The cuban connection, p.1
The Cuban Connection, page 1
THE CUBAN CONNECTION
A Novel
By
M.L. Malcolm
Copyright © 2014 by M.L. Malcolm
A Good Read Publishing
Washington, DC
eBook editions by eBooks by Barb for booknook.biz
Contents
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
About the Author
Praise for M.L. Malcolm’s Previous Work:
“Heart of Lies takes the reader on a thrill ride that spans continents and decades, but at heart it’s an enduring love story.”
Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife and Mrs. Tom Thumb.
“A deeply compelling and extraordinary debut novel. It has everything you want: suspense, adventure, and romance across several continents.”
Dorothea Benton Frank, New York Times bestselling author of Return to Sullivan’s Island and The First Original Wife.
“A sweeping saga reminiscent of Jeffrey Archer and Susan Howatch… brilliantly researched and beautifully written. I could not put this book down.”
Karen White, New York Times bestselling author of On Folly Beach and The House on Tradd Street.
“Malcolm spins a mesmerizing tale of love, deceit, and betrayal as father and daughter are torn apart by a world increasingly spinning out of control.”
Booklist
“Ambitious, captivating… The expansive plot and rapid-fire pacing are underscored by brilliant depictions of post–World War I Europe and Asia.”
Atlanta Magazine
“A superbly crafted story, creatively capturing a slice of history with eloquence and realism.”
In the Library Reviews
“Malcolm is a fabulous writer with an astonishing romantic clarity and captivating narrative style.”
International Herald Daily News
Preface
I am writing this book because I miss my mother.
I can almost hear the wisecracks my former colleagues would’ve made if they’d ever heard me, Katherine O’Connor, say something that sentimental. One would say he’d always thought that I’d been born fully grown: spit out by a dragon, maybe. Another would say yes, the idea seemed incredible, but it could be true—even crocodiles have mothers, don’t they?
Those jibes would’ve reflected their opinion of me, not my mother. Let’s just say I wasn’t known for my ladylike qualities among my fellow Members of the Press. When I started working as a reporter back in 1953, there were no Ladies of the Press. If you were a reporter, not a gossipmonger or the editor of the society page or an announcer reading a script but a real reporter, then you were by definition not a lady.
But I was a born storyteller, and as a reporter I used that gift to unweave tales. I followed fragile threads of information, stalked loose ends, and checked under rugs for bits of truth swept there by people in positions of power. I unraveled spider webs. I’ve written stories about war, natural disasters, near-miracles, and horrible tragedies. I’ve written about corruption and altruism, about men and women who faced adversity and rose above it, and about those who were crushed by it.
The one story I’ve never made public is my own. I’ll settle for a decent obituary when the time comes, which won’t be too long from now.
But there is one chapter in my life that has become more vivid as I age, not less, as if it wants to be shared. It was then that my mother dipped her hand into the waters of my life and changed the course of it. For that I owe her something. An offering of gratitude. And what can a storyteller offer, other than the gift of a story?
I will tell my part from my perspective, and relate the story of the other person who played a pivotal role in this tale the way he told his story to me, with the understanding that as one ages the events of the past shift around in one’s memory like bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope. All you can do is try and capture the image the way it appears at the precise moment the pieces stop spinning. And old age does have its privileges; there are few people alive who know enough about these events to contradict me.
This story is for you, Margaret Mary O’Connor.
Chapter One
I should have known something was up when I got the call telling me that I’d been reassigned to the New York office.
It was June of 1960, and I’d been working as a staff reporter for Reuters for nearly five years. Like the Associated Press and United Press International, Reuters was a subscription news service. Reporters “on the ground” sent their stories to their division editors, who reviewed them and then sent the best ones “over the wire” to Reuters’ subscribers. Some of the world’s largest newspapers bought stories from Reuters, but the service was invaluable to hundreds of minor ones—small papers that couldn’t afford to send reporters roving around the globe in search of the latest news.
Staff reporters at the big subscription news services were usually anonymous creatures. Unless you were a lead correspondent, or managed to scoop a really big story, your copy was tagged with the originating location and date, but without a “byline”—your name—on it. My ultimate goal was to become Reuters’ lead correspondent in South America and leave anonymity behind.
To become a lead correspondent is a rare achievement for any staff reporter, but I was tenacious. Rather than beg for a job after graduating from journalism school I’d worked freelance, persistently excavating and following up interesting leads. After six months, I beat the New York Times to a story about a hardware company that was making under-the-counter payments to officials at the Parks and Recreation Department, in hopes of securing city contracts for playground equipment. That small coup led to my job at Reuters, where I continued my constant—some might say relentless—search for my next big lead.
