Castigo Cay

by Matthew Bracken

  “It’s not going to be a problem for you, is it?” I asked him.

  “I’m okay. Especially since I can crawl out the back if I have to.”

  “Well, let me know if it’s a problem.” I thought I understood what Nick was going through. I’d had friends who needed to drive to work at odd hours because they couldn’t stand being in rush-hour traffic. Every minute stuck in traffic snarls brought back the grinding fear they’d known on convoy duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sometimes had full-blown panic attacks, triggering flashback memories of the aftermaths of exploded and burning military vehicles. A simple truck backfire could set them off.

  ****

  Nick asked us, “Did you guys ever smoke?”

  We both shook our heads no.

  “Well, I quit over in the islands, but mostly because I couldn’t afford cigarettes and they were hard to find most of the time anyway. But now I’m getting bad cravings since I know they’re everywhere.”

  “My dad quit smoking,” Kelly said. “Just don’t buy the first pack. Fight it. You buy the first pack and you’re hooked again.”

  “I suppose,” Nick said. “So, how’s your dad doing on that?”

  “He hasn’t smoked in years.”

  “That’s good. Maybe there’s hope for me.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing: no girl wants to kiss a smoker.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, resigned. “It’s like licking a dirty ashtray. Hey, Dan, while we’re stuck in traffic, unless Kelly has a dirty ashtray she wants cleaned, maybe we should go over some SOPs. Immediate action drills. You know… just in case.”

  Kelly pulled open the ashtray. “Only some change and chewing gum. No dirty ashes to lick. Sorry, Nick.”

  “You have gum?” he asked hopefully.

  “Juicy Fruit. Want one?”

  “Sure.”

  She passed a stick back to him. There was only one left in the pack. She turned to me with it in her hand and said, “Want to split it?”

  I did kind of want it, but I wanted her to enjoy the entire last stick even more. “No,” I said, “you take it.”

  She unwrapped it one-handed and popped it in her mouth. The sweet smell reached me a few seconds later. She chewed with her lips mostly closed. I didn’t mind the barely audible sound of her mouth and jaws working.

  Nick said, “So, Dan, I know we’re just your loyal support troops, but what’s the plan? I mean, for after the conference. For actually snatching your girlfriend back. We might be able to help you better if we had a single frigging clue what to expect.”

  “Believe me, you’ll both know right after I know. That’s why we’re all going down to Miami: to put our eyes on the objective area. Three brains are better than one. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Figure it out?” he asked skeptically.

  This is why I usually work alone, I thought. “Yeah, Nick, we’re going to figure it out. It’s always nice to have a few days to come up with the perfect plan, but sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time. Nobody handed me a target folder for this mission. We’re going to do a rapid recon, find out what we can, and then think of a few ways to skin the cat. I can’t exactly give you references, but I have a pretty good track record at this sort of thing. I’m not holding anything back from you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I can appreciate that, Dan. I really can. I know all about short-fuse missions. But still, why don’t we at least go over a few SOPs? That’ll save time later.”

  I was frustrated by the traffic and preoccupied with thoughts of Cori in the clutches of wealthy psychos and how I was going to extract her from them. Now Nick was giving off some early signs of losing it. “SOPs? How about don’t do anything I don’t do. Don’t do anything unless I tell you. Don’t pull your gun out unless I’m already shooting. Just chill out and try to enjoy the day. How’s that?”

  “Umm, I think that’s maybe a little thin on detail, Dan.”

  “Okay, the basics then. Fields of fire. This won’t happen, so don’t worry, Kelly, but we always go over this. Just in case. I’ll fire out the right window if somebody has to be shot on the right side. Or I’ll shoot out of the left window, in front of your face. Or behind your head, depending on where I have to aim. So if I tell you to lean forward, don’t ask why, just move—because I’ll be coming across fast to get a good angle.”

