Byrne was disdainful. "We conserve fuel, Tommy. We are not heading for the Mexican Riviera just yet. Rural Mexican diesel will have to be strained, and we can only hope it is not half water. "Relax, we are Yankee boat bums. We do not hurry because we have no deadlines to meet."
Byrne snickered, "We actually are unemployed—remember? You should get used to the feeling. I will become a physician, but you will probably spend your years loafing here or there, living off your ill-gotten gains, amounting to nothing, living the life of an almost-wealthy wastrel."
Shepard said, "I've got my plans, Byrne. You worry about your own. Hell, I doubt any decent medical school will accept you. You'll probably go to one of those offshore diploma mills and . . ." Byrne's features froze in a peculiar intensity, and Bravo gave attention to what he had just said.
Byrne's eyes had stilled, and he appeared annoyed, but it was a long minute before Bravo figured it out.
"Good God, that's it, isn't it Byrne? You are planning on attending one of those out-of-our-country doctor schools."
Alpha's lip stuck out, but Bravo had to dig further before he got a response.
Nodding as if in discovery, Tommy Shepard said, "So that is how you will do it. They'll take you because you can buy your way in, but you will likely be the only English speaker in the place, and no one will be able to read your diploma or know where the school was, and . . ."
Byrne clicked on the auto pilot and watched for a moment to make sure the boat held course. Turning to his partner he said, "Look Shepard, there are some good schools offshore, and I've picked out two that I might like. The first is in the Caymans, so you will understand how handy that will be with my money right there in town. Which brings up the main point. An offshore school costs less than half the price of going through American schools, and the one I like guarantees that I will qualify for licensing in any of the United States of America."
Still flustered, Byrne added, "I don't plan on being a brain surgeon. I want to be a general practitioner in some western small town, Tommy.
"I want to do family stuff, on people I know and that I will have for patients all of their lives and their children's lives thereafter."
Nodding recognition, he added, "You are right that I might wait forever to be admitted to an American medical school—and I am not willing to do that. This fall, I expect to be enrolled down here in the warm country. I will go to school, roam the beaches, and meet hundreds of pretty American girls who will be pleased to encounter one of their own who is in medical school—and who has a fine sailboat." His irritation gone, Byrne added, "Hey, man, how can you beat that?"
Tom Shepard had to admit that he could not beat that, so he told his partner about his own plan.
"Don, you can dedicate your life to helping others, and I will be proud of you, but I am going home to middle California, and I am socking my bucks in land.
"California has brushfires, earthquakes, mudslides, tsunamis, volcanoes, overcrowding, and snotty, leftwing, high-taxing, liberal pukes by the thousands, but people like the place, and they will keep coming. Land values will quadruple—and I will be Big Bucks Shepard. You can visit me once in a while at my mansion in Malibu."
With an eye on the sails and the compass heading, Byrne slumped onto a cockpit cushion.
"Sounds good, pardner, but don't come to me with your ulcers, liver cirrhosis, and pollution induced asthma—probably emphysema. You'll be dead from stress by fifty."
— — —
The river mouth appeared as expected, but the buoyage was unfathomable. Barely moving under power, Byrne tried three times, but none of the usual rules of returning to a river seemed to work. Each attempt ended in grounding.
The Oyster touched only lightly, and the bottom was soft, but Byrne wondered what else might be down there—like sunken boats, construction junk with rebar protruding, or huge tree snags that had floated down. The water was almost black with tannic acids from the swamps and jungles, and the depth finder could not work at the shallow measurements required. Byrne held the boat in a spot they had found to have decent depth and looked around.
Shepherd said, "There has to be a way through."
Byrne agreed. "Yep, but it requires local knowledge or a lot of trying." He nodded to the south, "But, if we are lucky, here comes our guide."
Two boats were approaching. The first was a long and slender speedboat that ignored everything and just planed across the top. Byrne and Shepard watched it pass and automatically judged the hard looking trio manning the craft.
