RW15 - Seize the Day

by Richard Marcinko

  “Why would they take the switch with them?” Shotgun asked Mongoose, holding them up.

  “Where’d you grow up? The suburbs?” said Mongoose. “It’s hotwired. They probably lost the key. Touch the two wires together, and the engine turns over.”

  “Wow. The shit you miss growing up in the suburbs.”

  Shotgun’s first attempt showered sparks across the front seat. Mongoose grabbed the wires and slapped them together. There were more sparks, and then a groan from the engine as it started to turn over.

  “Pump the gas, pump the gas,” said Mongoose.

  Shotgun did as he was told, but the engine didn’t catch.

  “Watch out.” Mongoose ducked under the dashboard. They didn’t have a flashlight, and he had to feel around with his hands. “There’s another set of wires down here,” he said. “Did you unhook them?”

  “You musta kicked them.”

  “Hang on.”

  “Maybe those guys can help figure it out,” said Shotgun.

  “What guys?”

  “The ones coming out of the house.”

  Two Cubans had appeared around the corner of one of the farm buildings about thirty yards away and were headed their way. It was hard to tell in the dark, but one looked to be carrying a Mossberg.

  The other had an AK47.

  “They’re not going to fire at us,” said Mongoose, hooking the wires together. “They’re not going to want to ruin their truck.”

  “You sure?”

  A barrage of buckshot ripped into the windshield before Mongoose could answer. Shotgun twisted away at the last second, but still caught a shower of glass shards in his arm and shoulder.

  “Now pump the gas while I turn over the starter,” said Mongoose.

  “You pump the gas,” said Shotgun, throwing open the door. “I’ve had enough of this Cuban bullshit.”

  ( III )

  I’m sure there are a few readers—one or two, maybe, including his mom—who feel certain that Mr. Fox—better known as Shotgun—rolled out of the vehicle onto the ground, dusted himself off, and approached the two Cuban gentlemen with a grin and silver tongue, explaining to them exactly how important their vehicle was to the grand cause of freedom and liberty, and suggested that they let it go in the interests of humanity and the future of the Cuban people. Those readers are no doubt convinced that, the world being at heart a nonviolent paradise, the two Cubans felt moved at the bottom of their hearts, and not only gave Shotgun and Mongoose the truck but their weapons and spare change. Further, one of the men ran into the farmhouse and grabbed the fifty-year-old rum he had been saving for his daughter’s wedding, presenting it to the Americans as a goodwill gesture. The other gathered firewood and broke out a guitar; for the next half hour, Cuban and American voices shared the night, singing “Kumbaya,” “God Bless America,” and a number improvised on the spot entitled “Kick That Bastard Fidel in the Groin for Me.”

  Those of you who feel that way will want to skip ahead a few pages.

  Shotgun flew into the dirt, tumbling over as another pack of shotgun pellets hit the hood of the truck. He scrambled to his left, grabbing the pistol from his belt. The Cubans cursed and screamed, promising that his days as a thief would soon be over.

  The two Cubans were silhouetted against the background of the buildings, which made them easy targets. Shotgun squeezed off two shots, dropping the man with the AK47 even before he was able to start firing. Shotgun turned his attention to the other man, who was running toward the barn. He hit him once or twice in the leg; the man fell but managed to keep moving, crawling behind the barn.

  Mongoose had hooked the wires together. As soon as the engine started, he jerked the truck into reverse and swung in Shotgun’s direction. The lights came on in a house farther up the hill, maybe three hundred feet away. A woman screamed.

  “Guns, come on,” yelled Mongoose. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

  “I want that fucker’s Mossberg,” said Shotgun.

  Mongoose cursed. The idea had been to steal the truck without being seen or heard, and while that was no longer possible, in his view getting the hell out of there ought to be the next highest priority.

  But there was no stopping Shotgun once his mind was set. He ran to the prone Cuban, grabbed the AK47, then dropped to his knee, covering the corner of the building where the other man had retreated. He counted off to three, then threw himself up and around the corner, gun at his side, ready.

