Honorable Lies Page 2

  That gave me an idea.

  The staff lieutenant was positively beaming now, taking pleasure in his own performance as he strutted back and forth before his superiors like an actor on a stage. I could see him mentally planning his promotion party.

  Raising my hand to get the little weasel’s attention, I quietly said, “By the way, Lieutenant, as the party who was initially challenged by the Spanish navy, is it not my right to choose which type of weapon we will use in the combat?”

  The reader of this account will think me a bit disingenuous with that comment, but technically, I was correct. The Spanish admiral had challenged us—after Admiral Luce skillfully germinated the idea.

  My query literally took the wind right out of the staff lieutenant. Poor lad’s chest deflated. My question wasn’t in the script for his big show. “Ah . . . Commander . . .,” he stammered, “the agreement between the admirals of our respective navies was to engage in a demonstration of combat by fencing.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “So, obviously, it must be with foils. They are the fencing tools of gentlemen.”

  Boreau scowled. He didn’t exactly understand my words in English, but he got the idea something was afoot. Something devious. Yanquis were infamous for that.

  It was now my turn to be condescending, so I smiled and said with not-so-sincere sympathy to the nonplussed translator, “No, my dear Lieutenant, I regret to say that you are mistaken. In the world of fencing, there are three weapons of choice: the foil; the rapier, or épée, as it is sometimes known; and the saber. The foil and rapier are excellent for training and demonstrating the art of fencing for sport among civilians. But we are not civilians, are we?”

  He looked confused. I continued.

  “The saber, however, is the weapon of warriors. It is closely related to the naval cutlass. And since my opponent and I are both professional naval warriors, I therefore state that it is a matter of naval honor to conduct this combat with sabers.”

  Then, ignoring the lieutenant, I executed a perfect parade-ground right-face and addressed His Excellency, Don Sabas, myself. “Tu Excelencia . . . Debo que insistir en usar los sables para la demonstración del combate entres guerreros navales, en la tradición más alta del honor de nuestra profesión.”

  Including the words warrior and honor in my demand hit the figurative target dead center. The Spanish aren’t the only ones who can turn a flowery phrase. A gasp rose from the crowd when they heard my demand, spoken in their own lingo. I don’t pretend to be completely articulate in the language, but the expressions on their faces proved I got my gist across. Especially to the military men, who knew that the saber is heavier and more difficult to use, potentially more dangerous, and far more demonstrative of machismo. And, alas, I fear they got no joy at hearing honor being invoked by a lowly, uncultured norteamericano.

  The lieutenant went a bit wide-eyed at all this and passed along my entire earlier statement in Spanish to his admiral also. That worthy and the captain-general had a quick conference, after which they publicly pronounced their decision to the audience. Another unfriendly buzz rose from the crowd. I caught enough Spanish from one grandee to know he was opining to his mates that the perfidious Anglo used a minor procedural point in order to delay the inevitable—probably out of abject fear.

  The lieutenant then explained in English the captain-general’s official reply to my request: “It will be our pleasure to provide a matched pair of sabers, Commander Wake, from my personal collection. Unfortunately, this request necessitates a slight delay in order to procure the weapons, and we beg your indulgence. Perhaps ten minutes, sir.”

  I bowed to the captain-general and said to the translator, “Lieutenant, please present my greatest respects and profound appreciation to His Excellency, for his gallant approval of my simple appeal. Now we will have a true test of combat skills between naval men.”

  After shooting me a questioning glance, Admiral Luce smiled in gratitude to the Spanish admiral and captain-general. Rork had lost his smile, however. He was the only American present who knew about Boreau’s father and had been right beside me in Havana, Florida, and New York back in ’86.

  His face tightened and he shifted his eyes from me to the far corner of the courtyard, behind the well-dressed throng. Following his gaze, I scanned the faces and stopped, understanding immediately. Standing slightly apart from the others was a man I knew, the commanding officer of my opponent’s father, Colonel Isidro Marrón, head of the Spanish counterintelligence service in Cuba, a shadowy unit loosely affiliated with the well-known Military Corps of Public Order, or Orden Publico, which had detachments everywhere.

