A gentle wind blew across the water as the guards took their place in the dry moat of La Cabaña, just as they did every night before falling in line at the execution wall. In the distance, the faint sputtering of the transport car could be heard at it entered the large gate at the far end of the fortress. Morgan stood next to the priest, John Joseph McKniff, another tranquil night over the vast, dark waters.
The aging priest dreaded these moments. He had watched so many young men lined up against the wall after praying with them that it sickened him. But something stirred in him after meeting Morgan. In the quiet of the prison cell, Morgan had whispered his last confession to Father McKniff and then turned to him calmly and said he was not afraid to die. He was supposed to be executed the next day in accordance with the law, but Morgan and Carreras had asked that their sentences be carried out that night.
“I have made my peace with God,” he wrote from his cell. “I can accept whatever happens with my mind clear and my spirit strong.”
Now standing next to each other, the men heard a sound coming from the prison that began in a low drone and then started to rise. The wind muffled the noise as it echoed from the center of the compound, but as they listened closer, they could hear the word “Viva” and then another: “Morgan.” Then again: “Viva . . . Morgan.”
To the guards, this wasn’t good. The prisoners were chanting in unison, a telltale sign that something was going to blow. Ever since Morgan was called to trial, the inmates had been uneasy, shouting at the guards and gathering in groups on the concrete patio in the yard. Now they were yelling from the rafters, “Viva Morgan.”
There had been rumors of an attack from the outside, prompting some of the guards to keep constant watch on the roof, lugging .50-caliber Czech and Russian anti-aircraft guns. The guards just needed to get Morgan into the car that would take him to the wall. The rush was on.
The transport car rounded the corner of the dry moat, rattling louder. The guards had long ago cut off the muffler of the vehicle so that it would create a loud, popping noise to scare the prisoners.
As Morgan and McKniff stood waiting, the priest glanced over at Morgan. These were the moments when the men began to whimper or shake uncontrollably. Some even refused to get into the car, planting their legs on the ground until a guard mercilessly slammed the backs of their legs with the butt of a rifle. Some even wet their pants. But Morgan waited calmly until the guard swung the rear door open, and he climbed into the backseat without saying a word.
As the car took off, the priest noticed that Morgan’s lips were moving. As McKniff inched closer, he could hear Morgan pray. It was as if Morgan couldn’t hear the roar of the engine. The vehicle rumbled around the stone wall encircling the fortress until it came to a stop in the center of the dry, grassy moat, the same place where everyone was taken.
Every time the car stopped at this spot, McKniff’s heart never failed to skip a beat. Instead of getting easier, the executions were harder. The priest had been in Havana since 1939, but the last two years had been wrenching. The guards opened the rear door.
Morgan stood up, turned to the men, and stepped away from the car. On the other side of the wall, the city was still alive, the faint glow of lights from a carnival breaking through the bleak darkness. As Morgan stood in the shadows, a guard flicked a switch, and suddenly the entire moat was bathed in the glow of floodlights. The guards looked at Morgan, but he was unfazed. As he wrote in the last letter to his mother: “It is not when a man dies, but how.”
Morgan raised his cuffed hands to the head guard. “I don’t want to wear these,” he said. Without hesitating, the guard nodded. Morgan was condemned to die, but he was still a comandante.
With free hands, Morgan turned to the middle-aged priest and embraced him. In just a short time, the two men had bonded. Then turning around, Morgan approached the sergeant of the firing squad. Stopping directly in front of him, Morgan held out his arms and surprised everyone by hugging him. “Tell the boys I forgive them,” he said.
For a moment no one said anything.
They had been shooting men every night, but they had never witnessed anything like this. Turning his back to the firing squad, Morgan walked slowly to the wall covered with gouges and bullet holes. McKniff followed him, whispering a prayer and then making the sign of the cross. As the priest stepped away, Morgan stopped him. “Father, wait,” he said, removing the rosary from around his neck. “Take this.”
McKniff tucked the beads in his pocket.
