Noel Hynd - Hostage in Havana

“Around 3:00 a.m.,” the driver said.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Our pickup,” Paul answered.

Then they began to walk, a spooky trip through the old cemetery, guided only by the dim flashlights they carried. The two Cubans who led the way walked to the top of a steep sandy hill in the southeast quadrant of the cemetery. It was pitch dark and well past midnight by now. They stopped to make sure that everyone was together. There were eight of them, including Paul and Alex. Then they proceeded.

The path wound down a slope, past a jagged audience of markers and monuments that took eerie, shadowy shapes in the dim moonlight.

“Down there, Senores,” said one of the Cubans, pointing. “We’re still with you,” Guarneri said.

Alex’s eyes finally adjusted. She watched the Cubans lead the two Americans down to a flat area at the foot of the long, sandy hillside. They faced north and could see the lights of Havana burning beyond the walls of the cemetery. They continued to walk. The terrain was soft, uneven, and marked with litter and brush. The Cubans knew where to step and where not to. Jorge carried the best light, a hand lantern in one hand, and a shovel in the other. Alex was aware of her heartbeat. There were moments on every assignment when, if everything blew up, nothing but disaster could follow. This was one of those moments.

“Watch their feet,” Paul said to Alex. “Step exactly where they step.”

She obeyed, carefully following the leaders’ footsteps one by one.

They found a set of steps, boards across sandy soil crossing another incline. They walked on rotting slats. Jorge clicked his lantern to a higher beam for a few seconds and slashed the pathway with a quick yellow light.

They continued downward. They passed a small sea of wooden crosses, jagged and crooked. The headstones and statuettes made another small army of witnesses in the moonlight and the reflected shadows of the torches. They walked another fifty yards. After a few more moments, Jorge stopped. He looked at a formation of crosses and monuments. He pointed to a patch of clay and dirt. They went fifteen paces in that direction until they came to a grave within a low fence.

Alex saw the name C. Fernandez on a tombstone that bore an ornate cross. Just C. Fernandez and the dates 1931 – 1959. She drew a breath. She knew the moment she dreaded was at hand.

“There, Senor,” Jorge said softly.

He indicated the tombstone and a flat stretch of earth.

“Okay,” Paul said softly. “Let’s get this done.”

The Cubans went to work. They pulled up the small fencing. Four of them wobbled the tombstone until it loosened from the earth. It was of heavy granite. Eventually it came free. It took all six Cubans plus Guarneri to lift it and lay it to one side. Once they had done that, the six men went to their shovels and began to dig.

The earth came up easily. The diggers worked efficiently. Paul took Alex by the hand and guided her to a space a dozen feet away.

“This is an abomination,” she said. “You know that, right?”

“Of course it is, and of course I know,” he said. “But we need to do what we need to do.”

Alex settled in on the edge of a large flat stone. A chilly breeze swept across the cemetery from the east. Paul put an arm around her as she shivered. Against her better judgment, she felt comfort from his arm; then her eyes rose and, by chance, saw a small speck of light flashing in the sky toward the horizon.

“Paul?” she asked.

“What?”

She indicated. A helicopter.

“It’s over the harbor,” he said. “Shore patrol. Cuban navy. I wouldn’t worry about that one.”

“You sure?”

“No,” he said, “but we’ve made our move. I think we’re clean. There’s no turning back now.”

The crew dug for an hour, little mountains of dirt rising up on both sides of the violated grave. From time to time Paul walked over and looked into the deepening hole. Each time, he would wander back and not say anything. Then, suddenly, they both heard a distinctive crack from the shovel. The Cubans had hit the old bronze coffin.

Jorge quickly looked at Paul.

“Stay here,” Paul said to Alex. He went to the gravesite. Enrique took the lantern from Jorge. Three Cubans climbed up out of the hole. Alex watched them. Paul gazed down.

“Keep going,” he instructed. “Get the soil off the lid.” Alex felt another uneasy surge in her stomach. She heard the shovel blades rapping the metal of the casket. The field of death was very still, very quiet. Even the tortured souls and spirits weren’t immediately to be heard from. Three diggers remained in the grave. They enlarged it so that the lid could be lifted from the coffin. Their arms flew in a nightmarish ballet. It took another thirty minutes to create the space they needed.

They knelt down to work. From Alex’s vantage point, she could see that they were removing the lid from the coffin. She lowered her eyes and tried to suppress her disgust before it turned her physically ill. She stepped farther away and folded her arms in front of her. She wondered why God could have put her in this place unless it was to learn, to think, to reflect.

Nervous, Alex left her seat and paced with short steps, staying out of the way, but watching everything that transpired. Eventually, she heard a loud creak and knew that the lid had come off. She heard a low conversation in Spanish. Paul was leading it. Somehow, they loosened the lid and passed it upward. It clunked onto the ground next to the mounds of dirt. Then Enrique tossed Paul a canvas satchel, and Paul went back down into the grave. The diggers stood by, looking downward.

Paul was in the grave, working. She could only see him from the shoulders up.

