“Yes, sir.” Peña lifted a thin folder and used it to wave Julio ahead of him.

Gutierrez quickly rounded his desk and put it between them. He dropped heavily into his well-cushioned swivel chair, and it responded with a screech. Julio noticed assorted loose pills, a glass of water, and a bootlegged bottle of Old Spice alongside his blotter. Gutierrez scooped up a handful of pills and downed them with water. “My stomach, you see,” he muttered as he patted his thin middle.

Julio noticed a tossed blanket lying on a leather sofa beneath the window. Masking his distaste for the man, Zayas pretended sympathy. “Ahhh yes, stomach problems can be a curse.”

Gutierrez stared hard into his eyes as if to read the level of his sincerity. “Yes…started with acid and turned into a nasty ulcer. This job doesn’t help. And it doesn’t help that these missing Americans have failed to surface.” Gutierrez paused to let his lie sink in, and as he did so, he tore open a fresh cigar and began sucking on it. “Tell Mr. Zayas, Peña, what you’ve found.”

Peña cleared his throat and preened about the room like a bandy rooster having gobbled a fat worm. He slapped the file onto the table before Julio and announced, “It appears two American fellows purchased a case of rum, rented a car, and went into the hinterlands.”

Julio studied the single page report Peña had developed. It indicated a pair of ‘witnesses’ to this and a copy of two cash receipts stapled to the form—no signatures, no names. “How can you be sure this is my two Americans?”

Peña laughed. “Who else? Few Americans come to Cuba, and they were picked out from a photo array.”

“Americans come to Cuba…they do careless things,” said Gutierrez, “but after they’re finished sleeping it off, you will see…they will turn up.”

“Then you don’t think we at the American Interest Section should worry or let the relatives know that their sons are missing?”

Gutierrez carefully snipped off the end of his cigar, his eyes riveted to the task. “That would be premature, Mr. Zayas.”

Julio knew that the captain’s attention to his Corona—a ritual—was either a delaying or a concealing tactic. “And the Canadian woman?”

His eyes still averted, the colonel fumbled with his lighter and finally lit his cigar, sending up a cloud of smoke to a dark circle overhead. “Our suspicion is that the woman actually initiated this foolish adventure, telling no one of their plans.” He leaned back in his chair, which squeaked in protest, and spread his hands wide before adding, “You know how women can be, how easily men are led.”

Peña added, “There is so much to see and do outside Havana that invites exploration. Cuba is, after all, a tropical paradise.”

“Like a beautiful exotic woman, Cuba is mesmerizing,” added Gutierrez, “so one must accept that young people succumb to her allure.”

So much bullshit, Julio thought. It became increasingly clear that these two were not going to find the missing doctors, nor was this meeting going anywhere, just as he’d predicted.

Julio leaned back in his chair, steepling his hands beneath his chin. He inhaled deeply and was immediately sorry. The acrid combination of men’s cologne, stale cigars, overflowing ashtray, and just a hint of alcohol on Peña’s breath stung Julio’s eyes, nose, and throat. “I came to learn what you know of the missing Americans, but I see you still have no idea where they are.”

“We are doing all we can to locate dos hombres Americanos.”

“You leave me no choice but to contact authorities in America. I don’t think their relatives will treat this so lightly,” he paused for effect, before adding, “gentlemen.”

“Do what you must…but you’ll just look foolish in the end,” warned Gutierrez. “They’ll surface soon.”

Puppet-like, Peña added, “You know, Mr. Zayas, if you take premature steps, it can only harm everyone involved, from the missing young people to the unnecessary heartache you’ll cause their relatives back home. Trust us. We’ll continue our search both here and throughout the provinces. Rest assured, we’ll keep you informed.”

“Yes,” added Gutierrez, “the moment we learn where they are, you’ll be the first person we call. I like you, Zayas, your style, your enthusiasm for your work. Believe me, we have seen this sort of thing before. It’s not uncommon in Cuba for tourists to wander off only to resurface in a day or two. Give it time is all we ask.” Gutierrez reached a cigar-filled hand to his throbbing head, and for just a moment Julio fleetingly hoped his hair would catch fire.

Peña leaned in close to Zayas and said, “Our poor country roads here…they get washed out, cars, you know, they break down.”

Gutierrez piped in. “Any number of things happen here that you Americans cannot appreciate, given all that you have.”

“A phone and TV in every home,” complained Peña.

“Triple-A towing,” added Gutierrez.

“Convenience marts—“

“—ample petroleum everywhere—“

“—and a NAPA auto parts place on every corner.”

Julio shook his head in consternation. “So why hasn’t any one of these three professional people—doctors, responsible for people’s lives, made a single attempt to contact Dr. Cortez? Why?”

“Ahhh… but once again, you’re making an assumption that this is America with phones everywhere. It’s not the same here; we’re a poor country with few resources.”

“Have you contacted provincial authorities across the island?”

“Of course, we’ve canvassed the entire country,” replied Gutierrez.

Peña added, “This’s why we suspect they’re in an inaccessible area.”

“All right… I think I’ve heard enough.” Zayas stood to leave, knowing he could not take another breath in the stifling office.

“So what will you do now, Mr. Zayas?” asked Gutierrez.

“I’ll do my duty, sir. I will do my duty. Now…good day.”

15

Carrying their hospital cafeteria trays, Dr. Benilo led Qui to his favorite patio corner and lunchtime retreat. “Watch.” He crumbled and tossed bits of bread and crackers saved for him by the cafeteria staff, who enjoyed his daily routine nearly as much as he did. A flock of small birds immediately swooped down and attacked the gift. Surprising to those who didn’t see past his arrogant gruffness, Arturo took a childlike delight in seeing the birds squabble over the offering, the corners of his eyes creasing with his smile. Qui, too, delighted in their antics and began tossing bits of her sandwich to the visitors.

“What do you think the SP hopes to accomplish in making off with the bodies?” she asked. “Damn it, even here in Cuba, it’s a crime to tamper with evidence in a murder investigation.”

“I suspect the Secret Police will report that they’re conducting their own investigation, using that incompetent lout, Dr. Gomez Trebeca—hardly more than a mortician.”

“I thought such blatant manipulations a thing of the past.” Qui sipped at her soft drink. “I can’t believe this is happening on my first major case.”

A squabble of some sort broke out among the birds, momentarily distracting their discussion.

“Believe it, Quiana. Happens more than you can imagine.”

“That’s madness. We—you and me—the entire crew of the Sanabela, Tino, Sergio…we all saw—”

“I know, I know, but the next time you speak to Estrada and any of his crewmen, you may find them suddenly deaf and dumb—or gone to Miami.”

“Among the vanished, as they feared.”

“This is why we must be cautious; we can’t let anyone know how much evidence we have. I must continue to play the befuddled old man, and you…sorry, but you must continue to play the incompetent woman Gutierrez is convinced you are.”

“That won’t be hard to do,” she replied and chuckled.

Even more noise arose from the birds, demanding their attention. Arturo pointed to the appearance of an orange cat slinking toward the feeding birds. “We must be more sly than that feral cat, or else the SP will soon be onto us too, heh?”

“Aha, this is how you got ahead and have remained on top.”

“Sometimes to succeed, we must assume a persona at odds with our own integrity. It’s a calculated pretense, necessary for survival.”

Suddenly the birds succeeded in driving the cat into hiding. “In nature, those who cooperate will often overcome a much larger foe.”

Long before now, it’d dawned on Qui that what she’d originally thought a bad case of paranoia in an old man, had all along been justified. “Of course, I understand. I’ll do everything by the book, but I’ll also keep my true investigation between us.”

Tossing the final piece of bread to the birds, Benilo calmly said, “Consider yourself initiated into Cuban politics—-a dance with this devil.”

“So teach me to dance.”

“The trick is to come away from the dance without being corrupted—no easy thing to do. And this dance so far has been deadly.” He stopped speaking, his eyes telegraphing a new concern as he laid a single finger across his lips, the gesture of silence. He lifted his tray and loudly proclaimed, “I have told you all I know, Lieutenant. Now please, I have a great deal of work to do.” As he stepped around her chair, in a slight whisper, he added, “Behind you…be careful…” Benilo entered the cafeteria and disappeared.

Qui rose and casually turned. Putting her dishes on her tray, she glanced around the patio.

Oh no, it’s Montoya! Damn! Forgot he was coming! And he’s only here because I bullied him into it! Now what?

Montoya had been sitting nearby in the crowded patio area when he heard Benilo call out her title. The moment he realized the old ME was speaking to Qui, Montoya approached her, saying, “What is this, a scavenger hunt? I come to help you out, and I can’t even find you! Don’t you think my time is valuable?”

Her sense of guilt slowly retreated as her frustration with his behavior rose. “Oh…gee…sweetheart, I meant to call you but Dr. Benilo is so…slow, you know, and he kept me.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve heard he’s slowed down. However, a simple call would’ve have saved me the trip. Who suffers from this? My patients, that’s who.”

“But you have to admit, it’s nice to meet like this at mid-day. Have you had lunch yet? Can I buy you—”

“Never mind that. Take me to the dead woman and let’s get this over with.”

“Ahhh…as it happens, I don’t need you anymore.”

“What? Whataya mean you don’t need me anymore?”

She thought hard about what her reply to this should be. “Some time this morning, Dr. Benilo learned the identity of all three victims, thanks to a missing persons report filed by Peña.”

“See…I told you…Peña is the man for this case.”

“Montoya, why are you being mean when all I’m trying to do is be nice? To make up for not calling you.”

“Oh…well, I guess it couldn’t be helped, but you really did pull me away from important matters.” He pulled out his cell phone and began punching numbers. “I’ll just call my clinic, let them know I’m on my way back.”

She stopped his hand and smiled suggestively. “If lunch doesn’t interest you, Estaban…perhaps I can?”

Back in his office, Dr. Arturo Benilo listened to his favorite Maurice Jarre composition. He stared into a folder at the stapled photo of the mangled remains of the dead Canadian girl—photos he’d taken aboard the Sanabela. She looked so slight, so small, so sad, and so innocent here on the computer monitor. In the missing persons photo, the open smile and animation in her face reminded him of Quiana. He’d already placed her age near Quiana’s, and he wondered what else the two might have in common when a knock at his open door announced Qui Aguilera’s return.

“Ahhh…you’re back! Come take a look,” he said from his desk, as he swiveled the monitor.

She leaned in over his desk, facing the computer monitor, taking in the sounds of Jarre as she studied the images taken with his digital camera. Benilo clicked through image after image of the dead. As the photo array continued, Qui considered the depth of grief awaiting Denise’s parents. “The parents’ll want details, you know. The kind of mischief that brought Denise to this end.”

“Yes, one of my hardest duties…dealing with the loved ones.”

With the music still wafting through the office, the two sat lost in private thought.

Qui had earlier left the hotel where she and Montoya had made an attempt at a passionate afternoon tryst that turned rather languorous instead. In fact, Montoya, worn out by her exuberance from the night before, had fallen into what seemed a coma right about the time he’d climaxed. She’d left him back at the hotel slumbering like some Iguana in the sun. As usual, he’d come first, leaving her wondering if this man would ever satisfy her needs before his own. The disappointing afternoon rendezvous created a desire to rush back and bury herself in her work. Naturally, she’d returned to Benilo’s morgue.

The ME sat watching her sad features. “I saw you go off with Montoya. So are you seeing him, you know, personally?”

“Well actually…Estaban thinks we ought to be married.”

“Really…he thinks so, heh? What do you think?”

“I think I really should call him and maybe talk,” she muttered.

“But why? You just left him, no?”

“Well…ahhh…you see, ahhh it’s like, you know, I left him asleep and maybe I shouldn’t’ve.”

“Shouldn’t’ve left him asleep…or shouldn’t’ve left him? Which is it?”

“He’s bound to be angry, just leaving him that way. He spoke of dinner tonight and mentioned something special, a gift. Perhaps a ring….”

“He has a steady income, position. He’s reasonably attractive. A woman could do far worse than to marry him.”

“You couldn’t possibly understand—you’re a man.”

Benilo laughed at this. “I think the real question here, Quiana, is do love him?”

She immediately and emphatically replied, “Short answer? No.”

“And the long answer?”

“We’re good friends, but right now, that’s all we are.”

“Hmmm…I myself…I was never able to settle for friendship either. From an outsider’s viewpoint, I can only say, time is often the best path to follow.”

She began walking in a small circle, reminding him once again of her mother, Rafaela, muttering to herself, “I don’t want to hurt him, but…I don’t want to be anyone’s little woman or even a doctor’s wife. I’m a detective. I have a right to my own career.”

Benilo stood, put his coffee cup aside, and walked to where she paced. He stretched out a hand to her and softly patted her shoulder. “Just call him, cancel dinner. Give yourself all the time you need.”

“Sure and while I’m at it, I’ll say I solved the whole damn case, so he can stop worrying,” she joked.

“How can such a retiring woman as you be so worrisome to Dr. Montoya?” he teased. “In the meantime, we do have a case to solve.”

She gritted her teeth in response as she pulled out her cell phone. The Jarre composition ended, replaced by Hans Zimmer’s score for the film Blackhawk Down. The title amused Qui as it reminded her of the spluttering relationship with the black-haired Montoya still asleep at the hotel. The title also recalled her father’s latest photography project, black and white images of the hawks of Cuba.

“Oh…by the way…I want you to come tomorrow to our Miramar house.”

“Really…and why?”

“We’re celebrating my father’s birthday.”

He stared noncommittally at her, and then raised his shoulders and eyebrows at once. “After so many years? Would I be welcome?”

“Absolutely, yes! My father has never spoken ill of you.”

“All right…perhaps it is time, after all.”

“Yes! Time for you two old friends to reunite,” she effusively said. “Besides, Doctor, I want you there.”

He smiled at this.

“Besides…if you are there, maybe he won’t press me about dropping the case.”

“Perhaps, I can make him understand that this case needs us both.”

The sounds of Zimmer rose and fell in the background. She attempted getting Montoya on the phone, but he wasn’t answering. She left a message that she wouldn’t be seeing him tonight, explaining that she’d promised to spend time with her girlfriend Liliana instead. It was as good an excuse to gain some time away from Estaban as any.

16

Saturday night at the Palacio

She moves like a professional dancer far more than she does a cop, Julio Roberto Zayas thought again as he watched the woman on the Palacio’s dance floor. He recalled her from that moment their eyes had met at the Capitol Police Headquarters the first time he’d gone there.

The music, fast and loud, pulsated with a tempo that made it hard to resist moving. The rhythms invited everyone onto the floor, making it impossible not to move. She had partnered with two loud guys, each wearing a tropical shirt taken to the extreme—blindingly bright, patterned with flowers of blood red, mango orange, and canary yellow. Zayas felt a bit surprised she’d chosen to dance with these two, as she seemed more discriminating and professional in her own dress and demeanor, but it became increasingly clear that she enjoyed joking with this pair, calling one Enrique the other Pedro. Maybe it was their dance skill, something Zayas had been polishing lately with the lovely blonde blue-eyed Liliana, a dance instructor at the hotel. On the dance floor, he felt less foreign, and it made up for his failure to jog since leaving Miami several weeks earlier.

Convinced he’d gone unnoticed where he sat off the end of the bar half hidden behind some sort of potted plant, he sipped at the hotel’s specialty drink—a papaya and mango daiquiri. After a day of bureaucratic double-talk, he felt comfortable in this dark corner booth that’d lately become his evening lair. Is it mere coincidence that the lovely detective should show up here, or is this fate?

From where Zayas sat, his back to the wall, he commanded a clear view of both bar and dance floor. His trip to the Excalibre with its unsavory managers fresh in mind, he couldn’t help but feel a creeping paranoia. A paranoia that he instinctively knew affected a man’s behavior; he hoped such foolishness would not surface when he sought out the pretty PNR officer—something he’d been contemplating since watching her dance.

Graceful, lithe, sultry—interesting, very interesting. Now if I can just convince her to like me. Still watching her dance, he wondered if she were still armed. When all he saw proved soft contours without a single telltale bulge, Julio decided she was unarmed. For the moment, he sat content, nursing his drink and watching the action—her action in particular. Damn, she recalled to his mind the proud, distinctive walk of a young Sophia Loren, a real beauty in her day. Another thing he missed about Miami—his collection of classic films.

“Another?” the cute dark-eyed waitress inquired, her features painted with the brush of fatigue. She’d been his waitress several times here in the bar, and he had begun to feel he knew her. “Lucinda, you’re yawning. End of your shift?”

“Damn, do I look that tired? Did double duty today. Restaurant, now here.” She sighed, then added, “Long day. You?”

“Nothing but frustration the entire day.”

“Some days are like that.

“Something in the air maybe.”

“Yeah, like this heat!” She laughed. “Refill for your troubles?”

“No refill just yet,” he replied with a smile. “Check me later.”

Despite the combined pleas for just one more dance from the two young peacocks, the police woman left them standing on the dance floor. They brought to mind a pair of hungry howler monkeys in a zoo, Julio thought nastily. Inexplicably proud of her dance skill, he felt secretly glad the two monkeys had been rebuffed. She joined Liliana, his dance instructor, at a table where the two obvious friends shared drinks and a laugh.

As he watched Liliana place a cigarette to her lips and reach for matches, a hand with a lighter appeared along with a Rolex Submariner watch, the anniversary edition with the green bezel. The man’s booming voice carried across the room to Zayas, his Texas accent a giveaway to his American roots.

“Hello little darlin’s,” the tourist said, his eyes glued to Liliana’s companion, an errant hand squeezing her exposed shoulder. The detective immediately reacted, brushing the hand away. “And can I light your fire, too, Miss, Miss?” He stared down at her, his eyes roaming.

Kind of creep who gives Americans a bad name, especially here in Cuba—pushy jerk with more money than sense. Even from across the room, Zayas grimaced at his countryman’s bad lines.

“I don’t smoke,” she replied staring back.

“Quiana,” said Liliana, “this is Mr. Colton, the man I told you about yesterday.” Liliana smiled up at the man.

“Ahhh…yes, the American.”

“Ahhh, so you’ve been talking about me? This is a good thing. I watched you dance, Miss,” he said to Quiana, “and I gotta tell you, you really know how to move—move a man, that is!”

“Thank you.” Now go away, said her tone.

“Rumba, tango?” asked Liliana, offering her hand. “If you wish to learn the dances of passion, Mr. Colton, from the best in Havana, I am at your disposal. And you can teach me all about America.”

“I think that can be arranged, but your friend here,” he paused to glance at Qui, “Ms. Aguilera, must agree to have dinner with me.”

“How do you know my name?” instantly on alert Qui demanded, her voice cool and imperious.

“Information around the hotel is cheap.”

Tiring of the direction of the conversation at Liliana’s table, Zayas motioned Lucinda back from the bar with a wave and said, “See Liliana and her friend over there?” he indicated their direction.

Glancing over, she nodded and replied, “Yeah. That creep’s a real jerk. He was hitting on me earlier. Know what he asked?”

“What?”

“If he could take me to dinner when my shift was up; said his money could buy us both pleasure. Crude.” She smiled at him, then added, “Not a bit like you.”

“Then, let’s see if we can make the jerk leave. Send a round of drinks to the ladies, and make it clear that they came from me.”

“Okay. Your money, your trouble,” she grinned at him. “One Havana Especiale for Quiana and a virgin Daiquiri for Liliana.”

“So, her name is Quiana? What can you tell me about her?”

“Well, she’s Liliana’s friend, loves to dance, and is a PNR officer. Comes from old money, but she’s OK.”

“Is she married?”

“Not yet. Why? You interested?”

“Could be. Maybe. Possibly.”

“She dates a doctor, but he never comes ‘round here. Liliana can’t stand him. He’s a phony like Liliana’s dance partner.”

“Ahh, yes. And has Liliana’s partner, the popular, always-late Antonio, arrived yet?”

“As usual, delayed at his makeup table!” They both laughed at the common joke about Antonio’s habitual narcissism.

“Time I ate dinner. Better bring me my tab.”

“Still on American time, I see. You can carry the tab into the restaurant,” she suggested.

“Rather settle up here first. See if the jerk leaves.”

She nodded in understanding. “Be right back.”

He watched her deliver and serve the drinks to Quiana and Liliana. By this time, the American had insinuated himself further by sitting at their table. All three followed Lucinda’s finger when Qui asked who’d sent drinks. A smiling Zayas raised his glass in acknowledgement as he rose from his semi-hidden table to his full height. The tourist got the silent message—a code between men—and in a moment the American bid a quick and polite good evening to the women.

While Qui sat expressionless, Liliana’s features spelled gratitude as she motioned Julio Zayas to their table.

Leaving money on the table, Julio picked up his drink and walked over. As he approached, Liliana smiled up at him and said, “Jazzy, I didn’t see you over there! Bad boy, hiding! Come, join us. This is my friend, Quiana. She’s a new Lieutenant Detective and insists she doesn’t like Americans, but don’t let that fool you, she’s really very nice! Quiana, this is—”

“Julio Zayas, also known as JZ or Jazzy among friends,” he quickly added, extending his hand to Qui.

“You’re among friends now, Jazzy!” replied Liliana, bubbling over.

Qui offered a brief smile, and said, “You’re the new security officer with the American Interest Section. You were at the stationhouse the other day…Peña’s missing persons case.”

Surprised she’d remembered him, JZ smiled before replying, “I noticed you, too. You work cases with Peña?”

“So far, thankfully, no.”

“Good. I can’t imagine a less pleasant experience, except maybe dealing with your colonel!”

Liliana laughed at the characterization, while Qui raised her glass in a toast. The three drank to the colonel’s health. Then another pseudo toast to Peña’s health.

When the glasses were lowered, Qui said, “Thank you for the drinks. Should I call you ‘Jazzy’ or JZ?”

“I answer to either.”

“You two met at the jail?” Liliana teased. “Not in a cellblock, I hope!”

“Nooo,” they chorused in unison, a bit louder than necessary. JZ said, “Actually, this is our first real introduction.”

“All right, Liliana,” began Qui, “now tell me how you two met.”

“Well, Jazzy’s been taking dance lessons here at the hotel,” Liliana paused, “and now he’s rescued you from that letch everyone’s calling Maui Jim.”

“Colton? The guy who was just here?” Qui asked, her eyes wide. “One more touchy-touchy and I’d’ve put him on the floor!”

“I’d’ve paid to see that,” said JZ, which made Liliana burst into laughter.

Between gasps, Liliana said, “Instead, JZ, our hero, ran him off before he became any more vulgar!”

“Rescuing damsels—part of my resume. Actually, the man was very rude.”

“So now we’re indebted to you, Mr. Zayas,” Qui replied rather formally.

“No indebtedness, not my intention. I, too, dislike pushy people.”

Liliana reminded him, “Besides, rescuing ladies is part of your job description, right?”

“I’m sure this is a habit with Mr. Zayas,” said Qui, “You American men’re always swooping in to save us poor, weak, defenseless women.”

JZ was disappointed at the taunt, caught off guard, and unsure how to respond to this challenge.

“Sounds romantic to me, JZ, but with Qui here, you can do all the swooping and swooning you want, but when her duty calls, forget about it,” Liliana laughed again, “she’s all business!”

Qui glared at her friend but decided not to chide Liliana for her zeal, settling for a kick under the table.

“So I take it, you don’t like ‘knights in white satin’ stories?” asked JZ, catching Liliana’s lighthearted mood.

Qui frowned. “The time of knights is long gone.”

“I should think my shiny armor at least good enough to have earned me a dinner with you, lieutenant is it?” JZ asked.

Qui’s eyes lit with fire. “A moment ago, I was in no one’s debt—least that’s what I heard.”

“C’mon, join me for dinner; I’ll pay. I’m still a stranger here and eating alone is getting really old.” He flashed his best smile at her. “Besides, I’m one of the last of the good guys.” He looked from one to the other, noting their expressions. Qui’s smile was reserved, polite. A feeling of distance had come between them, and any camaraderie they’d earlier shared had dissipated. He decided this was her leftover antipathy toward the lecherous tourist.

“Dinner? Dinner…” she’d sat musing over the word. “Well as to that, they tell me the baked lobster here is terrific, and that it is best consumed in private, due to the mess you make devouring it.”

He caught the slight twinkle in her eye as she suggested this. She had beautiful dark eyes.

“Qui, how mean of you!” Liliana burst out. “Don’t listen to her, Jazzy. The lobster’s perfectly dreadful. No real Cubanos eat here.”

“Is the food that bad?” asked JZ, easily taking direction from Liliana. “My breakfasts have been OK.”

“Breakfast food is not the same, not like real Cuban food,” countered Liliana. “Trust me, the food here is much too bland. Don’t eat here. Take Qui elsewhere.”

“So where should we eat?” he asked, his eyes meeting Qui’s as he and Liliana plotted dinner.

“Qui, take him to the Professor’s,” encouraged Liliana. “Go. Call and see if they have room.”

“The Professor’s?” he asked.

“It’s a paladares. Haven’t you been to one yet?”

“No. Not sure I’d be welcome, or how you go about it.”

“For extra money, believe me, you’d be welcome. It’s a private home where they serve dinner to tourists,” explained Qui.

“They’re usually excellent, better than the hotels and restaurants.” Liliana added, “This is at the Varela’s, they’re both professors at the university…friends of ours.”

“Offering a few dinners a month to tourists gets them more than their salaries,” Qui added. “They both love to cook, so I don’t understand why they don’t quit their jobs and do this fulltime.”

Liliana checked her watch. “It’s not so late, Qui! Go call! Take Jazzy. He’ll enjoy the food and the company.”

JZ waited for Quiana’s response. From the look on her face, she’d been caught off guard by this exchange between him and the ever-impulsive Liliana. He worried that Qui now felt obligated to go to dinner.

Seeing her discomfort, JZ offered her an easy out. “Look, I really am hungry, but if this is a bad time, I’ll just eat here and avoid the lobster.” He shrugged offhandedly. “Anyway, I’ll soon be ready for sleep.”

“No, no, no!” Liliana erupted. “If you are sleepy, the Professor’s food will wake you up, for sure.”

Qui added, “It is spicy.”

“I’ve been told everything in Cuba’s spicy,” he replied. Qui shot him a sharp look to which he just smiled.

“It is a bad thing only if you like everything bland—like American dancing and American processed food,” Qui retorted.

“Qui! Be nice to JZ,” Liliana demanded. “He’s new here.”

“Have you ever been to America?” he asked Qui point blank.

“No, I confess, I’ve never been; I’ve been spared that much.”

“Ahhh…then all you know about America and Americans is second hand? Stories told by your parents perhaps?”

“My mother is dead, and my father has no time for storytelling.”

“Then where do you get your notions of America?”

“We get American movies here,” said Liliana. “I love them!”

“Ahhh…American cinema, of course, and I suppose you think we all do drugs and carry guns and live in mansions?”

An audible and annoyed hummmph escaped Qui. “Well, sir, you are in a Cuban mansion—the Swiss Embassy—most of the day.”

“Ahhh, the ‘star’ of our show has finally arrived,” said Liliana seeing her dance partner, Antonio, finally make his entrance. “I gotta leave you two and go to work. Qui, call the Varelas. Now!” Liliana danced into Antonio’s arms. The change in the lighting and music signaled the beginning of the night’s entertainment.

JZ smiled at Qui, who returned an exasperated look. “Why won’t you have dinner with me?” he asked, casting aside any earlier pretense of begging off.

Qui pouted. “I have work to do, and you are too forward.”

“I know you can’t be working in that outfit. If you want, we could eat here.” Grinning he added, “We could share the lobster!”

This suggestion only made her shudder. “No lobster here, never!”

“OK, so what harm is there in dining with me? You’ll be safe. I promise I won’t bite, nibble perhaps a little, but no biting.” His eyes shone with humor.

“You might lose something valuable, talking like that. Remember Maui Jim? I was on the verge of decking him when you sent the drinks over.”

“I sensed that. I’m psychic that way. It’s on my resume, too. You needn’t fear me.”

“Fear you? That’s just nonsense. Besides, even—”

“You don’t need protection?”

“Will you quit finishing my sentences for me? You’ll have to stop that—”

“Annoying habit, I know. Sorry.”

“You’re doing it even as you apologize.”

“But I am sorry.”

“You ought to be.”

“Besides?” he asked.

“Besides what?”

“Besides—you were about to say besides something when I interrupted.”

“Oh…besides…besides, I am not sure a woman who is seeing a man exclusively ought be seen with another man—alone—in a hotel—eating lobster.”

“Oh, I see. I had thought Cuban women more ahhh…”

“Adventurous? Loose, perhaps?”

“Liberated.” He laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Now you’re finishing my sentences. Must be contagious.”

“That’s not funny. At all.” She smiled in spite of herself.

“Look, I’m famished. Let’s just eat, anywhere. Please, my treat.”

He started to stand, but she grabbed his arm, pulling him down. “Wait…have you seen Liliana and Antonio dance? They’re so good together.”

The dance music had started, and as he turned to watch, the two began a slow tango. Languorously slow. Antonio and Liliana moved around and about one another like two birds in flight but of one mind. A study in seduction, arms sliding, lightly touching, eyes full of promise, legs entwining. Qui was right. They expressed the passion and essence of the very word tango in a way that compelled JZ’s eyes to watch. He simply could not do otherwise. “I love the tango,” he whispered in Qui’s ear.

“Yes, so do I.”

“It’s like watching an unfolding poem this dance, a poem of movement set to music. It’s like…like fine—”

“—fine sex,” she said, “I know.”

“Wine…I was about to say wine, but frankly, you’re more on target.”

“In life the dance is everything.” Her eyes never leaving the dancing pair, she added, “Life and death and everything in between, it’s all a tango.”

“Like good literature, yes.”

“Yes. What we do with the time between the dates on our tombstones, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah…I think I do.”

She laughed lightly. “Or something like that.”

After a few moments, JZ realized he’d better start talking before his body responded to this incredible display of stylized foreplay on the dance floor, and the surprising turn of words at the table whispered between them. He wondered just how devoted she was to this boyfriend she’d mentioned. All of this colored by the scent of her enticing perfume.

“You’re right, they’re very good,” he commented on the dancers while staring at Qui, who also watched the floorshow in rapt attention, lips slightly parted.
While JZ wanted to touch her cheek and trace her full lips with a finger, instead he reached over and laid a hand on her arm, discovering warm, soft skin.

“Shall we—”

“—dance? No one dances when Antonio is on the floor. Unwritten law.”

“Then shall we go?”

She smiled, back in character. “Yes, I’m hungry now.”

17

JZ met the Varelas, a large gregarious family, who indeed routinely turned their home into a restaurant of Cuban cuisine. They liberally plied JZ and Qui with all manner of delicacies and specialties: fried plantains, black beans and rice, yucca, boliche, tomatoes with fresh cilantro, finishing with flan.

“Now this is Cuban food with attitude,” Qui told JZ.

“Agreed, Liliana didn’t exaggerate,” he replied. “The food’s great, and I’m stuffed.” The Varelas’s meal proved the best JZ’d had since he’d arrived in Havana. Having paid outrageous prices at the Palacio, he gave the Varelas the equivalent even though they insisted no charge for a friend of Quiana’s.

For JZ there was so much in the experience beyond the meal itself. He’d been openly welcomed into the Varela home, and it had afforded him the opportunity to watch Qui in a family setting. He enjoyed watching her delight in this simple exchange. At the same time, the Varelas took enormous delight in cooking and in pleasing their guests. By the time they sliced into the flan, JZ felt he’d devoured enough for the rest of the week.

Swallowing the last of his dessert, JZ groaned. “Ahhh… now I really need to begin jogging again.”

“The Malecon’s great for a morning jog or the beach sand! That’s a real workout.”

The talk, laughter, and camaraderie made JZ feel like a stray taken in and surrounded with sustenance for body and spirit—something he’d not felt since arriving in Cuba, the entire experience a welcome surprise. “This hospitality…so unexpected in a communist country, closed in so many ways,” JZ said quietly.

“You see how Cubans radiate a love of life—”

“Yes, an openness, a spirit of giving that I find pleasantly surprising.”

“—this spirit exists, but your American prejudices can blind you to it.”

On a deeper level, JZ, while not fully understanding the complexity of this woman, had seen beyond her professional veneer to her spirit. Further, this evening clearly illustrated how caring and trusting relationships in this tortured paradise could be. As a result, JZ privately conceded his own preconceived notions of Cuba and its people. While he was himself Cuban-American, having grown up in Miami, he had a great deal to learn about Cuba and its people.

When finally they escaped the ‘clutches’ of the Varela family and stood in the cool night air, Qui turned and said to him, “I will never go hungry for food or friends.”

“Absolutely. I can see why.”

“Now you’re not gonna say awe-some, are you? Spare me.”

They laughed at this.

Taking her hand in his, he kissed it, all the while staring into her dark eyes. “A tarnished knight, thanking you for a lovely evening.”

She slightly laughed and then JZ did the unexpected. He turned her hand and kissed her palm; he next lightly kissed her fingertips—his hot breath penetrating her skin. Taken aback by the depth of her response, Qui’s skin flushed, her breathing stopped, and her pulse raced. His seductive overture felt right between them. She couldn’t’ve predicted her reaction to his gambit, and could not help but wonder how his lips might feel against hers. Nervous, she laughed a bit, unsure what to say. She turned to hide her reaction, declaring, “It’s late. I-I should get you back.”

As she fidgeted with the key in the car door, he placed a gentle hand on her arm and turned her round to face him. She tried avoiding his eyes, but a mere fingertip was all it took to raise her face. Softly, he said, “I just want to say I’ve had a lovely evening. Thank you, Qui.”

She felt his closeness, the warmth of his breath. “You still prove my point about Americans,” she said, trying to dispel the mood between them.

“Americans? What do you mean?”

“You’re…you take too many liberties, JZ.”

He took a long moment to examine her eyes. Then taking a step back, he said, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable; I certainly didn’t intend that.” He shrugged, grinned wolfishly at her, and raised both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “Sorry if my nibble turned into a bite, but you are… hard to resist.”

Taking a deep breath, Qui acknowledged his comment with a half-smile. “It’s been…a very pleasant evening. Food was great…good company…I love the Valeras….” Qui realized she’d begun to babble like a teenager on a first date. She struggled to regain composure. “Look JZ…ahhh, it’s really late and…and we’ve had more wine than we ought’ve, and it’s a beautiful night with the sea breeze…but you and I… we come from different worlds. I can’t be getting involved with you.”

“Is that because you’re already involved?”

“Yes, in part.”

“And the other part?”

“You’re American and I’m Cuban. World’s apart.”

“Ahhh but the world’s getting smaller every day,” JZ countered. “Look, I hope this guy of yours knows how lucky he is. Hope he appreciates you.”

This made her think of the last time she’d seen Montoya—earlier, asleep at the Santa Isabela. Her face softened with an inscrutable Mona Lisa smile.

“OK…right…” he stammered, unhappy at her reaction, resignedly going around the car for the passenger seat. “So then… you’d best drop me at the Palacio.”

Qui slide into the driver’s seat, wishing she didn’t have to share such intimate space with this intriguing man. She nervously fidgeted with the radio and mirror. They shared few words on the drive, Qui playing the role of a tour guide, pointing out places of interest. When the car stopped at the hotel, they looked across at one another—a fire building again, but she quickly dispelled it, saying, “Good night, JZ. We’ll no doubt see one another again.”

“When?” he eagerly asked.

“On the dance floor, perhaps.”

“I’d love to share a dance with you, and again, I had a wonderful evening.” He lingered even though he realized she’d already closed the door on anything so personal as a goodnight kiss. “Thank you for dinner.”

“For what? You paid.”

“For showing me the real Cuba, and for feeding me well.”

“Ahhh…yes, agreed. You do owe me a debt of gratitude for that, but why try to repay it?” she half joked.

“I mean it, sincerely.” He slipped from the car, quickly came around to her open window, and leaned in to add, “I’d invite you in for a nightcap, but I know you’re tired.”

She nodded. “To say the least.”

He stepped away from the car and watched her little black Peugeot speed off into the neon-lit darkness of Havana.

A short while after climbing into bed, JZ’s last thoughts centered on Qui’s smile, the soft hand he’d caressed with his lips, her sexy dancing, and the fun they’d shared with the Varela family. Any personal involvement with Quiana Aguilera, he feared could get him replaced, but he’d been so enraptured by how she’d moved on the dance floor, and how her eyes sparkled when she laughed, that the risk-taker in him was willing to take that chance. That part of him wished that Qui was with him now, in his arms, warm and soft. His more rational side knew intuitively there was truth in what she’d earlier said about their being from different worlds; regardless of his attraction, she embodied certain danger on more than one level, not unlike the deep Havana itself. As when she danced, ebbing, flowing, calm and beautiful, the next moment spirited and unfathomable. She might so easily, casually destroy a man, at least emotionally. Still, JZ found reason to chuckle aloud at his attraction to the Cubano who didn’t like Americans. Even as a child, he’d liked playing with fire.

JZ knew full well the kind of skewed portrait of America and Americans Qui had grown up with. Layer that with a restless undercurrent in this passionate woman and JZ had to wonder if he were up to the task of changing this interesting and complex woman’s mindset.

Still, he intuitively sensed that part of her reserve was meant to keep him at arm’s distance, a familiar self-protective feminine pose. The chip on her shoulder was understandable, reflecting her frustration with her department, with which he’d himself so recently done battle. Just the brief encounter he’d had with Gutierrez and Peña pissed him off to no end.

Her stance toward Americans was certainly validated by such men as the so-called Maui Jim as well. Still, the attitude seemed a long-standing one, perhaps ingrained in youth, perhaps from a lifetime of seeing adversarial US-Cuban relations. The state-run media was suffused with a politically correct, anti-American posture, but JZ knew—even with his limited time in Cuba—that most of the population, like Liliana, desperately wanted to find a way to America and opportunity. While a few thought that open relations with the US would jump-start Cuba’s sagging economy, others believed that only the politicians and the rich would benefit, not unlike the situation in Mexico since NAFTA. However, at this moment, the only thing filling his mind was her face.

Qui, lying in bed at home, stared up at the ceiling fan, which whirled much like her emotions, as she recalled the evening. She couldn’t remember a time on the town with Montoya where she’d been made to feel as appreciated as she’d felt tonight.

What an old-fashioned thing to do kissing the back of my hand. Then there was that thing he did with his breath against my skin. Thank God, he didn’t know what an effect he’d evoked. If so, I might not be in this empty bed just thinking about him. JZ, mister Americano, you are not at all what I expected. But what did I expect from a security officer in the American Interest Section?

With this last question, a creeping doubt came over her as to his motives. A cop’s suspicion. He was, after all, interested in locating two missing Americans. Is it possible, she asked herself, that this is what he’d truly wanted from her? Information? Had he all along simply been doing his job tonight? It was a consideration she could not shake, and in fact, she’d be disappointed in him if there were no truth to it…and then again, she’d be disappointed in him to learn that it was true—that his interest in her was a cover for his interest in her case. “Qui, stop thinking and analyzing everything!” With this, exhausted, she fell asleep with the memory of Julio Zayas’s sea-green eyes watching her.

18

The next day, Sunday, Miramar district, Havana

Hearing chirping overhead, Tomaso Aguilera squinted up through the thin leaves of the lemon tree and into the brilliant blue sky. His hands juggled three flowerpots at the same time as he watched an advancing rare-for-its-size cloud of magnificent black birds, flying in formation—darting left here, right there—as if of one mind. He dropped the flowerpots, breaking two, in order to grab his latest toy, a digital Nikon, to get a shot of the passing parade overhead.

The birds did not disappoint. While individual birds at a distance could be hard to see, a mere dot on the horizon, a flock this size created an iridescent blue-black ribbon that made for a dazzling aerial dance of solidarity not to be missed. The creatures soon disappeared into the safe Miramar forest canopy as immediately as they’d appeared. He’d only the single instant to get off a single shot. As a professional photographer, he knew he’d captured something, but exactly what must remain a mystery until later when, using his computer, he’d convert the digital image on his screen. Until then, Tomaso could only hope he’d captured the splendor of the aerial tango. He thought of this just as a lone bird came into his peripheral vision—a slacker, trailing after. But the single creature fascinated Tomaso. Again, he aimed his camera, this time zooming in as the lone bird came ever nearer. He caught this single creature against the vastness of sky and cloud at exactly the right moment.

