The Secret Agent

When Pedro and Lourdes arrived and announced they wanted to go sailing, there was no clue that the next few hours would be set afire with mystery, intrigue, and enough espionage to rival any Hollywood production.

When Pedro stepped aboard, he carried himself with modest authority. He was over ninety years old after all, but when he looked around and took in his surroundings, he missed nothing. Lourdes was thirty years younger, a timeless beauty, and she was Pedro’s girlfriend. Lourdes and Pedro were both born in Cuba.

When the sailboat was underway, Lourdes looked up to the clouds, then to the horizon, and finally back to Pedro at her side. “I hope the weather doesn’t turn stormy,” she said. Pedro smiled a knowing smile and announced the credo of a secret agent. “Don’t worry,” he said. “90% of the things you worry about will never happen and the other 10% you have no control over. Worrying is a waste of time.”

Lourdes suddenly smiled like a movie star, squeezed her man beside her, and nodded. “You are right again my love.” She said with obvious adoration. “Tell our captain how you learned not to worry.”

Pedro snorted with laughter. “When your country is taken over on New Year’s Eve by a bloodthirsty dictator, and you spend the following years pretending to support the tyrant while sending secret information to the monster’s enemy, worry is something that can never creep into your mind. There has never been a good spy that was obsessed by worry.”

“Tell the story my love,” Lourdes coached. “Tell us about when the Russians came to support the villain that was Fidel Castro.”

Pedro shrugged. “It was a crazy time in Cuba, but it was a time with only two choices. Openly fight and watch your family die, or secretly fight and work for freedom. I chose to secretly fight by learning to speak Russian. Some people are good with music and some are good with art. My talent has always been languages. When the first Russian advisors came to Cuba, I was one of the few Cubans who could speak Russian. Of course, in the beginning, my Russian was not perfect and the Cyrillic alphabet drove me crazy, but soon I was an officer in Castro’s army and was wearing the uniform of a Colonel. In no time, I was training other Cubans to speak Russian and we were training the Russians how to speak the Spanish dialect we use in Cuba.

After a few months of teaching both languages, I was awarded with a new promotion and assigned to be the personal assistant of a Russian general.

My general in the Russian army was Felix and soon we were traveling together throughout Cuba. The general was looking for the best places to build secret missile sites. We traveled into the most isolated regions of the island with several trucks of Cuban and Russian soldiers. The Castro soldiers provided brutal security against the local population while the Russians surveyed possible missile sites.

Once, when we were in a remote area near Santiago, I was sent with a detail of Russians into the city for rum, cigars, and the suckling roasting pigs that were a favorite delicacy for General Felix and his officers. After learning what the surveys were for and overhearing Russian conversations about secret installations and the atomic missiles that were coming, I stumbled onto a farm and a farmer with many of the baby pigs the Russians loved to devour. Unbeknownst to the Russians, the farmer also kept a coop of special pigeons.

While the Russians drank rum and were smoking the best cigars in the world, I arranged with Raul the farmer to use his carrier pigeons - the pigeons with messages attached to their legs that flew to Raul’s relatives in Miami. My mind was bursting with vital information and I suddenly knew I must forward my own messages to the FBI via Miami.

Raul was a very brave Christian man, who knew of entire families that disappeared in the night and were never heard from again. He also knew of Castro’s roving patrols that were in search of the most beautiful women to be rounded up and sent back to Havana for the dictator’s personal pleasure. Raul agreed to help and soon the farmer near Santiago was awarded with extra allowances and supplies by General Felix to grow all the suckling pigs the Russian officers could eat. With every trip to the farm for the baby pigs, there was a package of chocolates from Communist East Germany for Raul the farmer.”

Lourdes suddenly broke the spell of the wind, the waves, and the sailboat near Marco that was sailing about 180 miles north of Havana. “And who my love,” she hugged her hero. “Who arranged the communist German chocolate for the pig and pigeon farmer Raul? And my darling, who unwrapped the foil of the chocolate and rewrapped it with secret messages. Who was the secret agent who for many years sent the chocolate, with the atomic missile messages, to the carrier pigeons that flew to the Miami relatives, which mailed the messages to the FBI?”

Pedro did not need to answer. He was beaming and his smile was contagious. “It was a plan that worked for years. In the beginning when the atomic missile sites were under survey the Russians would eat the baby pigs, smoke the best cigars in the world, drink the finest rum, and then pass out. After I pretended to be asleep from the spirits, and when the Soviets were all snoring, I would go through the survey documents, memorize the map coordinates, and compose my next message for Raul’s courier pigeons and the FBI.”

“When the atomic missiles began arriving from Russia, and President Kennedy ordered the Cuban blockade and demanded the missiles be removed, General Felix was ordered back to Russia,” he continued. “When a new Russian general arrived and tasted the baby pigs, he decided to open a box of the Communist East German chocolates that contained the messages that were heading for Raul and the pigeon coop.”

“When he told me in Russian that he had opened the chocolates I almost fainted until he explained that because the little pigs were so tasty, he added a tin of the best Russian Caviar for the farmer.”

“Raul fed the caviar to the pigs because he was afraid if he tried to trade it to other Russians, they would become suspicious. The last message I sent Raul explained that I had been promoted again and was traveling to East Germany to teach the communist Germans how to understand the Cuban dialect. After two months, I crossed over CheckPoint Charlie into West Berlin and called the FBI in Miami. They were very happy to hear from me, and now we live in Miami.”

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander. He is the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.