It was only after she hung up, knowing herself as well as she did, that she realized there was yet another reason she had made the call. She was trying to get Kiev off her mind once again.
I
n Rome, Mimi had been doing excellent work.
Lt. Rizzo wrangled her some extra salary. He set her loose across the universe of cyberspace for hours. She hacked into much of the known information about the Ukrainian Mafia in Italy and even discovered that some of those missing weapons from the US Navy may have been trafficked by a shadowy outfit known as The Caspian Group.
As she was using the money to further her art studies, the dough came in handy. Rizzo used the young woman’s information to focus on any of The Caspian Group’s activities in Rome, including that of its leader and his bodyguards. Rizzo worked some theories: who was in Rome when the murders were committed? Who might have a grievance against the two couples who had been murdered? Using sources of the Roman police department, and some darker sources of his own that he had on the side, he went around to the people who had known the musician and his girlfriend.
He showed surveillance pictures. He focused on one of Federov’s bodyguards, a man known only as Anatoli.
Then, with an eye toward cyberspace, he went back to Mimi. He set her to work researching Anatoli. Soon she had his cell phone number and dropped a tap on it.
One night after work, Rizzo asked Mimi if she could accompany him for a light dinner. He said the suggestion was purely professional, there was more work she could do, and it would be at a much higher salary. Rizzo also explained that he had someone he wanted her to meet, a guest from out of town.
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Why not?”
An hour later, Mimi found herself with Lt. Rizzo at a dressy
trat-toria
a few blocks from the government buildings and popular among foreigners. Dressed in her usual colorful blouse and micro-miniskirt, she felt herself somewhat out of place among all the expensive suits and designer clothes. She was the youngest female in the place. But she quickly got used to the attention she drew and enjoyed it.
She and Rizzo were met there by a man to whom Rizzo showed great deference, but whom Rizzo didn’t introduce by name. He spoke Italian fluently but with a trace of an accent that she couldn’t place. And there was something ominous about him.
Mimi was nobody’s fool, so she studied the man very carefully as they engaged in conversation. She guessed that he and Rizzo underestimated her powers of everyday perception. The man’s shoes looked American and he wore one of those rings—she thought it was a high school or college thing—that Americans wore. He had a wedding band too. But Rizzo had always been so vocally anti-American. It didn’t make sense to her. So she tried something.
“You know,” she said in English, “we could speak English if you like. My mother is American. I speak English well.”
The stranger grinned. “
Grazie
,
pero
,
non
,” he said, remaining in Italian. Thank you but, no. We are in Rome, he explained, so we will speak as the Romans do.
She didn’t press the point. Rizzo’s friend moved quickly to a proposition he had for her, a one-time task. A special assignment for which she would be well compensated in cash. Lots of cash.
Anatoli was back in Rome, they said, and would be for another few days. They showed her a picture of him. He was a sturdy-looking Russian Ukrainian with dirty blond hair.
“Handsome, no?” Rizzo asked.
Mimi nodded. “You want me to seduce him?” she asked, more a routine inquiry than a opportunity to volunteer.
No, they said quickly, it wasn’t exactly like that. It was more like a game of pin the tail on the donkey.
“What’s that?” she asked.
The man with no name showed Mimi a small devise in a plastic case. It looked like a small needle with a flat head like a tack. They said they knew where Anatoli liked to go to party in Rome. They had a well-armed young man who would accompany her that night, but could she somehow see how close she could get to Anatoli … and maybe stick the needle into his clothing somewhere.
She laughed.
“So it’s a transmitting device, right?” She laughed with great enthusiasm.
The two men looked at each other, then back to Mimi.
“Possibly,” said Rizzo.
“How am I supposed to get close enough to pin the device on him?” she asked.
“You’re a pretty young woman, no?” Rizzo asked, stating the obvious. “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she began.
She was still thinking about it when they piled five hundred Euros on the table. “That’s just for trying,” Rizzo said. “There’s another five hundred if you’re successful.”
“This Anatoli,” she said. “He killed someone, yes?”
They didn’t say no.
“Why don’t you just arrest him?” she asked.
