Dead Man's Land

by Jack Patterson

  “Did you get the combination?” Prado asked.

  Yunel tapped the pocket on his shirt. “It’s right here.”

  By day, Lopez oversaw the robust fishing industry on the island, handling the processing of each boat’s daily catch. He had a small office in a clapboard shed at the head of the main dock.

  The incoming tide lapped against the shore, while the sound of larger waves rolling up pierced the otherwise peaceful night. A light fog swept toward them and mixed with the dim lights along the dock, casting an ominous glow.

  Prado inhaled the saltwater air as he crept quietly down the dock behind Yunel. Scanning the area, Prado saw no one but remained vigilant to move as stealthily as possible.

  Once they reached Lopez’s office, they both slumped against the outside of the building.

  Prado took a deep breath and froze.

  “Do you smell that?” he whispered, sticking his nose in the air.

  Yunel took a whiff and shook his head. “No. What do you smell?”

  “Someone is smoking nearby.”

  Yunel arose in a crouch and crept back along the shed and looked around the corner at the other docks along the shore.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Yunel said once he returned.

  Prado grabbed Yunel’s arm. “You think your father is inside?”

  “The lights are out. Besides, he smokes Partagas, not cigarettes. You can smell him coming five minutes before he arrives.”

  Prado forced a smile, though it did nothing to relieve his uneasiness. But how he felt about the situation mattered little the moment Yunel turned the key to open the door.

  Click.

  Yunel pushed the door open; it creaked as it gave way.

  Prado looked back along the dock and followed Yunel inside.

  With a window overlooking the other docks, Lopez’s office wasn’t quite as hidden in the dark as Yunel made it out to be in his earlier conversations with Prado about his master plan. Prado realized they were susceptible to being seen.

  Yunel turned on his phone and used it to light the front of the safe hidden beneath his father’s desk.

  “Keep your phone down,” Prado said. “Someone might see us.”

  Yunel stopped and turned toward Prado. “Would you relax? No one is going to see us.”

  Prado leaned back against the door while Yunel pulled out the stacks of cash needed to pay the smugglers, who were scheduled to arrive in five minutes.

  “How much is it again?” Prado asked, trying to keep his mind busy in order to squelch his paranoia.

  “Ten thousand per person.”

  “And there’s enough in there for both of us?”

  Yunel snickered. “There’s enough in here for every member of the Grapefruit Cutters.” He continued to pull the money out of the safe and started to count it. “Don’t want to cheat the smugglers.”

  Prado nodded and smiled. But his smile vanished as he caught the scent of cigarette smoke a second time.

  “There it is again,” Prado said.

  “There is what?”

  “Someone is smoking.”

  “Nobody’s around, El Roque. Come over here and help me count this so you can take your mind off of it.”

  Prado ignored Yunel, instead standing up and peering out of the window. On the dock below him were two men who appeared to be arguing. One man wore a white lab coat, while the other sported a fedora.

  “Look. There’s two men right there,” Prado said as he turned back and looked at Yunel.

  “Ssshhh. I’m counting,” Yunel said. “Just stay down so they don’t see you, and be quiet.”

  Prado ignored Yunel again, staring at the scene unfolding before him. A stiff breeze cleared out the lingering fog, giving Prado a clear view of the two men.

  Prado gasped. “I know him,” he whispered.

  Yunel tugged on Prado’s shirt. “I said get down.”

  Prado crept out of the office and stepped onto the dock so he could have a better look. He stayed low as he peered around the corner of the structure. He didn’t move as the argument continued to escalate. The man in the lab coat pulled out a small handgun and pointed it at the man wearing a fedora. But before he could pull the trigger, the man in the fedora shifted to the side and wrenched the other man’s arm, shaking the gun loose. He then grabbed the gun and jammed it into his adversary’s chest.

  The man in the fedora glanced around the docks. As his head turned toward Lopez’s office, Prado pulled back out of sight and swallowed hard.

