Free Without Honor by David Hagberg Page B

time?”
    â€œIt didn’t. Nothing happened. The Ateneo was a closed shop. And Roger went home.”
    â€œYou met with him a last time, though?”
    â€œSunday night at eight o’clock. We went back to his hotel, and I told him that no one had shown up.”
    â€œAnd how was Harris then? I mean, was he disappointed? What?”
    â€œNervous,” Basulto said. “He told me that I would probably be pulled out of Mexico City before too long. He hinted that something very big was happening.”
    â€œBut he wanted you to stick around at least a little while longer?”
    Basulto nodded. “He said we still had a real shot at breaking this thing. If only I could get a clear photograph, we could write our own tickets. He kept saying that. It was a very big thing for him.”
    â€œBut it scared him.”
    â€œScared him silly, Mr. McGarvey.”
    â€œHe never told you who you were after … I mean other than Baranov?”
    Basulto shook his head. “He said the Russian was a very big cookie. He kept saying how Baranov was so young, and yet he was running the entire Soviet system of networks in the Caribbean. He took over everything that Oumansky set up in the forties.”
    â€œConstantine Oumansky,” Trotter interjected. “He was the Soviet ambassador to Mexico. Killed in
1943 in a plane crash. He set up the entire Carib. network.”
    â€œWhich was still going strong under this Baranov in the late fifties?” McGarvey asked.
    â€œIt’s still going strong now, from what we gather,” Trotter said.
    â€œThere is a connection … then to now? A bridge?” McGarvey asked incredulously.
    â€œThe Golden Gate,” Day chirped.
    They waited for Basulto to continue.
    â€œI was to call the San Antonio number from different telephones around the city every day. When it was time to leave I would be given the word.”
    â€œAnd then where were you to go?” McGarvey said. “Back to Miami?”
    â€œGuatemala City.”
    Again McGarvey was startled. It showed on his face because Trotter sat forward, his eyes bright.
    â€œThey were starting to train for the Bay of Pigs invasion. A camp had been set up on a coffee plantation at Helvetia.”
    â€œHe must have been among the first to arrive.”
    â€œHarris was involved from the beginning because of his operations in Cuba under Batista. He pulled Basulto into it to provide them with the local knowledge they’d need,” Trotter said.

7
    The rain had finally stopped, and the sun had begun to peek out from under the clouds. From where he sat, McGarvey could look out the window, across the road at the trees growing up along the wall of the valley. The branches were dripping, the leaves glistening in the light. Marta would be at the apartment, worried about him. Or perhaps she had gone shopping. She would stop at the odd moment to cock her head (it was a characteristic gesture of hers that he found attractive) and think about him. Or at least he hoped that was the case. He hoped she wasn’t looking for him. It would make it that much more difficult when he came home this afternoon.
    Trotter had gone into the kitchen to get more coffee, and Day had jumped up and was grazing among the books on the shelves, leaving Basulto and McGarvey alone for just a moment.
    â€œYou weren’t too unhappy about leaving Mexico City?” McGarvey asked softly.
    Basulto poured some cognac into his cold coffee. He raised his head. “No, but I wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of going to Guatemala. They’re a bunch of farmers down there. They don’t know anything.”

    â€œAbout Mexico City. Did you ever get the feeling that someone was watching you? That someone down at the Ateneo knew what you were doing?”
    Basulto smiled. “You could be Roger’s twin, you know, Mr. McGarvey. He asked me the very same question. He was worried that I’d be tumbled