Ghosts of Havana (Judd Ryker #3)(64)

“What do you mean by that, Oswaldo?”

“Have another beer, Dr. Ryker. We are going to be here for a long time. If today ends well, you will leave here drunk and victorious. If not, then . . .” He trailed off.

“Then what?”

“After beer, we will have Cuban rum, Dr. Ryker! I have a bottle of the best in the world. Handmade especially for El Jefe.”

“What are you talking about, Oswaldo? What, exactly, do you think we are negotiating?”

“Cuba’s next leader must carry on the revolution.” He raised a bottle of rum triumphantly. “This comes from Santiago. Aged for thirty years.”

“But our next leader must also be acceptable to the yanquis, too,” he declared, untwisting the cap.

“Yes . . . I agree,” Judd said. “A political transition is most likely to succeed with a compromise. Someone who can bridge both sides.”

“Of course!” Oswaldo said, pouring the golden rum into two shot glasses.

“So . . . who?”

“We need a president who would be seen as a brother in Havana.” He handed a shot glass to Judd. “And as a brother in Miami.”

“So who could that be?” Judd asked.

The two men downed the rum, the sugary liquor burning the back of Judd’s throat. Oswaldo stared into Judd’s eyes and then shook his head. He grinned and held up his empty glass.

“No one knows.”





62.


LUANDA, ANGOLA

FRIDAY, 5:48 P.M. WEST AFRICA TIME

Dr. Ernesto Sandoval stood on the runway, staring over his reading glasses at the private jet in disbelief. The shiny-white Dassault Falcon 7X vibrated like a chained tiger ready to pounce.

“Is that for me?” Ernesto asked the pilot, a stocky Ukrainian with a flattop buzz cut and thick neck.

“Yes, Dr. Che,” the pilot said in stilted English. “Where are your bags?”

Ernesto shook his head.

“Yah,” the pilot grunted. “We go.”

Ernesto climbed up the small staircase and into the jet’s cabin. Instead of the usual rows of seats, this plane had been outfitted with just six leather captain’s chairs. The walls were paneled with polished cherrywood, with multiple television screens. Along one side was a fully stocked bar and a tray of seafood canapés.

“What’s this?” Ernesto asked.

“Yours, Dr. Che,” the pilot responded. “Sit. We complete preflight checks and then we go.”

“Who paid for all this?”

The pilot shrugged and winked, then marched away.

Ernesto settled into the first seat, the soft leather caressing his skin. He buckled the strap and looked out the window. Beyond the lights of the airstrip was pure darkness. Nothing. He was excited and nauseated at the same time. This was the moment he had been waiting for all those years but also, at his core, the moment he dreaded most.

Ernesto didn’t remember much about his father or his brother from his life back in Cuba. He had heard all about his big brother, Ruben, from his mami, about his heroic flight to America, his big success in the big country. Then his mother passed away and he was, not for the last time, all alone.

But the stories of his family were more legends than anything real. Like the fictional adventures from his boyhood love of King Solomon’s Mines, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and, of course, his favorite: Peter Pan.

The rest of his life had been a virtual flash: grade school, the army, a failed marriage, medical school, deployment to Angola. He was ecstatic to be sent to Africa, hoping that his life would become meaningful. That his own voyage would rival that of Allan Quatermain into the darkest bush. That he would earn his nickname Che, just like Ernesto Guevara, another doctor who traveled to the deepest jungles to fight poverty and injustice.

Yet Angola hadn’t turned out to be anything like he expected. It wasn’t exotic or daring. In fact, it was a lot like back home in Cuba, only a bit poorer. Ernesto made the best of his duty and embraced a simple life that was worth living. But the African chapter of his life had passed quickly. And now it, too, was nearly over.

Suddenly, before Ernesto knew what had happened, what his life had become, nearly six decades had elapsed and he had grown from orphan to old man. It was all honorable, a life of small victories in the slums of Luanda, but was it meaningful? Was it genuine? He didn’t know yet.

The call, so many years ago, had been a jolt.

—

Hermanito, it’s me. Ernesto, it’s your big brother, Ruben.”

The tears had flowed. That contact had come, out of the blue, just as Ernesto’s marriage was crumbling, he was embracing the rigors of medical school, and he was trying desperately to put his life together again for the second time.

“I have a business in America. I have money,” Ruben had told him.

“I don’t need money,” Ernesto had replied.

“Soon, I will have power.” Ruben told him to be patient. “I have a plan.”

Ernesto’s role in the plan was to finish medical school, to become a doctor. To build a reputation. To complete his duty. And, most of all, to lay low until Ruben called again. Until it was time.

That time was now. The second call had finally come.

—

As the Falcon rumbled down the airstrip and zoomed westward over the Atlantic Ocean, Ernesto sensed this was the beginning of his third life. A life that would bring him back to Cuba, back together with his brother Ruben, back to a life of true meaning, of a true patriot. Of greatness.