  Yunel crawled on his hands and knees to the doorway. “Are you crazy? Get back in here,” he whispered.

  Prado poked his head back around the corner just in time to hear a gunshot fired followed by a splash. He darted back inside the office.

  “Finally. Now will you help me count this,” Yunel said.

  Prado leapt back to his feet and looked out the window, just in time to see the man with the fedora scampering down the dock until he disappeared in the shadows.

  “He just shot that man,” Prado said, putting his hand over his gaping mouth.

  He felt Yunel brush up against his arm as his cousin was now at his side surveying the scene.

  “I wasn’t being paranoid,” Prado said.

  They both stared at the man in the lab coat lying facedown in the water, the waves gently bumping his body into the dock’s anchored posts.

  “We have to go help him,” Prado said.

  “You are crazy. We can’t get caught down here—not now anyway.” He held up the bag full of money and shook it a couple of times.

  “What if he’s not dead?”

  “That’s not our concern any more.”

  “But that man just shot him.”

  Yunel put his hand on Prado’s shoulder. “You’re going to end up just like that if my father finds out we stole his money.”

  Before Prado could protest any further, a motorboat rumbled in the distance, echoing through the channel. Yunel craned his head out of the shed to look.

  “They’re here. We need to go now,” he said. “Make your decision, but I’ve already made up mine.”

  Prado looked out of the window again at the man still drifting in the water. He wanted to help him, but he couldn’t.

  Not now.

  Freedom was calling.

  Prado climbed into the boat.

  CHAPTER 2

  ANGEL TORRES WIPED OFF the saltwater spray from his brow and prayed his mother wasn’t looking down on him from heaven. His thoughts continually dueled with one another, creating a mental state as choppy as the waters his cigarette boat currently battled. How his life had spiraled out of control to the point that he was here, doing this, with them—he had no clue. Yet it surprised no one who knew him from his younger days.

  The grandson of Cuban immigrants to Miami, Torres struggled to make good decisions. At five feet nine inches tall and 250 pounds, he never met a gallon of ice cream he didn’t love. His permanent wheeze said the same thing about his passion for smoking. The same could be said of his love for gambling, though the boat he stood at the helm of belied that fact.

  While the verdict remained out on whether Torres had indeed made a good decision, his decision to force his opponent’s hand in a game of poker is why he even had the boat. Desperate to either get a bullet to the head or make out with a fat payday, Torres entered a high stakes game and emerged victorious. In a pinch for cash, one of the players was allowed to enter by using his boat as collateral. But for the moment, it seemed fortuitous to Torres.

  After a series of wild parties and reckless spending, Torres realized he needed to make some money, perhaps in a way that reduced his chances of jail. He contemplated a tourism boat company but didn’t have the necessary start-up capital. That’s when he overheard one of his friends talking about smuggling people out of Cuba. Simple task, big payday—the kind of occupation Torres sought his whole life.

  When he first approached his pal Paco Ortega about the idea, Torres was taken aba
ck by Ortega’s unwillingness to participate.

  “Come on, man,” Torres told him. “This is easy money.”

  “It’s an easy way to get thrown in a federal prison. Have you heard about what happens in there, man?”

  Torres didn’t need to hear secondhand stories. He spent three years at Coleman in central Florida for counterfeiting and had all the firsthand knowledge he cared to have.

  “I actually learned about this while I was in prison.”

  Ortega threw his arms up. “Oh, great. So, you learned this from a bunch of guys who’d already been caught and were serving time.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then tell me what it’s like, Señor Einstein.”

  “I met several guys who said they wished they’d gotten into smuggling out of Cuba because their cousin or their brother was making huge stacks of cash without getting caught.”

  “And yet there they were—in the cell next to you.”

  “I never said these were the brightest men in the world.”

  Ortega shook his head. “No way am I getting into this game. Besides, I hate the water.”

  “What if I told you we could make as much as two hundred grand for just one run?”

