magnitude.
Monatero mentally clamped down on his physical reaction, his heart rate mercifully slowing down some as he read on. 'Little brother' was Venezuela's new socialist regime. To Havana's dedicated Fidelistas, late-blooming Caracas could never be regarded as anything but a junior partner in the business of world revolution.
'Local' meant Venezuela's New Orleans consulate, specifically the spy apparatus being run out of the site.
'Violation of contract, deal null & void' and 'project canceled' were all straightforward enough: there had been a falling-out due to some perfidy on the part of the Venezuelans; the working relationship between Cuban and Venezuelan spy nets, at least in New Orleans, was over, finished. Kaput.
'Soonest' was equivalent to 'take immediate action.' 'Carpenter,' Colonel Paz, was to be 'fired' — that is, killed on sight or as soon as possible. 'Triple play for Rubi suspension': 'triple play' was a three-man action team. Enforcers. Wet work specialists. 'Suspension' was kidnapping.
'Rubi' contained a little private joke of Beltran's. It was short for Rubirosa. Porfirio Rubirosa had been the confidential agent of the fearsome Dominican dictator Trujillo, during the 1940s and 1950s. He'd also been an international playboy, a real-life Don Juan whose conquests included a string of movie starlets and heiresses.
Rubi was Beltran's sardonic code name for Raoul Garros, Venezuelan scion and womanizer, LAGO's smooth front man in New Orleans and a vital component of Paz's organization.
The message was dismaying, a red alert that conditions between Havana and Caracas had undergone a 180 -degree reversal, from comity and close cooperation, to enmity and virtual all-out war. It specifically concerned operations in the New Orleans area, where Paz and Beltran had been conducting joint ventures, the nature of which was unknown to Monatero, who lacked the 'need to know.'
Monatero and his Supremo cell could expect an attack from Paz at any time. He was instructed to put Paz at the top of his A-list of targets marked for immediate execution.
Raoul Garros, a vital Paz associate, had escaped being marked for death, but was instead reserved for abduction, to be taken alive — for interrogation, exchange purposes, or whatever; that was a mystery to Monatero. Beltran would be handling the Garros kidnapping himself, and required a team of three top agents to immediately be put at his disposal.
Monatero reread the message, committing it to memory. He hit enter, and the text disappeared, winking into nothingness. Had he not hit the key, the message would have automatically deleted itself at the end of five minutes.
Monatero decided to have a smoke. That would give him something to do physically while his brain and nervous system were integrating the import of the instructions. He took out a custom-blend, brown paper cigarette and set fire to one end of it. After a few puffs, he became restless, eager to be in motion.
He set the still-burning cigarette in the ashtray and switched off the laptop. The screen's going black-dark gave him a start, making him flinch.
He unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. In it were a gun and some boxes of ammo. The weapon was a short, snouty.380-caliber semiautomatic pistol, graphite-colored steel with dark inset walnut grips. It held a full clip, but the chamber was empty.
It was legal; he had a permit for it. Also a permit to carry a concealed weapon, obtained on the basis of his being the manager of a company that frequently required him to carry large sums of money. Ordinarily he rarely went about armed.
'Ah, well, there's no end for it but to follow orders,' he told himself. Sighing, he slipped the weapon into the right side pocket of his sport jacket, then winced; the weighty pistol tended to ruin the linings of his pockets.
He closed the laptop, toted it back to the filing cabinet, and placed it in the top drawer. He closed the drawer, the lock clicking into place, and gave the combination dial a spin for further security.
Now to notify the rest of the cell of the change in status…
Something nagged at him, irritating him for no discernible reason and setting his teeth on edge, even more than they already were from the devastating new developments.
Whatever was bothering him was somewhere below the threshold of consciousness, and he couldn't put a finger on what it was, irking him all the more.
Suddenly awareness came and he realized what it was. The source of his annoyance was external, it was in the air all around him, and must have been so for several moments.
It was a tune, a mindlessly simple, catchy little tune that was being played repeatedly on some kind of electronically amplified, computerized music maker.
It came from outside, from the front of the building. His window was closed, the air conditioner was on, but the music still came through, loud and clear, maddening in its infantile simplicity and mind-numbing repetition.
It was that old folk song 'La Cucaracha,' rendered in the idiotically simplest, piping electronic tones.
Crossing to the window, he fingered open two slats of the Venetian blinds and peered between them, looking out through the glass.
The music came from a loudspeaker mounted on a lunch wagon parked at the curb in front of the building. An old, beat-up vehicle with a cab up front and quilted metal box behind. The box's side panels were hinged to open up and outward, revealing shelves stocked with plastic-wrapped sandwiches, coffee, soft drinks, buttered rolls, bags of potato chips and pretzels, and other quick snack foods.
It was what some of the men working in the back of the building jokingly called a 'roach coach,' although they patronized it religiously as it made its daily stops at the hat company.
A familiar sight, an icon, operated by Tio Rico, an oldster and well-known neighborhood character. He'd been doing business in the neighborhood for years, as far back as Monatero could remember. Supremo Hat was one of his regular stops, twice a day, six days a week. Regular as clockwork — had he ever missed a day?
The music was his way of announcing his arrival, just as ice cream vendors play similar ditties to advertise their presence and attract the kiddies to their truck.
Monatero had never before realized how annoying such music could be. It worked on his nerves like a dentist's drill. The mechanical, moronic repetition of the tune, reduced to its simplest elements, was maddening.
Or maybe it was the same as always, and it was he, Monatero, who was different, twitchy with a skinful of adrenaline and a skein of tautly strung nerves.
Letting the blinds fall shut, he turned and crossed to the outer office of his door. Beyond it, he heard the sound of voices, laughter.
He opened the door, stepping into the showroom. His nostrils tasted the mixed scents of hot coffee and fresh-baked goods. They arose from a thin cardboard box on Mrs. Ybarra's desktop, her workstation and reception area being placed just outside Monatero's inner office. She sat behind her desk, chatting with Tio Rico, the aged deliveryman and vendor who'd brought the snacks.
Tio Rico — 'Uncle Rico' — was a little old man, balding, clean-shaven, deeply tanned, with white eyebrows and bright brown eyes. He wore a stingy-brim straw hat, button-down short-sleeved shirt over baggy khaki trousers, and a pair of blue-canvas, rubber-soled deck shoes.
Joaquin stood nearby. A veteran protector, competent, dangerous, he was the showroom's doorkeeper and security guard. A big man with a big gun worn beneath his white-on-white guayabera short-sleeved shirt, worn loose outside his pants and not tucked in. A professional, good at what he did, but as yet unaware that the cell had moved into the danger zone. He was focused on the good eats that Tio Rico had brought into the showroom.
Tio's face lit up when he laid eyes on Monatero. His head bobbed, nodding respectfully. 'Good morning, senor.'
'Good morning to you, Uncle,' Monatero said. No kinship existed between the two. Everybody called old Rico uncle. Monatero said, 'Is it snack time already? I must have lost track of the hour.'
Tio executed more head bobbing and smiling. 'That is because you work so hard, senor.'
The coffee and baked goods did smell good, Monatero realized. He was aware of a hollowness in his belly as appetite began supplanting angst.
Joaquin unconsciously smacked his lips. He held back, as did Mrs. Ybarra; protocol dictated that Monatero make his selection first, then the others could follow.
