COVERT WRITERS TAKEDOWN by Joe Bergeron (best beach reads txt) 📕

/> “Buenos Dias.” Belize’s Administrative
Assistant answered the private line thinking the call
might be coming from someone within the new
government.
59
“Good morning, Miss, my name is Daniel
Bellcamp. I’m Managing Editor at THE MIAMI
HERALD. And was wondering if you would allow me to
speak with the new Vice President of Cuba, Senor
Belize.”
He didn’t even know if she spoke English - she
sounded young.
There are times when luck becomes the most
important part of a successful bid to secure a goal.
Such was the case in his first attempt to speak with the
new Vice President of Cuba.
Catalina Salizar was not only Miguel Belize’s
assistant, but also his financial advisor, and mistress.
Holding a Masters degree in finance from The
University of Miami, she believed, as he did, that the
wealth of a nation belonged in the hands of the masses,
as long as a good portion of that wealth belonged to her.
She was as greedy as Belize, and until Juan Ramos
Santiago fell from power, both she and the Vice
President would remain greedy without power.
She knew all about his plans, all about George
Tollman, and all about the problems both men faced.
Bellcamp’s call triggered in her the thought process
they all had been considering, the potential use of the
media to subvert the proposed U.S trade program with
Cuba. The M.E.’s call was unsolicited - could it be
converted into opportunity, for Miguel, for Tollman, and,
of course, for herself? Although she had good intuitive
instincts, she had no way of knowing the degree of
opportunity this caller would lay before them. Although
she’d been surprised by the call, she responded without
hesitation to the polite voice in Miami.
“Yes, Sir, the Vice President is available.”
She played the patron.
Two minutes later, Bellcamp would hear the
voice of the Vice President of Cuba.
During the wait, Belize had been quickly
briefed by his assistant.
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They both thought it would be worth the effort
to investigate his intentions.
He took the call.
“Mister Bellcamp, this is Miguel Belize, what
may I do for you, sir?”
“Thank you for taking my call, Mister Vice
President.” He used the English formal title.
“I recently been reviewing pieces of information
relative to your new democracy, and I’d appreciate the
opportunity to personally interview you regarding your
country’s economic plans. As you are aware, there’s still
a large contingency of your fellow nationalists in the
greater Miami area, and your reforms will affect them,
as well as your own population. I believe you might
have a need to communicate with this exiled
community. My newspaper could become the vehicle for
that communication.”
Belize shook his head, thinking to himself, ‘you
certainly can help solve my problems with your
newspaper.’
“It would be my pleasure, Mister Bellcamp.
Perhaps you could spend Friday and Saturday this
weekend as my guest?”
Glancing at his calendar, the Managing Editor
noticed a scribbling he’d written - a not regarding a
rendezvous with a cocktail waitress.
He struck through the note with his pencil.
“Thank you Mister Vice President. I am free
this weekend. I can arrive on your island - say Friday
evening sometime?”
“That will be fine. My assistant, Miss Salazar
will assist you with an arrangement for an escort from
the airport.”
“Thank you again sir, I look forward to seeing
you on Friday evening.”
All two hundred fifty pounds of him bounded
toward his office door.
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Throwing it open, he produced a sweeping
gesture with his right arm.
“MARSHALL, COME IN HERE, AND BRING
YOUR PAD.”
The Dow was down sixty points with mild
trading. Were it not for IBM moving up a point and a
half, Marshall Chamberlain would almost have been
asleep. He’d seldom heard his boss so excited, and
moved in proportion to the apparent urgency of the call.
Now seated in the M.E.’s office, he wrote furiously on a
small pad while Bellcamp gave orders.
“I want everything you’ve got on the Cuban
economy. I need agricultural output for the last five
years, gross national product, degree of indebtedness,
stability of the currency, and every forecast you can get
your hands on. I’ll be on the island this weekend
having a personal interview with their new Vice
President.”
“How the hell did you swing that in ten
minutes?
“Law Eleven, Marsh. These people haven’t
talked openly to the American media in years. I’m
about to open the floodgates of journalism in the world’s
newest democracy.”
He wondered if Chamberlain had understood
his reference to the Physical Law - it didn’t matter.
“Get me that information before tomorrow
noon, Marsh.”
Without any additional comment, he was out
the door, moving his portly form to a private celebration
at his favorite watering holes with one of his whores.
He would have the beginnings of an international story
this weekend. He thought of Joseph Pulitzer, and the
annual awards presented in his name for outstanding
achievement in letters and journalism.
‘Would the Advisory Board of The Columbia
School of Journalism see this story as a potential?
They’d have to consider it, wouldn’t they?’ 62
Friday, February 17, 7:37 p.m.
Miami Airways flight 223 touched down at
Havana airport carrying twenty five passengers. The
Fairchild’s variable-pitch propellers rotated counter
clockwise thirty degrees creating air brakes as they
pushed against the plane’s forward thrust. The pilot
and copilot applied wheel brakes fro inside the cockpit.
Catalina Salazar had been previously notified.
A black Mercedes 560SEL now pulled to within seventy
feet of the plane’s port wingtip.
The little luggage that Bellcamp needed for a
short visit would not reach the Havana terminal, nor
would he pass through customs. He’d been thoroughly
checked out by Police security, and was receiving VIP
treatment usually reserved for visiting diplomats and
dignitaries. When flight 223’s self-contained stairwell
came to rest just above the Cuban soil, two national
secret police agents were waiting to escort the
Managing Editor to the Vice President’s private villa.
