army of liberation in exile.
It was in Mexico that he first learnt how to exploit his extraordinary good looks and to develop his natural winning ways with women. By the age of seventeen his companions had nicknamed him El Zorro Dorado,'The Golden Fox', and his reputation as an irresistible lover was established.
Up to the time of his father's arrest and death in Batista's prison, Ramsey had been given the benefit of the finest education available to the only son of a wealthy aristocratic family. He had attended an exclusive preparatory school in England, and spent two years at Harrow, so he spoke English like a native, as well as his own Spanish. During his schooldays, he had demonstrated superior academic ability and had become proficient in the manners and pastimes of a young gentleman. He had a good seat on a horse, learnt to keep a straight bat and cast a salmon fly. He was also a phenomenal shot at Spanish red-legged partridge or Mexican white-winged dove. He could shoot and ride and dance and sing, and he was beautiful, and when he returned to Cuba with Fidel Castro and the eighty-two heroes on 2 December 1956, he proved his valour in the fighting which left most of the valiant band dead on the beaches.
He was with the survivors that escaped with Castro into the mountains.
During the years of the guerrilla warfare that followed El Zorro was sent down into the towns and villages to practise his arts on scores of women, young and not so young, beautiful and plain. In Ramsey's arms they became enthusiastic daughters of the revolution. With every conquest he became more skilled and confident until his band of female recruits contributed significantly to the eventual triumph of the revolution and the overthrow of the Batista regime.
By this time, Castro was fully aware of the potential value of his young relative and protdge, and once in power he rewarded him by sending him to further his education on the American mainland. While he studied political history and social anthropology at the University of Florida, Ramsey used his amatory skills to infiltrate the band of Cuban exiles who, with the collusion of the American CIA, were planning the counter-revolution and the invasion of the island.
It was largely Ramsey's intelligence that pinpointed the time and place of the Bay of Pigs landing, and resulted in the annihilation of the traitors.
By this time, his extraordinary gifts had been recognized not only by his own countrymen but also by their allies.
When he graduated cum laude from the University of Florida and returned to Havana, the head of the KGB in Cuba prevailed upon Castro and the director of the DGA to send Ramsey to Moscow for further training. While in Russia, Ramsey exceeded the estimates that the KGB had made of his capabilities and his potential value. He was one of those remarkable creatures who could pass easily in any stratum of society, from the crude guerrilla-camps of the jungle to the drawing-rooms and private clubs of the most sophisticated capitals of the world.
With the knowledge and blessing of Fidel Castro, he was recruited into the KGB. Given his connections, it was only natural that he should be appointed director of the joint committee co-ordinating Russian and Cuban interests in Africa.
In this job, Ramsey made a special study of the African socialist liberation movements and he was responsible for selecting those organizations that were to receive full Russian and Cuban backing. He initiated the policy under which Cuba came to act as a surrogate for Mother Russia in southern Africa, and he was soon responsible for the supply of arms and the training of African resistance groups. In that capacity, he became a member of the ANC.
In a very short time, he had visited all of the African countries under his jurisdiction, using his Spanish passport and his title, posing as a capitalist investor and merchant banker with credentials supplied by the fourth directorate. He was accepted without reservation by the white colonial administrations, and was received cordially and entertained by everyone from the governors of Portuguese Angola and Mozambique to the British Governor-general of Rhodesia. He even dined with that notorious architect of apartheid, the South African leader, Hendrik Verwoerd.
When it became necessary to appoint a new station head for the African division to replace the ailing General Cicero, Ramsey's qualifications and experience made him the natural choice.
So as he sat now in the back room of the Russian consulate in Bayswater Road, with the man he was about to replace and this black African guerrilla leader, his loyalties were as clear-cut as those of his superior.
When Raleigh Tabaka said, 'You will keep me informed of progress,' he was being naive. He would be informed only on a 'need to know' basis. In Ramsey's view and that of his government, the installation of this man and the organization which he represented as the ruling elite in South Africa was merely a single step along the road to the eventual goal of universal socialism throughout the length and breadth of the African continent.
