Drenched in sweat, Morgan jammed the shovel into the dark, thick muck and turned it over. In just a few motions, he had dug the outline of a trench that would run all the way to the river. Another one a few feet away would run in the same direction.
Morgan had already figured out the layout of the conservation site. Now he needed the men to do the digging. He had taken out books on hatcheries and fish breeding and had even found a conservation map of the land southwest of Havana where the Ariguanabo River meanders into dark lagoons.
He was determined to learn everything he could about fish breeding and another species turning up everywhere: frogs. In the late 1950s, frog legs had become a delicacy at restaurants in the United States, and Morgan saw the potential.
Olga and his men were witnessing a different side of Morgan. They had always known him as a rebel fighter. To see him poring over books and drafting paper was almost out of character, but at the same time, they could see him carrying out his tasks with the same passion that he showed in the mountains.
He had lined up an American investor to buy the concrete bricks and cement to start building the holding tanks for the water. Frank Emmick promised to stay out of the way and let Morgan do the work. Morgan was grateful that Emmick was willing to turn over several thousand dollars, but he remained leery of the Ohio contractor’s ties to the US government, including the CIA. It seemed like every investor who had come to Havana after the revolution had bragged about their government connections. After what Morgan had just gone through with the FBI, he wanted nothing to do with the feds.
For him, the hatchery was all that mattered. He had never designed anything in his life, and the level of technology and science required to create a successful conservation site was beyond anything he had learned in school. The design had to be scientifically sound with just the right lighting, temperatures, and chemicals.
Morgan had pressured the government to turn over the land and even prompted the agriculture ministry to loan a few trucks to the project. Nothing like this had been done in Cuba. He was putting everything on the line.