  Nick said, “And it’ll be the loudest thing you ever heard, so be ready for that. It’s a million times louder than what you hear on TV. You’ll have ringing in your ears. You’ll think your eardrum is blown out for good. But we can’t stick earplugs in all day just in case we have to shoot, which we won’t. Nothing’s going to happen, but it’s better to cover it than to leave it to chance.”

  “Just in case, right?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Yep. Just in case,” he agreed.

  Next I gave my wingman an important task that would keep his mind productively occupied for the entire time that we spent in the car. “Nick, that leaves you with rear security. Keep checking our six. I don’t want any surprises coming up from astern. Cops, for example. Let me know if you see anything behind us that bothers you. Keep track of cars that make the same turns we do, that sort of thing. Try to catch tag numbers and remember faces when you see something weird. Look for the same cars that show up again later.”

  “Roger that.”

  “And if you have to shoot out the back—if I tell you to shoot—try to open the hatch first. And don’t shoot through the side unless you really have to. You fire that magnum next to our ears and we’ll be deaf for life.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “Please do,” Kelly weighed in. “I’d really miss listening to music.”

  Her GTI wasn’t an armored vehicle, that was for sure. But on the other hand, we didn’t have to worry about somebody detonating an IED as we drove by, taking a potshot at us with an RPG or chucking a grenade through an open window. Nobody was looking for us. We were only going to Miami, not to Baghdad, Ramadi or Khandahar. We were in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

  Or so they said, back when I was a kid.

  Nick wasn’t finished. “What if the car is out of action, and we’re on foot and we have to evade capture?”

  The car out of action? He was losing it, I thought. “Nick, if the car breaks down, we’ll fix it just like anybody else. Like any other civilians.”

  “It won’t break down,” Kelly asserted flatly. “And the spare tire is good.”

  He kept after it. “I mean, what if we’re ambushed?”

  “Ambushed? Then we shoot back and Kelly drives us out of there like Kyle Bush on crack, in forward or reverse. We can’t prepare for everything, Nick. Just don’t blow our cover. Don’t do anything that gets us caught.” All I needed was for Nick to freak out in the middle of a routine law enforcement stop.

  “Well,” he asked, “what if we’re scattered but not captured? We should have rally points.”

  I adopted a nonchalant tone to settle him down. “We’re picking up cell phones next, right, Kelly?”

  “That’s the plan,” she replied.

  “Then we’ll use the phones to establish comms and link up. If that doesn’t work, head for the nearest McDonald’s and wait for an hour. The closest Mickey D’s or Burger King will be our fallback rally point, unless we choose other rally points along the way. There’s one every mile: a Burger King or a McDonald’s. Keep trying the phones. Then if nothing works, head back to Mike and Sharon’s house and wait.”

  Kelly said, “What if one of us is captured and we’re forced to use the phones? You know what I mean, to lure the others somewhere. Shouldn’t we have a code for that?”

  I was impressed. “A duress code? Sure. Where did you ever hear of duress codes, anyway?”

  “Spy movies and novels, I guess.”

  “What do you suggest,” I asked her, “since it’s your idea?”

  “Umm… h
ow about ‘sweetheart’? If you say sweetheart, then we’ll know they have a gun to your head.”

  “You have quite an imagination.”

  She turned toward me and smiled, but hidden behind dark Wayfarer sunglasses her eyes revealed nothing. Last night she had been wearing no makeup, but today she had applied a light pink lip gloss. “Oh, that’s nothing. Wait till you really get to know me.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Worried? Why should you be worried? Just because I have daydreams about head-on collisions with trucks? No, that was a joke. Skip it.”

  I said, “Here’s one more code word you guys should know. It’s for Rebel Yell, by radio or by email. Devilfish.” I used different fish for most of my brevity codes, because they were easy to remember and they could be worked into normal marine radio traffic without raising suspicion.

  “What’s that mean?” Kelly asked.

  “It means the whole world has turned to shit and I’ll be coming at a dead run if I’m still alive. It means get ready for war and get Rebel Yell ready for sea.”

