Dire Straits (4 page)

Derek parked the motorcycle
in the shadows four blocks from CBC and headed toward the compound. It was essentially an industrial area and was primarily empty in the middle of the night. He stayed to the shadows and saw very few vehicles.

Across the street from the CBC facility, he crouched in the dark, settling in to wait. This was something he was very good at. Special Forces soldiers might be action guys, but they knew all about waiting and surveillance. He melted into the shadows and remained motionless. There was no need for night vision goggles—halogen lights created a no-man’s land in and outside the fence line.

At first he saw nothing. Then armed guard walked along the fence with a German shepherd. The guard wore a military uniform, which merely confirmed something that Derek already knew—the CBC had a significant military component. Besides, the military controlled about sixty percent of the Cuban economy. Their tentacles were everywhere.

Twenty minutes later another uniformed guard and dog passed in the other direction.

And five minutes after that a peculiar pickup-like truck painted military green drove by the perimeter road. Derek recognized it as a GAZ-66, a sort of all-purpose military truck manufactured by the Russians.

He didn’t know if that was a coincidence or not.

An hour later he had determined that it wasn’t. There were two separate GAZ-66s that were driving around the perimeter on a semi-regular basis.

Each of the guards did a fairly regular circuit with their dogs, approximately every thirty minutes. He estimated each circuit took fifteen minutes. In between their circuits he didn’t know what they did or where. Maybe they sat in a room and watched TV. Maybe they played cards. Maybe they took naps. Maybe they patrolled individual buildings.

The trucks had two men, a driver and somebody in the passenger seat.

It wasn’t the tightest security in the world, but it presented a problem. There were at least six guards on the perimeter of the compound with two dogs.

By four in the morning he had determined that the guards were consistent in their schedule. He wanted to stick around and see when the shift ended, but the sun would rise soon and he needed to get a few hours sleep before enduring another set of conferences and further facilities tours. Derek had spent part of the time using the night vision goggles and a small but powerful pair of binoculars to study the fence line for motion sensors and alarms.

As far as he could tell it was a just a fence—no motion sensors or alarms. There was a coil of razor wire along the top, more of a threat than a real hindrance.

That didn’t mean the grounds wouldn’t have motion sensors, although the dogs suggested there weren’t any. And he had already determined during his limited tour that the buildings did have alarms and closed circuit TV monitors.

This was going to be harder than he’d hoped, but not impossible.

He put away his gear and headed back to his hidden motorcycle. Two blocks away, he dodged into an alleyway as two old men smoking pipes sauntered down the street toward him. They were murmuring to each other in Spanish, two old men on the way to work, perhaps.

They walked past the mouth of the alley without even peering in, the scent of Cuban tobacco wafting toward where Derek hid. When they were gone, he slipped out, encountering no one else.

Firing up the bike, he returned to the safe house, stowed the gear, then snuck out and found a taxi that took him within a few blocks of his hotel. The city was starting to awaken. The sun was rising. It was going to be another beautiful day in the tropics. He used a rear entrance, avoiding people, and took the stairs up to his room on the twelfth floor, sincerely wishing he was on a lower floor.

He peered out of the stairwell door into the hallway, saw nothing, and stepped into the hallway. Turning the corner, he came to a halt and quickly backpedalled.

Juan Osorio was standing outside his hotel room door.

Too late. Osorio saw him. The Cuban shouted, “He’s at the stairwell!”

Two armed soldiers appeared around the corner, running for Derek. He had about two seconds to make a decision: fake it out, fight it out, or run like hell.

He chose: run like hell.

Spinning on his heel, Derek exploded through the door to the stairwell and raced down the steps three and four at a time, using the railing for leverage, praying he didn’t twist an ankle or slip and sprawl down a dozen flights of steps.

The soldiers pounded after him, shouting in Spanish. He had approximately a single flight lead.

He skidded around a corner, slammed into the wall, and tumbled a few steps before catching himself and continuing down. He lost half a flight’s lead.