Byrne said, "We might keep those boys in mind."
Bravo said "Yeah," in a thoughtful tone.
Byrne said, "That boat is poorly trimmed. The bow sticks up so high I doubt they can see for two hundred yards ahead."
"Fast though."
"Faster than us." Byrne believed that point to be of interest.
The second boat was a small ship, and that, Byrne hoped, would be their guide through the unmarked channels. Byrne judged that the much larger boat would draw five or more feet of water. Where it could go, the Oyster could follow. Byrne gratefully pulled the Noisy Oyster into the ship's wake, and held steady about one hundred feet astern through the twists and turns of the invisible channel.
Tommy Shepard had his own duties. Using pen and paper he recorded the course. He marked in visible objects like the strangely placed buoys and the still erect mast of a sunken sailboat. He drew lines and checked their directions against the Oyster's compass.
Then they were through, the river became a single channel, and the docks and buildings of a town appeared a pair of miles upstream.
Alpha asked, "Did you get it all down?"
Bravo was confident. "Every twist and turn. We can go out after dark, if we are careful."
Don Byrne heaved a dramatic sigh of relief.
"That is good to hear, Tommy. Of course, with sand bars forming and dissolving, the route changes constantly. Right now, the tide may be high, or it could be low, and we could hit really heavy seas right there in the inlet, but if you've got everything figured out, I'll stop worrying about it."
The river was rarely deep, and Alpha clung to the middle, where the deepest water was most likely to be. They chugged along at four and five knots until near dusk when a familiar settlement appeared.
The docks appeared deserted, but boats were tied to the rickety piers, including the speedboat they had seen entering the river. Alpha eased them alongside the first empty dock, and Bravo flipped lines over wooden bollards and placed a trio of inflated bumpers to hold the Oyster's nicely painted hull away from the rough dock wood.
Alpha cut the diesel and looked to where Bravo was pointing. Shepard said, "That looks familiar." Bravo was aiming at a battered johnboat pulled onto the shore.
Don Byrne shook his head in amusement. The motorboat they had used to go upriver a half-year before lay almost where they had left it.
"Well, we know it will float, and that could be better than anything else we might commandeer."
Shepard was not as certain. He mopped at sweat and waved away mosquitoes that almost instantly appeared. "That thing is older than we are, and in this tropic paradise, even aluminum might rot away."
Byrne smiled a little. "That is why we inexperienced and fearful gringo fishermen will inflate seven sail bags, right in front of everybody watching, and take them along to make sure that our trusty craft will not sink under us."
Bravo stood, hands on hips, nodding a bit to himself. "That scheme always seemed a bit farfetched to me, but looking at this blackwater river and that scurvy boat, blowing into balloons makes a lot of sense. I think anyone interested in what we're doing would understand extra flotation."
Byrne believed the same.
They rigged a blue plastic tarp across the boom and tied it off at the handrails. When the morning sun began beating on them, every inch of shade would be welcome.
Byrne said, "I'll go find the boat renter and encourage him to make sure the engine is in top shape." He steppe
d to the dock, but turned to listen to Bravo's words.
Shepard said, "I'm going to bring our shotgun up here into the cockpit and strip it down." He glared at Byrne, "And don't tell me we aren't taking it along. I'm not going into that country with only my extensive knowledge of Judo as a weapon."
Byrne nodded approval. "Check the shells in our box. We wouldn't want to discover that sea air had gotten to the brass or swelled the paper."
He turned away, but Bravo was not through. "I still think we should each have at least a 1911. We will feel naked if anybody unfriendly appears."
They had not been challenged by coastal patrol boats. They had not even seen any, and there had been no custom agent on this river to even check with. That was good, but get in, get it, and get out, was still the ticket, and Alpha's senses keened a little as his eyes passed across the fast boat docked nearby.
