Dusky MacMorgan: Cuban Death-Lift Part 9

I dropped the four lobster tails into the sputtering water, added a little salt, then covered them. "Right. It's all true. Nothing I like better than getting hopelessly drunk. How about you?"

"Do you have to work at being so sarcastic, Mr. MacMorgan? Or does it just come naturally?"

"It depends on who I'm talking to. And you're supposed to call me Dusky. Remember?"

When the lobster was done, I b.u.t.terflied them and set slivers of fresh lime on the table. The woman surprised me by asking for beer every time I got up to get one. It wasn't a meal for forks and knives and the dainty attack those things imply. It was a meal to eat with your hands, with hot b.u.t.ter and garlic bread; it was a meal that required plenty of napkins.

When we had finished, Santarun surprised me by gathering the dishes and pots together in the sink and putting water on to boil-for coffee and dishwater.

She saw the way I raised my eyes at that.

"Are you surprised that I'm volunteering to work?" she said, knowing full well that I was.

"Shocked might be a better word."

"Actually, I want to do the dishes as a show of good faith; good faith because I'm about to tell you something that really might shock you."

"Hold off telling me until the end of the trip. That way you can do all the dishes as a sign of good faith."

"I'm afraid I have no desire to show that much good faith." She laughed lightly. I studied to see if the sudden friendliness was forced, and decided-probably because of the four beers she had had-that it wasn't. "Actually, Dusky, it has to do with my conversation earlier with that Cuban soldier-Captain Lobo."

And that's when she told me about the preliminary steps it took to get a relative out of Cuba.

"But once the papers have been processed, and my father has been approved, I'm sure they're not going to just bring him down to this boat and wave goodbye," she continued.

"What makes you think that?"

She hesitated for a moment while she squirted soap into the dishwater and went to work on the plates. "For one thing, I've been listening to other Cuban-Americans talking on your radio. Some of them have been over here before, and they've talked with the refugees in Key West. Once the relatives have been approved, the first thing the Castro regime does is confiscate their homes and their property. And then they send them to refugee camps-"

"Which, I imagine, are more like concentration camps."

"Exactly."

"Well, that's not completely unexpected. I mean, Castro isn't exactly known as a humanitarian." I nodded toward the stack of dishes. "So why the unexpected goodwill gesture?"

"Wait," she said. "There's more. You don't have to listen to that radio for long to realize that we're in for a long stay here. That's the point I was trying to make. Castro's people are holding the refugees in those concentration camps for a reason. This afternoon, while you were working on the engine, I watched them loading the refugees through your binoculars. The dock's across the harbor-Captain Lobo called it Pier Three. Do you have any idea how many boats they loaded in eight hours?"

I shook my head. "You can herd a lot of people onto a deck in eight hours."

"You could-but they didn't. Only two boats were loaded. That's what I'm trying to get at. Castro wants it to be slow. I think he wants us all to stay here until we've eaten all our food and spent all our money."

Suddenly it dawned on me. "So now I see why you're being so nice all of a sudden-"

"If that's an insult, I'm afraid-"

I smiled at her. "Face it, Santarun. You haven't exactly been Miss Congeniality on this trip. But now you're afraid I'm going to get tired of waiting around here in Mariel Harbor after a week or so, pull anchor, and head back to Key West. So now you're trying to charm me into some verbal agreement-"

"I am not! I'm just trying to tell you the facts!"

She glared at me. It was getting so I liked that glare. She had pulled on a baggy blue shirt over her swim suit, and she had her hands on her hips, leaning toward me like an angry kid.

"And you're trying to cover the facts with all the sugar and spice you can."

"MacMorgan, you are so pigheaded! I was just trying to explain to you that we might have to stay here in Mariel a little longer than we had planned, but you have to read all sorts of devious motives into it."

"But you do want me to agree to stay until your business is finished-right?"

"Yes!"

"Even if it takes a month or more?"

"Of course!"

"And even if we run out of food?"

"You were paid to bring me here, then take me back when I was done . . . when I had my father!"

She had slipped and she knew it. Quickly, she busied herself with cleaning up the galley. She had played the role of the daughter seeking her father so well that, for a time, I had wondered if she really did have a father still in Cuba. Now was the time to blow her cover-and mine-if I wanted. Why not get things out in the open? After all, couldn't we work better as a team?

I thought about it. I really did. And I came d.a.m.n close to putting all my cards on the table.

The only thing that stopped me was my promise to Norm.

He had ordered me to stay neutral. I was supposed to watch and report back. If things got too rough for the woman I could step in-but then and only then.

I got up from the booth, stretched, then reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. I expected her to flinch, but she didn't.

"I'm sorry, Androsa."

She kept her head down, running a dishcloth around the little alcohol stove. "It's okay. You're right. I have been pretty nasty to you."

"That's true."

She gave me a warning glance that said, "Do you want to argue some more?"

I didn't, so I hurried on, "All the lockers are filled with canned goods. We have ten pounds of rice, plenty of fish, and ten cases of beer. When the food is all gone-and we probably have enough for five or six weeks-then we go. Agreed?"

She reached as if to give my hand a sisterly pat, but stopped halfway.

"Agreed," she said.

Outside, the sky was blurred with smog from the factories, and the military had big runway searchlights scanning the harbor. Boats in the distance stood out in blue silhouette in the vacillating darkness, and, standing on the aft deck, I could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of rapid Spanish drifting across the water. Somewhere, calypso music played from a radio. It seemed out of place in the somberness of Mariel Harbor.