“Lack of evidence,” Rizzo answered swiftly. “Life is like that, Mimi. Sometimes what we know to be true is not something that we can prove to be true. Equally, sometimes what
is
true
isn’t
and what
isn’t
true, in reality,
is
.” Mimi blinked. Rizzo exited his philosophical riff almost more confused than when he had entered it, unless he wasn’t. He paused and smiled at his own verbal gymnastics as his guest looked at him strangely. “Plus,” he continued, “Anatoli and his friends are very bad men. There are other ways to take care of them other than a time-consuming and frustrating adherence to the letter of the law.”
“What sort of ‘other ways’?” she asked.
“
Many
other ways,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo’s friend reached into his jacket and piled another three hundred Euros on the table.
“And that’s just for listening,” he said. “Okay, Mimi?”
She smiled. “I’m all ears,” she said, picking up the money and pocketing it. “This sounds like a blast!”
A
lex liked to walk in New York, watching the neighborhoods change as she moved briskly at a pace with Manhattan. She found herself at Central Park South within half an hour of leaving her apartment. Sam Deal was seated outside on a terrace at the Café de la Paix.
Alex recognized Sam from a description Mr. Collins had given. He was a tall, thick man, gray-haired, pale-faced, with a neat moustache. He wore violet-hued wraparound sunglasses that looked far too young for him. The shades were more Brad Pitt than Tom Clancy, and Sam was definitely more of the latter than the former.
Alex studied Sam as she approached. He was glancing at his watch. Then he turned toward her, and his eyes settled, wandering up and down. His glasses were low across a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. His hands were on the table, unmoving, not far from a drink and a pack of smokes. A copy of the
New York Daily News
was open in front of him, and Sam appeared to have been immersed in the sports section, soaking up the previous evening’s boxing at Sunnyside Garden, a card of Irish and Italians against Puerto Ricans and Mexicans.
She approached him. “I’m Alex LaDuca.”
“Ah,” he said. “Good. Great.”
Sam stood. He extended a big raw hand and shook hers. “I’m Sam Deal,” he said. “Call me Sam. That’s what my parents called me.”
Alex sat down and ordered a sparkling water. From the get-go, as she sipped her drink, she didn’t like Sam. He looked and sounded like the kind of guy who, as a kid, would have stolen other kids’ lunch money in third grade.
“So you’re going to South America, huh? For Mr. Collins?” he asked at length.
“That’s right. Venezuela. If I take the assignment.”
“What did you say your name was?”
She gave it again.
“You any relation to the former Mets catcher, Paul LoDuca?”
“That’s my husband,” she said.
“The ballplayer ain’t married,” he answered.
“That’s right. LoDuca and LaDuca. It’s spelled different. No relation at all, but I like the player. Outstanding catcher, dependable hitter.”
Sam laughed. “I’m impressed. You got some sass to you.”
“Thanks.”
“And you work for Mr. Collins?”
“That’s correct. For Mr. Collins.”
“Well, that’s a great thing too,” he said. “We both work for him. So I better be polite to you and tell you what I know. Tell me, you interested in coming back from this assignment alive?”
The question took her completely off guard. “I was hoping to,” she answered.
“Well, good start,” he said. “See, I got this attitude toward Latin America. My feeling is we should blow up Cuba and stuff it into the Panama Canal. How’s that?”
“Write to your senator and suggest it.”
“Well, no matter,” he said. “Look, let’s get out of here, and Sam will tell you everything you need to know. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes. Let’s walk.”
Sam downed a full gin and tonic and popped a straw hat on his head that reminded Alex of
The Buena Vista Social Club
. On the hat was a football booster’s pin that Sam was quick to explain without being asked.
SEC. Ole Miss.
Sam’s boy played football, he explained. “He’s a big dumb kid but he’s a great linebacker,” Sam said. “Got a shot at the pros.”
“Congratulations.”
Sam said he was planning to get down to Oxford, Mississippi, for all the home games.
They crossed the street and were about to enter Central Park. “Hey. Let’s do this.” He pointed at the stand of horse-drawn carriages. “I’ve always wanted to do this with a pretty lady. Let’s go for a ride and we’ll talk.”
He hailed the first carriage in line along the north side of Central Park South. Alex nodded. Sam addressed the driver in Spanish, and the driver was pleased to reciprocate.
Sam offered her a hand to help her. She accepted it out of courtesy, not need. She stepped up into the carriage, and she caught Sam eyeing her legs for half a second.
