Authors: Robert W. Walker
Qui replied, “Yes, all of us. To disappear.”
“Along with the lock,” added JZ.
“Send all their dirty secrets to the deep.” Qui sighed heavily, realizing that if the bomb went off now, she would have failed the now seven victims of this spreading madness.
“It’d leave only Sergio Latoya for them to clean up,” said Luis.
“Yes, of course,” Qui said, her mind racing. “JZ, they must’ve taken you for Sergio. You’re both about the same size and build.”
JZ nodded. “Makes sense…why they chased both of us aboard. Right now though, I gotta deal with this.” He indicated the blinking red-dot inside the toolbox.
“Throw it over the side! Now!” shouted Giraldo from overhead, and the other men took up the cry. “Over the side! Over the side!”
“But we have an opportunity here,” countered Qui.
“Yes, the opportunity to die!” shouted Estrada.
“No, Qui’s right!” JZ met her eyes and came to Qui’s defense.
“Uncle! Get some men to fill a lifeboat with as much flammable stuff as possible. Then, get it into the water.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Set the bomb adrift,” JZ replied for her.
“Adrift?” Estrada looked puzzled.
“Allow them to blow it! Great idea.”
Qui explained, “If we disarm it or simply toss it overboard, the ship stalking us will keep coming.”
JZ added, “If they believe us all dead, things turn in our favor. A decoy, understand?”
“I like the sound of this.” Estrada smiled and began spouting orders. “You men there! Grab the garbage and anything that will burn! You others, get the lifeboat over the side! Hurry!”
Qui and JZ went about in search of items they needed to make the plan work. “Uncle, I want your Christmas lights,” said Qui.
Estrada put up his hands at this. “But I like my lights.”
“Do you like your life? We need them for the decoy.”
“Lights?” asked Estrada. “Of course. They see the lights in the distance, they detonate! Men, rig the lights like on the Sanabela.”
They gathered up rain gear, cast off netting, a pair of half-empty petrol cans. They tossed in some personal items for good measure. Adondo rigged the lights as JZ closed the toolbox and placed it in the center of the flammables. The lifeboat was then set adrift.
They continued at a clip, running without lights. The further they moved off from the decoy they’d created, the more it appeared a shrimper trawling for a night catch.
Everyone aboard Sanabela watched the blinking lights become smaller as they continued on their way. Then, at a goodly distance, the little boat was blown to smithereens shortly after being set adrift. JZ looked at his watch, which read 7:30 PM. They’d come a long way since having left Havana. Still, a long voyage lay ahead of them, but now those who stalked them had no reason to pursue, seeing the fiery eclipse of the Sanabela.
“You did well, JZ, for a security guy.”
“Good training.”
“Yeah…defusing explosives is going to be on the list for training a security guard, eh?”
JZ caught the knowing sarcasm in her voice. “Since 9/11 there’ve been a lot of new ahhh…precautions.”
“Don’t worry,” she finally added, “your secrets are safe with me.”
Seeing the boat explode, Cavuto smiled in the darkness, his heart warmed at the sight of his problems reduced to bits of fiery wreckage in the distance. As the Sanbela burned, he knew it was complete and absolute idiocy to be this far from home in a boat like this—one designed for racing in daylight. And without a working marine radio. Finally, with Humberto’s predicament obliterated, he turned the cigarette boat around and headed toward Havana, warmth, food, a good cigar, and a drink. Ruiz chuckled at the success of Step Two of his plan to regain Humberto’s trust and respect; he imagined a warm reception when Arias learned of the annihilation of the Sanabela and all aboard.
Now, onto Step Three:
get rid of Alejandro by any means
. Ruiz secretly envisioned the day when Alejandro would hang in a dungeon, but he knew it must be done cleverly, so as not to implicate himself in the younger man’s downfall. His anxiety-ridden mind replayed every detail of Step Three like a movie. A film he relished seeing played out in real life when he returned to the Old City.
30
Sergio had done precisely as Quiana had suggested, getting his family to safety, and lying low, but he was increasingly curious about Dr. Estaban Montoya’s hidden papers and his part in all of this intrigue. How was Montoya connected to the murders? If he could unlock this single door, pull this single thread, perhaps it would help Quiana unravel the whole case.
Now, accompanied by Yuri, Sergio drove through the dark streets of Havana toward Montoya’s apartment located atop his clinic. To mask their movements, Sergio had left his police car at the B&B, and they traveled in Yuri’s ancient Jeep, lovingly held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.
At Montoya’s, they were careful to break in without leaving a trace. Ex-Soviet security, Yuri, an expert with locks, had a complete set of burglary tools. Once inside, using flashlights, they searched for anything odd, anything out of place that might help lead to his killer or killers.