  He didn’t fire. The Cuban was lying, faceup, breathing hard, gun off to the side where he’d dropped it.

  Besides the leg, the Cuban had been hit in the arm and the chest. Shotgun patted the man’s pockets, saw he wasn’t carrying spare ammo, then jumped up and backed away. He fired a quick burst from the AK toward the barn to keep the other Cuban in check, then bolted for the waiting truck.

  Mongoose jammed the gas and popped the clutch, hoping for a quick takeoff—and promptly stalled the truck.

  He never was very good with a stick.

  Cursing, he started fumbling with the wires again.

  “Yo, what are you doing?” asked Shotgun.

  Too busy trying to figure out the right wire configuration again, Mongoose didn’t answer.

  “Shit,” said Shotgun. “Where’d this asshole come from? Stay down on the floor!”

  Shotgun ducked beneath the dash himself as a fresh shotgun round sailed into the cab. As the remaining shards of windshield glass rained down on them, Shotgun raised the AK47 and returned fire, emptying the mag.

  By then Mongoose had the engine turning over and was desperately pumping at the gas with his other hand. Finally the engine caught; he scrambled up and got the truck moving again, slumping sideways. He left it in first gear all the way to the road, the engine whining as if it were about to explode.

  We’d heard the gunfire and started in the direction of the farm buildings when the truck flew over the hill. Mongoose skidded to a stop on the road in front of us, stalling the truck again.

  “What the hell happened?” Doc demanded, looking over the battered front end of the truck. “I’ve seen Swiss cheese with less holes.”

  “They didn’t like the fact that we double-parked,” said Shotgun.

  “Jesus, Shotgun, what happened to your face?” asked Trace. It was covered with blood.

  “Mama spit on it when I was born,” said Shotgun. “Been breaking mirrors ever since.”

  Red had found the other bag in a small tumble of weeds and met us about a half mile down the road. She rode in the back with Mongoose and me, picking glass shards out of Shotgun’s arm and back. The pain seemed to tickle his funny bone; he giggled practically the whole way to Victoria de las Tunas.

  The truck was too battered to drive into the city. We weren’t in the greatest shape ourselves. Trace and I had brought fresh civilian clothes for everyone to change into, but their trip through the swamp had left Doc and the others pretty grimy. Mud was caked in their hair; I doubt crocodiles smelled worse. Rather than heading northeast toward Castro’s bunker, I decided we’d spend the day in Victoria de las Tunas. Trace and I would stand watch and find better transportation while the others slept. We had false IDs and papers, along with European credit cards, so it wouldn’t be too hard to find a place to stay.

  Back in Jamaica, Junior did a Web search and found a hotel on the north side of the city that advertised for European tourists. He used a phone line that routed the call through Mexico to make a reservation.

  “Hot and cold water,” he said. “A real deluxe place.”

  We abandoned the truck about two miles southwest of town, in a field a few hundred yards from the main road. Then we divvied up the gear and started walking. They were all tired—Red leaned forward as she walked, held upright only by momentum—and it took us nearly an hour to get to the city. It was still an hour before daybreak, too early to go to the hotel without raising more questions than it would be worth answering. So we scuttled around a bit. Mongoose found a spigot on t
he side of a servio—a gas station—we could use to wash up.

  Red and I found a small grocery store that had just opened for the day. We went in and bought a few things for breakfast. Talking with the owner, she worked up a cover story on the fly, claiming I was a well-off and loopy German tourist and that she’d been hired as a guide to Guantanamo Province farther east, where I was in search of an exotic bird seen only in Cuba.

  This was the first time I’d met a Cuban since I’d pretended to be Castro. My hair and beard were back to being black, and to be honest, I’d more or less forgotten who I looked like. But the woman kept staring at me, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. Finally I snapped out a bunch of German at Red, asking when we were leaving.

  “He could be el Jefe’s younger brother,” said the storekeeper.

