It was an airy blue morning. Molten gold in the east: the sun spinning hard toward a billion tiny lives in the western hemisphere.
That’s you, MacMorgan. One rogue speck in the giant montage of living cells. See yourself? That’s right. Get out the big microscope. . . .
A brash night wind had come down out of the mountains of Mesa de Mariel and blown the factory smog away. It cleaned the air and made the harbor seem almost pristine. Even the rattiest among the thousands of American boats in the harbor looked clean and white in that morning light, and you could see the little thatched-roof village on the plateau of distant cane fields plainly.
It was a good morning for breaking rules, so I cracked a rare bottle of Heineken dark and sipped at it while I dressed. Put on clean khaki fishing shorts, soft and stained with the blood of many good fish. Add the old leather belt with the brass anchor, strap on the Gerber knife in its oil-blackened case, and, just for the hell of it, check the blade. Sharp enough to shave blond hair off the left arm—but it could be sharper. A good way to spend the morning: sip at the beer, work on the knife with honing oil and ceramic stone and watch the morning filter across the Cuban landscape.
I pulled on a white cotton shirt, then poked my head into the veeing of master berth.
Androsa was asleep. Her hair fanned out beneath her head like a black satin pillow, and her nose flared slightly with every inhalation. The white sheet was pulled up just over her pelvis, and the outline of hips was a shadowed curve with the soft lift of inner thigh tapering toward long legs. Her thin ribs were alternately visible and invisible with every breath, and her right arm curved up under the delicate chin, flattening the right breast, showing only a portion of the dark-brown aureola of nipple.
Funny how intimate contact sharpens your attention, focuses your eyes. You notice the little anatomical variants that you did not see before.
There was a tiny white fingernail of scar below her left cheek. And just the slightest hint of lines at the corner of her eyes, sun-furrowed. Confident of her natural beauty, she wore no makeup and did not employ the little cosmetic tricks most women use. So her eyebrows were in light disarray, and her lips were pale, without lipstick. Her skin was the color of sandalwood, sun-darkened, with thin white bikini marks around her breasts.
Gently, I kissed her on the forehead.
She stirred, flinched, dreaming. . . .
“Dusky . . . ?”
“Hum . . . ?”
“Dusky . . .”
“Go back to sleep, lady.”
I went topside with knife and stone and oil can, dark beer cold in my hand.
People were beginning to stir on nearby boats. Men in underwear came out onto their morning decks, hacked, spit, stretched. In the freshening wind was the smell of bacon frying, and the diesel odor of the harbor. Over on the beach by the little military outpost, the guard had been doubled. Cuban soldiers in their baggy uniforms walked the beach, urging their German shepherds to find the body that could never be found.
So you did it, MacMorgan. You outfoxed the foxes. And how many other bodies have you had to hide in your lifetime? Just those two? Right. The first, a North Vietnamese, had been easy. You only needed to buy a few extra hours to get your men out. So who would think of looking in the highest branches of an avocado tree for a point guard? The second had been tougher—even tougher than the one last night. A Russian special forces ace who had been sent out for one reason, and one reason only—to nail the Navy SEAL who had the disconcerting ability to drift jungle rivers at night, make silent one-man assaults on important Commie strongholds, then disappear leaving only the corpses of officers and double agents in his path, arrow holes or knife smiles in each and every one. Yes, the body of the Russian had been the hardest to hide because you could not afford to let him ever be found—not there, not where he had finally walked into your trap. Even if it meant the grizzly business the job demanded, the one and only way to strike him and his remains from the face of the earth for ever and ever . . .
Remembering, I felt the revulsion low in my stomach, and then I took a sip of the cold dark beer, feeling the memory wash away like phlegm.
A good morning for idle musing—but not about that.
So I worked at the knife, oiling the blade and carving at the whetstone. And I thought about how it had been with the woman.
Some woman.
Some lover.
Androsa Santarun was, in love, much the same as she was in life: straightforward, without guile, a person of strength who knew what she wanted. But all of these qualities were shaded with a gentleness and the hint of vulnerability that made her as passionate about pleasing as she was passionate about her wanting.
I had steered her down into the cabin, both hands on her frail shoulders, feeling her trembling beneath my touch. The main cabin lamp was on, throwing a glaze of yellow light across the big vee-berth. And when I reached to switch it off, she had stopped my hand.
“I . . . leave it on. Please, I want to see . . .”
The robe fell off her shoulders, and she turned to me in the golden light, nipples erect beneath a thin fabric of T-shirt, hips moving with the motion of the first long kiss.
“You’re sure,” I said, doubtful even then of the wisdom of changing our relationship so irreversibly.
And she had pulled my mouth back down to hers. “Yes. I’ve never been so sure about anything.”
There was a desperate, feverish quality to our first long joining; a surge of total wanting that was at once both exciting and troubling. It pulled at my mind for a time—until I remembered the source of it; something I had read. During the bombing of London in World War II, the underground shelters had spawned a whole new race of children; some legitimate, most not. People of that time had written about the increased sexuality of love during the bombings—like some biological drive to procreate on the razor’s edge of death.
