[b]Havana, Cuba[/b]
[i]August, 1955[/i]

	Whether by necessity of the mission or the sheer fact that the DIPS headquarters wanted to get rid of him, Enrique Valdés found himself and his crew on an [i]Aeroméxico[/i] charter flight straight to the palm-lined avenues of Havana. Valdés could hardly wait; it was a far sight better than the basement office that he had been confined to for the past month. He had heard rumors of the Mexican government’s activities in Havana, but the office had always restricted transfers to the most talented or secretive operatives. More important than that, the clubs and nightlife of the city were world renowned for their glamor.

	The plane touched down on the runway with a thud and taxied towards the terminal of the international airport, its facilities and concourses far beyond even Mexico City’s terminal. As a hub of often competing factions, Cuba proved to be a conveniently placed neutral ground for transit and business both legal and illegal. The Cuban authorities raked in cash from all sides of the regional powers, and it showed. Modern architectural design boldly defined the international features of José Martí International Airport. Over the intercom, the pilot announced that they were pulling into the terminal and thanked them for flying [i]Aeroméxico[/i]. A stewardess patrolled the aisles with an ashtray, allowing the passengers to stub out their cigarettes before disembarking.

	Valdés’s sunglasses shielded him from the worst of the sunlight as he emerged from the cabin door to descend the staircase that had been rolled up to the vibrantly bright-orange fuselage of Mexico’s premier airliner. He felt the humidity of the Cuban summer immediately wash over him. Clutching a pair of suitcases, he stepped onto the hot tarmac of the airport and scanned around the crowd of waiting people for his contact. The DIPS office had given him only a name: Carlos Rubio. Valdés knew better to ask around in the crowd, instead deciding to wait until someone called for him.

	“Enrique!” came a cheery voice from his side. “Hey man, I’m over here.”

	Valdés turned his head to see an eccentrically man with one hand in his pocket and the other waving him over. Dressed in Bermuda shorts with a rolled-up button down shirt and sunglasses atop a mess of curly hair, Carlos looked more like a tourist than a diplomat. The two DIPS agents met and exchanged a firm handshake. “I can always tell,” Carlos deadpanned. “You new guys always look like you’ve got a business meeting to remove the stick out of your asses. Did Urbano inspect you before you came out here?”

	“What? Are you [i]Sen͂or[/i] Rubio?” stammered Valdés, cocking his head to the side.

	“You can just call me Carlos. And I’m just gonna call you Enrique. I don’t like last names, neither do most of the boys in the office here,” Carlos said with a chuckle, patting Enrique’s shoulder. His hand returned to his pocket after each exchange, almost like they lived there when not doing anything else. He looked down to the brown suitcases that the newcomer had just set down on the ground. “I can get someone to take care of that.”

	He whistled for an attendant waiting with a baggage cart who ran over and stood smartly before the man. Carlos said the name of a hotel into the boy’s ear and placed a small bill into his waiting hand. The attendant grinned, waved to his friend, and both rushed forward to take Enrique’s suitcases. They scurried off to the cart, tossing them roughly into the back before walking off towards the airport terminal. Carlos looked at the perplexed Enrique: “Don’t worry,” he assured him, “the boys don’t steal your shit. They get beat by their manager if they do. Let’s go get some drinks.”

	Carlos took Enrique inside, up through a staircase that led them to the terminal proper. Havana’s airport was massive, with spokes going in every direction leading to various countries’ national airlines. Pan Am flights left daily to Miami and the Southern states, [i]Panair do Brasil[/i] flew to Rio de Janeiro, and a lavishly decorated gate to the British Overseas Airways Corporation led to their famed transatlantic flight services. Enrique looked at the sign for BOAC with a pang of morbid curiosity: part of their coordinated war plans involved capturing their pilots and aircraft with the express purpose of handing them British officials for a one-way trip back to the United Kingdom. A political act of merciful deportation to curry diplomatic favor and generate its reputation as a “good war.”

