Havana

'Ah, I shall have the '48 St. Emilion, as usual, Rodgrigo.'

'Si, Senor Pashin. I should have known.'

'And you, Mr. Evans?'

Roger almost made a big deal. You don't drink with the enemy. It just isn't done. Nobody would understand. But he felt considerable stress from a variety of difficulties, and so, what the hell?

'Gin and tonic. Tanqueray. Large slice of lime, but don't squeeze it. I'll squeeze it myself.'

'Si, senor.'

They sat, the two of them, in the elegant bar of a restaurant called the Salon Miami on the Malecon. Across the way, just beyond the traffic, the blue Caribbean stretched to the horizon, under lowering clouds. A single palm was visible, blowing. It looked like some weather was coming in.

'Well,' said Roger, 'you're probably not one for chitchat. Nor am I. You sent me this message. Here I am. You said a proposition. I am here to listen. I must warn you, I will almost certainly say no. We have very strict rules. I will also make a report on this to my headquarters, as I am required to do.'

'Well, that's fine, if you want to. Anyhow, yes, I do have an offer for you. Think it over. You may find it to your advantage. I am not a salesman and this isn't a sale. It's just that we find ourselves, or so I am led to believe, in somewhat parallel circumstances.'

The drinks arrived; Roger had his, quickly ordered another. The Russian, meanwhile, was making quite a show of his, sniffing it, sloshing it, taking a small taste, then a larger, then giving his okay.

'Not to be rude,' said Roger, 'but what could you hope to offer me? And how could we possibly be in a 'parallel' situation.'

'Assistants. Mine is an older fellow. He has supporters in Moscow and they have an interest in having him succeed. I cannot discipline him as I feel is necessary because he'll crybaby to them and I'll get snotty cables from home. Very annoying.'

'And mine?'

'Same problem, different situation. Yours is younger, very ambitious. He has a mind full of schemes. You don't quite trust him, nor should you. You're not sure quite where his loyalties lie.'

Roger made a not very successful attempt to hide his annoyance that the Russian knew so damned much.

'Oh, you think I have a spy in your office, Mr. Evans? I assure you I do not. But it's a small diplomatic community, and people talk and I listen. So I know you are not sure where your assistant's loyalties lie.'

'They lie with me, Mr. Pashin. I am the Agency, as far as he is concerned.' But even as he spoke it and radiated belief as if it were deep religious faith, a certain anger flared deeply within his interior landscape. Who really knew about Walter 'Frenchy' Short. Who was Walter 'Frenchy' Short? Where the hell did this 'Frenchy' stuff come from anyhow?

'Well, if that is so, then I have wasted both our times and I apologize. I will leave you now, if you prefer. Or we may have a pleasant visit, gossiping about embassy society. I hear you are a very fine athlete. That is helpful; I'm sure it helps you. I wish I had a gift like that. I'm just a grind, trying to?'

'All right,' Roger said. 'It's true. One could have a better assistant than Walter. I'm not certain how his mind works. It disturbs me a little. There are people who just belong, and people who don't. I am of the former. I am liked, I am noticed. He is not. No one would select him. He is expendable, I am confident to say, and therefore possibly bitter and treacherous.'

'Well, you have been frank, so I will be frank. Let me express my situation freely. Unlike you, I am crippled in fear. If this Speshnev brings off something spectacular, it could ruin me. I must be honest with myself: I cannot let this man, this Jew, this Bolshevik, this romantic, this old dog, this grotesque figure out of A Coffin for Demetrios have a great success and attract attention. I must stop it now or I will regret it forever.'

Roger didn't say a thing. He didn't have to. In his way, the Russian had just precisely articulated his own terrors, now that Frenchy and his cowboy chum were out in the bush. If Frenchy succeeded, he profited, and now that everyone knew about Castro, now that he was famous, the ante was upped considerably.

'I want nothing from you,' said Pashin. 'This isn't a deal or an alliance. I just want to pass some information to you. It will help you profit. You will triumph. Your triumph will be Speshnev's downfall. Do you understand? I will tell you, pay the bill, and depart. You may do what you wish with the information. If you can use it to rein in your supposed underling and his wild schemes and at the same time advance yourself, so be it. Check it out any way you please; you will see that it is accurate, I guarantee you.'

Roger said nothing.

'All right, then. Speshnev is, as you have suspected, with Castro. I spoke to him only a day ago, by phone, and have spent the ensuing time making the arrangements he requested. What you have not suspected is that he isn't just helping him flee into the mountains to hide indefinitely. No, far more is planned for young Castro. Speshnev is to get him to the coast by late this afternoon. There a Jamaican trawler lurks offshore. It is actually an NKVD radio vessel, equipped with some of our most sophisticated equipment. It is a tribute to just how intensely certain of our intelligence executives believe in this Castro that Speshnev has set up, through me, his rescue, a rather elaborate thing, quite expensive even by your standards. Castro will be taken offshore and disappear for a while. He will actually be in Moscow, where he will undergo rigorous training in various political and guerilla arts. At a propitious time in the future, so trained, his talent honed, his mind made supple and aggressive by education, his motivations laid out in black and white, he will be infiltrated to begin a war against El Presidente. Through it all, Speshnev will be his mentor, his guide, his spiritual leader, his confessor. Both will prosper. You will not. Your country will not. Alas, I will not either.'

'We have a man there to block.'

'Let us hope he is good. As good as Speshnev. But few are, so, sadly, this fellow probably isn't. I know the one. Beefy, a police type. I've seen pictures.'

'Yes, that's him.'

'So if this American gets the Cuban, so be it. I hope he gets the Jew too, but if he does not, it doesn't matter, for he has destroyed him just the same. You are happy, I am happy. But if the American doesn't get him, then I advise you to advise your navy to intercept the vessel-it is called the Day's End-and board it. Remove the two of them. Speshnev actually doesn't know much, as he has been on vacation in our winter wonderland. But still, he will amuse your debriefers. As for the Cuban, shoot him and feed his body to the sharks. The Day's End. Registered in Negril Harbor. The boat number is NC554. That's the one. There's your treasure. Now, you are a hero, I am a traitor, but a safe one, and that is that.'

He threw down the last of his wine, rose, and walked off.

Roger watched him go, a man sure of himself and now of his future. Roger signalled his two bodyguards to draw close, and as they approached, he thought about how quickly he could get to the embassy, how quickly he could report to headquarters, how quickly the navy could intercept the Day's End, and where he would end up living in Berlin.

Chapter 45

There was nothing to be done. They would die or they would not die. What could be done had been done.

Speshnev, with his strong wrists and fingers, kept the boy's face buried in the vegetation. With his knee locked into the boy's buttocks, he pinned him to the earth. They lay in the brush, in stickers and thorns, amid snakes and scorpions, under a fiery sun on an airless day. They lay as intimately as inverted lovers, though no sexual tension was felt by either. There was too much fear for that. A slight rush of wind moved leaves against each other, a dry, crackly rubbing.

Speshnev had the discipline himself not to look, but he knew the boy lacked it, which is why he pinioned him so. You could never tell. Some men, for some reason, have a special sensitivity to another's eyes upon them. When hiding or sneaking or crawling or penetrating, a key rule: never, ever look at the man you're trying to evade or fool. To do that is to risk alerting him and if he's alerted, you are dead.

They lay deep in the brambles, which snarled about them, scraping and cutting. They were surrounded in