Topaz - Leon Uris [37]
“I must warn you, Héctor,” André told him over sunset drinks on the veranda, “that you will be disillusioned with this Castro. I know you detest the present regime, but those boys up in the mountains smell like Communists.”
“André ... ugh! ... what will I do with you? You smell Communists behind every tree, under every leaf. It is a mania with you. I have known Raul and Fidel since we were children together in Santiago. Fidel is radical, yes. But a Communist, never. And, my friend, after this bastard Batista is thrown out, Cuba needs radical thinking.”
“So the Castro brothers are pure Cuban. How about that South American devil, Che? And what about Rico Parra? Parra is straight out of the Soviet system.”
“Yes, André, and how about the Americans? The damn Yankees do business with the Peróns, Trujillos, Batistas and Jiménezes, but let anything smack of desperately needed reform and you denounce it as Communist.”
Juanita listened to it all quietly, attending to the level of their glasses and saying little.
“Mark it down, Héctor. Fidel Castro will become a menace. Even the Americans refuse to listen to me now, but they’ll learn.”
“Nonsense. The Cuban people will never choose Communism.”
“They won’t have to. The choice will be made for them.”
Héctor died before the prophecy was fulfilled. Juanita had marked the Frenchman’s words.
On André’s first visit after Héctor’s death, he went to the villa to pay his condolences. The Little Dove had already begun having her misgivings on the Revolution.
Old friends were gone. Of those who were left, one had to be suspicious. André was one of the few with whom she could share her feelings of sorrow and disgust over what was happening in Cuba.
Each visit thereafter, Juanita’s feelings against Castro had grown darker and darker.
André sensed an opening upon which to build an important contact. She was a woman of prominence, above suspicion, and highly placed in the inner circles. He held back at first. Then, as the American intelligence organization in Cuba was broken, he proceeded to feel her out with caution, for as the Cuban government drifted toward the Soviet Union, new sources of information would be desperately needed.
André became a frequent visitor. At first he was looked upon from the outside as a good friend, and later rumor had it that there was a romance.
What André was romancing was the careful buildup of an espionage ring, and its heart was Juanita de Córdoba, the Little Dove.
He trained her expertly and sent her out on a mission. Since she was free to travel throughout Cuba at will, Juanita’s appearances were considered good for the image of the Revolution. In trips around that country she recontacted some of those friends who had escaped the Castro terror and banded together a small, select group of patriots placed in every part of the Island.
André guided her in establishing communications through dead-letter drops in hidden places around the country.
When a message came back to Juanita de Córdoba, she would then pass it on to the French Ambassador, Alain Adam. Usually the messages were passed at cocktail parties or formal dinners and, at times, in broad daylight at public rallies right under the very beards of Fidel and Che and Raul and Rico.
André Devereaux had an excellent eye on Cuba, indeed.
14
MICHAEL NORDSTROM LINED UP the shot, drew the billiard stick back and tapped the cue ball. It slid off the six ball with a trace of side English. The six ball dangled, then dropped reluctantly into an end pocket.
“Eight ball in the side pocket.” Mike chalked, made his shot, straightened up and beamed at his son, Jim. “Your old man didn’t get a reputation as a good pool hustler for nothing. Earned all my spending money at Stanford doing this.”
Jim was glad his dad finally won for his dad was down three games. Mike tousled his son’s hair, replaced the stick in the rack, rolled down his sleeves, and walked up from the recreation room to the kitchen.
Liz had come in from her sunbath. She still looked great in a bikini. He watched her as she flitted