	He ignored a uniformed British pilot chomping on a cigar with a cavalier swagger as he tried to flirt with a Cuban stewardess. Enrique wondered if he would be facing a Mexican paratrooper’s gun barrel in the next few weeks. Carlos led Enrique past the main concourse’s huge center stage where they apparently put on shows and musical performances during high-travel periods. It was empty now, with huge speakers playing an upbeat dance number much to the delight of a drunk passenger who stumbled around in front of the stage pretending to salsa dance with an invisible partner.

	Outside the grand windows of the airport, the view of the tarmac and the airplanes parked along it contributed further to the grandeur of the airport. Enrique even caught a glimpse of the dirigibles moored along towers in a field past the runway: Cuba had bought several German zeppelins and had made a lot of money setting up Caribbean tour lines by air. Rich Mexicans and Americans alike would book leisure cruises on these airborne hotels, enjoying fine dining and entertainment with a view few things could match.

	Their detour around the stage led them around to a large bar situated on a ledge overlooking the center stage. Carlos ushered Enrique inside, finding them a booth next to the window in the back. Carlos invited Enrique to sit down, carefully hiding an examination of the bar’s patrons. He’d been here before, and some of the other customers certainly had too. While Carlos never tacitly acknowledged it, he knew many of the people here. They knew him as well.

	The window looked over a small garden separating the automobile loop by the main entrance. Tropical plants arranged pleasantly presented a welcoming view to frame the entrance of Cuba’s premier port of travel. A new parking lot had been built for the increasing number of private Cuban cars, many of which were owned by wealthier Havana residents in professional industries. Beyond that, the sprawling colonial architecture of the city was seen in the distance: José Martí had been built on old plantation land and was still in a rural part of the country just outside of the Havana city limits.

	“So, Enrique,” said Carlos as he finally sat down and waved at the bartender. The balding Cuban man standing by the taps motioned for a waitress to approach the table. “How long are you gonna be here?” he asked.

	“Hopefully not more than a few months,” the new employee replied. The waitress arrived at the table, leaning up against the table in a tight dress that left little to the imagination. Carlos obviously was enjoying the scene as Enrique uncomfortably tried to order a drink, his awkwardness twisting his words: “Yeah, hi, uh… shit, I’ll just have whatever… yeah, what my colleague wants.”

	Carlos chuckled, cocking his head towards the waitress. “What’s your name, baby?” he said with an attempt at charm.

	The waitress smiled and played the game, stepping back from the table and putting her hands on her hips. “Vera,” she replied. “Now it looks like you’ll be ordering for two. What are you thinking?”

	“Tell you what,” Carlos said, looking back at Enrique. “My associate hasn’t had much of the stuff before so I think I’ll treat him to some of that bourbon you have here.”

	Vera agreed and told Enrique that Carlos had made an excellent choice. She left back to the bar. “I thought you were some kind of party animal,” Carlos chuckled. “Getting all square about it now? You should be killing it with the ladies.”

	“Yeah,” Enrique said, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt. “I guess not at work though. It caught me off guard. They have bourbon here? It’s hard to find back home.”

	“Of course!” exclaimed Carlos as Vera returned carrying a platter with a pair of snifters and a bottle balancing atop it. She placed the glasses down with a sharp clink and poured from the white-labeled bottle. The name “Jim Beam” topped stamp with the letter B on its label, a banner boldly describing it as “Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey” in English. Enrique watched her pour a heavy amount of the whiskey before smiling again at Carlos. “Let me know if you need anything else, hon,” she said with a wink.

	Enrique swirled the copper-colored liquor in his glass as Carlos raised his glass for a toast. The pair clinked together and both took a sip. It was good: Enrique was never a fan of the whiskies in Mexico, but something about the bourbon lit a fire in his chest. “Huh,” he said. “Shame we don’t have this in Mexico.”

	“I know, right?” Carlos agreed as he took another drink. “I keep taking jobs here so I can enjoy the fine liquors of the world.”

