Storm Clouds Over Havana by Mike Marino (novel24 .txt) 📕

We’d have to get to the south portion of the island. Traveling by land was too dangerous. In addition to the Cuban military, there were also armed bandits who would slice your throat for your gold watch. Somewhere beyond those two factions in the Sierra Maestra  were the rebels. We’d have to go by boat either to Pico Turquino or Santiago De Cuba. Then with the rebels by pre-arrangement guide us to camp where Pilar and I would be at the mercy of the fates.

We also had yet to make contact with our “mysterious” rebel contact, known only as “Victoria” who blended into the urban and political landscape of Havana and who would lead us Castros camp. Buster as always had a plan, CIA smartass that he was.

The main problem would be getting a boat and a captain we could trust. One slipup on my part and we’d both be dead. For now, it was almost Christmas, Pilar had moved into my apartment in mid-November and we were ready to face the battles ahead, and consequences no matter what they may be. We still wanted to know how we were to sail our way south to the Sierra Maestra without being caught in a trap, when the phone rang in the apartment.

The problem was solved. It would be a Feliz Navidad afterall!

The phone rang loud and rude, awakening  me with a jolt.  I was in middle of a soft cloud of a dream of tropical breezes and firm bronze breasts. Not sure who they  belonged to, but they felt warm to the touch. The phone was nothing more than an armed intruder, breaking and entering into  my dream state. I had every right to defend myself and bring it down with one well aimed, well placed bloodletting bullet to the chest from my .45  Presented to me and given by Buster Scalisi as a Christmas gift, compliments of Langley. “You may find this could come in handy. May as well have an equalizer.”

The startling ringing  of the phone  seemed louder  than the church bells of  La Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepcion Inmaculada de La Habana in Cathedral Square in Old Havana. Why the hell do the Spanish need 13 words to say something that in English consumes only six words? I may be a Catholic, but never did believe in immaculate conceptions. It takes two to tango and tangle. “Did you have sex with that woman?” “No sir, it was an immaculate conception. Damn pervert with a beard broke in and raped her before my very eyes, then disappeared in a puff of smoke and mirrors Officer.”

The ringing was relentless,  slicing  through the early day after Christmas morning stillness and dragged me kicking and screaming into the humidity of the dawn that was tempered by a gentle windward refreshing caress of a breeze.  Pilar, in the flesh, was here safe in my arms in bed, so I knew the call wasn’t a get your ass in gear and bring bribes to the police station kind of call. Thankfully she wasn’t sitting in some cavern like basement cell at the invite of Santa Policia. In Havana in those days there was no Santa Claus.

“Hello,” I managed to drag from the gutter of a raspy throat.

“Grand good morning, Mickey. I hope I didn’t wake you, but I can hear from your tone, I did. Are you conscious?” Damn it, Buster again.  The guy could ruin his own wet dream.

“Yes, I’m here, I’m awake, and this better be good.”

“Good? Muy Bueno Amigo! I have a captain and a boat for you. Guaranteed risk free.”

I was now cutting through the fog of my own harbor. “Is he trustworthy, or is he another greaseball like Franco who would sell us out for a bucket of warm beer?”

“Aha, amigo. Completely 24 karat safe. Fort Knox safe. The only problem is you have to sail in January. We’ll keep on top of the weather conditions so if any tropical storms threaten we can postpone. Well, reschedule. I want you to meet him tonight, bring Pilar with you of course, you two are joined at the groin anyway and she is the pivot of this whole thing. I’ll start working Victoria into the picture. Without her, no Castro, OK?”

What the hell could I say, “Si….oh hell, Yes, a big English YES! Where and when do me meet this Captain Bligh?”

“Tonight at 8 at Sloppy Joes. I was thinking one of Lansky’s joints but too risky. Loose lips sink ships!”

I hated hackneyed WWII slogans, especially when they dealt with ships sinking! “We’ll be there,” I managed to grumble.  Still plenty of day left before the night would bring us in contact with some Cuban Horatio Hornblower who would be responsible for getting us to Santiago de Cuba to insert us into the very center of the revolutions combat vagina. The more I thought of it, it would be a covert CIA immaculate conception, but Castro was no Mary, and the CIA was not clean by any definition. If things went wrong, Pilar and I would be fucked with a not so immaculate reception in front of a rebel firing squad.

