'You're welcome, Mr. Monatero.'
He nodded, indicating that the encounter was at an end and she should go. She took her cue with no seeming reaction, her painted face expressionless, masklike. She went out, closing the door behind her.
Monatero put on his glasses and studied the missive. At first glance, it seemed no more than just another piece of spam, one of the many pieces of unsolicited advertising that comes in during the routine course of operation of a business fax machine.
He squinted at it. The tour agency ad hawked their 'island getaway' special, a series of price-cut packages for budget-minded vacationers seeking fun-fested Caribbean holidays. One might have thought that the timing was a little off, considering that Hurricane Everette was now churning across the waters of the Gulf on a collision course with New Orleans, and the only getaway the locals were contemplating was a run to high and dry ground.
But this was no mere advertising circular, it was a notice of intent, a heads-up message for those such as Monatero who could read the signs.
He rose, crossing to a corner filing cabinet, a chest-high, gray metal job topped by a decorative potted plant with big waxy green fronds that looked fake but wasn't. The cabinet's vertically stacked row of drawers was secured by a combination lock. Montero knew the combination by heart, dialing it without hesitation and unsealing the lock.
Opening the top drawer, he reached in and took out its sole contents, a laptop computer. He quivered with alertness, experiencing an adrenaline rush that made his hands tremble.
That's what he told himself, that it was adrenaline which made his hands shake, and not… fear.
Carrying the machine in both hands, he set it down on his desktop, sat down facing it, lifted the lid, and booted it up. He input his password, a twelve-digit combination of letters and numbers. When it was functioning properly, he activated its wireless transceiver.
The faxed message had been his cue to make ready for an incoming message. A prime communique.
Red Sail — that was the code name of a contact with extraordinary authority and clout, whose word was law to Monatero and the organization of which he was the head.
Monatero was a deep-cover agent for communist Cuba. The Supremo Hat Company was a cover, a false front for a clandestine espionage network which had taken a decade to establish.
Monatero, Mrs. Ybarra, and all the company employees, including the hatmakers and the delivery truck driver, were all members of the spy cell.
That they had transformed their cover operation into a profitable business with a reputation for making a quality product was merely one measure of just how effective that camouflage was. It was a manifestation of the classic espionage resident/illegal two-step.
Cuba and the United States maintain diplomatic relations of sorts, however strained those relations may be. There's an American Embassy in Havana and similar Cuban facilities in the United States. Each side assumes as a matter of course that all the diplomatic cadre of the other side is made up of spies. Being protected by their respective diplomatic credentials, they are immune to arrest and prosecution by the host countries.
That's what is called the resident system. Residents possess the equivalent of a get-out-of-j ail-free card. If caught spying, the worst they can expect is to be deported back home. Of course, such residents come under relentless scrutiny by their opposite numbers in the rival intelligence services, who put them under the microscope night and day, around the clock.
Such total surveillance is a major obstacle to carrying out acts of covert and clandestine subterfuge so vital for effective espionage, counterintelligence, and action operations. The real meat and potatoes of the spy game.
To accomplish those ends, a second parallel system or network is required. One made up of persons not diplomatically accredited and therefore not necessarily subject to total surveillance by the host country's counterespionage and counterintelligence agencies.
These spies, who may pose as journalists, businesspersons, tourists, students, and the like, are known as illegals. If caught, they are potentially subject to arrest, interrogation, imprisonment, torture, and, in extreme cases, execution.
Monatero and the spy cell he ran behind the facade of Supremo Hat were all illegals. They were all very good at what they did, having escaped penetration or even detection by U.S. intelligence for many years now. They carried out the real nuts-and-bolts espionage operations that the Cuban diplomatic residents, the legals, were unable to perform due to the constant surveillance maintained on them by the United States.
An elaborate system of third-party cutouts, brush contacts, dead drops, and similar tradecraft tactics was in place to allow for two-way communication between the residents and the illegals.
Monatero was part of a chain of command linking him to his masters in Havana.
But there was a second line of authority, one whose existence was beyond top secret, linking Monatero to Havana's supreme deep cover agent operating in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
That shadowy spymaster was General Hector Beltran, 'the Generalissimo.' Beltran's extraordinary status gave him top priority when it came to calling on the services of Monatero and the Supremo cell, allowing him to mobilize their full resources in support of whatever mission he desired to carry out.
It was a measure of Monatero's effectiveness and the confidence and trust reposed in him by Havana that he had been allowed to know the nature of the Beltran connection.
He was the only member of the Supremo cell to possess that knowledge.
Red Sail was a Beltran cryptonym. The Generalissimo had many different ways to contact Monatero and make his wishes known to him. The fax machine cue was just one of them.
When Beltran wanted something, it got done. Period. Monatero and his whole Supremo cell had to drop whatever ongoing operation they were engaged in, no matter how urgent it might be, even if the current op might be burned or blown by reason of neglect while they were carrying out Beltran's orders. That was how Havana wanted it; that was the way it had to be.
Months might pass, sometimes even a year or more, between Beltran's contacts with Supremo. Months had passed since Monatero had last been required to serve the Generalissimo.
Now Beltran had opened up communication with the cell. His encrypted message was downloaded into the laptop Monatero reserved for such communiques. Monatero went to work on the message, keying in a series of passwords that were operative for today's twenty-four-hour window of opportunity.
Text flashed across his monitor screen, an alphabet soup of letters, numbers, and symbols that abruptly reconfigured into lines of text message:
(begin)
GRAND SLAM
LITTLE BROTHER LOCAL IN VIOLATION OF CONTRACT.
DEAL NULL & VOID.
PROJECT CANCELED.
SOONEST:
FIRE CARPENTER
TRIPLE PLAY FOR RUBI SUSPENSION
(end)
Decrypted, it was still opaque to those unaware of a lexicon previously worked out between Beltran and Monatero, a system of code words, private allusions, and euphemisms designed to add yet another layer of complexity to the text.
Monatero translated the message in his head. Spying was never less than intense, but Beltran always worked at the cutting edge, demanding the near-impossible and insisting that it be done in record time.
Monatero's nerves, already taut, underwent several more turns of the screw, keying him up to near- breathless levels of anxiety as the full import of the text took hold.
'Grand slam': that was a priority notification putting Monatero and by extension the entire Supremo cell on a maximum security alert — basically a wartime, combat-ready status.
What was afoot? Had the U.S. declared war on Cuba? 'Grand slam' implied a crisis level of similar