  Marrón’s outfit concentrated on island-based Cuban patriots fighting for independence, their off-island colleagues, and their American supporters in the United States. It was notorious for its efficiency and cruelty, a reflection of the commander’s personality. I could testify to both those traits. It was Marrón who had captured Rork and me. It was Marrón who had conducted the subsequent interrogation in the Audiencia dungeon. After we escaped, it was Marrón who had sent Agent Boreau to kill me. Our eyes met. A faint smile washed across Marrón’s hawk-nosed face.

  Rork coughed loudly, getting my attention. Then he briefly held up his left hand. Actually, Rork has no left hand anymore. The arm ends in a stump below his elbow, the result of a sniper five years earlier in French Indochina. It’d nearly been his death, for gangrene had set in. Fortunately, surgeons from the French navy saved his life.

  What people see now is in reality a finely detailed India-rubber forearm and hand, complete with wrinkles and fingernails carved in. Its fingers somewhat opened, the hand is in the shape of a slightly opened fist and can grip a bottle of rum, an oar, or a belaying pin. One must be very close, indeed, to spot its counterfeit nature. Rork gets its realistic flesh tones repainted once a year by a longtime lady friend who plies her evening trade near the Washington Navy Yard. Rork says she does it gratis, as her patriotic effort for the navy.

  More important than the aforementioned capabilities, the rubber hand part can be removed in a split-second to expose a very wicked-looking, five-inch-long marlinespike. This is securely anchored to a prosthetic appliance underneath, making it an extension of his still-strong upper left arm. Rork’s spike is extremely useful in our field of work: concealed, lethal, and quiet. And during dialogues with the lower sorts of humanity, it’s an excellent motivator for cooperation. My friend is inordinately proud of it.

  His upheld left hand suddenly dropped—a long-standing signal between us. It meant I was to hold nothing back. This wasn’t a friendly match anymore.

  His Excellency, Don Sabas, was true to his word, and ten minutes later a breathless servant arrived at a run down the five flights of marble steps from the captain-general’s second-floor personal apartments, carrying a long leather case. Glistening inside were two steel sabers, polished to mirror brightness and beautifully engraved, elegant tools of death, which Don Sabas then personally presented to each of us.

  2

  Anticipation

  Palace of His Excellency

  Don Sabas Marin y Gonzalez

  Captain-General of Cuba

  Plaza de Armas, Havana

  10 a.m., Tuesday

  25 September 1888

  The palace of the Captain-General of Cuba is more than three hundred years old and commands the Plaza de Armas, the government square close by the entrance channel to Havana Bay. Around this plaza stand equally ancient edifices, most of which are occupied in the civil and military administration of the island. The porous coral stone of the palace, faded to a dirty tan or gray, makes it look even older, reminding me of Roman antiquities—moldy, crumbling, evoking past glories and better days long gone by.

  The palace is magnificently colonnaded with massive stone pillars across its entire front. Behind the pillars is a high portico, where visitors disembark from vehicles before a small entryway in the center of the palace’s eastern wall. That very morning, a line
of fancy lacquered and gilded carriages took the American naval officers from the boat landing to the portico, where we disembarked and were greeted by a great falderal of trumpets, drums, stamped feet, and shouted commands.

  The Spanish are the very best in the world at presenting a gracious welcome. In this case, it was accomplished by a platoon of Spanish soldiers on guard duty. Fabulously attired in sixteenth-century uniforms of red and gold blouses and pantaloons, with shining brass breastplates and peaked helmets, they stood like statues in the sweltering, humid air. In addition to their tropically inappropriate uniforms, the soldiers carried heavy broadswords and pikes, the weapons apparently as old as the building. Their formation and drill in our honor were impeccable.

