Comes a 5th Horseman

Comes a 5th Horseman

By Darrell Egbert

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Publisher’s Place

Copyright 2015 Darrell Egbert

Cover Art by Wallace Brazzeal

This digital edition January 2015 © Publisher’s Place

Discover other titles by Darrell Egbert at Smashwords.com:

The Third Gambit

The Secret of Recapture Creek

The Ravensbruck Legacy

They Came From Benghazi

The Escape of Edward St. Ives

They Rode a Crooked Mile

Somewhere West Of Fiji

Comes A 5th Horseman

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

CITY OF MIAMI, USA. 1962

The night was pitch-black with an overcast sky and a smell of rain in the air. Raoul Martinez had been walking west on 8th Street for the past half-hour. He was looking for a specific casino in one of the seedier parts of Little Habana, an immigrant dominated section of Miami, where the streetlights were broken out and had been for weeks. And muggers, part of the thug culture that made their living there, would break them out again as soon as they were replaced.

Many people living in this area were not used to working. They had never had a steady job; they had been living most of their adult lives off the socialist system in Castro’s new Cuban republic. They were here now because their families told them they would have a better life if they moved. They meant there was an opportunity for a better life if they were willing to work. But most were much better off than they had been in Cuba; however, they were still dependent on the government for subsistence. They were the new refugees from the home island that had congregated in the area east of Seventeenth Avenue.

Raoul had never been here before, although he had wanted to come many times and see it for himself. He had heard that it was the gathering spot for the genuine Salsa crowd. They came to dance to the authentic disco that had been imported from the homeland. The best dancers attracted the hottest Latin bands that were even better than those in old Habana. And he was home sick for them and the rhumba, and the red-hot samba. They also had the best restaurants that cooked-up the best Cuban food. It was the in place on Saturday nights, where young Cuban working couples with money to spend came to live the good life.

Some few of the older single men braved the long bus ride; their yearning for the music and the prostitutes that could dance salsa overcame their fear of being molested by younger roaming gang members.

Raoul Martinez had a brother that had moved on to New York where his letters proclaimed his new home to be the equal of Miami. But they both had agreed that none of it would ever replace the real thing, and they longed to return to Habana just as soon as Fidel Castro and his minions could be run out. But they were not expecting any miracles. Quite the opposite, they were in the middle of a cold war that was turning hot, and right now things were looking up for Cuba’s new revolutionary dictator, Fidel Castro and down for his opposition the young American president, John F. Kennedy. In fact the Russian sponsored Cuban government was turning up the screws, and Kennedy did not like it. Both the Cubans and the Russians in Cuba specialized in making jokes about him and his immigrant Cuban army from America that had been so easily defeated by Castro at the Bay of Pigs.

Fidel’s Russian sponsors were also saying that this Jack Kennedy was smart but indecisive, and that he was too young for the job. He also paid too much attention to his no-nothing younger brother. They were also saying his military experiences commanding a motorboat in the recent American world war was nothing when compared to Fidel’s experiences and those of his battle-hardened generals. Fidel was also telling his soldiers that the Russians were with them, and that they were going to stay with them, because they were ideally situated to launch middle range missiles into the heart of America. And the Russians had plenty of missiles, and hadn’t the Russian premier Khrushchev told Fidel not to be afraid of the Americans? Khrushev was bragging that he was making missiles and atomic warheads to fit them faster than he could make sausages.

Raoul Martinez was approaching one of the brightly lit casino’s where inside, crowds of hard-core salseros had formed two circles one within the other. He could see them dancing from the entranceway, and he could hear their raucous laughter and he could see large groups of Anglo-American tourists that had come to watch.

He believed this was the address he had been given by a telephone caller that afternoon. The caller said he was the son of a close relative from Cuba, with some important family information–but why meet at a crowded dance hall and why at night, and more to the point why meet at all? Hadn’t he and his older brother left Cuba under a cloud? Hadn’t his younger brother sworn a vendetta against them for stealing his money? And if it was who he thought it was, this individual must be a nephew he had never met. And wasn’t that a close enough blood tie to satisfy the rules?