  “Did you ever have to use it?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And it worked?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Cool,” she said. “But back to rally points. That’s like our meeting-up place if we get separated, right?”

  “That’s right, that’s what they’re for.” I understood that this was a big Army Ranger thing, which was why Nick had brought it up in the first place. Their primary mission was to patrol and conduct raids in squad and even platoon or company force in enemy territory. Rally points were high on their list because they trained for ambush warfare, which could entail them being broken up and scattered by a superior enemy force.

  Deadpan, Kelly asked me, “So, what if we’re halfway between a McDonald’s and a Burger King and we go to different ones? Then what?”

  I wasn’t able to tell if it was a sincere question, or if it was intended to lighten the mood. She might even have been testing my gullibility, patience or level of seriousness. “If we’re on foot and you’re driving, hit all the local McDonald’s and Burger Kings and look for us. Or just try to call our cell phones. Actually, we should always try the cell phones first.”

  Nick attempted some humor of his own. “Just remember, Danny, you can’t call me sweetheart anymore. Not unless somebody has a gun to your head.”

  “Screw you, princess, you’re the one who asked to be my wingman, remember?”

  After a deep sigh and a few audible gum-chewing smacks he said, “Yeah, I think I remember something like that.”

  “Then here’s another SOP: There’s only one chu-tau on this boat.”

  “What’s a chew-towel?” Kelly asked me. “If it’s part of some disgusting hazing ritual from the Army, please don’t explain it to me.”

  “I was in the Marines, Nick was in the Army. And the chu-tau is the captain. The boss. Me. It’s Vietnamese.”

  “Vietnamese?”

  “Long story.”

  From behind me Nick said, “I’m on board with all that. You know I am, Dan. But this is serious business today. We should be professional. We should cover every contingency we can and not just pull it out of our ass as we go. I always hated that kind of operation. ‘Don’t worry, Galloway, just saddle up. Nothing will happen on this patrol, it’s a milk run.’ That’s when you just knew you were going to get hammered.”

  “Nobody is pulling anything out of their ass, Nick. There’s no fill-in-the-blank Warning Order for this kind of a mission. Just follow my lead and stay loose.”

  “We should still cover the basics.”

  “Okay, Nick, you want the rest of the Patrol Leader’s Order? Okay, here goes.” I tried to make light of the situation. “Weather? Look out the window. Hot, sunny, chance of thundershowers in the afternoon. Now let me go over our supporting forces. We don’t have any. Air support? Nada. All aircraft are hostile.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic,” he said. “This is serious.”

  “There’s more. If you’re captured, I can’t help you. I already told you that in George Town when you asked to come along. What can I do, parachute in and bust you out of jail? Hire you a super-lawyer? If you’re arrested, you’ll just have to figure it out. Try not to talk for at least twenty-four hours, to give us a chance to cover our tracks. If you’re evading, get back to Wilton Manors and the Pantera if that seems like a viable option. Otherwise, hey, you’re a sailor, Nick. Steal a sailboat and head back to George Town. That’s always a sailor’s backup exfiltration plan, right? There are no other friendly forces in our area of operations. Our entire order of battle is the three of us sitting in this car. There’s no Amphibious Ready Group waiting just over the horizon. No QRF on standby to extract us if everything goes to shit. That simplifies the briefing a hell of a lot.”

  “What’s a QRF?” asked Kelly.

  “Quick Reaction Force,” Nick answered. “Heroes in helicopters, ready to ride to the rescue like the cavalry saving the wagon train.”

  “The only QRFs in South Florida are called SWAT teams,” I said, “and they all work for Big Brother. And you’d better hope we don’t meet them. They have much bigger guns than we do.”

  Kelly said, “So, Nick, you have a gun too?” She looked in the rearview mirror and saw his slow affirmative nod. “Well, it’s good to find these things out. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “No problem,” he mumbled.

