Topaz - Leon Uris [61]
The ticket agent’s hand trembled as he went through the business of validation. “Down the corridor, sir. Departure Room Number 3.”
André held his valises and began the long, slow walk with Alain Adam. He was stopped abruptly by a guard at the head of the hall.
“You will say good-bye to your friend here. No visitors in the waiting rooms.”
André glanced about, saw the scattering of G-2 men sloppily placed everywhere. Two of them moved up behind him to cut off an exit. All the other departing passengers were being put in Departure Rooms 1 and 2. He would be in Room 3 alone. Obviously, he carried something in Juanita’s valise to implicate her, as well as a hundred other Cubans.
The gambit was opened! KLM flight lands in Miami. French diplomat missing. The Cubans would play dumb, show a passenger list without his name on it, apologize and promise an investigation, and the affair would die in mystery.
André played his first counter-card. He pulled Alain Adam aside quickly and spoke in cryptic French, “You see what’s coming off?”
Adam nodded.
“Get back to Havana immediately. Pick up Juanita and have her claim political asylum in the Embassy. Then get to Castro, Parra, or Che Guevara and warn them we are on to what is taking place. Now go.”
“André, I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“Go. Get their officials confused at the highest level. Threaten to expose them. It’s our best chance. Now go.”
Adam tried to blurt out a proper word but grabbed André’s hand tightly, nodded, and turned. André watched the Ambassador leave the terminal and saw the limousine pull from the curb and out of sight.
The circle of G-2 men closed in on him. “You go to Departure Room Number 3,” one commanded.
The one who spoke seemed to be in charge. André approached him slowly and shook his head, No. “Your boss, Muñoz, is no doubt waiting in one of the back offices. Now you just run in there and tell him that we are on to his game and the French Embassy here cabled to Paris last night about this situation. Until he wishes to discuss it with me I intend to wait in a departure room with the other passengers.”
With that, André shoved past the man and entered Room 2, which was filled with activity. The confused Cuban ran to Muñoz in a back office and reported Devereaux’s words. Muñoz betrayed his own sudden confusion with shaky hands and nervous breaths. He chewed his bottom lip, then snatched the phone.
“Put me through to Rico Parra!” he shouted.
32
RICO PARRA FLUNG OPEN THE door to Casa de Revolución. The living room had deteriorated from the days of its former owner. Juanita de Córdoba was seated on a high-backed chair. The chief guard, Hernández, hulked behind her with a sub-machine gun at her head.
“She has no weapons,” Hernández said.
Rico signaled the man to leave with a jerk of his head.
“I am flattered by your display of arms,” she said, “but it was unnecessary. I am quite harmless.”
“You are as harmless as a cobra,” Rico answered.
“As you wish.”
“Yes, as I wish. I did not survive as a guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra Mountains out of stupidity. Well, what the hell do you want?”
Juanita unfolded her legs and stood, running her fingers over an antique desktop. Even in this tense atmosphere, the dark unkempt room, the devouring woods, even so he was aware of the female opposite him. Her body was closely hugged by a pair of silk slacks, the buttocks round yet firm. The long polished nails, the flair of her jewelry, the severe hairdo, her scent. Rico’s eyes played on her bare midriff and to the halter top of thin enticing material, quite open and only tied in a bow loosely to hold her bosom.
“Of course you must know why I am here,” she said.
“It’s too early in the morning for games. You tell me.”
“You told me you have control over certain foreign diplomats. I wish to bargain for one of them.”
Rico slipped a cigar from his dungaree pocket, bit off the end, and spat it to the floor, then chewed on it without lighting it.
“André Devereaux is to leave Cuba safely.”
“If he does?”
“You have yourself a Little Dove.