I’d started at Reuters New York, but in early 1959 I was sent to Reuters’ home office in London. Given my desire to work internationally, I viewed this as a real step up—so my sudden transfer back to the States was a move in the wrong direction. Rather than meekly accept my fate, the day after my return to New York I decided to convince my boss to send me to Cuba.
I knew the man pretty well, having worked under him before going to London. After careful consideration, I concluded that the best time to bring up the subject would be right after he returned from his daily Three Martini Lunch.
Given our managing editor’s choice of midday sustenance, post-lunch permission to enter his office was seldom given until he’d been back for at least thirty minutes. My hope was that his secretary would leave to powder her nose after diligently manning her post during the lunch hour. Sure enough, as soon as my portly, middle-aged quarry returned, she dashed away from her desk, and I slipped in, unnoticed.
“What the hell?” he said when he looked up to discover it was me and not his secretary who’d stepped into the room. “I thought we did our welcome back thing yesterday. You know, with the donuts.”
“You should assign me to Cuba,” I began, and without waiting for him to reply I outlined my reasons. My Spanish was excellent. I’d studied Latin American history, knew the culture, and I’d read everything that had ever been printed about Fidel Castro. And—as he already knew—I’d earned two international bylines while I was working in London: no easy feat for a staff reporter. I was ready for tougher territory.
“Reuters hasn’t sent out anything from Cuba that the New York Times didn’t get first. Why not give me a chance?”
He looked as though he regretted not having had a Four Martini Lunch. “O’Connor, I can’t in good conscience send a woman down there. Castro’s thrown half a dozen journalists into jail this year. It’s too dangerous.”
“Ruby Hart Phillips reports for the Times.”
“But she lives in Cuba, and she’s lived there for years. She’s like an institution. She’s not threatening. You’d get into trouble.”
Before I could respond his desk speaker beeped. “Robert Bentley to see you,” a disembodied voice announced.
Relief replaced my boss’ beleaguered expression as he hit the response button. “Send him in.”
Robert Bentley had started at Reuters a few months before I’d left for London. He was tall, handsome (in an intensely white-bread way) and also a bit of a dandy. He dressed better and drank better liquor than most newspapermen, who were not above a little class warfare, as most of us came from less-than-privileged backgrounds.
Bentley had been hired away from some small paper in the Midwest to work as part of Reuters’ United Nations press core, where, in my opinion, he’d done pretty mediocre work. Despite my adamant objections, he insisted on calling me “Red” whenever he saw me. This was allegedly because of my hair color, but I knew from the patronizing way he said it that it was also meant as a put-down—all women are moody, redheads even more so, therefore I lacked the self-control to be a top-notch reporter, etc., etc. My attempts to retaliate by calling him “Bobby” only seemed to amuse him.
“Hiya, Red,” he said as he entered the room. “Are you going to keep the boss busy all afternoon?”
The words were innocent enough, but his tone implied that I was both wasting his time and keeping the boss “busy” with some activity that had nothing to do with reporting.
That did it.
I gave him my best Betty Davis smile and walked toward him. His eyes widened as I placed my right hand around his forearm and seductively stroked the top of it with my thumb.
“Well, Bobby,” I said, my voice low and sultry, “if I’d known you were free, I’d have made room for both of you on my schedule.”
Before he could respond I gripped his arm like a vice and pushed my thumb down hard on his median nerve. He emitted a squawk and his knees buckled as I dropped his arm, shifted my weight, and delivered a karate-style front kick into the middle of his chest. Bentley toppled backward onto the floor.
The boss was on his feet now, staring at Bentley, who was staring up at me, more stunned than hurt. “As you can see, I am very capable of getting myself out of trouble,” I said. “Send me to Cuba. You have nothing to worry about.” I glanced down at Bentley and added, “And I’ve asked you before. Don’t call me ‘Red.’” With that, I stalked out of the room.
I was pretty sure my demonstration of physical prowess wouldn’t change my editor’s mind, but it made me feel better. I was also pretty sure that I wouldn’t hear Bentley calling me “Red” again anytime soon.
* * * * *
I owed my ability to execute that little party trick to the teachings of my brother, Timothy. Tim was the only one of my three brothers to survive the war. I should clarify; I mean World War II. It was many years after 1945 before the phrase “the war,” meant anything other than World War II, and for those of us who lived through it, it was, and always will be, simply, the war.
Tim and my oldest brother, Mark, were “Irish twins,” meaning they’d been born almost exactly a year apart. They were incredibly close, and shared everything from their marble collection to their underwear. Had my mother not drawn his teacher’s attention to his obvious ploy, Mark would have happily failed first grade in order to spend every day in the same classroom as his younger brother.