How like my Qui this one is, he thought, always the loner, and never one for a parade…yet so beautiful.

This magic of freezing a moment in time created a wondrous effect that communicated, influenced, and persuaded because it evoked passion and compassion. As a teenager, he’d learned to exploit this effect in provocative ways using photography as his weapon of choice. As a small child with his first camera, he’d had no notion of this power. “What did I know?” he muttered. “I was just a boy.”

The only son of wealthy parents, Tomaso was one of several children, in fact the youngest child. At age six, he’d begged for a camera and had gotten his way, but it’d been a cheap Eastman Kodak Brownie, a mere child’s toy instead of the one he’d wanted. Even so, when his pictures were processed, the developer complimented his mother on her new hobby and how wonderfully her photos had come out. Taking a much closer look at his pictures, his parents decided the photo-developer was right, so Tomaso soon got the Rolleiflex he wanted.

Not long after, he learned how to develop his own pictures. Tomaso loved to watch the fluid black images magically coalesce onto the white paper, freezing each into permanence. Tongs forgotten in his excitement, Tomaso’s fingers turned an unsightly yellow-brown from the developing solution—much to his parent’s dismay.

His reverie ended, Tomaso now set his camera aside, knelt, and began collecting the shards of clay pots that he’d earlier dropped. Tomaso tended his plants like a shepherd his sheep, his fingers now stained with dirt rather than photographic solution. He spoke to the plants, encouraging each. Who else am I going to talk to, he thought. Like Qui, I am a loner, always have been, a cruel thing to be if one is also an idealist looking for justice in this world. His thoughts wandered once again into his past as if reading his life history. My birthday…dredging up old memories. His hands continued to work the soil, while the breeze whispered through the branches.

He reached over to scratch Palo, his German shepherd; while the dog’s chin never left the pillow of his paws, Palo’s eyes followed Tomaso’s every movement, as if to ask why he worked so hard.

“In the old days, Palo, the more I looked through the camera lens, the more I saw only poverty and misery—as if the lens focused only negatives! Such poverty. So shocking to see how our people lived, not unlike here in Miramar.”

With a small groan, Palo rolled deeper in the shade, escaping the rising heat.

“When I was a boy, Palo, I never knew we were rich…never understood how hard my father worked to provide for us either. To me, he was just gone all the time.” Tomaso shrugged and frowned. “I only knew he went to work…a meaningless word to a child! Now Qui aha…she always knew what I did, and how I did it. My work was here and in the darkroom. Not in an office like my father.”

He arranged the moss in each of the baskets he intended to hang here in the courtyard. Palo yawned at his master’s activity.

“To succeed today, I knew my girl needed to understand how important work is to a person. The poor, now they understand the meaning and value of work, and yet they have nothing. God must love to see them suffer. Music and dance their only escape from poverty and pain and death. But what do I know? Only what my camera tells me, ’eh, Palo?”

As if in complaint, Palo arched his eyes and barked before returning to his nap.

No suffering goes on now in Cuba, none whatsoever, not according to The Beard. The old fool’s impoverished all of us, in Soul if not in pesos. So much for the promises of revolution.”

Tomaso straightened and stretched, his back aching, but he wanted these baskets planted and hanging by the time Qui crawled from bed. He’d heard her come in late the night before, but no sign of Montoya. He wondered if they were again feuding over her case.

He muttered aloud, “Tomaso, you need a break.”

“Tomaso, you need a break,” echoed the rich feminine voice of Marie Elena, his housekeeper. “Here, I’ve made you some lemonade, not too sweet, just the way you like it. Sit with me. Tell me half as much as you tell Palo.”

“Maria Elena, you spoil me!” he chided the young woman, pleased to see her smile. “If you must know my thoughts, I’m too old to be having birthdays.”

“You’re not so old!”

“My mirror tells me otherwise. I am old and nothing can change that.” He finally put aside his tools and walked to a shaded courtyard table where she’d placed glasses and iced lemonade. “So what’ve you and Palo been discussing?”

“All manner of things.”

“The state of the world, I suspect.”

“Well that, yes, and…and I’ve also been thinking what all old revolutionaries think.”

“And that is?” She poured a drink and handed it to him.

“Past glories and successes, of Old Cuba, of how Rafaela and I re-built this home, and how lovely are her flowers today. Just an old man’s thoughts, Maria.”

“You miss her, even now after nearly thirty years.” She placed a hand over his.

“Baaa, but you don’t want to hear me complain like some child. What is it, Maria? What troubles you on such a beautiful day?”

She placed her hands in the universal gesture of prayer. “How do you know my moods?”

He lifted his glass and wryly smiled. “You have three lovely children who adore you, you have a comfortable home here, you enjoy life. Your only curse everyone knows. Has Santos been around again, asking for money?”

She quickly looked down to hide eyes filling with tears. “He begs forgiveness and promises what he always promises—to stop drinking—but he doesn’t mean it, he never does.”

“And your curse is that you still love him.”

“Yes, but I can’t live with him. Yet when he begs me to take him back…. Aiy dios mio…he called again last night.”

Palo got to his feet and ambled off at the mention of Santo’s name. He’d always harbored a dislike for the man.

She continued and Tomaso held her gaze. “So, even though it is your birthday, and Qui will be with you, and I want it to be a happy time, my heart is not cooperating.”

“It’s OK…it’s OK.”

“And, I worry about Enrique, so like his father—whom he adores, and the boy blames me for making Santos go away.”

Tomaso offered her a handkerchief. “Rique’s just too young to understand these things.”

“And I can’t tell him the truth about his father.”

He agreed, adding, “Santos is twisted inside from some pain that never healed. It shows in his eyes. He is greedy and doesn’t want to work.”

She only nodded. “Somehow the school failed him, and he has no good skills—”

“Except to make friends of the worst sort.”

“I know, Tomaso. He’s going down a bad road.”

“He’s been going down that road for some time.”

“I know he’s done bad things for money. But my heart, I can’t control that I still care.”

“He’s so foolish. He thinks he can somehow live well and do no real work.”

A warm breeze found its way into the courtyard and played about them. Small birds chased one another in the underbrush.

“I will tell you as I would tell my Qui if she were with such a man. You must end it…as long as you hang on, he can hurt you again and again.”

“Qui’s lucky to have such a steady, good man—a doctor.”

“So? You’re still young enough to find someone worthy of you. Someone who’ll not crush your soul.”

She dabbed at her tears and quietly nodded. “You’re right. I know you are right.”

“Of course, now, I—I’d be lost without you here. How would I run the place? Who’d feed and keep the guests happy? As for love…you’ll see. Love will come again, I promise.” He pulled her hand up and kissed it, an oddly old world affectionate gesture. “Now go dry those pretty eyes, and let me finish before our guests arrive.”

He moved back into the sun and was immediately plunged into his memories.

Palo returned from his food dish to again lie at his feet as Tomaso resumed hanging plants. He liked the feel of the fine basket weave against his hands. His nose filled with the fresh odor of the flowers. Comforting Sunday morning rituals.

“Palo, my boy, is it fair that Maria works hard and Santos takes all she has?”

A military plane disturbed the peace, making him again look skyward. Palo’s ears alerted, and he looked for some change in the landscape—eyeing Tomaso’s old Mercedes as if someone might actually be interested in tampering with it. In fact, Yuri, a Russian émigré who’d stayed on in Cuba after the Soviets left—converted by Cuba’s beauty and the lifestyle—tinkered with the engine now. But for Palo, Yuri was like the rest of the landscape here, and so, finding nothing amiss in the familiar surroundings, the dog settled back.

“Arturo Benilo now, there was a fire-breathing revolutionary, Palo, like Che Guevara himself. The young shout the slogan—‘Be like Che!’ But they know nothing of the man. Now there was a true freedom fighter. Captured and executed while carrying on the revolution in Bolivia.”

Tomaso fell into silent thought as his hands worked. He had a plan: to line the entire courtyard with hanging plants.

“Benilo almost went to Bolivia with Guevara, you know. God, how Arturo ranted in those days. A flaming—what do they call ’em now—radical? Yes, but we were friends.”

Palo only snored now.

“Our shared ideas about freedom and justice ran wild like a rain-swollen river—so young we were. Each trip outside Havana taught us something new about Cuban life…and Cuban death.”

During the revolution, a Leica was in Tomaso’s hands, and from it, he learned how to take pictures of the land, of the women—all the glorious women—as well as the poverty and misery around them. Images that spoke to the heart and mind even today. Tomaso smiled at his pride in those old photos as much as the memory of his and Benilo’s youthful escapades. Full of the black and white thinking that characterizes teenage idealism, he and Benilo were such easy, innocent targets for recruitment into a revolution.

Having pretty much left his family, Benilo, always angry, decided to join the revolutionaries and began a campaign to convince Tomaso to join. By this time, Tomaso had become disenchanted with his own family, the proverbial black sheep for his anti-Batista talk. He joined Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s movement as their special photojournalist. As a result, his mother had come to think of his photography as having become the family curse.

Tomaso again turned to Palo and said, “Smuggled to the foreign press, my photos made a big difference in the revolution. Made for me friends among the leaders—an uneasy relationship to this day.”

Sighing heavily, Tomaso shrugged and stood, gazing at the abundant blossoms of Mariposa, so beautiful to look at, so like his beloved Rafaela. She’d left so much of herself here in their Miramar home, not the least being Quiana. She has your fierce persistence and goes her own way, untamable, such spirit, like your own.
You’d be proud of her. But this…three bodies… this situation… I am afraid for her.

He took as much care with Rafaela’s Mariposa garden as he did his cameras. “Pray for her, Rafaela, and watch out for her. Our daughter is in some terrible danger. I must find a way to persuade her to turn this ugly business over to someone else.”

Qui’s voice kept rising, “What does an old man who tends flowers and talks to the dead know of Cuba today? You forfeited a place in Cuba’s highest circles, and now you tell me what to do? Always with what is best and what is too dangerous! Papa, I am a police woman now, not a little girl.”

“Careful, daughter!” Tomaso gave only a moment’s thought to the governmental position offered him after the revolution, a position he’d walked away from.

“Instead of being proud of me, you treat me like a child, like I’m play-acting!”

“But this is dangerous territory.”

“Dangerous territory is what I do now. This is who I am.”

He just looked at this now angry daughter of his, saying nothing, again reminded of how much like her mother she was: impetuous, headstrong, passionate, and stubborn. Tomaso chuckled aloud at the thought, shaking his head. “Ahh… stubborn child.”

“How dare you interfere in my professional life?” she persisted, pacing the courtyard where a trade wind swept through, bringing with it the clean scent of the sea.

He tried to keep pace. “Calm down. We can talk like adults.”

She stopped and turned back to him. “Oh, that’d be a pleasant change.”

“I’ve never under any circumstances wanted to belittle or insult you.” He paused, taking a breath. “Now, what is all this ranting about, because I have no idea what—”

“I wanna know why Gutierrez is suddenly all sweet and polite and fake toward me.”

“Oh, this is about Alfonso Gutierrez?”

“Yes! That wormy pig is all of a sudden being professional toward me. Why?”

Tomaso laughed uproariously at her characterization of her colonel.

She didn’t skip a beat. “I can’t stand that plastic smile he’s suddenly wearing. You called him, didn’t you!”

“Sweetheart, I’ve had no contact with the man since—”

“You did more than just call him. You scared him, didn’t you! And you told him to take me off this case.”

“No! I’ve not spoken to him since your promotion. But I tell you—”

“You might’ve given me a fair chance. But you…you couldn’t be satisfied with that, could you? Could you?”

Tomaso stepped away from her, located his favorite courtyard seat, climbed into it, calmly crossed his legs, and said, “Quiana, perhaps someone called Gutierrez, but I didn’t. Now come sit, and we’ll talk about this.”

Taken aback, she calmed down. His sudden relaxed demeanor invited her to sit alongside him. When she did so, their eyes met in a truce.

“What?” she asked.

“Some detective you are! Think! You know I’d do nothing to sabotage you. Have I ever betrayed you?”

“This is different, and we both know it. This isn’t a recital or a school grade or an entrance exam you can fix for me. God, this is a triple murder! And how I hate it when you interfere, making me appear stupid and childish. I hate it!”

Her anger reignited, Qui stood and rushed from the courtyard.

“Wait a minute,” he called after her. “We still don’t know who called Gutierrez! Sheeze….” His words fell on empty air, she was no longer in the courtyard.

Qui felt a pang of anger for losing her temper on her father’s birthday. Passing through the kitchen, she realized only now that Maria Elena had overheard their squabbling. This brought on a dose of discomfort. “You can’t leave him like this,” the other woman pleaded, “not on his birthday. Besides, I know your father. He no longer interferes like you think. We talked about it, Qui, and I swear, he didn’t make any calls.”

“Well…if that’s the case…I stand corrected. But I need to get away for a while and think things through. I’ll be back later.”

In spite of Maria Elena’s words, Qui turned toward the lobby door, hesitating a moment, glancing through the window at her father. “Like hell that old man made no calls.” She knew someone had influenced Gutierrez.

19

At the same time

Having entered the lobby of Tomaso’s bed and breakfast, Dr. Arturo Benilo involuntarily exclaimed, “Madre Dios, you are too beautiful, my beloved.” His heart had skipped a beat, so shocked was he at the sight of Rafaela’s life-size photograph hung in an ornate frame like a painting here in the lobby. More stunning than he’d remembered, she was the most attractive woman he’d ever known. This photo must have been taken when all three of us were friends. Aiy, Tomaso, you always did know how to take a picture, he grudgingly acknowledged.

Rafaela’s likeness graced the center of a huge mosaic—images of women that Tomaso had photographed over a lifetime, homage to beautiful Cuban women. Without question, Rafaela, blonde, blue-eyed, proved the most dazzling. As if staring from across time, and yet as if no time had passed, her vivid eyes peered lucidly, deeply into his. Her smile, so familiar. Tomaso had captured her precisely as how Benilo remembered, the image haunting Arturo deep within his soul. She lives in this photo….

Voices shook him from his reverie, but he wasn’t ready to let go of Rafaela’s likeness. However, a second glance and it was just a photo, beautiful yes, but all magic gone. Must’ve been the lighting, he speculated, else she really was here for a moment. As he walked closer to Rafaela’s image, he again heard raised voices, the loudest, angriest that of Tomaso’s daughter, the quixotic Quiana.

A door suddenly flew open and Qui, her face flushed, came eye to eye with Dr. Arturo Benilo. Perplexed, she demanded, “Wait a minute. What’re you doing here?”

“You invited me, remember?”

“Oh…yes, so I did. But I’m not sure how comfortable you’ll be.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Like you have trouble following a woman’s lead, doctor,” she said sarcastically, realizing his eyes were doing a little fox trot of their own, comparing her mother’s features with hers.

“You’re angry. What’s got you so upset?”

“You probably know perfectly well what he’s done, so why do you ask?” The thought that the call might have come from Benilo flitted through her mind.

“Is it Montoya? Did he give you a ring last night during dinner?”

She quickly studied his eyes to determine if he was deliberately dense. “No, it’s my father! He’s interfering in my life again!”

“You mean your case? A thing to worry any caring father.”

“But that’s just it. It is my business…my case, my life!”

“Don’t make your case your life,” he warned.

She ignored this and paced in a little circle of frustration.

Tomaso came through the door, and Qui turned to him and added, “My case, get it! My decision. Not yours.”

“I thought we settled this misunderstanding?”

“You’re my father, not my boss! I can take care of myself.” Then she turned on Benilo and added, “Now, you come to take his side—”

“Whoa! I’m not taking anyone’s side. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

“—and I already know you want me to drop the case. Every man I know wants me to drop the case—what is with all of you? Do you think I’m stupid, can’t do my job?”

“Did I come to the wrong door? I thought I was invited to a birthday party.”

Tomaso erupted in laughter.

“This isn’t funny! I’ve worked too hard to get this far.” Rushing out, she turned at the sound of both men stomping after her. “Both of you are exasperating. First, you see conspiracies in every dark corner, then you laugh? It doesn’t make sense.”

Tomaso lifted his hands in supplication. “Come back and let’s enjoy our dinner and our guest.” He smiled and nodded at his old friend.

“Come on Qui, no more talk of the case,” Benilo mildly pleaded. “It’s your father’s birthday. I brought a special wine from my collection.” He held up the bottle, beckoning her to join them. “I promise, no talk of conspiracies.”

“It’s a murder case, pure and simple… Well, OK, not so simple, but it’s not some huge governmental conspiracy either!” She secretly wanted to believe this.

“But, Qui,” Tomaso shook his head, “three foreigners murdered and dragged from the sea?”

“You’re doing it again!” Qui spun around, pushing through the exit, the door slamming shut. One of her father’s flower arrangements, which had hung from the door crashed to the terracotta tiles. Glass that’d held each flower in its own small vase shattered, spilling petals and solution, darkening the tiles.

Even the caged Cartacuba birds became quiet in the sudden silence.

“Damn, Tomaso, she really is like Rafaela,” Benilo said once the whirlwind had ceased.

“You don’t need to tell me that!”

“But you have to love that kind of spirit. You see it so seldom these days.”

“Yes, as exasperating as it is.” The two old men stared at one another for a moment and then laughed. “She’s like a force-5 hurricane when angry, that one,” finished Tomaso.

“How many times did you come to her rescue as she was growing up?”

“More than she wanted. She could always take care of herself.”

“How often did you have to rescue others from her own wrath?”

“All too often. By the way, I must thank you, Arturo, for getting me into such hot water with her.”

“What? Me?”

“She thinks I made a call to Gutierrez to ease off, which I suspect came from you.”

“Hold on. I didn’t call him.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“Good question.”

“We should talk about this.”

Tomaso replied, “Over dinner and that bottle you brought.”

“French. A Bordeaux. It needs to breathe.”

The two old friends spoke easily with one another. It was as if the nearly thirty years of silence between them had melted into mere days.

Benilo held up the bottle. “Enough for two old men to celebrate a long overdue reunion.”

“Come then!” Tomaso slapped him on the shoulder and led him toward the courtyard door. “You’ll meet Maria Elena, who’s prepared a feast, and Yuri, who keeps the old place operating and repairs everything in sight, including my computer and digital cameras.”

“Sounds like a fellow I could use around my lab.”

“And if you can stand it, I’ll tell you tales of Quiana that will curl your hair.”

“What about her having left in a huff? Aren’t you worried?”

“Bahhh… we’ll have her share of the wine and birthday cake. Don’t worry. She’ll come back later when she has danced off her anger—”

“Ahhh…she dances.”

“In more ways than I can count, yes.”

“Will she be all right? I’m sorry for this turmoil.”

“Nonsense—she’ll be back, I tell you. Perhaps she may even apologize. She doesn’t like Gutierrez’s new attention, or intentions, or something of the insincerity in the man.”

The two laughed at this. They’d known Gutierrez for a long time, and each had always thought him a fool.

They walked easily, comfortably into the courtyard. The afternoon sun drenched them with rays filtered through the Royal Palm and lemon trees, where Tomaso poured each a glass of lemonade.

Benilo lifted his glass for a toast. “To Quiana and Rafaela’s spirit.”

Tomaso clinked glass against glass, adding, “Yes, to two beautiful Cuban women.”

This was the image that Maria Elena saw through the kitchen window. She smiled at the sight. She’d never met Dr. Benilo, but she’d heard so much from Tomaso, stories he’d shared with his daughter, Qui.

Yuri, too, had looked up from his work to see the reunion of two old friends. He thought, At least something good has come of Quiana’s case.

JZ drove lazily along the ocean front highway, listening to The Buena Vista Social Club as it blared from the car radio. On a lark, he’d signed a one-month lease on a cherry red ’57 Ford T-Bird convertible from the Havana Rent-a-Classic. The salesman had tried to push a huge pink-winged Cadillac on him that went for twice the money and twice the gas, which was scarce at the best of times and cost a fortune. While attractive for an oversize fifties car, it reminded him of something a Miami pimp would drive, so he’d passed on it, renting the smaller car instead. Having wanted to drive the classic T-Bird for years, the expense and difficulty of finding fuel seemed a small price to pay. No joke, Cubanos proved the best mechanics on the planet, attested to by the T-bird. The vintage ‘relic’ drove like a dream come true.

As JZ cruised the coastal highway in Miramar, he saw a black Peugeot parked along a peninsula overlooking blue sea and sky. As he approached, he thought how serendipitous it’d be to run into Qui Aguilera here, but he knew every Cuban cop drove the same model that she sported around in. He recalled how she’d so easily manipulated her car through the narrow side streets of Havana to arrive at the Varelas the night before. Seeing a figure in a light-colored dress that swayed in the breeze made him even more hopeful that it could be her; in the next instant, he saw that it was Qui. She pushed off from her car moving toward the water, her walk like her dance movements, rhythmic and seductive. JZ guessed she had no idea the effect her every step had on a man.

He pulled off the road and slowed to a stop, sending up gravel, the noise alerting Qui to his sudden appearance. She turned to see him as JZ hoisted himself to a high position atop the driver’s seat. He waved at her from the convertible.

Her features went from despondency to surprise, all in a moment. She smiled warmly, sauntering toward the car, admiring the classic auto as he admired her. “JZ, what are you doing here? Not stalking me, I hope!”

“Not at all. I was taking this beauty out for a spin. I just took the highway and wound up here. Running into an even greater beauty—you—is just an additional perk. The gods’re no doubt making up for my disappointing Saturday.”

“Disappointing… gods?” She gave him a curious look as she ran her hand over the perfect sheen of the red paint. “I love T-Birds.”

“Then hop in and let’s go for a ride up the coast.”

Frowning, she hesitated, backing from the car.

“Come on, my tarot reading this morning said I’m ’sposed to get everything I desire today. You wouldn’t want to defy fate, would you?”

“Hmmm… tarot cards. I’m not even convinced you believe in that sort of thing. Sounds like a line to me.”

“Are you kidding? I majored in magic.” He slid down into the seat, a smile on his face. “Come on, it’s just a drive.”

Qui came around the car to the driver’s side, leaned in close to him, and in a sultry Lauren Bacall imitation said, “Sure…you got me, but only if I can drive.”

Pretending annoyance, he awkwardly inched over the gearshift and into the passenger seat. “Ahhh…all right, if it makes you happy.”

She slipped in behind the wheel, shooed his hand from the gearshift and said, “It’s nice to meet a man capable of giving me what I want—even if it is just to humor me.”

“Hey, I want the wheel back sometime. This is temporary.”

She pulled away in a rain of pebbles. They sped down the coast without speaking, enjoying the wind, the freedom, and the car.

“I like it, JZ, being given what I want, treated well. I don’t always get that. But I have to tell you, I’m skeptical.”

He sat up straight at this. “Skeptical?”

“Come on, stumbling on me out at my favorite getaway? Did Liliana put you up to this? You can tell me the truth.”

“Do you always suspect ulterior motives and conspiracies?”

“Hey, I know how Liliana thinks.”

“She thinks we’re good together, but she didn’t have anything to do with this coincidence.”

“As for being paranoid, I’m a cop. Whataya expect?”

“But you can’t be a cop twenty-four seven, nobody can.”

“I’m not! You saw me at the Palacio.”

“Yes, we had a great time at the Varelas too.”

“Yes, we did, didn’t we.” Secretly, she enjoyed their banter but feared it might lead to a repeat of the night before when she’d had to reject his advances. “Liliana’s never liked my boyfriend, and she’s always trying to set me up with someone she approves of.”

“Ahhh, so you think Liliana approves of me?”

“She likes you a lot. That was apparent last—”

Qui’s phone rang. She hesitated, slowing the car, unsure whether she wanted to answer or not.

JZ moaned. “Oh shit. Is that mine?”

“No…wish it were. It’s mine,” she countered, taking the call.

JZ only half heard the voice coming in, but it sounded vaguely familiar.

Qui erupted, “Oh, my God, no!” Her face had turned white, and JZ noticed her single-handed death grip on the steering wheel. “Where? When?”

JZ became agitated alongside her, curious. What was she hearing?

“I’m on my way.” She dropped the phone into her purse. “That was Lieutenant Peña.” Tears welled up in Qui’s eyes.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s Montoya, my boyfriend…he’s dead. Another death.”

“Another death?”

“Three on Friday…and now my…my boyfriend.”

“Wait a minute. Three on Friday? Would that be my missing Americans?”

“Yes…maybe…I don’t know…likely…God, Montoya dead? How can it be? I just saw him yesterday.” She ran the car onto the shoulder.

“Stop the car,” he insisted. “Let me drive.”

She pulled over, relenting. They changed places and again sped away.

“Get me back to my car,” she muttered.

“No, you’re in no shape to drive, and besides, I can get you there safely. Let me do this for you.”

She swallowed hard, realizing JZ was right. This was one time she needed to relinquish control.

20

Every cop’s nightmare is walking into a crime scene where a loved one lays waiting, dead, but this proved beyond anything anyone on the force could have ever imagined. Due to the horror of the scene, Jorge Peña, first detective on site, stood like a gatekeeper, preventing Qui and JZ from entering the death room. “What’s this American doing here?” he demanded of Qui.

“He’s with me. I asked him here.”

“This is official police business, Mr. Zayas. You’ll have to wait outside. In fact, take Detective Aguilera with you. My calling her was a mistake.”

“But I’m here now, so get out of my way, Peña.”

Peña muttered, “Damn it…I shoulda waited ’til this was cleaned up.” Turning to Qui, he continued, “You don’t want to see this. Believe me.” He remained a veritable wall to her progress. “Zayas, take her out. Now!”

“Outta my way, dammit.”

Smelling blood in the air, and sensing this was one colleague trying to protect another, JZ placed a hand on her shoulder and suggested, “Perhaps Peña’s right.”

She shrugged away from JZ’s touch and began shoving Peña.

Grabbing her more roughly than intended, Peña said, “Qui, for once, trust me! You don’t wanna remember Estaban this way.”

“Let me go!” She struggled to free herself from Peña, but he held firm.

Looking over her shoulder at Zayas, Peña repeated, “Get her out of here!” Then Peña froze, a sharp pain in his gut made him look down. It was that damned blue gun of hers.

Seething with anger, she hissed, “For the last time, move!”

He immediately stepped aside, no longer barring her entrance.

Unable to see the weapon, JZ was unaware of the unfolding drama between the two. When Peña stepped aside, JZ saw the horrifying scene at the same moment Qui did. Appalled, he could only imagine Qui’s shock.

Qui, having taken a step into the bedroom, sank to the floor. Her mind recoiled from the gruesome sight.

Dead prostitute.

Bloody foam around mouth.

Scarlet dog choker.

Straps connected to chains over the canopy.

Montoya hanging lifeless.

All against the black satin bed sheets she’d given him on his birthday.

The blood-red choker made it look like his throat’d been cut, but the twisted, awkward angle of the neck said otherwise. A broken neck. She saw the evidence of it. He was on his knees, hands tied to heels by a network of chains and pulleys—items she’d never seen in Estaban’s possession. So out of character for the man she knew. His body arched in a pained C where his knees bent, toes touching a broken down bed. It appeared that the bed had caved in, snapping his neck and instantly killing him. Her only solace came in that he’d died without suffering. Still, the entire scenario rang false, impossible in fact.

Montoya was murdered.

Peña lifted her gun off the floor, automatically checking the weapon. “The damn safety was on. I fell for her bluff!”
he said to JZ. He then returned the Walther to her. Numb with horror, she holstered the weapon zombie-fashion, unaware she’d dropped it.

Closing her eyes to the scene and swaying to a silent dirge playing in her head, she whispered, “No accident. This is murder!”

JZ took her by the shoulders and faced her away from the bodies. “Tell me…why?” he demanded, knowing that in shock she’d talk freely without analyzing her thoughts.

“We don’t know that, Qui,” countered Peña, surprised she hadn’t fallen apart, giving up a grudging respect for her.

“Without a doubt, it’s murder. I trust my instincts.”

“Qui, tell us why? How is it murder?” JZ persisted.

“Back off, Zayas,” Peña said officiously. “You two just got here. She’s not thinking straight. The medical examiner—Vasquez—already ruled accidental asphyxiation by autoerotica.”

“Fuck her findings!” Qui erupted. “Get Benilo in here!”

“It’s my call, Qui.”

“You don’t understand, Peña! This was staged!”

JZ echoed her words. “Staged?”

“Murder, pure and simple.”

“Qui,” soothed Peña, “maybe you didn’t know Estaban as well as you thought. A lotta men take pleasure in bizarre sexual fetishes. Perhaps he hid that side from you.”

“No way! He was murdered.” She ticked off the reasons, “One, he’s…was a doctor, terrified of getting AIDS, so throw out the prostitute. Two, surgeons prize their hands, so he’d never let them be bound. Three, toss out all the sadomasochism crap ‘cause he didn’t like rough sex, and as for drugs—no way!”

“And the girl?” asked Peña, pointing to the dead woman. “Do you have any idea who—”

“Never saw her before. She’s just a prop for whoever’s behind this!”

JZ and Peña exchanged an enigmatic look. JZ said, “Maybe she’s right. Don’t you think she, of all people, would know the doctor’s ahhh…habits?”

Peña frowned and shrugged. “Maybe…maybe not. Both of you come with me.” He led them away from the death room, talking as they went. “Who would want to kill Montoya? A nice guy and a good doctor who just runs a neighborhood clinic? Look, Qui…I know you’re upset, but I have to ask you questions. Please, sit.”

“I don’t want to sit. I want answers.”

They’d moved to Montoya’s elegantly put together dining-living area, all rich woods and native designs, reflecting his Cuban pride. The walls were adorned with Cuban art and framed photographs.

After pacing before the windows, Qui calmed a bit and sat on a nearby sofa occupied by JZ.

Peña cautiously asked her for details regarding Montoya’s activities during the last twenty-four hours. “When did you last see Estaban?”

“Yesterday.”

“When yesterday?”

“I’ve not seen him since I…we met at Santa Isabella just after lunch.”

Peña’s brow lifted at this. Everyone in Cuba knew the reputation of the Santa Isabella, known as one of Havana Vieja’s most romantic getaways. Normally, the hotel was off limits to locals; however, Peña decided that with her family name the usual restrictions didn’t apply.

After a series of routine questions that Qui had little or no answer for, Peña gave up. JZ suggested she be allowed to make a formal statement the next day, so that he could take her home. As JZ bartered on her behalf with the somewhat understanding Peña, she felt a need to focus on something, anything, besides this traumatic turn of events. As a result, her eyes scanned the opposite wall—a mosaic of her father’s framed black and white landscape photos. Learning of his appreciation for her father’s work, Qui’d given him framed photos on special occasions. He called them an excellent investment.

This mix of thought and emotion was abruptly ended when, in astonishment, she focused on the photo of a charred church door with a large ornate lock hanging from it, effectively an anti-religious statement—no one in and no one out. The symbol loomed large in her mind for a reason never posited there before by this image. Growing up around her father’s collection of wartime photos, Qui had seen this fascinating image all her life. But the charred church door and the lock were just point-counter-point in an artistic composition. Nothing special in and of itself, but rather a stylized symbol. But now it seemed a symbol of murder—the same or near identical lock she’d seen strapped to the bodies dredged up by the Sanabela.

Still reeling from Montoya’s awful death, she hadn’t time to puzzle out the tendrils of these now three inexplicable conundrums in her life: the lock, Montoya’s obvious murder, and the killings at sea. Were the American and Canadian deaths somehow connected to Montoya’s? Or was this cruel coincidence? What had the lock to do with the deaths of the foreign doctors, and what had Montoya told her about meeting the Canadian woman? Was there some terrible ripple effect that’d engulfed Estaban?

None of it made sense, but she was reminded of an old Cuban proverb, one that said the best ficciones—lies—are woven on a loom of truth. Somewhere in all of this madness there was a storyteller, someone in charge, pulling at the chain…setting the lock.

JZ gently touched her shoulder. “Qui, I really think you need to get out of here.”

“Just a moment. That photo,” she pointed, and he followed her finger. “It’s mine. I gave it to Montoya years ago. I want it. I need something of his to take away with me.”

JZ looked at Peña and got a slight nod. Peña then disappeared into the bedroom, the scene of the crime.

For the time being, Qui wanted to keep the information about the lock to herself. It looked so much like the lock she’d seen aboard the Sanabela just two days before.

“I’ll get the picture.” JZ paused a moment to study the composition.

She abruptly stood and paced to the window. “Thank you, JZ.”

“This has to be a horrible, horrible shock. Com’on,” he added as he cradled the framed photo. “Let’s get you outta here.”

She felt weak and vulnerable, while simultaneously livid and incensed, a mix that proved dizzying. She let JZ guide her toward the door where she balked. “I should stay…find out what I can from the crime scene. Help Peña get to the bottom of this. They…they’re going to cover up his murder, call it accidental death. I just know it. It’s like the three deaths on the Sanabela, meant to stay undetected.”

“The three on the boat…they’re my two Americans and the Canadian, aren’t they?”

“Yes…I fear so.”

“Then all this nonsense about their having ‘gone local’ was some kind of cover up?”

“They’re trying to buy time. Yes…there is some kind of conspiracy at work.”

“Are you certain of this?”

“JZ…” she hesitated then stared at him before continuing, “I have good reason to believe as I do.”

“Whoa…you’re saying the four deaths are somehow related? Montoya’s death…the two Americans, the Canadian doctor?”

“No proof, but I’m beginning to think so.”

“We’re out of here, now. It’s Peña’s crime scene. No way are they going to let you near the case; you’re too emotionally involved.”

“Yeah…I know you’re right.” Still, she hesitated at the door for a final glance at Montoya’s well-appointed home, where she’d spent so many hours. It felt so familiar and yet her detective’s eye caught nuances that proved unfamiliar. A home of someone with expensive tastes. Yet he drew only a civil servant’s pay. What else about the man had she turned a blind eye to?

21

JZ drove Quiana back toward her abandoned Peugeot on the coastal highway. Fidgeting with the radio dial, JZ searched for something soothing, thinking of Qui’s comfort. Instead, the only station he could find was a political broadcast of Fidel Castro’s voice interrupted by cheers. “The economy is showing excellent signs of improvement.” More cheers.

“Yeah, right,” muttered JZ. With 30% of the country going hungry every day. Usual political spin.

Qui suddenly grabbed his arm saying, “JZ, turn the car around! Take me to police headquarters, now!”

He stared across at her. “What? Why?”

“I need to check on something.”

“Right now in your—”

“Now, yes! Get me there!”

He threw up his hands, the T-Bird’s wheel momentarily abandoned. “All right, if you’ll tell me what you’re up to.”

“The lock in the photo.”

“What photo? The one we took?”

“Yes. The lock. It may be the same one we found with the bodies aboard the Sanabela.”

“This is all news to me.”

She explained in detail. When she finished, JZ asked, “How could it be the same lock? Maybe a duplicate. Isn’t that photo old?”

“Try fifty years.”

“Then it can’t be the same lock.”

“That’s why I want to see them side by side before I make up my mind.”

“And if they are identical? What then? How does that solve our mystery?”

“I know the man who shot the photo. He’s got to know something. Now turn this car around.”

JZ reacted by immediately slowing and turning onto the shoulder. Kicking up dust, he threw the T-bird into reverse, executing a perfect three-point turn. They drove in silence for the Old City and Capitol headquarters.

At the stationhouse, Qui grabbed the photo and rushed in past the sergeant’s desk. JZ shadowed her every step. They descended a stone stairwell that ended in a narrow dungeon-like passageway leading to a door designated Evidence Lockup.

Like a booth in the back in the corner in the dark, JZ thought. Odd place to keep evidence. Entering the room, JZ took note of the armed uniformed officer behind a cage and the ever-present obligatory sign-in sheet with dangling pen on the counter.

Qui quickly logged in. “Carlos, I want to see the evidence collected from the Sanabela—my case.”

Carlos sleepily replied, “You got it, Lieutenant.” Yawning, he opened a thick logbook. Staring curiously at the photo under her arm, he continued, “checking that in?”

“Maybe. First I want to check something.”

Carlos scanned the log pages, then went in search of the evidence box labeled with the case number.

From the officer’s reaction, or his lack of reaction, JZ assumed that word of Esteban’s death hadn’t yet traveled this far. It would. Speculation and rumor spread like wildfire within security organizations, or at least that’d been his experience. He didn’t think Cuba’s being a communist state would change that. In fact, this sort of event, affecting one of their own, likely would produce more gossip.

While they waited on Carlos, Qui placed the photo on one of the tables scattered about the room. Here, she closely examined the photo. For the first time in all the years that she’d seen this depiction of a church in a wooded area with an ornate, elaborately detailed lock on its front doors, she questioned why a church would be locked. It wasn’t a church located in Havana. That much she knew, but where was this mysterious church? And how did this lock—or its twin-find its way onto Luis’s ill-fated Sanabela?

JZ, looking over her shoulder, squeezed her arm, and asked, “How’re you holding up?”

“With all that’s happened tonight? When it does hit me, I hope I’m not here.”

“You know, anything I can do…” JZ began but was interrupted by Carlos’s noisily kicking through the cage door and dropping the evidence box onto a nearby metal table. “Ay Dios, that is a heavy box!” said Carlos, catching his breath.

Regardless of Carlos’s remarks, there was very little inside the box. Three coiled modern chains, which may’ve come from anywhere, and atop the chains, the suspect lock. She took the lock and carefully laid it alongside the photo. She stood quietly looking from photo to lock.

JZ immediately said, “Identical. You were right.”

Softly for his ears only, Qui leaned in close and said, “I was right, yes.” She paused, “But this is not the same lock we took off the bodies on the Sanabela. That lock’s not here; it’s been replaced with this one.” She tapped the lock alongside the photo.

Alerted by her conspiratorial tone, JZ quietly protested, “But it’s identical to the one in the photo.” His tone matched his confusion.

“Yes, but the lock we took into evidence was removed with bolt cutters. Benilo was right. We’re dealing with cutthroats but stupid ones. They switched the locks but didn’t bolt cut the shackle. Dumb mistake.”

“Aha! So they come and go as they please in this place that passes for an evidence lockup in Havana? Great system you’ve got here.” He shook his head in disgust.

His sarcasm didn’t sit well with her; she felt moved to defend their procedures and her fellow PNR officers, but she knew his comment was all too accurate. Nothing to defend; nothing in Cuba was exempt from theft—not even crime scene evidence. Since the withdrawal of Communist support, Cubanos had made a sport and an art of petty theft to supplement meager paychecks; in fact, people who got away with such thievery drew pride from the practice. Anytime a common man outwitted his employer, it was considered a personal triumph and a private coup. So common was this practice that people no longer asked ‘Where do you work?’, but rather, ‘Where do you rob?’. She responded to his sarcasm. “Some of us do the right thing, JZ, despite the facts of life in Cuba. Others, well…” She shrugged, “Poverty breeds desperation, and desperation breeds theft. What can I say?”

SJZ nodded. “A universal truth.”

Returning to her own thoughts, Qui tried to puzzle out why someone might switch the lock. As it was an uncommon lock, somebody had gone to a great trouble to find a duplicate. And if that were so, what might this mean? What was so special about this lock? The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. It seemed almost as if someone had anticipated this entire scenario, holding the duplicate lock in abeyance for the right moment to use it. She glanced at Carlos, wondering if he knew the evidence had been tampered with, and if he’d tell her even if he did. He’d likely only been on duty for a few hours; no certainty he’d have even been here when the locks were switched.

“At this point,” she whispered to JZ, “how can I rely on anything?”

“Frankly, except for you, I’ve not found anything reliable or efficient within these walls. It’s been one put-off after another. Lies on top of lies.”

She nodded. “I know. I heard Peña spouting off Friday how you were sticking your nose into his missing persons case.”

“Now, he’s a piece of work.” JZ gave her a serious look, “What about the reports? Think they’ve been doctored?”

“Before today, I’d have said records were inviolate… sacrosanct. But now, who knows?” Qui returned to the sign-in sheet. Tino Hilito proved the only person on record to’ve handled the evidence until now, but clearly this was not the case. Someone had switched the locks. Money had to’ve changed hands somewhere along the chain of evidence, further contaminating her case. If she were Arturo Benilo, she’d instantly cry conspiracy.

“Let’s get out of here, JZ. You’re right about this place.”

“Yeah, we need to see someone about the photograph, you said?”

She signed out. “We’re through here.” She then grabbed her things, and marched out ahead of JZ, who gave a fleeting last look at Carlos’s narrowed eyes.