  The interior of the building is typical of Spanish palaces—a magnificent courtyard, or garden patio, with elaborately decorated balconies overlooking it from two floors. The center of the garden featured a gleaming white, alabaster statue of Christopher Columbus, backed by graceful palms and a panorama of meticulously tended tropical flowers in every color imaginable. Fountains provided the cooling sound of falling water as peacocks and blue herons strolled among the garden, like beautiful moving pieces of art. Frangipani and jasmine scented the motionless, damp air, and from somewhere on the upper floor came the faint echoes of a gentle guitar melody. I recognized it as classical Andalusian, the Moorish laments coming through clearly.

  The whole thing was a fairy-tale scene of graceful, imperial beauty. “A forlorn fantasy of benign feudalism on a global scale, and an obscene justification for slavery,” as one Cuban, dark-skinned friend explained his Spanish overlords’ attitude to me. “After all, they needed slaves to build their pretty palaces.”

  I must admit, the Spanish had certainly done it up right that morning. The demonstration of martial skills was to be carried out on a regulation fencing piste, the French word meaning “path.” The piste delineates a seven-meter-long-by-one-meter-wide rectangular strip, within which adversaries must remain. The opponents initially face each other from two meters on either side of the center line, which runs athwart the piste.

  If a man retreats along his half of the piste as far back as the one-meter-long warning box near the end, it constitutes a serious setback. If he retreats through the warning box to the final one meter at the end of the piste, it is a sign of cowardice. The entire piste that morning was constructed of wide planks of heavy mahogany, elevated by its thickness to perhaps three inches above the stone floor of the patio.

  There were three members of the jury, or judges, to administer the match. Two members of the jury took their places close around the piste, beside and slightly behind their fencer, in order to see the results of the attacks and defenses. The president of the jury took his position in front of the center of the piste. His subordinates would report their observations to him. His decision on whether a point should be awarded would be final.

  The staff lieutenant indicated that my foe and I should take our positions. Both of us wore black jackets padded with several layers of tightly woven, heavy material. The right sleeve was padded out to the wrist. A thick, white gauntlet glove protected the right hand. The left arm and hand, usually held behind the fencer, were unprotected. Under the jacket, I wore standard-issue working-dress trousers and a shirt. A leather helmet with meshed metal mask was held under my left armpit, the saber in my right hand, pointing downward.

  We stood there, facing each other, but had yet to be formally introduced to the audience. The lieutenant now took care of that detail, doing so first in Spanish. Then he repeated it in English.

  “Your Excellency, Don Sabas Marin y Gonzalez, Captain-General of His Majesty’s Most Faithful Isle of Cuba. Your Excellencies, the distinguished Admiral of the West Indies, the Lieutenant-General of all Armies of the Spanish Americas, your Eminence the Archbishop of our Most Catholic Church of Cuba, the Rear Admiral of the North Atlantic Squadron of the U.S. Navy, and our other distinguished guests, fellow officers, and visitors from the United States. I have the distinct honor to introduce our combatants this morning.”

  His hand swept around toward me. “Representing the navy of the United States, we have Commander Peter Wake, a veteran of twenty-five years of service, and recipient of the Legion of Honor of France, the Lion of the Atlas of Morocco, the Order of the Sun of Peru, and the Royal Order of Cambodia. Commander Wake is a staff officer, currently assigned as the officer in charge of procedural protocol for the admiral aboard the warship Richmond, flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron.”

  Polite applause fluttered.

  “And now, representing the honor of the magnificent navy of His Most Catholic Majesty, Alfonso León Fernando Maria Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Austria-Lorena, King of Spain and all her dominions across the Ocean Seas, we have Lieutenant Commander Julio Cesar Boreau y Morales, a veteran of fourteen years of service to His Majesty, and the recipient of the Cross of the Order of Military Merit, Second Class. Lieutenant Commander Boreau is currently assigned to the cruiser Reina Regente, the newest of our mighty fleet, as the senior gunnery officer, a position of great martial ardor and responsibility. He also has the considerable merit of being the eighteen-eighty-seven foil fencing champion for both the Mediterranean Squadron and the West Indies Squadron!”

