He did some other calculations. By boat, as he knew, the mouth of the river was a little over twenty miles from Marina Hemingway. By taxi, Plobacho, which was inland and a mile east of the river, was—he used his knuckle again—a hell of a lot farther because there were so few roads in the region, most of them unpaved. Say . . . an extra fifteen miles.
Ford put the maps away and continued south toward the sea. In his right pocket, the Vul silent pistol was an uncertain asset. He’d never fired the damn thing, and Russia wasn’t known for quality control. That was okay, too. He had the Sig P226, which had never failed him, and a threaded sound suppressor in the briefcase—a Maxpedition tactical bag designed for quick weapon access. On his ankle, the little 9mm Sig pocket pistol.
Surprise was on his side.
On the street, an antique Chrysler slowed to a stop—exactly the kind of car a tourist would choose. “Are you interested in a tour of Havana?” the driver asked. “I’m a licensed guide. Or a beautiful woman? I know a place that has food and music and the most beautiful women in the Caribbean.”
Ford negotiated a price to Cojimar and got in the back.
The driver said the trip would take an hour or less, but twenty minutes later they were still on the Prado, stuck in traffic, with no way to turn around.
“There must have been an accident, señor.”
Ford felt a welling uneasiness. They were only a block or two from the place he was supposed to meet Rivera, an old mansion with a restaurant and apartments. “I don’t see police lights.”
“Sometimes that is the way in Havana, señor.”
“Do you have a phone? A radio, maybe? A friend of mine lives not far from here and, well, his health isn’t good. Would an ambulance use flashing lights?”
“You are worried.”
“A little. He’s an old friend.”
“What is the name of this place?”
“La Científico,” Ford replied, “but that might be the name of the restaurant, not the apartment building.”
“It is the same, señor.” The driver put the Chrysler in park. “When traffic is like this, it is better to shut off the engine and relax. I will check for you. Would you like a beer?”
They both got out and weaved their way through traffic while horns blared, no cars moving in either direction. Ahead, a crowd had gathered outside a four-story building of marble and stone, a house befitting Cuba’s second president. On the balcony were tables and a patio bar—the restaurant. People had gathered at the railing. Ford knew from the way they reacted when they looked down that a body, or someone badly injured, was on the sidewalk below.
The driver said, “Wait here, please,” and pushed his way through the crowd. Seconds later, he was back. “Police have ordered people to disperse. And not just any police. They are wearing suits, not uniforms. We should leave.”
“What happened?”
“An important man fell off the roof, I think. Or jumped. It is not something I can ask.” The driver cleared his throat, oddly emotional.
“Do you know who it is?”
“I think this man would have chosen a taller building if he had wanted to die. Yes, I am sure of it. We must go to another place for beer, señor.”
“I’ll look for myself,” Ford told him, and threaded his way through a wall of gawkers.
General Juan Simón Rivera, revolutionary and former dictator, was beneath a tarp, his shoes and his face not yet covered, hair and beard as black as the blood in which he lay. Perhaps he had been shot or stabbed—no way to know—but the man’s head rested at an angle so grotesque that his neck had to be broken. Ford was sure of it, just as he suspected that Rivera hadn’t died from the fall. The skull was intact, no lacerated scalp, no pressure-bloated eyes. The general—a barroom brawler, a heavyweight in the ring—had been murdered by someone bigger, faster, stronger, unless there were wounds hidden by the tarp.
Anatol Kostikov, Ford thought. You son of a bitch.
He stood there, not blinking. Death had a weight to it, and a silence that drowned out street noise, and, for an instant—a single, solitary tick of the clock—Ford was in a rainforest at Juan Rivera’s side once again. The moment passed, and with it more than a decade of revolution, death, baseball, drunken nights, and small confidences—all gone.
He wanted to ask questions and eavesdrop. He wanted to observe the behavior of cops working the scene, and pry information from people around him, but that was foolish. Instead, he returned to the street, where the driver was still getting his emotions under control.
“I hope it is not your friend, señor. If he was, you should be proud, and my condolences. But you must leave right away. Soon, they will begin questioning people who appear overly interested.”
Ford peeled off a few bills. “Why would I be interested? I’ve got to find another cab.”
In the village of Cojimar there was no hotel, so Tomlinson rigged a hammock aboard No Más. At sunset, he sat in the bar of La Terraza and enjoyed Cuban baseball on a TV with an antenna made of aluminum foil.
It was the end of a busy day that wasn’t done yet. After giving so much baseball gear away, everyone recognized him on sight—not good. He’d felt uneasy paddling the canoe back to No Más. Next, it was down the steps for a visit with Raúl Corrales, who invited him to stay for dinner, but he had refused, thinking, If things go wrong tonight, they’ll think he knows about the letters.
Tomlinson liked Raúl a lot.
So here he was, sitting alone with two old friends—cold beer and baseball—watching a TV from the days of Barney Fife and the Beav. That was fitting. Nostalgia dulled his anxiety. Yeah . . . sort of like time-traveling back to Mayberry. No traffic in the streets through the open doors, and dark out there in a country that rationed electricity. With cash and his new visa, there was no need for a passport, but he would have felt fidgety traveling without the thing—by car or in a cab.
A dugout canoe was a different story.
Tomlinson now had a hand-drawn chart of the area, thanks to the grandson of Hemingway’s guide, plus a lot of detailed advice about landmarks and tides. He had told the fisherman the truth—a partial truth anyway. Tonight he was going to search for his missing dinghy.
“Think I’ll turn in early,” he announced to the bartender. Got up, stretched, and yawned, while the bartender informed him that, in Cojimar, seven-fifteen was considered late.
Tomlinson doubled the man’s tip, went to his boat, and putted into deeper, safer water with the canoe in tow. He had memorized the chart, no need even to look at the thing. Near the wooden bridge, he dropped two anchors, set them with the engine, then secured everything aboard. Old habit. In strange harbors, expect sunshine but be prepared for kimchi to hit the fan.
As a final precaution, he tied the canoe portside so it couldn’t be seen from shore, then switched off the lights. Being watched by cops in a military jeep was bad enough, but the black Mercedes had really spooked him. The vehicle had left before noon, returned around five, then vanished before sunset. No cognitive proof of who was at the wheel, but his extrasensory powers warned of sinister shit and mucho bad juju.