After Tim finished high school he and Mark joined the merchant marines, not having found any other productive employment during the height of the Great Depression. Their ship was hit by a German torpedo in 1943. They both made it ashore, but Mark’s wounds were more severe than Tim’s. He died on the beach in his brother’s arms.
Tim didn’t come home until January of 1946, and no one could get a solid story from him about where he went or what he did after their ship went down. I did come across one clue that should have given me some insight into how Tim spent the remainder of the war, although I didn’t make the connection at the time.
I found a slim paperback book in the glove compartment of his car a few months after he came home. On the cover was an illustration of a man in a business suit, aggressively poking his fingers into the eyes of a German soldier while kneeing him in the groin. The title, “GET TOUGH!” blazed across the cover with the exaggerated bravado of a Marvel comic book. The subtitle read, “You don’t need brute strength: with your bare hands you can beat the man who wants to kill you.”
I was sixteen, incorrigibly curious, and not very respectful of other people’s privacy, so I snatched the book and read the thing from cover to cover. It was exactly what it claimed to be: a detailed manual on how to kill people, and how to keep from being killed, written by an Englishman who looked more like an accountant than an assassin.
Tim looked furious when I showed him the book and asked him about it. Then an aura of uncanny calm settled over him, which I found much more terrifying.
“Okay, you little snoop,” he said, “there are some things in here that’d be helpful for you to know if you plan to spend the rest of your life sticking your nose in places where it doesn’t belong.” And so he taught me a few moves, several lifted from the Asian martial arts, which were not very well known at the time, and they did prove remarkably handy.
It wasn’t until years later that I learned Tim knew how to kill with his bare hands because he’d spent the last three years of the war in a special forces unit, risking his life behind enemy lines in an effort to expurgate the sin he’d committed by surviving when his two brothers had not.
* * * * *
Until I knew which way my career was headed I didn’t want to lease an apartment, so I went home to Ma’s. She lived on the Upper West Side, in the same house where she’d raised all five of us: my brothers Mark, Timothy, and Jamie, my sister Maureen, and me. I was the caboose of the family, five years younger than Maureen and fourteen years younger than Mark. That’s an unusual gap today, but not unheard of back when good Catholics still let the Pope make up the rules for a game he didn’t play.
Ma had paid off the mortgage with the life insurance money she’d received when my father died, which is why we had a place to live after the Depression hit. Having life insurance in those days was a pretty rare thing, but Dad bought a generous policy from the nephew of a second cousin who’d loaned my dad money when he’d first arrived in America. That was how things worked in the Irish immigrant community. Once you had your feet on the ground you paid the favor forward to help out the next family members coming over. I’m sure my father had no intention of making payments on the policy for long. He was trying to help the kid get started as a salesman, but with a bit of typical Irish luck he died unexpectedly while the policy was still in full force, thereby providing for his family in a way he’d never have been able to do had he lived.
I was barely two when my father passed away, so I never knew him well enough to miss him. And by then the house was already full, sheltering all of us, plus various visiting aunts, uncles, cousins, and others more ambiguously related, who rolled in and out of the house from down the street or across the ocean. The memories I have of my father still play in my head like old black-and-white movies, fashioned from bits of stories that others told about him back when our whole extended family still had reasons to get together.
But as a child all I needed to do to see what my father looked like was gaze upon the face of my youngest brother, Jamie.
I’d like to think that most parents try hard not to have a favorite child, and try even harder not to show it if they do happen to keep one of their offspring closer to the heart; but as fair-minded a person as my mother was, there was just no way for her to hide her partiality. Her love for Jamie slipped out in subtle ways: the slightly bigger slice of pie, the warmest pair of gloves, her willingness to let him get his way after a bit more cajoling. It wasn’t something the rest of us talked about, if for no other reason than Jamie made her laugh. While she was normally a pleasant person, our mother didn’t laugh often.
But none of us were prepared for how badly it broke her when we lost him.
* * * * *
When I walked in Ma was standing over the kitchen table, vigorously wiping away a dribble of some substance only she could see. I had to say hello twice before she looked up.
“Why Mary Kate, you’re back.”
She sounded so surprised I wasn’t sure if she meant back from London or back from the office. And I didn’t really want to know. If she meant London, it would be because she didn’t remember my having come home, suitcase in hand, asking if she could put me up for a while. So I just nodded.
She smiled and went back to wiping up the nonexistent stain. “Will you being staying long?”
“I don’t know, Ma. I’m waiting on my next assignment.”