  Ortega eyed him cautiously. “Two hundred grand? Each?”

  Torres described the scheme to Ortega, who nodded knowingly as if he understood how the Cuban smuggling business worked. After being friends with Ortega for so long, Torres knew he wasn’t listening to a word he was saying but was instead figuring out how he’d spend all his fast cash.

  The reality is smuggling didn’t really pay that well. There’s an initial fee of ten grand or so up front to get the person to safety. But the real money was to be made on the back end—if the person they were smuggling was a baseball player. That could bring in one percent of a player’s contract. It was a modest finder’s fee that Torres heard smugglers were attaching to potential superstars. Yasiel Puig of Los Angeles Dodgers’ stardom had a seven-year contract worth $42 million. Torres did the math and realized that one percent of that was well over four hundred thousand, which is the number he used to snooker Ortega into joining him. He figured they might make fifty grand each plus a split of the passage fee after subtracting costs. And while that would rankle Ortega for a while, he’d come around eventually and be grateful that he signed up.

  Torres noticed the channel lights ahead and eased up on the throttle. His boat could outrun just about anything on the water, but he preferred not to test her limits. He wanted to keep it simple—in and out.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Ortega, who was guzzling his third Dos Equis of their two-hour trip.

  “Be careful, Ortega. I don’t want you puking off the side of the boat tonight. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”

  Ortega belched and waved off Torres. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  Torres rarely worried about his friend, who possessed an uncanny knack for escaping difficult situations. Ortega once went to rob a liquor store and was in line when the two men in front of him robbed the store first. The storeowner had a gun and shot both of the men before they could get a shot off. Ortega put his bottle back on the shelf and slipped out before anyone noticed he was carrying a weapon.

  In another incident, Ortega also avoided six months of jail time when a clerical error set him free.

  But Torres remained somewhat concerned. He didn’t need to botch this job. Torres didn’t have quite enough cash to bankroll the job, so he sought a favor from a bookie friend of his. In hindsight, it was another one of those no-so-great decisions, but he felt like the opportunity might slip away if he didn’t act right away. He’d heard that some Cubans get cold feet and never show. And some get in the boat before grabbing their money and diving back into the water. Torres couldn’t allow for any of it—and a drunk shipmate didn’t do him any favors.

  “Let’s try to act like we’ve done this before,” Torres said.

  “If I knew what it was like to actually smuggle someone out of Cuba, I might be able to. But this is my first time—and yours too. You mind telling me what I’m supposed to act like?”

  Torres glared at Ortega. “Just sit down and shut up. The less you say, the better.”

  “Some partnership this is,” Ortega muttered.

  They puttered along toward the docks. Torres checked his GPS and his coordinates again. They were right on target. “I think it’s the one right there,” he said, pointing. “The one with the shack on the end.”

  Ortega sprang to his feet and grabbed the rope in preparation to dock.

  Torres shook his head. “You think we’re going to have time to dock? We’re going to grab the player and leave. Just be ready to help them—and their money—into the boat.”

  With the engine sputtering as it pushed the boat toward the shore, the faint lights barely illuminated the docks. A strong breeze pushed straggling lines of fog ashore as the air began to clear.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Torres said. He pointed toward the longest dock. “I think that’s where we’re supposed to meet them.”

  As they neared their agreed meeting spot, a gunshot echoed through the air.

  “Did you hear that?” Ortega asked.

  Torres nodded. “Stay calm. No need to panic.”

  “What if this is a set up?”

  “Do you think they care about small fish like us in Cuba?”

  Ortega sat down and shook his head. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “There’s nothing bad about this idea. Just shut up and chill out.”

  “Chill out? Chill out? We’re about to smuggle out a star baseball player, a guy who’s good at the only thing this nation is passionate about—and I’m supposed to just chill out?”

  “You are if you want to live. Now shut up and follow my instructions.”

  Torres gave Ortega a few directives as he guided the boat closer and closer.

