Meanwhile, I couldn’t see any rounds impacting on the water, and just as I thought the asshole may have run out of ammunition, I heard what sounded like a flock of wild geese with rockets up their asses streaking overhead. Shit!
Jack stuck his head up the stairwell and said, “Felipe’s okay. But he has a suggestion.”
“What?”
“Transmit a surrender to the Stenka, come around, and head toward him.” He added, “He says he’ll do it in Spanish.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself in English.”
“Sara sort of told him that already.”
“Good.”
Jack also informed me, “It’s a fucking mess down here.”
“Everybody have life jackets?”
“Yeah.”
“Everybody topside.”
“You want a drink?”
“Later. Move it.”
Jack, Sara, and Felipe came into the cabin and I said, “Go out to the deck, and if we get hit again and if there’s a fire, or if we start taking water, we all go over the side.”
Sara said to me, “I told you, I will not let them capture me.”
I assured her, “They won’t see you in the water.”
She seemed to recall my spiel on our sunset cruise and said, “I will not be eaten by sharks.”
Felipe looked like he was in a daze, but he said to me, “You have to surrender. I’ll transmit—”
“Forget it!” We seemed to be running out of bad options—surrender, abandon ship, get eaten by sharks, or get blown up. And when you run out of bad options, it’s okay to do nothing and let fate do something. I said, “Move out to the deck—”
I heard the explosion at the same time that I saw it, and the top of the bow erupted into a ball of fire. Debris flew into the windshield and I instinctively ducked as I held on to the wheel and held the boat in a sharp port turn.
I stood and looked at the damage. A hole the size of a pie plate had appeared in the white fiberglass bow deck a few feet in front of the hatch. If anyone had been in the cabin below, they’d be dead or badly injured.
Jack ran below to check for fire, then came up and said, “We’re okay.”
Relative to what?
I realized I’d been in my port turn too long, and I could almost see the barrels of the twin cannons tracking me. I cut hard to starboard, knocking Sara and Felipe off their feet, and sending Jack tumbling back into the cabin below. Again, I heard the flock of wild geese, but this time they were off my port side and I knew they’d have caught me broadside if I’d continued into my left turn. I resumed my evasive zigzagging, thinking of that alligator on my ass. Alligators never give up, because they’re hungry, so you can never give up, because you want to live. Eventually somebody makes a mistake and loses. It can’t go on forever.
Sara and Felipe were on the rear deck now, lying face down with their arms and legs spread to keep from rolling as I took The Maine through its wild maneuvers. Jack was in the chair next to me, lighting up. It occurred to me that I’d missed an option, which was to just cut the throttle and drift until a full salvo of 30mm rounds obliterated The Maine and us. I looked at the throttle and Jack saw what I was thinking.
He asked, “You want a cigarette?”
“No.”
“They’re gluten-free.”
“I gotta tell you, Jack, your sense of humor is annoying.”
“You shoulda said something.”
“It just occurred to me.”
“Yeah? And you know what just occurred to me? It occurred to me that I told you this Cuba shit was fucked up.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Yeah. Lotsa shit seems like a good idea at the time.”
“Why don’t you go out on the deck and keep our passengers company?”
“I like it here.” He added, “Pay attention to what you’re doing, Captain.”
“You’re distracting me.”
“And don’t even think about touching that throttle.”
I didn’t reply.
I kept at my escape-and-evasion game, trying to vary my maneuvers, but I realized that by trying to veer away from a salvo of cannon shells, I could just as easily run into them. This was not as skilled a game as I was trying to convince myself that it was; a lot of this was just luck. This was really my lucky day.
Felipe had apparently come to a different conclusion, because he was in the cabin now with the Smith & Wesson in one hand, hanging on to the door frame with the other. “Give me the mic.”
Jack said to me, “Ignore him and he’ll go away.”
I ignored him, but Felipe said, “I’m counting to three. If you don’t give me the mic—”
“Felipe,” I said calmly, “I am not giving you the mic. We are not surrending the ship. We are—”
“One.”
Jack said, “Put the gun down.”
“Two.”
Jack added, “You get one shot, asshole, then the guy you didn’t shoot is going to take you down and shove that gun so far up your ass that the first round’ll blow your tonsils out.”
Felipe processed that and I glanced back to see his gun hand shaking. “It’s okay, amigo. We’re all scared. But we’re doing okay.”
Well, not that good. The Stenka captain had changed to tracer ammo, probably to add a little mind-fucking to the game, and we all saw the streaks of green tracers flying along our starboard side, not twenty feet away. I saw them drop into the dark sea in front of us, and I counted eight explosions. Holy shit . . .
I turned hard to starboard and the next flight of green streaks sailed about five feet above the cabin. I liked this game better when I couldn’t see how close they were coming.
Another flight of eight green tracers streaked toward us and hit the water about ten feet from the stern.
