Noriega had to be removed from power, of that there was no questionand no argument—except from the lackeys and goons who were on his payroll. What Antonio’s generation seemed to forget, however, and what Pablo rarely endeavored to remind them, was that but for the interference of the U.S. government, Noriega never would have risen to power in the first place.
Like so much of the political unpleasantness in Latin America, Noriegarode to power on the money machine that was drugs. As early as the 1970s, as General Omar Torrijos ran the government, the United States was working with Manuel Noriega—then an upstart nobody with grandiose ambitions to funnel Colombian drugs through Panama so that the pathways could be traced with an eye toward one day disruptingand destroying them. Noriega, of course, had been shrewd enough to report only a fraction of the total traffic, choosing to keep the remainder of the cash for himself. The money fueled his ability to bribe and steal, even as he bought influence and credibility with the United States by providing always-reliable information to keep the drug war engaged. That he only ratted out his enemies while protectinghis friends was common knowledge within the U.S. intelligence community, but knowledge was just so much gossip if the community receiving it lacked the political wherewithal to do something about it. It was the most frustrating part of the American involvement in Panama: while the State Department hated the corruption and the brutalityof the regime, and fought valiantly to foment change, the CIA thrived on the information that was funneled to it. More recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration likewise thrived under careful manipulationby Noriega, and as long as he could continue to offer up victories in the never-ending war against drugs, it was certainly not going to get into the way of a little graft. Add into the mix the overwhelmingambivalence of the American people in any events in CentralAmerican politics, and the result was one of benign neglect for the people of Panama.
Actually, even benign neglect would have been an improvement. In Panama, the American neglect was purposeful, and it was all designed to make the Canal Zone Treaty run as smoothly as possible. The logic, as best Pablo could understand it, rallied around the notion that takinga moral stand might antagonize a brutal dictator, who in turn might take to the airwaves and say unpleasant things about a nation that was
giving away
the multibillion-dollar investment that but for its existence would have left Panama an unnoticed strip of land on the world’s atlases. It was enough to make you dizzy.
But it was the world in which they lived, and it was the world in which they must ultimately thrive. Making sense would only have been the proverbial icing on the cake.
Driving through the night into the countryside, it was difficult for Pablo to fight off the disappointment brought on by Kurt’s arrest. Pablo Martinez had been fighting for change in Panama for as long as he could remember, and after decades of minimal progress, he’d thought that this time they might actually have been close. Now, it was all gone. Now, they were back to where they were before Kurt and Tomás Muñoz first approached him with their illicit transmitter scheme.
But maybe it wasn’t all gone after all. The transmitters were in place, and they were all on timers. If they could just be left alone for a little while—just another month—then maybe there would be purpose to what they had done, and for what Kurt was about to endure. Even as he toyed with these thoughts, though, he knew that it could never be. Now that Noriega had a face to put to the transmissions that had been making his life so miserable, he would not rest until he found the transmitters. And when he looked hard enough at the engineering, it would be a very short step for him to learn of the CIA’s ultimate involvement,and when that little tidbit came to life, well, all hell would break loose.
Perhaps that was a little part of his disappointment as well. When the CIA connection was finally made, the Pineapple would undoubtedlydraw the conclusion that this had been an Agency operation all along, when nothing could have been further from the truth. The Agency didn’t get involved until after the radios had been online for over a year, and even then it was only because the conspirators could no longer afford to fork out the money month after month for apartmentsin which to house their transmitters.
Perhaps it would have been different if the U.S. government hadn’t been so efficient at transferring their operatives from one place to another. In the early days of Radio Constitucional—the precursor to La Voz—Kurt had been able to maintain unofficial contact with the Agency through long-time family friend Suzanne Alexander, who just happened to be an employee of the CIA, and through whom Kurt would communicate concerns and pass along the occasional intelligence tidbitthat they had picked up through their eavesdropping. Between her and Richard Dotson, who worked for the State Department and was therefore able to be openly supportive of Noriega’s downfall, the band of conspirators always felt as if they had the ear and the attention of people in power.
Then, both of these conduits were rotated out of Panama back to their respective headquarters, where they were no longer in a position to monitor Panamanian activities, even from afar. As a gesture of friendship and support, Suzanne passed Kurt’s name and number on to her replacement in Panama City, an incompetent bitch named Jocelyn, who in a matter of a few short weeks managed to undo the fledgling trust that La Voz had begun to build with the Agency.
Kurt had told the story of the betrayals to Pablo—and others in his presence—so many times and in such detail that Pablo felt sometimes as if he’d witnessed the events himself.
Her first offer was a trade. The Agency had expressed an interest in the code book that Kurt and his compatriots had developed to translatePDF radio transmissions into useable information. In return for a copy of the codes, Jocelyn would provide additional information that La Voz had yet to be able to obtain—the specific locations codes for PDF operating stations. At the end of the day, both groups would have a more complete list, and with it, La Voz would be even more empoweredto wreak havoc at its will.
The meeting was set for a day in the late summer, at Jocelyn’s apartmentin Punta Paitilla, a residential neighborhood in Panama City. It was hardly the stuff of spycraft. Kurt arrived at the appointed time with his code book tucked into one of his socks and knocked on the apartment door. Jocelyn was waiting for him. They chatted for a minuteor two, and then it was time to make the exchange. Just as they’d planned, Kurt handed over his notebook of broken codes, and Jocelyn handed over ... nothing. Not a damn thing. She just took his book and walked away, knowing damn well that Kurt couldn’t start shoutingin so crowded a building. “Where is the information you promised?”he asked.
