If not for stomach cramps, Anatol Kostikov might have reacted differently when the Cuban cops forced him against the car and tried to cuff him. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation because he had been looking forward to following the hippie and the traitor into the cemetery. If Vernum Quick, the deviant worm, was right, they would lead him to a mausoleum where, locked inside, was something the Russian had wanted all his life.

Oh yeah—plus the letters. Official business came first. Afterward, he could enjoy his private time.

Anatol had been reminding himself of that when the stupid cops ordered him out of the Mercedes. Their timing could not have been worse. Later, no matter how he explained what happened to Cuba’s DGI, the only thought in his mind was If I’m cuffed, I won’t be able to wipe when I find a toilet.

The cramps had made a fool of him already. Like at the stadium that afternoon when someone—an American CIA agent, he suspected—had stripped off his pants and robbed him. Until now, money and his IDs were secondary. It was the loss of his top secret Vul pistol that worried him most.

Humiliating for a direct descendant of legendary Terek Cossack warriors. He’d stood there by the stadium urinals, hands cupping his genitals, while he tried to convince an army lieutenant to do an immediate lockdown before the Yankee bastard escaped.

This embarrassment could never be revealed to anyone, let alone explained to two Cuban cops. However, after getting out of the Mercedes, Anatol did offer them his satellite phone and say, “Call embassy. You get big promotion, I think, you help me catch traitor. Perhaps American spy, yes?”

Not these two hard-ass motorcycle bulls. Their big mistake was a knee in the kidney after berating him for having no passport, no ID. Then the talkative cop had revealed what this was really about: “What you got against Cuban baseball players, señor? That little man you after, he’s half your size. He’s a shortstop, not a traitor—already got a contract for the major leagues. Try saying the same shit to us, you dick-sucking bolá. Now, give me your goddamn hands and let me cuff you.”

A knee under the ribs ended all attempts at diplomacy. Anatol crouched, spun with his elbow extended, and crushed the cop’s nose. The key, as he’d taught hundreds of agents, was to move fluidly and continue the attack until the situation was stabilized. The second cop was reaching for his pistol, unprepared for an unarmed suspect to charge. Anatol shattered his knee with a side kick and caught him before he fell. Did a simple duck-under, then framed the cop’s head with forearms and hands that resembled a figure four.

“You lazy turd of shit.”

Those were the last words the Cuban heard. Anatol twisted so violently that, before he killed the talkative cop, the one with the busted nose, he looked at his hands: no blood. Good. No severed head there either. Even better.

It had happened to the Russian before.

Then he stepped back and felt something akin to horror when he realized what he’d done. As a senior intelligence agent with diplomatic immunity, he could get away with just about anything—except this. That’s why he had recruited that little worm Vernum Quick. Murder the traitor from the insane asylum, and the hippie, too, or anyone else who got in his way, until he had what he’d been sent to find—plus a few other items the Russian considered spoils of war.

A fall guy . . . He had to find Vernum.

Anatol didn’t linger over the bodies. Normally, he would have taken their IDs, their weapons, and pocketed whatever cash they had. Under different circumstances, he might have shipped home their shitty rice-burning Kawasakis, too, just for the fun of it.

Anatol was crazy about motorcycles.

Not this time.

He confirmed the talkative cop was dead—a man could survive a broken windpipe—then stripped off the Cuban’s duty belt: pistol, magazines, mace, and . . . handcuffs . . . Where the hell had the handcuffs gone?

Anatol retrieved them from the side of the road and hurried to his Mercedes. But try to find a public restroom in this third-world banana republic . . . Desperate, he kicked down the door of a house, ripped out the phone, and told an old man who had refused to let him enter, “Fool. Now must kill you.”

This time, he did a sloppier job. Vernum Quick, after all, was an amateur.

•   •   •

EARLIER, at a pharmacy, the Russian had bought two bottles of pink medicine that resembled Pepto-Bismol, and a packet of loperamide—Warning, the directions read, do not exceed two tablets daily. The pills had brought him a few hours of relief, so he tossed back four more, washed them down with half a pint of vodka, and refocused.

He knew where the hippie and the traitor would go next—Plobacho. Not much doubt about that. Russian intelligence had a large file on Imelda Casanova. For decades, the KGB had known about her love affair with the Castros. The agency was also aware that much of their correspondence was unaccounted for. While the brothers were alive, the old woman had remained an untouchable, politically speaking.

