“Evening of the second day. My word.”
“If it’s not, I’m going to test the quickness of the guys on guard,” O’Farrell said.
“Sure you are,” Lambert said, and O’Farrell regretted the bravado; he had sounded like a child protesting that he was unafraid of the dark when really he was terrified.
In addition to the genuine mourners, there was a large contingent from the Cuban security service and more from the Diplomatic Protection Squad. Rivera didn’t object, although he disliked having so many guardians constantly around him. “Highly professional and skilled” was the forensic description of the assassination; so Belac had gone to a lot of trouble, employing the best. But then, it was logical that the arms dealer would know the best. It was his business to know things like that. Beside him Rivera felt a slight movement, as Jorge clutched his leg. Rivera put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Jorge had cried a little in the church but had recovered now, in the churchyard, and Rivera was proud of him. At the touch Jorge looked up through filmy eyes and smiled slightly, and Rivera hugged him again.
Rivera kept his head bowed because it was expected but managed to look quite a way beyond the priest saying whatever he was saying over the coffin, which was resting on the lip of the grave. Rivera hadn’t expected there to be so many people. They were crowded together, solemn-faced, and the immediate grave area was a blaze of flowers; some of the wreaths were quite elaborate. He was glad he’d deputed a secretary to make a note of the names so he could write later.
The coffin was lowered. Rivera felt a nudge of encouragement from someone and took the offered trowel, casting earth into the grave, giving it in turn to Jorge. When the boy moved, there was a chatter of camera shutters. Rivera wondered if the photographs would appear in the papers belonging to Henrietta’s husband. After the bombing they had described him as a playboy diplomat, and he’d made a mock complaint to Henrietta.
Rivera thanked the priest, whose name he could not remember, and hesitated on the pathway back to the cars for people to murmur their regrets as they filed by. He murmured his thanks in return. Some of the women patted Jorge’s head as they passed. Rivera wished they hadn’t and knew Jorge would feel the same way, too.
The cortege had left from the embassy and not the Hampstead house because it still bore the burns and damage of the explosion, so it had been easy for Rivera to give the instructions to his First Secretary.
The man was beside him now Rivera said, “Well?”
“No, Excellency.”
“You sure?”
“Quite sure.”
Rivera was disappointed. He had quite expected the man to attend.
The line was almost over before the First Secretary leaned toward Rivera and said, “Here, Excellency,” and Rivera stretched out a limp hand to accept that of Albert Lopelle, Estelle’s French lover.
The formality over, Rivera hustled Jorge into the car but remained outside himself. To his First Secretary, he said, “You have to be wrong. That can’t be Albert Lopelle.”
“I assure you it is,” said the man. “I have met him several times.”
Rivera looked in disbelief after the Frenchman. He was so fat he walked with a rolling gait, and he was short, not much over five-five, and visibly balding. The handshake had been wet with perspiration, which was perhaps understandable, but Rivera guessed the man perspired a lot.
“Incredible,” Rivera said, finally entering the car. He felt offended that Estelle should have considered leaving him for such a man, empty though their marriage had been.
TWENTY-FOUR
RIVERA HAD never imagined that Pierre Belac would try to kill him, no matter how acrimonious their dealings became. Now, after the attempt, it was very easy to do so. Rivera remained frightened. No longer for himself. But for Jorge, who had almost died as it was. Jorge had to be protected. Permanently, not temporarily by all these squads milling about, squads who’d eventually be withdrawn.
Safety would be easily enough achieved. All he had to do was pay over the withheld ten percent, which he’d agreed to do in Paris and which he’d always intended to do anyway. He’d like to be able to tell Belac that. But he didn’t know where Belac was. And if he were to do so, it would make him appear scared. And that couldn’t be allowed. Rivera wished, fleetingly, there were some way he could go on withholding the outstanding money to teach Belac the lesson the bastard deserved. But he had to think of Jorge. He’d settle everything as soon as the
Rivera apportioned Estelle’s death into advantages and disadvantages. An unquestionable advantage was how he came to be regarded by his government. Predictably Havana overreacted, immediately drafting extra bodyguard officers from the Direction Generale de Inteligencia, some of whom entered the country unofficially because the diplomatic complement at the embassy was already complete.
With them came the deputy director of the DGI, a sympathy-offering general named Ramirez, to head their own investigation. The apparently grieving Rivera showed the proper and expected caution, checking first with Havana mat the man was cleared to discuss the arms shipments before offering his carefully prepared story. Arms dealing was a close-knit, jealous, and violent business; the general surely knew that? Here a modest shoulder shrug, eyes sadly averted. Rivera’d known and accepted the danger to himself, never imagining it embracing his family. The attack had only one logical explanation; arms dealer against arms dealer, eliminating the source of such lucrative contracts. Another shrug. Perhaps it was fortunate that the order was so close to completion, removing the reason for jealousy, for murder. Rivera smiled the sad smile of a man bereaved He had suffered. Rivera offered, the sacrifice a loyal servant of the State was sometimes required to suffer. He was heartbroken. But still— unshakably—the same loyal servant.
Ramirez probed for the possible identity of jealous arms dealers. Rivera, determined that his hidden Swiss bank account stay very hidden, said he didn’t know, but intended to find out through the network of contacts he had established. Ramirez said that if a name or names could be confirmed, the DGI had been ordered at the highest level in Havana to match the retribution to the crime and that the DGI had every intention of carrying out that order if it became possible. The extra bodyguards would remain, Ramirez promised, under the control of the local station chief, Carlos Mendez. The official ambassadorial residence was to be fitted throughout with an extensive security system. In the immediate future, dog handlers would be employed to patrol at night. Rivera again smiled his thanks, resenting the protection even more. It was important, he stressed, for him sometimes—quite frequently, in fact—to move about unescorted: arms dealers were secretive men, nervous of identification. For the moment, the general insisted, such encounters had to be restricted. Rivera accepted the edict, realizing it would be wrong to press the argument.
The protection created the biggest disadvantage. In addition to his own people, the British assigned men from the Diplomatic Protection Squad, building a virtual wall between him and Henrietta. And her initial distancing reaction when he telephoned the day after the funeral wasn’t what he had expected, either.
“Maybe it’s a good thing, for a while,” said the woman, almost casually.
“What!” he said, surprised.
“Someone tried to kill you, that’s what you said. What if they try again?”
Rivera sighed. It had been a mistake, trying to impress her. He supposed it was natural she should be frightened. “I don’t think there’s much chance.”
“How can you say that!”
Because Belac will be too scared himself to make another attempt, Rivera thought. “They’ll know the security that’ll be in place now.”
“That doesn’t sound a very convincing reason to me,” said Henrietta. “Who’s trying to kill you? And why?”
It was an obvious question, and Rivera was prepared for it. “You know the opposition that exists against Castro? And what my family were—aristocrats—before the revolution? I’m regarded as a traitor, for joining Castro instead of the opposition.”
Henrietta was quiet for so long that Rivera thought they had been disconnected and said, “Hello?”
“You saying the anti-Castro people tried to kill you for that!”
