The car idled outside the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (NIAR). Morgan stepped out and grabbed the package on the seat. He had no desire to set foot in a government building, but he had to meet with Pedro Miret Prieto, the agriculture minister, who was getting married in a few days.
Morgan had distanced himself from most government leaders, but he tolerated Miret. Castro had appointed him a year earlier, and the minister had quietly approved of Morgan’s work at the hatchery, even allowing him to use government trucks.
Morgan handed Miret the package: a frog-skin wallet for him and a purse for his bride. Miret took the gifts and smiled, motioning for his visitor to sit, but Morgan didn’t have time. His men were waiting for him.
As Morgan turned to leave, several guards walked in the door and surrounded him. “Comandante Morgan,” said one, “we have to place you under arrest.”
Just then, a guard reached for Morgan’s sidearm, and the others grabbed his arms. Turning to the head guard, Morgan sternly demanded to know why he was being arrested. But the guard couldn’t answer. “We are taking you, Comandante, to the Technical Investigations offices,” he responded.
Morgan stayed calm. He allowed the guards to place him in handcuffs.
As he was being led down the hallways, the workers cleared out of the way and stared in disbelief as the Yanqui comandante was led out the door.
Olga ran out of the nursery and headed for the telephone. One of her bodyguards said a call had come from the National Institute for Agrarian Reform. It was Miret’s secretary: Morgan was attending an important meeting, but he wanted Olga to meet him at the office.
Olga paused. If Morgan was going to be late, he would call himself. “Why did he not call?” Olga asked.
The secretary repeated that Morgan was in a very important meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. But he wanted her to meet him there. Olga’s heart raced. She knew something was wrong. She hung up the phone and told Alejandrina to watch the babies. She and the escorts would be driving to the NIAR offices. Olga was hoping she was wrong, that perhaps Morgan was too busy to phone. But as she and the men rounded the corner, she saw the flashing lights and police officers standing around the building. But these weren’t just cop cars. These were Technical Investigations Department vehicles.
As they pulled up to the curb, one of Olga’s friends ran to the passenger side of the car, where Olga was sitting. “William is not here,” she said, out of breath. “They took him to the Technical Investigations Department.”
Then the police spotted Olga. Before they could reach the car, she ordered the driver back to the apartment. She didn’t care if he ran red lights the entire way. He had to step on it.
Olga wondered whether someone from Morgan’s entourage had betrayed him. The only one who wasn’t around was Manuel Cisneros Castro, one of Morgan’s bodyguards, who had left abruptly the night before to visit his gravely ill mother in Oriente Province. Cisneros had been with them since the Trujillo conspiracy, but to this day, no one trusted him—especially Olga.
Police cars had surrounded the penthouse. Olga ran to the door. She didn’t care what happened to her, but her children were inside. On the top floor, standing on the balcony, Ossorio looked down and saw that the building was surrounded. He grabbed a handful of grenades and a Thompson submachine gun and perched near the door, waiting.
“I was waiting to shoot them,” he recalled.
Olga walked past the police at the door and headed up the elevator. Policemen were waiting in the hallways between the elevator and the apartment. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“We’re going to conduct a search of your apartment,” one of them answered.
As they walked in together, she saw Ossorio. “No, Pedro, no,” she said. “I am with them. Don’t shoot.”
Ossorio could see that the police were walking too close to Olga for him to do anything.
“Throw down your gun,” one of the officers ordered. Ossorio stood with his gun pointing at the police. He refused to budge.
“Pedro, do as they say,” Olga said.
Ossorio tossed down his gun. The police surrounded and cuffed him. After they took him outside, Olga saw that some of the men were rifling through the cupboards and turning over the furniture. Upstairs, her infant daughter was wailing. “Stop now!” she screamed. “This is Commander Morgan’s home. You will get a search warrant. I want to see what legal right you have to search his house.”
The police captain came down the stairs and stopped his men. “Stand by outside,” he instructed them. “We will bring an order back.” The police didn’t need a legal order for most homes, but this one belonged to a comandante.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Olga ran upstairs. She closed her bedroom door and went to the closet where Morgan had stashed hand grenades and machine guns. One by one, she grabbed them and dropped them down the garbage chute. Then she ran to the dresser and found the maps of the Escambray mountains. She tossed those down the chute, too.
In the nursery, Alejandrina, shaking, had crouched in a corner with Olguita.
“It’s OK, Alejandrina, it’s OK,” Olga said. “Nothing will happen to you.”
The police knocked on the front door. Olga opened it, and the captain flashed the order. As soon as he did, the entire squad crashed the penthouse, scurrying into the rooms, turning them upside down, pulling out drawers, knocking over lamps.
“We have to place you under arrest,” the captain said to Olga.
Even before the presidential debates ended, Loretta Morgan’s phone was ringing. The local news reported that the Castro government had arrested William Morgan, but there were few details. One radio newscast said that he had been taken into custody for helping insurgents in the mountains. Another said he was caught hiding guns.
The news broke just hours before the last of the televised Kennedy-Nixon debates, this one, from New York, including strong words about Cuba and the need to stop the spread of Communism in a nation so close to the United States.
Normally, Loretta would have been glued to the TV, watching the young Catholic senator in the final stages of the campaign. But she was a basket case. Every time the phone rang, another friend or church member was calling to ask if she had heard anything new.
Alexander Morgan slumped in a chair, staring at the flickering screen of the television. The broadcasts revealed nothing new, other than what the Cuban government had released in a press release earlier that day.
No matter what her son had told her, Loretta had worried that something like this might happen. The last time they spoke, Morgan talked about the hatchery and how he and Olga were trying to settle down and raise a family. But she knew what a challenge that would be for him. She had no idea what a Cuban jail was like, but it couldn’t be good. Her worst fears were coming true.
She went to bed that night with a rosary clutched in her hand, but she couldn’t sleep. She kept praying the same frantic, silent prayers over and over.
The next day, the newspaper that landed in their driveway announced: “Cuban Army Disclosed Arrest of Major Morgan, ex-Toledoan.” The Toledo Blade article mentioned that Jesús Carreras also had been arrested but, again, with few details. There was no information about a trial, nothing about specific charges, nothing about whether Loretta Morgan would ever see her son again.