Okay, a carriage ride in Central Park. She had never done this. For a moment, a wave of sadness was upon her. It was a beautiful day. Joggers and strollers filled the park. She missed Robert.
Sam waited till the carriage entered the park. Then, “So,” Sam said, “I assume you’re a practicing Christian like Mr. Collins. That’s all he hires.”
“Then that would also make you one, right?” she said.
He sniffed. “ ‘Kill a Commie for Christ,’ and all that? I’ll buy that part of it.”
“That’s not exactly my direction,” she said.
“Oh yeah? Are there some other directions I should know about?”
“I could list a few. Eradicating AIDS. Hunger. Poverty.”
“Whatever,” Sam muttered. “Look. You look like a smart girl,” Sam said. “So before you get going on a lot of squishy soft do-good stuff, let me give you the template for American foreign policy in this hemisphere.” When it came to charm school, Sam was a proud dropout. “You know anything about Rafael Trujillo?” he asked.
“I know he was the dictator in
la República Dominicana
for, what, thirty years?”
In the background, the clop of the horse’s hooves kept beat with Sam’s voice.
“Thirty-one,” Sam said. “Lemme get you the quick backstory. In 1930 General Trujillo placed himself on the ballot for president and then used goon squads to terrorize the voters. When the elections were held, ninety-nine percent voted for Trujillo.
Viva la democracia
, huh? The thugs had done their job.”
Sam pulled a cigar from his inside jacket pocket. Romeo y Julieta. A fine Cuban, of all things. “You don’t mind if Sam smokes, do you?” he asked.
“I don’t care if Sam burns.”
“Good answer,” he snorted. “No one else does, either.”
Sam produced a Dunhill lighter and threw up a flame worthy of the Olympic torch. He lit his cigar as the horse turned north on the east side of the park.
“So late in 1930,” Sam continued, “Santo Domingo got knocked flat as a tortilla by a hurricane. Trujillo suspended the constitution to speed along the cleanup. Any unidentified bodies were cremated. So Trujillo decided that what his island needed was even
more
unidentified bodies, as long as he could decide who they would be. This coincides with the vanishing of several political enemies. Get it?”
“Got it,” she said.
“When Santo Domingo was rebuilt, it was also renamed.
Ciudad Trujillo
. Trujillo City. Can you imagine that? From there, Trujillo received support from Washington for three decades. His methods for suppressing dissent were torture and mass murder. Know what FDR said? He said, ‘Trujillo is an SOB, but at least he’s
our
SOB.’ ” Sam laughed. “I always liked that,” he said.
Behind the glasses, behind the cigar smoke, Sam was enjoying this. The clop of the horse’s hooves patterned nicely on the walkway. At this hour on a weekday, the park was closed to motor vehicles.
“Flash forward to the 1950s and ’60s” Sam said. “The press was controlled, so was the judiciary, so were the unions. Trujillo personally took over some state monopolies. Salt, insurance, milk, beef, tobacco, the lottery, newspapers, and he had a big chunk of the sugar industry. The only thing he didn’t have was bananas and tobacco, and that’s because the US companies had those. By 1958 he was personally worth about $500,000,000. Then when it started to look like Castro would take over Cuba, the US began to worry that Trujillo might inspire a similar revolution. So the CIA began plotting Trujillo’s assassination in 1958.”
“Which was before Castro took over Cuba,” she said.
“Correct,” Sam said. “And not a coincidence.”
“CIA agents made contact with once-loyal Trujillistas who were plotting an assassination. They were wealthy Dominicans who had personal grudges or who had family who had suffered. The CIA supplied several carbine rifles for the hit on Trujillo, and they promised US support for the new regime once the dictator was dead.”
They stopped at an intersection. Sam relit his cigar.
“You’ve heard of the Monroe Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Good Neighbor Policy?” Sam said. “I got to laugh at all that crap. Know what we used to call the John F. Kennedy Doctrine?”
The light changed. They continued.
“JFK once told the CIA, referring to the Dominican Republic, ‘There are three possibilities … a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime, or a Castro regime. We ought to aim at the first, but we really can’t renounce the second until we are sure that we can avoid the third.’ How’s that for situational ethics?”
She nodded. “Not bad. How’s the cigar?”