Things were different now.

Officially, Anatol’s orders had been to confiscate the woman’s personal effects in the interest of “preserving the history of the Socialist Party.” In fact, he’d been sent for political reasons, as he damn well knew after thirty years in the clandestine services. If he had to guess, his guess was this: Vladimir Putin feared the Castros had let an uncomfortable truth slip in one of their letters. There were many ugly secrets from those early years. Many? Hell, thousands. One dated back to 1963. Cuban intelligence had recorded Lee Harvey Oswald’s wild threats at their embassy in Mexico City six weeks before the assassination of JFK.

Even uglier secrets might have been revealed, but none had more cachet. Anatol turned west toward Plobacho and thought about that. If the truth came out, it wouldn’t cause an international firestorm, but there would be headlines. Headlines would cause more suspicion, more media surveillance. That might hamper Moscow’s plans. America’s right-wingers, of course, wouldn’t concede the obvious: embassies worldwide rejected crazy aspiring traitors on a daily basis. It was impossible to predict who would do what. If the rantings of every applicant were printed and shared, governments would choke on paper. That was as true now as it was in 1963.

Anatol, however, could admit to himself that Havana and Moscow should have taken a former Marine Sharpshooter a bit more seriously. If they’d dropped a friendly line, perhaps, to their comrades at the CIA, it might have changed history.

Funny. Pills and vodka had settled his stomach. Anatol, hunching over the steering wheel, laughed at his own joke.

He drove through Miramar into the embassy district, past his favorite restaurant, El Aljibe, which served the best pollo and black beans he’d ever had. Now, though, the odor of chickens roasting on a spit made him want to vomit. He burped and tasted the jerked sandwich he’d eaten on the plane.

Vernum, he remembered, had bought it for him.

That deviant freak. I will crush his head when I’m done here.

But not yet. First, he had to find the bastard.

On the passenger seat was a handheld GPS locator. The Russian had followed Vernum’s travels with mild indifference until a little after ten, when he’d received a suspicious text: Dropped phone in water. Messages garbled cannot call. Meet you where?

Seconds later, the Cuban’s transponder had gone dead. It was now ten fifty-eight and the screen still showed only Vernum’s last location. Or . . . maybe Vernum, the sex pervert, had switched off the transponder because he wanted privacy.

Anatol thought, I’ll teach you to hide from me, and hit Destination. The computer responded with estimated travel time to the pervert’s location: twenty-three minutes.

Eighteen minutes later, Anatol Kostikov drove up a dirt lane to a house where a woman—a very pretty Latina—and two screeching whelps ran from the porch to greet him, one of them in baggy pink-and-white pajamas who called, “Marion . . . I knew you’d come back!”

They’re expecting a female friend, he thought, then decided, No, a Cuban female couldn’t afford a Mercedes, but a CIA agent could. Marion . . . in America, it might be a name for a male pizda.

Kostikov got out.

The whelp in pajamas turned and fled, but the woman stood her ground.

•   •   •

KOSTIKOV, IN HIS best Spanish, said to the woman, “I am friends with Marion. How else I know sex deviant was here? Vernum Quick, that is sex deviant’s name. Marion, he is gringo. Tell me where is my friend and Vernum Quick.”

The woman, arms folded, backed away. “Describe what he looks like.”

“Sex deviant, he is puny. A Cuban—”

“No, tell me what the American looks like.”

Kostikov thought, Thank you, stupid woman. “Oh . . . you mean my good friend, Marion?” He laughed while he recalled what he’d been told after the bathroom incident. “He is strong man with glasses. Often, a green hat he wears on head. I have idea . . .” He watched her face carefully. “Tell me where Marion is found. You and me, I will drive. He will tell you we want the sex deviant arrested. Is good, no?”

The woman didn’t buy it, but her reaction confirmed she knew where the American was. Or, at least, knew more than she was willing to reveal. That was useful. Now that the cramps were gone, it was pleasurable to look at her standing in the headlights of the Mercedes, her body visible through a cheap cotton robe. All but her breasts, which were concealed by her arms. The Russian tried to change that by extending his hand. “I am Anatol. What are you called?”

