Dusky MacMorgan: Cuban Death-Lift Part 17

"But you have been acting listless ever since-"

"The h.e.l.l I have!" I said it too loud, the emotion blowing the credibility of the denial. Fizer hastened to cover his face with a big hand, trying to hide a smirk.

I plopped down in my baggy reading chair, put my feet up, and pulled at the beer. "Okay, okay," I said. "Let's get on with it-but I don't see why. I already filled out one report."

Norm shuffled through some papers. "Yeah, you filled out a report all right-the way one person fills the bleachers at Yankee Stadium. Here it is, and I quote: 'After detonating said diversion, the lieutenant in question accompanied me down the mountainside to Pier Three, where we convinced a captain in the Cuban army to transport us back to my boat via fast military launch."

"So that's what happened."

Fizer looked at me wryly. "But it does leave a few questions unanswered."

It did indeed. So I sat in the chair and fiddled with a new ultralight reel I had bought-a very fine German Quick with the asbestos drag system that might be the best made-and I told him about it.

The diversion had worked beautifully. The RDX explosives around the perimeter of the harbor had gone off with a ma.s.sive woof and white glare that made the big searchlights seem pale in comparison. Our only tense moment was halfway down the mountain when the Cuban soldiers and sailors went pounding by us, headed for the Naval Academy like ants from a trampled nest. After that, we could have walked down the road to Pier Three singing and shouting. With no communication possible from the stone castle, Fidel Castro and his entourage were under heavy attack as far as the military around Mariel was concerned. It left the harbor wide open for our escape-once we found a boat fast enough and small enough to make it up the tidal creek to Sniper. And we had found one-one of the twin-engine patrol boats tethered to the quay surprisingly alone, but we had a visitor-Captain Lobo. After I treated him to a proper welcome-a few well-placed jabs that sent him crashing to the floor-he became very cooperative indeed, sniffling and whining and begging me not to kill him. He begged all the way back to Key West, where I turned him in.

Fizer scribbled in his report as I talked, big hands clumsy, seeming to balk at the secretarial work required of them. He looked up, paused and then said, "It's kind of surprising they didn't send some fighter planes after you once you made it back to your boat and headed for the States."

"Yeah," I said. "It is kind of surprising. Maybe with all the other American boats out there in the strait they didn't want to take a chance of strafing the wrong vessel. Or maybe they just didn't know it was me. But it was surprising."

It was, of course, a lie. Ten miles from international waters a big Cuban jet copter had come hovering over us, searchlights throwing a dazzling glare across Sniper. Immediately, Lobo recovered much of his surliness and went running to the aft deck waving his arms, expecting them to fire on the two Americans who had kidnapped him. But the a.s.sault never came. The chopper hovered above us as if awaiting orders, then banked away, back toward the mainland. Lobo was outraged. He couldn't understand it. But I did. Androsa, leaning against me as I stood at the controls, had told me about the Cuban revolutionary who, more than two decades before, had come down out of the mountains of the Isle of Pines to take a lover in the village on the Ensenada de Siguanea and how a girl child was born, and how he had abandoned the two of them to pursue what he was convinced was his destiny. Yet even after their years on diametrically opposed paths, he could not destroy the woman who was his daughter, and she could not kill the man behind the dictator she loathed. So only the three of us knew-or would ever know, because I had given her my word, and Fidel Castro sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to tell the world about the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child who had, in her own way, defeated him.

The voice of Norm Fizer brought me from my thoughts. "Another thing that isn't clear is why Lieutenant Santarun requested immediate duty in Europe. She was very vague about that." He eyed me slyly. "Did you have some kind of lovers' spat, or-"

"As I'm sure that G.o.ddam computer of yours up in Washington told you, the lady spent a week with me right here after our return. And it was a very pleasant week, and we did not quarrel." I shrugged. "Maybe she just didn't feel comfortable with all the new Cuban agents we have floating around this country thanks to the way the refugee exodus was handled."

And that was true. Castro was infamous for changing his mind. And if he reconsidered and decided he wanted another chance to see his daughter, it would be a simple matter . . .