Chapter 7
From within his boat's cabin, Pedro Alvarez, who liked being called Commander Zero by those he employed, watched the gringos settle in. Unless sunlight entering the cabin was directly behind him—a condition he knew to avoid, the smoked cabin windows made him invisible, Although the American sailboat was only short yards away, Alvarez used his binoculars. The more he saw, the more he would know.
The motorsailer with the stupid name across its canoe stern was a valuable boat. Handsome boats were sometimes Commander Zero's business. If the task appeared reasonable, which always meant without undue personal risk, Alvarez knew a wealthy individual in Venezuela who, with no questions asked, would pay well for such a vessel.
If he acquired the boat, and the two gringos aboard slept in the deep, the simple tasks would be to remove the painted name and grind off identifying marks often placed along the keels of American boats. Painted a different color and sailed on distant waters, the boat would be virtually untraceable.
The Noisy Oyster (Alvarez again sneered at the ridiculous name) boasted a large center cockpit, a feature appreciated by sailors wishing to entertain more than explore. When the boat had maneuvered for docking, there had been the sounds and smells of a diesel engine, and that raised the boat's value remarkably. Diesel engines ran forever, and fuel was found everywhere. Gasoline was sometimes harder to locate, and it was often old and required repeated straining. A good boat indeed.
Of course, a boat could not be taken here on the river where there were eyes to see and voices to report. Open seas, with no other boats in view, offered proper conditions, and night was always best. Then most crew would be asleep, and his swift craft could be among the sailors before they realized their danger. With only two men to face, Commander Zero knew resistance would be insignificant. What did soft and well-fed Americans know about fighting for life anyway?
There would be the matter of sailing and powering the newly acquired boat first into hiding, and after name and appearance changes, on to a distant market.
He could put Manelito aboard for the first part. Even that sneaky devil could not escape the speed of Alvarez's boat—and Manelito or his other companion were never above grabbing at any profit they might see without careful reasoning through the problems they would create for themselves. Alvarez always watched them closely.
Commander Zero spent moments considering his own boat. He had stolen the craft two years before, and although old and made of wood, it served him well. Unfortunately, he had failed to keep oil in the engine, and the cylinders had frozen solid.
The once powerful inboard engine had been junked and the speedboat was now propelled by a large outboard hung from the transom. The new engine placed too much weight in the stern, and the boat's bow rode high and caused the boat to pitch and pound unmercifully in even small chops. It was no longer a boat to challenge heavy seas, but there was still decent speed. Certainly more than would be needed to run down a sailboat.
If he chose to take the boat, Zero's plan would be to allow the sailboat to depart but follow after a reasonable wait. He would lurk where he could see the masthead but would himself be below sight from the sailboat's deck. After dark, he would slide alongside. His men would hold the Americans under their guns, and no damage to the new vessel would occur.
He would place the Americans on his new boat's teak swim platform and shoot them there. No cleaning of blood would be required. He would not bother to weight the bodies. He would simply shoot them many times. Little gas would be held inside to allow them to float about, and the leaking bodies would draw sharks. Zero had used the system before, and no corpses had surfaced.
For now, Commander Zero would wait and watch. He saw fishing gear being assembled, and the idiots were blowing up small balloons and fitting them into large zippered bags. Did they really think any small boat they rented would sink while on the river? Americans—mucho dinero, few brains!
Stopping at this seldom-visited river was fortunate. This taking would be easy and very profitable.
— — —
When Alpha returned, Bravo was in the cabin with the door closed. When Alpha's weight on the gunnel rocked the boat he appeared, sweating from the cabin heat.
They sat in the shaded cockpit with cold soft drinks. Alpha said, "The refrigerator cooled things down pretty fast once we were plugged into dock power. I get tired of warm water drinking."
Bravo said, "Yeah," but his voice sounded distracted.
Apha asked, "What?"
Bravo answered, "Now, Don, will you try not to turn your head and stare?
"The skipper of that speedboat tied up a few docks down is studying us through binoculars from inside his cabin."
