Havana Run (9 page)
“You were waiting out on that patio all night?” Deal asked, examining the shield under the bright fluorescents of his condo’s kitchen. Norbert Vines, the ID read. He was a bland-looking guy in his thirties, shortish dark hair, a face that looked like it had been designed to be forgetten.
Vines shrugged as he took his shield back. “More or less,” he said.
“‘More or less’? What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve had our eye on you for a while, ever since Fuentes turned up at your offices in Miami.” Vines pulled a package in a courier pouch from under his arm and dropped it on the granite-topped kitchen table, some pages of typescript sliding free.
“Fuentes had this sent over for you, by the way,” Vines said. “It must have fallen open after it got here,” he added.
Deal stared at the man. The ache at the back of his neck had inched upward, turning into the beginnings of a real skull-pounder. He massaged his neck, wondering if there’d been somebody skulking in the bushes outside Angie’s place, earlier. The possibility made him want to drop his shoulder and charge, send Vines backpedaling out the door and over the rail beyond.
“Look, I’m sorry if I frightened you out there,” Vines said. “It’s not my idea of fun, staying up all night, you know.”
“Then why bother?” Deal said.
“Because it’s important that we talk to you,” Vines said.
“Who’s this ‘we’?”
Vines cleared his throat. “I’m part of a special-investigations unit within the Department of Justice,” he said. He tapped the pocket where he’d replaced his shield, as if Deal might have forgotten. “You’ve been helpful to us in the past. It’s our hope you’ll be willing to be of help again.”
Deal shook his head. “You must have made a mistake, my friend. I’m a building contractor…”
“You worked with Talbot Sams,” Vines interjected, his tone more forceful.
It stopped Deal, a wave from the past washing up over him like a blast from the surf outside. Just when you think a memory might be safely buried, he thought, it’s suddenly there again, as alive as the moments themselves…Deal entering the remote field offices of the company to find a man with a badge like Vines’, offering to keep him out of jail in return for the head of a client. Deal had had little choice but to comply, but things had not gone as anyone planned…
“
Worked
with Talbot Sams?” he managed. “Are you crazy? You’re talking about a man who tried to kill me.”
Vines shrugged. “Sams had an agenda of his own, I’m not disputing that. But the fact is that he was within the agency’s employ. He was carrying out an investigation of a highly sensitive nature when he…”
“…when he did his damnedest to kill me and a bunch of other people I know,” Deal finished.
He’d cut Vines off because he knew what was coming. The man might not have been callous enough to blurt out the details, but there was no disputing that a rogue agent named Talbot Sams was two years or more dead, and Deal had had his hand on the knife that killed him.
The fact that he’d learned it was Sams who had likely driven his father to his suicide had some bearing on how Deal felt about the matter—not to mention that Sams had been intent on plunging that same knife into Deal during the course of their struggle—but it was another chapter in his life that he wasn’t eager to revisit, not with this stranger standing in his kitchen.
He stopped, refocusing on Vines. “The way it started with Talbot Sams, he came by my office uninvited one day, then pressured me into feeding him some information. That wouldn’t be what you had in mind, would it?”
Deal was trying to stop the images that paraded through his mind, but it was hardly the sort of thing he’d ever forget. Talbot Sams had had a storied career as one of the Justice Department’s in-house spooks, an undercover agent with more latitude and less oversight than any CIA agent ever dreamed of. He’d made a fortune by picking and choosing which of his targets to run to ground and which to blackmail, using the same tactics to pressure informants into cooperating when it suited him. He’d forced Barton Deal to help him with more than one of his schemes and—like father, like son, Deal supposed—had tried to do the same to him. Except it hadn’t quite turned out the way Sams had planned. Instead of pocketing a fortune, Sams had ended up dead.
Vines held up his hands in a placating fashion. “I’m not here to pressure you, Mr. Deal. I’m here to plead with you.” He gestured at the packet lying on the table once again.
“Your buddy Fuentes is involved with a group of people who make the notion of sleazy seem attractive. Some of them we’ve been aching to put away for years. Most of the individuals are from South America, but their influence is wide-ranging. They have ties to drugs, death squads, worldwide terrorist organizations.”