And, strangely, that’s the way it was with Androsa; as if some blackness watched from outside, waiting only until we had finished our feverish coupling to strike.
“Is this all right . . . ?”
“Oh Dusky, oh yes, yes, yes—but turn . . . turn around so that I can . . .”
It was a night of distilled wanting, of concentrated emotion pouring from the two of us; sometimes gentle, sometimes savage, always churning toward the timeless merging into oneness that left the strangers—which we were—far behind.
“Oh Dusky, you are so . . .”
“You don’t have to say anything, Androsa. But just for the record, you are too.”
And later, after our voracious hunger had been temporarily satiated, we talked.
Or, more correctly, she talked. She told me of her difficult adjustment to American life, of her college years, and of the husband she had loved so much and wanted everything for, only to see all hopes destroyed by some drunken driver who did not notice the jogger one sunlit Sunday afternoon.
But mostly, she talked of her childhood in Cuba.
“I was born on a large island south of the mainland,” she told me, her soft weight stretched out on top of me, breasts mashed firm and flat against my chest.
“The Isle of Pines?”
“Yes! Isla de Pinos—do you know it?”
“Not well. You tell me about it.”
She rolled off me, holding me across the chest, speaking softly into my ear. “As a child, I thought it the most beautiful place in the world. We lived in a little village in a harbor called Ensenada de Siguanea, and the water was very clear, and even as a child I would swim out to watch the fish that lived around the coral. I think that we were probably very poor, because our house had only two rooms and the roof was made of thatch. But we always had plenty of food, and bananas and oranges grew outside, and there were always fish and rice and mangos.”
“You’re making me hungry.” I reached over and brushed hair from her face. “Did you have any brothers or sisters?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Yes. A half broth
er. And such a good brother, Alvino. He was only two years older, but even then he spoiled me.”
“Hum, you don’t taste spoiled. So is your brother in America now? Why didn’t he come back to Mariel for your father?”
I felt her tense momentarily. “My brother . . . my brother is dead. Castro’s people murdered him. Like animals, they killed him.”
“So you have only your mother now?”
“And my father.”
I expected the tension to ease out of her, but it didn’t. The reserves were up again. I had planned on following her lead; hoping she would tell me the truth about her mission so that I could tell her the truth about mine. Instead, she evaded questions about her home life, her occupation, and fell into a brief lie about the man we had come to get, her fictional father.
“I don’t remember much about him. Only that he was very large and smelled of tobacco, and he was a soldier. I remember that he frightened me. And that he was always away.”
“Was it your father who taught you how to shoot?”
“What? Oh, yes—in a way. He was not home that much. Even so, he is my father, and I am dedicated to him in my own way. We are of the same blood, you see. To a Cuban, that means everything.”
“Your father is very lucky to have a daughter like you.”
She touched my lips with her fingertip, silencing me.
“Please,” she said. “No more talk. We will have many days to talk.” She rolled back on me, kissing my chest, my stomach, sliding downward. “This is the time for loving. Like before, only . . .”
“Only what, lady.”
She smiled, almost blushing. “Only even harder. Much harder. I am a strong woman, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan. You cannot break me. . . .”
So I sat in the starboard fighting chair, swiveling back and forth idly, working at the knife. The blade was looking good: only two or three burrs from fishbone, and the ceramic stone was working them out nicely. Once I had loaned the knife to a tourist fisherman down at the docks. He was having trouble getting the heads off some small barracuda he had caught, and was just about ready to toss his frail Sears fillet knife into the water when I came along. It seemed like a harmless request, so I unsheathed the Gerber for him, and went about my business aboard Sniper. When I returned to the cleaning table, the man was gone. Someone said he had headed up to the marina. I went after him on a dead run. And I got there just in time. He had the grinding wheel going and was just about to “resharpen” my knife to “thank me” for the loan.
If it hadn’t been such an honest effort to do me a favor, I would have dropped him in his tracks. Even so, he looked a little taken aback by the lecture I gave him. You don’t use a grinding wheel on a fine knife, ever, ever, ever, buddy. It’s like trying to clean a handgun by throwing it in the washing machine. . . .
I checked the blade on my arm again. Blond hair came off as readily as if the folding knife were one of those twin-blade razors. I folded it, housed it back on my belt, then went below to start breakfast for the woman.
I cracked six eggs, stirred them into a pan, added chopped onion and a touch of A&B hot sauce. By the time the omelet was ready for cheese and a careful fold, Androsa came out of the master berth, head tilted, combing her long black hair with a brush.
“Food’s almost ready.”
“Hum. Good.”
I listened carefully for any sign of new reserve in her voice. If there was to be an awkward time, this would be it. It is the most modern of afflictions: how do total strangers deal with each other after they have just shared the most intimate of experiences? There is the forced hilarity or the coy shyness, or the manufactured innocence of “Gee, did it really happen, because I’m normally not like that.”
But Androsa Santarun displayed nothing but affection and a wry sense of humor. She strolled by me, still combing her hair, then reached over and gave me a surprise kiss on the lips.
“Smells good,” she said.
“And suddenly I’m not very hungry.”