“It’s good. You want one? I know ladies smoke them these days.” “Not this lady.”
“Ever tried cigars?”
“Yes. I don’t mind if a man smokes a good one, but I don’t care for them, myself.”
“I think a lady with a petit corona is kinda sexy. Let me buy you one.”
“Finish your story, Sam, okay?”
“Okay, well, Trujillo got whacked in May 1961 on a deserted patch of highway. A sniper picked off his driver from a thousand meters away, the car crashed and gunmen came out of the bushes with handguns to finish him off. The coup didn’t have traction, though. The assassins were rounded up along with their families and friends. Some committed suicide. The rest were taken to Trujillo’s hacienda. They were tied to trees, shot, cut up, and fed to sharks at a nearby beach. Eventually the US Atlantic Fleet arrived in Santo Domingo’s harbor to try to keep the lid from blowing off the place.
“The 1962 elections brought a physician and writer named Juan Bosch to power. Bosch was anti-Communist, but hey, he was a reformer, which is a damned fool thing to be in Latin America ’cause you’re gonna get hit by one side or the other. Anyway, Bosch was dedicated to land reform, low-rent housing, and public works projects. He was deposed by a CIA-backed coup after seven months. When a popular countercoup tried to restore Bosch to power in 1965, the US Marines paid a visit.”
Sam moved toward conclusion and his point.
“It’s all about oil, money, international relations, and corruption in South America, same as Eastern Europe, Middle East, you name it. It’s very simple, we put them in, and we take them out. From Trujillo to Saddam Hussein.”
“You’re not telling me anything new, Sam.”
The carriage had arrived at the East Seventy-second Street Plaza. Alex was ready to depart.
“No. I’m not,” he said. “But here’s what you have to remember in Latin America. The US screws around with the politics, but the alternative is ten times worse. The world works at the behest of the banks and corporations, and policy is enforced at the point of the gun. Because of that, you and I can walk free and are privileged to pay six bucks a gallon for gas. If it ever works the other way, it means the Islamo-fascists have defeated us, and they’d rape a nice-looking educated girl like you or hide you in a burka or burn you at the stake. So think of it as the binary system for world politics. You have two choices. Where would you rather live today? Cuba or the Dominican?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s your poli sci lesson, and that’s why Chávez’s options are clear. He can be a world outlaw, or we’ll take him out.”
He let his lesson settle.
“When are you leaving for Caracas?” Sam asked.
“I haven’t even decided if I’m going,” Alex answered.
“Of course you have,” Sam said. “I’ll make sure you have a weapon and a contact when you get there. Be sure to go to the doctor and get some antimalaria meds. If the heat, the gators, and the snakes don’t kill you, malaria might.” He eyed her as she stepped down from the carriage. “That’s a nice skirt, by the way. I like it. Looks good on you. You got the legs for it.”
“Thanks.”
“Want to have dinner later?”
“So long, Sam.”
She hopped out of the parked carriage and didn’t look back as she walked toward Fifth Avenue. Before she reached her apartment, she had pulled her cell phone out of her skirt pocket and phoned Joseph Collins. She would make the trip to Venezuela. That same evening, she phoned her friend, Don Tomás, in Washington. He had been the Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy in Caracas. It had been his last tour with the Foreign Service, capping a distinguished career. He had even been there during the unsuccessful coup.
From his usual skeptical perspective, he gave her a rundown on current Venezuelan politics, particularly as affected by the current-day demagogue, Chávez.
“Venezuela has turned into a very dangerous place,” he said. “Almost as bad as Colombia next door.”
“I know,” she said.
“If you must go,” he said, “avoid the many bad areas of the city. My cleaning lady asked me that her schedule ensure that she would be able to get to her home in daylight. She lived in this hillside slum named Petrare. Governmental authority and social services only reached halfway up the hill. Toward dusk and after dark, hoodlums swaggered about with their guns exposed. Of course, there was always the threat of vigilante justice. Sometimes neighbors got really fed up with it and Petrare would ‘smell of kerosene,’ the favorite lynching tool. Police intervention was nonexistent.”
“Charming,” she said.
“Aside from that, travel safely and good luck.”
“Thanks. Should I carry a gun?” she asked.
“A woman on assignment in
that
part of the world?” he answered with a laugh. “You’d be a fool not to carry
two
guns.”