As he rounded another corner, one of the soldiers went all super-hero on him, leveraging himself over the rail and dropping ten feet to the steps to land in front of him. The soldier landed badly, quite possibly busting a leg in the process. Derek found himself between two soldiers, both armed with AK47s.

He took a giant step and powered his leg like an NFL kicker right into the soldier’s face with a spray of blood and crunch of bone. Leaning down, Derek snagged the soldier’s handgun, a Russian-made Makarov.

Spinning, he knocked off a round at the second soldier. The bullet caught the Cuban in the shoulder, spinning him backwards and knocking him off his feet.

Derek took the opportunity to leap down the stairs. Within seconds he exited the hotel. The street was filling with cars. He rushed across the Malecón, waving his hands wildly at a bright yellow Coco Taxi. The driver skidded to a stop, shouting at him in Spanish. The only words Derek recognized were “loco” and “pinga.” The driver called him a “crazy dick.”

Derek grabbed the man by the collar and tossed him out onto the roadway, jumped behind the wheel and raced off. He didn’t go far. He could hear sirens.

He got off the Malecón as soon as he could, blending into heavy traffic, just another bright yellow Coco Taxi among hundreds. He ditched the taxi as soon as he could, sprinting into a crowd of Cubanos heading to work. He walked along with them for a block, then spotted a 1950s Chevy convertible parked by the side of the road.

It was aqua and in mint condition. He jumped behind the wheel, leaned down and peeled back the casing around the steering wheel. In seconds he’d hot-wired the car and was roaring toward the American Embassy Office—the U.S. didn’t have a full embassy in Cuba—or the Canadian Embassy on Calle 30 in Miramar. If that didn’t work, he could try the Swiss Embassy, or the British Embassy.

He had memorized the Havana map and considered a variety of escape routes in case hell broke loose.

And hell had broken loose.

Derek drove by the
U.S. Embassy Office, but kept going. The Cuban police presence in the area was large and obvious. They’d been alerted and were looking for him. He wasn’t even sure if it would be safe to get near the Swiss or Canadian embassies, but he decided to try.

If the U.S. Embassy Office was clearly being watched by the Cubans, it was nothing compared to what was going on at the Swiss Embassy. The Swiss Embassy was a seven-story concrete building with all the charm of a city jail, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Driving by, he noted Cuban military vehicles outside the gate. Six of them.

It was obvious that at least one of the Company’s networks has been totally obliterated. Derek had a few backups, but he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted them any longer.

If he headed for the airport, it was possible they’d let him go. He had his wallet with credit cards and cash. He had his passport. He had his utility tool. He had the clothes on his back.

It was also entirely possible they would arrest him, find a dark cell to leave him in, and start to barter with the U.S. government over him. And they might torture him for any information he might be able to provide them.

Execution was not out of the question.

He’d take a pass on that option.

He continued to drive, giving himself time to think. Driving around Havana in a stolen car with the police and the government actively searching for him probably wasn’t a great idea.

Working his way back to the safe house might be the best tactic. He wasn’t sure if he trusted it any more, though. He would need to check it out for a while, put it under surveillance. If he could get in there, somebody with the Company would check in with him. But how badly blown were the CIA’s networks in Cuba?

He had driven into an older neighborhood in Old Havana, narrow streets, alleyways, signs in a variety of languages, only a few Spanish. Many of them were African.

Derek could say “one more beer, please,” and “where is the bathroom?” in a dozen languages. Otherwise he was only fluent in one language other than English: Krio.

Krio was a strange mix of English and a dozen African dialects that was spoken by about ten percent of the people in Sierra Leone, but understood by almost everybody. Out of all the countries he had lived in as a kid, Sierra Leone was closest to being home, the one he had spent the most time in.

He saw a sign scrawled across a storefront bar: plɛzhɔ.

It was the Krio word for pleasure.