Fizer stood up abruptly and checked his watch. "Well, Captain MacMorgan, I guess that just about does it. I've got a tennis date in Atlanta in . . . three hours, so I'd better get moving." He finished his beer in a gulp and began to stuff papers into his briefcase. "By the way," he said, "we turned over those two agents who posed as cameramen to an allied country of ours along with that Lobo character. I was rather surprised to learn there's a sizable community of expatriate Cubans living in London, and that the British had sent one of their agents from a Commonwealth island south of Cuba to . . ."

And that's when I heard the lumbering weight of him upon the steps of the stilthouse and heard the unmistakable brogue of his voice: "Is it that ye think me some kind of a b.l.o.o.d.y suit that ya keep me closeted in that stinkin' motorboat o' yers, Captain Fizer?"

And he came clomping through the doorway, big Irish face flushed beneath the Viking beard, left arm in cast and sling, a patch of gauze taped to the side of his head.

"Jesus H. Christ!" I said, honestly stunned.

"No, 'tis only meself, brother MacMorgan-but close enough!"

Fizer had a wry smile on his face. "I believe you've met Captain Westy O'Davis, Dusky. Great Britain traded your three Cubans for this one Cayman agent-and frankly, I'm not sure we got the best of the bargain if he's as much like you as he seems."

"Hah!" The Irishman posed, offended, then marched over and gave me a bearlike slap on the shoulder. "I've come ta take ye up on your kind offer, Yank. This ugly brute of a friend o' yers says yer in need o' some recreation, so it's meself who have come ta lead ya in some beer drinkin', an' ta tell you some tall tales-an' did ya know there's a thousand bonefish feedin' right outside, one as big as G.o.d himself? It's true, Yank, it's true." He grinned at me and winked. "I swear it on the grave of me own dead mother. . . ."

Here's an exciting glimpse of the thrilling adventure that awaits you in the next novel of this action-packed series THE DEADLIER s.e.x.

Less than ten minutes after the props of my thirty-four-foot sportfisherman, Sniper, almost cut the girl into fish bait, the boat exploded.

Not my boat. Some kind of commercial trawler. Hard to tell for sure-there wasn't much left of it.

It went up with a dazzling flash and rumble on the near horizon, turning the full-moon night to eerie day and lighting the mangrove jungle sh.o.r.elines of the Ten Thousand Islands in a Kodalith of stark whites and shadowed blacks. It was so unexpected that for one crazy moment I grabbed my head, thinking that I had been clubbed. But then, in the brightness of the explosion, I saw the burning four-foot wall of shock wave coming at us, and all we could do was hold fast and bow into it.

We were supposed to be on a vacation cruise. A little rest and recreation for me and a wild Irish friend of mine, Westy O'Davis. I had met O'Davis down in Mariel Harbor, Cuba. Mariel was an ideal place for making quick friends and influencing deadly enemies. The Irishman had, in a period of less than twenty-four hours, become a close friend. He also happened to have saved my life. Twice.

And he wasn't about to let me forget it.

So he had come to visit me on my little house built on stilts out on the clearwater flats of Calda Bank, near the pirate island of Key West. That's where I run Sniper out of as a charterboat. For years it was a valued way of life-working as a fishing guide, going down every morning to the docks at Garrison Bight where my sign reads: Captain Dusky MacMorgan

Billfish, Dolphin, Sharks, Grouper

Full days, Half days-Inquire at Marina

I didn't make much money as a fishing guide. But on the other side of the ledger, I had all the good, clear fishing days a man could want, pretty nice tourist people to show a good time to, and best of all, I was my own boss.

Once I also had a fine wife and twin boys who were the best of both of us. But then the drug pirates got them, and I had nothing.

So I went back to doing what I did best-the deadly trade I learned as a Navy SEAL. Revenge is not an ideal reason for living, but it's certainly one of the most compelling. And I have lived fully since.

Especially in Mariel Harbor, Cuba.

So, after that ordeal, it seemed reasonable that O'Davis and I take a little time off. O'Davis, who works for that labor-union-ruled island called Great Britain, is a leprechaun giant with red beard, copper hair, and a Viking face who speaks with the amused black humor of the Irish poet. O'Davis had gone to Mariel from his island home in the Caymans, where his cover occupation includes leading scuba diving tours and squiring around the pretty tourist ladies.