  Cheers and thunderous applause reverberated in the patio. Surrounded by faces distinctly unsympathetic toward me, I was beginning to understand what the animal feels at a bullfight or what Christians felt at the Roman Coliseum. I caught sight of Marrón, standing there, arms folded, calmly taking it all in from his perch on the corner staircase. His revenge seemed about to be realized.

  At this juncture in the narrative, I would think the reader has grown suspicious of the true nature of my work and exactly why I came to be aboard Richmond in Havana in September of 1888. Well, nothing is ever as it first appears in Havana.

  Not even me.

  3

  Naval Intelligence

  In the past at

  Cuba, Florida, New York City

  1886 and 1888

  As was announced to the onlookers in the palace, I had twenty-five years of naval service by 1888, but they weren’t all aboard ships or at shore stations, or even in uniform. For the previous seven years, I’d worked in a field far different than that usually associated with the navy. I was an operative in the Special Assignments Section of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

  Since 1882, the Office of Naval Intelligence has been the sole organization in the United States government charged with discovering the political, military, naval, and industrial capabilities of other countries. We use naval attachés, squadron intelligence officers, and special operatives to gather, analyze, and disseminate this information. When American presidents (few of whom speak a foreign language, have traveled abroad, or possess a detailed understanding of other cultures) need to know what is transpiring in various parts of the world, they call on our expertise, so they may make better-informed decisions. Well, that is our hope, anyway.

  My area of operations is the Caribbean, more specifically, the turbulent island of Cuba. I am expected to be familiar with the facts, flavor, and nuances of the Spanish government’s domination of Cuba through its military and civil organs, as well as Spanish military and naval capabilities against the United States. I am also expected to be well versed in the personalities and activities of the Cuban revolutionaries who have been fighting for independence since 1868. I keep my professional assessments objective, but my personal sentiments are well known to be pro-Cuban. I have no doubt the Cuban patriots will prevail, and I count several in the independence movement as personal friends.

  Back in 1886, I was sent to Havana to follow through on a secret message that had been delivered to a young New York politician named Roosevelt, presumably from a revolutionary group. The message warned of great bloodshed about to be unleashed in Cuba and of a Spanish spy in the American government, possibly at Key West, a place already well known as a nest of Cuban re
volutionary intrigue. The message called for a clandestine meeting in Havana with Roosevelt. My impression was that the meeting would seek formal recognition of the Cuban rebels by the United States, in the hope that it would hasten the fall of the Spanish and avert the impending slaughter.

  My assignment was to attend the meeting in lieu of Roosevelt, to determine the validity of the threat of massive violence and the extent of Cuban revolutionary activity between Havana and Key West, and to try to uncover the Spanish spy in Key West. But things quickly unraveled. The message was from the Cubans, but Marrón had intercepted and deciphered it, then sent it on. When the trap was sprung, he got me and Rork instead of Roosevelt. We were taken to the infamous Audiencia dungeon.

  It was quite a catch for him and potentially disastrous for the United States. But before he could publicly flaunt our capture, Rork and I were whisked out of his custody and escaped the island through the good offices of a senior friend in the Catholic Church and the wily skills of a noxious Cuban bandit.

  Marrón then sent Agent Boreau on my trail. He followed me to Key West, then Tampa. We finally ended up in a confrontation at Patricio Island, my home on the lower Gulf coast of Florida. Before dawn one morning, Boreau and some of his cohorts invaded the island and attempted to kill me, my daughter, Useppa, and Sean Rork. They very nearly succeeded.

  Only Boreau survived among the Spanish attackers, a result of my daughter’s moralistic Christian plea not to complete my business and execute him after his capture. With misgivings, I sent his wounded body—Rork put that spike through his shoulder and I’d shot him—back to his colonel in Havana with the warning that should I ever see Boreau again in America, I would finish the job properly. Six months later, I saw him in New York City and fulfilled that promise.