From behind his cage, Carlos waited until they’d left the room before he lifted the phone at his side. He dialed a number jotted on a scrap of paper. “Hey, Tino, this is Carlos. Detective Aguilera and some American came sniffing around.”

On the other end, Tino replied, “What were they looking for?”

“I dunno, but she had a framed photograph with her.”

“Photograph?”

“Yeah, of a door.”

“A door?”

“Just a door.”

“Damn, what else can you tell me?”

“Sorted through the evidence you checked in.”

Tino sighed heavily into the phone. “Thanks, Carlos, you’re a friend.”

“I hope things are better with that boy of yours, Tino.”

“About the same.”

“Just thought you’d wanna know about that Aguilera woman’s snooping around behind you.”

“Yes, thank you.”

At the other end, Tino hung up with a soft curse. Standing beside his son’s bed here in the living room, he again sighed. The boy, a hemophiliac, had become too excited that morning, not that Tino himself hadn’t cause for excitement. Since Friday’s discovery of the triple-murder, he had been approached by the shadowy SP figure General Cavuto Ruiz. At about the time of Ruiz’s visit, Tino’s son, Carlito had fallen during a baseball game in the park; ironically, Tino had fallen as well, but Tino’s fall came from the ultimate temptation in Cuba: necessary goods. Any cut or minor scrape causing bleeding became an emergency for Carlito, caused an emotional tsunami that rippled through the family. The financial toll of protective clothing and American-made, high-tech bandages and coagulate powders rivaled the unrelenting worry and constant dread of another episode. Even with Montoya’s generosity at the clinic, the burden of Carlito’s condition was never-ending. There was no way to prevent the boy from being a boy—one who loved sports, especially baseball—the national passion. How could he keep his son, too young to understand his condition, safe? It had seemed a harmless thing, to switch the lock. But now Tino felt trapped.

With all this preying on his mind, Tino’d had next to no sleep since the curse of those three bodies had come his way. Now this. Detective Aguilera knew about the locks. She was no one’s fool; by now, she surely suspected him. He muttered to himself, “As the Americans say, ‘between a rock and a hard place’, between Cavuto and Quiana.”

Regardless, whatever happened to him, the funds set up for his son’s needs would always be there. That much was unchangeable. He might go to prison; he might be killed, but Carlito would be protected now as never before—as Tino had previously failed to do. But no more.

A tear welled up and snaked its way down Tino’s face and dropped on his sleeping son.

22

On their drive to Miramar, Qui and JZ decided to retrieve her Peugeot at some other time. Qui could not get home fast enough. At the Bed and Breakfast, they found Tomaso and Benilo still drinking wine, a third glass telling Qui that Yuri, an early riser, had abandoned the party. Cleaning away the last of the birthday cake, Maria Elena on the way to the kitchen with her hands full, quietly commented to Qui, “Those two men’ve had a hearty reunion all right, and way too much to drink.”

When they saw Qui approaching with JZ at her side, the men attempted to stand, the result more comical than effective.

“See, I told you she’d be back,” Tomaso slurred. He slapped Benilo on the back and added, “And with a friend…someone new.”

Benilo squinted at JZ, as if trying to recognize him. “Montoya? Dr. Montoya?”

Tomaso leapt in suggesting, “You need glasses, old man! This is not Montoya.”

The two men laughed, hearing a joke that was lost on the younger couple. “Ahhh…then your daughter took my advice.” Benilo looked at his newfound old friend and smiled.

With glazed eyes staring at Qui, Tomaso demanded, “What advice?”

Qui ignored her father’s demand. “Papa, Dr. Benilo, this is Julio Zayas. He works security at the American Interest Section.”

“Ahhh…deep in the bowels of the Swiss Embassy,” Benilo said. “The American Mission in Cuba.”

“JZ, this is our foremost medical examiner, Dr. Arturo Benilo. And this is my father, Tomaso Aguilera, the photographer.”

JZ hardly had time to shake hands or pick up on her not so subtle emphasis, when Qui lifted the framed photo, balancing it atop the table, saying, “I want to know about this photo, Papa, now.”

Tomaso fell back into his chair. Benilo deliberately catching Tomaso’s eye, found his seat. Their revelry suddenly at an end, both men stared into Qui’s unwavering gaze. Neither man willing to speak first, each turned his attention back to the photo, studying its every detail as if seeing the artistic composition of black and white shot for the first time. The photo’s impact on the two suggested there was more here than a beautiful still life of a locked church door.

Turning to Tomaso, Benilo said, “I knew this would come back to haunt us. Should’ve destroyed that negative.”

Qui turned to her father. “Tell me about the photo.”

“What has this to do with anything, daughter?”

Breaking his silence, JZ announced, “There’s been another murder. Qui’s friend, Dr. Montoya.”

“Montoya!” gasped Tomaso.

“Murdered?” cried Maria Elena, who’d returned for more dishes. On hearing JZ’s words, she froze, shocked. Tears gathered in her eyes. She’d always liked the doctor, who’d been unfailingly kind to her and her children.

“Montoya, murdered?” echoed Benilo. “I just saw him yesterday at lunch.”

“We just came from the murder scene,” JZ explained.

Tomaso stood and took Qui in his arms, saying, “I’m so sorry. This is terrible news…. But why? What happened?”

“Why? Exactly my question,” she replied. “How could Estaban be a target for murder?”

“He was a good man…a kind man,” Maria Elena added, dabbing her eyes, dinner dishes forgotten.

“Not the way my department sees it.” Qui blinked back tears. “They’re going to paint his death as some ridiculous autoerotic adventure gone awry. They’re going to destroy his character, his reputation.”

Tomaso groaned. “Yes, the thing most important to him, his reputation.”

“Bastards! Demeaning the dead!” muttered Benilo.

“Who’s behind this?” Tomaso demanded. “I’ll go see Fidel himself!”

“Why wasn’t I called?” Benilo joined in Tomaso’s indignation. “Who’s the ME on the case?”

Qui replied, “Your assistant, Dr. Vasquez.”

“Irina?” Benilo looked puzzled. “Well…she’s as good as they come. Maybe the autopsy will prove you right, after all. If you’d said Dr. Trebeca, I’d worry.”

“Autopsy results are a lot like photographic evidence these days—hard to fake,” JZ began, “but it does happen.”

“Papa, your photograph has something to do with my murder case,” Qui said, pointing to the framed photo, “and Dr. Benilo, you know it, too.”

“Hmmm…the lock,” grumbled Benilo.

JZ commented, “It gets worse. Qui believes the lock from the Sanabela murders is the same as the one in this photo.”

“But it’s not the same one we examined at Capitol Headquarters an hour ago,” Qui announced. “My evidence has been tampered with.”

“Wait…I’m confused,” said Tomaso, approaching the photograph, lifting it with both hands. “Are you two saying the lock in Qui’s murder case is the same as in my photo? Can’t be! I took that shot over fifty years ago in Santiago de Cuba.” He laid the photo flat on the table.

Benilo shook his head in disgust. “Doesn’t surprise me. What’s a stolen lock compared to three stolen bodies? The real question is why?”

“Hold on,” Qui said to Benilo. “You told Papa about the missing bodies? I thought we had a pact.”

“I told him, yes. I wanted his council.”

“Great, as if he wasn’t worried enough about me.”

“Maria Elena,” Tomaso suddenly asked, “we’ll need some coffee out here. I can’t think straight. Too much of Benilo’s fine wine.” He looked at the younger people and asked, “Have you two eaten?”

JZ shook his head no.

Qui grimaced. “I couldn’t eat a thing.

As she left, Maria Elena said, “I’ll bring something with the coffee.”

Qui lifted the photo and propped it across the arms of a chair facing the others. “Why use a lock from fifty years ago in the murder of three visiting doctors, one of whom we know had contact with Estaban?”

The man on the cell phone, unconsciously waved his hands to punctuate each word. Humberto paced from his dimly lit bedroom suite in the Excalibre Hotel and Casino to the balcony. It was here he met his mistress on a regular basis. She slept soundly in their shared four-poster canopy bed. “I don’t trust the situation. Too many loose ends. I want the lock and anyone who saw it to disappear. Do I make myself clear?”

“Absolutely.” Cavuto Ruiz, on the other end of the line, accidentally placed his lit cigar into his Mai tai alongside the ashtray. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

Frowning in disgust at the wasted Fuentes, he replied, “Nothing, just a nuisance.” Cavuto really disliked taking orders from this man. Trapped in the tangled mesh of this spider’s web of corruption, his options were limited to carrying out distasteful orders or giving up his life. Some days, the latter seemed more attractive. This was one of those days.

“OK, do you understand what I want, Cavuto?”

“Ahhh…one question—does your order include Alejandro?”

“No, you idiot! I’ll deal with him myself. Aguilera, her detectives, whoever checked in the evidence, the captain and crew of the boat, and Benilo, especially Benilo—disappear all of them.”

Humberto smiled around his cigar and hung up knowing that his control over Cavuto guaranteed his orders would be carried out. He contemplated how simple and pleasant his life would be after the old ME Benilo was gone. For years now, Arturo had been a thorn in his side and a constant threat. The old man knew too much from too many years ago. Perhaps Tomaso Aguilera should follow Benilo to the grave…but one old nemesis at a time.

Momentarily turning his attention back to the sleeping woman, Humberto decided his troubles with this growing, cancerous problem of the dead foreigners was in Cavuto’s efficient hands now. He must trust his lieutenants, but once again, he wondered why Alejandro had used that cursed lock on the bodies. Of course, Alejandro had no idea of the lock’s history, or so he said. Perhaps it was just as he’d insisted. “The lock was conveniently at hand and time was of the essence in cleaning up the mess Cavuto’s people had made.”

Again staring at the shapely beauty lying in his bed, he considered gratifying himself once more, but at his age, sleep had become nearly as important as sex. He climbed back into bed, and as he curled about her form, sleep won out.

At his end, Cavuto sat in dull silence, wondering if he’d ever sleep soundly again. A seething anger bubbled in his mind. He’d been ordered to take care of Montoya, something he felt Alejandro ought to’ve taken care of, but for some reason, the old man was suddenly unsure of his boy.

Now he had to arrange for the termination of an entire group of people. How in the hell do I pull this one off? What does the old fool think I am? A magician with an Uzi?”

Ruiz took a long breath and tried to calm himself. “Humberto orders up death like some god,” he muttered to the soggy mass of tobacco in his Mai tai. “And I gotta jump or else find myself among the disappeareds.” He shook his head and unwrapped a new cigar. Saddest part of it all, I’m sitting in darkness talking to a damned ruined drink.

Later that night

A man of considerable influence, although some might call him an intermediary, approached the Sanabela where it remained at the marina under the stars over the bay. There Alfonso Gutierrez conferred with Luis Estrada, gleaning all he could from what had occurred, how Dr. Benilo had conducted himself, and finally getting around to how Qui Aguilera had conducted herself. The man kept jotting down Luis’s words, keeping bank on each it seemed. Estrada chose his words carefully, and soon Qui’s boss, unable to elicit the kind of dirt he wanted, cursed under his breath and asked Estrada to think long and hard on his answers. Estrada understood the veiled threat. If he wished to remain ‘in consort’ with the Colonel and enjoy the occasional PNR funds, Luis must formulate new answers that could have dire consequences for Quiana. The entire encounter reminded Luis why he preferred the capricious sea to the intrigues of fools.

Watching the colonel leave, Luis felt a creeping sense of danger that seemed to be enveloping his boat along with Quiana. Her colonel certainly had a hard on for seeing her fail. One part of him wanted to tell the colonel where he could stick it, but another part counseled prudence. It was a matter of pesos after all, and Qui…well she certainly seemed able to take care of herself. He would think about saying something to her, but it was a delicate high wire he must walk, and so long as Luis could stay on the colonel’s good side and not harm Tomaso’s daughter, why not give Alfonso something to chew on other than his damned cigar?

An hour later, Estrada lay on a cot beneath a blanket and the stars on the open deck of his boat, the Sanabela’s lifesaver doubling as a pillow. Distrusting the PNR to take the best care of his impounded boat, Luis felt his presence aboard an absolute necessity. Otherwise, the police guard might board and loot the Sanabela for whatever the bastards found of interest. So now, he slept on the hard cot and makeshift pillow.

However, not long into his sleep, Luis was awakened by a flashlight beam. Behind the light, he saw a hand extending a badge, and he recognized the voice. Tino Hilito had boarded the boat and beside him stood a second fellow in deep shadow—a stranger to Luis. Tino muttered some words about further evidence collection, adding offhandedly, “Foolish small items.”

The other man said, “Protocol…little lapses in procedures…steps not taken or overlooked.”

“Tino assured Luis with, “You know, Dr. Benilo’s not quite what he used to be.”

“Ahhh…age,” muttered Luis, “does it to a man,” Luis dazedly added, not believing it.

“Even a fine medical man,” said the stranger.

Tino quickly introduced a Dr. Regolio, his flash still in Luis’s eyes. “He’s Dr. Benilo’s new man.”

“It’s just a rotation they put us all through,” said the young doctor. “I got roped into working tonight at the last minute.”

“Dr. Regolio’s overseeing the final evidence collection before the boat is released back to you.”

“When’s that going to happen? You know I have my crew to think of, and their families—all this on my shoulders. We need to put out to sea.” Luis thought of the hunger his crew and their families must experience every day they failed to work.

“How about sun-up?” asked Tino.

“How about before sun-up?”

“We’ll make it happen,” Dr. Regolio promised.

“Excellent. That’s all I want.”

They assured Luis they wouldn’t be long, and that he could safely return to slumber. The two figures in the dark, Tino with one bag, the other with a medical valise in hand, stepped off toward the crime scene area. Estrada, his eyes pleading for rest, laid his head back against the lifesaver. If it were true that his boat would be released at or before dawn, he’d need some sleep. The moment he got official word, he’d put the call out to his crew, and they’d put out to sea and the shrimp grounds. Strange how life is, he thought now. While the sea might kill a man or destroy his way of life in the blink of an eye, the ocean felt like the only safe place these past hours. Estrada wanted nothing more than to get back to his beautiful woman, the sea. These thoughts cradled him back toward Morpheus, god of slumber, who opened arms to him, enveloping him, overtaking him with the rum he’d consumed. All in an instant, he was going in and out of consciousness—his white rum better than any American sedative he might buy on the black market.

As sleep engulfed Luis, his last thoughts fell on Dr. Estaban Montoya’s back-door clinic. He’d heard the dire news about Montoya, and he was not entirely surprised; from what he’d learned, the business of Montoya’s dying in the presence of a prostitute, killed accidentally in some sort of sexual pose involving some sort of leather and metal contraption-well that sort of thing was between a man, the little god between his legs, and God the Father. Still, he’d supposedly been Quiana’s fiancée. Montoya’s untimely death filled Luis with uneasy thoughts…like something out there stalking Quiana and anyone close to her…perhaps him as well. It all made him want to rush back to the sea, the only place where he fully understood the dangers.

23

JZ stood and began speaking, “OK, let me get this straight. My missing Americans aren’t missing as the Capitola police keep insisting. They’ve been murdered. God only knows why. And, now the bodies really are missing. Qui’s doctor boyfriend has been murdered, and his murder has been made to look like a disreputable accident. An ornate lock was used in the killings, and that same lock or one just like it is a prominent feature in a well-known photo found in Montoya’s apartment—a photo taken by Tomaso here over fifty years ago. Evidence in police headquarters from the crime scene was replaced. If there’s a connection between my murdered Americans and Doctor Montoya, it’s not obvious, but have I got it straight so far?”

“Straight? More like a meandering river,” Qui replied, “but, for all I know, correct.” Turning to look at the two old men, she continued, “Seems to me we need to know about that lock, so who’s gonna talk first?”

Arturo looked at Tomaso who sat absentmindedly pulling at his lower lip. “It may be the oldest cliché, but war is hell,” said Benilo.

“And revolution is war,” added Tomaso. “Make no mistake about that.”

“Things happen—atrocities—that are never spoken of,” continued Benilo, “much less thought of.”

Tomaso added, “That photo is not simply a still life; it’s a silent reminder of something so vile it’s never been mentioned between us—” he paused to indicate Benilo and himself, “—in all these years.”

“What can be so vile, Papa, Dr. Benilo?”

“I’ll not discuss the details except to say that neither Benilo nor I were part of what happened, and it’s best left unspoken.”

“Yes, to die with those few of us who remember.” Benilo stood and paced visibly agitated. “Not a pleasant memory, more like a shared nightmare.”

Tomaso went to Arturo and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, old friend, I know this is hard. The very mention of El Cobre…Santiago de Cuba….”

Benilo sighed so heavily it made a deep guttural sound. He returned Tomaso’s gesture, patting the other man on the back.

Tomaso sat down next to Qui and looked directly into her eyes. “I also wanted the men who knew what happened to see my photo and cringe in memory, to never let that happen again. Such horror. It was brutality at its worst, even for wartime.”

“A terrible travesty and a blight on the revolution,” added Arturo.

Unnerved by their references to something that happened before she was born, Qui pleaded, “Dr. Benilo, four people have been killed, one I profoundly cared about. If you want to keep your secret, fine, just please tell me about the lock.”

“What can I tell you?” asked Benilo. “The second time I ever laid eyes on the cursed thing was aboard the Sanabela two days ago alongside you. I’ve no idea why the lock surfaced.” Turning to Tomaso, he continued, “Anything to add?”

“No. I’ve not seen it since I took the photograph.”

“I repeat, is there any significance in the use of this old lock in these deaths?” Qui persisted.

“I have no idea,” stated Benilo.

Tomaso shrugged. “Look, it can’t be a coincidence that this lock has surfaced in such a bizarre way.”

Benilo agreed. “Someone is sending a message.”

“But what?” asked Tomaso.

“And who?” asked Benilo.

“No coincidence then, agreed?” commented Qui.

JZ stood staring at the photo. “Who else knows what happened in Santiago?”

“It was hushed up and only those who were there knew what happened. Rumors surfaced from time to time, but nothing like this business with the lock,” said Tomaso.

Benilo reminded him, “And that damned photo of yours.”

“Yes…a reminder.”

“It’s almost like someone is exhuming the relics of that horrible incident at Santiago—Cuba’s own Mai Lai.”

“Who is still living who knows what happened?” pursued Qui.

“Only higher ups, officials along the line of command, starting with your boss with his love of revolutionary history.”

“Gutierrez?”

“Likely learned it from his father,” added Benilo. “We must tread lightly, Qui, cautiously and lightly.”

“I smell a jackal behind all this, but I doubt it’s the colonel. A womanizing bastard, yes, but hardly a master of intrigue. Murder? I don’t think so; he hasn’t the stomach for it.”

JZ commented, “It seems the answers lie in Santiago. Qui, perhaps, it’s time for a visit.”

“I think JZ is right. Besides, I’ve never made the pilgrimage to the Black Madonna.”

“Do you really think that our lady of mercy is going to bless you with the answers to your case,” demanded her father. “Answers that not even Benilo, with all his science, can provide?”

Qui defensively replied, “Yes…I think we, JZ and I, will go on holiday there and ask the lady our questions. In fact, the reason you don’t want me to go is, I suspect, because your photograph is a picture of where she resides.” Qui stared at Tomaso, challenging him. “Tell me I’m wrong, Father.” She could see by their body language that she’d hit a nerve in Benilo and her father. “You can’t, can you?” she persisted.

“I forbid your going to Santiago.”

“Forbid me? What is this? It’s not your decision.”

Benilo observed, “He’s afraid for your safety. Any father would be.”

“But Santiago is a popular tourist and vacation spot, home of the great copper mines, and the gravesite of Jose Marti. With JZ escorting me on my pilgrimage…a woman in grief, what better cover? I can hardly threaten anyone.”

“Yes, our going to Santiago could be explained several ways,” added JZ. “Vacation, pilgrimage. Take your pick. No one has to know the truth. I’m sure her boss’ll understand her need for some time away.”

“Who will believe you?” replied Tomaso. “Not even your friend Liliana would! Not you, not while in the middle of an investigation. Stubborn child.”

“People will accept that I need time to deal with Montoya’s death, and I do. This has been awful, a nightmare that’s not over yet. Hasn’t sunk in.”

“I agree it’ll take time,” JZ added, “and you’re wrestling with the tendrils of quite a large octopus here.”

“Cuban government, hmmm…octopus,” said Benilo. “Quite apt for a newcomer.”

Tomaso stood and stretched, yawning. “It’s late. We can discuss this notion of trekking off to Santiago in the morning,” suggested Tomaso.

“It is late,” agreed JZ. “And I need to get some sleep.” He knew arrangements must be made in order to join a PNR officer on her trek to Santiago. It’d have to be explained as part of his investigation into the disappearance of the missing Americans. The American Interest Section head must know of his movements outside Havana.

“I’m sorry, JZ!” Qui replied. “I kept you late last night, and now this. Stay here tonight, I know we have extra room.”

“Yes, stay,” Tomaso added. “Time we turned in. Benilo, you too, stay the night. Too late to drive home on that treacherous road, old man.”

“Given current events and the condition of the roads, it’s safer to stay.” Benilo smiled and added, “You may have just saved my life.”

“Saved your life?” Tomaso pointed to the photo of the lock and said, “None of us is safe anymore. This thing somehow brought down Montoya. Not until we know what’s behind the reappearance of that lock, will any of us be safe again.”

Predawn darkness the following day aboard the Sanabela

Captain Luis Estrada breathed deeply of the sea air, enjoying its salty tang as much as his morning coffee and his beloved Mirta’s smooth caramel-colored skin and hair so black it glowed indigo. To Estrada, the sea was a woman. He’d lecture his crew on her virtues and vices, how one moment she comforted, like a cocoon, providing bounty and succor, and the next moment she destroyed, luring you to disaster, even death. After a third Bucanero Fuerte beer at the harbor café, Estrada would hold court on the topic, often saying, “What man can resist the dangerous call of the ocean or that of a beautiful woman? It is the way of nature.”

Luis now yawned and sipped at his coffee. At the same time, Giraldo—his body below deck and his head above—bellowed, “Captain, engine’s purring like a hungry cat with a jack fish.”

Adondo sang out and beat a syncopated rhythm on a washtub counterpoint to his words. “Where blue sky meets blue sea, it’s the place for me. Come little shrimp, come make us rich.”

Luis shouted, drowning out the young crewman’s spontaneous song, “Now we can get back to the nets!”

“Any time now,” added Giraldo his smile as wide as his shoulders.

At the same instant, cheers erupted from the crew.
The police impound had cost them three day’s catch. Along with his crew, Luis enjoyed high spirits this beautiful dawn, the promise of a sparkling day ahead. His boat had been returned. The engine was cooperating. As icing on the cake, Gutierrez had paid him under the table for ‘continued cooperation’.

The crew began preparing for sea, when Luis spied something unusual tucked deep below the pilot’s wheel. Curious, he knelt and reached in to pull forth a small bag, something ungainly inside. For a moment, he feared what he might find. Curiosity overcoming reticence, he opened the bag. His breath caught as he stared uncomprehendingly at the lock from last Friday’s nightmare. “Mother of God! This cannot be, they took the lock. I saw it go!” Luis realized immediately that not only did he need to report the re-appearance of the lock to his ‘connection’ smack in the middle of the six levels of the police hierarchy—Alfonso. Luis dared not use the Sanabela’s radio to try to reach Gutierrez; it may well be bugged and in need of de-lousing. Luis must take no risks. The lock here again this way…a magician’s trick—like an ill-wind out of Jamaica—not good. Not a superstitious man, Luis shuddered as he quickly shoved the ancient lock back into its dark sleeve. He dared not let his crew in on this strange development. He pushed the black bag deep into his coffee cabinet placing items in front of it.

“Adondo, come up. I need you,” he called to the young man.

Adondo, who loved talking, had a cell phone, an expensive luxury as far as Luis was concerned. But now, that luxury might be the only safe way to reach Alfonso Gutierrez.

When the colonel failed to answer Luis’s call, without hesitation, he called the next logical person, Quiana Aguilera, lead investigator on the case.

24

With the full horror of Montoya’s death and images of his brutal demise interwoven throughout her dreams, Qui Aguilera’s sleep had been fitful and hardly refreshing. Startled by her cell phone, she grabbed for it hoping against hope that reality was less disturbing than her nightmares. It seemed at this moment, a toss up as to which was worse.

She mumbled sleepily, “Hola?”

“Qui? Is that you?”

“Uncle Estrada? What is it? Why’re you calling at this hour?”

“I was right, the dead’ve cursed us all.”

“Make sense, Uncle—it’s too early to think. What’s happened?”

“That lock Benilo removed from the bodies…it’s back!”

“Back? Back where?”

“Here, on the Sanabela! Like a lost soul, it keeps returning!”

Qui sat bolt upright. “Luis, promise me you’ll tell no one.”

“Of course, but come quickly.”

“I mean it, Uncle! Tell no one, especially Gutierrez!”

“Understood. How soon can you get here? My crew wants to set out now. We lost the weekend, you know.”

“Fishing…now? Has the trawler been released?”

“Yes, Gutierrez.”

She sighed. “I’m on my way from Miramar. Do not leave the marina slip.”

She leapt from bed, grabbed a robe, and rushed to JZ’s room, where she pounded on the door. When he did not immediately answer, Qui stormed in, shouting for him to get up. She snatched the pillow from beneath his head and pummeled him with it, saying, “Wake up! Gotta get to the Sanabela! Right now! It’s the lock!”

JZ awoke to the urgency in her voice and her excitement; with her robe open and revealing, the sight of her body slowed his words as his eyes played over her.

“What are you staring at! Move! Move it, JZ.” Qui colored, only now realizing that her robe had come undone, exhibiting more than appropriate.

With a grin at her discomfort, he said, “Ahhh…sure…but my trousers are behind you, Qui.” He sat in his black silk boxers on the edge of the bed.

“OK,” Qui tossed his trousers at his grin. “I’ll just get myself dressed. Five minutes at your car!”

In a matter of minutes, they were racing toward Havana and the seaport. “Along the way,” Qui said, “we’ll make a stop at Tino’s. This time of morning, he’ll be home.”

“Why this guy Tino? Think he had something to do with the lock?” asked JZ.

“Perhaps…he checked it in. Then came back later according to the sign-in sheet. Why return it to the boat?”

“Couldn’t tell ya…. Clueless.”

“God, I can’t believe he’d be involved in evidence tampering.”

“From what I hear of your Secret Police, he mayn’t’ve had much choice. Is it true they threaten a man’s family for leverage?” he rhetorically asked.

“Yeah…just like your FBI and CIA.”

“Touché.”

The area through which they now drove had seen better days; the government housing did little to help the blight—and in fact, only added to it. The featureless lines of the government homes and apartments, devoid of artistic sensitivity, or any humanity, looked like military bunkers so far as Qui was concerned. Even the trees here did little to soften the hard lines. Certainly, the architects had exercised little creative imagination in designing these cookie-cutter, boxy homes, lacking any sense of aesthetic.

She directed him onward to Tino’s place.

Here in Old Havana, shadows stretched with the rising sun cutting sharp swaths of light through the dark city streets. The old recessed Spanish doorways were a black pearl necklace of shadow and sunlight, each playing counterpoint to the other. Within these indigo entrances, the occasional movement of a door opening, a cigarette being lit, a caress between parting lovers could barely be seen.

“Your cop friend Hilito lives here?” asked JZ.

“Government assigned housing. Little choice.”

Heading toward the building Qui had pointed to, JZ drove on. The flashy T-bird, now the focus of early morning eyes made Qui wish they’d come in her Peugeot. As a neighborhood used to seeing Tino’s car parked here, they’d’ve attracted less attention. JZ pulled in next to it.

They made their way up the walk to front the door. In the street, several children played stickball, hide-and-seek, dashing about like so many nervous birds chasing one another, laughing, enjoying the early morning air.

Qui knocked and they awaited an answer that didn’t come. “Strange. It’s so early and no one’s answering. Not his wife, not his son, no one.”

She tried the door, and it relented at her touch, swinging open. She immediately drew her blue gun from its holster, stepping in ahead of JZ. JZ followed her in, pulling forth his well-hidden gun from a shoulder holster. The two of them, weapons extended, eased from darkened room to darkened room. Each area spoke of hasty departure and abandonment. Closets half empty, drawers pulled out, rifled through, and even the space in a corner set aside as a nursery—the crib emptied of bed clothes, stuffed animals, and play toys. Deserted. Forsaken. Forlorn. Unoccupied, Qui thought, except for an alarming odor of blood wafting overall.

JZ added, “Feels like something outta the Twilight Zone.”

“Hilito? Tino!” she shouted several times to no avail.

They located a back room, a curtain torn from a window rod, allowing morning light to filter in, creating an oddly shaped silhouette of an upturned chair and its contents—the remains of Tino Hilito. It appeared he’d shot himself through the mouth with his own service revolver—a Makarov. Tino had encircled his head with the curtain as if concerned he not make too great a mess. The scene screamed of suicide; in fact, it looked patently so. Perhaps too pat.

“Christ…oh, Tino, no!” she moaned. “What’ve you done?”

JZ, putting away his weapon, studied the scene with more detachment than she could possibly muster. “Any reason you know of…I mean why he’d kill himself?”

“Nooo…except for the usual.”

“The usual?”

“A pregnant wife and an eight year old in and out of hospitals.”

What’s wrong with the kid?

“Hemophilia.”

He shook his head. “Tough for a kid.”

“Tougher for a parent.”

“And expensive, I should think. Free medical care aside, I’m sure there’s gotta be costs that subsidies don’t cover. Lotta stress there.”

“But Tino lived with that stress for eight years. Why do this awful thing now?”

“Smells to me, whole thing.”

“Me too. First Montoya…now Tino? Like dominoes falling.” She burst into tears and threw herself into JZ’s arms and sobbed on his shoulder. All of her pent-up grief surfaced at once.

“Does seem people around you are having a bad time of it, lately,” he murmured, holding her gently. “Qui…you’ve gotta call this in.”

She straightened and accepted a handkerchief from him, and with a final heave and sniff, Qui wiped the last tear away. A look of resolve replaced her tears. A call to headquarters and dispatch put her through to Peña.

“Stay with the body until I get there with a medical examiner.”

“No way am I staying here, Peña.”

“You gotta! ‘Til it’s cleared, it’s gotta be treated as a homicide. And you’re the first on scene. I gotta question you…again.”

“Seeing a pattern here, Peña?” she asked sarcastically.

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”

“Who’re you referring to?”

“I intend to find out, right now.”

“Wait! You can’t leave the scene!”

“Just watch me.”

“Hold on! Colonel Gutierrez wants to speak to you!”

She reckoned that the wily old fox had been listening in all along on a speakerphone. Distrusting both men, she switched on a nearby radio, dialed between stations for static, turned the volume full-blast, and waved her cell phone before it. Screaming static tore at Gutierrez’s ears, as she spoke over it. “I’m…’av…trouble ‘earing you…sir.”

“Detective Aguilera!”

“Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” she asked repeatedly through the static. “…not hearing you so good, Colonel!”

JZ smiled to hear Gutierrez’s protests coming over the phone as she cut off communication. “Clearly pissed off.”

“When is he not?” She gave him a smile. “OK, let’s go before Peña shows up with a list of unanswerable questions.”

Same time, atop a sugar warehouse along Havana Bay

An exasperated, frustrated Cavuto Ruiz paced the rooftop, his distinctive Panama hat providing minimal protection against the glare of sunlight and none from the heat. Perspiration ran down his microphone cord, leaving dark splotches on his beige guayabera shirt. He held up both hands, one filled with a smoking cigar, to combat against the bright sunlight reflected off the bay. “Sun is a bitch…and where the fuck is Aguilera?” he muttered, then spoke more loudly for the microphone, “Will you be able to see your targets in this glare?” At the other end were two hand-picked marksmen, veteran secret police officers in fatigues. Loyal men, who knew how to take orders—however unusual or unauthorized. They had taken up carefully selected positions, their high-powered weapons at the ready, simply awaiting two designated targets—Latoya and Aguilera—to join the men of the Sanabela. In unison, the sharpshooters grunted into their throat mics.

“That old bastard, Estrada, called Aguilera an hour ago. Where is she?” Cavuto asked, unaware that he was also being heard and watched from an adjacent rooftop.

Headset firmly in place, Alejandro Valdes wondered what new evil Cavuto Ruiz had in mind this morning. Was he operating on Humberto’s orders? Or, was the sadistic bastard operating independently?

25

Grateful to get away from Tino’s body, Quiana and JZ exited the home, now a crime scene, and wended their way down the walk toward the T-Bird, now bathed in full sunlight. Children stood about, admiring the classic car, the same children who’d earlier played about the streets. Qui asked one of the urchins staring at them to approach. “Do you know where the woman who lives here and her children’ve gone?”

“They left,” the boy replied.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yesterday?”

“Maybe.”

“Saturday?”

“Ahhh…maybe.”

An older girl, having listened carefully, called out to Qui. “They weren’t home Saturday.”

Qui asked the boy, “Is that true?”

“Maybe.” Then he blurted out, “Carlito’s my friend. He said he’d come back.”

“Then you saw them go away on Saturday?”

“Maybe.”

Qui felt a rising exasperation with the boy, so she turned to the girl, “Do you know where they went?”

“Off to the mountains…a vacation….”

All but Tino, who lay dead inside, and for how long? And for how long had he feared for his family’s welfare, and now this. Qui thanked the children and joined JZ already behind the wheel.

The two now rushed for the marina where the Sanabela and the peculiar lock, which refused to stay put, hopefully awaited their arrival. They rode in bleak silence, their somber mood in stark contrast to the bright Cuba blue morning. Spilling from doorways, cafes, and windows along their route came familiar Afro-Cuban rhythms. Even on the docks, music escaped from boats where JZ pulled the T-Bird to a halt.

As Qui climbed from the passenger side facing the bay, she saw Luis Estrada stepping off the boat and coming toward them, a cloth bag in hand. Anticipation gripped her. “Finally, the lock.”

JZ had joined her on the pier, the boards beneath them sounding a dull cadence as they started toward Estrada. She’d told JZ about her ‘Uncle Estrada’ during the drive from Miramar to Tino’s. “So this is your Uncle Estrada?” he asked.

A sudden hail of gunfire exploded behind them. All in an instant, Estrada raced for the boat, clutching the package, while JZ and Qui, guns now extended, wheeled to witness the destruction to the Thunderbird: Windows shattered, chassis riddled with bullets, radiator spewing forth a sulfurous cloud. As Qui pulled him down, JZ screamed out, “Not the car!” With a loud whoosh, a fireball surrounded and consumed the red classic—the only gift of the inferno a rapidly rising black smoke screen affording dubious cover.

Bullets still sought them out, coming through the smoke, ripping gaping holes. Each exploding bullet coming nearer its mark, Qui screamed and tugged at JZ, who was returning fire, “The boat, JZ! Now! Come on!” JZ relented and the two of them, pursued by hellfire, dashed for the Sanabela and cover, the sound of bullets chewing up the wood near their ankles, urging them to move faster.

When JZ’d shouted laments over the T-Bird, Estrada’d gained the relative safety of his boat, shouting to his anxious crew, “Shove off!”

Bullets still buzzing about them like so many angry bees, Qui and JZ leapt onto the trawler as it began pulling away from the dock. An explosion made all heads turn back to the marina. The vehicle parked closest to JZ’s rental had disintegrated, spewing unidentifiable pieces high in the air. Chrome projectiles, melted metal, molded plastic shards, burning fluids—all rained over the charred and misshapen frame. Shinning bits reflected sunlight like so many spinning mirrors, mocking the scene.

As suddenly as it’d erupted, the gunfire ceased—a deafening silence in the wake of such nerve-shattering events. Qui looked back toward the marina as Estrada’s crew got the Sanabela further and further from the mayhem. Sirens filled the air around the marina as fire trucks and police units rushed in. At a further distance, high on a factory rooftop, she saw a lone man in a Panama hat and the common four-pocket bush shirt, called a guayabera, lift a hand to his face. From his stance and movement, body shape and size, she guessed the figure to be Cavuto Ruiz. Someone she didn’t wish to tangle with, not if rumors circulating about him were true.

JZ followed her gaze. “Who is he?”

“A kingpin in the Secret Police, General Cavuto Ruiz. Ever hear of him?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have heard of him. I’m told he is ruthless at poker and interrogation.”

“People taken to the Castillo Atares—SP headquarters…never come back.”

“But why is a man like General Ruiz shooting up my rental car and trying to kill us? Why is he involved? Three foreign doctors get tortured and killed and anyone who knows anything about it gets killed or shot at. Why?”

“I don’t know, JZ. Why these three doctors? What did they know, what did they have? Why the Secret Police? Too many questions, too few answers.”

“Ruiz might’ve abducted us at any time, so then why aren’t we simply among the disappeareds?”

“Ahh, I see you’ve been here long enough to know our euphemisms.”

“Yes, and long enough to miss my American freedoms, especially the freedom of speech.”

She gave him a long look, “I can only imagine it…what it must be like to speak freely anywhere…anytime. To make real choices in life.”

“Different than here, that’s for damn sure.”

They stood quietly, watching, lost in thought as the Sanabela continued out to sea, too distant now even for the marksmen.

JZ turned to Qui and asked, “They were using precision military weapons, so why’d they deliberately hit the car and miss us? Why is that?” He ran a hand through his hair before continuing, “Answers, Qui, we need answers. And, the car, how am I going to explain the car?”

“I’m sorry about your car, but you’re right. If they wanted us dead…. The SP’re excellent marksmen,” she commented. “So why were we herded like goats onto the Sanabela?”

“Maybe a warning,” JZ suggested. “Not quite so final as killing us. But a warning of what?”

She shook her head. “It seems the path to the truth just became more convoluted than before.” As questions raced pell-mell through her mind, the slight rolling motion of the trawler made Qui long for a place of peace and calm to sort through recent events. “Who really fired on us? Who ordered it? Who can I trust…who do I dare trust? Sergio, my god, I’ve got to warn him,” Qui exclaimed, “he may also be targeted.”

Knowing it was Sergio Latoya’s day off, Qui immediately dialed his home number. JZ listened to the one-sided conversation, thinking of the call he needed to make and debating how much to say about events.

“Hello…Sergio? Sorry ‘bout waking, but things are falling apart…shut up! Just listen! Something awful to tell you. Quiet! Listen. Estaban Montoya and Tino Hilito are dead.” She paused to allow him to absorb this news. “Look, in both cases, I suspect murder. Disregard that! You can’t go by official reports. Not now. Both were staged to look like death by accident and by suicide, and it became apparent this morning that we’re all in danger. Yes, that’s why I’m calling you! I think it’s murder!” she repeated. “And now…at the marina, some of us came under automatic weapons gunfire! Yes, this morning, damn it, and I saw Cavuto Ruiz on a rooftop.”

She listened for a moment. “I’m unhurt, just terrified. Peña’s investigating both deaths. But Gutierrez got on the phone this morning when I called in Tino’s body. Don’t know…can’t say. Maybe he is involved. Who can say? Listen Sergio, I don’t trust him or Pena, so be careful.”

JZ agreed, “I never trusted that man.”

Qui continued speaking into the phone, “The less you know about that now the better; I’m safe here. Sergio, I fear for your life and your family. Get outta Havana now! Don’t delay.” There was another pause.

“How did you know about the switched lock? He wrote what? Cavuto Ruiz was behind it?”

JZ listened more attentively.

“Hold onto that note, it’ll be important later.” Qui nodded vigorously several times. “I’m safe now, quit worrying. Yes. No. Not alone.” She sighed heavily into the phone. “I’m with Julio Zayas from the American Interest Section.” She laughed. “No! Sharp, catches on quick.” She glanced at JZ.

“Ruiz is a nasty piece of work, Sergio, and should he get hold of you… Sorry, but I can’t tell you where we are…. All I know is that those dead doctors and the lock hold the key to something big. Ruiz will stop at nothing to silence people like us… Radio? No I haven’ heard one. Those bastards! It’s a lie!”

JZ couldn’t stand it any longer; he had to interrupt. “What’s this about?”

Qui turned to him and explained that the SP had made an announcement saying that the three foreign doctors had lost their lives due to drug trafficking and that an official investigation was underway.