  After another minute of creeping toward the dock, two men came into focus. One of them started to climb down the ladder toward the water.

  “Do you see them?” Torres asked. “Get ready to help them into the boat because we’re going to scream out of here.”

  “Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Ortega said, mocking Torres with a salute.

  Once Torres reached the dock, one of his passengers leaped into the boat, unwilling to wait until he maneuvered it closer. The other passenger climbed slowly down the ladder and looked down the docks toward an object floating in the water.

  “Is that a person?” Ortega asked.

  The passenger nodded. “Don’t ask.”

  Torres looked at Ortega. “Get the money.”

  Ortega helped the second passenger into the boat and then took the satchel of money from the first passenger. After a few moments of counting the stacks of cash, Ortega declared, “It’s all here. Let’s go.”

  Torres spun the boat around and eased back through the channel. He wasn’t sure which guy was the supposed superstar, but he didn’t care—as long as he got paid.

  He reached the outer limits of the channel and jammed the throttle forward all the way. Time was money—and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on it.

  CHAPTER 3

  CAL MURPHY STROLLED into The Seattle Times office, a cup of coffee in one hand, his brief case in the other. Since his return to Seattle several months ago, life felt more comfortable. Instead of trying to learn a new city and develop a new rapport with the local professional sports teams’ coaches, players and front office, he could simply write. Nobody left Seattle unless they had to—or unless you were a foolish journalist chasing stardom. Once the latter, Cal had matured and decided that leaving the Emerald City years ago was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.

  While he was gone, his old sports editor, Thurston Fink, retired and was replaced by Frank Buckman, a hotshot deputy sports editor from Kansas City who’d finally landed his first gig as the man in charge. He was only a couple of years older than Cal but remained int
imidated by his star reporter. Cal laughed when Buckman told him he’d heard that he once killed a bear in the bayou with nothing more than a can of sardines and a cinder block.

  “I’ll tell you what I tell every baseball media relations director who wants to sell me on their hot young prospect who’s yet to throw a pitch in the Major Leagues—don’t believe the hype,” Cal advised Buckman. “I’m just a hard-working reporter who wants to get to the bottom of a story. And if you have a story that needs a tenacious reporter like that, I’m your guy.”

  Buckman quit his star-struck look with Cal after that, but he still stiffened when Cal suggested a story that needed investigating. He always deferred to his reporter, sometimes to his detriment—and Cal had recently burned him on one particular story.

  Cal investigated inequality allegations of facilities between boys and girls on a local high school, but it turned out to be nothing newsworthy. One of the boys on the football team had a father who held a senior management position at Microsoft and donated a large sum to the program, creating the disparity. And though the story never ran, Cal rankled plenty of feathers, creating a few days of headaches for Buckman.

  “I’m not perfect,” Cal said. “But you’ll find out that my hunches are more often right than not.”

  This late-June morning started with a mundane budget meeting to discuss what was going to get into the sports section and what was going to be relegated to the digital-only space. While being stuck with a website story had lost its second-rate stigma, writing a story that appeared on the front page of the sports section was still held in high esteem.

  He settled into his chair at a near-empty table. One of the interns who answered the phones and formatted box scores was across from him—and he was too intimidated to say a word. Cal opened his copy of the paper and read a short story about how Mexican drug cartel hit man Victor Vegas had been sentenced to life in prison for murdering four federal agents during an undercover sting operation gone awry. It wasn’t Cal’s usual reading selection, but he remembered Vegas from a brief stint with the Texas Rangers before he couldn’t hit his weight and quit baseball after being reassigned to the minors. According to the story, Vegas was recruited by infamous Mexican drug lord Fabian Munoz. The two were rumored to be behind the smuggling of three of the biggest Cuban baseball stars in recent years. It was a story Cal would’ve begged for if it had any connection to the Seattle fans—but it didn’t and was nothing more than a glitzy front-page story written by an anonymous Associated Press reporter.