I reached into my shirt pocket, took an after-dinner dip, then collected a blanket, pillow, and flashlight and climbed up to the flybridge and lay down.

I had only gotten about three hours of sleep after the long run from Key West. And I was tired. d.a.m.n tired.

But across the harbor, I knew, were thousands of people even more tired than I. They were the refugees, homeless in their camps, all hopes fixed on the dream of America.

Lying there beneath the veiled stars I thought of them, and I wondered what America, already choking with heavy welfare rolls and unemployment, was going to do with a hundred thousand non-English-speaking expatriates-many of them a cross-section of criminals, spies, and Castro castoffs. And I wondered what effect the worst of them would have on the destinies of the innocent.

Even with the smog, it was a nice night: a cool land breeze blew down out of the high country. I began to think of the woman, and fell into a restless sleep.

10.

There was the scream of siren.

And shots.

A machine gun, and it wasn't far away.

It slipped into my dreams like some malevolent creature, and pulled me down into those memories that, even in reality, were nightmares.

They're dead, Dusky. All dead. Three bodies scattered like broken toys. . . .

And then the shots came from the perimeter of a base camp up a jungle river long ago and far away, and I was leading a watch of SEALs neck-deep in black water into a firefight that could only end one way-with Charlie hunting us with sampans and converted a.s.sault skiffs, and us knowing even before we fired our first round that it was going to be one h.e.l.l of a deadly swim back to the World, and some of us weren't going to make it. . . .

And then I suddenly was awake.

The searchlight from the military outpost on the peninsula was tunneling through the darkness, pounding out an area of stark daylight on a patch of water a hundred yards or so from Sniper. The water was a phlegm green where the searchlight scanned, and I could see the white flare of spray which marked the trajectory of bullets coming from the beach.

I jumped to my feet, throwing off the blanket, then swung down the ladder onto the deck.

The woman was already up, leaning out anxiously over the railing trying to see what the Cubans were shooting at.

"Get down, dammit!"

I jerked her roughly down onto the deck. The light swept across Sniper, showing her face pale, wide-eyed. She wore a white T-shirt and sheer panties which, in the brief shock of light, showed her as she would look naked.

"Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are crazy," I said. "They're not even sure what they're shooting at, and one dead Cuban-American woman isn't going to bother them one way or the other. So stay down, got it?"

She nodded quickly. She was shaking, and it wasn't from the cool night wind. I knew what was on her mind. She thought that this was it: Castro's way of getting rid of one American spy.

When the searchlight had crossed back over Sniper, I poked my head under the railing and followed the path of the beam.

And then I saw it.

A human figure swimming for his life. In the brilliance of the beam, steam came up off the water, and the swimmer appeared oil-black. He was doing a ragged, overhand crawlstroke. He swam with his head up, legs way too low, and I knew that only fear and adrenaline could provide the strength it would take for him to make it the sixty yards to the nearest boat-my boat, Sniper.

"Why don't they just send a boat out and arrest him?" the woman wondered out loud, angry, almost yelling it.

"Oh, they're sending a skiff out right now-see the light over by the wharf? But they don't want to arrest him. They want to make an example out of him. They want to kill him."

The searchlight was full on the refugee. It was pathetic. He tried to disappear underwater once, but he was no swimmer, and he came back up only a few seconds later.

Poppa-poppa-pop . . .

It was a sound I knew well.

The a.s.sault rifles swept across him in an explosion of spray. One of the slugs jerked him back and swung him around. It must have hit him in the shoulder, because he floundered in the water with one weak arm pawing for survival.

In that harsh steaming light, he looked like a dog abandoned at sea, finally ready to give up.

I felt the anger move through me like a fever. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. It was something the soldiers would laugh about in the morning. Who was the best shot? Which of them could cut a notch in their Russian rifles?

Even as I watched, my hands began to move as if they had minds of their own, stripping off my T-shirt, working at my belt.

"Dusky, what are you doing!"

"I think I might go for a little swim."

She pulled herself close beside me, drawing my head around to face her.

"Dusky, there's nothing you can do. Can't you see that? My G.o.d, don't try something so stupid! You can't save him-"

"That's right, I can't. But dammit, I can try." She was right, of course. He was a goner. One way or another, they would get him.

But at least I could try to spoil their fun.

Wearing only underwear I dove headlong into the harbor-head down, hands joined into fists to punch a good hole in the water. A nice quiet dive. I swam strong and smooth, eyes up, watching, in a lifesaver's crawl.

The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d was still using the one evasive tactic he had. He'd come up for a quick breath, wave his one good arm as if to surrender, then push himself back under when the soldiers started shooting again.

They weren't about to let him surrender.

Poppa-poppa-pop . . .

More gunfire. Absently, I wondered how long it would take a company of good Marines to bust these Cuban amateurs into submission and work their way to downtown Havana.

About as long as it would take me to swim to the wounded refugee, probably.

As I drew closer, I could hear him splashing and gasping, moaning in pain.

"Yo rendir! Por favor, yo rendir!"

But the Cuban soldiers weren't about to have their sleep interrupted for nothing. They weren't about to let him surrender.

They fired again, the slugs throwing green wakes into the water.

I was right on the perimeter of the big beam of searchlight. I exhaled completely, took five good deep breaths, then dove. I had my target marked well.

But even if I didn't, I would have found him anyway. It was a night of neap moon, and the water was filled with the billions of little microorganisms that glow like fireflies at the slightest stir. And the green sparkle of phosph.o.r.escence marked my objective as I swam in long gliding strokes beneath the surface.