During the ride, he thought of Wirtham and
Courtney. He new both men would have disapproved of
this interview.
However, they weren’t important to him now,
the possibility of a Pulitzer nomination, and the money
that would come from it mattered more.
Both secret police agents accompanied the M.E.
to the front entrance of the Vice President’s villa. One
opened the door, allowing Bellcamp to enter alone.
When a hidden metal detector remained silent, both
agents left without speaking.
“Welcome to Cuba Mister Bellcamp…please
join me, the Vice President will be with us shortly.”
She was stunning.
Catalina Salazar had appeared to his right in
the open doorway of a mahogany-walled room. Just five
days short of her thirtieth birthday, she was wearing a
plunging black evening dress hemmed at mid thigh.
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Her long, shapely legs revealed both youth and
physical prowess, She was a black haired, brown eyed,
silky Morena colored Latin American beauty.
The fat M.E. absentmindedly straightened his
coffee-stained blue and white tie while she gracefully
took his arm leading him into Miguel Belize’s library, a
considerable resource of reading with a diversity of
authors - Tolstoy, Poe, Virgil, Yeats, Sinclair.
Releasing his arm, the comely, almost thirty
year old turned to face him. It was such a smooth
movement, it was almost if she were in a waltz.
“I am Catalina Salazar, Senor Belize’s
Administrative Assistant, would you join me for a
cocktail, Mister Bellcamp?”
“Continuing her waltz movements, she took
four steps to a Brazilian teak wet bar where she lifted a
cut Waterford crystal decanter, her jet black hair falling
half over her face due to the sexy tilt of her head in his
direction.
“It’s Kauffman Vodka from Russia - rocks?”
Her words were phrased more as an invitation
than a question.
“Yes, please, that would be fine, thank you.”
His staccato response was to a question, not an
invitation.
She noticed.
Pivoting, she swept her hair with a twist of her
long neck, arm extended offering the libation. He began
to feel more at ease, accepting the drink more
graciously than he’d responded to its proposal.
Bellcamp raised his glass, an offering for her to
follow.
“To the success of your new democracy,
Senorita Salazar.”
The toast was sincere, and quite evident to her. She
responded without hesitation and moved closer to the
fat man.
“To you, Mister Bellcamp, and your kind
words.” 64
Her toast was patronizing. He didn’t miss it,
she’d just blown Law Nine.
As they sipped their Kauffman, the Vice
President appeared in the library’s doorway. Belize was
a handsome, mustached, muscular, average sized man
who looked aptly intelligent enough to be able to handle
and interpret the volumes gracing his favorite retreat.
She played hostess.
“Senor Vice President, this is your houseguest
from Miami, Mister Bellcamp.”
He felt an awkwardness standing next to this
woman, a drink in his hand. Shuffling, he moved three
feet.
Walking briskly toward them, the Vice
President extended his right hand, reaching for the
Managing Editor’s.
“Welcome to our country Mister Bellcamp.
Please, make yourself comfortable, we have much to
discuss.“
The VP motioned to a couch and two red
leather wingbacks sitting on a blue Persian oriental in
the middle of the room.
“Something for you?”
Her voice indicated not only a willingness to fix
her boss a drink, but also a comprehension indicating
she knew what it would be.
‘Yes, Catalina, a tequila, please.”
For the next two hours, Miguel Belize
demonstrated what the M.E. had anticipated in the
Eleventh Law, a willingness not only to speak with the
U.S. media, but also to cooperatively respond to any
questions. The new democratic nation was in its
infancy, it would need to walk before it could run.
There would be at least a three year transition period
required to rebuild reliable production, service, and
distribution system, among others. Belize told him the
government had not yet decided which direction Cuba’s
new economic policy would follow.
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There were opportunities in finance, tourism,
agriculture, and industry. To pursue all of these at once
with limited capital available would not be practical. To
pick a niche would require many months of diligent
analysis and planning.
The Vice President was buying political time.
He disguised his economic hesitation as pragmatism,
but Bellcamp was no fool.
His many awards for journalism were bestowed
for his intellectual insight. His training in the Physical
Laws, and their applied application, led him to believe
that before him there was a planner who was not
planning, a comptroller with a hidden agenda.
The M.E. had ten pages of notes at the end of
two hours. Beside him on a red leather, brass
appointed couch sat Salazar, her position erotically
emblematic.
She was willing to assume any posture
necessary to secure the type of editorial commentary
THE MIAMI HERALD could provide that would help
subvert U.S. economic development in Cuba, and
therefore, indirectly provide for her future.
Three intelligent people, sitting less than six
feet away from each other were playing games.
Bellcamp, feeling he was the brightest of the three,
decided at the end of the second hour to shift the game
to his rules.
Both of them had been cooperative, but he felt
they were too anxious, too prepared with pat answers.
It appeared they had orchestrated and rehearsed both
their conversations, as well as their responses to his
anticipated questions. He had scrupulously reviewed
the data provided to him by Marshall Chamberlain.
“Mister Vice President, please excuse me if my
naïve knowledge in government is showing, but
wouldn’t it be wise for you to accept the offers of
American corporations willing to provide the economic
expertise and capital you need to rebuild your
economy?” 66
He saw a diminishing glance cast from Belize
to Salazar.
It was she who spoke next.
“Mister Bellcamp, with my Vice President’s
permission, I’ll answer your question, if I may speak …
off the record.”
Both