Alpha swallowed long before lowering his can. "I guess you've decided that he is not just admiring our boat?"
"Oh, he's admiring the boat, but if that was all he had in mind, he would look from his cockpit and probably come over to talk to us about it."
"It must be hotter than the hubs of hell closed up in that little speedboat cabin. How long has he been looking?"
"I didn't see him on deck before you left, so I suppose that he has been looking us over for more than half an hour."
Alpha appeared to ponder. "I suppose he is worried because you look sneaky and dishonest, Shepard. What do you think we should do about him?"
Bravo had his thoughts ready. "When we leave the boat, we will take everything worth anything. You can pull a couple of the important circuit breakers and turn a few knobs to make sure the boat is here when we get back."
Alpha nodded, "That is an excellent step one, and when we get back?"
"We'll see if he and his boat are still around. If he is gone, when we start downriver we will make sure he isn't lurking along the way. If we don't see him even after we get into the Gulf, we'll start watching all the closer, and by then you will have a plan on how to outwit a boat that has a lot more speed—and, probably, thanks to you, a lot more guns aboard."
Alpha allowed his head to turn in the general direction of the docked speedboat. "I gather you suspect our neighbor's motives, Bravo." He frowned and tried to look closer. "I can't tell if he is there or not. How did you see him?"
"I am a trained Ranger, Alpha. I notice things. He is wearing a metal watch, and I kept seeing it reflecting behind the window. Because both you and I have been suspicious of such a craft in this remote place, I got to wondering. I went below, took my time and worked out what I was seeing. Once I knew, he was easy. Persistent bastard. He rarely looked away."
Bravo grinned at his friend. "I think I saw him licking his lips now and then."
Alpha said, "Well, here he is surfacing at last."
The speedboat's skipper was mopping sweat with a ragged towel. "He hasn't looked this way, Bravo, but let your mouth hang open so that he will know we are really stupid, rich boys."
Bravo did not turn his head, but he said, "If he is just curious, he will look over. If he is bent on dark deeds involving us, he won't."
Alpha kept watching from an eye corner.
"Well, he's walking away, and he didn't even peek at us. When
did I teach you that business about being too disinterested, anyway? I'm glad you remembered."
Bravo turned to study the disappearing figure. "Never mind him, Byrne. I'm afraid he will be around, but that will be for later. How did you make out with the johnboat?"
"The boat renter was highly pleased to see us again. I'm glad we tipped him big after Charlie's miserly offering.
"He knows that we are catch and release fishermen. Only Yankee idiots do that, but it explains why we won't have any fish when we return, and why we do not haul one hundred pounds of ice along to keep fish fresh. I even explained how neither of us could swim well, and the balloon-filled bags we are taking are to keep us afloat in case of a disaster.
"He will go over his outboard engine this evening and see us off in the morning. He promised to strain our gasoline twice, but we will bring our own strainer and a chamois cloth to make sure—just like we did last time."
Bravo said, "I'm going to clean the shotgun while our speedboat friend is away. We will take it with us, of course, and if he comes searching, he may end up believing that there are no guns aboard."
Alpha nodded approval. "We'll tuck a hair or something into the cabin door edge, like they do in movies. If it is disturbed we will know we have been invaded."
Bravo appeared thoughtful. "It would be nice to just ease out of here without trouble, but if it looks like that bozo and his buddies are too interested in us, it might be best to put their boat out of commission before we head down the river."
Alpha liked it. "That would be the perfect solution. We'll do it." He pulled at his lip. "A good way is to remove the cotter pin from his prop and he will spin it off before he goes fifty feet."
Bravo agreed, "Or you could take a pair of vice grips over and just bend each prop blade in a different direction."
Alpha pretended to bristle. "What do you mean that I could, Shepard? Just because I am a better swimmer doesn't mean that I have to do everything."
"Better swimmer? Byrne, you couldn't keep up with . . . "
Alpha watched dubiously as his friend began to dismantle their less than pristine shotgun.
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