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Chapters (62)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. Dedication
  5. PART ONE - Berlin, 1934
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Chapter 11
  17. Chapter 12
  18. Chapter 13
  19. Chapter 14
  20. Chapter 15
  21. Chapter 16
  22. Chapter 17
  23. Chapter 18
  24. Chapter 19
  25. Chapter 20
  26. Chapter 21
  27. Chapter 22
  28. Chapter 23
  29. Chapter 24
  30. Chapter 25
  31. Chapter 26
  32. Chapter 27
  33. Chapter 28
  34. Chapter 29
  35. Chapter 30
  36. Chapter 31
  37. Chapter 32
  38. PART TWO - Havana, February 1954
  39. Chapter 1
  40. Chapter 2
  41. Chapter 3
  42. Chapter 4
  43. Chapter 5
  44. Chapter 6
  45. Chapter 7
  46. Chapter 8
  47. Chapter 9
  48. Chapter 10
  49. Chapter 11
  50. Chapter 12
  51. Chapter 13
  52. Chapter 14
  53. Chapter 15
  54. Chapter 16
  55. Chapter 17
  56. Chapter 18
  57. Chapter 19
  58. Chapter 20
  59. Chapter 21
  60. Chapter 22
  61. Chapter 23
  62. Chapter 24

It was probably just as well that I didn’t.

Chapter 22

22

WITH ONE EYE on my rearview mirror and the army car tailing me, I drove east through the new tunnel underneath the Almendares River and then south through Santa Catalina and Vibora. Along the central divider of the boulevard, city gardeners were trimming trees into the shape of bells, only none of them was going off in my head. I was still telling myself that I could get away with making a deal with the devil. I’d done it before, after all, and with many worse devils than Lieutenant Quevedo. Heydrich, for one. Goering, for another. They didn’t come any more devilish than them. But no matter how smart you think you are, there’s always something unexpected that you have to be prepared for. I thought I was prepared for anything. Except the one thing that happened.

It got a little warmer. Warmer than on the north coast. And most of the houses here were owned by people with money. You could tell they were people with money because they were also people with big gates on their big houses. You could tell how much money a man had by the height of the white walls and the amount of iron on his black gates. A set of imposing gates was an advertisement for a ready supply of wealth for confiscation and redistribution. If the communists ever reached Havana, they wouldn’t have to look hard for the best people to steal money from. You didn’t have to be clever to be a communist. Not when the rich made it as easy as this.

When I reached Mantilla, I turned south on Managua, which was a poorer, more down-at-heel district, and followed the road until I came upon the main highway going west toward Santa María del Rosario. You could tell the neighborhood was poorer and more down-at-heel because children and goats wandered freely by the side of the road, and men were carrying machetes with which to work in the surrounding plantations.

When I saw the disused tennis court, and the dilapidated villa with the rusted gate, I held the steering wheel tight and rode the bump as I turned the Chevrolet off the road and through the trees. As I hit the brakes, the car bucked like a rodeo bull and made more dust than an exodus from Egypt. I switched off the engine and sat there doing nothing, my hands clasped behind my head, just in case the lieutenant was the nervous type. I hardly wanted to get shot reaching for my pocket humidor.