him. He thinks there’s a pile of dough sitting somewhere in Cuba, huh?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Hard to imagine that it’s still sitting there after all these years,” Menendez said. “Fidel’s probably already spent it for him.”
Alex shrugged. “I’m just along for the ride as far as Guarneri is concerned,” she said. “My assignment is Roland Violette. I saw some initial briefing documents. I know he’s a fugitive who wants to come home. That’s the extent of my knowledge.”
“How much do you know about Cuba?” Fajardie asked. “Politics. Background. History.”
“My boss in New York brought me up to date. And I’ve got my own personal opinions that the embargo on Cuban goods has done more harm than good, particularly to the Cuban people. But that’s just me, and I have some unpopular ideas.”
“That
“I have one.”
“Secure?”
“I wouldn’t be using it if it weren’t.”
Another short beat, then, “Okay,” Fajardie said softly. To his left, Menendez was looking at an open file, glancing up and down intermittently, while to his left, Sloane sat stiffly in place.
“Sorry,” Fajardie said. “I have to ask you to sign these.”
He handed her some confidentiality bonds. She looked at the documents, scanned them, and pulled her silver Tiffany pen from her purse, the one with her name on it. She signed and laid the pen on the table. She handed the documents back to Fajardie, who then turned to Sloane and said, “Okay, Curtis, amuse us.”
Sloane cleared his throat, consulted his notes, and began. “By our count, 258 fugitives from U.S. law currently reside in Cuba. Our numbers are approximate because we don’t have that many eyes on the street in Cuba, and some of our files go back forty, fifty years. People die, they disappear, they get off the island and disappear to other places. Like Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala.”
“Even Panama?” she asked, bemused.
“Even Panama,” he said. “Particularly Panama. But every once in a while one of these individuals wants to repatriate. For whatever reason. They’re sick, they’re ailing, they want to see a parent before they die. Change of heart even.”
“All of which factor into Violette’s case, from what I know,” she said.
“Possibly,” Sloane said. “We’ll get to him in a minute. Take a recent template for his case though. Luis Soltren. That name mean anything?”
She racked her brain. A light went on. “A highjacker, right?”
“Very good!” Sloane said. “Luis Armando Pena Soltren. Age sixty-seven. Soltren surrendered to U.S. law enforcement in October 2009 after arriving on a flight from Havana. He’d been in Cuba since 1968 when, in November of that year, he and three other men forced their way into the cockpit of a Pan Am flight and diverted it to Havana. Smuggled weapons on board in a bag of disposable diapers. Such hijackings were frequent at the time, with thirty successful or attempted diversions to Cuba in 1968 alone. Anyway, there are scores of other Americans living in Cuba outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Most have been there for decades. Some are in plain sight; others live deep underground. The best-known American fugitive is the former Joanne Chesimard. She’s sixty-two now and was a member of the radical activist organization called the Black Liberation Army. She was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of a New Jersey state trooper in 1977. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was last seen in Cuba in 1984.”
“Chesimard is definitely one of the top people on the list of fugitives,” intoned Fajardie. “If you pick up any scent, you’ll want to report it.”
“She’s been living in Cuba for decades under the protection of Castro,” Menendez added. “In the beginning, the fugitives were treated well. Fidel used them to flip a finger at the U.S. As years went by, he got tired of them. Most were common criminals, and even the political ones were troublemakers.”
“Most of these men and women have been there for a long time,” said Fajardie. “Worthless bunch of losers, if you want to know. Many of them, like Soltren, hijacked planes, sought refuge, and have been living there ever since they escaped the United States. Some were members of Puerto Rican separatist groups or black nationalist organizations.”
“So there’s no extradition treaty?” Alex asked.
“That’s a laugh,” Fajardie said. “Cuba and the U.S. have had an extradition treaty since the 1920s. In 1971, the two countries signed a pact that dealt specifically with extraditing hijackers. But the U.S. hasn’t extradited anyone back to Cuba, so Cuba hasn’t extradited anyone back to us. The biggest fish of all was a guy named Robert Vesco. Heard of him?”
“Sure. Financial crimes are my turf, remember?” she said.
“Vesco fled to Cuba in ‘82 after a series of charges were brought against him in the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean,” Fajardie said. “He stole $200 million from investors in the 1970s. After receiving the protection of the Cuban government, Vesco was sentenced to prison in Havana in 1996 and died from lung cancer in Havana in 2007.”
“The majority of fugitives just tried to lay low,” said Menendez, “hoping that when the Castro brothers finally drop dead, relations will improve. But there’s not much in the way of statute of limitations for most of these people. Murder. Air piracy. Fraud. They’re looking at prison time if they come back here.” He paused. “Then again, they get old and start to think. The right to die on one’s native soil. That’s a pretty strong pull. You wouldn’t think it would be, but it is.”
“On the contrary,” Alex said, “I would think it would account for a lot.”
“And that brings us to Violette,” Fajardie said. He turned to Menendez. “Tom, talk to us.”
“Roland Violette,” Menendez began. “Soviet mole. Traitor and first-class CIA rat.”
“I second that,” Sloane said.
Fajardie said, “And me, three, and Alex, four. Now run with it.”
Menendez threw a stack of surveillance photos onto the desk. “Here’s the ugly story,” Menendez said. Alex listened as she looked through the photos. “Roland Violette was nearly born a CIA agent. His father spied for the CIA in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Colombia during the ‘50s and ‘60s, so as a kid he learned Spanish like a native. Mixed race, by the way. His father was part-Haitian, part-Anglo, but his mother was something darker. Very pretty woman, a quarter Martinican, a quarter South American Indian of some sort, the rest Spanish. Pretty volatile mix if you ask me.”
“I didn’t, but go ahead,” Alex said.
“In 1957 Roland went to Camp Peary in Virginia. He was born in 1940, so he was seventeen at the time.” Menendez steadied his gaze at her. “You know about Camp Peary, right?” he said.
“The Farm,” she answered, “as it’s called by those who know and loathe it. It’s the CIA training facility in York County, Virginia, the one whose existence the CIA has never admitted. Specializes turning misguided, maladjusted individuals into misguided, maladjusted CIA officers.”
Nods all around, some laughter, six eyes on her, two-and-a-half smiles: Fajardie was less amused than the other two. “That’s the place,” Menendez said.
“I even know why they call it ‘The Farm,’” Alex offered.
“Okay, why?” he asked, testing her.
“During World War II, beginning in 1942, Camp Peary became a stockade for special German prisoners-of- war. Most of the POWs at Camp Peary did farm work within the camp during the war,” she concluded. “Hence, the name. But back to Violette.”
“Well, despite his family tree and years on The Farm,” Menendez said, “Violette was one of the most damaging moles in CIA history. Starting in 1974, he sold out every spy the CIA and FBI had in Central America. He began at the CIA, recruiting locals in South America to spy on their own governments, but he didn’t have much
