would seize any opportunity, any embarrassment and say, 'Screw George Washington Walls, he's yesterday's news; if the Americans still want him, send him back.' In my situation, the quieter the better.'
'Well, that's interesting, but I'm only in Cuba a few days.'
'People say that. People say they're just coming through Havana, but you'd be surprised how often they stay. Someone conies around the world to a place like this, it's not pure chance. There's a reason.'
Chapter Twelve
Arkady expected that any minute Luna would drop from a street sign or pop up from a manhole cover and make good on his promise to 'fuck him up.' Fucking up and killing were close but not the same. There was that added sexual charge, the suggestion of rough mating, as if a missing eye or ear were a reasonable token of intercourse. Killing was clean. Fucking up sounded messy.
Strangely enough, though, Arkady felt revitalized. Not exactly happy, but fueled by the search for the photograph and the small license it gave him to ask questions about Pribluda. Amused also, in a time of depression, by the implausible offer of employment providing security for an American radical like George Washington Walls. Perhaps because Havana was so unreal to him Arkady felt slightly invulnerable, like a man aware he is only having a nightmare. Luna was a nightmare figure. Luna was perfect.
When he got back to Pribluda's flat he propped the front door shut and carried a bottle of chilled water to the office, where he turned on the computer and, when the machine demanded a password, entered gordo. The machine chirped and the screen blinked and offered icons: programs, startup, accessories, main, printer. Twenty- five years in the KGB and an agent used a turtle's name as his password. Lenin wept.
Still interested in Pribluda's last day, Arkady went through accessories to calendar. Hours, days, months rolled backward without appointments, but what curious comfort to take, he thought. He couldn't speak Spanish, but he could navigate the universal PC desktop. CUMIN was the Cuban Ministry of Sugar and charts, RUSMIN the Russian Ministry of Trade, SUG-FUT the futures prices of Cuban, Brazilian and Indian sugar as they competed in commodities pits. Meanwhile, a downstairs din of drums and maracas suggested that Erasmo the car mechanic was at work. Arkady intended to talk to Mongo and find a photograph of Pribluda, but first things first, while he had the inspiration.
He opened sughab, which divided Havana into 150 sugar mills. The last file saved was comcfueg.
Commune Camilo Cienfuegos is the former Hershey sugar mill east of Havana. Visits to the field uncover poor Cuban maintenance of antiquated equipment. However, we must also frankly acknowledge that Russian ships carrying spare parts have failed to materialize, the latest being a freighter which was expected to make Havana by last week. It is suspected that the ship's captain has diverted it to another port along the South American coast and sold its cargo for a better price. Regrettably, this makes negotiations with the Ministry of Sugar more difficult.
Arkady supposed the Cubans would be testy about that. He started a search for the Havana Yacht Club. Nothing. Rufo Pinero. Nothing. Sergeant Luna and, for good measure, Captain Arcos. Nothing. Opened the E-mail outbox and inbox. Empty.
A document labeled azupanama caught his eye because Vice Consul Bugai had mentioned successful negotiations between Russia and Cuba thanks to a Panamanian sugar broker of that name, and Arkady thought it might be interesting to see what role the commercial attache Sergei Pribluda had played in that. He hit retrieve, and from its grave sprang a short, one-sided correspondence.
[email protected]/IntelWeb/ru Wed Aug 5 1996 A.I. Serkov, Manager Diamond International Trading 1123 Smolenskaya Ploshad, Rm. 167 Moscow
Arkady liked the sound of that. Progress! Russian and to the point. Also interesting in that it had no E-mail address or time sent, suggesting that it was a note for a real message to be sent from an encrypted machine at the embassy.
What a wordsmith. Pribluda had obviously been flushed with victory.» Success!' was all an agent need say.» Chinese contact' seemed far too much, not that Arkady was aware of any part of China abutting
Havana.
According to the spreadsheet, Pribluda's finances were straightforward, so much allotted each month for food, laundry, personal items, gasoline and car repair. The only unexplained expenditure was a hundred dollars paid every Thursday. If the item was sex, Arkady thought, Pribluda would have hidden it; as an unreconstructed Communist, Pribluda had a skewed but ironbound morality. No, the item could be for his Chinese contact. Or karate lessons. According to little Carmen, Pribluda did carry a black belt in his briefcase.
The more immediate fact was that the colonel had much more money than was found with the body in the inner tube. Arkady shut down the computer and searched the apartment again, more his line of work. This time he emptied everything, including shoes and hatbands. In pants hanging in the closet he found two red ticket stubs. In the medicine cabinet he found, rolled with white pasteboard inside a white aspirin bottle, a couple of pills left for sound effects and $2,500 American.
Which didn't tell him much. All the same, Arkady was satisfied with finding anything. He picked up a knife in the kitchen and let the blue of the sea draw him to a balcony chair. One moment he was full of nervous energy, the next barely able to move his feet. Was it the six-hour time difference from Moscow? Fear? The breeze was soft, the weight of the knife across his stomach was reassuring and he fell asleep, cooled by the sweat on his face.
He awoke to the rising pitch of sirens. The sun had moved to the far end of the Malecon, and coming up the seawall boulevard was a high-speed vanguard of four motorcycles, their way cleared in advance by PNRs who had suddenly appeared ahead at every intersection to stop all other traffic and chase bikers and pedicabs out of the way. Behind the bikes came a smooth, silent convoy, and as it flashed by people on the sidewalk paused in midstep, eyes darting to each vehicle as it flew past, from boxy Land Rover to wide Humvee, to a little Minint Lada that ran like a lapdog in front of two black Mercedes 280s with tinted glass and the swaying ride of heavy armor, from radio van to ambulance, from trailing Land Rover to a rear guard of four more cycles, an energetic whirlwind that made the entire Malecon come to a stop like a population in a trance and then, with its passing, released them.
Arkady's name was being shouted, and down on the pavement he saw Erasmo tilted backward in his wheelchair.
'Bolo, did you see him?' Erasmo touched his beard to signify
'That was him?'
