Valley of the Templars

“You trust him?” Holliday asked.

“Arango? Of course,” said Eddie.

“He was plenty upset by those pirates,” said Holliday. “What’s to stop him from heading back downstream and abandoning us?”

“Four things,” answered Eddie with a grin. “Uno—he only has half his money. Dos—it takes at least two people to fire that machine gun. Tres—he knows I would find him and cut out his heart. Quatro—I have the glow plug relay fuses from both engines in my pack. He is not going anywhere.”

The town was small and almost deserted and its largest industry appeared to be a trucking company using old military vehicles to transport produce grown in a number of large greenhouses. The town square was almost empty as though the people had left on the last train out of town decades before. Doors were closed, windows were shuttered and the only movement came from little spirals of dust whirling in the hot breeze.

They found a carniceria that had some relatively fresh meat to sell, and the butcher gave them directions to a farm stand on the other side of town where they managed to find what they needed in the way of fruits, vegetables and even a clutch of fresh eggs. The old lady running the little stand was careful to pack the precious cargo in a paper bag lined with straw.

Their errands done, the two men headed back to the boat. “Hola! Arango! We’ve found the huevos you wanted,” called out Eddie as they eased themselves over the gunwales. Both men froze as a figure stepped up out of the well leading down to the cabin. His skin was the color of teak, his hair snow-white. He was as tall as Eddie but not even close to being as muscular. He had dark, deep-set, suspicious eyes beneath heavy black eyebrows that were starkly at odds with the whiteness of his hair. He carried a big Makarov pistol in his right hand.

“Where is Arango?” Eddie asked harshly. Holliday was acutely aware that he was unarmed.

“El esta abajo, dormido. Borracho,” answered the white-haired man.

“Prove it,” Eddie said.

Without taking his eyes off them, the man with the white hair used his left hand to slide back the cabin door. Arango’s snores were loud and regular. “Esta usted satisfecho…mi hermano?”

“Speak English,” said Eddie.

“Why should I speak your Yucca friend’s language? It is the language of the enemy.” The white-haired man sneered. His English was at least as good as Eddie’s.

“Because it is polite,” said Eddie. “Or have you forgotten simple manners along with everything else our parents taught us?”

“Your parents?” Holliday said.

“Yes, mi colonel,” said Eddie, his voice brittle with anger. “May I present you to Domingo Romano Cabrera Alphonso? My brother.”

15

“Why this place in particular?” Will Black said, paying the driver of the pristine 1953 Oldsmobile taxi, then climbing out into the superheated air.

“Because there aren’t that many places in Cuba that rent private airplanes,” said Carrie Pilkington. “In fact, this guy is the only one I could find.”

The faded sign on the rusted old corrugated hangar said SERVICIOS DE AVIACIoN P. LAFRAMBUESA. The hangar was located on what looked like an old, cracked, concrete hardstand at the northwestern perimeter of Playa Baracoa Airfield. Playa Baracoa was twelve miles west of Havana, its single runway within sight of the sea.

Once upon a time Playa Baracoa had been an important airbase, but it had been inactive for years, old MiGs rusting away on overgrown hardstands, a few old Russian MiL 18 helicopters and some short-range Yak 40 VIP transports in case some bigwig in the military took it into his head to visit friends at the other end of the island or fly to Cancun for the weekend.

There was a man working on an airplane in front of Servicios de Aviacion P. Laframbuesa. He was in his early sixties, tall and gangly, his bib overalls and his old straw hat making him look more like old MacDonald on his farm than an airplane mechanic.

The plane itself looked almost as out of place as the man. It was canary yellow with tricycle landing gear, the front two wheels on high pylons that tilted the nose upward like some sort of curious insect. Both the upward- hinged doors were open and Black could see that there was room for a pilot and copilot and Spartan seating for two more in the cramped little cockpit.

The man turned as they approached. He smiled and doffed his straw hat. Underneath it was a shock of curly salt-and-pepper hair. Carrie almost laughed. It was the first time she’d actually seen a man’s eyes “twinkle.” She smiled back at him. He looked like a six-foot-two version of the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

“Puedo estar de servicio?” the leprechaun asked, the Spanish formal with a strangely flat accent.

“Nos gustaria alquilar su avion,” answered Black. “Hace que lo realmente volar?”

“Of course she flies, and lower your voice or Miroslava will hear you,” said the man. His English had the same flat drawl as his Spanish.

“Who’s Miroslava?” Carrie asked.

“She is,” said the man, stroking the aircraft’s rounded snout, “Miroslava the Golden Oriole. She’s a PZL-104 Wilga and proud of it. A hundred and twenty miles per hour, range of four hundred and twenty miles; take you anywhere in Cuba you want to go.”

“You’re not Cuban.”

“Name’s Pete Laframboise,” said the man. He held out a hand and they both shook it. The grip was strong and firm and the hand felt as though it had done its fair share of hard labor. “I’m a political exile,” he added pleasantly.

“Laframboise, laframbuesa, very cute,” said Carrie.

“I thought so,” he replied.

“What kind of political exile?” Carrie asked.

“You’re way too young,” said Laframboise. “FLQ, Federation de Liberation du Quebec.”

“The Cross-LaPorte kidnappings in Montreal, October 1970,” said Carrie promptly. “LaPorte was murdered and the prime minister invoked the War Measures Act, same thing as martial law in the States. First real case of terrorism in North America. The FLQ went around planting bombs in mailboxes.”

“Not bad,” Laframboise said, turning to Black. “Who in hell does she work for?”

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.” Black smiled. He paused. “You don’t sound very French-Canadian.”

“I’m not. I’m all Anglo. But I was young. I was going to McGill University. I fell in with the ‘wrong bunch,’ as the saying goes. Her name was Paulette and she was very passionate about…politics. We were part of the team that kidnapped James Cross, the British trade commissioner. In return for letting him go, we were all exiled to Cuba. The rest went back years ago. I was the only one who stayed. I like it down here. No winters, no snow to shovel. No hockey, either, but what the hey, you can’t have everything, even in the Socialist Paradise.”

“And you wound up flying airplanes?”

Laframboise shrugged and smiled. “I already had my license by the time I got to Montreal. Back then they needed crop dusters, so there was a ready-made job.”

“You’re very forthcoming about yourself,” said Black.

“Some people couldn’t give a crap. Just get them to the fishing and pick them up again without any chatter. You two are different. I could tell that right off. You’re no fishermen. You’re not even tourists, so I thought I’d be up