Raoul was sure he had been followed. Didn’t the Miami newspapers and the news on television warn about street gangs, and the many ruses they used to lure middle class citizens to this part of the city? And weren’t these callers always from Cuba, and weren’t they always relatives or friends of relatives?

Why then did he respond the way he had? It was because he did have close relatives in Cuba, and because they were part of the national movement to overthrow Castro. And because his older brother living in New York had fought in the recent, ill-fated Jack Kennedy supported invasion, and because he, Raoul Martinez, was expected to do something besides talk about overthrowing Castro. And because the passage of time might have diluted his brother’s bad feelings–maybe not, but he couldn’t wait another two years to find out.

Raoul was not aware that he stood out in this crowded casino he had chosen to enter. He was Cuban but he looked more like a Miami policeman than he did a dancer. He was not wearing the Bloch Style or the Swede, Pointy Toed shoe of the Cuban habitué. He was wearing black street shoes and a lightweight summer coat that made him conspicuous, instead of a short-sleeved white T-shirt worn outside the trousers or the fashionably embroidered linen Guyabara imported from Mexico.

He started for the bar on the far side of the dance floor but never made it. The sight of a young man that intentionally lifted the front of his white T-shirt so that Raoul could glimpse a pistol in his belt, stopped him cold. He didn’t know what else to do, so he took the first empty seat next to a couple watching the dancing. The young man with the gun never took his eyes off Raoul but continued to walk toward him with the butt of his pistol in plain sight. He stopped; still staring at Raoul, he pulled up another chair from a nearby table and joined the three of them.

He introduced himself in Spanish: I am Tito Martinez, he said, emphasizing his last name. Then he said to the young couple at the table: And this gentleman sitting next to me I believe is my father’s brother, Raoul Martinez. He waited for Raoul to acknowledge with a nod of his head in the affirmative before proceeding.

I have come from Cuba on a mission of the utmost urgency. Then he turned to his uncle and said, visibly fingering the butt of his pistol: "I know what you have heard about calls from Cuba and how the caller often sets you up to be robbed. And I know about the bad blood between you and my father. I choose not to harm you–this weapon is to dissuade you from harming me. I also don’t have time to look for you or to chase you if you run. And I don’t have time for formalities, other than to bring you greetings from my mother and father, who now wish you well. But, I must tell you Castro imprisoned my father the night you left. He has been released but he was severely tortured and he is not doing well.

"I have to leave in a few minutes to catch a boat back to Habana. It’s waiting for me now at a secluded mooring near Key West. I don’t have time to explain what is happening in Cuba or why I called you on the phone and asked you to come to this address.

I have prepared a long letter in English and there are some photographs I have personally taken. They will explain everything. When you read it you will know what to do.

He stood up, shook his uncles hand, and handed him an envelope. He unexpectedly asked the young woman sitting next to him if she would care to dance. Before she could answer, he took her in his arms and joined the others in a rapid samba that Raoul had never heard before. Raoul and her husband watched spellbound as his nephew moved the two of them across the floor in time with the music.

Her husband made a move to stop them as they neared the crowded entrance way. Raoul laid a hand on his shoulder, saying: Don’t do it. He has a gun, and my family is notorious for being anti-Castro. What he has to say could well be important enough to shoot somebody to get it said. But then again he might have taken her because he only needs a ride, maybe to the Key he told us about. Lets look at the letter first before we call the police.

They sat back down and Raoul opened it. He looked at the stranger in the chair beside him and turned white as if he was going to feint. The stranger took it from his hand. He read it once and then once again, thinking because it was written by a Cuban in English that he might have misinterpreted something.

He doesn’t want a ride to Key West, I have the ignition key to our car. He is going to keep her as a hostage. I know it, he said, as he looked at Raoul as if he wanted to cry. If he takes her back to Cuba, I’m going to lose her.

Why do you think he would do that? Raoul asked him, haltingly.

Because he wants to make sure you do what the letter says with no messing around. And what he wants you to do isn’t going to be easy, and because if it isn’t handled properly and timely, both of us are liable to get shot–maybe not by your nephew but by somebody that’s for sure.

Are you coming with me, then?

I am but where are you headed?

New York and I am leaving right now, I intend to be there by morning. By the way what is your name, and do you have a credit card and some cash?