She slapped at me. “After . . . our last time, you swore you wouldn’t have any energy for a week!”
“You know how we gringos love to lie.”
She plopped herself down at the little booth. She wore dark-blue Dolphin running shorts and a baggy shirt, sleeves folded up to her elbows. “Well, at least feed me first. I might be skinny, but this Hispanic body of mine won’t run on air. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll take a small glass of that dark beer you just opened for yourself.”
It was a good day, a rare day filled with sun and jokes and love and tanning oil measured out by the handfuls on naked bodies; a day marred only by our anchorage in that dismal harbor with its acid smog and the atmosphere of desperation perpetuated by the loud amplified drone of the Cubans’ calling various boats to Pier Three where they would be loaded with their human cargo.
One time I caught the sadness in Androsa’s eyes as she listened to it.
“Were they calling us?”
She shook her head, startled out of whatever it was she was thinking about. “No, not yet. But you never know. I guess we should keep the radio on just in case.”
I should never have done it; never let her turn on that static reminder of why we had come: VHF 16 with its endless Spanish dialogue of anger and desperation, interrupted by the Castro regime every four hours to list the boats that were about to be loaded. But it happens that way sometimes. All your instincts tell you no while your reason thinks it knows better.
I should have followed my instincts.
But I didn’t. And there was no way of knowing that the radio call would mean the loss of the woman I was just learning to love. . . .
13
The call came at about four p.m.
They must have repeated it a couple of times, because it took a while for even Androsa to hear it. But there it was: blasts of static, and then, “Atención, atención—embarcación Sniper.”
We were stretched out on the high privacy of the flybridge, both of us stripped to the waist, baking in the sun. She used my stomach as a cushion for her head. I used one of the heavy commercial-grade life jackets. We had spent most of the afternoon like that. I had brought up a small cooler filled with ice to keep the beer and a few cans of fruit juice cold. It was a good place to talk, to touch occasionally, and to read. I was rereading Peter Matthiessen’s very fine book Snow Leopard, and I had entrusted Androsa with one of my favorite and very finest books: the 1912 first edition of H.M. Tomlinson’s The Sea and the Jungle. It is a rare book and, like the Snow Leopard, the kind you want to share only with the rarest of people. I had offered her first Papa’s The Old Man and the Sea, but she had declined immediately, saying that it always made her cry—not only the story but because he had captured Cuba the way she remembered it as a child. So, before placing it securely back in the big watertight ammo box which guarded my ship’s library, I opened the front cover and read the loved inscription for the thousandth time: This is the best I have to offer, Old Timer. And it’s yours.
It was a good way to spend the afternoon. Fine books. Cold beer. Warm sun. Time enough for Androsa to write a letter or two. And anticipation of the evening’s love. I had made up my mind to corner her that night; to work my way into her confidence and then tell her exactly what both our jobs were in Mariel Harbor.
And to try to convince her that our jobs were over.
Fact: Storm Nest, the trawler which had transported the three CIA agents to Cuba, had been found bullet-riddled in American waters. True, the agents were not aboard—but neither was General Halcón, the Cuban crossover. And common sense dictated that, if someone was going to steal the boat and try the crossing, he, as the director of security in Mariel, would certainly have the first opportunity.
But he wasn’t on the boat. Why? According to Norm Fizer, things were getting hot for the Hawk.
Maybe things got too hot. Maybe Castro and his people put two and two together and decided that Halcón was a bad apple—and gave him a carbine trial. So, wh
o was left to rescue?
Fact: One of the CIA agents, Ovillo Gomez, was now one very dead man, resting thirty feet beneath water and mud and my very own Sniper. If he and his two friends had really set out to bump off Castro, what in the hell was he doing trying to swim to my boat? No, it seemed more likely that they had, indeed, been snatched by Castro’s people. But how had Gomez found out that Androsa Santarun was on my boat? Coincidence, maybe . . . yeah, coincidence.
Bullshit, MacMorgan. You’re supposed to be the big man who prides himself on his personal honesty. Now you’re trying to conjure up some pretty damn weak evidence to convince yourself that you should hustle that pretty woman back to Key West, out of harm’s way. A day ago it didn’t make any difference to you—you told yourself that if she wanted to bait the tiger trap, it was her decision. Now, after sharing her bed, you’re suddenly hell-bent on calling the whole thing off. You know this mission hasn’t been resolved. Too many missing links. Too many abstract facts that don’t add up. And if you do convince yourself, you can bet that one Stormin’ Norman Fizer is going to tell you in pretty rough language just what a fool you’ve been once you do make it back to Key West. . . .
So I was locked in that personal struggle when the VHF beckoned.
Androsa lifted her head off my stomach. “Did you hear that?” And then: “They’re calling us, Dusky.”
She hurried down the ladder below. I heard the conversation, muffled, fast, and very damn short. When she was finished, she poked her head up over the flybridge deck.
“So what’s up, lady?”
“Nothing important. I’m supposed to go into Havana and use the government phone so I can call my father and apprise him of the situation.”
She was very calm and cool; but it was a businesslike cool. And I knew that she wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
Cuban Death-Lift Page 12