Authors: Robert W. Walker
Cevalos returned to his story as they continued through the cave. “The commander, over his men’s protests, ordered wholesale slaughter. The soldiers who dared refuse were themselves killed alongside the women and children they’d tried to save. The commander’s final order was to seal the doors with the lock you brought home. Then he set the chapel afire. This last fact I learned from Pasqual, because it occurred after I was knocked unconscious. When I came to amid the smoke, I gathered as many as I could to me, knowing of this escape route.”
JZ asked, “How many survived?”
“And how many killed?” asked Qui, angry she’d never learned of this incident in her country’s history. Not one mention of it in a single history text.
“Survivors?” replied Pasqual. “Myself, Rita, six other children, and Father Cevalos. Victims? My whole family, Rita’s family…everyone. All dead…our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers…murdered.”
“Smoke inhalation killed anyone left alive inside that inferno,” Cevalos added as they found themselves stepping from the cave onto a stone outcropping. They had traveled steadily upwards in a curved direction that now afforded them a view of the almost hidden lake far below them and the nearby church across the crevasse. “When we got out that night, we stood at this exact spot, watching the flames.”
“Not my brother! His eyes were fixed on the lake and the wavering lights.”
“Lights? What lights, Gabriel? You never mentioned lights before.”
“I saw lights that night…Alejandro called them ghosts.”
“Perhaps it was some of our men still making their way into the hills.”
JZ asked, “Did any of those men ever return?”
“None. Murdered by Batista’s soldiers…killed in the revolution…who knows? All eight children became orphans that night. All placed with other relatives…save two.”
“Two for the orphanage in Havana.” Staring out to sea, Pasqual added, “My big brother, Alejandro, and myself.”
Realizing what the words meant, Qui shuddered. “How old were you at the time?”
“Alejandro was five and I was, we think, three.”
“I’m sorry Father Pasqual,” said Qui. “My own mother died in childbirth, so I never knew her. I can only guess the ongoing nightmare this must’ve been for you.”
“Yes, horrible,” added JZ. “Accept my sincere regrets as well.”
“Thank you both. Too young to remember much, my memories are of my brother, the orphanage, Havana, and Father Cevalos, my almost-father who often came to visit, never forgetting holidays and our birthdays.” He smiled at them before adding, “It’s my brother who needs sympathy. Alejandro has never known peace… carries the nightmares to this day.”
Noting the lateness of the day, Cevalos suggested they begin the journey back. “Look, someone’s at the chapel waving. It’s that rouge Estrada. What’s he doing here?”
Shading her eyes, Qui confirmed it was Luis. “Rouge? He brought us here from Havana, and has proven invaluable.”
“Invaluable? Never heard him described as that,” replied Cevalos. “You must see a side of him I’m blind to. But be careful of that one.”
“I’ve known him long enough to realize he burns both ends of the candle, but he’s been straight with us.”
Father Pasqual shrugged and said, “Rita says the same thing about him, Francisco. Has to be some grace in the man.”
“Yes, the church tells us there’s grace in every man, but with Estrada, I’ve taken a wait and see attitude.”
“You question his morals…his loyalties…his black market dealings, I know. But the man loves life!”
“Life in the form of women and drink?”
“What can I say? There’re far worse sinners lurking in Santiago.”
“You’re referring to the gathering at the
Forteleza
, no doubt.”
Qui said, “Tell me more about the
Forteleza
…this gathering.”
Pasqual replied, “Take it up with Luis. He knows more than any of us about that infamous place.”
Father Cevalos indicated that the quickest route back was through the tunnel. He led the procession back, muttering something about the lateness of the hour to which Pasqual muttered, “I still have a sermon to prepare.”
“Yes, and your Santiagueros congregation is demanding, to say the least. How is the young Italian priest working out? Any help to you?”
And so their conversation went, rushing away from the ghosts of the past and the trouble brought by Qui to their sedate lives even as Pasqual clutched his recovered toys. Their demeanor recalled for Qui how the fishermen aboard Sanabela had gone back to business as usual amid the chaos—so typical of Cubanos. Life goes on in spite of government excess, SP provocations, and outright lies.
People love, eat, marry, have children, grow old, tend to their private affairs, die…all under the cloud of Cuban politics
. Just as Benilo had argued the night she met him. She smiled, missing her father’s confederate, and wondering what—if anything—his tests had turned up back in Havana. She felt Havana was a world away from Santiago. Where Havana was a tango, Santiago was the conga.
Following the two priests, Qui said softly to JZ, “We’re getting closer to the truth with every step.”
“I feel it, too.” JZ then asked, “I wonder if your vision at the Madonna is a premonition. If it has to do with all the blood spilled here? Not a watery grave but a fiery one, you know, torched churches and blackened corpses?”
“Maybe…”
Grabbing her hand in a show of guiding her through the darkness, JZ commented, “Visions are tricky, Qui. My cousin has visions. Sometimes reliable, sometimes not, sometimes true only after the fact, but always there’s an element of reality.”
“Yeah, JZ, you’re right. We may be walking through my vision right now. But I have a nagging feeling there’s more.”
“More?”
“I saw the
two
of us in that watery grave.”