But he had had enough of government work and killing, and so had I, so we had spent that first week on my stilthouse drinking cold beer, battling good fish on light tackle, and telling tall tales. Then one night, while I sat with beer, a good book, and a fresh dip of Copenhagen, O'Davis began to go through my library of Florida charts. He unrolled them one by one, studying them, humming some strange tune as he did. I watched his broad face in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp.

"I want those all rolled back and catalogued the way I had them, O'Davis."

"Tum-da-dum-dum-dum . . . what?" And when I repeated it, he made a face of mock outrage. "An' do ya' think me some kind of slovenly child, Dusky MacMorgan, that ya' be remindin' me to care for yer precious charts?"

"I do."

"Hah! An' now yer laughin' at me to boot!" He made as if to throw down the chart he was holding, then thought better of it. "So this is the thanks I get for savin' the life of the likes of you-and a big, ugly brute you are, too. . . ."

"Oh G.o.d, O'Davis."

"I'll wager ya didn' think me a slovenly child when meself, Westy O'Davis, clouted the Cuban guard who was about ta shoot ya. . . ."

"Do I have to listen to this again?"

"An' knocked the b.l.o.o.d.y Russian rifle from the other guard's hands . . ."

"O'Davis?"

". . . jest when he was about ta' shoot ya, ye ugly little snit . . ."

"O'Davis. Just tell me why you're looking at the charts, okay?"

He stopped in mid-sentence, looked at me, and grinned. It was the kind of pleasant banter we had been enjoying all week; the kind the big Irishman reveled in. He rattled the chart meaningfully and said grandly, "Because, brother MacMorgan, tomorrow we're gettin' on that black-hulled power demon of yers and takin' a trip. All week long ye've been tellin' me that the only coastal wilderness left in Florida is the southwest coast, an' now that I've seen the Ten Thousand Islands on the chart, I want to see them in real life."

I shrugged, hiding my enthusiasm. Truth was, my stilthouse is awfully close quarters for two big men. And I, like the Irishman, was getting a little antsy. Besides, I loved the Ten Thousand Islands and the wilderness below them. On a map of Florida, it looks like the area below Naples and that concrete grotesquerie called Marco Island breaks into a ma.s.sive jigsaw puzzle of windswept islands and sea. It's wild and deserted-a hundred miles of tidal rivers and mangrove islands and stretches of desolate beach.

"Bugs will be bad," I said.

"Devil take the bugs."

"I have a friend who lives on one of the backcountry islands. He's a hermit."

"The island with all the tarpon?"

I nodded. "But there'll be no women, O'Davis. Don't forget that. You're not going to be able to slip into Key West like you did last night and cat around."

He put on his special lecherous look and winked at me. "After last night, who needs the ladies, brother MacMorgan? I felt like a candle in a town full of moths, I did-so who needs 'em now?"

So that's how we happened to be cruising off White Horse Key on a full-moon night in June. It had taken us three very lazy days of fishing and diving to get across Florida Bay and idle our way along Cape Sable and past the mangrove giants of Shark River. We had spent the best of the twilight nosing around Indian Key Pa.s.s on the outgoing tide, taking five good snook on sweetened jigs and releasing four. So now I steered from the main controls of the cabin, vectoring in on the distant flare of c.o.o.n Key light with the vague idea of running into the backcountry, where the tarpon would be rolling in sheens of silver moonlight by the old houseboat across from Dismal Key.

Because of the bright moon, we ran without lights. The VHF was off in favor of a Fort Myers radio station that fed a steady diet of cla.s.sic old jazz throughout Sniper. O'Davis was up on the flybridge, supposedly watching for crabpot buoys that could foul Sniper's twin bra.s.s wheels. But he was actually gazing at the moon, drinking beer, and singing. It is the secret belief of most ethnic descendants that those little ethnic legends are full-blown truths, as if some mystic source seeds our brains with the talents of ancient birthright. With Italians it is cooking, with the French it is love, with the Swedes it is sailing, and with the Irish it is singing. I don't know about the Italians, French, and Swedes, but Westy O'Davis was seriously shortchanged in his atavistic talents. His Irish tenor sounded more like a water spaniel having difficulties with a bear. Even so, he still loved to sing-and that's really why he was up on the flybridge.

