“The traitor is eternal.”
“Yes, but sometimes he does not prevail.”
With a smile and body language Fidel moved the interview toward closure. He extended his hand and Quinn shook it.
“Señor Quinn,” he said, “I thank you for making the journey here. The interview has been a good one. You did not try to entrap me in political conundrums. We must continue another day. But now I have an appointment with President Batista’s armed forces.”
“Thank you for your words, and the congri, and the cigar,” said Quinn.
“Hasta luego,” said Fidel.
“Buena suerte,” said Quinn. Good luck.
Quinn and Omar, heading back to meet Moncho at Arsenio’s wife’s house, were both on their stomachs in a sparse growth of young trees, small bushes, and tall grass, not moving, for Omar had seen four Cuban army soldiers below in a jeep and he waved Quinn to the ground and hissed “Abajo,” then dropped himself into the bushes. Lying on his side looking through the grass Quinn saw no soldiers. He saw a woman’s painted face looming large before him, oval, pale-blue and off-white with very red lips, and she hovered, so vivid that he was about to ask who sent you when she vanished, and all he could see was the undergrowth he was lying in and wishing it were deeper.
Omar lay thirty yards ahead which, Quinn would come to know, was Fidel’s method of moving troops — one by one, a hundred yards between them, not thirty. Omar kept Quinn closer than a hundred for he did not want to lose him; but Fidel’s method was one man in the lead and if they take him down the second one is aware, and new directions are taken. One dead is a big loss but not as big as when one squad leader, ignoring Fidel’s standing order, piled his men into a truck to get there faster and was blown to fragments by an army bazooka, ten gone. Batista’s troops took home nothing from this about the liability of togetherness and they continued moving in a column on the principle of power and safety in numbers, and were shot in multiples by hidden rebels as they came into range. They could then either die returning fire at the invisible foe or survive in retreat.
Quinn and Omar were another hour getting to the rendezvous house, a seven-and-a-half-hour trek. Quinn was desperately tired, soaked in sweat, and all he wanted was sleep. The painted woman’s face returned above him as he walked, her forehead and nose powder blue, eyes rimmed with the same blue, her cheeks, chin, and neck all off-white and her hair a bright yellow. What brings you here, lovely lady, creature from an exotic realm? Is your painted face an enticement to love? Your place or mine? Where is your place? I’ll need a nap first. She didn’t answer, just stared over his head, an aloof one. Maybe she’s the mime of Oshun, isn’t blue her color? Or Renata’s grandmother, desolate spirit, love clown in grief coming late to our wedding. Was she Sikan, about to be sacrificed for capturing the sacred fish, or was this what Renata would look like in ten years? She abandoned Quinn when the sun grew brighter and he was left with a sense of urgency to do something, but what? He could not say, and his urgency turned to anxiety.
He recapitulated his three hours of conversation with the Comandante, trying to fix on a lead for the story he would write. He liked the line about luck but that wasn’t news. The Comandante’s “appointment” with the president’s armed forces was newsy, if it happened and Quinn could get it into print before or on the same day the appointment was kept. What would it be? A modest attack like La Plata? Fidel did not seem to have many men. Quinn had counted about thirty visible around the hut. Quinn you are thinking like a beat reporter. Forget news and profile the revolutionary who doesn’t die. Yes, that was how to do it.
Quinn was as deceived as Matthews about the real number of the rebel force. Matthews guessed two hundred when they were twenty, Quinn counted thirty but they were sixty. Four hours after Quinn had wished him luck the Comandante moved his troops out, a ten-mile march to the army outpost at EI Uvero, a wooden garrison on a lake with fifty-three soldiers. The rebels approached at a crawl for half an hour and took attack positions forty yards from the garrison. Fidel fired first at two o’clock under a genuinely full moon and army rifles flashed with return fire. The fight lasted three hours until the rebels had the garrison in crossfire from two.30 caliber machine guns on tripods, and the army raised the white flag. The rebels counted six dead, the army fourteen, and fourteen taken prisoner, the bloodiest encounter in this war. The rebels loaded an army truck with forty-six rifles, two machine guns, six thousand rounds of ammunition, medicine, clothes, food. The victory proved the value of Fidel’s tactics and the vulnerability of army outposts. All were closed and the troops moved to Oriente’s main military bases.
Moncho and Alfie were waiting for Quinn at the house of Arsenio’s old wife. Quinn briefed them on his interview and his cigar and said he needed to sleep before he could utter another word. They put him in the backseat of Moncho’s car with a pillow and Moncho drove to Palma Soriano where Renata and Quinn would resume their honeymoon.
But Renata was not there.
Holtz said he had driven her back from Moncho’s in the Buick an hour after Quinn’s departure for Fidel. She said she did not want to sleep in that house, and when they got to Holtz’s she immediately went to her room. Holtz woke at eight this morning to find that she and the Buick were gone, and no message left.
Quinn was baffled. She knew she was a target for the police or the SIM through her link to Diego, and maybe because she joined the protesting women in Céspedes Park. Was she angry at not seeing Fidel? She knew it was unlikely. Punishing Quinn for going without her? And how does vanishing compensate for being left out? Isolating herself to cool down? Going off alone to affirm her intrepidity, self-sufficiency, guts, and defiance — making a willful leap into rebel-fugitive status?
They checked airlines to see if she flew to Havana. Would she take a train? Drive? They checked hospitals for accidents. Would she go home? Unlikely. Her mother said the police had come to the house looking for her. Should we call the police in Santiago to see if she’s in custody? No. Retrace her steps — follow the road back to Santiago to see if the car had a breakdown, or was abandoned. Check city streets, restaurants, the Yacht Club. Check the hotel — she’s still registered and has clothes in the room. Have Holtz call anybody left in the Directorio to see if she made contact. Call Esme. Call her aunt in Cárdenas, the one she lied about going to see. Natalia would call Renata’s friends in Oriente, but she only knew a few. Moncho called people in the 26th underground in Santiago. He sent a message to Fidel’s people to be on the watch, also to Arsenio. Moncho had family contacts to call. Holtz and his sister got nowhere. Moncho turned up nothing. Quinn called Max who instantly blamed Quinn for letting her go off alone. He said the Post couldn’t run his Fidel interview because of new censorship pressure. Max said he’d pass the word to his spies in high places, the Buro, the police. “If anything happens to that girl, Quinn. .” and he hung up.
She would call. She would come back to Holtz’s. She would get a message to Quinn, her husband. She was so wildly in love that she had married him before she got to know him. She was a resourceful woman. Savvy. A good driver. Didn’t drink much. Knew how to protect herself. Wouldn’t willfully put herself in jeopardy. Smart as they come. Brilliant. A survivor. Narciso said danger lay ahead for her and gave her that necklace, told her to show it to her enemy and tell him if he harms her Changó will kill him. She took that seriously. Narciso said Quinn was in danger from murderers. The police? The SIM? Batista’s freelance gangsters? Alfie said he’d put his friends on the case. Alfie was worried. He really liked Renata. He’d look for her with Quinn, wherever, however long it took.