They call me Lauren Lopez. My first name has been changed. I am a native born American. And yes I have a credit card and about fifty bucks.

You know mine and I have thirty. Given where I was going tonight, I was wary of carrying more.

Both men settled in for the long flight to LaGuardia field. Both were way too loaded with adrenalin to even think about sleeping, even with the drone of the Jet-prop engines in sync that signaled they had reached cruising altitude.

The night had been warm and humid in Miami but Raoul figured it was going to be cold in New York, and neither he nor his new friend were dressed for the change in temperature. He hoped this was not going to be a problem, but right now he was warm. His thoughts about his future comfort were fleeting, something that passed quickly from his mind. The one replacing it was not the strange appearance of his nephew, either. It wasn’t even the catastrophic situation developing in Cuba. But of all things it was a scene from an old western movie where this sheriff comes into his jail to check on his prisoner. He finds him staring out the window and he pays no attention to the sheriff. He is watching them build a scaffold halfway up the street. The hanging was going to be his, and crowds had been gathering for hours.

Tell me, says the sheriff, is it true that there is nothing that focuses the mind like watching them build your scaffold? The prisoner turns toward the taunting sheriff with a scowl and spits a wad of tobacco at him through the bars.

This scene had been playing in the theatre of his mind since first he saw his nephew with the pistol. He was sure he knew who he was, maybe not specifically who, but he knew he was one of the grown sons of his brother. And his brother’s family, two years back, had become his blood enemy–any male member of that family was going to shoot him on sight. And his mind was unable to forget the pistol. He thought when he saw it his time had come. Now he had ceased to fear his brother and his sons. But in a way, something just as bad had taken its place; something just as ominous and evil had replaced his brother and his vendetta. And he could sense that this thing was building his scaffold and was soon going to catch up to him and hang him high.

A leaking patched up boat had been hired; all that was left was to pay the captain. He remembered the scene as though it was yesterday.

That night in Castro’s Habana was as dark and foreboding as it had been last night when he set out for the casino. He and his two brothers were creeping down a small beach area known as the Playas del Estes that was east of the city. Time was when there would have been swimmers and revelers galore but not at night, not since the revolution. Now neither a tourist or a native could be seen anywhere. They had the beach to themselves.

The plan was to meet one of the boat’s crewmembers that was waiting for them with a world war surplus six-man raft. This sailor was to signal them with a blinking light that would be focused on the sand dunes behind them. It would be visible from where they were waiting, but not to a patrol boat at sea.

The three brothers had been warned that the boat to Miami, lying about 300 meters off the breaking surf, would be heavily loaded. They were also warned that Castro’s navy patrolled these waters and that they shot would-be escapees whenever they spotted them, whether it was off shore or ten miles at sea.

Just last week an overloaded boat was sunk and went down with all hands. Raoul was extremely nervous, but his younger brother was near panic.

Then all of a sudden a large engine started up and a spotlight came on and began sweeping the shoreline. The three waiting Cubans dove for the water a few feet away. The rattle of a mounted .30 Cal. machine gun accompanied the light from the patrol boat. Still his brother, crouching on his hands and knees, stayed in the water, petrified, refusing to escape with them down the beach.

He told Raoul to leave him. He said he had changed his mind. All he wanted now was to be home with his wife. He told him nothing was worth dying for.

Raoul tried to talk him into changing his mind. When he saw he was about to stand up and surrender to keep from being shot, he asked him to loan him the fifteen hundred dollars he was carrying. He promised to send it back as soon as he got a job in America. When he refused, saying it was all he had and that he needed it to feed his family, Raoul and his older brother took the money, knowing that Castro’s people would take it from him if they didn’t.

The last words he and his older brother heard from him was a revenge vendetta, spoken in Spanish. It was a death threat that all Latin’s understood and it sent a chill through Raoul’s body.

The Cuban and his new friend sat without talking, waiting for the airline stewardess to offer them a cup of coffee. After she did, they tried to relax. Raoul asked him a question: How long have you been married?

Two years but it seems longer. But now she is gone I feel really bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

His answer begged the question that Raoul now asked him: Weren’t the two of you getting along?