Sergio caught her attention again, and she said into her phone, “Be careful what you say, not sure but the SP may be able to tap into wireless calls.” Qui shaded her eyes from the wind. “Whatever you do,” she asked, “call my dad at the B&B and let him know I’m safe, that I’ll call when I can, and no one is to talk to anyone. Anyone like Peña or the colonel asking, you don’t how where I am—haven’t heard from me—understand?”

She waited for him to agree. “Oh, papa knows about the lock but nothing about Tino, and please leave out the part about my being used for target practice. Now, go hide your family.” She ended the call, satisfied she’d done everything in her power to warn Sergio and her father.

JZ took a moment to call his superiors, asking for time to track down leads, and to not believe the news accounts about the missing doctors. Anxious for anything to shake loose that would dispute the smear campaign against two Americans, his AIS boss gave him the go-ahead. Ending the call, JZ turned to Qui and suggested, “Let’s find out what your uncle knows.”

She nodded and turned from the view of the smoke still rising from the marina.

From his pilothouse, a distraught Estrada appeared to survey his world which had been turned upside down—JZ and Qui at the railing and his crew huddled in small groups about the deck. Still upset, the crew sent accusatory glances at JZ and Qui.

The cause of this latest assault, Qui well understood the evil looks directed their way. “Things come full circle,” she muttered, standing only a few yards from where all this terror had begun two and a half days earlier.

“Yes, we’ve broadcast the announcement about the doctor’s and we’ve driven them aboard the boat.” Cavuto spoke into his cell phone as he and his men calmly made their way from the rooftop.

“As I requested?” replied Humberto.

“Yes, sir, Aguilera and Latoya’re on board with the entire crew. Unharmed, as you asked.”

“Good, good. Not a word of this to anyone, and especially not to Alejandro! Now go. Quickly. Don’t be seen. And Ruiz, good work is always rewarded in our organization.”

“Thank you, sir. One more thing to do.”

“When you finish your final task, a prize awaits you.” On that note, Humberto ended the call.

Cavuto smiled, his thin lips stretched serpentine, revealing small tobacco-stained yellow teeth. Keying his microphone on, he said, “You men had your fun with the T-Bird, eh?”

The sharpshooters laughed as one. “Seems a shame to kill such a sweet car.”

“Woulda been fun to drive her first.”

“Go now!” Cavuto cautioned, “And don’t be seen.”

He left the old building muttering, “Step one, complete. Now for the icing.”

Step Two was for his eyes only.

26

On the other roof, Alejandro Valdes remained shocked by the sudden outburst of violence, but his mind raced even more with what Ruiz had planned for those aboard the Sanabela.

His morning had begun with overhearing Humberto on the phone, the discussion obviously with Ruiz—a last minute reminder before some deadly action on Cavuto’s part, he guessed. Something to do with the Sanabela and detectives Aguilera and Latoya. Alejandro made it his business to be at the dock equipped with listening devices and non-reflective binoculars.

What he heard in the cell phone conversation confirmed his worst fears—he’d lost Humberto’s full trust. This was neither healthy nor auspicious for Valdes. In fact, if he weren’t careful, Humberto’s prized chair and fortune would slip from his grasp along with any hope of vengeance. He also knew that Cavuto had made a huge error in mistaking Zayas for Latoya—there was an American governmental official aboard the Sanabela, not a Havana cop. This information alone could be used to secure Alejandro’s tenuous position on the chessboard.

Still here on the rooftop he’d earlier selected, Alejandro felt dismayed by the recent turn of events. Now, it was imperative that he leave and not be seen by anyone. Far too much was at stake. Too many years of preparation for the sake of others as well as himself. He wasn’t the only one who’d dance on Humberto Arias’s grave.

Awakened early by commotion coming from Qui and Zayas, Arturo had dressed and left the B&B early, telling Maria Elena that he couldn’t possibly eat breakfast at such an hour. Besides, he was driven to return to his laboratory to see what results had come from the tests he’d ordered on the Qui’s case.

The tests had identified the drugs used in the murders were typical of those smuggled out of Cuba and into the United States. Nothing startling there; however, the sheer amount in their systems was surprising—enough to kill many times over. Denise, however, had far less. Officials would likely make it out a story of how Denise had administered the drugs.

This was when he had stopped all work, deciding to create the cure passed onto him by his father. Grimacing at the taste, Arturo Benilo swallowed his father’s ancient concoction for combating hangovers. Entirely natural from indigenous plants, it was a herbal godsend—the only good that had come out of his father’s addiction to alcohol. He sipped more coffee, its bitterness replacing that of his cure.

Jesus threw open the door, waving his arms and shouting, “Doctor, quick! Turn on your radio, now!”

Benilo threw his hands over his ears, pleading, “Softly, Jesus. What is it?”

“It’s the SP. Hurry, hurry.”

Benilo switched on his radio to hear the tail end of a news announcement. …late last night it was officially determined by the medical examiner, Dr. Gomez Trebeca, that the foreigners deaths are due to massive cocaine overdose….

Benilo, hearing his name used in such an outrageous fabrication, exploded in fury, but his first curse hurt his head so badly, he had to stop. Calming himself, he muttered, “Insidious lies! It’s all lies? Why?”

It was at about this time that Arturo got a call from Jorge Pena, asking him to come to Tino Hilito’s to process a crime scene.

Staring at the fiery, charred remains scattered about the marina, Alfonso Gutierrez sat in his car on his cell phone speaking to Jorge Peña. “It’s a horrible mess here at the marina! Is it as bad at Tino’s as Aguilera said?”

“It’s worse than Montoya. His wife and son are missing, and Qui didn’t exaggerate.”

“Missing?

“Food on the table, clothing gone…left in a hurry.”

“Disappeareds maybe? SP maybe?”

“Maybe. Either that or Tino got ’em out.”

“Then you don’t think it’s suicide, do you?”

Peña took a moment. “Benilo doesn’t think so. Looks like it, but real professional, boss.”

“Benilo’s there?”

“Tino was one of us.”

“True.”

“He deserves the best.”

“All right then…do a good job and keep me posted.”

“Don’t worry, Benilo’s leaving nothing unexamined.” Peña lied, as Benilo had not yet arrived.

Gutierrez hung up and again looked out his car window at the devastation around him, not just the marina but this case that had become like an octopus about his head. Now with an officer dead and one gone missing, he recalled something Luis Estrada had said early on in this morass, that everyone standing too near this case, will be burned to one degree or another.”

The last vestiges of fire and smoke outside Alfonso’s car window prompted him to mutter, “These flames are too damned close to me.”

Aboard Sanabela II

In the pilothouse, Qui and JZ found Estrada huddled with and talking to Giraldo, both men sipping coffee, the universal cure-all, maps spread before them. Trying to return to being simple fishermen, Qui guessed. For a moment, Quiana and JZ stood as outsiders, while the men discussed where best to troll for shrimp as if nothing had happened. Estrada cast an occasional glance at Adondo, new to handling the wheel.

“Ahhh, Qui, my hapless girl,” began Luis.
“Have you recovered your nerves? Some excitement on the dock, heh? I, myself, find such an adventure to be—” he paused, catching his breath—“exhilarating, but somewhere in it all, there should be reward, pesos…perhaps a woman…if I must be scared to death!”

Adondo and Giraldo laughed in response, nervousness brought on by the chaos, filtering through.

Qui also laughed before replying, “A few gunshots…an explosion? What’s it to an old sea dog like you?”

“You forget my age…my heart.”

“Uncle, you’ll outlive us all!”

JZ added, “Quick thinking—getting us out of there so fast. Saved lives.”

“Seemed a good idea at the time. So why’re you here with Quiana?”

Qui introduced the men, Estrada’s eyes going wide on hearing Zayas’s title, repeating it under his breath and adding, “Yes, I suppose the American Interest Section would be part of your investigation of murdered American doctors.”

This told her that Estrada, like so many others now, had learned the victims had been doctors. “Then, I suppose you’ve heard—”

“Montoya, yes, makes four dead doctors, and Qui, I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“He was not what he seemed, you know.”

“You sound like Peña and the rest who want his memory smeared.”

“No, no. There was more to the man than he let you see.”

“What didn’t I see?” she asked, recalling her own misgivings of the night before when standing in Estaban’s living room.

“Best let sleeping dogs lay, Qui,” he said softly.

“If it has anything to do with my case…”

“No, nothing to do with your case.”

“Where do you get your information?”

“A word here…a word there…keep my ears open…”

“An informant, I know.”

“Then you know to whom I report.”

“My boss, yes. I surmised as much.”

“He keeps me informed, I keep him informed. It works out.”

“If you’ve spoken to him this morning, then you must know about Tino.”

“Tino? What about Hilito?”

Always a cop, Qui skirted the direct question for one of her own. “When’s last time you saw Tino, Uncle?”

JZ stood nearby, interested in their conversation but smart enough to let Qui lead this dance.

“Just last night.”

“Sunday night.”

“Came down here to the boat. Had one of those valises with him. Called it an evidence kit. Said he had to give the boat a final once over before it could be released.”

“Did he, really?”

“Joked about it.”

“Seemed a little nervous, but I didn’t take a lot of notice. Hell, I was half asleep.”

“He must’ve planted the lock on the boat then. But why? What was poor Tino involved in?”

Estrada raised his shoulders in response. “It is curious.”

“Even more curious now that Tino is dead.”

“Dead? Impossible! I just saw him, I tell you! Only hours ago on this very boat!”

Qui began to pace. She then turned on Estrada and demanded, “How did those men firing at us know we’d be here? Did you keep your promise? You told no one about the lock?”

“No one.”

“Not even Gutierrez? He’d pay handsomely for such—”

“I honor my promises, Qui.” He didn’t hesitate, although he’d attempted to reach Gutierrez first, she didn’t need to know this, he rationalized. “How…how did Tino…you know…die?”

“Made to look like a suicide,” she replied.

“Where?”

“In his home.”

“Bullet through the mouth,” said JZ. “Lotta cops end it that way, and we’re thinking this is why they set it up as they did. Make him look like just another statistic.” JZ then asked if he might help himself to a cup of coffee. Estrada assured him there was plenty. “And you, Qui?” added JZ, now holding up the half empty pot.

“Yes-please! With sugar.”

“Mugs here and sugar in the canister,” grunted Estrada uneasily. The news of Hilito’s death atop Montoya’s hadn’t set well. “What’s gonna happen to my crew when they hear about Tino?” he mused aloud. “They’re gonna disappear.”

“Yeah,” agreed Giraldo, “who wants to work a cursed ship?”

“Boss, you can count on me,” Adondo piped in. “If our Sanabela is so cursed, how is it still afloat?”

Giraldo raised his shoulders and replied, “That’s a good point.”

Estrada said, “You two, not a single word of any of this to the crew, understood?”

Both crewmen nodded.

Silence settled over the pilothouse. Following a run on the coffeepot, Estrada busied himself making a fresh pot, and soon there wafted about them the enticing scent of fresh coffee in sharp contrast to the sense of tension hanging unspoken in the air.

“Uncle Estrada, I am sorry to tell you this, but I am commandeering your trawler.”

“What? What?” Estrada’s face bled white. “No-no-no! You can’t do this! I forbid it! Does Gutierrez know this? I can’t—we can’t—lose another day of fishing!”

“The state will make recompense.”

“So now you treat me like some insignificant peasant on my own boat—again?”

“Uncle, I need your cooperation.”

“You’re police now, PNR. You can demand my cooperation, so why’re you asking?”

She gritted her teeth. “I’d rather have your help come voluntarily than against your will.”

He frowned, considering this.

“Your help may get us the answers we need to solve this string of murders.”

That seemed to sum it up entirely—he’d recognized the lock and guessed that Quiana’d need more answers than the best of detectives could possibly uncover in Havana. Sighing heavily, Estrada replied, “I know, Lieutenant, I know. The Sanabela, she is yours.”

Always one to take action when under pressure, Qui asked Giraldo, an ex-diving instructor whom she’d known for some years, about his latest dives. Soon she had him pinpoint his favorite dive sites around Cuba. As they talked over the nautical charts, she asked, “What is the distance and fastest sea route to the dive sites at Santiago de Cuba?”

Quick to note the tension in her voice, Giraldo paused and pointedly stared at her, “There is good diving off the coast near Santiago,” Giraldo said as he worked, “but there’re also treacherous waters there.”

It sounded like a forewarning to Qui. She shuddered inwardly. Take an old shrimper all the way to Santiago de Cuba? What am I thinking?

Giraldo turned back to the chart and pointed out the two nautical paths, mentioning the pros and cons of each route, one on the northeast Cuban coast, the other on the southwest side, windward as opposed to leeward.

As Qui and Giraldo discussed routes, Estrada turned to JZ and quietly asked, “No one wants to discuss the lock yet, eh?”

“No, I think not yet,” replied JZ. “You have it in a safe place?”

Estrada pointed to his coffee mug at the coffee cabinet. “Back of the coffee can.”

JZ saluted with his cup, “For safekeeping.”

“How much danger are we in, Señor Zayas, any idea?” asked Estrada.

“Call me JZ Captain. May I call you Luis?”

“Yes. Especially since we’re all in this together now.” Estrada sighed as he lifted his mug.

JZ nodded. “I’m not sure how much danger we’re in. But, someone wanted us here on the Sanabela.”

“The SP maybe?”

“Yes, if Qui is right.”

“Damn, she thinks so, too? We are cursed then! Those three dead foreigners will be the death of us all.” Luis rubbed his face, looking even more tired and agitated.

“Do you have weapons aboard?”

Estrada hesitated.

Noting Luis’s reluctance, JZ encouraged with, “Look whether legal or not, we might need those weapons. Qui and I only have our handguns, not much use at a distance. So please, if you carry arms, show me where they are.”

Turning to Giraldo, he continued, “Show JZ where they’re stowed.” Shaking his head at Qui, Zayas turned and followed the two men out of the pilothouse.

Well out at sea now and having overheard the conversations, Adondo had headed the Sanabela southwest in the direction of Pinar del Rio. He smiled in satisfaction that he’d guessed correctly what was going to happen next. “Lieutenant, I’ve turned our heading for Santiago, the southern route.”

“Adondo, thank you,” Qui commented, deciding she needed as many friends among the crew as possible, given the situation.

Meanwhile, Estrada stood before his crew, who were as angry as they were confused by the events of the day. Between the Captain’s long stay in the pilothouse and the Sanabela’s unusual course, the crew had become increasingly restless and now demanded answers. Scattered about the boat only moments before, the men had magically assembled en masse when the pilothouse door finally opened. One man who displayed grit, Alfredo, Giraldo’s younger brother, shouted, “Captain, where are we going?” The rest remained silent, wanting to hear the Captain’s reply.

Estrada addressed them. “We are, as of this moment, a PNR boat, and unofficially, you are now all deputies of Detective Quiana Aguilera.”

A collective groan welled up from the crew. “Ahhh…shit,” someone added.

Estrada pushed on. “Today, all that happened at the marina, and all that lies before us, gentlemen, will be written in song, and—”

Another groan rose up.

“—and you will all be heroes.”

Having joined Estrada, Qui secretively squeezed his hand where they stood. “Thank you, Uncle.”

The crew gave no sign they’d agreed with Estrada, nor to their mandatory participation in this ill-defined quest, but then they’d not overtly protested either. As men used to taking orders, they nonetheless returned to work, some checking the nets and mending holes, others preparing the block and tackle, still others oiling the mechanical works aboard. A general grumbling resumed on the deck.

Estrada turned to Qui and whispered, “I fear we’ve not seen the last of the devils chasing you.”

27

Cavuto, disguised as a sport fisherman in a speed boat, maneuvered to within sight of the Sanabela. Alone now, he made his way toward the fishing grounds where he expected that old fool Estrada meant to take his boat. As he did so, he searched for any sign of the trawler from behind his dark glasses. He imagined that Aguilera, and the man he took for her partner, Sergio Latoya, might insist on being taken ashore at some point. For this reason, he’d raced along the shoreline, reassuring himself that the trawler hadn’t made landfall anywhere. Assured this hadn’t occurred, Cavuto finally headed his Norwegian built speedboat out to sea to hunt down the trawler in open waters.

Cavuto believed everything in place to end all of Humberto’s problems in a single instant. He’d taken care of Hilito, no difficult matter, and now he’d managed to herd the remaining problem onto what would soon become an inferno. The triggering device on the seat beside him assured him of success. He could be assured of detonating the bomb within visual sight of the boat, perhaps half a mile. Hastily thrown together, the explosive device had been secretly placed on the shrimper while in impound.

Silently, he cursed his boss’s luck and considered the ironic nature of chance and irony in all of life’s lotteries. Who could’ve guessed that the Sanabela’s nets would scoop up those three dead doctors? Dead from the stupidity and excesses of a bungled interrogation by his own men, who were now among the disappeareds. He also gave thought to how much he hated Alejandro, who had come in on Humberto’s orders to clean up Cavuto’s mess that night. Alejandro had made him look like a fool that night, currying a great deal of favor with the boss. It looked then as if over, as if the SP’s mistake would remain at the bottom of the ocean forever. It’d been he who’d explained to Humberto how the lock came to be on the chain in the first place—that it’d materialized when Alejandro arrived. Oddly, Humberto, who’d never demonstrated a single religious inclination, had gone ashen and mysteriously muttered, “The hand of God at work.”

Cavuto now shouted over the sound of the motor, “Damn the lock, and damn Alejandro, too!” The ocean responded, immediately slapping him full in the face with a spray of salt water, dousing his recently lit cigar. Lighting a new cigar, Cavuto contemplated how he’d arranged to get control of the lock after it’d been checked into the PNR evidence room. To retrieve it from official custody had been no easy matter. He’d first offered a bribe to Hilito. When that failed, he made the cop an offer he couldn’t refuse. “You have a choice between two doors, Tino,” he’d said over between sips of his rum. “Either way, you are on my fishhook, a double-barbed one.”

“I want nothing to do with this; leave me out of it.”

“Barb one, Tino, I promise you’ll never again worry over young Carlito’s condition as—”

“Leave my son out of this!”

“—as all his escalating extra expenses will be paid. For instance, your son will never want again for those black market, military-style coagulant powders and bandages.”

Tino failed to touch the drink placed before him. Cavuto went on, “Or, you can dangle on the second barb, Officer Hilito, one that is not so pleasant.”

Their eyes had met and Hilito was first to break the stare.

“On this second hook, you needn’t ever worry again about Carlito or anyone in your family—including the little one on the way—as the SP knows how to end a miserable existence.”

Hilito’s eyes grew large and his face blanched, his hand inching toward his weapon. One of Cavuto’s nearby henchmen coughed, reminding Tino of how close he was to death just as a salsa band began playing a raucous tune that spoke of gaiety and newfound love. Tino silently cursed his current situation.

“I leave you only one choice.” Cavuto laughed heartily before adding, “It’s our Cuban way.”

“It’s your Cuban way, not mine.”

“Live with it, Officer, or die with it. Don’t be a fool! Now take this—” he handed over a black bag— “down to PNR headquarters and retrieve that lock. Replace it with the one in the bag. This is all your country asks of you. How easy is that? This little thing and all your worries end. And Tino, no one will ever know we’ve spoken.”

His back to the wall, teeth grinding, Tino snatched the bag, knocking over his drink. This drew the attention of some patrons, among them an old acquaintance or two who knew something was up. But everyone in the place knew Cavuto and what he represented, so all eyes instantly looked away, people pretending not to see, not to hear. In such an oppressive political climate, pretense became an art form. No one wanted to be arrested by Cavuto Ruiz; no one wanted to become a tourist at the Castillo Atares.

Cavuto’s plan had been simple: Retrieve the lock, replace it with the phony, and return the original to the Sanabela but in a place where Luis Estrada would find it. Predictably, he would call Gutierrez, who had orders to send Aguilera to the boat to retrieve the thing. Tino had followed instructions well, likely rationalizing his actions, knowing that the SP took precedence over the PNR. As for Estrada, Cavuto guessed correctly. The fool had acted on cue as well.

Now it was time to put down Sergio Latoya and this woman, Aguilera, despite her father’s far-reaching influence and connections. Earlier from the rooftop, he’d watched the two of them climb from the car, race for the boat, and board her. Now these little pigeons all sat cozily together in a warren atop a deadly explosive.

He churned the waters around the speedboat, its bow slapping the ocean surface as he throttled forward, anxious to finish this day’s work, anxious to get back to his routine duties, anxious for things to return to normal. All of this intrigue, doing for Humberto while being kept in the dark, taking on the role of Alejandro, while Alejandro must know something was up—all of it felt topsy-turvy, off kilter, out of sync, ungainly and incalculably dangerous. He felt certain that the balance of power within the SP was at stake, and that his own position within that balance was also in jeopardy. Any error on his part, and Humberto would have Alejandro installed in his job. Worst of all, Ruiz might wind up in the Castillo Atares, a prisoner in one of the stone cells, or disappeared if Humberto so wished. Well…this would not happen, not after today.

At Tomaso’s bed and breakfast, Miramar

With his pregnant wife Carmela and their four-year-old daughter Soledad,
Sergio Latoya stood with Tomaso Aguilera in his courtyard explaining that he had word from Qui. He quickly brought the older man up to date. Tomaso immediately replied, “Your family will be safe here, Detective Latoya.”

“I cannot impose,” Sergio said, “besides, we’re not far enough from Havana to be safe here.”

“But you will be. Guests are arriving from all over the world, trade delegations. No one, not even the SP, would dare disturb these people or their families. Carmela and Soledad will go unnoticed; in fact, Carmela can help Maria Elena, and the children can play together.”

“That is extremely generous of you, Senora Aguilera. It takes a great deal off my mind.”

Tomaso called Maria Elena to join them and see to the family’s needs. “Put them in a room beside yours.”

“Again, sir, on behalf of my family, I thank you. Frees me up.”

“Frees you up?” Tomaso took him aside. “Frees you up to do what?”

“To do my job. Same as you daughter, Detective Aguilera.”

“You can’t be seen in Havana. You and my Qui’ve attracted great danger.”

“You’re right about that. I need to go undercover, a disguise.”

“I think I have just the thing for you. But, tell me, what are your plans?

“Investigate Estaban Montoya.”

“Yes. Qui suspects foul play.”

“I mean to have a serious look at his life…his records…anything that doesn’t fit.”

“Anything that made him a target. I never trusted the man.”

“By now, the SP will’ve taken his records, I’m sure.”

“Sergio, I knew Montoya. Not well but well enough to’ve observed him as a cautious fellow. He may’ve kept records elsewhere. In fact, I’ve known him to bring work home with him…here.”

“Here?”

“When he stayed overnight.”

“And you think he may’ve left some things here?”

“Possibly.”

“Where?”

“Ahhh…follow me.”

Tomaso led him to Qui’s apartment where they entered in semi-darkness. The light entering from the doorway showed that Qui had left in a rush, nightclothes scattered across the unmade bed. “You may want to look around. You have my OK.”

“Thanks, Mr. Aguilera.”

“I’m worried about her, Sergio.”

“So am I,” agreed a third voice in the doorway. “But she’s tougher than you think, Tomaso.” Yuri stepped into the room.

“Ahhh…Yuri, this is Sergio.”

“Yes, with the PNR, I know. Quiana’s partner in this business with the Sanabela.” Yuri extended his hand to the detective, saying, “Anyone on Quiana’s side in this unholy mess is a friend. Glad to meet you.”

The men shook hands before the three began searching the apartment for anything unusual or hidden. They quickly rifled through Montoya’s collection of medical journals. From inside Qui’s closet, Tomaso called out, “Here, there’s something here, a loose board.”

Sergio pried loose the board and a horde of paper flooded out onto the floor. “Jackpot.”

Sorting the papers and files, they discovered records that implicated Montoya in a host of illegal activities: black market dealings in medicines, money from coded donors, records of supplies purchased illegally and from whom, a list of who received these items and when they’d need replacements. A damning collection if it ever got out.

“I knew there was something he was hiding, something not quite right.” Tomaso grimaced in distaste. “He never complained about the system, not like a normal, competent person.”

“Seems he wasn’t happy with Fidel’s healthcare system. Supplementing patient care with illegal goods.” Sergio shook his head. “How’d he ever get them to stay quiet?”

Examining the records, Yuri looked up and said, “Likely mixed it in with herbal concoctions. Bitter tasting stuff anyway. Mixed in a salve. No one’s the wiser. ‘Cept his patients always get better. Bet he didn’t do it with everyone—too noticeable.”

Tomaso continued. “Estaban did things his own way, wouldn’t listen to anyone. Clever man, but not clever enough to keep himself from being killed

Ever suspicious, Sergio asked, “How could he afford this? Where did the money come from? He was a doctor, not a criminal.”

“Everyone cheats the system—it’s the communist way. Lotta antibiotics listed. Hard to get for years now. Only the very sick and the tourists get them.”

Yuri added, “So he cheated to save lives—is that wrong? Better man than I imagined.”

“But still, not legal. Dangerous too. Qui was right, he was murdered.” Pausing for a moment, Sergio waved his hand at the records. “These are a risk to all of us. Better left hidden for now.”

Yuri nodded. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s leave them here.” Turning to Tomaso, Yuri added, “Your suspicions were right. There was more to Montoya than met the eye.”

“Like an iceberg, yes,” agreed Yuri.

Sergio asked, “But of all of these dealings, which one got him killed?”

28

Somewhere along the leeward coast of Cuba, aboard the Sanabela

Still standing beside Estrada, Qui quietly asked, “Other than the lock, did you find anything else this morning? Anything unusual, out of place?”

When Estrada failed to answer, appearing lost in thought, some drama playing out in his head, Qui immediately knew there was more he hadn’t told them. “You know every inch of this trawler, every nook, every cranny.” She tore her eyes from Estrada and exchanged a knowing look with JZ, who’d joined them on the deck.

“This might best be discussed in private,” JZ suggested. The three returned to the pilothouse. Inside, out of the wind, JZ continued. “Luis, maybe it’s a good idea for us to search your vessel for anything unusual.”

“Unusual?” he asked.

“We don’t want the Sanabela going up in flames like my rented classic, do we?”

“A bomb? On board my boat? But it was in PNR impound the entire time. No one allowed on or off without proper—“

“Tino got aboard with proper authority to do an improper thing,” Qui corrected him. “He mayn’t’ve been the only one to come aboard.”

“But why rig my boat for destruction?” Estrada remained doubtful.

“They drove us onto your boat with their gunfire, Uncle. They wanted us here. Either an incendiary device or they plan to attack us at sea.”

“In that case, we should search the boat.” Estrada stroked his beard thoughtfully, “But we do not tell the crew, I think.”

“Understood,” replied Qui.

“The five of us—Giraldo, Adondo, you, Qui, myself—must do the search without attracting attention.”

“No easy task on a small boat,” commented Qui.

“Not so small, Qui. She’s seventy-two feet long with an eighteen and a half foot beam.” Luis went to his charts and pulled out the ship’s plans. As he spread the yellowing blue-pencil sheets across the chart table, he said, “In case you need to know, I keep these handy. Every corner of my boat at a glance.” The Sanabela was a typical wooden trawler, her hull planking, partitions, and pilothouse made of cypress, her bow stem and ribs of white oak. Some 27,000 board feet of timber went into her construction. Carrying 8,000 gallons of fuel and 900 gallons of fresh water, her 220 horsepower diesel engine enabled cruising at twelve knots and trawling at three. Typically, trawlers were iceboats carrying nearly a ton of ice for each day of cruise, which could last up to fifty days. Built to last some thirteen years, Estrada and his men had stretched out her diesel soul to more than 40 years. A good operator could pay for his boat in a free country in four to five years of hard work. But this was Cuba. While Estrada considered the Sanabela his, the hard truth of the matter was that it would always belong to the government.

JZ said, “We must search from bow to stern, top to bottom. These plans will help.”

Qui added, “We’ve gotta find it—if it exists—before it detonates.”

Estrada called to Giraldo and Adondo, informing them of the circumstances. The two crewmen remained stoic, calm trying to outdo calm.

“Giraldo, take the wheel. Adondo join us at the chart table. Less experienced in piloting, Adondo, being smaller and more agile, was the obvious choice to ferret around in the hull.

Going about the trawler now, the four splitting into pairs, they began to surreptitiously canvass the Sanabela, knowing at any moment a bomb might go off.

Alejandro felt the tension in his shoulders and his neck from a pounding headache. It’d been a bitch from the beginning. First the excitement on the marina, overhearing Cavuto and Humberto’s conversation, then learning Cavuto had made a fatal error in, one that could cause Humberto’s world to collapse, the whole empire—from the antiques to the underworld hotel casino to their dabbling in medical espionage and their interference in the workings of the SP.

If he couldn’t find Cavuto and keep him from blowing up the Sanabela, the American official would die. The ripple effect from this could tumble Humberto but also anyone associated with him—including Alejandro himself. Not to mention what repercussions might come out of Washington and threaten his beloved Cuba. They could not afford to have yet another American turn up dead in Cuban waters. As it was, no one readily believed the story the SP had put out about the dead doctors’s involvement with the Cuban underworld in drug trafficking. A prestigious Canadian researcher and two squeaky-clean, respected directors of an HIV-AIDS treatment clinic would scarcely sacrifice their careers to become drug traffickers.

After leaving the debacle at the marina where it was a miracle that no innocents were killed, Alejandro had gone back to Humberto. There he laid out his case before the older man, and Humberto finally realized the danger that Cavuto posed. Another American death due to Cavuto’s overconfidence spelled disaster.

Unable to reach Cavuto by phone because he was well out of cell phone range, Humberto now fumed when Ruiz did not answer his marine radio. Unknown to either man, the radio antenna had been broken sometime earlier by vandals, in such a way that it could not be detected until put in use. Humberto immediately ordered Alejandro to stop Cavuto; it was then that Alejandro’s headache had first begun.

Humberto insisted, “Take the helicopter and put a stop to it. Whatever it takes.”

Alejandro knew he had checkmated Cavuto, but only if he could catch him in time. However, Alejandro had made his own error in judgment, in telling the pilot to turn northeast. The Sanabela with Cavuto following were hours away in the other direction. Things only worsened when the pilot indicated the chopper needed refueling. More precious time lost.

Following the repeated broadcast of the news indicting the foreign doctors as having brought on their own deaths, thanks to their chosen lifestyle, Tomaso became increasingly agitated and fearful for his daughter’s safety. He called Arturo Benilo to set up a meeting, feeling he must do something.

A few hours later, they strolled the pathways within the confines of the Necrópolis Colón—one of Havana’s oldest cemeteries with over two million inhabitants, famed for its funerary and statuary art. Here among the dead, Tomaso confronted Benilo, wanting to know why he had informed the public that the doctors were dealing in drugs.

“I had nothing to do with these lies!”

“I know what I heard.”

“When did you start trusting what you hear on a government-run radio station? Especially when the SP is involved?”

“Hmmm…I should’ve guessed. OK, accept my apologies. But when I heard this news, I worried for Quiana.”

“She’s strong and smart, and so’s JZ. She’ll be all right.”

“I hope you’re right, but still, I worry. Look here, what’ve your tests told you? Have you any answers?”

“They died brutally. Tortured, then overdosed. We’re dealing with ruthless people. People who’ve turned to killing our own citizens, Montoya and now Hilito. Who’s next?”

“Who do suspect is behind it?”

“The man who owned the lock—that antique.”

“Yes, the one that haunts our nights.”

“We had nothing to do with that atrocity.”

“It all goes back to Santiago, and that is where my girl is going.”

“She is a detective now, my friend. It’s her job.”

“But there must be something we can do. I am at the point of picking up a gun myself.”

“Before you do that, perhaps we should have a talk with our oldest friend. He is, after all, a man of some influence.”

“Perhaps. But it must be immediately.”

“Let’s go to him together.”

“Look.” Tomaso pointed at the black marble tomb with its beautiful white pieta before them.

Benilo said, “The Aguilera family tomb.”

“Arturo, they would never forgive me if anything happened to her.”

“All the more reason for us to present the facts, my friend. What has been done is anti-Cuban.”

At a back table in the Excalibre’s darkened casino bar

“We couldn’t locate them, the boat or Cavuto. It’s like they disappeared.”

The helicopter pilot said, “Lotta ocean out there.”

Humberto Arias dismissed the pilot, “Leave us.”

The man visibly wilted, his eyes downcast as he walked away.

Humberto stared at Alejandro, his unblinking eyes cold and hard, waiting until he no longer heard the sound of the pilot’s footsteps.

It was a look Alejandro had seen before—a lizard’s obsessive gaze before pouncing on its prey. Staring back, he kept his face expressionless as if holding the winning hand in a high-stakes poker game.

“I send you to stop Ruiz, and you fail me Alejandro.” Humberto’s fingers drummed slowly against the glossy hardwood tabletop. “You’re beginning to remind me of how Cavuto compromised my operation in the first place.”

Recognizing Humberto’s body language as threatening, Alejandro swallowed, wishing he had a drink. “Perhaps this time, he’ll screw up in your favor.”

Humberto suddenly laughed, the sound loud and raucous, “I respect you Alejandro. Even under the gun, you keep your wits.” While the words seemed friendly, his tone remained glacial.

Reading the changes in Humberto—subtle softening of features, the drumming fingers stilled—Alejandro relaxed a bit.

“But, this time, you best pray Cavuto fails. If he blows the Sanabela, the SP’s story will not cover us.”

“Agreed. No one will believe the coincidence.”

“Exactly. An American cop killed aboard the boat where the three doctors were found?” He shook his head. “No one’s that stupid.”

Alejandro snickered. “However, it would prove the boat’s reputation is well founded.”

Again Humberto laughed. “You always make me smile Alejandro, even at the worst times.” He motioned the bartender to bring them drinks. “Listen, my boy, I want you to join me in Santiago next week at the mountain Forteleza.”

“La Montana Forteleza?” Never previously invited, Alejandro felt suspicion at being asked to the storied, whispered about conclave of the rich and powerful. An invitation could go either way—a beneficent reward or a quick and quiet ‘exit.’ Some likened it to a playground for heroes, a Mount Olympus in the mountains outside Santiago. Alejandro sipped his drink. His pounding headache and little food all day combined to make him feel woozy.

Arias conspiratorially said, “Say nothing of this to Cavuto. I do not wish him to know about the American having boarded the boat. Let him continue with his foolish assumptions. Understood?”

Alejandro nodded knowing Arias plotted someone’s downfall. He felt confident this meant Cavuto’s end and not his own. Yes, Ruiz’s future was as dark as a Havana night.

29

Taking up most of the day, the search for an explosive had turned up nothing. Yet Adondo, like a tenacious rat terrier, continued rummaging in the bowels of the engine room. A room with spaces so small even a slight man had little room to maneuver.

The Sanabela raced with surprising speed over the dark glassy like surface of the Caribbean waters, her recently greased and pampered motor roaring. They had cruised southward, around and past the curved fat finger of Pinar del Rio. At their stern, Giraldo’s cousin, Domingo, stood with binoculars raised, having been ordered to sound an alarm if any vessels pursued them.

With day turning to twilight, Qui and JZ watched sunset and clouds conspire to paint the sky brilliant colors. In the west, a rainbow of intense colors that overhead began to thin and fade into the indigo horizon in the east, where sea and sky proved indistinguishable. Enraptured by Cuba’s beauty from this perspective and feeling enveloped within its arms, Qui leaned into JZ for warmth, comfort, and respite from what’d been a horrendous day. JZ reached around her waist and held her close, deeply inhaling her scent. For Qui, this felt right.

“Rough day at the office?” His rich resonant voice sounded as if it could reach all the way back to Havana.

Qui laughed and replied, “Right about that, JZ. But this freedom? It’s delightful.”

“Agreed.”

Feeling her slight shiver, he tightened his hold on her.

“We left in such a hurry, I left no word with my colonel.”

“Probably a good thing. Qui, he was furious you’d left Tino’s death scene. Besides, we don’t know to what extent he’s involved in all this, and even if he isn’t involved, he’d only complicate matters.”

“But nobody knows where we are or—”

“Or, where we’re going, I hope.”

“Perhaps Santiago will provide some answers.”

“A pilgrimage for clues,” he replied taking her hand and squeezing. “Stop worrying. We’re gonna be OK.”

“What about you? You could get into serious trouble over this.”

“Not if we get results.”

Qui arched her back, looking overhead once more. At mid-heaven, red, orange, and yellow-tinted clouds streaked with ribbons of silver and blue faded into lavenders and purples, ribbons that the sea’s surface could not possibly reflect or duplicate. The growing darkness, interrupted by the occasional onshore lights and winking stars, marked their passage.

JZ followed her gaze into the striking overhead display, and in a moment of passion, he looked back into her gaze. He touched a finger below her chin, moved it lightly across her cheek, and delicately traced her lips. He then bent to touch her lips with his own. His kiss took her breath away and lingered as bold as the sunset.

Interrupted by the sound of shouting, they were plummeted back into their dangerous reality. They broke apart, all passion extinguished.

Had Domingo spotted a ship on their wake, or worse, had Adondo shouted an alarm?

With all sense of relief and calm shattered, Qui searched for the source of alarm.

JZ pointed to Adondo, emerging from below deck.

“I found it! I found it!”

Adondo held up a battered light-colored toolbox, as Estrada rushed toward him calling out. “Don’t alarm everyone! It’s only Giraldo’s tools.”

But Giraldo, overhearing, shouted from the pilothouse window, “No Captain! My toolbox is black!”

“Put it down! Carefully, don’t drop it!” shouted JZ, going immediately to examine the unclaimed item.

The entire crew gathered round. “Domingo!” shouted Qui. “Any sign of trouble over the waters?”

“A light far in the distance is all!” he shouted back.

Qui joined him at the stern. Using his binoculars, she examined the approaching distant light but could see no details, except that it was coming on fast. Its light brightening, the vessel continued straight toward them.

“Domingo, keep a close watch. When you can see some details, call me. We need to know what it is.”

“Is it the SP?”

“’Til they’re closer, anyone’s guess. Keep me informed.”

From the deck, JZ shouted, “Someone get me a pair of pliers, and the rest of you, back off!” To himself, he muttered, “Now, let’s have a look at what we’ve got.”

“No!” balked Captain Estrada. “Just throw it overboard, now!”

“And risk blowing out our hull to become shark bait?” JZ replied. “Now, please, Captain, get me those pliers.”

The full discovery of what they faced came when JZ opened the toolbox and flashed a light on its contents. Qui had joined the others to stare down into death-in-a-box: a web of wires and electronics connected to a blob of what looked like gray Playdoh. “Plastique,” JZ calmly said as if ordering coffee.

Unshaken, JZ knelt over the device while Estrada and Qui shivered beside him. “Listen, everyone!” shouted JZ. “Ready the lifeboats. We may have to abandon ship.”

“Leave my boat?” Estrada sounded incensed. “Not me.”

“This is a fishing trawler, Luis, not the Titanic,” JZ replied.

“To a man who has nothing else, it is important!”

“Think of your life.”

“She is my life.”

“JZ, do you know how to disengage it?” Qui asked, ignoring their remarks.

“I’ve had some training in detonation.”

“So what’s the next step, JZ?” Qui persisted.

“Meaning which wire should I pull?”

Luis erupted, “Bastards mean to destroy my boat, kill me, all my men!”

Qui replied, “Yes, all of us. To disappear.”

“Along with the lock,” added JZ.

“Send all their dirty secrets to the deep.” Qui sighed heavily, realizing that if the bomb went off now, she would have failed the now seven victims of this spreading madness.

“It’d leave only Sergio Latoya for them to clean up,” said Luis.

“Yes, of course,” Qui said, her mind racing. “JZ, they must’ve taken you for Sergio. You’re both about the same size and build.”

JZ nodded. “Makes sense…why they chased both of us aboard. Right now though, I gotta deal with this.” He indicated the blinking red-dot inside the toolbox.

“Throw it over the side! Now!” shouted Giraldo from overhead, and the other men took up the cry. “Over the side! Over the side!”

“But we have an opportunity here,” countered Qui.

“Yes, the opportunity to die!” shouted Estrada.

“No, Qui’s right!” JZ met her eyes and came to Qui’s defense.

“Uncle! Get some men to fill a lifeboat with as much flammable stuff as possible. Then, get it into the water.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“Set the bomb adrift,” JZ replied for her.

“Adrift?” Estrada looked puzzled.

“Allow them to blow it! Great idea.”