After waiting for Morgan to take his place, the sergeant shouted for the men to get ready. Standing in a straight line, the marksmen raised their Belgian rifles. Under the lights, Morgan looked larger than life as he stared across the moat at the men with the guns.
“Fuego! ” the sergeant shouted.
Shots jolted the air, the force of the bullets slamming Morgan against the wall.
Instead of shooting his heart or even his head, they had shot out his legs. McKniff looked up and saw that Morgan was not lying down, but sitting up. The priest could hear him gasping for breath. The hyenas had aimed for his knees. McKniff braced himself for the next volley. He could see the pain was shooting through Morgan’s entire body.
Breathing deeply, Morgan stared at the guard walking toward him. Stopping just a few feet away, the man aimed his submachine gun at Morgan’s chest heaving up and down in the light, and squeezed the trigger. The noise echoed across the prison yard as the smoke rose like mist under the floodlights.
The guards lowered their rifles.
Olga woke, her heart racing. In her sleep, she had seen William approach and kiss her. She looked around the room but didn’t see anyone. It must have been a dream, she said to herself.
She had arrived at the safe house in Santa Clara and wanted to rest until the escorts came to drive her to Camagüey. The secret police were crawling all over Santa Clara, so it was too dangerous for her to leave the house. The only thing keeping her going was the thought of being with her husband.
William. She had rehearsed what she would say when she saw him in the morning sun. With no radio in the house, Olga had no idea what was happening in Havana. It had been four days since she bolted from the embassy in the trunk of the ambassador’s car. She had stopped at a safe house in Cienfuegos and then left for Santa Clara. She wasn’t going to call her contacts until she reached Camagüey. She would know soon enough, she told herself.
Just after dark, the owner of the house went to the window and spotted the glow of headlights coming down the street. It was time.
It would take five hours to get to Camagüey, but if there were checkpoints on the main highways, it could take longer. Olga gathered her clothes and thanked the owner. She had stayed in so many safe houses by now that she had lost count. But she was grateful. Every person who hosted her was taking a deep, personal risk. Walking to the door, she looked both ways and then ran to the car with a man and two women crouched inside.
Three years earlier, Olga had disguised herself and jumped on a bus in Santa Clara to escape Batista’s secret police. Now she was heading out again, except this time she was going to rescue her husband.
The driver sped down the road . . . and into a phalanx of flashing red police lights. He tried to turn down another street, but more police cars blocked the road. Olga and her helpers were surrounded.
“No,” Olga said as she looked out the window.
The car came to a halt, and the police ran toward them with guns drawn. Olga wanted to run, but she couldn’t get out. There were too many police.
At the window, one of the officers screamed for them to surrender. Olga calmly exited the car and stepped to the curb. The policeman asked if she was Olga Morgan, but she shook her head. They would find out soon enough.
People gathered in the street, watching. The police were grilling the other two women and the man in the car, but they, too, weren’t saying a word. In frustration, the officers swung open the door of a police car and ordered them inside. They were going to the G2 station.
Olga stared straight ahead as the driver pulled away. There was nothing they could do to force her to talk. The police had tried to work the crowd of onlookers, but no one said a word. At first, Olga didn’t think anything of it. She was still jittery from the arrest. But as the car bounced along the back road, she realized that the people in the streets could have snitched on her. So could the people with her in the car. But no one did.
From the time she left the Brazilian embassy to her last stop in Santa Clara, people opened their doors to her. In every home, they offered food and clothes to fugitives fleeing the government. She was witnessing the beginning of a rebellion about to catch fire in the same place where she sought refuge three years earlier: the mountains. The rebels whom she had expected to see in Santa Clara—men from the Second Front and their newest recruits—were already in the Escambray.
What Morgan had started with the delivery of guns and supplies was morphing into a new armed struggle. It explained why G2 agents were stationed at every corner in Santa Clara. It explained why so many people were being hauled in for questioning. The occupants of every safe house reminded her of the impact that Morgan had made in the fight for their freedom.
Olga’s own freedom was over, she knew that. But she took solace in the fact that maybe Morgan had escaped. Maybe he was still alive. Maybe someday they all would live in peace.