His eyes met Deal’s. “You were in the profession once; you ought to appreciate what we’re up against.”
Deal stared, fighting the urge to laugh.
The profession
. As if he’d signed up for a fraternity that never let you go. “That’s something I don’t talk about,” he said to Vines, evenly. “Ever.”
“That’s understood,” Vines nodded, his voice softening for a moment. He glanced away quickly—as if he’d read the dismissal files, Deal thought—and who was to say he hadn’t.
“But we need help,” Vines said, turning back, “and you’re in a position to provide that help. That’s the truth of it. That’s why I’m here. Fuentes has a travel invitation for you in that packet. All we’re asking you to do is accept.”
Deal sighed, his hand going to the back of his aching skull once more. “If you’re after Fuentes and his cohorts, why not go pick him up? Why are you bothering me?”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Vines said.
“I don’t know anything,” Deal said.
“Fuentes is a middleman, that’s all, the consummate broker. We’re not interested in him, and his backers are well out of our reach.”
Deal stared at Vines in astonishment. “Are you looking for me to go after one of these people?”
“It’s nothing like that.” Vines shook his head. “We’re looking for information, that’s all.”
Deal stifled a bitter laugh. “That’s all Talbot Sams wanted. A little information.”
“I can’t speak to what passed between you and Talbot Sams, Mr. Deal. I can only speak for myself, and for the interests I represent. We’d like you to take Antonio Fuentes up on his invitation to visit Cuba. It’s as simple as that.”
“I’m an American citizen,” Deal said. “I’m not allowed to go to Cuba.”
Vines seemed not to hear. “Fuentes may have no scruples, but he does have influence. There may be no other person, in fact, as practiced as he in brokering arrangements that channel illicit monies into legitimate enterprises worldwide.”
“Imagine my surprise,” Deal said. “I took him for an honest old guy who needed a carport built. Now you tell me he’s a money launderer.”
Vines made a waving motion with his hands, brushing it all away. “We have reason to believe that among the men Fuentes is in contact with in Cuba is a person of extreme political importance.” He paused then, for emphasis. “We believe that this person is poised to assume the presidency once Castro is out of the way.”
Deal stared at the man for a moment. “Maybe that’s a reasonable assumption,” he said, “given what Fuentes and his crowd seem to have in mind. So what? I still don’t see where I come in.”
“There’s been no end of speculation as to who’s next in line over there,” Vines said, “but no matter who it is—even if it were Castro’s brother himself, and we very much doubt that it will be—there will be undeniable and massive changes in how our government and Cuba’s interact.”
“Is this the kind of pep talk they gave Teddy Roosevelt before he charged up San Juan Hill?”
“It’s not going to be gunfire that determines the course of the next round of political change in Cuba, Mr. Deal. This time it’s going to be dollars. Whomever Fuentes is in contact with, that’s where the real power is located. You can trust me on that.”
“I wouldn’t trust you to lock the door on your way out, Vines.”
The man was unfazed. “You have a unique opportunity to help change the course of history; that’s what I’m trying to convey to you. You can be a part of the solution to an immense political and social problem that has plagued this country for almost fifty years. Right now, people are out there in those straits, riding inner tubes and smugglers’ boats, risking their lives to try to get to this country,” Vines said. He swept his arm vehemently toward the tasteful, wood-shuttered windows of the condo.
“At the same time, you’ve got the Florida exile community, working the other side,” he continued. “They’re one of the most powerful lobbying group in Washington, clamoring for an agenda that makes the NRA look like a pack of liberals.” He shook his head as if bewildered by his own words. “The heartache, the expense, the strife for everyone…you can be a part of the solution to all of it.”
“What if he’s the wrong guy?” Deal said.
Vines stared back, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”
“Say I come up with the name, you don’t like who it is.”
Vines threw up his hands. “Then we’ll deal with it, if you’ll pardon the expression. It’s the
information
we’re after. The ability to prepare to respond. That’s the key…”
“Forget it, Vines,” he said. “Go find yourself another contractor.”