Qui explained, “If we disarm it or simply toss it overboard, the ship stalking us will keep coming.”

JZ added, “If they believe us all dead, things turn in our favor. A decoy, understand?”

“I like the sound of this.” Estrada smiled and began spouting orders. “You men there! Grab the garbage and anything that will burn! You others, get the lifeboat over the side! Hurry!”

Qui and JZ went about in search of items they needed to make the plan work. “Uncle, I want your Christmas lights,” said Qui.

Estrada put up his hands at this. “But I like my lights.”

“Do you like your life? We need them for the decoy.”

“Lights?” asked Estrada. “Of course. They see the lights in the distance, they detonate! Men, rig the lights like on the Sanabela.”

They gathered up rain gear, cast off netting, a pair of half-empty petrol cans. They tossed in some personal items for good measure. Adondo rigged the lights as JZ closed the toolbox and placed it in the center of the flammables. The lifeboat was then set adrift.

They continued at a clip, running without lights. The further they moved off from the decoy they’d created, the more it appeared a shrimper trawling for a night catch.

Everyone aboard Sanabela watched the blinking lights become smaller as they continued on their way. Then, at a goodly distance, the little boat was blown to smithereens shortly after being set adrift. JZ looked at his watch, which read 7:30 PM. They’d come a long way since having left Havana. Still, a long voyage lay ahead of them, but now those who stalked them had no reason to pursue, seeing the fiery eclipse of the Sanabela.

“You did well, JZ, for a security guy.”

“Good training.”

“Yeah…defusing explosives is going to be on the list for training a security guard, eh?”

JZ caught the knowing sarcasm in her voice. “Since 9/11 there’ve been a lot of new ahhh…precautions.”

“Don’t worry,” she finally added, “your secrets are safe with me.”

Seeing the boat explode, Cavuto smiled in the darkness, his heart warmed at the sight of his problems reduced to bits of fiery wreckage in the distance. As the Sanbela burned, he knew it was complete and absolute idiocy to be this far from home in a boat like this—one designed for racing in daylight. And without a working marine radio. Finally, with Humberto’s predicament obliterated, he turned the cigarette boat around and headed toward Havana, warmth, food, a good cigar, and a drink. Ruiz chuckled at the success of Step Two of his plan to regain Humberto’s trust and respect; he imagined a warm reception when Arias learned of the annihilation of the Sanabela and all aboard.

Now, onto Step Three: get rid of Alejandro by any means. Ruiz secretly envisioned the day when Alejandro would hang in a dungeon, but he knew it must be done cleverly, so as not to implicate himself in the younger man’s downfall. His anxiety-ridden mind replayed every detail of Step Three like a movie. A film he relished seeing played out in real life when he returned to the Old City.

30

Sergio had done precisely as Quiana had suggested, getting his family to safety, and lying low, but he was increasingly curious about Dr. Estaban Montoya’s hidden papers and his part in all of this intrigue. How was Montoya connected to the murders? If he could unlock this single door, pull this single thread, perhaps it would help Quiana unravel the whole case.

Now, accompanied by Yuri, Sergio drove through the dark streets of Havana toward Montoya’s apartment located atop his clinic. To mask their movements, Sergio had left his police car at the B&B, and they traveled in Yuri’s ancient Jeep, lovingly held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.

At Montoya’s, they were careful to break in without leaving a trace. Ex-Soviet security, Yuri, an expert with locks, had a complete set of burglary tools. Once inside, using flashlights, they searched for anything odd, anything out of place that might help lead to his killer or killers.

So far, all they knew was that Montoya had access to a great deal more money than his government salary afforded. But where did his “extra” funds come from? Was he involved in the drug trafficking that the SP announced as the cause of death of the foreigners? Was he taking money from the Canadian pharmaceutical company? Why? More likely, Montoya was the front man for someone higher up—maybe someone with connections in the Department of Health in Castro’s government, someone who saw ready money in dealing with the Canadian company desperate for new drugs, new profits. Underneath his cheerfulness and joie de view, Sergio had a cynic’s view of government that extended to foreign businesses. The Cuban government’s control of the media, its not so subtle bias in reporting international news made him suspicious of capitalism. If this Canadian doctor was some sort of go-between for her company, did that make her the mysterious donor in Montoya’s coded records? If so, did this somehow get her killed? But why kill her two colleagues? Montoya had told Qui that he’d met with Denise at his clinic, or so Tomaso and Yuri reported. Could this company, through Dr. Beisiegel have pushed too hard, too far, too fast? These were the thoughts wafting through Detective Sergio Latoya’s mind as he entered the clinic.

Upstairs the apartment had been treated as a crime scene, but Sergio hoped they hadn’t as yet cleaned out the clinic’s files. It took only minutes to learn they were too late. Every filing cabinet, every desk drawer had been gutted and left empty, lip balm, loose keys, paperclips rattling around at the bottom of the drawers.

“Damn it, Yuri, we’re too late.”

Yuri dropped into a chair, the cushion sighing with his weight. “We should’ve gotten here much sooner.”

“It wouldn’t’ve done any good.” Sergio sat on the end of a desk. “Peña was in charge of the investigation. If he took the files, we might have a chance to find something. But this looks like the heavy hand of the SP.”

“Forget about finding anything from that source. Face it, someone’s desperate to cover all this up.”

“Desperate and dangerous.”

“And clumsy.”

“Agreed,” said Sergio. “Who’s gonna believe Montoya manages to accidentally kill himself, and then my friend, Tino, swallows his gun? All within twenty four hours?”

“It was my fault Montoya was killed,” said a woman emerging from the darkness.

Startled, both men leapt at the unexpected sound. They whirled around to face her.

“Where’d you come from?” asked Yuri staring at the woman in obvious distress.

“More importantly, who the hell’re you? And what’re you doing here? This is a crime scene.”

“Upstairs. I was upstairs when I heard noises.”

“You’re one of Montoya’s nurses?” Sergio demanded.

“Yes, his only nurse, Alana Suaro. I got him killed. I did it.”

She burst into tears and crumpled onto a nearby office settee. Sergio went to her and asked, “Explain yourself, what’re you saying?”

“I saw him give the Canadian doctor a file. He…he was giving her information, secret information. I am a good citizen. I…I had to turn him in, but I…I didn’t know they…that they would…that he would die. He was killed…his reputation destroyed.” With that, she burst anew into tears.

Yuri placed a hand on her shoulder. “This is not your doing, Alana is it? You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

She nodded looking from one to the other. “You’re PNR?”

“We are,” Yuri lied thinking she’d tell them more if she thought them police and not the SP. “You can trust us. We need your help to solve his death.”

Sergio showed her his badge.

She sighed heavily. “He was a good doctor. Estaban tried hard even when we had no drugs. He researched herbs. I knew he got drugs somewhere for the patients. I didn’t question, maybe I should have?”

Yuri gently patted her hand to encourage her and said, “But the patients got better, yes?”

“Many times, yes. We had to work hard to hide the drugs, so no one would know. We were a good team.” Tears welled up again.

“You loved him,” Yuri stated quietly.

Tears flowed down her face as she stared at Yuri. She dabbed at her eyes, looked down, and softly said, “Yes, I did. But he didn’t know. I never told him. I never meant for him to die. But what he did was wrong, very wrong.”

Yuri gently asked, “Alana, Denise brought him these drugs he needed, didn’t she? From her company? Smuggled in from Canada?”

“She’d bring a package each visit, yes.”

“What did he give her in exchange for the drugs?”

“I don’t know. It was all hush-hush is all I can tell you, but Estaban, he was just a neighborhood doctor. What could he offer her and her big company?”

Sensing opportunity, seeing her face go from despondency to hope as she and Yuri talked, Sergio’s respect for Yuri’s people skills rose. “We know his death has something to do with Cuba’s HIV-AIDS research,” Sergio began, adding, “and we know that international conference here last week was no accident. Cuba is on the cutting edge of better, more effective, more humane treatments—that’s what this is all about. That much we do know, but what we don’t know is who the players are.”

“Alana, do you know who gave Montoya the information? Who was behind this intrigue?” Yuri smiled at her, a warm inviting smile. It was obvious to him that she didn’t want them to think badly of Estaban.

“At first, I thought he was negotiating on his own with Dr. Beisiegel.”

“Montoya and the Canadian were conducting business on the side?” Yuri gently pressed for details.

“I thought so, but he had nothing to trade. So someone else, someone high up had to be involved.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I saw the file he showed Dr Beisiegel before it disappeared. It was not AIDS-HIV research.”

Sergio was shocked, “What then?”

“Stem cell research.”

“Ah, yes,” Yuri muttered. “Foolishly banned in the US.”

Because Fidel had made an enormous commitment to medical research over the years, Cuba was at the vanguard of cancer, HIV-AIDS, and stem cell research. Fidel had recently brokered his own deal with a private California company and the US in order to jump-start the FDA approval for a cure for skin cancer, and approval of several vaccines effective against the entire family of herpes virii.

“Do you have any proof of this?” asked Sergio. “Anything at all.”

“Only my word, and now I fear for my own life.”

Sergio nodded. “We’ll take her back to the B&B until things settle.”

Yuri agreed with a grunt, still lost in thought.

The trio stepped out the door where Jorge Peña confronted them. “What’s going on here, Sergio? Ms. Suaro?”

Wednesday afternoon, two and half days after leaving Havana

As the Sanabela neared its final destination, Santiago de Cuba, Estrada had pointed out the Basilica del Cobra nestled in the mountains above the nearby village of El Cobre. The basilica was known worldwide for its full-sized statue of the Black Madonna. What made this particular rendering of Christ’s mother exceptional was her color. “Home of copper mines and our Lady, the Black Madonna,” Estrada said, crossing himself. “Cobre…copper, still a big export.”

Curious, JZ asked, “Just how large is Santiago?”

“Over 400,000 people live here,” replied Qui, “and, it’s the hottest place on the island.”

“Hot in more ways than one,” added Estrada. “The liveliest music, the hottest food, and these people are passionate. Festivals and dancing all the time.”

Soon, the three of them saw in the distance Cuba’s second largest city sitting atop a cliff in front of the gorgeous Sierra Maestra mountains and overlooking a breathtaking aqua-blue bay. It appeared a remote, hard to reach area.

“Coming by sea wasn’t such a bad idea after all,” Qui muttered staring at the beauty of this approach. The city still retained its colonial landmarks, notably its cathedral—the largest in all of Cuba—alongside crumbling forts standing sentinel over the harbor.

Estrada, who claimed he had ‘children’ here, pointed out a university building saying, “I have a daughter, Esmerelda, who teaches history there.”

JZ piped in, “I know a bit of the history of this city myself. Founded in the 1500s, fought over by the French and English buccaneers, it became a center for smuggling. A haven for French Haitians during the slave revolt.”

“I’m impressed! I thought Americans only cared about American history.”

“I was just getting to the Spanish-American war and the USS Maine.”

“When we became an occupied country, not unlike Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers still on our soil.”

“For which we pay your government.”

“Checks Fidel refuses to cash.”

“True enough. Cashed just the first one.” JZ smiled at her and joked, “I’ve heard he uses ’em now to paper his bathroom.”

“I’ve heard when the check arrives, he uses it to light a cigar.” She smiled back at him.

“I thought he gave up cigars.”

“He doesn’t smoke. He just lights it, and waves it around for the cameras.”

JZ and Estrada laughed at the image.

“Still, I just hope you American’s have learned some diplomacy since 1898.”

“1898. Ancient history, Qui. Ancient history.”

“Ancient history to you Americans maybe. Not to us. Everyone’s invaded us and claimed rights here they were not entitled to. The French, the Spaniards, you Americans.”

JZ nodded. She did not have to go into details about U.S. ships establishing a blockade in Santiago’s harbor where they trapped the Spanish fleet in this very bay. The siege here ended abruptly when a desperate and ill-conceived attempt to escape resulted in the annihilation of the fleet, followed by the surrender of the city.

“Isn’t this where Fidel began his revolution?” JZ asked.

“Yes, he attacked Batista’s army garrison here.”

“The army garrison, yes.”

“Now it’s a retreat for high government officials. A place to play away from everyone’s eyes.”

Qui and JZ watched Luis’s crew expertly dock the Sanabela with barely a bump.

“Where to from here?” asked JZ of Qui as they walked into the pilothouse.

Qui grabbed the lock from its hiding place and replied with a shrug. “Like you, I’m a foreigner now. Never been here before. First, let’s buy some clothes. Second, I want a bath, a long relaxing bath. Third, food, no more fish!”

“Perhaps we should draft Estrada as our guide?”

“My cousin, Rita, a widow now, makes and sells clothes for the festivals,” Luis told them. “She’ll have something you can wear, both of you.”

“OK, that takes care of clothes. How about a roof over our heads and some food?”

“Rita will find us places to stay.”

“Can she be trusted?” Qui asked.

“She’s family.” Estrada smiled and added, “Real family, blood ties.”

“Good enough for me. Let’s go.” JZ responded, hungry for anything but fish, and ready to burn his clothes.

Jotting a note, Estrada handed it to Qui, saying, “Here’s Rita’s address. Put yourself in her hands. Tell her we’re family.”

“Are you sure, Uncle?”

“What? That we’re family? Of course we are!” He grinned at her.

Qui wondered if she’d ever learn the truth of their relationship.

“My men, see them?” Estrada said, pointing at his crew leaving the boat, “they go to celebrate Carnival. I need to be with them. Keep them outta trouble. They’re my other children.”

“All right. Go, go. We’ll be fine. We’ll see you in the morning at Rita’s. Tomorrow, the basilica.”

31

With the help of the taxi driver, Qui and JZ located Rita’s place, where they found her to be a bubbly, friendly person who, on learning that Luis had sent them, could not do enough for them. “Luis’s family is my family too!” she declared. “You are the niece he talks of when he visits, Tomaso Aguilera’s daughter.”

Amazed Luis’d mentioned her, Qui thought perhaps they were related after all. “Does he come here often?”

Rita laughed in a warm inviting way, “Carnival every year, he comes to visit. But come, let’s find you clothes before you shower and eat.”

They wandered her shop as she brought out ornate beautiful festival clothes from the back; clothes intended for sale only to tourists. The money likely supported her more than her meager government salary. Qui idly wondered if she received benefits as a widow. Not one to interfere with how people chose to support themselves as long as no one was hurt and laws were not too openly flaunted, Qui admired Rita’s skill as a seamstress. The clothes were lightweight, appropriate for both the heat and Carnival.

After collecting several outfits, Rita asked her visitors to follow as she climbed stairs to her private residence. “You’ve come at a good time. My older sister finally found a man to marry her, and they are off on honeymoon visiting relatives in the hills. They’ll be celebrating Carnival in their own private way this year!” She chuckled. “They have an apartment here that I’ll prepare for you. It’s small, but enough for two.”

JZ offered what little money he had left, but Rita refused his offer. “Family takes care of family.” This aspect of Cuban life continually surprised JZ. For people with so little, they were generous and welcoming even to a stranger.

Directing them to separate bathrooms, Rita warned, “Do not use too much pressure or we’ll run out of hot water. Tonight, you go enjoy the Carnival, then come back. Carnival goes all night and day, as you can hear.” She waved toward the open windows. “I’ll make us food. Fish?”

“Oh, anything but fish! All we’ve eaten for days is fish. I think I’ve grown scales on my back!” said Qui laughing.

“Pork and morros with tomatoes from the garden.”

Qui’s mouth began watering in anticipation. “You have a garden here?”

“Not me, my daughter. She brings fresh vegetables. Now, go shower for dinner and Carnival!”

Above the sound of the water, Qui heard Rita singing, her voice a rich sultry contralto as warm and welcoming as the woman herself. Qui smiled, now knowing the real reason Luis came back each year was more than just the Carnival de Santiago. It’d been a long time on the fishing trawler without a place to properly bathe, so Qui thoroughly enjoyed washing the salt and smell of the sea from her hair and skin.

Having showered and changed into cool clothing, Qui and JZ savored a brief meal on the windswept veranda until Rita shooed them out into the night to enjoy the festival.

Feeling relatively safe so far from Havana, with those seeking their deaths believing them at the bottom of the sea, the pair enjoyed their evening of music, frivolity, dance, and rum. Awash in the sound of musical groups, the sight of parading locals with giant brightly-colored masks, and dancers wearing lavish costumes, JZ shouted over the street party.

“It’s like something out of Shakespeare’s Mid-Summer’s Night Dream.” Qui’s eyes sparkled at the array of colors and sights.

Qui and JZ were soon swept into the delirious ecstatic dancing that followed the parades, and JZ finally got his wish to dance with Qui. With the entire city partying around them, the evening took on a romantic, magical feel that infused the couple with childlike delight.

Exhausted by midnight, they arrived back at their temporary quarters. Rita had not exaggerated: the rooms were small with brightly painted walls covered with posters and photographs. The curtains and bed linens competed with the walls for brightness in a wild melee of riotous color. JZ stood frozen in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the sight. It was as if Carnival continued inside the room.

Smiling, Qui asked, “Too much local color?”

Nodding, JZ laughed allowing her to guide him into the room. Pulling her to him in a hug, he said, “Another wonderful evening you’ve given me.” Not letting her pull away, he tipped up her chin upward and passionately kissed her.

Qui lingered a moment in his arms, savoring the kiss, then pulled away. “It’s the magic of Santiago. I’ve always heard Carnival was magical. Tonight’s proved it. So different from Havana’s carnival, where we just watch.”

“So how many miles do you suppose we danced the conga?”

“According to my feet, too many! Liliana would love this; we’ve got to bring her next year.”

Noticing the “we” in her comment, JZ wondered at the Freudian slip. “We? Hmmm… Is that some sorta invitation?”

Qui colored and turned away, pretending an interest in the passing parade outside the open window.

“JZ… There is no “we” and can’t be.”

JZ laughed at her unintended rhyme and joked, “But there can’t be no ‘can’t be’s in love, don’t-cha sees?”

At that, staring at one another, they burst into laughter.

“Too much rum is the only excuse for bad poetry,” Qui announced. “Time for bed!”

JZ looked around and asked, “Where’s the couch? I was going to take the couch. You take the bed.”

“There is no couch, JZ.”

“Hmmmm…then it appears that I’ll take the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re both adult enough to share a bed without anything happening!”

“Are you sure?” he asked, ever the gentleman.

“I’m sure,” she smiled at him and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “We’ll just sleep in our clothes.”

“You under the covers, me over?” he added.

“Yeah, that way, nothing happens, right?”

“And if nothing happens…”

“Right, we don’t have to worry ‘bout…you know…”

“Things getting complicated?”

She smiled and nodded, adding, “Who needs complications.”

“Emotional entanglements,” he said, nodding.

“Right.”

Taking off shoes, each found space on the small bed. She crawled beneath the sheets, and he remained atop.

“But you know, Qui,” he began, “I like the way we are together.”

“You mean the way we dance?”

“That and the way we kiss.” He pulled up on one elbow to look into her eyes and features. “You’re a beautiful woman, Qui Aguilera.”

“The way I look? No makeup, exhausted, my hair all over the place—wild from dancing?”

“You look absolutely natural, beautiful.” He kissed Qui on the lips, pulled back and smiled.

“Hmmm.” She pulled him to her, returning his kiss.

Each felt the heat from the other coming through the sheet and through their clothing. They continued kissing, exploring. Soon, somehow, the blanket fell to the floor, followed by Qui’s blouse and JZ’s shirt. Their hands began exploring as they continued to kiss. Their remaining clothing proved no obstacle to either their enjoyment or their foreplay. In fact, tracing the boundary where skin disappeared beneath clothing made each shiver in anticipation of more touch. Unable to resist a moment longer the pleasure of skin sliding against skin, what little clothing remained now came off. Irresistible sensation ruled; thought, analysis, and doubt ceased, as their bodies moved to the rhythms still echoing throughout the city.

The night of freedom and fun ended with shared passion, despite their combined misgivings about the future or the chance of their ever having a true relationship.

Wrapped in JZ’s arms, Qui’s last conscious thought was how comfortable she felt in his embrace.

Qui and JZ emerged from their shared room to find Luis already drinking coffee and laughing with Rita at the table.

“Ahh, Luis, I see our two sleepyheads are finally up!”

“Have a good night?” Luis turned to them and asked.

Rita chuckled as she poured coffee for them. “Come, eat some fruit.” She pointed to a platter of sliced fruit. “I’m preparing eggs the way Luis likes them, scrambled with sausage, onions, cheese, and peppers. Would you like some?”

JZ, eager to try local cuisine, called out, “I’m with you, Luis.”

Qui grimaced and said, “I’ll just have some fruit and coffee. Never could eat in the morning, and especially not after last night’s Carnival.” She jointed Rita by the stove.

Luis smiled, “Not like the tame celebration in Havana, all show and no spirit, eh Qui?”

”Yeah, Uncle, no spirit like that of Santiago rum!” Qui laughed and the others joined her. Carnival in Santiago was known as much for the communal participation as it was for the free flowing rum. Qui wondered if Rita had any aspirin, something always in short supply in Cuba since the Soviet withdrawal in the early nineties.

While Rita cooked, Qui cut thick slices of homemade bread. Bringing the bread to the table, Qui asked, “Uncle, when can you take us to the basilica?”

JZ added, “We’re anxious to get started.”

“There are steps I need to take first,” Luis replied with a frown and a quick glance at Rita. “People who may help us.”

“And how long will that take?” Qui pressed. “And why can’t we come with you?”

“There might be delicate negotiations involved. Some things that a PNR detective can’t be part of.” Looking her directly in the eyes, he added, “Trust me a bit longer, Qui. Some things are best left to me.”

“In the meantime, perhaps Rita can take us to the basilica?” Qui smiled at the other woman.

“No!” exploded Luis before Rita could respond. The other three stared at him in shock.

“Luis! Be nice to our guests.”

JZ noted her use of ‘our’ and tucked it away. He was beginning to believe Luis’s claim to family all over the island.

“I don’t want you involved any deeper than you already are.” He said in a loud voice to Rita. “You take too many chances!”

“I can take care of myself,” replied Rita, “and I can escort them to Father Pasqual, who’ll guide them to the basilica and answer their questions. You can meet them there later.”

“Why’re you hedging, Uncle?” Qui asked. “Why delay our going out to the basilica? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

Staring at Qui and JZ, Luis grimly said, “There are many things in Santiago better left unspoken.” Without another word, he rose and abruptly left the house, leaving the three staring at one another.

Rita sighed as if his quick leave-taking were commonplace, and she softly explained, “Luis has dealings with many who’d be arrested if their activities were noticed, especially by the SP or the PNR.” She shrugged, “It makes him jumpy.”

Qui replied, “A side of Luis I’ve never seen.”

JZ added, “Me neither. It couldn’t’ve been the eggs; they’re excellent.”

“Thanks. I don’t know the priests at the basilica well,” said Rita, munching a piece of buttered bread, “but I do know the man I’m telling you about, Father Pasqual, at a church here in Santiago.”

“Rita, the fewer people who know our reason for being here, the better.” Qui glanced at JZ who nodded in agreement.

Rita didn’t skip a beat, “Father Pasqual is a Jesuit. He’ll keep your secrets, and he knows the priests at the basilica. He’ll get you answers.”

“Has Luis some bad history with the priest at the basilica?” JZ asked reaching for another slice of bread.

“Luis is uncomfortable around any priest,” replied Rita. “But, Luis had some small problem at El Cobre long ago. I don’t know what; something he doesn’t talk about.”

“All right,” Qui relented, “but you said you can take us to this Father Pasqual.”

“Normally, he’s at his church,” said Rita. “But, during Carnival, he gives the blessing at the start of each new day’s parade, so I’m not sure where he’ll be.”

“All the same, we need to find him.”

Rita didn’t hesitate. “The let’s be off!”

32

A visit to Father Pasqual’s church revealed that he was not at the church.

“So where can we find him now?” asked Qui.

The junior priest, an Italian named Chimino, replied, “Undoubtedly in the parade. Fancies himself a ‘man of the people’ with their typical love of partying. Actually, you just missed him. He’d been ahhh…recuperating but—”

“Recuperating?” asked Rita, concerned.

“From last night’s festivities,” Chimino reassured her.

“Oh boy, we’re in for a search now!” Rita exclaimed.

They walked toward the sound of the revelers hoping the Father would be easy for Rita to spot. As they passed the gateway to the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, dominated by a memorial to Cuban soldiers who’d fought and died in Angola, Qui slowed for a better look.

Noticing this, Rita asked, “Have you seen Marti’s tomb?” Hearing a no, she said, “Let’s look, it’ll only take a few moments.” She led the visitors to the impressive tomb of Cuban national hero, revolutionary, and writer Jose Marti, a crenulated hexagonal tower, each side representing one of Cuba’s six original provinces. The round mausoleum designed so that the sun always shone on Marti’s casket—adorned with the Cuban flag—impressed JZ as much as it did Qui. Rita, who’d explained all this, crossed herself, and stood silent.

Ten minutes later, Rita recognized Father Pasqual in the midst of a weaving conga line. She then rushed ahead of Qui and JZ to drag the priest free of the dancers.

“Rita, why’re you pulling me away? You know how seldom I indulge!”

“It’s important, Father.” She guided him to Qui and JZ where she introduced the young priest as Father Gabriel Pasqual.

Rita stated, “Father, Qui here is a PNR detective—”

Still breathless, Pasqual inhaled deeply and asked, “Santiago PNR? I thought I knew them all.”

“No, no, no, Havana PNR.”

“Havana, really? On official business?”

“Yes,” replied Qui.

Rita added, “And Mr. Julio Zayas is a security officer with the American Interest Section. Father Pasqual knows everyone and everything that goes on in Santiago.”

“Not quite, but I try to remain informed,” the priest replied turning to the two. “Obviously, you’re not here to celebrate Carnival, so tell me what brings you to Santiago?”

“It’s a rather involved story,” said JZ.

“Can we talk privately?” asked Qui.

“I know a place,” the older man replied. “Come along.”

They were soon ensconced at a table back in the church offices, where Pasqual asked, “So tell me what sort of intrigue brings you to me?”

“It has to do with this antique,” said Qui, lifting the lock from its black pouch to place it on the table.

Father Pasqual stared at the relic as though it were a curse, but he said nothing. Qui wished that she could read his mind at this moment.

Rita said, “We need your help, Father.”

Qui added, “It’s important. Lives have been lost.”

“And, ours are at stake,” JZ dryly commented.

“So it’s come home after all these years,” Father Pasqual muttered as he rose and scanned the wall of books. “Wait a moment.”

The other three stared at one another. Rita, familiar with Pasqual’s habits, put a finger to her lips cautioning silence.

Finally, Pasqual erupted with “Here you are.” Returning to the table, he sat and opened a thick volume he’d removed from a bookcase that stretched to the ceiling. Searching, he located a particular page and smiled. He turned the book to face them, pointing at a photograph.

“It’s the same photo, your father’s!” said a surprised JZ.

“Your father is Tomaso Aguilera?” asked the priest. “He placed a finger on the caption designating the photographer’s name.”

Shocked, Qui could not answer. She nodded thinking small island world…that someone so far from Havana might know so much about her father, but then his photos were known the world over. Still, Qui silently vowed on returning to Havana to learn more from her father and Benilo about their past.

“Father,” asked Qui, “what book is this?”

The priest flipped back to a title page that read Historia El Sanctuario de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre. “You bring home a bad memory, reminder of things long past.”

“This is so infuriating. You’re being about as much help as my other reluctant witnesses,” replied Qui.

“Your father and Arturo Benilo.” At the surprised look on her face, he added, “They called me earlier and warned you might turn up here.” He smiled, “Been expecting you.”

“Yes, my father and Benilo. They wouldn’t speak of whatever it is that happened at the basilica.”

“You’re asking us to stare at one of the darkest moments in the Revolution. When soldiers swept out of the hills and took over El Cobre.”

JZ urged the man to continue.

“War is wrong. Killing is wrong. That lock is like the murdered having come back to tell their story.”

“A story too long buried and never told,” Rita bitterly added.

“What do you propose we do, Father?” Qui asked. “We need answers before someone else turns up dead.”

“Let me assure you, you’ll only stir up a hornet’s nest going to the basilica with this.” He pointed at the lock.

Rita jumped in, “I’ll take you two up there.”

“No, Rita, I’ll take them.” The look exchanged between Rita and the priest spoke volumes; neither wanted the other taking risks. “Go home. You’ve done enough.”

Father Pasqual gathered up the book as Qui gathered up the lock and replaced it in its black sleeve. Rita said farewell and left them in the hands of the priest.

The most important shrine for Cubans and the most famous church in the country, the sanctuary at Cobra, rose up from Moboa Hill to greet visitors. To take their minds off the bone-jarring ride as the 1959 Volvo rattled up the steep incline, the taxi driver began telling his passengers the history of his vehicle, in which he took great pride. As he caressed the dashboard, Ramon began, “She’s the 120…the Amazon, built in 1959. First car in the world with three-point safety belts, still used today—a revolution at the time, just like here in Cuba!”

“How remarkable,” Qui replied facetiously. Hanging on to the back of Father Pasqual’s front seat, Qui eyed the holes in the worn upholstery. Alongside her, JZ winced and leaned forward to avoiding bumping his head against the roof with every bounce. The two smiled at one another as Ramon continued his soliloquy.

“My Amazon was brought here by a sugar-cane owner, who gave it to Fidel as a gift, hoping the Beard wouldn’t seize the family cane farm.”

After an especially tooth-jarring bump, Father Pasqual asked, “Ramon, you said you were going to replace her shocks. What happened?”

“Sorry Father…no parts. Have to hand-make them, takes time. Next week…maybe.” Ramon shrugged and grunted when JZ’s weight against his seat delivered a jolt, causing him to scan the rear-view mirror and apologize, “Sorry. Everyone OK back there?”

Through clenched teeth, JZ replied, “Fine except for my head…my arms…my knees…my butt.” Looking down at Qui, who’d slid into him for at least the tenth time, he asked, “How about you Qui?” Intensely aware of her warm skin, her scent reminded him of their previous night together. The rollercoaster ride kept his attention focused on protecting his head. Just as well, he thought ruefully.

“Oh, just wonderful,” Qui said. Ready to focus on anything other than the bumpy ride, she quickly added, “Ramon, how did you come by the car?”

“It’s a long story that’ll make the return trip more interesting. But now,” he continued, “to enhance your spiritual experience here in El Cobra,” he said to the young couple, obviously taking them for newlyweds on holiday, “there’s an inn behind the church, Hospedería de la Caridad.”

“Yeah,” added Pasqual, “eight pesos.”

“And they welcome foreigners, so long as you abide by the strict rules, Mr. Zayas.”

“There’s not much to their rooms,” commented Pasqual.

“Bare, yes, but well-kept rooms,” Ramon countered.

Cooped up in the Volvo for the past half hour, JZ longed for a four-wheel drive vehicle with a powerful air conditioner and a working suspension system. Sighing, he caught a glimpse of their final destination: the cathedral stood in splendor, framed by deep green forest, lodged amid the foothills of the Sierra Maestra near the old copper mines. The same mines that gave the area its name—El Cobra.

Glancing over, Qui looked to where he stared and saw the same stunning sight. Ideal photographic opportunity. She imagined her father here with his camera, snapping shots of Fidel’s guerillas in their mountain camp. “Not surprised this place beckoned my father’s interest.”

“Or tourists,” replied JZ.

“Or pilgrims,” added Father Pasqual. “The faithful come in droves from across Cuba to pay homage to—and ask for protection from—the Black Madonna who is kept inside.” At this, Father Pasqual and Ramon made the sign of the cross.

Ramon murmured, “Blessings from the Virgen de la Caridad.”

Father Pasqual explained the Black Madonna’s mysterious appeal along with a bit of her history. “She is the protectress of Cuba, and her image—cloaked in a glittering gold robe—is seen daily throughout the country in every shop window.”

Ramon added, “She is our Ochún.”

“A parallel figure from Afro-Cuban worship,” added JZ. “Goddess of rivers, gentleness, love, and femininity. Dark-skinned and dressed in bright yellow garments. Sort of a mix of Madonna and sensuality.”

“So you have studied our country after all,” Qui said as the Volvo lurched around a corner.

“My roots’re here too, Qui,” retorted JZ.

Father Pasqual continued, “In 1998, the Pope himself visited our humble shores, and he blessed the shrine, calling the Virgin ‘La
Reina de los Cubanos’.”

“Queen of Cubans,” JZ softly translated.

Ramon added, “The Holy Father donated a rosary and a jeweled crown to further adorn our Madonna.”

“According to legend, the Black Madonna, our patron saint, was rescued from the sea at the Bay of Nipe in 1611 by three young fishermen—”

“I heard it was three miners,” said the taxi driver.

“Depends on who’s telling the story, I suspect,” Qui added.

“Either version,” replied an annoyed Father Pasqual, “our saint was about to capsize in a storm, and the fishermen saw that our Madonna wore a sign around her neck—”

“Really? A sign, around her neck?” JZ inquired.

“Identified her, right Father?” added Qui.

“You know, she doesn’t speak.” Pasqual shot them a look of irritation at being interrupted yet again. “The sign read: YO SOY LA VIRGEN DE LA CARIDAD.”

“I am the Virgin of Charity.” JZ again translated for himself.

As the cab came to a standstill and stalled, a thin plume of smoke rose as they peeled themselves from the interior. Qui and JZ stretched while Father Pasqual, not to be sidetracked, continued speaking. “With the Black Madonna held firmly in their grasp, the three fishermen, struggling against the waves and the blasting storm, miraculously made it to shore with the statue.”

“Since then,” added Ramon, “pilgrims—who lots of times…make the last twenty…or thirty feet here…on their knees…”

Pasqual finished for him, adding, “—they pray to her image and place votos—”

“Mementos—” Qui put in.

“—and offerings of gratitude for her miracles,” finished the cabbie.

“Small carved wood images from animals to boats,” said Pasqual.

“Along with prayers for those who’ve tried to make it to Florida on rafts,” added Qui, “and failed.”

Pasqual nodded in earnest to this. “Your American author, Mr. Zayas, Ernest Hemingway—”

“The Old Man & the Sea, yes.”

“—his fisherman in the story made a promise to God. Do you recall it?”

“I…I’m sorry, I do not.”

“Ahhh…well, Hemmingway had the old Cuban promise to visit the shrine if he could only land his marlin—and when Hemmingway won his Nobel Prize for Literature, he donated it to our Black Madonna.”

Ramon said, “I’ll get my Amazon ready for the trip back; she’s thirsty and so am I.” He pointed to a nearby village nestled among the trees, leaving no doubt as to his intent.

“I read that the statue was once stolen?” asked JZ as they walked toward the rear entry to the basilica having come by way of a service road, thereby avoiding the 254 steps linking the village of El Cobre to the cathedral’s front entrance.

Father Pasqual replied, “Stolen, yes, but later recovered. Those who stole it…let’s just say horrible things befell them. Steps were taken. It’ll never happen again.”

“What sort of steps?” asked JZ, ever conscious of security matters.

“It once stood in the hermitage created for it,” said Father Pasqual. “Everyone could approach and pray at will. She was unadorned and unprotected.”

“So, where is she now?”

“On the second floor,” the priest pointed at the cathedral, adding, “up the back stairs, encased in glass, air conditioned. Untouchable. When Mass is said, at the push of a button, there she is, bejeweled and enshrined, the Virgin. You must see her.”

Having been alerted by Father Pasqual’s phone call, Father Francisco Cevalos stood like a sentinel at the door. “My young colleague and friend, it’s so good to see you again. So who are these important people who get the easy route into Basilica de Nuestra Seńora de la Caridad del Cobre?”

“Gotta be the longest name for a church I’ve ever heard,” JZ commented as he shook hands with the tall older priest. “Julio Zayas.”

“Almost a letter for each step out front,” added Qui. “Detective Quiana Aguilera, Havana PNR.”

Eyes widening at hearing Quiana’s title, Father Cevalos turned to JZ and asked, “And you, Mr. Zayas, your accent says you’re not Havana PNR.” He quizzically raised an eyebrow.

“I’m with the American Interest Section.”

Turning to Pasqual, Cevalos said, “Gabriel, you can’t legitimately beat me at chess, so you bring in reinforcements—with badges?”

The two men enjoyed a good laugh, and as Father Cevalos waved them inside, he said, “I overheard Father Pasqual giving you a lesson about our Madonna when I interrupted. Let me finish for him.”

The group entered the shadowed cool interior of the cathedral, following Father Cevalos whose voice echoed off the high-ceilings as he led them behind the alter through passageways few people ever saw. “Our Black Madonna might be untouchable now, but on her day, September eighth, she is carried in pilgrimage for all to see. Not everyone can make the climb. Since you come with Gabriel’s blessing, let me show you our Lady.”

The group climbed to the second floor and walked along narrow silent hallways until arriving at a locked room. Flourishing a key, Father Cevalos opened the door, swinging it wide for them to enter. In a moment, Qui and JZ stood in silent awe before the Black Madonna. Wearing a crown encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, with a golden halo above, she held a cross of diamonds and amethysts. In the glass case, the statue appeared beatific and serene as if she whispered the words—peace, hope, love, and charity. Her liquid-black eyes bore into Qui’s, transfixing her.

Father Pasqual turned to his friend, commenting, “She has been entranced by the Lady.”

Cevalos replied, “I wonder if Detective Aguilera was called here by the Lady to begin with.”

Noticing Qui’s silence, JZ wondered what she thought of Father Cevalos’s profound words, or even if she heard them.

Startled, Qui now stared from JZ to the two priests. “She’s given me a message.”

33

Miramar, the Aguilera Bed and Breakfast

Over a late lunch, Tomaso, Yuri, and Sergio were joined by Benilo to share what details each had learned.

Yuri calmly announced to those at the table, “I took the liberty of inviting Detective Peña to join us. I sense time is running out, and there’s no room for error. We need answers.”

Tomaso and Benilo looked at Yuri as if he’d lost his mind.

Defending Yuri, Sergio said. “This is a good decision. Peña is in a position to help us, and we can trust him as long as Gutierrez is kept out of it.”

Carrying a fresh pot of steaming coffee and flan, Maria Elena approached, followed by Peña who’d just arrived.

Peña called out, “I heard that. Not to worry.” He paused, awaiting Maria Elena’s departure. “Alfonso’s left Havana. Ordered to the Forteleza with his buddy, Cavuto.” Peña sat at the table and helped himself to the food he’d so often mocked Qui about. “The old fool still confides in me.”

“When the time comes, Jorge,” began Benilo. “You’ll make a great witness at his trial.”

“What makes you think he’ll get a trial?” Tomaso asked. “More likely he’ll simply disappear.”

Sergio shook his head, “We can’t let that happen. We need Gutierrez to rat out the others.”

Yuri frowned, “Exactly why we must pool our resources and work together.”

“In a perfect world, maybe…” Benilo piped in, “but, in Cuba, without Fidel on our side, we become the disappeareds.”

Tomaso cleared his throat and said, “Benilo and I have already made a grave decision to take the entire jigsaw puzzle to Fidel, so you men can stand back… That way you needn’t draw the attention of the SP or Fidel.”

Sergio immediately shouted, “No! I’m already in this to my neck. My family’s been threatened same as yours, Mr. Aguilera. And Tino killed. And now Peña tells me that they think they’ve killed me! Gutierrez told him so.”

Peña added, “The Sanabela was reportedly blown up, sir, but we’ve found no indication of an oil slick or remnants of a vessel that size.”

Tomaso announced, “I have it on good authority that Qui and the others are very much alive.”

Benilo added, “They arrived safely in Santiago and are now posing as tourists at Carnival just as they planned.”

“A priest there, an old friend, made the call,” finished Tomaso.

Unable to contain his joy at this news, Sergio shouted, “I knew she’d make it!” He turned to Yuri and pummeled the big Russian’s shoulder.

Yuri smiled in response, “All the more reason for us to stand united before Fidel against the SP.”

Peña, looking pensive, muttered, “Hmmm, Qui, Luis Estrada, that damned American, Cavuto Ruiz, Alfonso, and whoever sent them there… All in Santiago at once. Can’t be good. Something’s up. Time to chat with Colonel Emanuel Cordova.”

“You know someone there you trust?” asked Benilo.