Dateline: Havana Dec. 26, 1957 6:30 P.M. Filed by Special Correspondent Mickey Russo

The Christmas season  passed with only one minor political incident to mar an otherwise peaceful week. Today campus students of Havana University’s  banned leftist organization, Red October began marching in a unified, peaceful and orderly protest at the Presidential Palace. President Batista was out of town with his family at his villa in Matanzas during today’s demonstration.

Police however, were present, allowing the students to march until one young man sporting a beard, the new look of the new Cuban left to honor rebellion leader Fidel Castro began to lead the group in a loud chant in remembrance  of Frank Pais, the Cuban Revolutionary who was shot down in the streets of Santiago de Cuba on July 30 last summer while campaigning for the overthrow of the Batista regime. The students worked up in a mantra frenzy then began shouting  demands that Batista step down as president.  

It was at this point the police began to move in a line towards the students to disperse the crowd when a rock was thrown from the protesters side of the line in the sand hitting one of the officers on the side of his head. The young crowd acting on impulse began picking up  any foreign object they could use as a projectile. At that point with fixed bayonets the police charged the crowd  resulting in the injury of 12 students who were all beaten and then arrested.

Police officials when queried refused to answer this reporter’s questions regarding the student’s conditions, injuries or where they are being held. This will not be end of the violence. In fact, I fear it is only the beginning.

…...End Transmission…..

Memo: Date Dec. 26, 1957 6:58 P.M.

To: Blake O’Hara

From: Mickey Russo

Confidential

Tonight, will meet with Buster Scalisi, our guide here on the island. He has secured a boat and captain that will take me out on a fishing expedition to the south of the island. I hear the marlin are massive and if successful will have one mounted for your office. Wish me luck!

….End Transmission….

Coded lingo was becoming a second language for me these days. The marlin in this case being Castro. Should the messages get intercepted in this hot bed of backstabbing politics it would appear harmless enough. Many Americans come here, not only for a chance at the brass ring at the mobs gaming tables or an evening of some of the most exotic sex on the planet, but also for the sportfishing. World class trophies lurk in these pristine waters. Many adorn wood paneled hunter green ame rooms in San Francisco and high rise glass and steel monolithic offices in clouds high above the grand canyons of New York.

I filed my story after Pilar and I witnessed the march. She knew it was going to happen, and why shouldn’t she. It was arranged by her a month ago. This time she wisely chose not to be on the front lines. I don’t need her behind bars. I need her in bed, in my arms, in my life. Besides, tonight we’d begin the next phase of our Castro mission. A crucial phase...getting  off the bench to hit one out of the park and run the bases to home plate!

My newswire copy was filed and my memo to Blake (and as a result to Sean and the rest of CIA chorus line) was winging it’s way home to New York via the massive United Press teletype machine in the Havana newspaper office.

Pilar and I were  ready to leave the Record-Bulletin Office, so I turned off the lights in the back room we had assigned for ourselves to engage in any undercover work so we’d be unnoticed by anyone passing by outside and to keep our work from prying eyes in the office. Even Jorge wasn’t in the inner circle of this caper. I trusted him but Buster felt this was the wiser way to handle it. He was naturally paranoid as you would expect a CIA company man to be. It goes with the territory.

All Pilar knew was that Buster Scalisi was an American ex-pat who knew people, and in Havana knowing people is the name of the game. If she knew he was CIA and the real mission was to spy on Castro and to get evidence he had Santiago whacked, who knows what she might do. If we got that evidence of assassination of a very well respected and beloved editor, public opinion would turn on Castro, hopefully eroding  his Robin Hood image and in the process undermine the foundation of his rebellion.

As far as I was aware that she was aware is that Buster had found a boat to get us to Castro so I could do a bio piece on him to get his message out on the world stage. She in the bargain would get to meet her idol, do her part