Derek drove the car away from the African area and abandoned it in an alley, and began to make his way back to the bar. He stood out a bit in the neighborhood, but not as badly as he had thought. It was filled with all sorts of shops—groceries and bakeries and bars, bookstores and shops that sold religious items for Santería, Yoruba, Vodou, Abakua, Palo Monte. It was predominantly black, but there were enough whites and Cubanos that he didn’t stand out. He heard a lot of different languages spoken—Spanish, of course, and some English, but Krio and Swahili, some Haitian Creole that sounded similar to Krio.

He approached the bar. It was closed, but he pounded on the wooden door. Next door to the bar was a small grocery. A heavy black woman out front loaded plantains onto a hook. She looked at him and in heavily-accented Spanish said something to him. The only word he recognized sounded something like
borracho
, which probably meant she was accusing him of being drunk.

He smiled at her and in Krio said, “I haven’t had a drop to drink.”

Her eyes grew wide. She responded in Krio, “Are you from Salone?” Salone was the Krio word for Sierra Leone.

“I grew up there. I could use some help.”

She studied him for a moment. “Are you in trouble?”

He smiled and raised his hands to his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “
Plenty yagba don fal down pan we.
” It was a Krio expression that was hard to directly translate, but was generally understood to mean: I’m in seriously deep shit.

The woman seemed worried, looked up and down the street for a moment, then invited him into the back of the grocery. Derek pointed at a mango as he walked by and asked her if he could buy some breakfast. He was hungry.

She nodded and pushed through a rickety door in the back. It was a small office. She pointed at a chair and told him to sit.

“
Ah de wit u
,” she said. Literally: I am with you. It meant, in this case, Derek figured, that she was staying open-minded and listening. But what to tell her?

He took a bite of the mango and started to talk.

The woman’s name was Claudetta Tambiama. She ran the fruit and vegetable market. Her husband, Momka, ran the bar and strip club next door. He was sleeping in a room above the market, where they lived. She asked him if he wanted coffee. He did. Desperately.

While she fussed with an old-fashioned coffee maker, a glass bubble on the top to announce the perk, he spun a tale of fooling around with a local girl, only this local girl’s brother was a cop, and he found out about their tryst and went after Derek—Derek was calling himself Jake Smith in the story. She brought him a mug of coffee and sat down across from him.

In Krio she said, “You are full of shit. Why are you lying to me?”

Damn, he thought. That didn’t work. He raised his hands in surrender. “Look, Claudetta, I’m really in trouble. I can’t talk about it. But I saw the sign and I really did grow up in Sierra Leone. I need to lay low for a couple days before I can get out of the country. I thought you might be able to help.”

“Maybe I can. What kind of help?”

“A place to sleep for a day, maybe. Maybe a car or a bicycle or something.”

“We don’t own no car, Jake. Or a motorcycle. Momka, he own a bicycle and a scooter.”

“The scooter, maybe. So I can get around the city a little faster.”

She drank her own coffee, staring at him over the mug with her brown eyes, skin the color of a coconut. “You bring trouble on Claudetta.
Chaka-chaka
.”
Chaka-chaka
. Messy. She made the peculiar gesture at her chin, the all-purpose symbol of the bearded one, Fidel and his government. She let the comment dangle there, something inferred.

“I’ve got money,” Derek said.
kɔpɔ.
And he did. Some in his wallet. More in his money belt. Canadian. Cuban. American.

She smiled. “Why you not say so before? Of course we can help you. Got a room above the bar. For business. You know?”

So it wasn’t just a bar or a strip club. It was a brothel, too. “How much?”

She reeled off a figure. He pulled out his wallet and raised an eyebrow. “And how much to make sure you or Momka don’t tell anybody I’m here. At all.”

She doubled the price. He laid out the Cuban Pesos.

“I show you room.”

Upstairs above Pleasure were four squalid little rooms off a short hallway. At the end of the hallway was a bathroom—a toilet and sink, rusty and stained. The walls were whitewashed plywood. Each room contained a soiled mattress and a bare table with a lamp. The Hilton’s reputation was safe.

