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returned to his leather armchair and became as attentive as possible. There was no point in irritating the man. The first two years of his incarceration had been spent in serious prisons. First, here at the State Security detention facility, the Villa Marista, but in a regular cellblock where he lived with four other men in a cell half the size of the one he now occupied. Next he went to a general prison, at Combinado del Este. There it was eight men to a cell, sleeping in tiered bunks one atop the other, the food so meager that doctors classified their level of undernourishment as moderate, severe, or critical, and it was not uncommon for prisoners to kill each other over food brought in by relatives. No, he thought, there was no point in irritating the colonel. He had saved him, brought him back to the Villa Marista, and put him in this well-appointed hellhole. And the price of redemption for his “financial crimes” was at least interesting.
    It was a strange turn of fate. Robert Cipriani was a fugitive from the United States. There, he had done what other financiers do daily. He had taken money from fools. He, however, had been caught, and had fled—twenty million dollars in hand—to one of the world’s few havens from extradition. Here, the Cubans had accepted him, and his money, allowing him to live well for more than a decade. Then they had come in the night and dragged him away, convicted him of financial crimes against the government, which to this day were vague at best. All of it to one purpose. To put him where he was now, serving the interests of State Security.
    But at least there was decent food, and the weekly teenage whore. There was his computer, which allowed him to work again, and over the past five years he had accumulated another five million. And that was the best game there was. Better even than anything the teenage whore could offer.
    “Tell me your troubles,” Cipriani said. He studied the colonel’s dour expression. He was a tall man—six-foot-two,a full six inches taller than Cipriani—and when dejected, his tall, hard, angular body curved like a great, bony question mark. He was hatless today, and it pleased Cipriani to see his balding head glistening above his dark beard. The man was only forty, at best, and he already had less hair than the prisoner he pissed on at will. He also had a big nose that ruined any chance of being handsome.
You
were handsome once, Cipriani told himself. But that was before. Before they turned you into a walking skeleton.
    Cabrera told him about Devlin and Adrianna Mendez. “I did not know María Mendez had any relatives, other than her lunatic sister. I only learned of her after the old man told me what he wanted done.”
    “Look, you agreed to what the old man wanted. That’s a fait accompli. And I still don’t see the problem.” Cipriani shrugged away concern. “This is Cuba. They are in a maze with only one exit, the airport.”
    “I told you the problem. This woman, this niece of María’s, her lover is a detective.”
    “But he’s a detective walking in the same maze.”
    “But he has a guide.” Cabrera told him about Martínez. “I had no idea they would have this kind of help. If they begin to inquire too deeply …”
    Cipriani shook his head. “You have the ability to stop all of them. I’m still missing the problem.”
    Cabrera glared at him. “The problem is María Mendez, a hero of the revolution. Everyone above me is shitting their pants that the people will learn, not only that she has died, but that her body has been stolen. If they learn this, and then learn that her only surviving relative is raising questions about her death …” He lowered his eyes and ground his teeth. “It could become serious—serious enough to put our plan in jeopardy.”
    Cipriani rubbed his face, feeling again its cadaverlike transformation.
We
, he thought. It’s always
we
when thingsdon’t work out. “I still don’t know why you chose the Red