  “Really?” Red made a face, then pretended to look me over. “I don’t know.”

  “He could use a younger brother—a real brother, instead of the old washed-up faggot that he has.”

  Red shrugged. It was the right play: criticism of Raul, especially by questioning his sexual orientation, is common in Cuba, but there was no way for Red to know whether the woman was being sincere or trying to trap her.

  My part was easier: I was pretending not to understand Spanish, so I simply ignored them, picked out a loaf of bread from her meager supply, and gave it to Red to buy.

  “Your German friend should think about taking over,” the woman told Red as we left. “It won’t be long now.”

  My first impression was that was a hopeful sentiment—that the Cuban people were ready for a change and would eagerly embrace it once Fidel finally kicked the bucket. But Red felt discouraged.

  “She wasn’t talking about an election,” she explained as we walked back to the empty lot where we’d left the others. “So many of these people have lost hope for democracy. The future they see, another strongman. It plays right into their hands, into Raul’s and the other communists around him.”

  “They’re not against democracy, they’re just not hoping for it yet.”

  “I don’t know that they ever will.”

  “They will.”

  Red didn’t answer. Maybe she just didn’t trust herself to hope that much.

  By Cuban standards, the hotel was a three-star business accommodation, which meant that you could find toilet paper in most of the bathrooms.

  I left Trace to play lookout while I went and scouted some transportation for us to the northern side of the island. With a little help from Junior, who gave me some more tips thanks to his satellite view, I located the perfect vehicle: a Cuban telephone van, parked conveniently in a lot three blocks away, right behind the government telephone office. From the size of the lot, it seemed likely there would be more trucks there that night. Even better, the lot was equipped with a small gas pump. There was also a fence topped by barbed wire, but it wouldn’t present much of an obstacle.

  The only complication was a video camera mounted above the back door to the building. We’d have to make ourselves presentable for the camera. Or rather, make the camera presentable for us.

  Transportation out of the way, I went shopping for a few things to make it easier to change my “look.” A couple of shirts, a few caps: I was a new man. One or two people stared at me the way the woman in the grocery store had, but most were much more interested in the convertible pesos I flashed.

  Wandering farther, I found a small toy shop that sold stuffed animals. I picked up a crow for a dozen pesos.

  “Reminds me of my ex-wife,” I told the elderly clerk as I checked out.

  By seven o’clock, everyone was up and ready to rock. We filtered into a small restaurant a few blocks away. The restaurant was mentioned on several travel Web sites as catering to foreigners and very well-off Cubans, which meant that the food was bland and the service so-so. But it also meant that we were inconspicuous, not the novelty we would have been in a restaurant that served primarily locals.

  Even so, we were the talk of the town.

  The theft of the truck at the farm had not only caught the attention of the local police, but had also interested a regional newsman for Granma who was working on a story on the rise of banditry in the country. (Granma is the official party paper; it’s named after a yacht that Fidel tried to use to invade Cuba. Really.) The reporter and a cameraman had spent the day touring the farm and the countryside to the south, where apparently there had been three or four different thefts over the past few months. His story would be a massive exposé, exposing the corruption caused by a society that was slipping toward decadent capitalism. The journalist had taken a blood oath to stop the decline, upholding the highest standards of the Revolution.

  I knew all this because the newsman and his producer were having dinner a few tables away, loudly proclaiming their views to a pair of embarrassed local officials.

  One little tidbit we picked up: both of the men Shotgun had shot had survived. Trace promised him that he would be taking a refresher course in marksmanship as soon as we got back home.

  “Ah, it’s all in his head,” said Doc. He turned to Shotgun. “Next time, pretend you’re shooting at a giant Ring Ding. You’ll have no problem.”

  We stayed at the restaurant until just after nine, then moseyed on over to the telephone company. There were now seven trucks in the yard, including three vans. Even better, there were no watchmen on duty. Our only concern was the video camera attached to the building.