I was relaxed, listening to the strains of vintage Cole Porter waft across water and airwaves, studying the hulking shadow of mainland coast. Sniper was running a conservative twenty knots, and the silver expanse of sea spread out before us. It was a good night to sip at a cold beer and enjoy the nocturnal desolation only the sea and certain northern forests can offer, and I was caught up in the beauty of it all when the roaring voice of O'Davis snapped me out of my reverie.

"Back 'er, Dusky! Back 'er now, Yank!"

At sea you don't question a command like that-and back her I did, driving both gearshifts into abrupt reverse, cringing at the strain I knew was being put on the transmission. There was a slight clunk against the fibergla.s.s hull, then nothing. I switched the engines off, then went running back to the aft deck.

"What the h.e.l.l did you see, you crazy-"

"There's someone out there, Yank!" He pointed anxiously to port. "Someone swimmin'-I swear it. Thought it was a b.l.o.o.d.y dog at first!"

And then I saw it too. A dark shadow on the silver veil of water. Someone clinging to something. Someone weak, floundering. And disappearing rapidly astern as the momentum of Sniper carried us onward. In one long step I was on the transom, quickly diving headlong into the night sea. I swam with head up, keeping a close eye on the dark shape in the distance. Behind me, I heard O'Davis start Sniper and turn to follow.

It was a person all right. Someone hanging on to one of those cheap weekender life vests. The Coast Guard says the vests are fine for pleasure craft. And they are-if said pleasure craft doesn't sink. I tried shouting, and got a low moan for an answer. So I made a quick forward approach, grabbed a dangling arm, pulled and took the chin firmly in my right hand, then switched to a cross-chest carry with my left.

And that's when I realized my victim was a woman. A very, very naked woman.

O'Davis came up carefully behind us, reversed engines expertly, and rigged the boarding ladder. I slung her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry and pulled her up onto Sniper. He had a blanket ready, and I put her down back first on the deck. The cabin lights were on and you could see her clearly. She looked about twenty or twenty-one, though she could have been a few years older. Blond hair, cut as short as a boy's, surrounded a fine, angular face with a strong nose and full mouth. She was short-all b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shoulders, with slender hips and thin legs. No rings. No necklace. And not a st.i.tch. O'Davis quickly pulled the blanket up around her-an admirable show of character because, as they say in the commercials, she was a very full-figured girl.

"Do ye know first aid, Yank?" We stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the girl wrapped in the blanket. Sniper's engines burbled quietly in the moonlight, and somewhere a wading bird squawked.

"I do for drowning-but she wasn't drowning. She had a life vest. I think we may have clipped her with the hull when we went by."

O'Davis knelt and gently searched the fine blond hair with his meaty hand. "Aye. There's a lump here, sure enough." He looked up at me. "What in b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l do ya think she was doin' at midnight a quarter-mile off sh.o.r.e in the Ten Thousand Islands?"

I shook my head. "d.a.m.ned if I know. Maybe she was on a boat that went down. Or went for a swim and got caught by the tide. It happens."

The Irishman picked her up and carried her down into the forward vee-berth. She moaned softly, stretched her neck as if to yawn, then opened her eyes. The shock registered when she realized she was on a strange boat, and both hands strained to pull the blanket tightly around her body. "Hey! Where am I? Who are you? What in the h.e.l.l do you-"

"Shush . . . shush now, child," O'Davis said gently. He reached to pat her head, and she jerked violently away.

"Keep your rotten hands off me!" She threw herself back on the bunk, twisting her head away.

I looked at the Irishman. "Like moths to a candle flame, huh?"

"Ah, she's young, Yank. Very young. But give 'er time and she'll be baskin' in me light."

"Well, we're not going to give her much time because I'm calling the Coast Guard right now and having them send out a helicopter. A head injury is nothing to toy with-"

"No!" It was the girl, sitting up again, a wild look in her eyes. "No, don't call the Coast Guard. Please-"

I didn't have time to ask her why she didn't want me to notify the Coast Guard. Because that's when the sea turned to fire. The mangroves a quarter-mile away were caught in a stark-white light-the same fiery light that showed me the shock wave rolling toward us.

That's when the boat-less than 800 yards away-suddenly exploded, lighting Sniper in its orange chromosphere, and catching the half-smile on the face of the girl. . . .

end.