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

looked toward Belize, he making a simple
gesture of approval by slightly raising his cocktail while
moving deep into his chair.
The M.E. obligingly agreed to the ‘off the
record’ request by simply depositing his pad and pen on
the Italian marble coffee table between all of them.
She moved closer to him, right leg crossed over
left, her right knee slightly touching his right thigh.
Her cocktail evening dress shifted accordingly, the hem
line now about three inches higher on her leg than
where it was intended to be when the dress was made.
She engaged the M.E.
“There’s still very much poverty and
deprivation in Cube, Mister Bellcamp. Before any
macro economic development plan is developed, we
have to feed every man, woman and child. Hungry
people cannot build factories and manufacturing
equipment. The proposed U.S. aid is unilateral, and we
don’t think it’s properly prioritized.”
Leaning toward him, she gently touched his
hand.
“We need food and clothing right now, not
bricks and steel.”
The M.E. knew he was being delivered a copout
story. Cuba was in no way going hungry or naked.
He listened politely, however, until she’d finished her
attempt at just plain bullshitting him.
At 11:30 the Vice President excused himself -
an early morning appointment with Cuba’s Agricultural
Minister required two hours of preparation.
Bellcamp stood to shake the VP’s hand once
again and thanked him for the interview.
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“Mister Bellcamp, perhaps while I’m attending
my agricultural meeting, you will allow Catalina to
show you our island. I will be able to meet with you
again tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your
evening, Sir, please, make yourself at home in my
residence.”
“Thank you, Mister Vice President.”
The V.P. acknowledged his Administrative
Assistant, and with no further words left them alone.
“Vodka rocks, Mister Bellcamp?”
She was pouring before he had a chance to
answer.
“Miss Salazar, while we’re touring your island
tomorrow, I’d feel more comfortable if you’d call me by
my first name.”
“Of course…Dan, and I am Catalina.”
They chatted idly for another hour. She’d
kicked off her shoes and had drawn her legs up and
under her on the leather couch cushions. Her left arm
extending along its top, she was nearly touching his
hair.
The right side of his brain told him he was
being misdirected. What the hell was so necessary in
what she said to keep ‘off the record’ The left side of his
brain told him it was of no consequence, he could write
whatever he wanted.
At 12:45 a.m., she suggested they have
breakfast together on the north veranda. She was also
staying the night, and would meet him at
8:00.
Directing him to his room, she held his arm as
she had when he first arrived. At the bedroom door, she
leaned against the dark walnut trim, hands behind her
back.
“Cuba desperately needs help, and your
newspaper can play an important role in our
development.”
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He detected a pretense - why? What was it she
and Belize really wanted?
“Good night, Dan.” He didn’t return her words
with his own.
Saturday, February 18, 8:04 a.m.
The view from beyond the north veranda’s
French glass doors was straight across the Archipelago
de Sabana toward the Straights of Florida. Its deep
blue-green waters had been crossed by many exiles both
in yachts and on homemade rafts.
‘What price will people pay for democracy’ he
thought.
“Good morning, Dan!”
Turning, he watched her move toward him in a
tight, Egyptian cotton Liz Claiborne, its blue and white
floral pattern, as her evening dress, stopped at mid
thigh.
“Good morning, Catalina.”
He wore an open collard, green Izod and white
chinos.
They were totally out of synch. He knew it,
and she knew it.
Eating breakfast with accompanying small
talk, he thought through the notes his Business Editor
had given him to review.
The Soviet Union had been spending eight
million dollars a day in Cuba when it abandoned its
only Western Hemisphere Satellite. While the Russian
presence had provided a ninety-six percent literacy
rate, it’s efforts to diversify the economy had failed.
Cuba remained one of the world’s leading sugar
producers, but its markets were still primarily in the
Soviet Bloc. The island was strategic to the U.S. in
terms of its geographic venue, and whatever U.S.
President Randall Benson needed to do to keep it
democratic would receive top priority in his
administration. 69
Cuba’s per-capita income was a dismal fourteen
hundred dollars per year. A better communist economic
system would boost total PCI, and would geometrically
improve the living standards of the masses in equal
proportion, however, a democratic system would
exponentially increase the PCI, but would leave a
residual core of depravity. Such is the price of a free
society.
Supposedly, the rich will care for the poor, but
the translation of that idea never seems to reach
maturity. In a democracy, there will always be
economic, and subsequently and consequently,
sociologic stratums.
Sipping her dark coffee from a Belleek cup, she
returned the china to its identically patterned saucer.
“Dan, I grew up in the lowest layer of society in
Havana. My mother tailored for the Military Officers
Corps, and spent a good deal of her earnings each
month to buy me books that would help me learn
English. When I was eighteen, a little-known exchange
program allowed me to attend The University of Miami
where I received a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, and
a Master’s degree in finance. When I finished, I entered
government service as a financial analyst. I was
Miguel’s protégé at the time, and I’ve been with him
ever since.”
What she didn’t tell him was that both her
great beauty, and her intelligence had captivated the
senior government official who would eventually
become Vice President, and who would subsequently
reward his assistant; rewards she perceived as
deserving.