  The camera covered a large swath of the lot, enough so that it was impossible to get over the fence without being seen. That meant we’d have to attack it from behind. Or above. Or both.

  The telephone building was a three-story brick building painted white. It wasn’t all that different than the sort of early twentieth-century structure you’d find in a Midwest town in the U.S. before what was euphemistically termed urban renewal in the sixties and seventies. Shotgun and I went around to the side, where a narrow canopy had been built over the side door. I used his back as a stepping stool to get a grip on the bottom of the canopy, then boosted myself up over the edge and clawed my way to the flat roof.

  The moon was full and bright, and I had no trouble picking my way across to the back, avoiding the stickier puddles of mud as well as some toilet vents. I found a place to tie off my rope, then lowered myself a story and a half to the camera. I rested my right foot gently on the camera, then reached into my shirt for the stuffed bird I’d bought earlier.

  “What are you doing with the bird?” Shotgun asked, peering over the side of the roof above me.

  “Fluffy hates cameras,” I told him.

  I kicked the camera with my right foot so that the lens pointed to the ground. At the same time, I dropped the bird, making it look like it had collided with the video camera.

  Placing my feet on the building, I pushed off and jumped into the yard, well clear of the camera’s now severely limited view. A split second before I landed, I heard a low, guttural growl that I could have sworn came from a Doberman pinscher.

  But I was wrong. As my feet hit the pavement and I pitched hard to my left, I realized that the noise had not come from a Doberman. Instead, it came from two Dobermans, poised to spring a few feet away from me and looking very hungry.

  ( IV )

  The dogs had come out of a hidden door below the back steps that connected to the basement. One of them sniffed at the bird I’d thrown. Growling, she took it and ran behind one of the trucks, where she proceeded to rip it to shreds. Her friend, unfortunately, wasn’t a bird fancier. She took a step toward me, spit curling back from both sides of her mouth. I tried slipping my hand toward my gun, but she growled as if she knew exactly what I was doing.

  She had a look in her eyes I’d seen before. It was the same vicious glare Shotgun used when staring down a double cheeseburger with bacon. We locked eyes.

  “Shotgun!” I yelled. “Throw me down some snacks.”

  “Snacks? Like what?”

  “Anything. Ju
st make it quick.”

  “Here’s some licorice.”

  Somewhere there’s a dog that loves licorice, but this wasn’t the one. The candy smacked on the macadam right in front of her. She never even glanced in its direction.

  “More snacks, Shotgun. Something with fat.”

  “Gees, Dick, I have a limited supply.”

  “Something the damn dog will like.”

  “Twinkies!”

  They were actually the Cuban near equivalent of Twinkies, which Shotgun had bought on the way back from dinner. He neglected to open the package, but that didn’t bother the Doberman—she wolfed it down, plastic and all.

  Then she came for the main course: me.

  Fortunately, the two or three seconds it had taken her to grab the Twinkies were all I needed to grab my knife. I was ready as she jumped. Her momentum carried us to the ground; by the time I rolled up to my feet, she was dead, her gut split open.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate. Her companion lunged at me, fangs-first. I jumped out of the way, just missing her teeth. Then something black flew down and smacked her in the head and she collapsed.

  “I figured you didn’t want me to shoot her,” said Shotgun, climbing down the back of the building. He’d thrown his knife into her skull. “Makes too much noise, right?”

  The dog lay there whimpering, blood flowing out of her mouth. I pulled the knife out, then put her out of her misery.

  “I feel bad for her,” said Shotgun.

  “Why’s that?”

  “She was just doing her job.”

  “Let’s do ours.”

  “Gotcha,” said Shotgun, heading to the fence to open it.

  Truth was, Shotgun was right. The poor mutts just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that was the story of our Cuban vacation, from A to Z.

  I pulled the dogs under one of the bucket trucks, then picked out a pair of vans for us to steal. These were almost brand-new, imported from China. Their ignition systems were all intact—and the keys were sticking in the slots.