“You are the right man,” Vines said, his tone resolute. “You have no political agenda. Your reputation is impeccable.” He paused, an odd expression crossing his features. “When it comes right down to it, we want you over there for the same reasons Fuentes does.”
“I must be doing something wrong,” Deal said, weary. “I am attracting entirely the wrong class of client.”
“Ah, yes,” Vines said, as if he had forgotten something. “There is that, too.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew an envelope, then held it out toward Deal.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Deal asked.
“We don’t expect you to take time away from your business affairs without recompense,” Vines said. He extended the envelope another inch, practically waving it under Deal’s nose.
Deal’s curiosity got the better of him. He took the envelope and peeled it open under Vines’ watchful eye. Another cashier’s check, he saw, another offshore bank. Not quite as many zeros as on Fuentes’ check, but not bad for a few days in sunny Havana.
“Government work pays a lot better than I remember,” he told Vines.
“Some of it may,” Vines said. The tone of his voice made Deal wonder if he’d finally struck a chord.
“I wish I could help you out,” Deal said. He handed the check back toward Vines who stared as if it were a snake in his outstretched hand.
“I don’t know where you got that,” Vines said, indicating the envelope, “but it certainly wasn’t from me.”
Deal didn’t miss a beat. He crumpled the envelope and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. “We’ve wasted enough time, Vines. I want you out of here, now. I’ve got work to do.”
He started forward, ready to brush by the man, but Vines didn’t move. “You’re a tough one to convince,” he said, with something like a smile on his face. “They said you would be, but I had no idea it would be this difficult.”
“Is that right?” Deal said, sizing the man up. “We’ve been through fraternity, liberty and cold, hard cash. What’s next, rubber hoses?” Vines was barely six feet, maybe went one-seventy. “You have some help on the other side of that door?”
Vines shook his head, and Deal thought the man’s expression shifted toward something resembling sadness. “It’s about your father…” he began, then faltered when he saw the look in Deal’s eyes.
“You’d drag my father into this?” Deal felt his hands clenching. The hell with it, he thought, let Vines bring in his hidden SWAT team for backup. He was going to put an end to things right now. It was getting light outside, maybe one of his neighbors would be up early, hear the ruckus, they’d call the cops and bail him out.
“Hear me out,” Vines said, raising a warning hand. “Just give me one more minute. If you don’t want to listen to any more after that, I’ll leave.”
Deal hesitated, caught by some flicker of sincerity in the man’s gaze. “It better be goddamned good, Vines.”
Vines nodded, edging away a millimeter or two, perhaps. “Your father died under something of a cloud, I can appreciate that…”
“I’d call it more than a cloud,” Deal said. “More like a hurricane. Category Five. It’s been blowing for a dozen years or so.”
“Barton Deal’s reputation was greatly diminished,” Vines continued. “And you’ve suffered as well. A promising career upended, a life spent since trying to rebuild a once-powerful firm…”
“I appreciate the condolences,” Deal said. “But your minute’s just about gone.”
“I can make it go away,” Vines blurted.
Deal shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“That cloud, that force-five hurricane you were just talking about,” Vines repeated. “I am in a very real position to put a few things right for you.”
“You’d have to be quite a guy, Vines,” Deal said.
“Just listen,” the man said, his confident tone at odds with his unprepossessing appearance. “I know all about you, dammit. You’ve been bearing this cross for a dozen years. I can help you get it off your shoulders.”
Deal blinked, not sure if he should let Vines continue or drop him with the punch he’d been yearning to throw at someone since the night he’d found his father in his study all those years before, since the moment the captain had offered him that holier-than-thou opportunity to slink off from the department and into the night.
Just one dead-solid-perfect blow of retribution. That’s all. Maybe Vines wasn’t the perfect candidate, but he was suddenly looking pretty promising.
“For the love of God,” Vines persisted. “What I’m offering you just doesn’t happen in this business. Not in my experience, anyway.”
Deal felt himself teetering on the edge of some vast abyss, but whatever was down there in that darkness, it was impossible to fathom. Rage? Madness? Simple oblivion?
He was exhausted, his head pounding, his emotions bouncing wildly inside his skull. “Get it out, Vines. Get it over with.”