  She seemed irritated by the disclosure of the second weapon and all the tense war talk. “Tell me something. Is this a comedy routine you guys do? If so, it really sucks. Or are you trying to scare me so I won’t want to go to Miami? Then you’ll offer to take me home and drive the car yourselves. Is that your plan? If so, then sorry, boys, but I’m not letting anybody else drive this car. It’s my brother’s, and I have to look out for it. Nobody else gets to drive it. Just me and him, and he’s not here.”

  “We’re not trying to scare you,” I explained. “We’re just straightening a few things out. So, where’s your brother?”

  “He’s riding a destroyer for the next three months. He’s an ensign in the Navy. I can use his car but I have to take good care of it. Unless I end up buying it, but I’m not quite there yet. It’s still his car, and it’s my responsibility while he’s deployed.”

  So her big brother was a naval officer, just like my dear old dad, but at the bottom end of the officer-rank totem pole. “Don’t worry, Kelly, we’re not going to get into any trouble today. Your brother’s car will be just fine.”

  “Is that so? Then why do you have guns?”

  Nick jumped in. “We always worst-case it. It’s a military thing. It’s our training. What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? You make contingency plans.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he replied. “Better safe than sorry. Are you okay, Kelly? You good to go?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. How about you?”

  “I’m fine too,” Nick said without much conviction. “I’m good to go.” I could still hear him chewing his gum behind me. At least Kelly chewed almost silently. The Juicy Fruit odor was diminishing, and I wondered how long they would chew flavorless gum. It would be a good indicator of their true state of nervousness.

  I said, “All right, then, let’s just everybody relax.” I switched on the radio and began to jab the seek button. Kelly pushed the right buttons and we listened to some bland rock music I had never heard before.

  It took us ten minutes to crawl five long blocks north on Dixie, with the railroad tracks and the homeless encampment across them to our right, before we reached the mega-intersection with eight-lane-wide Oakland Park Boulevard. Then it took another five minutes to push through the tangle of honking cars and trucks to be finally heading west toward the interchange with I-95.

  The cars jammed in traffic around us seemed older and shabbier than on my last visit to Florida. Kelly was right: at least half the cars h
ad their windows down. There was no other plausible reason for this except that their ACs were not working, unless they were overstrained in stop-and-go traffic. The usual South Florida torrent of flashy new BMWs, Lexuses and Jaguars had evaporated to a hardly noticeable trickle. The cars on Oakland Park reminded me of those I’d seen on similar boulevards, from Cartagena to Buenos Aires. Very few were newer than five years old, and many were much older.

  I understood the reason for the near absence of new cars, aside from the abysmal state of the collapsed American economy. I had seen the same thing all over South and Central America. When a country’s financial system implodes and millions are homeless and hungry, it doesn’t pay to showcase your wealth or elevated status. So off go the gold watches and diamond tennis bracelets, and on go the Casios and Timexes. The entire society dresses down and aims for average when out in public.

  Shiny new luxury cars become carjack and kidnap bait, and they disappear from view. Undented newer cars are left dirty and unwashed, in an attempt to blend in with the new automotive grunge-chic. That dusty, scraped and battered ten-year-old Suburban in the next lane might belong to a struggling tradesman or to a millionaire who doesn’t want to advertise his continuing success to criminals or tax collectors. On public streets los ricos try to look like humble landscapers and not like the wealthy elites who employ landscapers.

  I had the thought that perhaps the rich were diverting their inherent urge to show off their success from their cars into their boats. That might explain the expensive go-fasts and sportfishers I’d seen the afternoon before while coming into Fort Lauderdale. Marinas were part of the fenced-off high-security domain of the well-to-do, like the private jet airports. I understood better than most that even third-world countries had first-class marinas. Only within the high walls of yacht and country clubs could the rich continue to enjoy their gilded lifestyle unmolested by harsh Outerworld realities. The Intracoastal Waterway, bays, rivers and the ocean became a relatively safe connection between the yacht clubs, marinas, dockside restaurants, waterfront mansions and private islands.