'Naturally, you will be kept right up to date with this as with all other matters of joint interest,' Ramsey assured him in a tone of such total sincerity that the black man settled more comfortably in his chair and returned Ramsey's smile. Very few persons, male or female, were immune to his charms. It gave Ramsey a solid sense of satisfactien to see the magic work on even such a tough and uncompromising subject as this one.
Raleigh Tabaka was fully aware of the white man's smug self-satisfaction, although no sign of it showed on his face. There had been that flat spot in the Cuban's otherwise clear green gaze. Only someone with Raleigh's developed powers of observation would have noticed that. Raleigh had worked with these whites from Russia and Cuba for many years now, and he had come. to understand that in dealing with them only one principle was fixed and certain. They were never to be trusted, not in any circumstances or in even the smallest detail.
He had learnt to fake his acceptance, to give them false signals of compliance, such as the deliberate physical relaxation and the frank trusting smile. However, he never forgot for one instant that they were white. Like most Africans, Raleigh was a natural racist and a tribalist. He hated these white men who patronized and condescended to him across the conference-table with the same passion as he hated the white policemen who had fired the bullets at Sharpeville.
He had never forgotten for a single waking minute that dreadful day when under a blue African sky he had held in his arms the girl he loved, the lovely black maiden who was to be his wife. He had held her and watched her die, and then before her flesh cooled he had thrust his fingers deep into the bullet wounds in her chest and made his vow of vengeance.
The vow had been made not only against the assassins but against them all, every white face and every bloody white hand that had forced slavery and subjugation upon his tribe down the centuries. Hatred was the fuel on which Raleigh Tabaka's life ran.
He watched the white faces across the table and smiled and drew strength and resolve from his hatred. 'So,' he said, 'you will take care of the woman, it is agreed. Now let us move on...' 'A moment.' Ramsey lifted his hand to restrain him and turned back to Joe Cicero. 'If I am to proceed with Red Rose, then there is the matter of the budget for the operation.' 'We have already allocated two thousand British sterling-' General Cicero protested.
'Just sufficient for the preliminary stage. The budget will have to be upgraded. Red Rose is the daughter of a wealthy capitalist, and to impress her I will have to maintain my rele as a Spanish grandee.'
They argued for a few minutes more, while Raleigh Tabaka tapped his pencil impatiently on the table-top. The African division was the Cinderella of the fourth directorate, and every rouble had to be counted.
It was degrading, Raleigh thought, as he listened to them haggle. They were more like a pair of old women selling pumpkins beside a dusty African road than two men planning the overthrow of an evil empire and the liberation of fifteen million oppressed black souls.
At last they agreed, and Raleigh found it difficult to conceal his disgust as he repeated: 'Can we move on to discuss my itinerary for the African tour?' He had believed that this was the reason for today's meeting. 'Has the authorization been received from Moscow?' The discussions went on into the afternoon. They ate a frugal lunch sent up from the consulate canteen as they worked, and the fog of Joe Cicero's cigarette smoke dulled the shaft of sunlight through the single high window. The room was a high-security unit on the top floor, regularly swept for electronic listening devices and safe from outside surveillance.
At last Joe Cicero closed the file in front of him and looked up. His dark eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and the strain. 'I think that covers all points for discussion, unless there is anything new?' They shook their heads.
'As usual Comrade Machado will leave first,' said Joe Cicero. It was an elementaxy rule of procedure that they should never be seen in public in each other's company.
Ramsey left the consulate by the entrance to the visa section, the busiest part of the building where he would be less noticeable in the crowd of students and others applying for travel documents to the Soviet Union.
There was a bus- stop directly outside the walled consulate. He took a number 88 bus but left it at the next stop and hurried through the Lancaster Gate entrance to Kensington Gardens. He lingered in the rose garden until he was certain he was not being followed, and then crossed the park.
His flat was in a narrow side- street off Kensington High Street. It had been rented specifically for the Red Rose operation and, although it contained only a single bedroom, the living-room was spacious and the locality was fashionable.
