The meeting was arranged with the intricate, paranoid secrecy of a papal conclave. It did not take place in a corporate boardroom or a government office, but in the lavish, sterile anonymity of a presidential suite at a high-end hotel in Miami. The suite was swept for bugs by Ezra's team, then swept again by the Mob's own specialists. It was a pocket of absolute neutrality in a world of treachery.
Ezra was present, but he remained unseen, observing from an adjoining suite via a hidden, one-way mirror and a concealed microphone. His frontman, his chosen emissary to this dark kingdom, was Baron von Hauser. The Baron was the perfect choice, his European elegance and detached, aristocratic air a disorienting presence in the earthy, brutal world of organized crime.
He met with two of the most powerful and dangerous men in America. The first was Sam "Momo" Giancana, the boss of the formidable Chicago Outfit. Giancana was pure, uncut id, a strutting, preening bantam rooster of a man, radiating a violent, unpredictable energy. He was dressed in a gaudy silk suit, a large pinky ring flashing on his hand. He was flanked by two silent, brutish bodyguards who stood by the door like stone gargoyles.
The second man was his opposite in every conceivable way. Meyer Lansky, the legendary "Mob's Accountant," was a small, quiet, grandfatherly figure in a simple business suit. He did not radiate violence; he radiated pure, cold intelligence. While Giancana was the muscle and the mouth, Lansky was the brain, the strategic genius who had transformed the Mob from a collection of street gangs into a global corporate enterprise.
Giancana began the meeting with open hostility, his voice a gravelly Chicago sneer. "So," he said, looking von Hauser up and down with contempt, "some fancy suit wants a meeting. What is this? The Feds trying a new angle? You here to offer me a deal to rat on my friends?"
Von Hauser simply smiled, a cool, unbothered expression that seemed to get under Giancana's skin. "Mr. Giancana," the Baron replied, his voice a smooth, cultured purr, "I can assure you I am not with the government. In fact, you might say my employer finds the government, at times, to be as much of a nuisance as you do."
He then laid out the proposal, speaking the only two languages these men truly understood: greed and revenge. "My employer is a man of significant private means and considerable influence. He shares your… deep displeasure with the current political situation in Cuba. He wishes to see a change in leadership. A permanent one."
Giancana snorted. "You and everybody else. You want us to take out Castro? For what? A 'thank you' from Uncle Sam? The same Uncle Sam who's got Bobby Kennedy trying to put my ass in jail for the next hundred years?"
It was Lansky who spoke then, his voice quiet but carrying an immense authority that immediately silenced Giancana. "Let the man finish, Sam," he said, his shrewd, intelligent eyes fixed on von Hauser. Lansky was a chess player, and he recognized he was in the presence of someone who understood the game.
The Baron inclined his head to Lansky. "My employer understands that such a significant undertaking requires significant incentive. He is prepared to offer two things in exchange for the successful removal of Mr. Castro."
He slid a leather folder across the polished table. "First, a cash payment. Untraceable, in small bills. A sum that I believe you will find… substantial."
He let them absorb that for a moment before delivering the true prize. "And second, and far more importantly, my employer has the political and financial influence to ensure that once a new, more business-friendly government is in place in Havana, the 'old families' will have their former casino and hotel properties returned to them. Exclusively. With government-sanctioned licenses that guarantee a monopoly for the next fifty years."
He was offering them the one thing they craved more than money. He was offering them the chance to reclaim their lost paradise, the glittering, sin-filled jewel of their pre-revolution empire.
Giancana's hostility was now replaced by a greedy, calculating look. But he was still suspicious. "Talk is cheap," he growled. "You say you have influence. You say you can deliver the U.S. government. How do we know you're not just blowing smoke?"
This was the moment Ezra had been waiting for. On a silent cue from von Hauser, the door to the adjoining suite opened, and Ezra Prentice walked into the room.
He did not introduce himself. He did not say a word. He moved with a quiet, absolute confidence that immediately shifted the balance of power in the room. He walked to the table and placed a small, reel-to-reel tape recorder upon it. He pressed play.
The voice of Frank Brennan, the recently deposed Teamsters boss, filled the tense silence, bragging about his power, mocking the Kennedys, detailing his blackmail threats against the patriarch. Giancana and Lansky listened, their eyes widening. They knew who Brennan was. They knew how powerful he had been.
When the tape finished, Ezra placed a second folder on the table. He opened it to reveal a series of glossy, black-and-white surveillance photos. They were graphic, brutal images of the aftermath of the KGB hit on Colonel Dubois in the Marseille marketplace.
The message, delivered in silence, was clear and terrifying.
Ezra finally spoke, his voice quiet but carrying an incredible weight. "Mr. Giancana," he said, his gaze as cold and hard as a diamond, "the man on that tape was ten times more powerful than you are. He no longer exists. The men in these photographs were the best assassins the Soviet Union has to offer. They also no longer exist."
He looked from Giancana's stunned face to Lansky's impassive one. "I can give you back Havana. Or I can have you removed from the board entirely. The choice is yours."
Meyer Lansky, the brilliant strategist, the man who could calculate odds in his head in a split second, saw the truth instantly. This quiet, elegant man was not the government. He was not another mob boss. He was something else entirely, something far more powerful and far more dangerous than anyone he had ever encountered. This was not a negotiation between equals. This was an offer from a sovereign.
He gave Giancana a short, almost imperceptible nudge. It was enough.
Giancana, for the first time in his adult life, looked intimidated. He swallowed hard and nodded. "We have a deal," he said, his voice now a hoarse whisper.
The pact was sealed. Ezra Prentice had just successfully enlisted the American Mafia as the deniable, operational arm of his—and by extension, the Kennedy administration's—foreign policy. A joint operation, a fusion of corporate intelligence and underworld muscle, was established. It was codenamed, by von Hauser with a touch of ironic flair, "Operation Mongoose." Ezra's network would provide the high-level intelligence, the logistical support, and the untraceable financing. The Mafia would provide the on-the-ground assets, the assassins, the saboteurs, the men who were not afraid to get their hands dirty.
The scene ended with a chilling shot of a map of Cuba spread out on a table in a Miami safe house. Two sets of hands were moving pieces across it, planning the first phase of the destabilization campaign. One hand was elegant, long-fingered, precise—the hand of Baron von Hauser. The other was rough, thick-fingered, a heavy gold ring flashing on its pinky—the hand of a high-level Mafia capo. The unholy alliance, a trinity of the White House, Wall Street, and the Underworld, had just been born.
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