Free Havana Harvest by Robert Landori

that required specially constructed Firestones, reliable spare parts for Fidel's fleet of Oldsmobiles, replacement parts for the industrial culinary equipment at major hotels … The list was endless.
    Fidel's people considered Spiegel to be totally reliable because they thought his economic well-being depended heavily on the Cuban government's good will toward him. Did he not demonstrate his loyalty time and again by paying in advance for material destined for Cuba and then absorbing the loss when these were seized? At least that's how the Cubans interpreted the situation. The truth was that the losses were always made up to Spiegel by the Agency, since the “seizures” were pure theater, arranged to make Spiegel's “legend” seem even more authentic.
    Spiegel had been put in place by the CIA in anticipation of the emergence of an influential mole, a deep-cover asset. De la Fuente, the mole, was hypervaluable to the CIA and arrangements to keep his identity secret were commensurate with his importance. His existence was known only to the director of Central Intelligence, to the chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, and to his control, Spiegel.
    Spiegel's father, a talented Jewish tailor from Hamburg whom polio had left with one leg shorter than the other, was forced to flee Germany when Hitler came to power. He crossed into France and ended up in the mess that was Dunkirk where the British were trying to save hundreds of thousands of their troops before the Germans drove them into the sea. A kindly sergeant had thrown his coat over the trembling young refugee's shoulders and helped him get on board one of the evacuation vessels.
    In London, Spiegel senior got a job as resident tailor at a well-known West End men's wear shop. A year later he married his assistant, a Spanish seamstress. Their son, Ivan, was born ten months following their wedding.
    Ivan Spiegel was lucky. He had a great talent for languages and as a child, picked up English, German, and Spanish with ease. He was also very intelligent. This prompted his parents to send him to the best “public” school they could afford and then worked their fingers to the bone to keep him there. They hoped their son would win a scholarship to either Oxford or Cambridge thereby ensuring his social and economic success.
    But a life of hard work was not for Spiegel. He breezed through high school with excellent marks then took a year off to live with his mother's family in the south of Spain. There he found his true vocation the year the Americans tried to invade Cuba: smuggling.
    The Bay of Pigs fiasco meant that the Castroites were cut off from most of the U.S.-made goods they needed to keep their country's infrastructure going. Spiegel recognized the opportunity and began to sell such goods to the Cuban government through Celsa.
    By the end of the decade, Celsa had become well established and very profitable. Spiegel turned the running of the operation over to his uncle and returned to England where he started Delta Transport in the UK. Delta became a huge success within five years, then the roof caved in on Spiegel.

    Spiegel was the most unlikely CIA agent, which is what made him so valuable. The way he was recruited was equally atypical.
    After one of his frequent business trips, mellow and somewhat tipsy from the excellent wines and liqueurs he had consumed with his midday meal on board a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to London, Spiegel headed for the immigration lane at Heathrow reserved for British subjects. He stepped up to the desk of the Immigration officer whom he knew by sight from previous trips and handed him his passport and landing card.
    From his perch, the official squinted down on Spiegel and gave him a warm smile. “Mr. Spiegel, welcome home.” He beckoned to a commissionaire standing against the wall near the exit. “I understand you have been corresponding with the Airport Authority about speeding up admission procedures at Heathrow