He paused, almost telling him it was none of his business. But he stopped himself. The two of them had been caught up in an unbelievable situation and he needed his friendship. Still it was Raoul’s fault she was gone. But blaming him for creating their unsolvable problem was not going to bring her back if she ever came back.

I told you I was born here. What you don’t know is she was born and raised in Habana. She came over just before we were married. She is Cuban like you, and I’m not like either of you. I am Cuban-American. The fact is, other than her, there is not much about Cuba that I like. And there isn’t much about America she likes….

What don’t you like?

"Well for starters, I don’t care for the food. She can eat highly seasoned Picadillo poured over white rice three times a day. And she loves Mojo a marinade used for flavoring that is made mostly of hot oil and lemon. She puts it in everything. And dancing. She loves to dance. All Cuban women love to dance if they are not too fat–many are you know. Now you take that place we were in tonight. Did you see some of them? They wear tight dresses or shorts. Many of them look like a lot of women that patronize the cut-rate stores going up around town. They don’t care what they look like when they go shopping. They think older Cuban men like them fat and dressed in skimpy tight clothes…."

I don’t, Raoul interrupted.

"Maybe not. I don’t think anybody does. But getting back to dancing. My wife won’t dance with an American. That’s what she calls me. She says I’m too stiff–my heart isn’t in it. She means it is not part of my heart like it is her’s. Have you ever watched Cubans when they dance, the men too. They kind of go into a trance, they become somebody else, somebody that’s been hiding inside their body waiting to come out. She says she can teach me the movements but she can’t teach me the feel. She says it’s like Argentine’s and the tango. They’re born with the feel. You’re Cuban you know what I’m talking about.

"Then she misses her friends. She left when she was in what we call, ‘high school.’

She went back to school about a week after she got here and then quit again. She says it wasn’t the same thing. She knows she’s missed a lot and, frankly, she’s homesick. There is a lot of other stuff she misses like the smells, especially the food cooking. And Cuba is old, ancient in fact….

What the hey. I know what you mean. We all suffer the same way. Most of us have somewhat adjusted but then again, many haven’t. The thing that keeps us all going is the belief that things are going to change. If America and Russia ever get together, Fidel will go broke and then they will boot him out like they did Fulgencia Batista. Then we can all go home and you can come with us.

True. But then I’m still going to be unhappy, because I won’t have her. She will stay in Habana if your nephew takes her back with him. What scares me is she will not fight him to stay here; instead, she will coax him to take her with him. I’m afraid the next time I see her she’ll be remarried, maybe to your nephew. Incidentally, did you see them when they were dancing? Did you see her face? She hasn’t looked that way since she came here. Dancing like that changes them, I’m telling you. And dancing leads to other things….

"I wouldn’t worry about him marrying her–you need to read that letter again He is going to have more on his mind than her. He is going to be busier then he has ever been before in his life just trying to stay alive.

Why are you so sure she will leave with Tito?

I’ll make a call in the morning if she is not home I’ll know she left with him. But I’m not holding my breath.

Lauren recognized the truth in what Raoul was saying about Tito his nephew, but it wasn’t going to make him feel any better. He wished once more that he had never taken her down there. But what was he supposed to do? He had promised her. It was a 21st birthday present. And the thought of how young and beautiful she was, and what might be waiting for her in Cuba made him feel even worse.

First police station you come too, and step on it cabbie. Raoul had to repeat himself to be understood. English was not the driver’s first language.

The two of them walked up the steep cement steps of an old brownstone station with the name of the precinct carved into the cement above the door.

I want to talk to the senior man and I have to tell you there is more at stake here than you can possibly imagine. If you fool around and in any way think I’m kidding with you, you’re going to lose your job and your entire pension. You better believe me. Now get him down here so he can see what I have in this envelope.

An hour later a plainclothes New York policeman walked into the precinct. He was angry. It was Saturday morning; it was his day off, and his plan for the day had been interrupted. This better be good, he said. Thinking what he had there was an immigration problem; he led the two of them over to the booking sergeant. Lock them up and hold them for court on Monday night. Make it for disturbing the peace for starters.

"Officer, get hold of yourself. I am carrying a letter that I want you to read right now. Eventually it will either make you famous, or get you canned, depending on what you do. It is self-explanatory. But it’s for