“Cordova’s a good man, an honest man, hard to find these days. Besides, he owes me favors.” Peña smiled one of his rare smiles, and raising his fork, he vigorously nodded at Tomaso, saying, “Damn, the food’s as good as Qui claimed.”

Basilica del Cobre, same time

“What message did the Madonna give you?” asked JZ.

“A vision…two Madonnas…a watery grave, someplace dark and cold.”

“Whose grave?” Father Cevalos asked.

“I’m not sure… But it left me with a cold feeling.”

“A warning?” asked Pasqual.

“Yeah, maybe, something like that.”

“Perhaps symbolic?”

“Maybe that too.”

Cevalos added, “This is not the first time our Lady has inspired a vision.” Rubbing his hands briskly for warmth, he wrapped them around Qui’s hands and gently smiled at her, his eyes telegraphing that they’d shared something special. “The Lady has blessed us with something unique, Detective, something that cannot be ignored.” Turning to Gabriel, he added, “I think the truth is in order. What do you think?”

“I believe these two can be trusted.” Pasqual’s tone conveyed his conviction.

Hearing these words, Father Cevalos turned and beckoned them to follow him. Using another key, he unlocked a door which protested their intrusion by refusing to open. Silently, JZ lent his strength to the effort. They climbed another set of steps emerging into a dusty, spider web strewn, obviously unfrequented corridor that led to small padlocked door.

“The unadorned Virgin,” Qui said clearly. The others stared at her.

Cevalos opened the door, turned, and said, “She indeed speaks to you.”

Solemnly they entered the small room, barely able to squeeze around the pedestal holding a locked box. Removing this final lock, Cevalos lifted the top revealing a carved wooden statue of a black woman holding a child. They lay on a velvet bed the color of the blue Santiago bay.

Looking through tearful eyes, Qui’s whisper filled the room. “The watery grave I saw…the real Madonna.”

The two priests nodded.

Quietly JZ said, “Too valuable for Her own good. From a security standpoint, this makes sense.”

“She works her miracles in mysterious ways,” said Father Cevalos. “I’ve seen it many, many times.”

Again they followed the tall priest through labyrinthine passageways. Stopping at the kitchen long enough to order sandwiches for everyone, Cevalos led them to the rectory where he brewed a pot of coffee. The rich aroma of coffee filled his personal quarters packed with mementos of a lifetime. On a nearby table sat a chessboard, the game unfinished.

Over small talk and coffee, Father Cevalos displayed a wide range of interests. His shelves filled with books on every imaginable topic, but especially cooking. Claiming it as a relaxing hobby, he conspiratorially added, “I’ve taught the church volunteers how to prepare meals.” The Father regaled his guests with tales of kitchen disasters. “Presentation is everything,” he finished just as the sandwiches arrived on colorful plates with linens. Accompanying the sandwiches was a tray of fresh-cut fruits, salads, chips, and salsa. The trays were festooned with fragrant herbs and colorful flowers.

“All fresh from our gardens,” said the church volunteer.

The visitors replied with a litany of ‘thank yous’ and ‘amens’ before they partook of the offering. The next minutes were spent enjoying the repast.

Taking another cup of coffee, Pasqual said, “Father Cevalos has been priest here since before the time of the revolution. If it’s to be known, he will know it. I trust him with my life.” The two priests stared at one another in silence until Cevalos nodded. The gesture hinted at a special bond between the priests.

“My friend,” began Father Pasqual, still looking at the other priest, “I have sad news. The lock from the Revolucion has come home.”

Not a man easily surprised, Father Francisco Cevalos raised both eyebrows.

Qui reached into the purse at her feet, withdrawing the black pouch containing the lock. As she placed the lock on the table before the priest, she asked, “When was the last time you saw this?”

The elder priest looked accusingly at Pasqual. “I had thought this nightmare over…years ago.”

Pasqual reached out to Cevalos, placed a hand on his arm, and calmly said, “We’ve known this day would come and now it is here.”

Qui added, “Fathers, Luis Estrada, my father Tomaso, Dr. Arturo Benilo—all of you know something about this lock you won’t talk about.” Qui’s angry tone filled the room. “This lock surfaced in a triple murder in Havana last Friday.” She began to pace. “Why? It’s an antique, not commonly available. It’s the same as the photo of a church door here in Santiago. Is there a connection, some message?” She stopped before the two priests. “I need answers.”

This was met with silence.

“Fathers, we were nearly killed by a bomb hidden aboard the Sanabela. Someone doesn’t want us to ask questions. Someone’s behind this. And I intend to find out who.”

Staring at the two priests, JZ broke the continued silence. “It’s time somebody talks.”

Cevalos took a deep breath and reluctantly replied, “It was a terrible thing that happened here at the outbreak of the Revolution. It can do no good to dredge it up.”

Pasqual added, “They are determined, Father.”

“All right…. If you’re determined to unearth this…this terrible thing, follow me.” Cevalos led them out into the slanting afternoon sunlight toward a nearby stone and wood chapel. The sight of the small picturesque building, overgrown with bougainvillea and brilliant with red flowers, stunned Qui and JZ. Its double doors proved to be the real-life image depicted in Tomaso’s photograph, minus the fire damage.

Qui grabbed JZ’s arm her nails digging in as she said, “I knew we’d find answers here.”

“You were right all along, Qui” JZ commented. “You have the intuition of a first-rate detective.”

The priests each held open a door to the shaded, cool interior. “These doors have not been locked since. The lock you carry disappeared sometime after your father photographed it.”

As they entered the chapel, Father Cevalos turned to his young colleague. “Pasqual, you don’t have to come any farther with us. I can handle things from here. Go back to the basilica, make your next move on the chessboard.”

“No, Father, this is something I have to be part of,” Father Pasqual replied. “Just like Rita and the others.”

Cevalos calmly nodded understanding while Qui and JZ were left to puzzle over these last words.

They made a sharp turn just inside the vestibule and descended a spiraling stairwell. The stairs led into the dungeon-like basement. Reaching level ground, Cevalos turned on a switch illuminating a room full of discarded church paraphernalia, from candelabras to pews, the wall lined with dust-laden boxes of forgotten mementos. Approaching what appeared to be a retired confessional, Cevalos entered and deftly removed its back wall revealing a narrow corridor that only nature could create—an ancient limestone cavern. Turning back toward them, he smiled at the surprised expressions. “The Church keeps many secrets.”

Reaching into the cave, he withdrew flashlights, which he passed to the others. “Check your batteries. It’s been awhile.”

“Beginning to feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland,” Qui commented as she lit the flash and stepped into the cave ahead of the others.

“And I’m Buck Rogers,” muttered JZ bringing up the rear, the two priests having gone ahead of them.

“I must show you something.” Cevalos spoke over his shoulder as he marched onward down the corridor.

As they followed Cevalos deep into the upward slanting cavern, his words were swallowed in the dead space, eerily dropping off so that just a few feet away Qui and JZ struggled to hear them. The pitted limestone walls and floor created a space acoustically dead, so peculiarly quiet that Qui felt as if they were inside a tomb. Without the flashlights to indicate the size of the passages they walked through, Qui imagined it would feel claustrophobically small.

“The story I must tell you begins before the time of Fidel in the mid-fifties, when Batista’s men defiled and disgraced Cuba. Here in the mountains, there was as much support for the rebels as for the government. Occasionally, this came to violence.”

Qui stumbled over an especially rough passage, and JZ caught her fall, dropping his flashlight in the process, saying, “Careful, walls here are as dangerous as coral.” After ensuring Qui stood firmly on her feet, he knelt for his light and saw something reflected in the beam: toy-sized metal statues. Intrigued, he directed his light identifying them as cast-iron toy soldiers, whose painted features had remained distinct, their green uniforms reminding JZ of his boyhood collection of G.I Joes.

Pasqual gasped at what the beam revealed. “My lost soldiers!” He kneeled and gathered his long lost childhood mementos. “Never thought I’d see these again. Providence?”

“Yes, perhaps a sign,” JZ agreed. “First the Lady gives Qui a vision and now this.”

“A weird little sign, then,” commented Cevalos, lending Pasqual a hand up. “I came back afterwards to gather toys, but as you see, some were missed. Gabriel, I’m sorry.”

Confused, JZ asked, “Children? Down here in this black hole?”

Stretching, Father Cevalos, replied, “It’s the remainder of my story. Government soldiers claimed El Cobre gave refuge to the rebels. When they entered the village, they executed any men brave enough to stand against them—those who hadn’t run into the hills. At my urging, the women and children took sanctuary here in the chapel. I never thought soldiers would violate the sanctity of the church, but human nature being weak….

JZ muttered, “Sadly, little has changed in that regard.” His words were promptly absorbed by the limestone as if consumed by walls hungry for human expression.

Cevalos returned to his story as they continued through the cave. “The commander, over his men’s protests, ordered wholesale slaughter. The soldiers who dared refuse were themselves killed alongside the women and children they’d tried to save. The commander’s final order was to seal the doors with the lock you brought home. Then he set the chapel afire. This last fact I learned from Pasqual, because it occurred after I was knocked unconscious. When I came to amid the smoke, I gathered as many as I could to me, knowing of this escape route.”

JZ asked, “How many survived?”

“And how many killed?” asked Qui, angry she’d never learned of this incident in her country’s history. Not one mention of it in a single history text.

“Survivors?” replied Pasqual. “Myself, Rita, six other children, and Father Cevalos. Victims? My whole family, Rita’s family…everyone. All dead…our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers…murdered.”

“Smoke inhalation killed anyone left alive inside that inferno,” Cevalos added as they found themselves stepping from the cave onto a stone outcropping. They had traveled steadily upwards in a curved direction that now afforded them a view of the almost hidden lake far below them and the nearby church across the crevasse. “When we got out that night, we stood at this exact spot, watching the flames.”

“Not my brother! His eyes were fixed on the lake and the wavering lights.”

“Lights? What lights, Gabriel? You never mentioned lights before.”

“I saw lights that night…Alejandro called them ghosts.”

“Perhaps it was some of our men still making their way into the hills.”

JZ asked, “Did any of those men ever return?”

“None. Murdered by Batista’s soldiers…killed in the revolution…who knows? All eight children became orphans that night. All placed with other relatives…save two.”

“Two for the orphanage in Havana.” Staring out to sea, Pasqual added, “My big brother, Alejandro, and myself.”

Realizing what the words meant, Qui shuddered. “How old were you at the time?”

“Alejandro was five and I was, we think, three.”

“I’m sorry Father Pasqual,” said Qui. “My own mother died in childbirth, so I never knew her. I can only guess the ongoing nightmare this must’ve been for you.”

“Yes, horrible,” added JZ. “Accept my sincere regrets as well.”

“Thank you both. Too young to remember much, my memories are of my brother, the orphanage, Havana, and Father Cevalos, my almost-father who often came to visit, never forgetting holidays and our birthdays.” He smiled at them before adding, “It’s my brother who needs sympathy. Alejandro has never known peace… carries the nightmares to this day.”

Noting the lateness of the day, Cevalos suggested they begin the journey back. “Look, someone’s at the chapel waving. It’s that rouge Estrada. What’s he doing here?”

Shading her eyes, Qui confirmed it was Luis. “Rouge? He brought us here from Havana, and has proven invaluable.”

“Invaluable? Never heard him described as that,” replied Cevalos. “You must see a side of him I’m blind to. But be careful of that one.”

“I’ve known him long enough to realize he burns both ends of the candle, but he’s been straight with us.”

Father Pasqual shrugged and said, “Rita says the same thing about him, Francisco. Has to be some grace in the man.”

“Yes, the church tells us there’s grace in every man, but with Estrada, I’ve taken a wait and see attitude.”

“You question his morals…his loyalties…his black market dealings, I know. But the man loves life!”

“Life in the form of women and drink?”

“What can I say? There’re far worse sinners lurking in Santiago.”

“You’re referring to the gathering at the Forteleza, no doubt.”

Qui said, “Tell me more about the Forteleza…this gathering.”

Pasqual replied, “Take it up with Luis. He knows more than any of us about that infamous place.”

Father Cevalos indicated that the quickest route back was through the tunnel. He led the procession back, muttering something about the lateness of the hour to which Pasqual muttered, “I still have a sermon to prepare.”

“Yes, and your Santiagueros congregation is demanding, to say the least. How is the young Italian priest working out? Any help to you?”

And so their conversation went, rushing away from the ghosts of the past and the trouble brought by Qui to their sedate lives even as Pasqual clutched his recovered toys. Their demeanor recalled for Qui how the fishermen aboard Sanabela had gone back to business as usual amid the chaos—so typical of Cubanos. Life goes on in spite of government excess, SP provocations, and outright lies. People love, eat, marry, have children, grow old, tend to their private affairs, die…all under the cloud of Cuban politics. Just as Benilo had argued the night she met him. She smiled, missing her father’s confederate, and wondering what—if anything—his tests had turned up back in Havana. She felt Havana was a world away from Santiago. Where Havana was a tango, Santiago was the conga.

Following the two priests, Qui said softly to JZ, “We’re getting closer to the truth with every step.”

“I feel it, too.” JZ then asked, “I wonder if your vision at the Madonna is a premonition. If it has to do with all the blood spilled here? Not a watery grave but a fiery one, you know, torched churches and blackened corpses?”

“Maybe…”

Grabbing her hand in a show of guiding her through the darkness, JZ commented, “Visions are tricky, Qui. My cousin has visions. Sometimes reliable, sometimes not, sometimes true only after the fact, but always there’s an element of reality.”

“Yeah, JZ, you’re right. We may be walking through my vision right now. But I have a nagging feeling there’s more.”

“More?”

“I saw the two of us in that watery grave.”

34

Hotel Casa Grande, Santiago

Alejandro had decided to take the Golden Suite for Reyna as their getaway—a single night before he must meet her father at the Forteleza. He didn’t want Reyna anywhere near that place; she was innocent after all…like a child. One of her most endearing qualities, and what had attracted him to her in the first place. She knew nothing of her father’s dealings or his lurid past. And she remained innocent of all the intrigue and backstabbing politics that characterized Humberto Arias’s normal day, and Alejandro wanted to keep it so. And while he felt confidant that her father would in the end select him over Cavuto, Alejandro did not wish to become a permanent guest in the infamous Forteleza dungeons. Should things go wrong for Alejandro this late in the game, he did not want Reyna on hand to see his downfall, so he intended to send her home the next day.

At his side, Reyna’s breathing proved hypnotically rhythmic like soft jazz, lulling him to sleep after their lovemaking, sweet and tender. If things were to go badly for him, he wanted her last memory of him to be perfect. But now he found himself guiding Reyna through a labyrinth—a nightmarish juxtaposition of today and yesterday; the tangle of current intrigue and haunted past. Holding her hand, he walked along an uneven surface in darkness, pursued by and enveloped in overwhelming fear. The smell of smoke burned his eyes and filled his nostrils, and he heard her cough. The cough became a coughing, and the coughing became explosive, uncontrollable, until it turned into the sound of rifle fire. He pleaded with her to follow him, but she wouldn’t move, no longer coughing…no longer breathing, as if turned to stone. He pushed and pushed, but she didn’t move, and he couldn’t move, as if the two had become fused together. He screamed.

Suddenly, he felt hands on him, tearing at him, pulling and shaking. A voice penetrated his screams. He saw the priest’s eyes, saw his hand extended. Then he heard Reyna’s voice.

The priest’s features turned into Reyna’s as the smoke cleared, and he found himself sitting up in bed with her arms wrapped about him, shouting, “It’s just a dream, Alejandro! Wake up, wake up! Just a dream. Hush, you’re safe with me.”

For just a few moments longer, Reyna’s voice sounded like the priest’s and then it morphed into three-year-old Gabriel’s.

Gasping for breath, Alejandro grabbed Reyna as if touching her could dispel his terror—the nightmares that had plagued him since that night when he’d followed Father Cevalos, leading his younger brother with him from the sight of their murdered mother.

Cavuto Ruiz wondered if he should have left the country instead of coming to the Forteleza, especially now that the American security guard at the Swiss Embassy had died at his hand. But even more worrisome than this additional dead American, he feared Humberto remained unhappy with his recent ‘mistake’—the night his men botched the interrogation of the Canadian doctor and her friends. As soon as he’d returned to Havana, scarcely stepping off the marina after docking his toy, the Norwegian speedboat, Estavio, one of Arias’s gophers, met him with a sealed envelope. Inside, the cryptically worded order read: Forteleza tomorrow—debriefing.

Cavuto understood Arias’s desire to have this meeting away from prying eyes; however, he still felt anxious at the mention of the notorious Forteleza. In a desperate attempt to find his own scapegoat…someone to throw to Arias, Cavuto insisted that Alfonso Gutierrez accompany him to Santiago. They’d shared a governmental flight from Havana, traversing the long Marlin-shaped island from one end to its opposite. When they’d touched down, Cavuto—realizing Alfonso’s sweat glands were working overtime—assured him that they were here for rest, relaxation, and reward for a job well done. Gutierrez seemed to accept this, but he kept after Ruiz for details. He especially wanted to know what’d become of his detective, Quiana Aguilera.

The limousine that picked them up for the Forteleza turned onto one of Santiago’s major thoroughfares, Aguilera Avenida. Alfonso gasped at seeing the street sign as Ruiz confidently replied, “Let us say that the fish have taken a liking to the eagle, not the other way round.”

“My-my God, when did they change Marina Avenida to Aguilera?”

“Don’t be foolish. It’s nothing,” countered Cavuto, ignoring Alfonso’s last question.

“My God, Ruiz, I’m so distracted, I just got it! The Eagle. Aguilera means Eagle. I tell you, this warms my heart.” For the first time since Cavuto had contacted him today, Alfonso laughed and showed a bit of calm. “And think of it, Ruiz, being her colonel, I’ll have to personally carry the news to her father.” Alfonso smiled with the thought.

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the look on his face when he learns his precious darling is dead.”

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to hurt Tomaso Aguilera.”

“What is it about Tomaso that so bothers you, Alfonso?”

“Everything. His success, his money, his special position as a good citizen in standing with Fidel…and then he pushes his daughter on me!”

“My friend, her father had nothing to do with her being assigned to the Old Havana force.”

“What?”

“That was purely the fall of the dominos, based on manpower considerations. Nothing more.” Ruiz inwardly smiled. He could always count on Alfonso’s self-absorbed orientation to blind him to what was going on around him—exactly what his plan called for now. All he needed to do was keep the man distracted.

“Uncle, you’ve returned to us,” said Qui as they came from the chapel and into afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees. “Good to see you. Is all well? Were you successful this morning in your so-secret dealings?” She teasingly laughed.

But Qui and the others were met with a grim Luis Estrada, who shot Qui a look, as if her words had embarrassed him before the priests. “It’s been an instructive day so far. I need to talk to you and JZ privately.”

Cevalos said to Pasqual, “Come, let’s find a cup of tea and let these three have the chapel to themselves. But Luis, I warn you, keep the sacraments.”

Luis grimaced. “Yes, Father, of course.” He shrugged as though surprised at the priest’s remark.

With the two priests gone, Luis turned to Qui and JZ, saying, “Follow me inside.”

They reentered the chapel and watched Luis chew on an unlit pipe until Qui finally said, “What is it, Luis?”

“I have it on good authority who murdered your doctors; in fact, the El Cobre lock indicts the man for what you Americans, JZ, call war crimes.”

“Then the butcher is still alive?” asked Qui, shocked.

“Alive and doing extremely well. In fact, you may know him. Most of Cuba knows his name.”

“Then the lock was a clue after all,” JZ said.

“I knew it,” replied Qui. “It goes as deep into the past as it goes up to the top-levels of government, doesn’t it?”

“Not government so much as business.”

“So who is this mystery man?” asked JZ.

“Humberto Arias,” said Luis Estrada, leaning into the chapel doorway, staring out at the day. He turned to see Qui’s shocked eyes, and JZ’s questioning gaze.

“Who’s Arias?” asked JZ.

“Arias?” muttered Qui, still stunned. “An international antiques dealer…well-respected. How can this be?”

“Feared as well,” replied Luis. “Not a man to cross, Qui. It might be time to cut our loses.”

“Not on your life.”

“He has tentacles into the Cuban underworld and government. The lowest forms of life work for this man.”

“I think I met a couple of them at the Excalibre Hotel,” replied JZ.

“He has part ownership with the government.”

“How close is he to Fidel?” Qui asked.

“He fought for Fidel the moment he saw which way the wind was blowing. The man has no scruples, pays no tithes to the human race. You know, no matter how bad Father Cevalos thinks I am…Arias is worse. Like the sirens who seduced seaman to their deaths on the rocks just to pick their bones, he seduces men to their damnation with money.”

Qui realized a truth about Luis as he said these words. “You’ve done work for him in the past, haven’t you?”

“No…not him. Not directly. Through Gutierrez, yes. And I suspect through him, Cavuto Ruiz.” It came out as a confession here in the chapel. “But it is how I know what they know, to wallow in the snake pit and be paid for it. It’s how I’ve protected Rita all these years, and how I’ve kept my boat and my skin.”

“Protected Rita? Does she need protecting?”

“She is Sangre.”

“Blood? Really your relative?”

“Her husband, among the disappeareds for six years now, was my youngest brother. His eyes and heart full of dreams for a free Cuba. Rita’s now my blood, and still my contact with Edwardo’s group.” His eyes held Qui’s in a duel. “I tell you all this in confidence, knowing your prey is also Arias, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

JZ took a deep breath and said, “We will keep your confidence, won’t we, Qui?”

She slowly nodded, realizing that they were asking her to go against all her training as a PNR officer. However, if it meant cornering the man who’d arranged for Montoya to die so ignobly with a prostitute, Hilito to blow his head off, and her three doctors to be buried at sea, this was a secret worth keeping. “For Arias, I will keep your confidence, but never put me in a position like this again, Uncle. I won’t lie for you or anyone else.”

“I can only hope it never comes to that for any of us,” JZ commented. “Least of all me. Our mutual governments don’t need another brouhaha over freedom fighters in Cuba.”

“Arias’s killing American doctors. How is that for a brouhaha?” asked Qui.

“Luis, can we prove it?” asked JZ. “Where’ve you gotten this information?”

“That I cannot tell you.”

“Damn it, Luis…you’re sounding like Benilo now!” She erupted at him. “What are you all afraid of? If the truth comes out, it can only put Arias away!”

“It’s not that simple, and I have made promises.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Promises to whom?”

“I know what he means, Qui. Sometimes you have to make deals to get anything out of a witness or informant.”

Luis nodded vigorously at this like a man drawing at straws. “Precisely true. With Arias’s international contacts, I have to be extremely careful, or else. I could be found out to be something more than a simple fisherman who dabbles in the black market, loves women, and drinks to excess.”

JZ added, “Arias might well be selling anything…anything Cuban, from cigars to…to exotic animals or birds found only here.”

Luis suggested an even more ominous conclusion, adding, “Or Cuban medical research secrets. You know, from that nephew of his.”

“What nephew?” asked JZ.

“Our illustrious Minister of Health.”

They did a round of confused looks that went from denial to ‘aha’ as Qui continued to think aloud. “This Denise, she worked for a pharmaceutical firm. No one has more vested interest in medical intrigue than a pharmaceutical company.”

“What’re you saying?” asked JZ. “That the Canadian was being fed information through Montoya from Arias from his nephew?”

“Perhaps…Montoya and she double-crossed Arias?” suggested Luis.

“Something along those lines, yes,” said JZ, nodding. “Then…if it is true…then Montoya brought this down around his own head, so perhaps it’s time, Qui, to stop feeling like you had anything whatsoever to do with his death.”

“JZ is right, Qui,” agreed Luis. “If it’s true, then your investigation had less to do with his death than you’d thought.”

Still, she resisted the notion. “How could Estaban be involved in such a scheme to export medical research secrets out of Cuba?”

“Montoya always had money to spread around,” said Luis. “Too much money for a government doctor and a back-door pharmacist for his patients and friends.”

JZ ran a hand through his unruly hair. “Luis, are you saying Montoya sold drugs?”

Luis looked again into Qui’s eyes. “You are not PNR now; you’re blood, my niece.” Turning to JZ, he continued. “Aspirin…antibiotics, all hard to come by. Montoya always had it…that and other drugs. Whatever I needed, whatever my crew needed.”

JZ whistled, taking it all in.

Luis added, “Come on, Quiana, you always suspected something wasn‘t quite right with the man. It’s why you wouldn’t marry him.”

She reluctantly nodded. “This explains a lot…the money…his thumbing his nose at what was expected. What else did I miss? Some detective.”

“No one suspects their family,” countered JZ, “and he was almost family, right?”

“Montoya and others I cannot name danced with the devil every day, only Montoya made a misstep somewhere along the line,” added Luis. “It’s like a flirtation. Lose rhythm, step on the wrong toe, you die.”

“This doesn’t explain Hilito. Why was he killed?”

“Hilito was forced off the dance floor. None of it his choosing.”

“You’re saying he knew too much?” asked JZ.

“They used his kid against him, didn’t they?” asked Qui.

“Luis,” shouted Father Pasqual as he entered the chapel. “I see Rita gave you the keys to my car. Are you all ready to return to Santiago before nightfall? These mountain roads’re dangerous by night.”

Luis replied, “Yes, I think we’re done here.” He rushed out ahead of the others and back into the light, Pasqual following him.

Qui leaned into JZ and whispered, “I hope whoever’s driving is better than Ramon.”

JZ laughed, agreeing. “My head can’t take another wild ride like this morning’s.”

35

That evening at the Forteleza

Alfonso Gutierrez sat with his rum in hand, angry that Cavuto had called his room and demanded he meet him in the Forteleza lounge and here he was, but no Ruiz. “My time is worth nothing to this man,” he muttered.

“Sir?” asked the bartender.

“Nothing…mind your own business.”

“Of course, sir.”

Surrounded by fools and likely spies, Gutierrez bitterly thought, his mood as sour as his stomach. His presence here made him wonder if his life were in danger amongst the high-level powerful men who frequented this place. His ulcer worsening with each sip, he felt a gnawing, growing fear. It was a truly horrific feeling to be alone and friendless amid these Cubanos, all with beautiful women on their arms, laughing and joking, speaking of bright futures ripe with opportunity and promise.

His thoughts turned to his liaison with Humberto Arias’s daughter, Angelica, a relationship that’d become increasingly untenable. Lately, his wife had taken to talking more frequently to Arias about her growing litany of what troubled her most about Alfonso, aside from their inability to conceive for which she completely—and without medical evidence—blamed him.

He called for a second drink while pondering whether Cavuto had been ordered by Arias to bring him here to the infamous fort. But he’d seen nothing of Arias, and he had no reason to believe his father-in-law was anywhere near Santiago. “Where the hell is Cavuto?” he muttered, looking about for the hotel phone, thinking he’d ring the other man’s room.

Looking up, he saw Angelica coming down the stairs on her father’s arm. Still stunning at her age, she was dressed in a clinging scarlet-red gown, cut deeply in front, revealing generous curves. His eyes narrowed in resentment. Cold bitch, no child’s find succor at those icicles she called tits. Behind them trailed both her sister, Reyna, and that mysterious fiancée of hers, another shadowy SP figure, Alejandro Valdes. Eyeing Reyna, he once again thought, I should’ve married the younger one instead of the gorgeous one. Alfonso consoled himself with the thought that he was not the first and wouldn’t be the last man to’ve made a choice of marriage partner based on looks. Always overshadowed by her sister, Reyna had been the baby of the family, indulged and protected, unlike the overbearing, demanding Angelica. In stark contrast, Reyna’d grown up into a warm, sensual woman, more to Alfonso’s taste—tantalizing and completely out of reach.

Covering his surprise at finding his wife here, Alfonso stood and greeted the family with a pained smile. As they neared, he awkwardly leaned in to kiss Angelica, but she turned her face aside. His kiss landed on her cheek; her gesture, he felt, portended worse to come. Extending a hand to Arias, Alfonso said, “What a delightful surprise, Angelica! Humberto!”

“So nice of you to come, Colonel.” Arias quickly filled his right hand with a champagne glass to avoid shaking hands. Instead, he nodded and flashed a feral smile.

Arias’s chilly reception added to Alfonso’s anticipation that something was in the offing, something like a crouched tiger in deep shadow, just off stage, waiting to pounce. It was likely no accident that Cavuto Ruiz had made himself scarce after ordering drinks. The deep-seated, long-held fear he’d harbored toward Arias had begun to rage like an undetected cancer eating away at his resolve to maintain the pretense of a satisfying marriage. God how he hated Angelica and her father, and what their relationship had made of him. At the moment, he felt cornered by them…a mouse brandished above a hungry serpent, his flailing and kicking only adding to their delight. The dungeons were, after all, just below his feet.

Alejandro stepped between the two men, taking Gutierrez’s hand and shaking it firmly, saying, “It’s been a long time, Colonel Gutierrez. So good to see you again.” Turning to Humberto, Alejandro expertly guided him and the ladies toward the banquet hall where a band played Cole Porter tunes. “I suggest, sir, that you show off your lovely daughters on the dance floor.”

“Both at once?” asked Arias, smiling.

“I get the first dance, Papa!” said Angelica, snatching Arias away from Reyna, who gracefully acquiesced with only a glimmer of distaste that quickly faded.

Gutierrez frowned at this and thought, Witch always has to be first. How has Reyna kept from killing her all these years?

Alejandro added, “Alfonso and I will join you shortly, after a smoke. After all, we’re nearly brothers now, and we hardly know one another.”

Arias looked pleased at the suggestion and with a daughter on each arm, he strolled off.

As Alejandro guided Alfonso toward the balcony, he produced a cigar for Gutierrez, saying, “It’s true, we have not had the opportunity to get to know one another, Alfonso.”

“My work keeps me pinned to that desk in Havana.”

“My work, too, has kept me unusually busy lately.” Alejandro leaned over the balustrade and pointed to the lights of Santiago. “It looks like a fairy city with the lights and colors of Carnival, doesn’t it, ‘brother’?”

“I like that you can call me brother, Alejandro. I’ve liked you since Reyna brought you into the family, but I also have it on good authority that you may have secret motives.”

“Me? Secrets? Who tells such lies?”

“I need no one to tell me that if Reyna bears children, you’re gold in the old man’s eyes.”

Alejandro smiled wide. “Ahhh…so you have me then. Not many are as astute as you, Alfonso. It’s why I needed to talk to you in the first place, a warning my friend.”

“Indeed…you know why I’ve been summoned here like a dog on a leash to be insulted by my wife and her father?”

“It’s nothing to do with Arias. He’s not summoned you here. Be smart. It’s entirely Cavuto’s idea, dragging you here. Arias, Angelica, why they were as surprised to see you as you obviously were to see them.”

“That Ruiz. I suspected something was not right.”

“If you’re not careful, Alfonso, he’ll dangle you over a fire to be toasted…like a marshmallow on a stick.”

“What do you know of Cavuto’s plans here in Santiago?” Alfonso warmed to the direction this was taking him.

“I know only that he’s made dangerous mistakes that’ve upset and annoyed Arias.”

“Are you saying that there is a way for me to get on Humberto’s good side after all?”

“Precisely, and the key is Ruiz.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Stay close to Ruiz, and report all of his movements back to me. Together, we will tell Arias what a lying scoundrel Cavuto really is.”

“And how does that benefit me?”

“Arias rewards those who watch his back, and I’ll make certain your part in this is clear to him.”

“I do despise Cavuto.”

“Speak of the devil, look.” Alejandro pointed with his cigar as Cavuto’s figure emerged from the crowd and came toward them.

“Ahhh…Alfonso, Alejandro! Here you are!” Cavuto extended another drink to Alfonso. “Time to join the party inside, my friends. Your wife is dancing with another man.” Even Ruiz’s laugh sounded disingenuous now.

Alfonso next heard the wave of clapping and cheering, knowing his wife and Arias had regaled the crowd, finishing their dance with a flourish. As always, Angelica—the exhibitionist—must show off her look-but-don’t-touch body to gain the approval she’d never gotten from her father. But for now, Alfonso knew he must continue playing the dutiful husband, and to remain close while concentrating on Cavuto and his game. The idea of finally pleasing the old man was irresistible.

Alfonso allowed himself to be led by Cavuto toward the banquet hall, Alejandro following, just behind them, a shadow overhearing Ruiz say, “You know, Alfonso, we’ve never really had an opportunity to truly get to know one another. Let me freshen your drink.”

Glancing over his shoulder at Alejandro, Alfonso saw the younger man give him a thumbs up. So why do I feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter, and which of these men—Ruiz, Valdes, or Arias is my butcher?

Same time at a bar near the hotel Casa Grande

“So why are Cavuto Ruiz and Alfonso Gutierrez here in Santiago if they’re not shadowing us from Havana?” Luis Estrada asked Alejandro Valdes.

“For the same reason I’m here.”

“Which is?”

“Ordered to come to the Forteleza de la Montana.”

“Why?” pressed Luis.

“We’re to be congratulated…and given our just rewards.”

“You sound your usual skeptical self.”

“Suspicion is a way of life when handling vipers. We’ve all been kept in the dark about who gets a thumbs up, who gets it down.”

“And I’ve heard the Forteleza can mean way, way down.”

“Two fathoms below the lowest rung of Hell.”

“I can’t imagine the tightrope you walk…weaving among Arias, the SP, Cavuto, and us.”

“More complicated since Cavuto’s men killed those doctors. Cavuto’s pissed because Arias sent me to clean up the mess…again. Since you netted ’em last week, Humberto’s paranoia is at an all-time high and rightly so. Cavuto’s an ass. He still thinks he blew up the Sanabela. I haven’t told him otherwise.”

“Then so far as Humberto knows, Cavuto blew us to Africa along with my boat?”

“Correct. When I told him it was not Latoya but an American security guard aboard, the look of pure malice on his face when he ordered me to hunt down Cavuto and stop him at any cost was stunning.”

“But you obviously failed. Cavuto’s here, and the American is dead of his wounds, sustained at the marina, along with Quiana Aguilera,” lied Luis.

“Yeah, which places me in trouble with Humberto. Once again, I’m somehow responsible for Ruiz’s fuckups.”

“The price you pay for being the heir apparent.”

“On the other hand, when they find out you’re not dead…”

“And they discover the Sanabela’s in the harbor…”

Luis stopped to sip his drink, then added, “Every freedom-loving Cuban would celebrate the end of Cavuto Ruiz. How much danger are you really in, Ali?”

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt certain Arias had found me out, how often I felt on my way to a black SP cell to rot. This time…the worst.”

“If you need an out, we can always hide you in the hills.”

“And do what, Luis? Do I look like a basket-weaving coffee bean collector?”

Luis smiled. “You could do worse, my friend. You could be a fisherman in Cuban waters.

“Not the sort of life that Reyna’s accustomed to.”

“If she loves you-”

Luis stopped at Alejandro upraised hand.

“Don’t’ go there, Luis.”

“If there’s love, I tell you, nothing else matters.”

“If you dance along a high-wire like I do, everything matters. I can’t look away now, not until I have it all in my grasp, including Reyna.”

“Still, if she loves you, where you live, or how you live won’t matter. If it’s become too dangerous, tell me now, so I can make arrangements. Rita’s people can get you both safely out of Cuba.”

Later same night at Rita’s home

Around the simple meal at Rita’s, the investigators mulled over what they’d learned since arriving in Santiago. Luis remained adamant, saying, “I can’t reveal sources, but believe me, Humberto Arias is not only guilty of the crimes in Havana but has come to Santiago to privately celebrate your deaths as well. The bastard,” finished Luis when a slightly built, hawk-featured young man with nervous mannerisms entered. He gave a quick and furtive glance toward Qui and JZ before Rita hustled him into a back room and closed the door, where she engaged him in a conversation marked by hushed tones.

Qui saw that the man wore the traditional garb of a service person with a lapel nameplate. From the ruffled white shirt, black bowtie, and the faint scent of alcohol haloing the visitor, Qui made an unconscious assumption—bartender from one of the many watering holes in Santiago.

Luis, as though to draw attention from Rita’s late night visitor, said, “Pasqual, I hear that your brother, Alejandro, is in town. Up at the Forteleza.”

“I’d like to see him, but not there. I’d never get past front desk security.”

“He could send for you, if he were any kind of brother.”

“No…he knows I’d never set foot in that place, not even for him. You lie with dogs, you wake with fleas.”

As they began clearing the table, Qui tried to imagine Father Pasqual scratching at flea bites under his robes. “You wash, I’ll dry,” she bargained with JZ. “Work for our dinner.”

They’d gotten into a friendly water fight when Rita’s door opened, and the young stranger slinked out into the hot humid Santiago night to disappear within a passing group of Carnival revelers.

“What was that all about, Rita?” asked Pasqual. “Wasn’t that Tio? Why didn’t he say hello?”

“Shhh…no names.” She indicated Qui and JZ. “But your brother…like Luis said is here in the city.”

“Yes, so Luis said, but as I’ve told him, I won’t go behind the Forteleza walls to see Alejandro.”

“Tio came straight from the fort, but he has it on good authority that your brother, and his intended, are staying in the city—at the Casa Grande.”

“How do you know all this, and what intended?”

“This is good news!” exclaimed Luis. “Now you can see your brother, after all! And you may want to introduce him to JZ and Qui. Take them along, absolutely.”

“Luis is right, Gabriel,” agreed Rita as she crossed the room and shooed JZ and Qui from finishing the dishes, taking charge of her kitchen. “Alejandro hates Arias more than all of us combined.”

“Hates him enough to ruin others’ lives as well as his own,” muttered Pasqual, looking disquieted. “Including, no doubt, this fiancée you speak of. No one’ pain is as great as his…or so he thinks.”

“Tio tells me the fiancée is in fact Arias’s daughter.”

“A marriage of convenience, if ever—” began Luis who cut himself short when Rita shot him a look and shook her head as if to warn him off.

“His convenience…I’m sure,” replied Pasqual. “Do you think he will talk to Detective Aguilera?”

“It’s time they met,” said Rita, Luis nodding his assent.

“And is it Alejandro you’ve been protecting as your source?” Pasqual asked Luis.

“Sworn to secrecy,” he said putting a finger to his lips, a twinkle in his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Qui noticed the look of determination pass over Father Pasqual’s features, and that in one palm he twiddled a pair of the metal soldiers from his youth.

At the same time, JZ saw a corresponding look of frustration on Luis’s face. The two men, Luis and Gabriel, continued with their games of secrecy, but the veneer of cloak and dagger had grown thin and irksome, when Gabriel brought his fist down on the table and announced, “That’s it! Tomorrow morning! I’ll go see him, talk to him. It’s no coincidence that he’s in the city at the same time as Arias. He knows something.”

“Remember…your brother’s not responsible for the deaths of those people in Havana, Gabriel,” said Luis. “I know this in my bones.”

“Can you be sure? Can any of us be sure? Alejandro is reckless, his heart filled with a venom you cannot conceive of.”

“All true,” said Rita, “but his sins pale beside Arias’s, and I know in my heart that Alejandro’d never murder innocent people. He can’t have had a hand in this Havana business.”

Father Pasqual stood and made his way to the door. Before leaving, he said with clenched teeth, “I’ll hear it from his own lips before I believe it.”

36

The following morning

Alejandro stared from a top-floor window of the Casa Grande, sad that he’d had to part with Reyna, having just put her in a cab for the flight back to Havana.

“We’ve no choice; it’s your father’s orders,” he’d explained. “Same goes for your sister.”

Reyna protested and pleaded and cried, but she eventually she calmed down and left. Should Alejandro’s plans go awry, it was good that Reyna would be safe back in Havana.

Alejandro lit a cigarette, the smoke curling about him where he stood above the street, taking note of the passing life below, paying heed to nothing in particular and trying to remain calm instead of succumbing to his worries about Arias’s plan for him. Most certainly, Arias would be headhunting by day’s end after allowing him and Ruiz to sweat out yet another night. Part of Alejandro’s mind mulled over the chess pieces in play on the now crowded board, when suddenly, he saw a woman climb from a vehicle outside the hotel entrance, a woman with a striking resemblance to Qui Aguilera. When a tall man emerged and stood beside her, he recognized him as well. “Damn, they survived after all.”

After the shock washed over him, Alejandro realized their car was the same grimy little Russian Lada he’d given his brother Pasqual years ago. To cap it all, his brother, Pasqual now exited the vehicle. Alejandro felt a mix of anger at himself for having believed Luis, that Cavuto had actually killed the tenacious Qui Aguilera and the American, Zayas.

