Without Honor (29 page)
Authors: David Hagberg
“Yeah, mine for one.”
“Back to Miami. I'm interested in that period,” McGarvey said softly. “After Roger Harris had recruited you and you'd been sent up here for training. I'd like to know about that. You never really did cover those days in any detail.”
Basulto just looked at him, his eyes unblinking.
“I'd like to know about the team that trained you. Their names if you can remember them. Maybe their methods. What sorts of things they were filling your head with in those days. What kind of a place they put you up in.”
“A dump,” Basulto said, and he took another drink of his beer. “Not far from here. But it's all gone by now. Torn down. Progress.”
McGarvey handed him a cigarette and held a light for him.
“Who was it got wasted?” he asked. “Anyone I know?”
“There were two of them.”
Basulto's hand shook.
“One of them was looking up your records, and the other was Darby Yarnell's old boss.”
“Christ,” Basulto swore softly. “Christ.” He glanced at the door. “Were you followed down here?”
“He knows I'm here, Artimé. And there's a good chance he knows you're here, too.”
“Oh, well, that's just goddamned fine now, isn't it. Why didn't you take out a full page ad in the newspapers? Send the bastard a printed invitation.”
“We're running out of time.”
“No shit.”
“I'm going to need your help. The truth now, it's the only thing that's going to save your ass. We're going to have to burn Yarnell, and whoever he's working with. But in order for me to do that, I need to know everything.”
“It's his army, isn't it? His mob.”
McGarvey looked at the man in amazement. “Where'd you hear that?” he asked softly.
Basulto hadn't heard or understood the question. He was sweating now, nervously tapping the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray until the ash fell off. “I don't know how the hell we're going to nail him now. You were supposed to be the best. What a joke.”
“You mentioned Yarnell's mob. Where'd you hear about that?”
“I don't know,” Basulto said absently, his mind still on his own troubles. He looked up. “Mr. Trotter mentioned that we were going to have to be very careful. He was talking with Mr. Day and some of the others. They said Yarnell had his own private army.”
“A mob?” McGarvey asked again, wondering why it was that sometimes the little things bothered him more than the bigger issues.
“Mob. Army. Crowd. Christ, I don't know. Crucify me for a choice of words.” Basulto was becoming agitated again. “If he sends his army down here after us, we won't have a chance in hell.”
“What makes you think that?”
Basulto shook his head. “The sonofabitch has managed to survive this long, hasn't he?”
“But we know about him now.”
“So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to talk him to death?”
“Do you think it would work?”
“Not fucking likely!” Basulto snapped. “You're going to have to blow him away. It's the only way. He's too smart for you. Roger Harris got in his way, and he got wasted for his stupidity. Don't you be next, because this time my ass is really on the line. I got no place else to go.”
“He's working with someone, Artimé.”
“Yeah, his army.”
“He's a spy. He has a control officer. Someone who calls the shots. Someone he reports to. He's got his own Roger Harris.”
“The Russian from Mexico City.”
“Perhaps. But that was a long time ago.” McGarvey was watching the Cuban's eyes. There was no clear-cut reaction.
“Maybe he's still around.”
“It's possible. But Yarnell has someone else he's working with, or for. Someone in Washington.”
Now Basulto's eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“I don't know. Not yet.”
Again Basulto glanced toward the door. “Mr. Trotter? Could it be him? He's trying to burn us both and keep his hands clean? It sounds like something Yarnell might have done.”
“Had you ever met him before they brought you to Switzerland?”
“No.”
“How about Mr. Day?”
“No, never saw either of them until they showed up down here.”
“Yarnell never made an appearance during your training here in Miami?”
“I would have recognized him in Mexico City. We went through all this before. He never came here. Neither did Roger, for that matter. I was sent up here for my training, and when I was finished they shipped me back to Havana.”
“So how many people were here in Miami for you, Artimé? Two? Three? A dozen?”
“Two of them, mostly. And don't ask because I can't remember their names, except for the communications expert. He was the third man. Showed up for a couple of days then left. He was called Scotty. Had just gotten out of the army.”
“How is it you remembered his name and not the others'?”
“I don't know. It's just one of those things, you know. He was nice, knew what he was talking about, didn't have an ax to grind. Leastways not with me.”
“The others did?”
“They didn't really give a shit. I was just another piece of dog meat as far as they were concerned.”
“Anyone else stop by?” McGarvey asked. “Just pop in for a visit or a look-see? Anyone introduce themselves?”
Basulto shrugged. “There were a few. I couldn't tell you about any of them though. I was pretty young, and my eyes were filled with stars. This was the big time for me. I was going to be a spy.”
Just then Basulto's words reminded McGarvey of Evita's. When she'd been turned in Mexico City she too had been young, with stars in her eyes. It almost sounded like a well-used script.
“Were they all Americans? Can you remember that, Artime?”
“All Americans. WASPS, they were.”
“Young? Old? Remember anything on that score?”
“They were older than me. I was just a kid. But I suppose they all were in their twenties, early thirties. Ex-military, I think. I remember they sometimes ran the place like boot camp.”
“Not a foreign accent in the lot?”
“No.”
“Southerners, some of them, do you suppose?”
“You mean like Alabama or Mississippi?”
“Or Texas?”
“There might have been.”
“East Coast, Artime? Intellectuals. Maybe some young kid with a holier-than-thou attitude? Silver spoon in the mouth?”
