Each move was harder than the last. This was her fourth home since the revolution ended. Olga had hoped to find sanctuary in America, but now that was looking less and less possible.
She was watching the lights moving in the harbor when she heard something coming from the bedroom. At first, it sounded like someone shouting, but she couldn’t be sure. Morgan was standing in front of the television set, clenching his fists. On the black-and-white screen, Castro was raising his arms and urging the crowd to join him in denouncing Americans in Cuba.
“Yanqui, vete a casa,” he chanted. Yankee, go home.
The studio audience repeated the line, “Yanqui, vete a casa! ”
She and Morgan had heard it before, but it was resonating with the audience more strongly, whipping them into a frenzy.
“That son of a bitch!” Morgan yelled.
Olga turned off the television, but Morgan was already rushing to put on his clothes. “I’m going down there,” he announced. Olga tried to calm him, but he wasn’t listening. “I am going down there,” he insisted. “Change your clothes. We are going to that program.”
Olga went down the hall to alert their escorts, but by the time they gathered their guns, Morgan had already jumped into the elevator.
“You can’t do this,” she called after him. “This is Castro.”
But Morgan was already on his way. Olga and several others ran down the stairs to catch up with him. She didn’t know what he was going to do, but it wasn’t going to be good. By the time she and the men reached the ground level, the blue Oldsmobile was gone. If they were going to reach the Telemundo studio in time, they had to leave immediately.
Her driver stepped on the gas as Olga frantically looked for her husband’s car as they sped along the route to the station. She knew his temperament better than anyone. He was still angry about Castro’s antics at the press conference. Then the drive-by shooting, which could have killed the baby. Perhaps he was reacting, after the fact, to the loss of his citizenship.
As Morgan pushed open the door of the station, the employees recognized him and waved him in. He then proceeded and opened the studio doors. As he entered, the audience applauded. “¡Comandante Morgan! ” they cheered, rising to their feet.
He had become a hero to the Cuban people. Newspapers editorialized in his favor, and civic groups pushed for the government to extend citizenship to him to make amends for the loss of his status as an American. He was bigger now than he had ever been.
Morgan obviously wasn’t scheduled to appear on Castro’s national address, but he had burst on set with cameras rolling. Castro was still delivering his speech. Ever the showman, the leader acted as if nothing was wrong. But Olga, who arrived moments later with the escorts, could see his head held straight up and his arms folded.
The two men walked away from the microphone and talked away from the audience, with Castro chewing on his cigar. Olga watched as the Cuban leader’s eyes narrowed. The escorts nervously held their weapons. Morgan, who had been talking intensely in Castro’s ear, backed up, spun around, and walked off the set, the audience cheering. No one heard what they said, but Olga could see that Castro was enraged.
As they walked outside, Olga pulled close to Morgan. “He is going to come after us,” she said, shaking her head. “He isn’t going to forget this.”
Even Morgan had a breaking point. Just before dawn, he slipped out of the apartment and climbed into his Oldsmobile with a couple of his men. If he could make it out of the city just for a day, he might be able to rest. He might be able to stop the spiraling.
He had spent barely any time with Olga and even less with little Loretta. The long talks he had with Olga in the mountains about what they would do after the war—it was all becoming a blur. It never seemed to end. Just when they thought they could move on, something else came along. He rarely spoke about his children in Ohio, but Olga could tell that he longed to visit them. He wanted all of his family to be together. He would do whatever it took to protect them and the Second Front, but it all was falling on him. The turmoil of Havana was consuming his life.
The sun was rising as the Oldsmobile sped toward the first row of foothills. The smell of rich earth filled the air as the open expanse of coffee plantations spread out before their eyes. In the distance, the guajiros tended the rows of tall, green coffee plants. This was the Cuba for which he had fought. These were the people who had stirred him, these were the people who mattered.
The car followed a dirt road and came to a clearing. Thick vines covered several shacks that surrounded a larger decayed wooden building. From just beyond the trees came the sound of rushing water.
“El Río Ariguanabo,” one of the men said, the Ariguanabo River, a waterway south of Havana.
Morgan walked toward the clump of trees and forlorn buildings. Pushing aside the branches, he peeked inside one of the huts. In the darkness, he saw a row of brick cauldrons filled with green, dank water. At the next hut, he pulled his knife from his leg holster and sliced through gnarled, twisted vines to get inside. Puzzled, the men watched him. He eyed the shacks and paced off the distance between them and the river. It appeared that ditches had been dug to allow water into the structures. The place looked like a fishery, but no one could say for sure.
Morgan got back into the car, the guards following. On the drive back to Havana, he asked about the river, the site, and the local wildlife. Something had clicked with him, but no one could figure out what it was.
He couldn’t sleep. Morgan had been walking the halls, stepping out on the balcony and coming back in. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the stop he made with his men. It wasn’t some desolate corner of Cuba. To Morgan, it represented something far different.
In that moment, he saw a place where they could become self-sufficient. If he and his men could get enough building materials and dig a network of ditches, they could build a hatchery. No one would bother them. No one would threaten their way of life. It would get them out of Havana, but more importantly, it would allow them to make money to survive. They would never need the government again.
The idea of creating a farm for fish and frogs—food that could be packaged and sold to restaurants—was real, Morgan told his men. The river was teeming with sunfish and bass that could be delivered to restaurants in Cuba and Miami.
The Second Front didn’t have a lot of choices. They had nowhere else to go. They either had to leave the country altogether or stay and try to do something in it. All he wanted from the government was to let the Second Front fend for itself on its own land. Morgan would do the rest. It was time for the rebels to take control of their destinies. It was time to assemble their resources and make a stand.