This changed everything. If Arias learned of this at the wrong moment, the game could turn in Cavuto’s favor—that he’d not in fact completed his mission after all—and hadn’t killed a third American. Alejandro’s mind turned over this new revelation, examining it from every angle in hopes of gauging Arias’s reaction to this juicy bit of information. “How best to exploit it,” he muttered aloud, while his eyes registered the direction taken by the ghosts of the Sanabela accompanying his brother.

They’re coming here…coming to see me, he realized with a start.
“That damned Estrada’s broken our deal.”

Of course, Aguilera was here in Santiago, as he’d hoped, guided by the heinous lock, a recurring feature in his nightmares. Detective Aguilera had likely already traced the ancient lock to Arias, the butcher.

Again, he felt glad that he’d gotten Reyna out over her plea to remain—a good decision. Just as dealing with Estrada proved a good decision, regardless of the man’s reputation. He’d counted on Luis shooting off his mouth to Pasqual—wanted Pasqual to come to him. He wanted to tell Pasqual of his love for Reyna, tell him that soon all of his plans for happiness would come true, and that the heart that Pasqual so worried over these past years, now finally burned with a passion other than hatred. But the wily old Estrada had claimed he alone had survived the destruction of the Sanabela—wanting, no doubt, to protect his men, and to cover the footprints of the two detectives on Santiago soil.

He pictured Luis’s toothy grin. Lying old salty dog.

Still, all things considered, his original plan to crush Arias appeared back on track. To lure and entrap the butcher of El Cobre had been no easy task. In fact, it’d been so ambitious a goal for a single man that at first, he’d shared it with Rita in an effort to get backing from the anti-Castro faction populating Santiago. They took months considering his proposal, but in the end, it’d become his personal operation, a vendetta, which if successful, meant their clandestine organization would take credit for Arias’s downfall. This he’d be content with, but if it failed, he alone would pay the price—most certainly torture followed by an execution, and his deeds announced as the excesses of a madman.

He felt a wave of anxiety wash over him. He’d waited so long for victory, and while he could not yet taste its sweetness, he could certainly inhale its delicious aroma. A scent that had long eluded him. Distracted by such ruminations, he’d lost sight of the group below when a knock at his door startled him back to the present.

Heart still thumping, he shouted more loudly than intended. “Who is it?”

“Your brother. Open up, AliBaba!”

Gabriel’s childhood nickname for him for his knack of outwitting the kitchen staff for treats, did nothing to dispel his unexpected anxiety. Opening the door, a relieved Alejandro saw that only Pasqual stood in the hallway. Not waiting for an invitation, Pasqual entered, looking about at the extravagant furnishings. “Beautiful job they’ve done restoring the old place.”

“You didn’t come here to talk about interior decorating. What is it, Gabriel?”

“Can’t a brother say hello without a reason?”

“I know you better than that. Between us, there’s always a reason. Come clean, little brother.”

Gabriel held out a closed fist saying, “I’ve brought you something.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“It’s not food for the stomach but the heart.”

Intrigued, Alejandro extended a trusting hand, palm up.

Gabriel opened his fist and several toy soldiers fell into Alejandro’s palm. “Recognize these, my brother?”

“My God…our army.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you find them?”

“Where I dropped them. In the cave.”

“The cave? Don’t tell me you led the American and the PNR detective to the cave.”

“So you know they’re here, eh?” Pasqual smiled at him. “There was no stopping them.”

“So, they really are onto our story.” He said this with a sense of relief and a faraway look in his eye. “How much do they know?”

“The lock opened Father Cevalos memories, and his mouth—as I suspect you knew it would.”

“Given the trail I peppered for them to follow, they’ve got to know the truth.”

“Which truth is that, Alejandro? El Cobre or today?”

“Both…all of it. From our mother’s death to the deaths of the doctors.”

“Tell me…where’d you find the lock?”

“I’ve earned Arias’s confidence along with a set of keys to his Havana warehouse.”

“How did you know Luis Estrada would dredge up the bodies?”

“It was a gamble. I knew the fishing lanes.”

“The moment I saw that damned relic, I sensed your hand in this.” Pasqual paused and stared. “Did your hatred and vengeance cause the deaths of those doctors found in Havana waters?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If I had anything to do with their deaths, I certainly wouldn’t be drawing attention to Arias or by association myself. I’m his right hand man nowadays.”

“And soon to be his son-in-law, I hear. Authorities will assume you’re part of it, that you share the guilt.”

“No way. I’ve got it under control, Pasqual.”

“Tell me the whole story, from the beginning.”

Alejandro shook his head. “No…the less you know, the safer you remain, just as with Rita and Father Cevalos. So stay out of it. Rest assured, Luis and I will finish this business.”

“Can you please just reassure me…promise me…”

With a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Alejandro said. “I had nothing to do with those murders in Havana.”

“You just saw to it they came to light.”

“Which puts me on the right side of the law, Pasqual.”

“For a change.”

Alejandro laughed. “Thanks for your confidence.”

“I’m trying to understand. Luis tells me that black-hearted Arias thinks of you as a son, and you’re engaged to his daughter?”

“I know how it looks; even more, I know how it feels.”

“How is that, Alejandro? How does it feel to deceive this woman, who was not even born when El Cobre happened?”

“Hmmm…I see you’ve been asking a lot of questions as usual.”

“How can you possibly think that a liaison with Arias’s family can turn out well?”

“You may not understand this, but I love Reyna.”

“Since when have you had room in your heart for anything or anyone but vengeance and nightmares?”

“She’s special…innocent. She knows nothing of her father’s past or his current illicit activities.” Alejandro smiled, the first genuine smile Pasqual had seen in years. “You know something strange, Gabriel?”

“What’s that?”

“She knows nothing of my past either.”

“I’m sure you left that out.”

“And another thing, Reyna loves me.”

“But it would be a marriage based on pretense.”

“Pretense is better than the truth of my tangled, ugly past.”

“She’ll find out someday…you know that. And if your plan is successful? What then? Her father is brought down by the man she loves…thinks she knows. How strong is she? How long before love is lost to her father’s ashes…to her grief and tears?”

“God, you’ve not changed. Always preaching.”

“What do you expect? I’m a priest!”

“Look, by time Arias is under arrest and awaiting trial and execution…by then, Reyna will love me without reservation, and it won’t matter.”

“You’re projecting, Alejandro! Still predicting people’s behaviors based on that interior…or rather inferior crystal ball of yours.”

The brothers went to opposite ends of the room, each having grown red-faced, fists clenched. Pasqual was the first to unclench his hands and speak. “Look, Alejandro, even you can’t believe that lies and deceit can forge a cornerstone for anything lasting.”

“Perhaps your third-rate Jesuit psychology works for most—Father Pasqual—but for me, Reyna? She’s different, unique…an angel…innocent…pure and—”

“I can’t believe it, AliBaba, you’re babbling over a woman!”

“—and we can overcome any obstacle.”

“Hmmm…first time I’ve ever heard you speak the word we. Perhaps you do love her in your own strange—”

“Hold on.”

“You gotta admit, Ali, ’til now you’ve self-serving life.”

“No argument there.”

“Among the anti-Fidel crowd, you’ve become a legend even if most don’t know your name or face.”

“Notoriety is not my aim, and I’ll hear no more of it, Pasqual.”

“But—”

“Ahhh! End of discussion, brother.”

“But Luis tells me that you’re in Santiago for a reason.”

“He doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut!”

“Just don’t do anything stupid that’ll get you killed.”

Alejandro laughed at this. “You’ve no idea the care I take with my safety—a thing I prize, especially now with Reyna in my life.”

“Safe…sure. This is all about seeing Arias to his grave. It’s always been your first and only obsession. You’ve become as cold as the evil you chase. Admit it.”

With a serious look in his eyes, his mouth twisting into a half-smile, Alejandro calmly replied, “You’re wrong. I’ve changed since Reyna.”

“I’ve long ago stopped worrying about your life ending on a misstep, Ali.”

“Then what’re you saying?”

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“I’m concerned about your immortal soul, Alejandro.”

“Then keep praying for me, and add Reyna.”

“Ahhh, brother, you’re like a thorn in my side.”

“Yeah…the cross you bear.”

“And gladly so! You saved my life as much as Father Cevalos. Without you, I’d’ve never learned about life, about passion—”

“Nor about women—before you took your vows! Remember?” Alejandro chuckled. “I love you in spite of our differences.”

“Right…you’re right, Ali.”

“OK…agreed…”

“We see one another so seldom.”

“Let’s not fight.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Hmmm…look, I didn’t come alone.”

“Really?”

“Some people’ve come a long way to talk to you.”

“Detective Aguilera, Mr. Zayas, I presume?”

“I might’ve known you’re still steps ahead of me.”

“Saw you through the window. But you were right not to bring anyone up without an invitation. Bring ’em up now, but be sure no one is shadowing you.”

“Just like that? No argument?”

“None. I was, after all, expecting them,” Alejandro lied.

“Ahhh…yes, of course, Luis. That man knows how to play both ends against the middle. Are you sure you can trust him not to sell you out…to Arias?”

“Fortunately, he hates Arias as much as I do. I don’t know why.”

“I do know why, but it’s from the confessional. Still, are you sure his hatred’s enough to make him forego a large payday?”

“Luis loves Rita, respects you, and he knows what Arias did to us all.” With a grim look of determination, he added, “I completely trust him to do the right thing.”

Pasqual considered this for a moment, and nodded. “Over the last day or so, I’ve had to revise my opinion of Luis. He’s got more sides and angles than a rough-cut stone.”

Alejandro thoughtfully said, “Cevalos once told me that as a young man, our father apprenticed as a stone cutter with a master jeweler. Under his artistry and skill, a rough-cut stone became a gem.”

“I don’t remember anything about our father.”

“I do remember his kissing our mother and hugging us when he came home, but not much else.”

Pasqual saw that familiar glimmer of emotion in his brother’s eye, but as always Alejandro quickly killed all sentimentality and changed the subject while looking at his watch. “It’s getting late.”

“Late for whom?”

“I’ll see Aguilera and Zayas now.”

37

Qui Aguilera and JZ pushed past the unlocked door to Alejandro’s room. They found him standing on the balcony overlooking Santiago bay. Without turning to face them, he said, “Have you two ever heard of the Lago de Sangre?”

JZ murmured his translation, “The Lake of Blood?”

Alejandro turned where he stood in the doorway, the wind lifting the curtains about him, creating a red cloak around him. “It’s where my father’s body lies,” came the admission. “Along with the other men who were murdered at El Cobre.”

“Where the lock guided us,” JZ said.

“Actually, I suspect, where Mr. Valdes guided us,” corrected Qui cocking her head to one side and quizzically studying him. “The unseen helping hand?”

“Very good, Lieutenant Detective.” Alejandro bowed slightly. “A belated welcome to my Santiago, Quiana Magdalena Aguilera, Mr. Julio Roberto Zayas.”

“Ahhh…Mr. Alejandro Carlos Pasqual y Valdes does his homework,” Qui fired back.

“Touché!”

“What is this about the Lake of Blood?” asked JZ.

“Are you referring to the lake below the chapel?” asked Qui. “Near the basilica?”

“Yes…that night many years ago, I saw lights in the distance, far from the fire. I was a child…not knowing then that I was watching my father’s burial on the heels of my mother’s murder.”

“And you never told Pasqual?” she asked.

“To what purpose? Besides, I didn’t learn the truth of it until recently myself—and this from a dying man who had no reason to lie.”

“This dying man?” asked Qui. “Was he one of the soldiers?”

“Yes, Arias’s second-in-command as he told me over drinks. Poor devil felt abandoned in his old age. Blamed the cancer on his guilty conscience…said it ate him up over the years.”

“The cancer or his conscience?” asked JZ, not expecting an answer.

“He said he’d once been a good man, an honorable fellow, but that was before he was sent here to Santiago under the command of a man whose own troops called him El Diablo.”

“Just following orders?” commented JZ. “The Nazi excuse for carnage.”

“History repeats itself, Mr. Zayas. Who better than an American knows this?”

“That old soldier, why should we believe you didn’t kill him?” asked Qui, skeptical.

“I heard you were direct, Lieutenant. Luis speaks highly of you.” The handsome Alejandro strode deeper into the room, lifted a glass from the table, then pulled a wine bottle from ice that’d melted the night before. He drained what was left of the Cabernet into his glass. Toasting the air, he replied, “How the man died? Unimportant really. Whether he died naturally or with a little help, he was close to dying anyway and in great pain.”

Qui felt the cold cunning of this man chill the room, despite the heat and humidity pouring in from the open balcony. The curtains continued to play in and out of the entryway, ghostly, red streamers reaching out to snatch at the living.

“No, Pasqual doesn’t know about our father,” continued Alejandro as Qui studied the features so like Pasqual’s. “No one does, not even Father Cevalos who thinks the rumors of Blood Lake are just that…rumors and superstitions.”

“Pasqual has no memory of his father, does he?” she asked.

“None but what I’ve told him. In many ways, Pasqual is innocent. As for my father, he was a lot like Pasqual. A kind man, deeply committed to his beliefs, or so say those few who remember him.”

“Perhaps you are not so different,” suggested Qui. “From where I stand, I’d say you’re just as committed to your beliefs.”

He ignored her implication, sipping at his Cabernet. “As I said, facts spilling from the lips in a deathbed confession. Better than words from the living, whispered in one of Cevalos’s confessionals, I think.”

“Qui,” began JZ, “we’ve found a much needed ally here, one who can drop the last pieces in place.”

“You think so, Mr. Zayas? Perhaps you’re more astute than we give you Americans credit for.” His dark eyes stared at JZ. “Then, again, perhaps you presume too much.”

“Is JZ right, Mr. Valdes?” she asked. “Can you answer our questions?”

“More than you may wish to know, but I have stipulations before I answer any question.”

“And your demands?”

“I require absolute anonymity and immunity, Lieutenant Detective,” he announced. “No one, here in Cuba,” he paused to look at JZ, “or in your respective institutions in America, are to know I have talked to you about these matters. No one.”

“I can grant you both so far as the American Interest Section is concerned, and I’m certain there’ll be no problems with the other ‘institutions’ as you put it. I have full authority to get answers, and I can assure you, if you help us, we’ll help you.”

“I want it in writing,” countered Alejandro, “with your signature affixed, Mr. Zayas.”

“Done,” JZ said firmly. “Do you have pen and paper?”

“On the desk.”

“Not so fast,” said Qui as JZ sat at the desk and began scribbling. “I don’t have such authority; I’m only a PNR detective, and I don’t trust my colonel as far as I can throw him. In fact, I don’t know who I can trust.”

“You can trust Colonel Emanuel Cordova of the Santiago PNR. He’s a rare man, incorruptible.”

“And the SP?” Qui asked.

“Leave the SP to eat itself alive within the next day, maybe two.”

“You know something we don’t know?”

Alejandro looked at her, nodded, and smiled, “I have many secrets. Not all of them can be shared.” He tipped his wine glass at her, “Your father is right to call you ‘little bird,’ Lieutenant Detective. It suits.” Downing the last of the wine, he continued, “Do you know the American bird, the Peregrine?”

“No. And what has it to do with this case?”

“The Peregrine falcon, although small, is quite ferocious. At hunt, it can dive at extreme speeds, 200 miles per hour, headfirst, catching its prey completely unaware.”

JZ, signed paper in hand, smiled at the apt comparison. “So if Qui is the falcon, who is the prey?”

“Our little bird is not sure she can trust me yet, Mr. Zayas. She thinks I want her tethered, that I feed her morsels and not the whole kill. So we will not trade facts at this time.”

Qui glared at the man and repeated, “I do not have authority to make such an offer of silence, of anonymity to you. There is no one I can get such assurances from.”

“No one to trust, you mean. Then, you must make such assurances to me personally, Lieutenant Detective. You are an honorable woman.”

“You know nothing of me. You and I are strangers.”

“But I do know enough about you, Ms. Aguilera, to trust your word.”

“The SP has a file on me? Is that what you’re saying?” Qui retorted, tired of the man’s insolence.

“I have a file on you, as I do on Sergio Latoya, on your father, even on Dr. Arturo Benilo. My private files.” He looked at JZ and continued, “and yes, one on you too, Mr. Zayas. Interesting history you have.”

Qui felt a cold dread seep from her gut through her veins. “Are you threatening me…us, Mr. Valdes?”

Alejandro turned to JZ and smiled. “You like this one? Her feathers ruffle easily.”

JZ replied somewhat testily, “Like the lieutenant, I’m not one for cat and mouse games, Mr. Valdes.” He held out the signed note. “Do we have a deal?”

With a sudden turn of mood, Alejandro accepted the paper. “Of course, you’re right. No time for games, we must be about our business. This affair at the Forteleza is dangerous, and I might already be caught in a spider’s web.” Scanning the paper, he occasionally nodded. He then wrapped the note with his knuckles, saying, “Thank you Mr. Zayas.”

Qui asked “What sort of danger?”

“Without your written assurance,” he said, talking her arm and walking her to the door, “that’s not something I will discuss with you.” He opened the door and urged her out.

When Qui objected, JZ said, “Let me handle this, Quiana. Like I said, I have authority to seal this bargain, and as you’ve admitted, you don’t.”

Pushing her across the threshold, Alejandro added, “Here’s a parting gift for you, Lieutenant. Your boss bas been under scrutiny for time, and I predict that you won’t have to suffer him much longer.”

A reluctant, frustrated, and now puzzled Qui glared at both men as the door closed in her face.

Moments later, Alejandro closed the balcony doors and turned the bedside radio on. “Casa Grande has had the most extensive renovation…if you count the electronics.”

“So the walls have ears.”

“Our mutual circumstances dictate caution.” Alejandro waved in salutation to indicate the coffee setup on the nearby table.

Helping himself to slices of fresh fruit, JZ settled in at the table.

“Mr. Zayas, you must tell me how you managed to get Cavuto to blow the wrong boat. He spoke of a spectacular explosion. Even laughed about it in private last night.”

“Ruiz blew a rowboat which we set adrift with the bomb and Luis’s Christmas tree lights,” explained JZ, finding that he liked this man, despite all the shades of gray about him.

Chuckling, Alejandro joined JZ at the table. “So Cavuto made yet another mistake…a rowboat, he blew up a fucking rowboat!”

Once the laughter faded, Alejandro said, “Now, I will tell you this, the man at the center of these murderers is Humberto Arias as I’m sure Father Cevalos or Pasqual has already told you.” Alejandro paused, his face now tight with anger. “Arias is the lowest form of life…scum.”

JZ felt the depth of hatred for Arias that this man had carried all his life; it radiated outwards in palpable waves. “Yes, so we’ve been told. And I know how deadly this game is. You’re in danger too I assume.”

“It’s an unstable playing field to say the least. Changes with the vagaries of Arias’s mood swings. And a warning, Zayas. Cavuto Ruiz is also here in Santiago.”

“Ruiz? Does he know we’re alive and in Santiago?”

“I don’t think so, but he has spies everywhere, and he’s here with Colonel Gutierrez—my soon to be brother-in-law. Should those two jackals learn you’re still breathing…you’ll both be hounded to an early grave.”

“So is it Ruiz or the colonel we have to worry about?”

“Both are Arias’s attack dogs carrying out orders neither really understands.”

“I’ve had some dealings with Gutierrez. Seemed a useless bureaucrat.”

“The man’s a poison toad who just looks harmless, but it’s Ruiz who’s as deadly as he looks. Still, the real monster here is Arias.”

“Tell me how it all fits together.”

Alejandro began to muse aloud, pacing as he said, “As a boy, standing on that cliff…seeing the flames consume my mother…I couldn’t watch. I turned away and saw lights down at the lake. Like toy soldiers, men marched along the lake, their arms loaded, tossing whatever it was onto a boat. God meant that I see it and remember it. I was being shown the two events were connected, and I’ve never forgotten.”

“Connected how?”

“The village and church killings were not political as claimed at the time. Mass murder was a cover up for a common thief at work.”

“So the boat was loaded with valuables?”

“Safe to assume, they were never found back then. But I’ve seen items—”

“Like the lock.”

“—in Arias’s Havana warehouses, along with knockoffs he’s been manufacturing using Chinese artisans.”

“Ahh…recent relics from some faraway ruin, eh?”

“The bastard’s grown fat and rich over the years.”

“Over the screams of the dead.”

“By the way, My Zayas, you were mistaken for Sergio Latoya, who was marked for death. When Arias learned that you and not Latoya were aboard he was quite upset.”

“Upset? Really?”

“Arias didn’t want another American death on his hands. The irony is…at this point, Cavuto is looking at the dungeon and not me—but only so long as you remain alive, and I can prove it.”

“But the Sanabela’s been in dock here for several days now,” said JZ reaching for another cup of coffee.

“Exactly…they’ll know the truth soon.”

“If not already.”

“I find myself in a quandary. If I fail to inform Arias of your still being among the living before Cavuto has that opportunity, things could go badly for me, and if I inform him, it could go badly for you.”

JZ put his empty cup down with a loud report. “So, it appears all of us are still in peril, until we get to the bottom of things.”

“Right. The bottom of the lake.”

“Where the evidence lies.”

“Exactly.”

“Without evidence, Arias could never be toppled.”

“Are you sure the evidence is there?”

“I know that Arias often vacations on the lake and curiously only fishes in one spot.” Alejandro shook his head before continuing, “Look, do I have to spell it out for you? Arias keeps a pleasure craft out there. I’ve been on it; it’s outfitted with sonar, nets, cages, diving equipment.”

“He’s interested in more than sightseeing?”

“Flora and fauna have never been high on his list of interests,” replied Valdes. “Most certainly you and Lieutenant Aguilera will find all you need to convict that snake bastard on multiple murders.”

“But how does a fifty-year-old of cache of relics indict him for the murders of my two doctors?”

“Nothing in the lake solves that crime. But you will have the guilty man, I assure you.” He paused to light a cigarillo. “And, at that time, they’ll fall like dominos. Then, the men who should’ve been in power will take their rightful places.”

Just then, Quiana burst into the room, “Enough! I’m done with this pacing. This is my case, and I demand to know what’s going on? What’s to keep me from arresting you right this moment, for…for whatever!”

Alejandro burst into laughter, saying, “The Falcon thinks she can dig her talons into me!”

“Slow down, Qui,” JZ took her arm and headed for the still quivering door she’d charged through. “Mr. Valdes has been quite cooperative. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

“On the way to where?” She refused to budge.

“The lake. For a dive.”

“A dive?”

Chuckling at the confused look of on her face, JZ escorted her out. “Come on. I’ll explain.”

Alone again in his room, Alejandro flipped on soft music and returned to the balcony windows throwing them open to the ocean breeze. He breathed in its clean scent, a sharp contrast to the murky dealings that entangled him like some trapped fly in a web of deceit that as his brother had pointed out now extended to include Reyna, the last person he wanted to harm. He could not now imagine life without her. He wondered about their future, if it would extend past today’s return to the Forteleza. If so, he tried to envision a normal life with the possibility of children. What sort of yet-to-come cosmic forces would their children face? Could they be any more traumatic than those faced by a five-year-old witness to mass murder?

The balcony he stood on briefly became a stone ledge overlooking a burning chapel.

The phone range. Arias’s call. Right on time.

38

After a quick lunch at a sidewalk cafe, Father Pasqual guided JZ and Qui to the Santiago PNR Headquarters, even knowing a police station was a hotbed of rouges and snitches and outlawry—a serious risk at this point in time. But they must move fast before Cavuto learned they were still alive. A real possibility existed that someone might get curious about them and start asking questions. Questions that could reveal them to Arias and Cavuto.

Father Pasqual’s Lada attracted little attention, but once inside the PNR stationhouse Qui insisted on seeing Colonel Emanuel
Cordova. Made to wait in an open area where people were being booked and thrown into holding cells, the party attracted precisely what Qui feared: increased attention. A large, congested city, similar to Havana in both size and chaos, Santiago’s police headquarters reflected this similarity. In fact, the old dust-dropping stone interior with its rusted overhead fans made Qui feel as if she’d stepped back into Alfonso Gutierrez’s purview. She half expected to see the toad step through any given door, and when she heard a commode flush, she jumped.

“You OK?” asked JZ.

“I feel like we’re in a fish bowl here!”

“Agreed, and before it becomes general knowledge that we’re pursuing one of the wealthiest men in all of Cuba on charges of multiple murder—and are not ourselves among his victims—I’d really like to check out that lake below the Basilica del Cobre.”

“Absolutely, yes, but I’m afraid by the time we get all the equipment together and get out to El Cobre, it’ll be nightfall.”

On hearing this, Father Pasqual said, “I’m of little use here. Let me arrange for the equipment and a sonar-equipped boat. I have friends, here’s the address.”

“Good idea. We’ll meet you as soon as we can.”

With Pasqual gone, JZ leaned into her and said, “Still a night dive on a strange lake even with the best equipment is both a gamble and dangerous business.” Shaking his head, he added, “I don’t know, Qui. How good a diver are you?”

“I can hold my own. I’ve been a certified diver since age fifteen. How good are you?” she countered.

“Good enough to teach.”

“Good. It’s settled; we both dive. Thought I’d have to get Giraldo as my dive partner.”

“A good choice, but he’s not here and I am, which makes me the better choice.” He chuckled softly. “Pasqual’s right about the sonar—without it, we’d be dead in the water.”

“Poor choice of words, JZ,” she smiled grimly at him.

Just then a tall, stern-looking man in a colonel’s uniform stepped up to them, offering his hand and introducing himself. “I had a call from an old friend who said you’d be coming,” said Cordova. “He tells me you’re Havana PNR, detective, and your American associate is with the Interest Section in Miramar?”

“Correct on all counts,” said JZ following Qui and the colonel to his office.

“Thank you for seeing us on short notice,” added Qui.

“Never too busy to help a friend. In fact, I have these for you. He said you’d be round for them.” Cordova handed her a brown clasped envelope stuffed with papers.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“The deal that I’ve put together. You’ll find everything in order.” He stared at the two surprised visitors to his station house.

“I’ve never known paperwork in the PNR to go so…so—”

“Efficiently done,” said JZ.

“That’s the word,” Qui said. She wondered how long the relationship between the Santiago PNR colonel and Alejandro had existed. She guessed his age at about the same as Valdes. Earlier, on their way to PNR headquarters, Pasqual had made a cryptic remark about the colonel. “My brother and I, ironically, share common ground with the colonel. Alejandro is correct. Cordova can be trusted.” She now wondered if Cordova, like Rita, might be among the eight children orphaned at El Cobre that fateful night.

“I hear your target’s Humberto Arias, Detective.” Cordova continued, “Dangerous quarry, connections everywhere.”

“Including Santiago PNR?”

“Likely. But he hasn’t the power here he has in Havana. Still take all precautions.”

JZ commented, “So we’ve been told by everyone with any connection to this case.”

Qui sensed she could trust this man. “We’re going to take a close look at the Lake of Blood, Colonel, and you’re welcome to join us.”

“We want to keep it as quiet as possible,” added JZ.

“A good plan. Keep me posted. When do you plan to dive?”

“Tonight. We’re making arrangements now.”

“I’ll try to be on hand.” Cordova showed not the least surprise. “We keep a small patrol boat out there.”

Outside the stationhouse, Qui hailed a cab to take them to the local scuba diving outfitter whose address Father Pasqual had left them.

When they arrived, they saw Father Pasqual’s Lada parked outside. Once inside, JZ and Qui found that the persuasive priest had convinced his friends who operated the shop to outfit two visiting ‘American tourists’ for the dive.

On entering, the two visiting ‘touristas’ from Havana were greeted with a series of cheers. Father Pasqual rushed to them, whispering, “You are world champion divers, you two, from America. You’re going to take the shop’s T-shirts back to the States and tell everyone through your media how wonderful the diving in Cuba is, do you understand?”

“Got it. World class divers,” replied JZ. “Qui, keep your mouth shut, they’ll know you’re native.”

“I’ll have to make an extra trip to confessional this week,” ruminated Pasqual.

Qui assured Pasqual that the government would pick up the tab at some future date. “No, no! They can’t know. God…I mean, if they think a priest a liar…”

“Your secret is safe with us,” JZ assured him, and then JZ fell into the role of an arrogant, famous American undersea diver.

Luis, who’d been alerted by Pasqual to their whereabouts, joined them at the shop. He proudly said, “I’ve found decent transportation to the lake. It’s parked outside.”

With everyone carrying oxygen tanks and equipment, they went in search of Luis’s recent acquisition. What passed for decent was a beat up, wooden-paneled station wagon that’d had its entire back end custom cut to create an open cargo hold, the whole looking like some grotesque metal sculpture of mismatched car parts.

“So much for decent,” muttered JZ as he began loading the equipment into the back of the thing.

“Sorry no shocks or springs, going to be a bumpy ride.”

In the back of the truck, Qui noticed a long, slender unmarked wooden box—she asked no questions. As soon as all the diving gear had been stowed, with Pasqual leading in his Lada, they drove for the lake.

After a long and uncomfortable ride, during which they’d watched as day become twilight, Father Pasqual led them to the sandy shore of the lake. As they’d approached along a winding road so thick with trees on either side they couldn’t see the chapel and only snatches of the cathedral.

JZ and Qui began moving the equipment from the station wagon to the boat Luis had arranged for, appropriately named Madonna—a tourist craft that had long plied the lake for its scenic beauty. During the back and forth between the station wagon and the boat at the end of the dock, Pasqual and Luis began a whispered exchange. Instead of being discreet, the whispering only called attention to the pair as they carried the odd shaped box aboard.

Qui caught snatches of the dialogue and nudged JZ, pointing in the direction of the priest and the fisherman. “Something to do with that strange box.”

Sometime later, JZ said to Qui, “I suspect what’s in the box, but I hope I’m wrong.”

“What do you suspect?”

“It’s no longer a suspicion. Take a look. You won’t believe what he’s setting up.”

Qui turned to see Luis bending over a frightful weapon, a rifle on steroids, its muzzle aimed out the back of the boat. “Where the hell did he find that?”

“An RPG in Luis’s hands is just plain scary. Think he’ll sink the boat?”

Qui shook her head in reply. Dropping the last load of equipment on the deck, Qui went to Luis and demanded, “What’s all this?”

“He’s gone mad,” said Pasqual. “More paranoid than my brother. Thinks we may need this monstrous thing.”

“That right Luis?”

“It could get dangerous out here; we don’t know who might show up.”

“Actually Luis has a point,” said JZ. “We don’t know who to trust.”

Pasqual shrugged and added, “Can’t be sure of anyone. Too many people know you’re in Santiago.”

Luis nodded. “Yeah…Carnival and rum means gossip…loose tongues.”

“Dangerous situation all around,” replied JZ.

“And Giraldo tells me Lago de Sangre is the most dangerous place in all of Santiago to dive,” added Luis.

“It looks as peaceful as glass,” Qui challenged him.

“I’m not talking about the water. Countless outlaws in these hills, renegade guerilla bands, you name it.”

“The best offense is a good defense,” suggested JZ. “It can’t hurt if Luis watches over us while we’re below, and Father Pasqual offers a prayer and a second pair of eyes.”

“Which will be more effective, Luis’s cannon or the prayer?” asked Qui. “And, how do you that old thing won’t blow up in your face?”

“As far as danger goes, I think Giraldo meant the lake itself, Luis,” explained Pasqual. “Old mine shafts and limestone caves below creating treacherous currents.”

“We’re both experienced divers,” Qui assured Pasqual.

“Even experienced divers have never surfaced…alive.”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” said Qui.

Handing her a wetsuit, JZ added, “Time to suit up. Who’s gonna manage the sonar?”

Pasqual replied, “Luis, you monitor the sonar, and I’ll take us out.”

“Fine with me.”

While JZ and Qui helped one another gear up for the dive, Pasqual directed the Madonna toward the area he’d seen Arias’s pleasure craft anchored. “Luis, I’m ready.”

“OK, go north.”

Within a matter of fifteen minutes, Luis called out, “I’m picking up something unusual. Stop here.”

Pasqual killed the engine saying, “You two still want go through with this? JZ? Qui?”

Perched on the gunwale of the boat, Qui rinsed her mask, looked up, and replied, “No going back now.”

JZ gave a thumbs up asking, “A blessing, Father, for success?”

“Success, yes…and safety.”

“Thanks,” she replied, pausing to listen his words before going over the side with JZ.

Beneath the surface, they found one another’s flashlight beam, as they’d planned never to lose sight of each other. As predicted, the lake water was turgid. Using the anchor line to descend hand over hand, Qui felt strangely like a traveler on some astral plane, only tenuously connected to the corporeal world. Inky blackness surrounding her, Qui realized that without her flash she’d be unable to see her own hand not so much as a ghostly outline. This fact, along with an increasing current, created a panicky claustrophobia that threatened to send her back to the surface. Repeatedly she reminded herself relax…be calm…breathe slow…conserve air.

Connected to her dive belt, Qui wore an underwater camera. The churning waters now banged it against her hip, tapping like a constant reminder from her father to get the shot…to document her steps as he would do: create a photographic indictment against one of the most powerful men in Cuba.

Buffeted badly on all sides, JZ wildly signaled they should return to the surface and safety. Qui vehemently shook her head and pointed downward, her actions clearly telegraphing that she meant to go on with or without him. He reached out and latched onto her but she pulled from his grasp and continued downward. JZ followed her lead, wishing they had microphones so she could hear his curses.

After five more minutes of strenuous work, they finally came in sight of the bottom. Qui realized the strong currents had ceased. Shining their flashlights and pirouetting 360 degrees, they saw enormous pocked and cracked sheaths of stone. JZ pulled on her arm, holding out his chalkboard. She read his message. “Collapsed mine shaft?”

She took the chalk and wrote, “Could go on for miles.” She then indicated, “Check air supply.”

Finding no problem, they hooked onto the anchor line to ensure they could find their way back in this black water. Qui now scribbled, “Signal for gear?”

In reply, JZ drew a happy face.

She then tugged the signal line they’d earlier attached to the anchor. A return series of tugs assured her all was fine topside and that Luis had gotten the message. Shortly a pair of metal detectors and miscellaneous gear arrived along with fresh tanks in a metal cage. Unhooking the cage lock, Qui tugged the signal line to let Luis know the package had arrived.

Anxious to explore, JZ started out ahead of her. Using one of the metal detectors, he began to search in earnest for anything unusual. It proved a balancing act to focus the flashlight beam on the dial on the detector. Quiana came alongside, instantly realizing that they must work in tandem, one flash, one detector. This would take more time but they had little choice in such a challenging environment.

After an hour of frustration and having to stop to change tanks, Qui realized the detector had finally picked up something substantial. It appeared they hovered over a wide debris field. She pulled on JZ’s arm to alert him.

Switching to hand axes, the two of them began digging out whatever lay below the stone strewn surface below. Qui’s ax slammed into something that did not give way, but splintered, waterlogged wood spiked up locking her ax in place. It took all JZ’s strength to free it. As he did so, large wooden shards floated up and off like so many animated pickup sticks. It took a great deal of time and both divers to excavate around the edges of what appeared to be a strange old door, a portal but a portal to where? JZ reached out and pulled the door open, only to be greeted with carved stone steps, a few curious fish, and a human skull with what appeared a bullet hole behind the ear…executed.

39

The stone steps descended away from the main shaft of the mine into a large open area, left abandoned when the copper vein played out. The cathedral room became a refuge for runaway French slaves escaped from Haiti. When it was safe for them to begin new lives in Cuba, they left behind small, carved stone figures, like offerings.

These small tokens caught Qui’s attention as she climbed the stairs carrying her fins. Emerging from the water-blanketed stairs and into the mineshaft, Qui removed her respirator to test the air. It proved damp and earthy but breathable. She struggled out of her harness, dropping her tanks.

Seeing this, JZ gratefully removed his respirator. “Musty beats canned any day,” he said removing his gear.

“Yeah and speech beats chalk!” Then she added, “Whataya make of the skull?”

“Creepy.”

“Think there’re more?”

“Could be if Valdes is right.”

“Let’s light this place up.”

JZ joined her in activating and tossing six-inch Cyalume lightsticks as far as possible when suddenly, Qui gasped and froze, once again seeing the vision given her by the Madonna. With a start, she realized it was an undamaged mirror across the room, which reflected her image alongside JZ’s.

“What is it Qui?”

Qui lifted a shaking finger at their mirrored images. She whispered, “My vision.”

“It would seem so. Strange place for Alice’s looking glass.” JZ understood her reaction. Reflected in the mirror: their two pale-as-death faces floating in the semi-darkness. He squeezed her shoulders saying, “It’s OK Qui, we’re very much alive.”

“Check my pulse, just to make sure.”

JZ laughed and did so. “Your heart’s beating like a race horse. Take a deep breath…and calm down.”

“Easy for you to say. I won’t feel safe until we’re back topside.”

“Then let’s finish what we’ve started here. Whataya make of these little statues?”

“I haven’t the slightest, except maybe…”

“Maybe what? Ocho figures maybe?”

“Older…more African I think. Maybe this area was used to hide Haitian slaves.”

As JZ’s fingers traced the smooth curves of one figurine, his dark eyes glanced about the edges of the room. “You don’t say.”

“Cuban history books speak of this. Santiago was the original melting pot in the Americas.”

Turning his attention back to Qui, he said, “Thanks, professor. Take a look around. What is this stuff?”

Qui glanced about the room filled with an array of misplaced items out-of-time and out-of-place; things more suited to an attic than an underwater mine shaft. Curios, jewelry, furnishings, tableware, silver goods, even gold filigree framed paintings.

“No slave I’ve read of had items like this.” JZ’s voice was swallowed by the limestone.

“An odd assortment,” murmured Qui, examining the contents of a large chest. “A trousseau, unless I miss my guess. Really old too.”

“How’d it get here?”

“Same way the rest of this stuff got here, I imagine. On the backs of the men Alejandro saw that night.”

“No doubt.”

After snapping off a dozen shots, Qui called out to JZ, “Come over here and help me with this.”

“I’m having too much fun over here.”

Qui looked in his direction and saw a big man with a mall boy’s enthusiasm, sitting on the cave floor happily engaged in sorting through a stash of old weapons. “What are you doing? Playing with guns and knives?”

“Hey, somebody’s gotta sort ’em out!”

She watched for a few moments as he brandished a long, thin, curved blade. He obviously appreciated the workmanship invested these weapons, fancy filigree on the stocks, as she walked toward him taking a few photos.

“Man, imagine what these would bring on the open market?”

“Are you a collector?

“These beauties are way outta my reach.”

“They don’t look out of your reach from what I see!”

“And now you’re got photographic evidence of that.”

“I really need your help over here. I’ve stumbled onto something unusual.”

“Unusual? What’s not unusual here?”

“Hurry, JZ.”

“OK. What’ve you got?” He followed her to a curious, large, coffin-like box unlike anything they’d seen so far.

“’Spose there’s a body inside?”

“Dunno…gotta open it up to find out.”

“Could be the rest of that poor devil with the bullet through his head.”

“It won’t open.” JZ tried lifting the lid but it was nailed stuff. “You sure there’s not a body in here?”

“You smell anything?”

“After fifty years?”

“Oh…right.”

“This could take some time.” JZ commented as he tried to pry open the lid using his pick under the lid. “See if you find a file—something to wedge it up, anything.”

“What? A doorstop? A screwdriver?” Qui looked around. “Oh dear and I forgot my nail file.”

JZ laughed. “Anything for leverage.”

“Oh, how ‘bout this?” Qui picked up her own discarded pick and handed it to him.

“Perfect.”

Using one pick against the other to loosen the lid, with one final muscle-straining push—accompanied by a prolonged eerie screeching, JZ tore the lid free. Fatigued, he fell heavily against the toppled lid. Looking up at Qui for a bit of sympathy, he instead found her frozen, her features like those of a mannequin. Now what? “Qui?” He leapt to his feet and looked into the open container and was likewise struck dumb.

The pair stared into the eyes of the Black Madonna.

Finding themselves once again staring into the eyes of the Black Madonna, She appeared as real as her sisters in the basilica.

“This is what the Madonna was saying to me. Not that we would end in a watery grave, but that She, the Madonna herself has been trapped here all these years, surrounded by stolen treasures.”

“Herself a stolen treasure,” added JZ.