So far, all they knew was that Montoya had access to a great deal more money than his government salary afforded. But where did his “extra” funds come from? Was he involved in the drug trafficking that the SP announced as the cause of death of the foreigners? Was he taking money from the Canadian pharmaceutical company? Why? More likely, Montoya was the front man for someone higher up—maybe someone with connections in the Department of Health in Castro’s government, someone who saw ready money in dealing with the Canadian company desperate for new drugs, new profits. Underneath his cheerfulness and
joie de view
, Sergio had a cynic’s view of government that extended to foreign businesses. The Cuban government’s control of the media, its not so subtle bias in reporting international news made him suspicious of capitalism. If this Canadian doctor was some sort of go-between for her company, did that make her the mysterious donor in Montoya’s coded records? If so, did this somehow get her killed? But why kill her two colleagues? Montoya had told Qui that he’d met with Denise at his clinic, or so Tomaso and Yuri reported. Could this company, through Dr. Beisiegel have pushed too hard, too far, too fast? These were the thoughts wafting through Detective Sergio Latoya’s mind as he entered the clinic.
Upstairs the apartment had been treated as a crime scene, but Sergio hoped they hadn’t as yet cleaned out the clinic’s files. It took only minutes to learn they were too late. Every filing cabinet, every desk drawer had been gutted and left empty, lip balm, loose keys, paperclips rattling around at the bottom of the drawers.
“Damn it, Yuri, we’re too late.”
Yuri dropped into a chair, the cushion sighing with his weight. “We should’ve gotten here much sooner.”
“It wouldn’t’ve done any good.” Sergio sat on the end of a desk. “Peña was in charge of the investigation. If he took the files, we might have a chance to find something. But this looks like the heavy hand of the SP.”
“Forget about finding anything from that source. Face it, someone’s desperate to cover all this up.”
“Desperate and dangerous.”
“And clumsy.”
“Agreed,” said Sergio. “Who’s gonna believe Montoya manages to accidentally kill himself, and then my friend, Tino, swallows his gun? All within twenty four hours?”
“It was my fault Montoya was killed,” said a woman emerging from the darkness.
Startled, both men leapt at the unexpected sound. They whirled around to face her.
“Where’d you come from?” asked Yuri staring at the woman in obvious distress.
“More importantly, who the hell’re you? And what’re you doing here? This is a crime scene.”
“Upstairs. I was upstairs when I heard noises.”
“You’re one of Montoya’s nurses?” Sergio demanded.
“Yes, his only nurse, Alana Suaro. I got him killed. I did it.”
She burst into tears and crumpled onto a nearby office settee. Sergio went to her and asked, “Explain yourself, what’re you saying?”
“I saw him give the Canadian doctor a file. He…he was giving her information, secret information. I am a good citizen. I…I had to turn him in, but I…I didn’t know they…that they would…that he would die. He was killed…his reputation destroyed.” With that, she burst anew into tears.
Yuri placed a hand on her shoulder. “This is not your doing, Alana is it? You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
She nodded looking from one to the other. “You’re PNR?”
“We are,” Yuri lied thinking she’d tell them more if she thought them police and not the SP. “You can trust us. We need your help to solve his death.”
Sergio showed her his badge.
She sighed heavily. “He was a good doctor. Estaban tried hard even when we had no drugs. He researched herbs. I knew he got drugs somewhere for the patients. I didn’t question, maybe I should have?”
Yuri gently patted her hand to encourage her and said, “But the patients got better, yes?”
“Many times, yes. We had to work hard to hide the drugs, so no one would know. We were a good team.” Tears welled up again.
“You loved him,” Yuri stated quietly.
Tears flowed down her face as she stared at Yuri. She dabbed at her eyes, looked down, and softly said, “Yes, I did. But he didn’t know. I never told him. I never meant for him to die. But what he did was wrong, very wrong.”
Yuri gently asked, “Alana, Denise brought him these drugs he needed, didn’t she? From her company? Smuggled in from Canada?”
“She’d bring a package each visit, yes.”
“What did he give her in exchange for the drugs?”
“I don’t know. It was all hush-hush is all I can tell you, but Estaban, he was just a neighborhood doctor. What could he offer her and her big company?”
Sensing opportunity, seeing her face go from despondency to hope as she and Yuri talked, Sergio’s respect for Yuri’s people skills rose. “We know his death has something to do with Cuba’s HIV-AIDS research,” Sergio began, adding, “and we know that international conference here last week was no accident. Cuba is on the cutting edge of better, more effective, more humane treatments—that’s what this is all about. That much we do know, but what we don’t know is who the players are.”
“Alana, do you know who gave Montoya the information? Who was behind this intrigue?” Yuri smiled at her, a warm inviting smile. It was obvious to him that she didn’t want them to think badly of Estaban.
“At first, I thought he was negotiating on his own with Dr. Beisiegel.”
“Montoya and the Canadian were conducting business on the side?” Yuri gently pressed for details.
“I thought so, but he had nothing to trade. So someone else, someone high up had to be involved.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I saw the file he showed Dr Beisiegel before it disappeared. It was not AIDS-HIV research.”
Sergio was shocked, “What then?”