Defiant bitch. She shook her head, arms still folded, and asked, “What is Marion’s last name?”

The Russian looked past her into the house. The youngest whelp was on the porch holding what might be a machete. That told him they were alone. Even so, he asked, “Where is husband?”

“He’s . . . asleep . . . And it’s none of your business anyway. He’s a soldier. My husband won’t like you being here.”

“Husband is fool and you are liar.” Kostikov pushed the woman aside when she tried to block his path, then pushed her again too hard and she sprawled sideways onto the ground—nice what the headlights revealed when her bathrobe flew open, but only for a second.

The Russian stared at her face, her legs, mindful he had packed condoms and a Viagra tablet somewhere, along with the name of an expensive prostitute. Damn . . . they were in his stolen wallet. But no reason not to strip off the Latina’s robe by pretending to help her up—a memory he could save for when he felt better. He smiled, leaned, and offered his hand . . . then stood abruptly, aware that the child was charging him, a kitchen knife, not a machete, in her hand.

The woman screamed, “Sabina, go in the house!” while the girl screamed something about a fascist gringo who would feed him to the sharks.

The Russian grinned, amused, while his hand located the pistol he’d taken from the Cuban cop. It was in his back pocket, a 9mm Glock with a magazine that held eighteen rounds. He waited until the whelp stopped beside her mother and looked up, threatening him with the knife. Hilarious—she was the size of a bee. “Who is this dangerous gringo?” he asked the girl. “Is my good friend Marion?”

“Leave my mother alone,” the girl hollered, then realized what she’d just heard. “Do you . . . you really know him?”

The woman, getting to her feet, told the girl to hush, but the girl kept talking. “I don’t believe you. If you don’t go away and leave us alone, he’ll do anything I tell him to do.

“Go in the house,” the woman ordered. “Don’t say another word.”

Yes, the girl also knew where to find the American. Kostikov used his gentlest voice. “Is important I find our friend Marion. Tell me, then we will all laugh before he feeds me to . . . did you say ‘sharks’?”

“If that’s what I want,” the girl said. She yanked her arm away from her mother. “He has the fastest boat in Cuba and it’s invisible. I’ll tell him to tie you up and throw you in the sea if you don’t leave right now.” She lunged with the knife. The Russian, still grinning, held up his hands in surrender and backed a step. Didn’t protest when the mother took the knife from the brat and herded her back to the house. Yet, something about the way the woman moved bothered him—so purposeful and suddenly in a hurry.

He let it go, thinking, An American with an invisible boat? It was a fairy tale no one would believe. But Kostikov, after thirty years in the clandestine services, was convinced, CIA.

Worse, the son of a whore had his silent pistol.

From inside the Mercedes gonged a persistent chiming. The satellite phone. He reached in and had a look. It was a text from Vernum, but just a string of garbled letters. Maddening . . . But wait . . . that meant the man’s phone had been switched on. This was confirmed by the GPS locator, which he held up for better satellite reception. The sex deviant—his phone, at least—was nearby, somewhere to the northeast. He zoomed in so that Google Earth showed the roads and terrain. Cross-country, only two kilometers, near what appeared to be the ruins of a collapsed building. By car, due to Cuba’s terrible roads, five times the distance and over two bridges.

Better to walk; quieter, and he wouldn’t have to cross the river—but how long would he be free of the stomach cramps?

That goddamn chicken sandwich.

No, he would have to drive. On the way, he’d take more pills and finish the vodka.

Kostikov tossed both handsets into the car and, when he turned to check the house, reached for the pistol in his back pocket. Couldn’t help himself. The mouthy little girl, in the glare of headlights, was on the porch, taunting him with her middle fingers, both jabbing at him, while she stuck out her tongue and made grotesque faces. One of Santa’s elves dressed in pink-and-white—she reminded him of that. Inside, he could see the mother rushing from window to window as if searching for something—a weapon better than a knife, he guessed.

Kostikov took a breath and sought a reason to stay and punish the whelp for her insolence. Easily done. Finding Vernum was important—he needed a scapegoat—but so was recovering his stolen pistol. The girl knew more about the American than she had admitted. Same with the mother, if it came to that.

Kostikov started toward the porch. He despised children. He had never killed one, but it was exactly the sort of thing a sex deviant like Vernum Quick would do.