“But why? Anyone would know who She was.”

“No, no one except the priests and a few trusted church workers would know. The Black Madonna is the bejeweled one in the basilica. On the black market, religious icons bring a fortune—even fakes.”

“My God, I wonder which one the Pope blessed at the basilica,” Qui wondered aloud.

“And neither of them the real one.”

“Arias’s greatest secret.”

“The reason he killed the villagers.”

Not even the seemingly all-knowing Alejandro Valdes could have predicted this—that the Madonna would be waiting here so far below the surface for them to discover.

“Expatriated, so to speak,” muttered JZ, still in shock.

“Now it all comes clear. Arias, seeing the fall of Batista’s Cuba, had concocted a plan to plunder the basilica and steal the Madonna. But to accomplish it, he’d had to empty the village.”

JZ nodded. “No witnesses to his master plan.”

“Herded them into the church and torched it.”

“Look into that alcove, Qui.” JZ pointed behind her. “Looks like we had some permanent residents here.”

Turning she gasped at the bones of the dead positioned as if huddled together. Turning back to JZ, she added, “Arias must have started the first rumors and superstitions surrounding the lake.”

“Kept everyone at bay. The few lieutenants he may’ve trusted were likely paid off or promised positions in future schemes.”

“Little doubt.”

“Like the one Valdes sweated information from.”

“And probably killed.” She grimaced. “Well, now I’ve got photos of everything,” she said, snapping off a final shot of the human remains.

“Nothing more we can do here,” JZ agreed with a final lingering gaze at the pistols and knives.

“Mask up. We’re outta here.”

The divers made their way back down the stone steps, JZ ahead of Qui, who stopped to salvage the strange, single skull with the bullet hole. Seeing her shudder, JZ took charge of the skull, dropping it in his net.

Leaving the Madonna in the blackness below, along with the horde of her early offerings stolen so long ago, they followed their guide rope back to the anchor line. JZ unhooked the clip attached to the cage that had brought the gear and re-attached it to Qui’s waist belt, then signaled they should start. Struggled upwards through the chaotic riptide-like currents, they held onto each other to ensure they weren’t separated in the claustrophobia-inducing blackness of the water. The pool of light surrounding the boat was a welcome sight.

Surfacing, exhausted, Qui raised her arms and let Estrada and Pasqual pull her aboard. Slipping off her tanks and mask, a flood of excited words escaped Qui as she sank gratefully to a gunwale seat. When JZ stood on the deck, she leapt up and threw her arms around his neck.

“What did you find?” asked Pasqual.

“Out with it,” said Luis.

JZ held up the skull and she held up her camera. “We’ve got it documented,” Qui said.

“Evidence of enormous theft and murder,” added JZ.

“Enough to put Arias and Cavuto away?” asked Luis.

“How about forever,” replied JZ, dropping his tanks to the deck.

Still out of breath, Qui exclaimed, “My God, JZ, it’s amazing! She was telling me all along—not from the church, but from the lake—to find her!”

“The real Black Madonna lies below us.”

“What are you talking about? She’s inside the Church.”

“No, Father, we saw Her, the real Madonna,” Qui countered.

“This can’t be!” Pasqual was obviously shaken by their words.

“Trust me, that was no fake we saw,” Qui replied.

“Arias must have been planning the thief a long time, to’ve had a duplicate made,” JZ explained. “Just waiting for the right moment.”

Luis erupted in laughter. “Imagine it…all those offerings all those years to the blessed Madonna, including the Pope’s blessing—all to the wrong Madonna!”

“It can’t be true,” Pasqual said. “It would place the Church in an impossible position! I can’t accept it and neither will Father Cevalos.”

“To bring Her up would be a full-blown salvage operation,” remarked Estrada.

“Yes,” Qui said to Luis, “but not before Cuban experts have seen and documented this find.” Digging in her pouch, she pulled out one of the small figurines. “Look at this. Ever seen anything like it before? The mine shaft’s full of treasures that ought to be in museums.”

“Ok, University people first. Perhaps Esmerelda knows the right people.”

“After the police are done gathering evidence, the archeologists can document the findings. Then, the salvage can begin.”

“Qui, anything the American Interest Section can contribute or help…well, you know we will be glad to—”

“No…this must be handled by our finest experts. It’s a Cuban problem, and it requires a Cuban solution. But all of this will have to await a resolution to Arias’s mass murders.”

The conversation ended suddenly with a rain of bullets pinging off metal and shattering glass around them. Diving for cover, the four lay scattered around the deck. Qui and JZ were without their weapons, separated from them by half the length of the boat where they’d earlier left them. An amplified voice claimed to be Santiago PNR, came across the water shouting, “Stop firing!”

A second amplified voice shouted, “Give yourselves up! Secret Police!”

“One boat? Two?” shouted JZ above the sound of the gunfire.

Luis shouted back, “Two. Only one is shooting! Help me with the gun.”

Crawling JZ and Qui joined Luis at the rocket propelled grenade launcher. Anticipating problems, Luis had earlier prepared the RPG for firing.

“Stop shooting!” rang out across the water, but chaos ruled as the second bullhorn drowned out the first with orders of their own. Searchlights coming from two directions wildly gyrated in rapid succession.

JZ loaded the grenade launched and slapped Luis on the shoulder. “Ready! Fire!”

“Aiii!” shouted Luis hit in the left side. Fighting the searing pain, he raised the weapon and fired.

JZ grabbed the RPG as Qui grabbed Luis, cradling him, pressing a dive towel against his wound. Towel and hands awash in his blood.

Peering over the edge of the boat, Pasqual watched as the approaching boat exploded in flames. “Direct hit!” he shouted in relief as the gunfire ended.

“God, I only hope the boat you blew was not official,” added JZ, “but I’m sick of being used as target practice. A single bullet penetrating a dive tank, and it’d’ve been us gone up in smoke.”

“For God’s sake, don’t shoot me! It’s Cordova!”

40

By dawn’s first light, they could see the damage done, the bodies and debris washing ashore. Burned and moaning men lay in one area while bodies lay in another.

Among the dead, rested Cavuto Ruiz, features and body red and black from the gasoline explosion, his once pristine suit rainbowed with the colors of blood and death.

Qui found Alfonso Gutierrez among the living. Flash blinded, handsome face blistered, Gutierrez surely thought himself dieing as made his confession to Father Pasqual. Unannounced, she stood silently behind them, listening to his “small part” in the chain of corruption and deceit that had resulted in the murders in Havana. Alejandro had not exaggerated Alfonso’s part in the intrigue; the man took his orders from Ruiz in a conspiracy to cover up evidence of connections to the Cuban underworld. In doing so, Gutierrez had placed his own detectives at risk—one of the three marked for murder now dead.

JZ joined her. “See those binoculars handing around your colonel’s neck? He must’ve seen Luis’s weapon and leapt overboard moments before the grenade hit.”

Hissed through clenched teeth, “Bastard should’ve died; like a rat, though, he survives the sinking ship.”

She then leaned over Gutierrez and demanded, “Who was Ruiz taking his orders from?”

“This man needs treatment, an IV, transport. Not questions,” complained the medic on the other side of Father Pasqual. “Tell her Father!”

Now standing, Father Pasqual reluctantly agreed, pulling at Qui to come away. “Show some patience. Interrogation can wait.”

“You mean he’s not gonna die on us?” asked JZ.

“Not right now. But we need to move him.”

“No, he gets no medical attention. Do you hear that, Alfonso? Nothing!” she ended.

JZ put a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Easy Qui. You don’t want to be like Alejandro.”

Anger still rising, radiating in waves around her, she shook off JZ’s warning. “Alfonso, you die here, now, unless you tell me what I want to know!”

Pasqual exchanged a concerned look with JZ, and calmly said to Qui, “Maybe it would be best to question him later at the hospital.”

Ignoring Pasqual, she leaned into her boss’s face. “Why was Montoya killed?”

“No idea,” Alfonso groaned.

“Why were the three doctors killed?”

“Dunno ohhh, please…”

“Why was Tino killed?”

Alfonso grimaced in pain from his injuries. “I don’t know!”

“Just a poor lackey, heh? Then who does know?” she insisted. “Who is behind the killings?”

“Stop! I insist,” shouted the medic, nose to nose with Qui over the injured man.

“Best guess, Colonel!” she shouted. “Now!”

“Arias…Humberto Arias.”

“You’re going to say so in a court of law, Colonel. You can’t see them but there are three witnesses who’ve heard what you said, and there’re not all priests.”

Alerted by the shouting, Cordova joined them and placed a hand on Qui’s arm. “You have your confession and your witnesses to it, Lieutenant Aguilera. Now, back off and let us take care of him.”

“OK. Get him outta my sight, but you tell the doctors he’s an important witness. Make sure this weasel gets the best care the Cuban government can provide.”

She finally stepped away allowing the medics to transport Gutierrez. Shortly JZ and Cordova joined her where she stood staring out over the shimmering lake that disappeared around a bend.

“Arias somehow got wind of your interest in the lake,” said Cordova. “Obviously sent Ruiz after you.”

“You don’t suspect Alejandro?” asked JZ.

“No…it wouldn’t serve his ends.”

“People talk,” muttered Cordova. “Secrets are impossible to keep for long in this place.”

“Worse than in Havana?” Qui asked. “Colonel Cordova, I assume you be in charge of Gutierrez.”

“Yes.”

“Then see to it that he has round the clock guards placed on him.”

“In his condition, he’s not going anywhere.”

“He may not be a flight risk, but he is at high risk of being assassinated…and he may consider suicide.”

“Yeah, and some people don’t need to know he survived the explosion,” added JZ.

“Ahhh…of course…understood. We’ll keep him under constant watch and arrest.”

“Do you have the facilities for that?” asked JZ.

“We’re not exactly a backwater force here, Mr. Zayas. We have a prison wing at the hospital where he’ll be kept as soon as the doctors okay a move. Still,” he shrugged, “if the SP comes for him, there is little we can do.”

“Just like in Havana,” Qui muttered in frustration. “Where even three dead bodies disappear overnight.”

“Then, admit him under an assumed name,” suggested JZ. “That’ll give us time to seal our case.”

“As you wish. Do you have a suggestion for the assumed name?”

“Ass,” leapt from Qui’s tongue. “Mr. Ass.”

The two men laughed at this. JZ suggested, “Jacques de le Bontemps.”

Qui now laughed at the play on words, “Good times are gone for this jackass.”

This time all three laughed.

Qui added in a serious tone, “And by the way Cordova…”

“Yes?”

“Be sure Jacques has no access to a phone and no contact with anyone—remember, the other guy’s dead.”

“Of course! We haven’t the power to bring back the dead.”

“When the time comes, this dead man will walk and talk.”

“You may count on it, Detective Aguilera.” Then he added, “I cannot imagine how I would feel to learn that my own superior plotted murder against me.”

JZ asked, “What’ll happen to Gutierrez when it’s all over?” He imagined the man tortured behind stone walls for the rest of his life.

“Disgraced and on permanent ‘probation’ if he cooperates,” replied Cordova. “Unlikely he’ll be executed. I suspect his actions will make of him a social pariah.”

Several hours later at the Santiago Hospital

Qui and JZ joined Rita around Luis’s hospital bed. Other than being pale, the big man looked good.

“Uncle, how are you doing?” asked Qui.

“The nurses have petitioned to throw him out, Qui,” Rita joked.

“Ahhh, then he’ll live!”

JZ shook Luis’s hand saying, “Your single shot is gonna bring down an empire.”

“That’s funny, I don’t even remember firing!”

“Interesting weapon you fired, Luis,” Cordova calmly said, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “Created a hell of a fireball.”

Luis visibly stiffened. “Ahh…a loaner,” he weakly joked.

Cordova gave a nod, knowing it’d likely come from the local chapter of the growing anti-government faction. “Well, you’re not gonna get it back.”

“Get what back?” asked Pasqual entering the room.

“The weapon that saved out collectives lives,” replied JZ. “Seems the good colonel here doesn’t think Luis should be toying with such toys.”

“Some toy,” said Cordova suppressing a smile and garnering a smirk from Rita. “Now that we all know the terrible secret of the lake, what are we gonna do about it?”

Rita, with a hasty glance toward the door, walked over and firmly closed it. “This is better discussed in private.”

“I agree. This should be kept quiet,” said Qui. “It would serve little purpose to reveal the enormity of this fraud outside police circles right now.”

JZ promptly agreed, “In the meantime, the ‘Treasure of Santiago,’ must be handled with care and sensitivity by the most expert archeologists and antiquarians in Cuba.”

“Perhaps at some future date, once the second statue is authenticated, we can tell the world.”

Cordova added, “Most, if not all, of the treasures belong in Cuba’s museums and at the Basilica del Cobre.”

“But,” countered Qui, “such determinations must be left to the museum curators and specialists.”

“Like my Esmerelda,” piped in Luis.

“I promise on the spirit of our fathers that this remains secret,” Cordova added. “But such knowledge is a curse to carry.”

From his bed, Luis added, “A close look at Alejandro will tell you that.”

“But, if it hadn’t been for him,” Cordova said defensively, “Arias would still be dipping into his private bank from time to time whenever the need arose.”

“Such prizes as we saw down there would sell for a fortune on the international black market,” JZ assured Cordova.

“We’ll likely never know the extent of Arias’s dealings in Cuban treasures,” commented Qui. “Think of it, the most respected and successful man in antiques in Cuba—retired Majordomo Humberto Arias—a thief and murderer.”

“With a trail of crimes going back to the revolution,” declared Rita, “and who knows how many before that?”

Pasqual muttered, “Brought down by the hand of my brother.”

“A clean hand so far as we can tell,” Qui replied. “He clearly dangled the lock of El Cobre to lead us here.”

“This business of a third Madonna,” said JZ, “does anyone here think Alejandro knew?”

“Third Madonna?”

Qui drew in a quick breath glaring at JZ’s typical American habit of speaking before thinking.

“Oh, I meant second…second, the second Madonna. There’s too many Madonnas!” JZ grinned to cover his slip of the tongue.

“No, it’s likely the one secret Arias withheld,” observed Luis, “even from his soon-to-be son.”

“Bones of our fathers,” Father Pasqual muttered dispiritedly, “in eternal sleep at the bottom of the lake. Unhallowed graves.”

“Your father’s, my father’s too,” asked Cordova.

“As Alejandro vowed,” JZ noted, “we’ve found clear evidence that will be Arias’s ruin. He might not pay for the deaths of the three doctors, but he’ll have to pay for this.”

“Never once did Ali share this with me,” said Pasqual. “Arias’s crimes must be punished! I’ll go to Fidel myself…insist on it as a representative of the church.”

“This is the discovery of the century, Father,” Qui countered. “It could rock the whole country. It could shake the faith of thousands.”

“I doubt anyone suspects Arias,” replied Qui, “including Fidel.”

“Does Fidel know Arias had a shadow life?” asked JZ.

“None of us here knows what Fidel knows,” said Cordova.

“That is the normal state of affairs in Cuba,” explained Qui. “No one knows what he knows or when he knew it.”

JZ, frustrated by this answer and the complacency it implied, took a deep breath and asked, “Qui, all I want to know is: will Fidel punish the man or fail us by sweeping it all under a carpet?” JZ looked about the room at the collection of El Cobre orphans, only Alejandro missing. “Does anyone in Cuba know what happened here fifty-odd years ago?”

“Before I got this case, I’d never heard of the Butcher of Santiago or any hint of it,” answered Qui. “I grew up knowing only what the government wanted us to know, and this wasn’t on the curriculum.”

“Sure,” noted JZ, “it’s a national tragedy, and no leader wants it known such things happened on his watch.”

Qui quietly added, “If Castro fails us, then he fails Cuba.”

41

Three days later

With help from Fathers Pasqual and Cevalos, Qui Aguilera turned over the information on the treasures found in the deep waters of El Cobre’s Lago de Sangre to Professor Esmerelda Estrada at the University de Santiago. She, in turn, called in the curator of Santiago’s largest cultural museum, Ramon Ponce de Cabrera. Between these trusted experts, Qui felt certain that the treasures would be properly preserved and placed. These experts were both astounded and pleased at the bounty described to them, and also equally saddened and dismayed over the news of the Madonna—news too sensitive to make public.

Knowing they remained in danger from Arias, Colonel Cordova hired a private driver and car to take Qui and JZ back to Havana—someone he trusted. While they preferred to return with Luis, speed was essential to Arias downfall.

Luis, although released from the hospital and claiming complete recovery, refused to leave Santiago without his beloved Sanabela. “Besides,” he had muttered, “my crew’s abandoned me, only Adondo and Giraldo remained loyal.

Rita had secretly told Qui that Luis needed more time to heal and urged them to go. “Don’t worry about us. My group will protect us. He’ll moan about leaving that damned boat, but the mountain air will be good for him. We leave for safety as soon as I see you leave for Havana.”

On the trip back to Havana

“Tell me, Quiana,” JZ asked, “do you believe the photos you took are enough to convict Arias?”

“I have to believe so, yes, but once they’re turned over to the authorities…well, you’ve seen how things disappear here.”

“Yeah and this is about Cuba’s international image.”

“Image, image! I’m tired of concerning myself with Cuba’s damned international image. I’ve got murders to resolve!” She stared out the window.

“Still, these murders affect Cuba’s image, we can’t ignore that,” countered JZ. “A Canadian, two Americans, a—”

“A Cuban doctor and cop are no less important!”

“—mass murder during the revolution… Qui, I would never minimize the murder of Montoya or Hilito—I just hadn’t gotten there yet!”

As if in answer, a shot rang out and both Qui and JZ raised weapons to the windows, expecting more shots. Feeling trapped, vulnerable, they were tossed about the back sear as the car spun wildly out of control, sending up a huge cloud of dust. The car came to a shuddering stop along the shoulder of the road.

“Everyone okay?” asked Ricardo, the driver.

A string of curses erupted from JZ who’d slammed into the car door immediately followed by Qui landing atop him.

“OK? Are you both nuts? They’re shooting at us!” Qui screamed, searching a target in the dust cloud.

“No, no. It’s just a blown tire, Lieutenant,” replied Ricardo.

Qui, sagging against JZ, commented, “That scared hell outta me.”

JZ held her as they sat underneath a canopy of trees and settling dust, murmuring into her hair, “Me too, Qui, me too.”

“Sorry, I’m all nerves today.”

“Understandable, we’ve been target practice all week.” Releasing her to exit the car, JZ continued, “Face it…if anyone should be paranoid, we do!”

Qui laughed lightly and stretched against the side of the car. Looking at her now dusty hands, Qui continued, “We were talking about Fidel. For all we know, he wants this kept quiet…you know, the past in the past.”

“This is too large to be buried. Too many people know something of what’s going on.”

Brushing her hands, Qui sighed. “It comes back to Cuba’s image.”

“Exactly what I was saying before the tire blew.”

“I know…I know, JZ, so we take this into consideration and go lightly.”

“How lightly? Do we really have to dance around this?”

“You’ve seen me dance,” she said distractedly. “What do you think?” The question recalled conversations she’d had with Dr. Arturo Benilo. The old ME’d been right all along about Cuban politics; it really did permeate everything.

After the delay of the blown tire and the excitement of thinking themselves under attack, they continued on their way to Miramar. Choosing to avoid Havana, Qui asked the driver to take an indirect route to the bed and breakfast. As they neared the city, Quiana realized just how much she loved and missed her father and the trappings of home. Wanting to feel her father’s protective arms in a hug and to sleep in her own bed, she hoped to feel safe and untouchable once again.

When the B& B came into view, she squeezed JZ’s hand and said, “I pray that all is well here. And, nothing bad has happened.”

“We’ll soon find out,” JZ answered as the car pulled up to the family homestead.

Not waiting for JZ to alight, Qui dashed from the car to seek out her father where he’d normally be by mid-afternoon, but he was not in his garden. She found Sergio’s wife and children instead, playing with Maria Elena’s children.

Maria Elena and Carmela rushed to Qui and hugged her.

“Where’s Papa? Why isn’t he here?” Her tone clearly revealing her fear.

“He’s with Dr. Benilo,” Maria Elena assured Qui.

JZ’d joined the two asking, “Where exactly are they?”

Carmela replied, “They’ve gone to Fidel, along with my husband.”

“Peña’s with them too,” said Yuri, who’d come to investigate.

“Peña?” asked Qui accepting a hug from him.

Yuri filled them in on what they’d learned from Estaban Montoya’s nurse, along with the secret cache of papers found in Qui’s room.

Confused and angry at this revelation, Qui demanded, “He used my rooms to hide illegal doings?”

“Afraid so.”

“When’re they meeting with Castro?” asked JZ.

“Now…” Yuri checked his watch. “An hour, hour and ten.”

“We’ve gotta get to Havana.” She snatched the underwater camera from her purse. “We have additional information. Proof in here!”

“The car and driver already left,” JZ lamented.

“I’ll drive,” replied Yuri. “I’ll get you there in time.”

As they rushed for the parking lot, Qui warned JZ, “You’re in for another bumpy ride.”

Piled into Yuri’s prized 1955 Jeep with an oversized motor and four-barrel carburetor, they raced for Havana. Qui shouted over the noise of wind and motor, “Damn! I’d wanted to develop the film and to talk to Papa and Benilo before going to Castro.”

“If you want to help, it’s now or never,” replied Yuri. “Castro’s not feeling well; rumors again he could pass away.”

“There’s always rumors,” JZ replied.

“National pastime is betting on when and where,” shouted Qui. This made the men laugh. “Stop laughing and help me decide how to tell Fidel about Humberto Arias’s crimes and treason without sounding like a lunatic.”

The Jeep continued at breakneck speed toward Havana while they wrestled with strategies. How best to approach Fidel with the truth? How best to ‘handle’ Fidel, when everyone knew there was no ‘handling’ Fidel.

Castro’s presidential office

Having granted Tomaso and Benilo an audience, and with them two PNR detectives—the well-known Jorge Peña and a younger detective named Latoya—Fidel smiled at his old compatriots. He’d kept tabs on these two ex revolutionaries, watching their careers unfold. Lately, Fidel had been hearing countless accusations and rumors directed at Benilo as being too old, too feeble, and too out of touch to continue on as Cuba’s premier Medical Examiner—the same arguments leveled daily at him, and for this reason Fidel did not believe a man’s age necessarily interfered with his ability to do his job.

Fidel felt it good politics to grant an audience to veteran soldiers—particularly men who’d fought alongside him, loyal, disloyal, or indifferent. While both Aguilera and Benilo had done little to support his rule, neither had they become involved in any insidious plots against him. Besides, he held a soft spot for old Arturo and Tomaso. Still, he had kept them waiting an appropriate length of time.

But, this story they told…an outlandish tale that linked the murder of three foreigners and two Cubans to the well-respected arts and antiques dealer, businessman Humberto Arias, another old compatriot. “This is too much to accept on such flimsy evidence. He’s never given me reason to question his loyalty before.”

Benilo began, “Sir, Arias was never loyal to you-”

Castro, irritated at the accusation, insisted, “Arias defected from Batista! Brought his troops to our side, in Santiago.”

Tomaso countered, “However, he only did that when the tide of the revolution was shifting to your favor. And, that only after the hushed-up slaughter at El Cobre.”

Castro grew silent, eyes narrowed. “Ravages of war…things none of us had time to investigate. We were fighting for freedom, for our Cuba gentlemen.” He stood and strode to the window and stared out, hands crossed behind his back.

Tomaso held up a hand to Benilo silencing him where they sat before he could say another word. Leaning in, he whispered, “Let him think it over.”

Castro turned and announced, “This is not sufficient evidence to take action against this man.” He stared a hole through Peña demanding, “Do you have anything further to add…Colonel Peña?”

“Colonel Peña?” spluttered Latoya, his eyes wide, every word, every slight he’d ever perpetrated in Peña’s presence replaying in his mind.

Benilo and Tomaso gaped at one another in silence, but knew enough to remain silent.

Peña stood and said, “Presidente, it is entirely true—all that’s been said in this room is true. But, we have no hard proof yet, but when Detective Aguilera returns from Santiago, I’m sure what we have will be irrefutable.” After delivering these words, he relaxed but only slightly.

“This is not the news I wanted to hear from you. Are you certain Colonel?”

“There is no doubt.”

“It will ruin the image of Cuba. The bastard.”

“It’s treason against the state, Presidente.”

Benilo chimed in. “That’s an understatement.”

Tomaso added, “Crimes against foreigners. Crimes against Cubanos.”

“Three bodies stolen from my care!”

Latoya declared, “Secret Police corrupted. Murder and attempted murder of PNR officers.”

“Worst of all,” said Tomaso, “more people are at risk until Arias is locked up.”

“And his operation dissolved,” Peña added.

Benilo picked it up here. “Imagine when the world community learns that Cuban insiders have been selling medical secrets to a Canadian pharmaceutical company. Secrets only the Minister of Health controls.”

“Not to mention the cover-up that began with the disappearing Canadian woman and Americans,” added Tomaso.

The more they said, the darker Castro’s features became. His face a pinched mask of anger, he looked ready to explode. He paced, his legs stiff, wooden, his mind sharp and cunning as always. Even after all these years, Tomaso and Benilo recognized the unmistakable body language; it meant someone must pay.

Fidel raised his hand and was about to speak when the doors burst open and Qui Aguilera, struggling with a secretary that she finally pushed to the floor, entered. JZ followed, helping the secretary to her feet.

“What is the meaning of this?” shouted Castro.

“It’s my daughter, Detective Aguilera, General!” shouted Tomaso.

“The detective who kept this case alive,” added Peña.

“She uncovered the truth well before the rest of us,” said Benilo, coming to Qui’s defense.

“And she’s been a target since,” added Sergio.

“Presidente, you’ve got to listen to me!” pleaded Qui. “I have evidence of a horrible wrong in this camera.” She came forward and placed the camera on his desk. “A wrong that can no longer be ignored.”

“What is this evidence?”

“Damning evidence, sir. And, more in Santiago going as far back as the Revolucion.”

“Enough! No more talk until I see the photos.” Herding them them inside a small dining room, he ordered his aides to bring them lunch and keep them there. He strode off to have the film developed.

42

Two hours later

The meal finished, they watched Fidel enter the room, dismiss his aides, and begin to lay Qui’s photos across the table. He paused to look at each before positioning the next photo. When all were arranged, he lifted a single photo, the one of JZ brandishing an ancient sword in the cave. “Interesting weapon, Mr Zayas. Are you a collector?”

Surprised in spite of himself that he was known by name, JZ replied, “Yes, it broke my heart to leave them there.”

Fidel nodded. “Before we go any further, Mr. Zayas, precisely what is your interest in all of this aside from treasue hunting?”

JZ replied, “El Presidente, in the interest of justice, I’ve worked closely with Detective Aguilera to uncover what precisely happened the night two American doctors were killed in Havana.”

“So Dr. Benilo informed me earlier. You are here to see justice carried out. Cuban justice.”

“I am indeed, sir.”

“I vouch for his sincerity,” Qui jumped in. “I owe him my life.”

“Then your only interest in all this is to determine who’s responsible for the deaths of the two American doctors, Mr. Zayas?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t work for the CIA?” Fidel pointedly said to JZ.

JZ took a deep breath. He knew a lie would get him arrested, but he was unsure if the truth would not have the same result. “I write reports that I assume are read by the CIA, sir, same as all of us who work in the American Interest Section.”

“Interest…a handsome word for spying.”

“So I’ve been told, repeatedly by almost every Cuban who learns where I work. Let me assure you I’m no spy.”

“I’m not sure I can trust the word of any American. The history between our countries has proven that lies are as common as maggots. How do I know that this is not some elaborate CIA plot against me?”

JZ realized only now the enormity of Fidel’s paranoia with respect to anything American, including him. “Everyone in this room can vouch for my interest and integrity throughout these eunfortunate circumstances.”

“I tell you, Presidente,” Qui burst out, “the CIA is the least of your worries. The rot and stench of this scandal will shake Cuba to its foundations if not handled properly.”

Fidel stared long and hard at Qui as if seeing her for the first time. “You remind me of someone, Aguilera,” he said to her, his long, bony finger pointing. “Someone I’ve always admired.”

“Who, sir?” asked Qui.

“Someone who had a raging fire within and once believed in fairytale endings,” countered Fidel. “Me as a young man…when I was in university. A time when I felt invincible.”

This silenced the room as everyone waited and watched, none sure of Fidel’s next move. Suddenly, he tapped the table. “Tell me the story behind these. Leave nothing out.”

Staring at the photos, Qui began tbe story with the discovery of the bodies on the Sanabela. Each of the others told their part of the tale as the afternoon lengthened. Qui finished with, “General Cavuto Ruiz is dead, and Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez, badly burned, is in custody for his part in all this. Colonel Emanuel Cordova in Santiago is keeping Gutierrez under an alias in the hospital.”

“Ahhh…yes, Cordova,” said Fidel sitting at the head of the table staring at the images spread before him. “Strange coincidence. General Ruiz had him on a government watch list.

Fidel Castro looked Qui up and down. “Tomaso, she is indeed your daughter. Has your tenacity. You were always the most meticulous and careful of us.” He glanced as Tomaso. “Some things never change.”

“Hmm…I see more of her mother than me in her. I think, it’s stubbornness more than anything.” He chuckled.

“Traits that make for a helluva detective,” Benilo commented.

Taking up another photo, Fidel rubbed his chin and said, “So the Lake of Blood was well named after all.”

“Yes. Appears so, I’m afraid,” replied JZ.

“So many died,” commented Tomaso.

Benilo, in an angry tone, added, “And for no cause but greed.”

“It’s extremely sensitive information,” said Peña.

“We cannot allow it to get out without careful consideration,” added Benilo. “It’s going to be shocking enough as it is…like a Hollywood movie.”

“Murder and money,” agreed JZ.

It was the images of the Black Madonna that gained most purchase with Fidel. Qui felt heartened that he’d immediately grasped the significance of these photos.

Fidel, staring the whole time at the strange, underwater, otherworldly look of the real Black Madonna, commented, “Perhaps, I will call on you again if the need arises. You have all been very helpful and Cuba appreciates your patriotism and your discretion in this matter.” Stopping to stare at JZ, he added, “Even you, Mr Zayas, our prodigal son.” His eye then fell on Qui and he pointedly said, “In future, should I ever need your help, Quiana Magdalena Aguilera, I will call you.”

The president of Cuba abruptly stood, gathered the photos, his intense gaze once again fell on each of his visitors. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will take it all under advisement.” With this cryptic remark, he left without another word. Two aides immediately entered the room and silently gestured, guiding Qui and the others to the exit.

The following day in Miramar

Arturo, Tomaso, and Yuri sat in the mariposa garden, sipping drinks and congratulating Qui on solving the case of the dead foreign doctors. They discussed the disposition of the disparate elements of the mystery.

Benilo said, “Humberto Arias has completely disappeared. No one’s heard from him.”

“After fifty plus years,” Tomaso commented, “He’s finally paying for his war crimes.”

Qui added, “As well as the deaths of my three foreign doctors, Estaban, and Tony.” Silently she acknowledged her success in not failing the dead, a fear she’d had at the beginning of this tangled case.

“He’s a member of that elite club called the disappeareds,” insisted Yuri. “Finally achieved the status he so well deserved.” Shaking his head, he continued, “Helluva a thing Qui, that Esteban was killed simply to cover Arias’s sale of Cuban medical secrets.”

“But who’d have guessed that Montoya would’ve been illegally dealing in medical drugs?” Benilo added, “The man seemed toe the line.”

“Prim and straitlaced, he was.” Tomaso added.

“Must have been a serious liability to Arias,” Benilo replied.

“Word is that Arias had Hilito killed for the same reason,” said Yuri, “to cover his tracks.”

“Some detective I am,” commented Qui. “I never suspected Montoya of anything. He was so obsessed about rules. But I was onto Hilito…only too late.”

Patting her shoulder, Benilo remarked, “Qui, his death came was hours before you arrived.”

“No criminal charges have been leveled at Alejandro Valdes,” Yuri commented. “None of the dirt’s sticking to him.”

“Cunning man,” replied Qui. “Orchestrated Arias’s downfall…took years to realize his goal.

“Revenge has never been so perfectly executed,” Tomaso observed.

“Like a dessert Riesling,” stated Benilo. “A wine aged to perfection. After years of investment, the payoff must be indeed sweet.”

“How often in this life are we treated to real justice,” commented Yuri.

“Agreed, it’s a rare commodity,” Qui added putting down her glass. “And without Alejandro’s having peppered the trail, we’d never have caught Arias. For now as far as I’m concerned the scales are balanced, but I’ll keep my eye on him.”

Tomaso said, “And Alfonso’s future can be summed up in a single word: disgrace.”

“Disgrace to him personally,” Qui added, “as well as disgrace on the entire PNR.”

Benilo sarcastically replied with a smile, “That’s nothing new.”

Yuri added, “Disgrace in a communist country is nothing! It’ll be ignored under the banner of reform with new faces. Politics as usual.”

“Remember, Qui?” asked Benilo raising his glass in a mock toast. “I said politics is everything in Cuba.”

“This case has proven you right.”

Finishing his drink, Benilo stated, “Cagey how Fidel leaked the information about your discovery of the Black Madonna.”

“Yeah, that news release supposedly from of the university at Santiago was quiet a piece of work. Fidel’s speechwriters musta worked overtime to make it so thoroughly ambiguous.”

Yuri roared with laughter, the others joining in. “It’ll take years for anyone to unravel the details of what’s happened here and in Santiago. The communist way…bury it in secrecy, bureaucracy, and mis-information.”

Qui continued, “Out of our hands. The experts have it.”

“I’d like to believe the experts have it,” began Tomaso, “but I fear it’s in political hands. The international media is skewering our country once again.”

“Well, I got enough on my hands with the estimable Mr. Zayas.” Looking at her watch, Qui announced, “And it’s time for me to leave before I miss his flight.”

Turning to Tomaso, Benilo said, “Looks like your daughter’s finally met an American she likes. A man who won’t be intimidated by Rafaela’s spirit.”

Tomaso smiled widely. “My little bird? Not likely her wings’ll ever be clipped.”

“Oh Papa!” Qui leaned over kissed her father, then waved goodbye to the others.

43

During the drive alongside the ocean, Qui surrounded by bright sunlight mused over the preceding night spent with JZ when he had informed her that he must return to America. “I’ve been selected to explain to the families exactly what went on here.”

“Oh, for what you call a debriefing? Fidel and Alejandro had you pegged right, then?”

“Not precisely. The families have a right to know the details of how their loved ones died here. It’s not something I’m looking forward to, Qui.”

She’d never pushed him for details on his background, and now was not the time to start. Instead, they’d made love, the kind she’d always dreamed of–at times passionate, at times tender, at times just plain fun. At one point, during a food break, she’d promised to see him off at the airport. He’d responded, “Might not be smart, Qui. Fidel’s got me under a microscope since we stormed his office—guess he’s still nervous over an Interest Section person getting so close.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” she’d protested, kissing him again.

“You should be; your career could be at stake.”

“It can only improve with Jorge Peña being placed in Gutierrez’s position.”

“Seems a good man in spite of a bad first impression.”

She couldn’t help but smile at this. “Agreed. That machismo act of his had me fooled too.”

JZ added, “But then you, he, Cordova, and Latoya disprove the prejudice I held against all PNR.”

“What’s not to love?” Qui teased.

With that, JZ left his chair, stalked over to her, pulled her up and over his shoulder, saying, “What not indeed,” over the sounds of her delighted shrieks. Dropping her onto the bed, he climbed up and toward her as if stalking prey. Capturing her, he shut off her laughter by pressing his lips tightly against hers. With the return of desire and with their time together shrinking, their lovemaking became a slow languorous tango, touch igniting fire. This intangible thing between them had become irresistible. It solidified and strengthened as the night passed with the lovers entwined within one another’s arms. The night proved magical. Their feelings had evolved into a deep, passionate, caring love, the existence of which neither could deny.

As Qui continued toward the airport, her thoughts focused on how much she’d gained and how much she’d lost, and how much she’d changed since that first day on the Sanabela, staring at the netted bodies. She’d gained untold experience, knowledge, and street smarts. She’d lost Montoya and Tino, but she’d found JZ, and she must admit to herself if to no one else she’d found love. This case had changed her—seasoned her. In this regard, Qui would never again doubt her own instincts and intuition. She understood that her relentless determination and her commitment to truth and law had won out against all odds—including the Cuban underworld.

But all these concerns were obliterated when Qui pulled alongside the private jet that JZ would board for Miami. She didn’t see him but he must be here, somewhere.

Returning to America, JZ carried a written apology to the families of the American and Canadian victims. While the letter was sealed, Qui had learned the gist of it: a proviso that all those responsible for this miscarriage of justice in Cuba would pay as only Fidel could arrange.

“Quiana!” she heard his voice from behind. JZ approached from a nearby hangar. Qui dropped all pretense and rushed into his arms.

“I wish you didn’t have to go? When will you come back?”

“I’ll be back…one way or another. Don’t worry.” He ran his fingers through her thick mane of hair and lifted her chin to his lips and passionately kissed her under the sound of the jet revving up. “You’ll be in heart from now until I see you again.”

Her eyes glistened with tears held in abeyance. “If I had any guts, I’d get on that plane with you.”

“No…no, it’ll take guts to go to work for Jorge Peña.”

She laughed at this.

“Besides, Havana and Cuba need you, and it’s where you belong. You love her.”

“I could be happy anywhere so long as we were together,” she countered.

“Now you’re sounding like Luis, the romantic.”

“Luis is happy. Is that so much to ask?”

“No…of course not, but Qui, we both know how much you love Cuba.”

She buried her face in his chest, tears coming.

“Like I said, Cuba needs you…in fact, Cuba needs more like you.”

They embraced a last time. He whispered in her ear, “I’ll be back Quiana. I’ll be back. I promise you.”

Parting, Qui feared her heart would literally break as she watched him board. The plane backed off, taxied to the runway, and idled there a moment. The entire time she watched and waved at his image in the small portal, she half expected some kind of Hollywood, feel good, fantasy-ending: the one that left him in her arms. This notion evaporated when the plane suddenly roared, raced down the runway, and lifted smoothly curving away from her toward Miami. She watched the silvery blue jet until it disappeared behind billowy clouds fearing she’d never again see the man she loved.

She became aware that her cell phone was ringing. She answered it, foolishly hoping to hear JZ’s voice calling from the plane. Instead, it was Peña.

“There’s been a horrible murder, the likes of which I’ve never seen, Quiana.”

“Another murder?”

“Worse than murder.”

“Tell me, Peña, what’s worse than murder?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert W. Walker is the author of more than forty published novels, beginning with SUB-ZERO in 1979. He has millions of books in print. You can visit him at www.robertwalkerbooks.com.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE INSTINCT THRILLERS featuring FBI forensic pathologist Dr. Jessica Coran

Killer Instinct

Fatal Instinct

Primal Instinct

Pure Instinct

Darkest Instinct

Extreme Instinct

Blind Instinct

Bitter Instinct

Unnatural Instinct

Grave Instinct

Absolute Instinct

THE EDGE THRILLERS featuring Detective Lucas Stonecoat

Cold Edge

Double Edge

Cutting Edge

Final Edge

THE GRANT THRILLERS featuring Medical Examiner Dean Grant

Floaters

Scalpers

Front Burners

Dying Breath

THE RANSOM MYSTERIES featuring 19th century detective Alastair Ransom

City for Ransom

Shadows in the White City

City of the Absent

THE DECOY THRILLERS featuring Chicago cop Ryne Lanarck

Hunting Lure

Blood Seers

Wind Slayers

Hand-to-Hand

THE BLOODSCREAMS SERIES featuring archeologist Abraham Stroud

Vampire Dreams

Werewolf’s Grief

Zombie Eyes

HORROR NOVELS

Dr. O

Disembodied

Aftershock

Brain Stem

Abaddon

The Serpent Fire

Flesh Wars (the sequel to The Serpent Fire)

Children of Salem

THRILLER NOVELS

Sub-Zero

PSI: Blue

Deja Blue

Cuba Blue (with Lyn Polkabla)

Dead On

Thrice Told Tales (short stories)

YOUNG ADULT

Daniel Webster Jackson & the Wrong Way Railroad

Gideon Tell & the Siege of Vicksburg

NON FICTION

Dead On Writing – Thirty Years of Writerly Advice