Jack said to me, “Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’ and pay no attention to the incoming.” He reminded me, “You can’t stop it and you can’t change its trajectory. You just gotta keep runnin’ and swivelin’ your hips.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
I didn’t look back at Felipe, but Jack was keeping an eye on him and I assumed Felipe was having a catatonic moment. I did glance back at the deck and saw Sara still sprawled out, blissfully unaware that the Stenka was now showing us what we couldn’t see before. As I was about to turn my attention back to the wheel, I saw streaks of green coming right at our tail and two cannon shells impacted in the stern and I heard a muffled explosion, followed by the sound of the sea, but not the sound of the engine. We were dead in the water.
Sara seemed almost unaware that we’d been hit, but then she realized something was different and she got slowly to her feet and started coming toward the cabin. Behind her, I saw smoke from the engine—but no fire.
Everything seemed to go silent, and I heard the waves and the wind, and the firing from the Stenka seemed to have stopped. I looked out at the horizon and saw in the far distance the Stenka’s running lights coming toward us. He should reach us in about ten minutes. Which was enough time to go to Plan B. Whatever that was.
I looked at Jack, but he had nothing to say except, “Shit.”
Sara looked at me and I said, “Sorry.” I thought a moment, then said, “The captain will stay with the ship. You will all abandon ship now.” I also said, “Good luck.”
But no one was moving from the cabin.
Jack said, “We all go together, or we all stay onboard together.”
Felipe spoke first and said, “I’m staying onboard.”
Sara said, “I will not be captured. I’m going into the sea.” She looked at me. “And you’re coming with me.”
Jack said, “I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I want a hand to bury those . . . those remains at sea.”
So we all went out on the deck and Jack and I lifted the steamer trunk by its handles and rested it on the gunnel.
Sara said a prayer for the dead that began with, “Heavenly Father,” and ende
d with, “we commend the souls of these brave men into your hands.”
Jack and I were about to tip the trunk over the side when we both heard a familiar sound and looked out at the horizon. Coming toward us from the north, a few hundred feet away, and not fifty feet above the water, were two huge helicopters. I recognized their profiles as Black Hawks.
They tipped their rotor blades, then turned east toward the Stenka.
One of them fired a long stream of red tracers across the sky, his way of saying to the Stenka’s captain, “Game over. Go home.”
The other Black Hawk turned and came toward us and I saw a big rescue basket hanging from a line below the open door.
We pulled the trunk back onboard, but no one had anything to say until Sara said, “We’re all going home. Together.”
Apparently this was true.
PART IV
CHAPTER 55
So this guy walks into a bar and says, “Corona. Hold the lime.”
And the bartender replies, “Lime’s on me.”
The cocktail hour in the Green Parrot begins when the doors open and ends when the lights go out. It was 2 A.M. on Monday morning and the lights were about to go out.
The place was nearly empty, so Amber had time to chat. “How was Cuba?”
“It was okay.”
“How were the people?”
“Most of them were okay.” A few tried to kill me, but why mention it?
“You have pictures?”
“No.” Well, yes, on my cell phone, but my cell phone was in my backpack and my backpack was at the bottom of the ocean.
Amber pushed a bowl of corn chips toward me. “I haven’t seen Jack around.”
“He’s off the island.”
“How’d he do in the tournament?”
“Came in second.”
“Good.” She asked, “Did you see him there?”
“No.”
She said, “You heard that they cancelled the last few days of the Pescando tournament.”
“I heard.”
“And they kicked out a tour group.”
I’ll bet I know which group.
“Weren’t you with a group?”
“I was. But then I did independent travel.”
“Did it feel dangerous?”
“Well . . . I guess it could be. But not for the average tourist.”
“I thought the Cubans wanted better relations.”
“We all have a ways to go.”
She changed the subject. “What are you going to do now, Mac?”
“I was thinking about retiring.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Me too.” She said, “Couple of captains asked me if you were available.”
“I think I’ve had enough of the sea.”
“Lots of guys say that.”
They must also have been shot at by Cuban gunboats.
A guy at the end of the bar wanted another drink and Amber moved off.
I sipped my Corona. It had been five days since my Black Hawk ride to Coast Guard Station Islamorada on Plantation Key. It’s a bit of a blur, but I do remember the second Black Hawk firing a rocket into The Maine and she exploded, burned, and went down. I don’t think I was supposed to see that, and when I asked about it at Islamorada, a Coast Guard officer told me the boat was a hazard to navigation and had to be sent to the bottom. Actually, as I came to understand, The Maine—Fishy Business—was evidence that needed to be buried at sea. She deserved a better fate.
Amber came back and said, “Kitchen’s dumping some fries and wings. You want some?”
“I’m okay.”
Amber looked at me. “You lost some weight. Are you okay?”
“I’m good. How’ve you been?”
“Good.” She found her cigarettes behind the bar. “Mind if I smoke?”
“It’s your bar.”
“I wish.” She lit up and blew a nice smoke ring. She asked, “Did you make it to Fantasy Fest?”
“Missed it.”
“How come?”
“I wasn’t back yet.”
Actually, I was a guest of the Coast Guard on Plantation Key. Along with Jack, Felipe, and Sara. They said we needed medical attention. Actually, only Jack did. The X-ray showed a cracked rib. No big deal. So we wanted out of there, but a Coast Guard doctor said we were quarantined for seventy-two hours, though we were actually being held incommunicado.
