has been reached, that?'
'Oh, one thing, sir,' Frenchy said, 'should I give you the report for counterintelligence and you'll see they get it, or should I just send it through normal channels? I'm not sure what's best and, gosh, I'd hate to make another darned mistake.'
Earl was taken to the same prison in Santiago that now housed Castro, and indeed found himself in a cell three down from the young revolutionary leader. Not that anyone paid any attention to him: eager to show its humanity to the world, the administration of Presidente Batista had ordered the revolutionary shown to any and all, so for nights and days on end, a parade of newspaper, news magazine and radio and television reporters flooded through to ask the young Cuban questions tinged with admiration. No one realized that the man three cells away had so recently had him in his sights, with his finger on the trigger.
Earl went largely unnoticed. His demands-to see a lawyer, to make some calls, to reach an official at the embassy, to speak to any other American-were routinely ignored, but otherwise he was not ill-treated. He was able to shower daily, was fed well, exercised in the yard, and soon made friends with a few other prisoners, with whom he shared cigarettes and rough humor, most of it directed at the young man who was the special guest and carried on like a movie star, quickly attracting a host of hangers-on and factotums, quickly adjusting to his celebrity and his wisdom, coming to be on first-name terms with the American reporters especially, who seemed to find him so admirable.
'That one, he'll wake up with his throat cut,' one man said to a crowd that included Earl, smoking cigarettes in the sun as, across the way, the young man spoke earnestly to a young Frenchwoman, braless under her blouse, who wrote down his wisdom with relentless diligence.
'Watch his head grow,' another said. 'When he got here, he was a failure. But they all treat him like a hero, and now he believes it.'
'They say he is a secret communista. He'll have us all dancing to the red jig if he gets his way, you watch.'
'You, norteamericano, what do you make of such a young fool?'
'He does carry on, don't he? He reminds me of a movie star. They get famous too young and they never recover. They always think they're important.'
'He has much learning to do, that is true.'
Once it even passed that Castro and the man who'd hunted him at gunpoint stood next to each other in the food line, though Castro didn't realize such. He was engaged in intense political conversation with two companions, and if he even knew Earl was an American, he never acknowledged it.
A moment came when their eyes happened to lock, and Castro gave him a politico's warm nod, and Earl nodded back, and the transaction was complete. Castro went back to his dialectics, having thought up several more important points to make.
Then one night, Earl was moved. He was not chained or brutalized, but was taken at a decent hour to a paddy wagon, locked in its rear-again, without the binding chains of a dangerous man-and driven to Havana. It took a full day, but the driver and guard were decent and joked with him, bought him cigarettes and beer and a fine lunch, pointed out beautiful girls as they passed, and were it not for the lock in the back, it would not have been an uncomfortable experience. In Havana, finally, he was taken not to the gloomy and distressing Morro Fortress but to a substation far from downtown, and again ensconced in comfort. The cell was roomy, he was the only prisoner in this wing, and he could read, smoke, drink or sleep as he wished. One night a guard even asked if he desired a woman. He said no.
Finally, after four days, a man from the embassy showed up.
'Oh, hope it wasn't too much trouble for you to come down here, sir. Don't rush or nothing,' asked Earl.
'Now Mr. Swagger, a sarcastic attitude won't be of any help here.'
'Look, just get me out of here. I never want to see this goddamned island again.'
'Well, we are trying to get it sorted out. The Cubans are very forgiving on many issues, especially where Americans are involved, but they do have a few rules. You never got a visa. Usually it's just a formality, but for some reason they are adopting a hard line on this one.'
'Well, you go on up to the third floor, Office 311, where Evans and his little pal Short hang out, and that's the source of your hard line.'
'I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. I believe you accompanied Congressman Etheridge and you whisked through Cuban Customs on the strength of his VIP protection, but someone in the embassy should have gotten you an entry permit and no one seems to have done it. Whoever made the mistake, it will take some sorting out, and we are working on it.'
'Swell,' Earl said. 'I know you'll do your best.'
So he sat. And sat. And sat.
Frenchy enjoyed the silence.
Finally, Plans spoke.
'Are you sure you want to play it this way, Short? This isn't the attitude I was looking for from you and I will be honest with you, I can be very nasty.'
'Hmm,' said Frenchy, 'I don't have any career left to protect. If I understood, and I believe I did, you just decided to end my career. Fine. No problem. You and Roger can go on and on. But I do have a duty to do. Not to either of you, but to the Agency. I intend to do it.'
He smiled brightly.
'Short, I?'
'Sir. If you look at the mission statement for this station, you'll see that way down the list of my responsibilities, I am counterintelligence officer. It's a joke, of course, but it's there, and I have every right to pursue my responsibilities and take them where they lead. So, on a random basis, I have hired a Cuban private detective to tail certain embassy types, and to photograph them if they have meetings or make contact with unknown people, just as a precaution. My, my, my, what have we here?'
He reached into his pocket, removed a manilla envelope.
He looked over at Roger.
'Roge, you've been a great supervisor. But I'm only telling the truth, painful as it is to me.'
He slid the envelope to Roger, who opened it contemptuously.
'Oh, come on!' he said. 'What the hell is this? Jesus Christ, what the fuck is this? Really, this is meaningless. What do you think this is going to get you, Walter? This is so ridiculous.'
Plans took the photo.
'Pashin, Roger. You and Pashin,' said Frenchy.
'Look, sir, I meet many people, some of them enemy agents. You have to have contacts, that's the way the game is played. So meeting with a Sov is simply a routine part of my duties and?'
'But by charter,' Frenchy said, 'you are formally obligated to report to counterintelligence all contacts with known or suspected enemy agents. Since I am counterintelligence, and you did not report to me, you have formally broken regulations in a highly sensitive area.'
'This is ridiculous! This is insane! Damn you, Short, I never, ever should have trusted you. Dick, he's simply obfuscating, trying to make a big deal over a tiny infraction to get the spotlight off his inability to do the job in the Sierras with that cornpone cowboy gunslinger.'
But Plans didn't say a thing. He looked at the photo, read the accompanying report, then looked back to Frenchy.
'This meet took place at the Salon Miami restaurant on the Malecon, July 28,' Frenchy said. 'It can be verified easily enough. On that day at 1400 hours, Roger sent an eyes-only hot flash to 8th Fleet Intel at Guantanamo, requesting urgent interception of a Jamaican vessel named Day's End, code-named 'Billy,' off Siboney, east of Santiago. The two closest vessels were Coast Guard cutters that in fact blocked the vessel but made no attempt to board after they heard that a certain revolutionary had been captured by Cuban police. Day's End was the Sovbloc escape engine. So Roger got a big chunk of info from Pashin and acted on it very quickly. He almost became a hero-that is, if Earl Swagger hadn't outfoxed him and managed to get the target arrested. But Roger never reported his contact with Pashin to counterintelligence and never divulged the source of his information. Discreet? Possibly. But possibly he also knew that the Russians just don't give information away. So if he got something, he had to give something. What would that be? Very curious.'