Working? Robbing? Stealing? Defiling? Recovering? Whatever one wanted to call it. To Alex, he was down there for a long time, which was actually only about thirty seconds. Against her better judgment, against everything that she considered sacrosanct, Alex rose and walked to the open grave. She looked down into the hole as the torchlight swept its contents. Nothing she had ever experienced prepared her for what she saw.

The body that had rested there for five decades was preserved better than anyone could have imagined. The upper part of the skull was skeletal, but the dried flesh of the forehead was in perfect condition. The rest of the cadaver was well preserved also. Alex could see the contours of the head and face, the skeletal knees that had worn through the fabric of the funeral dress, the bones of the wrists and the hands. The nails on the hands shown as if the body had just had a manicure. Much of the rest of the burial clothing was intact. And Salvatore Guarneri’s feet were bare. He had been buried shoeless.

In the midst of this, Guarneri was balanced on the firm side of the casket. His hands were quickly working. He was reaching beneath the head of the corpse and removing the tightly bound stacks of currency. Alex had never seen anything like this in her life and hoped never to again. From the satchel that Enrique had provided, Paul had also pulled a pair of small pillows, sturdy ones, which he would use to replace the money.

Like a spectator transfixed by a traffic accident, Alex continued to stare until she couldn’t take any more and turned away. For a moment, she thought she would throw up. She drew two sharp breaths and suppressed the nausea.

The dark ballet in the grave was over within two minutes, with Paul making sure that he had everything that he was there to get. Alex walked back and looked down again, against her better instincts, but wanted to be a reliable witness. Then, with the pillows in place and the money secured in the satchel, Paul did something that surprised Alex even more. From one of his pockets, he pulled what appeared to be a Holy Card, the type of thing that Roman Catholics issue at their funerals. He tucked it into the remains of his late uncle’s jacket pocket. Then he turned. Alex and Enrique offered him a hand up. He accepted both.

“Back from the dead,” he muttered. “Who says it can’t be done?”

Alex turned, walked back to the memorial slab, and sat again.

Paul brushed the soil off his hands, then washed and disinfected them with rubbing alcohol. He held the valise, came back over to Alex, and sat down next to her. The diggers began to fill in the grave.

“You okay?” he said.

“I’m all right,” she said. “Stunned. Horrified. Revolted. Repelled. But not for the first time in my life and probably not the last. So I’m all right.”

“Quite a night,” he said.

“Quite a night,” she agreed.

The crew of diggers was efficient with the back end of their assignment. They filled the open grave within thirty minutes, tamped it down, and replanted turf on top so that it would not immediately appear to have been disturbed. They replaced the marker and steadied it. Then they replaced the low fence. To Alex’s amazement, Paul huddled everyone together. He tucked his pistol into his belt and led a short prayer for his deceased uncle’s soul. She was amazed at his apparent sincerity but wondered if he was doing it more for the conscious of his very Roman Catholic crew. There was no way to know.

They retraced their path to the iron gate that led to the back side of the burial grounds. While walking, Paul telephoned his contact to inform him that pickup time was at hand. When they came out of the cemetery, three vehicles were waiting: the red truck, the white Nissan with Paul’s driver inside, and the battered old Peugeot 404 that Alex recognized from the family home by the sea. Alex could see movement inside the French car but not much more.

Paul had an iron grip on the satchel.

“Paul, how much is in there?” she asked softly.

“More than I expected,” he said. “I did a vague count as I was packing it. Maybe eight hundred thousand dollars. There were more hundreds and fifties than anyone would have thought. All U.S. currency. Still legal tender.”

“Not a bad night’s work,” she said.

“Nope,” he said. “Not bad at all.” He motioned. “Come with me.” He walked to the Peugeot. There was just enough light for Alex to see. She recognized Thea, Paul’s cousin, as the driver. There were two young men in the car with her, one in the front seat, one in the back. They looked expectantly at Paul.

“Yo lo tengo,” he said to them.

The driver’s-side window was open. Paul handed the satchel to Thea. She pulled it in and set it at the feet of the young man next to her. The young man quickly covered it with a small blanket.

He sat close to her, so close that he appeared to be a friend or a fiance. He gave Alex a nod and a slight smile. Thea had a pistol on her lap and the two young men had rifles.

“Give Uncle Giovanni my love,” Paul said. “Alex and I have to leave the island quickly. We’ll be back when we can. It may take a few years, but I’ll be here again.”

Through the window, Paul embraced his cousin.

“Vaya con dios,” Thea said.

“Vaya con dios,” Paul answered.

Thea offered Alex an embrace as well. Alex accepted.

Then the Peugeot backed up, turned, and drove away.

“They’ll be safe with all that money?” Alex asked.

“They’re going to a friend’s home in Havana,” Paul said. “They’ll be safely indoors in three minutes.”

“So Uncle Johnny gets the money?” Alex asked.

“And his extended family,” Paul answered. “It’ll be spread around wisely. They deserve it. They spent their lives in this infernal place living under a Marxist regime. To them it’s a fortune. Things will thaw in the next few years, probably during an Obama second term, if there is one. The family will have some seed money to start over with. I pray to God that the next regime is kinder than the ones that have preceded it. God knows the Cuban people deserve better.”