34
Hotel Casa Grande, Santiago
Alejandro had decided to take the Golden Suite for Reyna as their getaway—a single night before he must meet her father at the
Forteleza
. He didn’t want Reyna anywhere near that place; she was innocent after all…like a child. One of her most endearing qualities, and what had attracted him to her in the first place. She knew nothing of her father’s dealings or his lurid past. And she remained innocent of all the intrigue and backstabbing politics that characterized Humberto Arias’s normal day, and Alejandro wanted to keep it so. And while he felt confidant that her father would in the end select him over Cavuto, Alejandro did not wish to become a permanent guest in the infamous
Forteleza
dungeons. Should things go wrong for Alejandro this late in the game, he did not want Reyna on hand to see his downfall, so he intended to send her home the next day.
At his side, Reyna’s breathing proved hypnotically rhythmic like soft jazz, lulling him to sleep after their lovemaking, sweet and tender. If things were to go badly for him, he wanted her last memory of him to be perfect. But now he found himself guiding Reyna through a labyrinth—a nightmarish juxtaposition of today and yesterday; the tangle of current intrigue and haunted past. Holding her hand, he walked along an uneven surface in darkness, pursued by and enveloped in overwhelming fear. The smell of smoke burned his eyes and filled his nostrils, and he heard her cough. The cough became a coughing, and the coughing became explosive, uncontrollable, until it turned into the sound of rifle fire. He pleaded with her to follow him, but she wouldn’t move, no longer coughing…no longer breathing, as if turned to stone. He pushed and pushed, but she didn’t move, and he couldn’t move, as if the two had become fused together. He screamed.
Suddenly, he felt hands on him, tearing at him, pulling and shaking. A voice penetrated his screams. He saw the priest’s eyes, saw his hand extended. Then he heard Reyna’s voice.
The priest’s features turned into Reyna’s as the smoke cleared, and he found himself sitting up in bed with her arms wrapped about him, shouting, “It’s just a dream, Alejandro! Wake up, wake up! Just a dream. Hush, you’re safe with me.”
For just a few moments longer, Reyna’s voice sounded like the priest’s and then it morphed into three-year-old Gabriel’s.
Gasping for breath, Alejandro grabbed Reyna as if touching her could dispel his terror—the nightmares that had plagued him since that night when he’d followed Father Cevalos, leading his younger brother with him from the sight of their murdered mother.
Cavuto Ruiz wondered if he should have left the country instead of coming to the
Forteleza
, especially now that the American security guard at the Swiss Embassy had died at his hand. But even more worrisome than this additional dead American, he feared Humberto remained unhappy with his recent ‘mistake’—the night his men botched the interrogation of the Canadian doctor and her friends. As soon as he’d returned to Havana, scarcely stepping off the marina after docking his toy, the Norwegian speedboat, Estavio, one of Arias’s gophers, met him with a sealed envelope. Inside, the cryptically worded order read:
Forteleza tomorrow—debriefing
.
Cavuto understood Arias’s desire to have this meeting away from prying eyes; however, he still felt anxious at the mention of the notorious
Forteleza
. In a desperate attempt to find his own scapegoat…someone to throw to Arias, Cavuto insisted that Alfonso Gutierrez accompany him to Santiago. They’d shared a governmental flight from Havana, traversing the long Marlin-shaped island from one end to its opposite. When they’d touched down, Cavuto—realizing Alfonso’s sweat glands were working overtime—assured him that they were here for rest, relaxation, and reward for a job well done. Gutierrez seemed to accept this, but he kept after Ruiz for details. He especially wanted to know what’d become of his detective, Quiana Aguilera.
The limousine that picked them up for the Forteleza turned onto one of Santiago’s major thoroughfares, Aguilera Avenida. Alfonso gasped at seeing the street sign as Ruiz confidently replied, “Let us say that the fish have taken a liking to the eagle, not the other way round.”
“My-my God, when did they change Marina Avenida to Aguilera?”
“Don’t be foolish. It’s nothing,” countered Cavuto, ignoring Alfonso’s last question.
“My God, Ruiz, I’m so distracted, I just got it! The Eagle. Aguilera means Eagle. I tell you, this warms my heart.” For the first time since Cavuto had contacted him today, Alfonso laughed and showed a bit of calm. “And think of it, Ruiz, being her colonel, I’ll have to personally carry the news to her father.” Alfonso smiled with the thought.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the look on his face when he learns his precious darling is dead.”
“You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to hurt Tomaso Aguilera.”
“What is it about Tomaso that so bothers you, Alfonso?”
“Everything. His success, his money, his special position as a good citizen in standing with Fidel…and then he pushes his daughter on me!”
“My friend, her father had nothing to do with her being assigned to the Old Havana force.”
“What?”
“That was purely the fall of the dominos, based on manpower considerations. Nothing more.” Ruiz inwardly smiled. He could always count on Alfonso’s self-absorbed orientation to blind him to what was going on around him—exactly what his plan called for now. All he needed to do was keep the man distracted.
“Uncle, you’ve returned to us,” said Qui as they came from the chapel and into afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees. “Good to see you. Is all well? Were you successful this morning in your so-secret dealings?” She teasingly laughed.
But Qui and the others were met with a grim Luis Estrada, who shot Qui a look, as if her words had embarrassed him before the priests. “It’s been an instructive day so far. I need to talk to you and JZ privately.”
Cevalos said to Pasqual, “Come, let’s find a cup of tea and let these three have the chapel to themselves. But Luis, I warn you, keep the sacraments.”
Luis grimaced. “Yes, Father, of course.” He shrugged as though surprised at the priest’s remark.
With the two priests gone, Luis turned to Qui and JZ, saying, “Follow me inside.”
They reentered the chapel and watched Luis chew on an unlit pipe until Qui finally said, “What is it, Luis?”