On day two, a guy named Keith, who had been with us on the Black Hawk, told us that the Cuban government had implicated me, Sara, Jack, and Felipe in a criminal act that might include murder. This was not good news, but also not unexpected.
The Black Hawks, by the way, were unmarked, as was Keith, and they had nothing to do with the Coast Guard. Keith was in fact a CIA officer, though he never actually said that.
Regarding the murder charges, Keith assured us that we had no extradition treaty with Cuba and this matter could drag on for years. Or be settled diplomatically. In the meantime, Keith was interested in what happened and he needed statements from us, which we said we were happy to give with our lawyers present.
I thought back to what happened in the mangrove swamp. Murder? I could make a case for justifiable homicide. Or even lawful combat. The Guarda Frontera guys were not civilians, and they were armed. On the other hand, I wasn’t a soldier anymore, and we were not at war with Cuba. But . . . it was Cuba. If the same thing had happened in Sweden, I’d have surrendered. Instead I’d used deadly force. Which was why I was here having a beer at the Green Parrot, and those guys in the mangrove swamp were dead. I did feel some remorse, as well I should. One Human Family. But I would eventually come to terms with what happened in Cuba as I did with what happened in Afghanistan. And as Jack did with Vietnam. Survival is a strong instinct, surrender is not an option, and all combat is justifiable homicide. But you pay a price.
Amber broke into my thoughts. “That guy Carlos who you met here last month came around a few days ago looking for you. Said he went to your house, but you weren’t there.”
“What’d he want?”
“Didn’t say.”
Well, one of these days I needed to talk to Carlos about financial and legal matters, and other things. Did I still have his card?
“He said you weren’t answering your cell phone.” She added, “I tried to call you.”
“Lost my cell in Cuba.” I thought back to our air-sea rescue. Age and infirmity get rescued first, and that was Jack, but he said, “Beauty first,” and Sara went up in the basket, then Jack. Captain goes last and I reminded Felipe that he’d mutinied and wanted to be captain, but he also wanted off The Maine quickly in case the engine blew, so he took the third basket into the chopper, and I went last.
We argued with the crew chief about bringing the two trunks up, but Keith, who seemed to be in charge, said they’d be retrieved by the second Black Hawk. But when we got to Plantation Key and asked for the return of the trunks—our trunks—the story changed, and a Coast Guard officer said they’d gone down with the ship. Which of course was bullshit. And there was more bullshit to come.
Amber glanced at her watch. “Last call.”
“I’m okay.”
As for Carlos, I hope he had insurance on his boat. More importantly, I think he owed me at least fifty grand, and I think I owed him a kick in the nuts. What I knew for sure was that there wasn’t going to be any press conference in Miami. In fact, our new friend Keith strongly suggested to me, Jack, Sara, and Felipe that because of the legal and diplomatic issues we shouldn’t discuss our Cuba trip with anyone—except him. Felipe agreed, and urged me, Jack, and Sara to heed Keith’s advice. Felipe, of course, had worked with Keith’s colleagues—or maybe with Keith himself—on our escape plan from Cuba, and it appeared to me that Felipe was still working for the Company. I mean, you don’t have to read Richard Neville novels to figure that out.
On the more important issue of my money, Eduardo had promised me a consolation prize in lieu of my three million dollars, in exchange fo
r my cooperation and my appearances on radio and TV. But that press conference wasn’t going to happen, and also Eduardo was either dead by now or in a Cuban jail. Or he was wandering around a cemetery. I asked Amber, “What day is this?”
“November second.”
“Day of the Dead.”
“The what?”
“All Souls’ Day. The Spanish call it Day of the Dead.”
“Weird.” She glanced at her watch again. “I gotta run the register and do some stuff. You want to wait? We can go for a beer.”
“I’ll take a rain check.”
“Sure.” She let me know, “I’m off tomorrow.”
“Me too.” I spontaneously suggested, “Let’s go swimming.”
“Sounds good.”
I stood. “I’ll call you.”
“You lost your phone.”
“I have a house phone.” I gave Amber the number. “Call me if you get a better offer.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I went out to Whitehead and began walking toward my house. It was a nice night, the kind of breezy, balmy night you get in the Keys by November, like the nights you get in Portland in summer.
A block from the Parrot was the Zero Mile Marker of U.S. Highway One and I stopped there and looked at the marker, which was actually a standard highway pole with traffic signs attached. The sign on the top said BEGIN, the next one said 1, then NORTH, and finally a small green sign at the bottom said MILE 0.
During the day there’re dozens of tourists here having their pictures taken—thousands every year. And you can get a T-shirt of the sign on Duval. Some people come here believing that the marker has telepathic powers or something, so I stood at the Zero Mile Marker, waiting for some profound thought or a divine message directing me toward the road I needed to take. I thought I heard a voice say, “Go get Amber, get drunk, then take her home and bang her. That will make you feel good.” I don’t think a divine voice would say that. But that’s what I would have heard and done before Sara Ortega.