Jocelyn smirked and shook her head. “Oh, it turns out that I’m not permitted to share that with you after all. I’d be happy to pay you for your book, though. Name a reasonable price, and it’s yours.”
Kurt was stunned. “A
price
? You think I’m in this for the money?”
She shrugged. Everyone was in it for the money. What else was there?
He couldn’t believe the betrayal. “I’m not your whore,” he said. “I don’t perform for money.”
“Suit yourself. I just had to make the offer.”
A long moment passed. Kurt stared, dumbfounded, and Jocelyn smirked. Clearly, the days of cooperation had ended.
The first thing Kurt did at the end of that meeting—the very first thing—was to call Suzanne in her office, on an open phone line, to tell her, “Look, I know we’re friends, but professionally, we’re through. Don’t ever call me for information again. As far as I’m concerned, the CIA is just a class of idiots and thieves. Pass it along to whoever wants to hear that I never want to talk to the Agency again. Never.”
So, when the phone rang a few months later with yet another offer from the CIA, Kurt was genuinely and thoroughly shocked. It came on a Sunday afternoon when Kurt was involved in nothing in particular, sitting at home with his family. The phone rang, and when Kurt answered it, the male voice on the other end carried the attitude of long-standingfriendship.
“Is this Kurt Muse?” the voice asked.
“It is.”
“How nice to finally get a chance to talk to you. We have a commonfriend of many years. Suzanne Alexander sends her regards.”
Invoking the name of Kurt’s old friend made it obvious in an instant that the caller was from the CIA, and no one from the CIA ever made social calls. “Certainly send her my regards,” Kurt said. “But surely she made it clear that I am not interested in speaking to any of her friends.”
“She did mention that,” the caller said, “but I don’t run with the same crowd as the one you met. I like to think of myself as being above them, spending most of my time in the palace instead of wallowing in the caves, if you know what I mean.”
Kurt found himself nodding. He couldn’t know exactly what he meant, of course, but it sounded like this friend of Suzanne’s worked not at the Panama station at Corozal, but at the Puzzle Palace—CIA headquarters at Langley. Kurt knew for a fact that that was where Suzanne had been transferred. “Well, it was nice of her to have you look me up. Do you have a name?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I’d like to schedule a get-together, if that’s all right. You know, to catch up on old times.”
Speaking in code like this grew old very quickly and always felt a little silly. Still, in a nation where every phone was tapped, one had to be careful. “I can’t imagine that we’d have much to talk about,” Kurt said. “For sure, I know that
I
don’t have much to talk to
you
about.”
“Still,” the man said, “how about a meeting? A picnic, perhaps, in Suzanne’s favorite spot.”
Kurt knew exactly what he meant. There was a spot among the
bohios
—thatched roofed pole tents—at Albrook Air Force Base where the Muses and Suzanne had enjoyed a picnic shortly before she left for the States. She’d mentioned at the time that it was one of her favorite spots. “I suppose I could make time for that,” he said cautiously. “Pick a time.”
“Tomorrow morning works well for me. Say, around eleven o’clock.”
“I’ll be there. Do you mind if I bring a friend?”
“Not at all. I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
Kurt couldn’t decide if the openness of this man was refreshing or off-putting. “How will I recognize you?”
“My friends call me Father Frank,” he said. And then he hung up.
It turned out to be all the identification Kurt would need. He and Tomás showed up ten minutes early and hung back in the parking lot, scoping things out before committing full out to the meeting. The whole thing smelled a lot like a setup. Had the mysterious caller invokedany name but Suzanne’s, Kurt might not have shown up. And of course, there was always the possibility that this Father Frank had merely dropped the name without permission, and it was a setup anyway.Kurt cursed himself for not having thought to call Suzanne to verifythings.
“What do you suppose he wants?” Tomás asked.
“Something we have that they don’t, I would imagine. Just like last time.” Kurt had always been slow to shrug off past injustices.
“Maybe they’ve changed their minds and want to help us again.”
“I think we’re doing just fine on our own,” Kurt countered. “You start taking help from Uncle Sam, and suddenly you find yourself at the tip of the tail when you used to be on the point of the nose. I’ve learned that nothing comes from Uncle without a price.”
While Kurt spoke, both of them noted an old man—easily in his sixties—making his way up the sloping grass from the far side of the parking lot toward the
bohios
. “That’s got to be Father Frank,” Kurt said, pointing. Sure enough, the portly old guy with the bald spot on the crown of his head looked like a cross between Friar Tuck and FatherFlannigan. Put him in a cassock, and he’d be right out of Central Casting as a priest.
“Okay,” Kurt said with a sigh. “It’s show time.”
He and Tomás opened their doors together and walked briskly, purposefullyon a path that would intersect that of their new CIA contact.
As they approached, Father Frank met them with a beaming smile. “Kurt Muse,” he said, extending his hand. He had the grip of a twenty-year-old. “And you must be Tomás Muñoz,” he said, offering a set of crushed metacarpals to Kurt’s accomplice. “I’m glad you could accommodate me.”
“I think it’s a little early to say that we’re accommodating anybody,”Kurt said. “We’re here to listen.”
Father Frank considered that and nodded. “Of course you are. I didn’t mean to be too forward. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” He rocked his head back and pointed his face to the sky. “I can understand how my colleagues become so attached to this place.”
“So you are not from here?” Tomás probed.
Father Frank seemed surprised by the question. “Oh, heavens no. I’ve been here a few times, of course, but not in a very long time. I guess I’ve been about everywhere once or twice.”
“That means you’re from Langley?” Kurt surmised.
Father Frank half shrugged. “Close enough to the truth to not be a lie,” he said. “But we’re not here to talk about me.”
“I am,” Kurt said.