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The square was relatively quiet, but a couple dozen or so people walking around stopped to look at the entourage. They appeared to be students heading to and from class, but Zack eyed them closely nonetheless.
Hinton and Wren emerged together from the Sprinter van a moment later, and they began walking towards a modern three-story blue building with lots of glass that appeared to be almost brand-new, right in the center of the more worn structures. Zack shouldered up to his protectee; the four other men on the detail formed a diamond position around them, and Gareth Wren led the way.
Zack scanned rooftops, windows, the alleys between the buildings.
As he walked alongside, Anton took off his headphones. “Yeah, the campus isn’t much to look at from the outside, I admit. But I’ve got a world-class research facility filled with great people here.” He waved to a pair of Asian men in their forties wearing glasses and short-sleeved shirts standing near the entrance to the blue building. Zack pegged them as engineers or computer scientists.
Anton said, “We’re modernizing the campus itself; the south side of the property is starting to come together, but the campus is overall still a bit of a dump from the outside. It was built in the early sixties, and it wasn’t like the Soviets or the Cubans cared much about aesthetics.”
Anton stopped to shake hands with a cluster of employees standing outside taking a smoke break, and Zack kept an eye on his charge but also used the opportunity to address Wren.
“That power station we passed looks new.”
“Went online about six months ago. We’ve got underground power from a substation about three miles away, and that is connected to a powership.”
“What’s a powership?”
“A floating power plant in Havana Harbor. It’s from Turkey; they worked out a deal with the Cubans to anchor it here to give the nation more reliable power.”
“In return for what?”
Wren shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Anton pays for the wattage that comes to us, but he and I were both pleasantly surprised when the Cubans didn’t come to us to pay for the bloody ship itself. We also pay to draw power from a hydroelectric dam about twelve miles east.
“Also,” he added, “on the south side of the campus we have thirty-five diesel-burning generators. There’s a fuel storage facility, as well, so we have enough diesel to keep the facility operational for ninety days if we lose all other sources of power.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble for a research facility,” Zack said as Anton wrapped up his conversation.
Softly, Wren said, “Agree one hundred percent. If this facility were in Switzerland or Seoul or San Jose or Boston, places where everybody else has their computer research campuses, then we wouldn’t have to worry about it. But Anton’s paranoia about the intentions of the West, and the recent dustup in his relationship with the Chinese, have made Cuba his safe haven.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Soon they passed through a door held open by a pair of security men who appeared to be Cuban and former members of the military’s special operations force, and once inside, Zack was immediately stunned by its incongruity with most of the rest of the university campus. An atrium lobby rose the height of the building, and massive skylights brought natural light into the open space.
The floors of the expansive lobby were beautifully marbled, the temperature cool and the lighting soft and peaceful. As in Anton’s luxury van, serene sound waves purred in the air.
Zack felt as if he’d just walked into the offices of a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley, not through the doors of a sixty-year-old Russian-built spy complex in Cuba.
Hinton stepped up next to Zack and pulled off his headphones. “You get it now?”
“Got it, boss.” He did not get it, not really. This place should be in Cali or Boston or Switzerland, just like Wren said, but the guy signing his checks wanted it this way, and Zack wasn’t about to argue.
While Hinton went to shake hands with staffers there in the lobby, Zack unslung his AK, put it in a locker behind the desk, then opened his jacket to show the guards the pistol on his waist. He didn’t lift his pants to reveal his ankle gun, but they waved him through on Wren’s bidding, and soon everyone was in the elevators and heading up.
Hinton dropped his messenger bag off in his beautiful office, took a cup of matcha tea handed to him by a Cuban administrative assistant of the campus, then hugged the lady when she told him she’d been praying for his safe return to Cuba after all the troubles going on in the world.
Gareth Wren had ducked into his own office to drop off his bag, but now he was back out in Anton’s small lobby, standing next to Zack while Anton sat down at his desk.
“Give me about five,” Anton said, “then we’ll go down to the labs and talk to the troops.” Hinton put his headphones back on and turned his attention to his keyboard.
One of Zack’s security team stood at Anton’s door, his hands clasped and facing the office.
Wren said, “Frederico’s got this under control. Let’s get some coffee.”
Wren led Zack to a coffee tray on a table in the hall outside his office, and they both poured and drank tiny cups of cafecito while they toured the third-floor office area.
As promised, five minutes after he sat down, Anton emerged from his office, and together he, Gareth Wren, and Zack, flanked by two of the four former Black Wasps, headed back to the elevator and down to the second floor.
Here Zack found room after room, all glass-walled and brightly lit, full of men and women working at computer stations in small teams, usually composed of two, three, or four engineers.
