Raúl Castro? A possibility, but he discounted it. Then the fact that he thought Raúl Castro an unlikely suspect made him suspicious. He would have Raúl checked, followed day and night, everyone he spoke to would be scrutinized.
Truly there was much to do. Much to do.
The electrical outage made the burglary possible. Four towers down, two dead saboteurs.
There was a trail out there, and some diligent investigating would eventually lead him to the man or men who did this crime.
Not that it would do any good. Whoever had those files would undoubtedly destroy them immediately.
All his plans, all that work … up in smoke.
Alejo Vargas didn’t believe in coincidences. Whoever robbed that safe made extensive preparations. This was no spur-of-the-moment thing — the robbery was carefully, meticulously planned.
He looked again at the safe. Not a mark on it. Someone had dialed the combination. He had heard that such things were possible, but he had never seen it done. Nor heard of it being done in Cuba. Yesterday he would have said there was not a man in Cuba with that kind of talent.
And the files on the biological program were gone.
The day after the break-in at the lab.
The lab break-in wasn’t Hector’s style — he would have no reason to burgle the place, nor would anyone else — there was nothing there to steal.
Except poliomyelitis viruses. Would Hector gain political advantage by publicizing the biological weapons program, proving its existence?
The Americans …
Alejo Vargas stood looking at his empty safe, thinking about Americans.
The Americans were a possibility, he reluctantly concluded.
He got a magnifying glass from the top drawer of his desk, examined the door of the safe as carefully as he could.
There were marks, scratches, several together. He could see them. But how long had they been there? What were they made by?
There was no one to tell him, and he decided finally that perhaps it didn’t matter. The people who opened this safe and stole the keys to Cuba had brought down the power grid in central Havana. That was where the trail began.
He spent a few seconds in contemplation of his revenge when he caught these men.
“Minister, here is Lieutenant Gómez, who had the duty last night.”
“You saw these men, Gómez?”
“Two men arrived just seconds after the lights went out, sir. I saw the colonel for a few seconds in a flashlight beam. The driver, no.”
“What did this man look like?”
“He was tall, not fat.”
“His accent?”
“None that I noticed, sir.”
“Come, come, Lieutenant. Was he from Cuba, from Havana or Oriente, or did he speak Castilian Spanish?”
“From Havana, I thought, sir. He sounded like you and me.”
“What did he say?”
“That we should start the emergency generator.”
“So you did?”
“Yes, sir. Without power the alarms were disabled, we could not talk to each other on the telephone, the security of the building was compromised. My men and I went to the basement and worked on the generator. I came back upstairs once and reported to the colonel, told him we were having difficulties; he said he had faith. When we got the generator going and went back upstairs, the colonel and his driver and vehicle were gone.”
“You had never seen this colonel before?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
No, he wouldn’t, Vargas decided. If this colonel thought there was a glimmer of a chance Lieutenant Gómez would recognize him then or later, he would have killed him. Gómez was alive because he posed no threat.
Vargas dismissed Gómez and called in his department heads to give them orders.
With no ceremony and no conversation, Mercedes Sedano was released from the presidential palace. A butler came to the door, suggested she pack.
The electrical power was still off. It had been off when she awoke this morning, and she was given stale bread and water for breakfast.
She put the clothes she wished to keep in two shopping bags that were on the floor of the closet, sandwiched the cassettes in between them, and took a last look around the apartment. The butler returned five minutes later and led her out. Without electricity the palace looked dark and grim. She wanted desperately to be gone, to bring an end to this phase of her life. She bit her lip to keep herself under control.
The butler paused in an empty hallway, looked around to ensure that there were no maids about, then whispered, “They’ve arrested your brother-in-law Hector Sedano. He is in La Cabana.”
Then he took her to the door of the palace, said a barely audible good-bye, and closed the door behind her.
She walked past the guards and continued down the street to the bus stop. The electrical power seemed off everywhere, yet the streets of Havana hustled and bustled as usual. Didn’t they know Fidel was dead?
She dared not ask.
On the bus she saw a newspaper lying on a nearby seat and scanned the front page. The usual stuff, nothing about Fidel.
So they had not announced his death.
She transferred to another bus, left her clothes with a friend in a shop on the Malecon. The shop was closed because of the lack of electricity, but Mercedes tapped on the window until her friend came to open the door.
Her friend was very agitated. She drew Mercedes into the tiny dark storeroom. “I have heard they arrested Hector. What does it mean?”
“I do not know,” Mercedes told her, shaking her head.
“Hector’s friends are on fire,” said the shopkeeper, “and he has many, many friends. I heard there was a riot in Mariel after he was arrested. The newspapers have nothing on it, yet the story is on everyone’s lips. People are coming in, asking me about it, because they know I know you.”
Mercedes assured the woman she knew nothing, that she was as mystified as everyone on the street.
She rode buses through the city to La Cabana.
The guard at the gate recognized her name and sent a man to fetch the duty officer, a Captain Franqui. He treated her with respect, took her to his office, a dark cubicle near the gate, and sent a note to the commandante. While the note was being delivered he apologized for the lack of electricity. “It has not been off this long in years.”
In five minutes she and Franqui were in the commandante’s office. He was a heavy-set, balding officer who looked as if he were frightened of his own shadow.
“I have my orders,” he said. “I cannot admit you. He is to see no one.”
“Fidel sent me,” she said simply, without inflection. “Hector is my brother-in-law.”
The commandante looked as if wild horses were trying to tear him in half. Obviously he knew of the relationship between Mercedes and Fidel. The blood drained from his florid face as he weighed his fear of Fidel against his fear of Vargas.
Captain Franqui understood the commandante’s dilemma. “Perhaps, if I may be so bold, sir, it might be best if you were indisposed, at lunch perhaps, and I acted on my own initiative in light of the lady’s impeccable credentials.”
The commandante grasped at this straw. “I cannot be everywhere or make every decision, can I?”
“No, sir. If you will excuse us?” Captain Franqui took Mercedes’s elbow and steered her expertly from the office into the hallway.
“I myself am an admirer of Hector Sedano,” Captain Franqui confided as they walked. “He is a great patriot and a man of God. Surely he will serve Cuba well in the years ahead.”
After several minutes of platitudes, she found herself standing in front of Hector’s cell in the isolation wing. None of the other cells contained people. Captain Franqui disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.