“They were all intellectuals.”
McGarvey looked at him. “It's important.”
“Why do you keep asking about it?” Basulto asked, his voice going a bit soft.
“I didn't know I had.”
“What the hell is so important about an East Coast snob anyway? Who gives a shit. It doesn't make any difference. Yarnell wasn't there, otherwise we would have nailed him then ⦠me and Roger Harris.”
There it was again, McGarvey thought. Basulto, for all his isolation, knew too much. Yarnell's mob. And now the fact there might have been an East Coast snob. Someone important. Someone such as the man Evita told him about for whom Baranov had had a great deal of respect. It was beginning to come together now for him.
“Did Roger Harris have a name for him?”
“For who? What are you talking about?”
“The East Coast snob?”
“What the hell
are
you talking about?”
are
you talking about?”
“The man Roger Harris hired you to find for him, Artime, who did you think I was talking about?”
“I haven't got a clue,” Basulto said, but this time McGarvey could see that the Cuban was lying. His eyes were wide, and a small bead of perspiration had formed on his upper lip.
McGarvey got slowly to his feet, lit another cigarette, and stood at the window looking down
into the night again. If anything, it was quieter on the street now than when he had arrived. Hialeah was holding its breath. He had underestimated Roger Harris. As early as the late fifties Harris had known about Baranov and had suspected that the Russian was running at least one American. He apparently had not suspected Yarnell but had targeted someone else. The same one, possibly, who had shown up at the party in Mexico, and the same one who might have stopped by the training house here in Miami to see how young Basulto's indoctrination was coming. Harris had figured on using Basulto as his eyes and ears. First here in Miami, next in Havana, and finally in Mexico, where Baranov kept his headquarters. Sooner or later, Harris figured, his suspect should have shown up and Basulto would finger him.
into the night again. If anything, it was quieter on the street now than when he had arrived. Hialeah was holding its breath. He had underestimated Roger Harris. As early as the late fifties Harris had known about Baranov and had suspected that the Russian was running at least one American. He apparently had not suspected Yarnell but had targeted someone else. The same one, possibly, who had shown up at the party in Mexico, and the same one who might have stopped by the training house here in Miami to see how young Basulto's indoctrination was coming. Harris had figured on using Basulto as his eyes and ears. First here in Miami, next in Havana, and finally in Mexico, where Baranov kept his headquarters. Sooner or later, Harris figured, his suspect should have shown up and Basulto would finger him.
Basulto had not moved from the table. He was looking up at McGarvey.
“I didn't understand until now, Artime,” McGarvey said, sitting down again. “I'm out of practice, or something.”
“Understand what?” Basulto asked warily.
“What Roger Harris really wanted from you.”
Basulto didn't speak.
“It didn't make any sense to me, your emergency signal for Mexico City. You were supposed to telephone Roger Harris's sister in San Antonio, Texas, with the single word
alpha.
”
alpha.
”
“In case of an emergency.”
“Right. But what emergency, Artime? I mean, what constituted the emergency that Roger Harris prenamed alpha? An earthquake? A tornado? A riot? The appearance of Baranov with an American?”
“I was supposed to watch the Ateneo Español ⦠.”
“For who?” McGarvey asked. “Did he give you a name?”
Basulto was cornered. “No name.”
“A description?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“We're getting into an area here that I don't want to get into,” Basulto cried desperately.
McGarvey sat forward, slamming his palm on the tabletop, the noise like a pistol shot. “You little sonofabitch!”
“There's no call for that,” Basulto squeaked.
McGarvey was feeling mean again, to the point where he was almost frightened of himself. Yet a great clarity seemed to come over him, as if he could see everything and everyone, all the relationships in this business, all the truths and the lies from the fifties all the way to this moment. He'd asked if there was a bridge between then and now; Day had called it the “Golden Gate.” He pulled out his gun, pulled the hammer back, and pointed it across the table into Basulto's face. The Cuban went white.
“What did alpha mean? Who was alpha?”
“I don't know. I swear to God. Cristo!”
“Talk to me, Artime.” McGarvey began to squeeze the trigger.
“It was a voice,” Basulto blurted. “Nothing more.”
“What voice?”
“An East Coast voice. Connecticut or something. An intellectual.”
“I'm listening.”
“Back in Washington Roger overheard a telephone conversation between a Russian and this American.”
“Baranov?”
“Yes, Baranov and this American.”
“Where?”
“At CIA headquarters.”
“The American was CIA?”
“Yes. Roger thought so.”
“He was talking with Baranov from a telephone within the building?”
“Yes.”
“So he sent you to Mexico City to watch for Baranov and an American? Any American?”
“Yes.”
“If you saw an American you were to call with the code word
alpha.
But what about the voice?”
alpha.
But what about the voice?”
Basulto said nothing.
“The voice, Artime? How were you to recognize the voice unless you were near enough to hear it, which you could not have done from your room overlooking the Ateneo.”
“I was a member,” Basulto said softly.
“Of the Ateneo Español?”
“Yes.”
McGarvey lowered the gun. It had become too heavy for him; his trigger finger had begun to shake. “You didn't see Baranov and Yarnell from the window. You saw them inside. You were down there with them, then.”
Basulto nodded. “But it wasn't him. His voice was different.”
“The voice Roger Harris was looking for wasn't Yarnell's.”
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