“You need anything else?”

He shook his head and thanked her.

Once she was gone, he slammed home the door’s slide-bolt and pushed the table against it. It wouldn’t keep anybody out for longer than about ten seconds, but ten seconds could save his life. He’d take what he could get. It’s not like he had many options.

He decided to leave his shoes and clothes on, sprawled on the mattress and was asleep in minutes.

It was a restless sleep. At one point, mid-day according to his watch, he heard movement down below and murmured voices. Claudetta talking to a man. Some of it was in Spanish, some of it was in Krio. He heard his name—Jake—and he heard the Krio word for money.

He drifted back to sleep.

Several hours later he snapped completely awake. Heavy footsteps were climbing the steep stairs. Two sets. A deep male voice said something in Spanish. A flirty female voice giggled and said something back. Derek, not for the first time, wished he spoke more Spanish.

He rolled out of the bed and onto his feet. The only weapon he had was the utility tool and the stolen Makarov. He snapped open the blade, stood to the side of the door and waited, body coiled.

The footsteps passed his room and the door to the room next to his closed. Through the thin wall voices muttered, then the rustle of clothing, followed by encouraging male words.

Glancing at his watch, he saw it was seven in the evening. The bar was either open or a customer was getting an early start. He slid back the mattress, unlocked the door and hurried down the stairs, peering around the corner into the bar.

Along one wall was a tin bar with stools. Across the bare wood floor were about ten small round tables, two or three chairs stacked atop each of them. Along the opposite wall was a low stage with two stripper poles, spotlights and a sound system at one end.

A short, thin black man in jeans and a loose white cotton shirt was sweeping the floor. His Afro was bushy and speckled gray. A wispy mustache decorated his upper lip. In Krio he said, “Cop upstairs. It how we do business, yes? They get a girl, they leave us alone. But he early tonight, otherwise I warn you. Best you get out of here.” He fished in his pocket and tossed a key to Derek. “Vespa out back. Tank is full. Don’t come back until late morning, hear? Or best you not come back at all. Leave bike, though.”

“One way or the other I’ll get the bike back here or let you know where it is. Thanks.” Derek handed the man a twenty Peso note and headed out the rear of Pleasure into the Havana evening.

There were a number of different techniques that could be used to climb back into an overturned kayak. None of them were terribly effective when caught in rough seas.

Clinging to the rope with one hand, other hand gripping the paddle and the gunwale to make sure it stayed in the cockpit of the kayak, Derek timed the waves. The trick—and it would be a good trick if he pulled it off—was to catch the kayak in a level trough or as it was moving down, which would allow gravity to help him.

It was almost impossible to time the waves in the dark. The wind was blasting spray into his face, it was raining, and the waves seemed to come in every direction. But he couldn’t hang by his wrist forever.

Derek felt the kayak rising on a wave. As it rose onto the crest and began the awkward slide down the other side, he pulled as hard as he could, levering himself to sprawl on top of the kayak.

The kayak, with him almost spread eagle on top of it, plunged down the other side. He felt himself tumbling, the kayak starting to roll.

With a desperate, half-rolling, half-jackknifing motion, he jammed his feet into the cockpit and held on.

A wall of water swept over him. He inhaled at the wrong time, and choked, coughing and retching.

But he was in.

He still had the paddle.

The skirt, practically in tatters, was still around his waist.

But the cockpit was half filled with water.

And the can he used for bailing was long gone. He tried to bail with his hands and made some headway, but not much. He finally gave up and resealed the skirt. The kayak was less stable with too much water, but it wasn’t in any particular danger of sinking. There were floating packets in the bow and the stern, so even if full it wouldn’t sink. Not exactly.

Derek gripped the paddle and instead of fighting the storm, used it as a rudder to steer the kayak, no longer trying to keep it bow into the waves, but running before them, in God only knows what direction. And he prayed that the storm would move on soon.