Escape from Havana

Barker Lawrence

Description

17 yr. old Moses LeConte sees a postcard from his uncle, Augustus LeConte with his grandmother’s address only and no message on the card. It is from Havana, Cuba and shows the old fort at the Havana harbor, Ft Morro, now a prison in Havana. Moses deduced his uncle was stuck in Havana for some reason and in prison. He decided to sail to Havana on his sailboat and find out what happened. He enlists the aid of his two friends, Jack Barker and Charlotte Pace to go with him. They are all out of school and it will be an adventure. Along the way, they encounter drug smugglers, prison guards, a stolen emerald and while skin diving they battle a 10 foot boa constrictor in the clear waters of Cuba. It is a real teen’s adventure.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665570749
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ESCAPE from HAVANA
A Moses, Charlotte and Jack Adventure
LAWRENCE BARKER


AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2022 Lawrence Barker. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 09/14/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7072-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7073-2 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7074-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022916946
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1June 1
Chapter 2June 2
Chapter 3June 3 rd
Chapter 4June 4
Chapter 5June 6
Chapter 6June 9
Chapter 7June 10
Chapter 8June 12
Chapter 9June 14
Chapter 10June 16
Chapter 11June 17
Chapter 12Latitude 23.9 Longitude 80.9
Chapter 13Coast Guard Sector Miami
Chapter 14On board the Nuclear Carrier, USS Nimitz
PROLOGUE

T he City of Havana, Cuba lies some 100 miles south of Key West, Florida. It was founded in 1515 by the Spanish King Phillip II of Spain, and they named Havana as the capital. It has a beautiful well protected deep harbour. The city built a stone fort at the entrance to the harbour for protection. Castle Morro was designed to repel buccaneers and French Corsairs trying to plunder the city. It had a tall stone round tower as part of the fort and was at the edge of the harbor. A sentry could spot any ships as they approached the entrance to the harbor. They would stretch an iron chain from the Castle to the other side of the harbor to prevent ships from entering the protected bay. The cannons could then fire on the attacking ships. It was also used as a lighthouse to guide ships at night. Havana became an important trading port and civic center especially with the Spanish sending ships loaded with gold and silver from the mines in South America back to Spain. The relationship with the United States flourished until the mid 1950s when the Communists took over and installed a corrupt totalitarian government.
A prison was built on the site of the former castle, Ft Morro, on the coast near downtown. It is called “La Cabana” and used to house political prisoners. It has a brutal reputation and the prisoners are subjected to many beatings and atrocities. It is part of old Fort Morro. If the prisoners comply with all the rules of the prison they are eventually allowed to leave the prison daily to go work in the sugar cane fields. They are returned each night to their cell. Escape is virtually impossible due to the armed guards that are constantly on patrol.
Havana retains its old world charm and is like a step back in time to 1955 before the revolution and the Communist take over. The buildings are in a state of decline with little updates and are literally crumbling with minimaL modernization. The cars on the few paved roads are American Ford’s and Chevrolet’ s from that era but the Cubans keep patching them up. Communism has not delivered the prosperity it claimed and the entire island is in a shambles. The USA tried to help but politics intervened and all the improvements in relations with the USA were brought to a halt

JUNE 1

Hattie LeConte’s New Home
Melrose Place, Daufuskie Island South Carolina

H attie LeConte went to the mailbox to get the mail. She was now living at Melrose Place in a new home. Her grandson, Moses, was still in school and went in to Hilton Head three days a week for Chef School at the new Hyatt Hotel on the island. Hattie rifled through the mail finding a bunch of junk mail and some bills. There was one colored Postcard addressed to her that caught her eye. It was a picture of the old fort “El Morro” in Havana, Cuba showing the fort and the harbor. She turned it over and all that was on the back was her address and the initials A. L. It was in her son, Augustus’s, handwriting. There was nothing else on the postcard. She thought that’s odd. She knew her son had retired from the Marine Corps 2 years ago and was working for the US State Department. She had no idea why he was in Cuba if in fact he was. As far as she knew Cuba was still off limits to American’s.
She decided to show it to Moses and see what his thoughts were. After all school was getting out and Moses had the entire summer to work at the Hyatt as an apprentice chef.
The following day Moses met Charlotte and Jack down at the landing as they too were out of school for the summer. They were ecstatic to see each other again. Jack had matured quite a bit. His hair was cut military style and was short. He was on the football team and had filled out with large biceps. He had grown into a good looking teenage boy with blondish brown hair and had clear complexion. He was taller now and almost the same height as Moses.
Charlotte had changed considerably. She was now almost 16 and was absolutely gorgeous for a young lady. She was taller as well with long slender legs. She was on the soccer team at St Vincents Academy and had won many games for the team. She was quite the athlete and student. Her long blonde hair was usually in a pony tail hanging down her back flying around as she sprinted down the field.
Moses looked the same. He still had close cropped short black hair and now filled out completely with large biceps. He had lost the stutter since going to speech therapy in Hilton Head. He dressed more stylish now since going to Chef School and excelled in his training with the Hyatt Hotel Corporation. He was doing well in his studies at school and was very focused as a student. He still sailed quite a bit and could be seen in his sailboat “Amazing Grace” when the weather was nice and sunny. The three friends hugged each other and went in the restaurant to get a coke and catch up. They sat on a picnic table outside drinking their cokes and enjoying the smell of the salt air and shade under the large oak tree and cool balmy breezes coming off the Atlantic.

JUNE 2

Augustus Leconte

A ugustus Leconte was in his cell at La Cabana prison in downtown Havannah in the old fort, El Morro. It was on a hill top overlooking the old Harbor. He shared a cell with another prisoner Manuel Costa, a Cuban, that was being held for allegedly printing a newspaper that was Anti Castro and very anti Cuban Government. LeConte’s crime was being an American State Dept. spy and employee. His real job was to gather intel on the new Cuban president, Miguel Diaz.
When the US administration’s politics changed the Cuban government promptly arrested Augustus and he was put in prison by the Cuban State Police. The US State Department disavowed any knowledge of his activities. Augustus was thrown in prison and given 20 years at hard labor for spying. He was ratted out up by his boss, Dan Page, a State Department bureaucrat employee with 30 yrs. service. Page was a real worm, sneaky and very fat. Page despised Augustus and did not get along with him at all.
Augustus was very fit, an ex Marine with 4 tours of combat duty under his belt and 25 yrs of service in the Corps. He was 44 yrs. of age. He had mustered out of the Marine Corps 2 years prior as an E-8 and was a qualified intelligence analyst for the 24 th Marine Expeditionary Force in Afghanistan. He was approached by the US State Dept. a few months before his retirement and was told they needed an intelligence analyst in Cuba, and would he be interested in the job? He agreed and would start as a GS 15 after completing the Defense Language Institute for Spanish at Lackland AFB, Texas. He was sent to Havana after 6 months training. Dan Page was his boss and he was to quietly gather intelligence on the new Cuban President Diaz.
The relationship was tense from the beginning. Page was a career political bureaucrat that had served briefly in the Army as a 2 nd Lieutenant and had been posted out of the military due to his negligence as the Battalion motor pool officer in Germany. He had failed to insure all the motors had sufficient anti freeze during a winter storm freeze. He received a bad OER and a reprimand.