“The first part of my life was not easy, Dan. I
know what it’s like to be poor, and if I can help it, I’ll
remove poverty from my country.”
She finished her personal, and partial political
platform. He’d heard a lot of sob stories in his
journalism career.
70
Normally, to him, this just would have been
another. But the storyteller captivated him, caught his
emotional attention. He knew his feelings were
displaced, but they overruled his logic.
They decided to go for a ride.
A four door, silver 700 series BMW cruised the
Cuban landscape driven by a woman, who as a child,
could only dream of owning such an extravagance.
Beside her sat the Managing Editor of a major U.S.
daily, his head swimming with questions and doubt.
“Catalina, pull over.”
“What…do you feel alright?”
“I need to speak with you.”
She swung the car off the coastal highway onto
a dusty, seventy foot wide patch of dry dirt and pebbles.
The high torque pride of the BMW fleet negotiated
perfectly over several rain-washed ruts, finally coming
to rest beneath a shady palm.
“What is it?” She’d shifted her left leg to meet
her right as she leaned in his direction.
Stroking his closed eyes with the left thumb
and forefinger, he suddenly released his hand from its
corneal massage, using his hand now to slap his left
thigh.
“Damn it, Catalina, you know as well as I do
that Juan Santiago has met with Randall Benson, and
they’ve agreed to develop an economic reform plan for
your country. So what’s all this bullshit about feeding
the masses? Your people are not starving. You’ve been
talking like a Third World Socialist. Miguel Belize says
he can’t decide which economic policy to implement - he
wants to be pragmatic - that’s a lot of crap. If you want
me to write your story, then give me the truth. I didn’t
come over here to get jerked around.”
The last part of his statement was directed
more toward the arm holding and leg flashing than any
fiscal or monetary crisis or policies.
71
His former remarks were based on an analysis
of a deceptive presence demonstrated by the Vice
President and his Administrative Assistant the night
prior.
Dan Bellcamp, a man who paid women to love
him, cast a glance at her shapely legs, and then her
eyes.
Pulling the door handle, he escaped the airconditioned
comfort of the Bimmer to enter the mid
morning heat settled on the Cuban landscape.
Walking fifty feet to the north, he stood arms
placed on hips and reviewed a calm sea.
He hoped he’d temporarily abandoned a now
remorseful woman. He knew, however, he’d only left
alone a calculating bitch.
She came to his side.
“I’m sorry, my people really do need your help.
Your newspaper - you - can write the story of today’s
Cuba the way it should be told.
This woman had a mission.
He thought about Law Twenty Four. In order
for him to successfully determine both Belize’s and
Catalina’s intentions, he’d need to offer them more than
they expected. It appeared that right now, however,
they needed him more than he needed them.
“Catalina, just tell me what you and Miguel
Belize want. You and I both know my newspaper is
very influential in the state of Florida - I can help you.”
A decision had to be made.
She decided to tell him half the truth.
“Dan, walk with me.”
Her request was followed by low level
seduction, her right arm through his left, his bicep
pulled to her breast, she led him across the dusty
Cuban landscape.
Her tone was even.
“I am very familiar, and comfortable with the
world of corporate and government finance.
72
I was recruited by United Technologies, Arthur
Anderson and Prudential-Bache, but I turned down
their offers to return here and work in our government.
I have an affinity for my country and my people. I
know what it’s like to be without. I’m on my own, and I
intend to have the life I’ve dreamed about. Miguel and
I can, and will lead our people.”
He came to understand that she and Belize
shared more than an Executive and Assistant
relationship. He stopped, making her face him.
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at him without speaking, waiting
for an affirmation of confidentiality.
He didn’t miss the point.
“I won’t print any of this conversation.”
He knew what that could do to the Pulitzer.
“Dan, how much money do you make a year?”
He’d been asked that question twice before,
once by a commercial real estate developer with an
asbestos problem, and once by a large auto dealer
accused of odometer tampering. In both instances, he’d
walked away from the conversation. He didn’t now,
however.
“I make enough to keep me well fed…
obviously.”
She continued, feeling a sense of security.
“If I could make available to you a substantial
amount of money, would you consider working with me
to help develop in Florida a more proper perspective of
Cuba’s priorities without the U.S. reform plan as the
main one?”
They both regarded one another following her
solicitous comment. She had no fear, feeling this man
was approachable.
It was he who was wrestling with the
implications of her statement.
‘Did she and Belize want to dismantle the
economic plan approved by Santiago and Benson?’
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The warm, gentle trade winds brushed over
them as he considered for the moment the fact that he
could deliver to this woman not just the most prominent
newspaper in Florida, but maybe access to the entire
system of a clandestine organization known as Yankee
Echo. Were she and Belize able to access the covert
operation, there was no question they could destroy all
U.S. public support for Randall Benson Cuban economic
reform plan.
His position of power escalated exponentially.
His emotional needs now overwhelmed, he decided to
create a monetary opportunity for himself that would be
unparalleled in his lifetime.
Although he didn’t know the actual number