	Enrique laughed, sniffing the wide-brimmed brandy glass and enjoying the new smells of American whiskey. He was thinking about the bottles that he might need to stuff in his suitcase for the plane ride home. After all the fighting kicked off, he had no idea if he would be seeing this again.

	“So the building you’re working in is real nice,” said Carlos as he changed the subject back to work. “It’s an old hotel a few blocks away from the embassy where your main staff are. Pretty far away from the flagpole, the environment is easygoing enough that the regional director won’t get too stupid on you.”

	“That’s a relief. I need some time away from the stuffy assholes in charge.”

	Carlos raised his eyebrows in agreement, looking out the window as a plane thrummed it way off the runway and gracefully raised into the air. It banked towards the coast, sunlight glinting off the blue and grey paint scheme that Pan Am was famous for.

	“Another benefit, you’re close to these Dominicans that are holed up in Havana,” added the agent. “I couldn’t believe the balls on them, they just walked into the embassy and said they’re setting up their own country over there. Good for them. Got some drive.”

	“Have they been talked about around town?” Enrique said, looking over his shoulder. He could sense the eyes on him: he turned around to see a handsome forty-something American man with a square jaw and a close-cropped haircut wearing a pearly white suit chatting with a friend in a booth on the other side of the bar. He had looked away by the time Enrique noticed, but Carlos had been keeping his own eyes on him.

	“I wouldn’t worry about that guy,” reassured the veteran agent. “I think his name is Bill or something. American OSS, obviously. Very obvious, they just send the movie stars in white suits down to send a message. He clearly doesn’t want to know what we’re talking about, just tell us that the [i]gringos[/i] are always watching. I see him around from time to time. I don’t even think he speaks Spanish.”

	“Plus these guys already know your friends are in town. Didn’t exactly keep it secret when they arrived, asking every swinging dick on the street for directions to the embassy. Half these people are.”

	Carlos nodded to Vera, who was serving the American another beer. The bottle appeared to be the stout brown bottle signature to the Modelo brand. Either the man liked Mexican pilsners or, more likely, he was signaling to the Mexicans. “She’s definitely collecting. But I like to ‘collect’ on her, if you know what I mean. Great ass, for a Cuban.”

	Enrique shrugged. He couldn’t tell the difference, or least didn’t have the experience yet. Pretty girls were all the same to him.

	“I figure the, uh, [i]Gua-[/i],” Enrique began, but Carlos cut him off.

	“We have a phrase for them. [i]Unidad[/i] is the project name, seeing as that’s what they want to do to that ‘Hispaniola’ of theirs. We generally want to obfuscate their identities and specifics, even if the actual group isn’t that secret. They’re fighting a vicious war, for fuck’s sake.”

	In the corner, Bill quietly finished his beer and paid with a stack of Cuban pesos underneath the empty bottle. Without a word to Vera, the bartender, or the DIPS agents in the other booth, him and his partner both stood up to leave. They carried suitcases along with them to fool the average airport employee into thinking they were passengers, but the way they effortlessly jerked the cases off the floor indicated that they were empty. “Looks like the OSS is done here. And so are we,” Carlos said. He swirled the last of his bourbon in the glass and downed it before withdrawing his wallet from below the table.

	“Vera!” he called out, catching the attention of the waitress who now only had them left to serve. “How much do I owe you?”

	Vera sauntered over, looking down at the two men with her hands on her hips. “Well, for the two glasses of the American stuff? Three pesos.”

	“Three pesos?” inquired Carlos, flipping out bills and flashing a thick wallet to her. He counted off three from his stack, looked at her, then counted off a few more. “How about if I give you nine, I’ll throw in the address of my hotel for free?”

	Vera raised her eyebrow, her expression turning from playful flirtation to disgust. “How about you tip me an extra peso for my service, pig. That might convince me not to throw you out.”

	Carlos walked back the money and put four pesos down on the table. Vera snatched it up angrily, fuming off towards the bar. The agent looked back to Enrique, untroubled, and shrugged: “Always worth a shot with these broads. Now how about we get a cab and I show you where you’re staying for the next while?”