Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

Fletcher nodded. “Call me crazy, Mr. Pitt, but I saw an unknown submersible shortly before the cable snapped. I think somebody may h

ave deliberately sunk the Alta.”

Pitt looked into the diver’s hardened eyes and realized it was the least crazy thing he had heard all day.

10

A bright azure sky belied the sorrow that hung over Havana. The source of the melancholy was a funeral procession that crept through the crumbling streets of Cuba’s capital, where the calendar seemed fixed at the year 1959. The pockmarked streets, which over the centuries had been trod by Spanish conquistadors, British redcoats, American doughboys, and Russian generals, were lined ten deep by ordinary Cuban citizens. Seemingly every resident of the island had come to bid a final farewell to El Caballo.

Fidel Castro Ruz, the fiery father of the Cuban revolution, had finally lost his battle with mortality. It had been nearly sixty years since a young Castro had broken exile and landed on Cuba’s southwest tip in a borrowed sailboat with a ragtag army of eighty-one guerrilla fighters. In a coup that was nothing short of miraculous, he’d fueled rural grassroots support and overthrown the Batista government, marching triumphantly into Havana less than three years later.

Castro’s love affair with Marxism had failed to transform Cuba into the utopia he had envisioned, however, and his half-century reign, ending in 2008 when he’d passed power to his brother Raúl, had been marked more by political repression and economic suffocation than freedom and prosperity. Yet he remained a revered figure to Cubans, most of whom knew no other leader.

The horse-drawn funeral caisson, escorted by an honor guard in crisp white tunics, inched into the Plaza de la Revolución and eased past a large viewing stand. Cuba’s government and military elite took center stage, surrounded by an array of international dignitaries. The best seats were reserved for representatives from Venezuela, China, and Nicaragua, along with a handful of Hollywood actors. Raúl Castro stood at attention and saluted his brother as the procession marched past the towering José Martí Memorial.

Raúl and his vice president, a fellow octogenarian who walked with a cane, returned to the Interior Ministry Building for a small reception. The Cuban ruling elite, consisting of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers, along with key members of the National Assembly, the Communist Party, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, assembled in an impromptu line and paid formal respects to President Castro.

A sharp-dressed man with silver hair completed his condolences, then crossed the room, inadvertently brushing into a general engaged with an aide.

“Excuse me, General,” he said, stopping to face the man he bumped.

General Alberto Gutier’s hawkish face crinkled as he regarded the man through steady teak eyes. “Minister Ruiz.”

“It is a sad day for all of Cuba,” Ruiz said. “El Caballo was the heart and soul of the revolution.”

Gutier smirked at the mention of Fidel’s popular nickname, the Horse. “One man can start a revolution, but it takes many to sustain it.”

“True, but there can be no advancement of the cause without dynamic leadership.” Ruiz gazed at Raúl’s aged vice president, who had been helped to a chair near Castro and was inhaling oxygen from a portable tank.

Turning back to Gutier, he spoke in a low tone. “It won’t be long before a new order will rule Cuba. Vigorous, worldly, and progressive.”

“You couldn’t mean yourself?”

“Why, what an excellent suggestion,” Ruiz said. “I’m glad I can count on your support and shall look forward to your continued contributions to the Council during my presidency.”

The two were bitter rivals. Both served in Castro’s cabinet, Gutier as Minister of the Interior and Ruiz as Foreign Minister. And both curried the president’s favor, knowing the power to rule the country next was within reach. To Gutier’s chagrin, Ruiz was widely considered the favorite to replace the ailing vice president and stand ready as Castro’s successor.

Gutier gave Ruiz a frigid stare. “There’s a better likelihood that you will be polishing my boots first.”

“Come, now. You really don’t expect to ascend the ranks, do you?” He leaned forward and whispered in the general’s ear. “There’s a rumor that Minister Ortiz’s death was no accident and that the Army was somehow involved. Bad press for you, my dear friend.”

It was Gutier’s turn to smile. “Perhaps it is true,” he whispered back. “In which case, I hope that you drive carefully.”

The normally glib Ruiz turned his back on the general and meandered toward a group of friendly associates.

Gutier dismissed his aide and looked about the room, trying to hide his contempt. Most of the Cuban leadership consisted of old cronies of El Caballo who clung to power with one foot in the grave. Ruiz was right about a new generation waiting in the wings, but what he saw of that crowd repulsed him. They were all like Ruiz, products of a privileged upbringing who spouted revolutionary adages while quietly living like celebrities at the expense of the state.

Not that Gutier didn’t enjoy his own trappings of power. He was just used to a more austere lifestyle. With a younger brother, he’d been raised in a Santiago shack by a destitute mother after his father had been killed defending Cuba in the Bay of Pigs invasion. When his widowed mother had married an Army officer, his economic status improved, if not his happiness.

His stepfather was an alcoholic who regularly beat the boys and their mother. Perhaps out of guilt, Gutier’s new father introduced his adopted sons to Army life and maneuvered them into officer training school. After years of abuse, the brothers returned the favor when they came of age by strangling the man and tossing his body into the Cauto River. Escaping without suspicion, Gutier and his brother had their first taste of murder with impunity. It wouldn’t be their last.

Through cunning and aptitude, the elder Gutier rose quickly through the ranks, establishing a reputation for ruthlessness. He caught the eye of Raúl when the younger Castro commanded the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Promoted to Raúl’s staff, he served as an effective, if not always popular, problem solver.

With Raúl’s ascension, Gutier was appointed Interior Minister, but only after a more seasoned general suffered a debilitating paralysis after ingesting an unknown toxin.

Gutier bid farewell to a group of assemblymen and departed the reception. Hopping into a Russian-made military truck, he was driven across Havana to a small airfield at Playa Baracoa. He transferred to a helicopter that took him east along the coastline, passing the entrance to Havana Harbor and the heights of Morro Castle. Thirty miles down the coast, the helicopter landed in a field next to a small marina. Gutier was then taken in a launch into the indigo waters of the Straits of Florida.

The launch approached a luxury yacht moored in the bay. An Oceanco-built boat that measured over two hundred feet, its sleek opulence towered over the small launch. Gutier read the vessel’s name, Gold Digger, in yellow lettering on the stern, as they approached a lowered stepladder. A crew member escorted the general into an air-conditioned salon.