Then one more broad left turn, and there ahead of us was the Marriott to starboard and the Hyatt to port. Behind them both and spanning the Intracoastal was the high 17th Street Causeway drawbridge. We slipped between its massive concrete pillars and into the Port Everglades ship turning basin. Instead of continuing south down the ICW toward the Dania Canal, where I had rebuilt Rebel Yell, I turned our bow toward the ocean.
Offshore
Parallel lines of blinking channel buoys, red and green, aimed us seaward. The lane between them was wide enough to allow the biggest cruise liners and warships to visit Port Everglades. We retraced our route out the inlet, past the Coast Guard base on the south and the Customs and DEA surveillance stations high atop the condo tower to the north. I hoped they were all looking at boats coming in, not boats going out.
Goodbye, America. For another while.
But not quite yet. One more security portal, the biggest and the last. Who could be up to any good, running an inlet at eleven-thirty p.m. in a low-profile twenty-four-foot pocket rocket? Were pictures of the escaping Pantera even now being sent to Frank Bloomfield’s office? Was it manned around the clock? Or would the video be forwarded to his smart phone? Would it be marked urgent and give him a little digital tickle to try to gain his immediate attention? Or would it be classified as routine message traffic, to be opened and read next Monday? Monday, when I’d be contacting his office by close of business, right?
Wrong.
With the open ocean in front, I kicked the rpm up to two grand. The lines of blinking channel lights looked like runway markers ahead of us; the Pantera was preparing for takeoff. I’d worried that we would be alone while exiting the port, but thankfully this was not the case. A pair of big white sportfishermen came charging in and passed us one after the other, leaving us wallowing in their crossing wakes. I fell into line behind an outbound powerboat. Not much of it was visible but the transom, lit by its white stern light. I couldn’t tell if it was a commercial or a pleasure craft, but it was far bigger than us. Maybe it was a pilot boat, going out to meet a ship.
There was no sign of Homeland Security in any of its various manifestations. I was mainly looking for an orange Coast Guard rigid inflatable, or for the Customs and Border Protection boys in their Interceptors with their four giant outboard motors.
Once again, being small and dark blue helped us slide through the inlet unnoticed, or at least unmolested. At night and at low speed, only close and careful observation would distinguish the Pantera’s low racing profile from thousands of innocuous ski boats and day cruisers in her size class.
We began to pick up some ocean swell as we left the protection of the port. The boat ahead of us turned toward Miami after clearing the south jetty. I looked at Nick, he looked back at me; both of us were grinning. Before we reached the ends of the jetties I switched the exhaust over to the straight pipes through the transom. The engine’s roar tripled, but I kept her speed to only thirty while we were still near the inlet.
It was four hundred miles to Castigo Cay. If I could find enough gas in Bimini to fill the tank and the auxiliary bladder, a hundred gallons should give us two hundred miles, depending on our rpm. So we would need to refuel at least one more time after Bimini to make it the whole distance. Topaz could make thirty knots, and she could do it in much bigger waves than the Pantera. And she could do it all night and all day, without stopping to refuel. If Topaz was going all the way to Castigo Cay, I knew it was going to be a chase. A lot would depend on the sea state offshore. I pushed the throttle ahead until we were getting forty miles per hour at 3,000 rpm.
Nick replaced my GPS in its bungee cord cradle, where I could glance down at it. A bright orange arrow on the screen pointed our way to Bimini. Fifty-six miles was the given distance slanting down across the Gulf Stream, the arrow showing me a constant bearing to steer. Nothing to it—if we had enough gas. Just keep the Pantera lined up with the glowing arrow as the miles counted down to our first refueling stop.
My copilot put on a pair of clear goggles and handed me another. He’d brought them up with the pile of foul-weather coats and life vests. The goggles had a wide elastic band in back and a rubber strip at the top for comfort. I didn’t anticipate taking a lot of spray on this leg, but eye protection was a necessity at high speed. I hadn’t even thought of bringing clear goggles, and I couldn’t wear my sunglasses at night.
Nick asked, “You want a life vest?”
“Yeah, sure, why not.” We both slipped them on and zipped them up. They were medium blue, not orange, red or white. Blue for smuggling, orange for racing. It was easy to be thrown from an open racer on the ocean. Especially at night, when reading the waves was trickier. Each padded flotation vest had a small strobe light in a canvas loop up near the left shoulder, and a cargo pocket with a velcro flap on each side lower down. They contained another strobe and a four-pack of mini pop flares as big as cigars. I was impressed with how well-prepared the Pantera was turning out to be, even in these small but critical details. Yance Mabry had claimed that he never put a boat out to sea that wasn’t ready. I didn’t need any more convincing.
Nick picked up the hockey helmet with its mounted NOD. “Should I go night vision?”
“Not yet,” I said. “They can still see us from the shore.”
I looked behind us and wondered if zoom-lensed night vision cameras atop the Point of the Americas condominium tower were filming our departure for digital posterity. The half-moon, flat on top, was low on the horizon behind Fort Lauderdale. The wind had dropped and so had the offshore swells. What remained of the moonlight shone on the water ahead of us, illuminating the long, low rollers in shine and shadow and making it nearly as easy as daytime for my nightadjusted eyes to see. The fathometer readings dropped rapidly to greater than a hundred feet, then two hundred; the continental shelf is almost nonexistent along that Gulf Stream–scoured edge of South Florida. I caught glimpses of the horizon ahead of us as random flashes of heat lightning illuminated the visible tops of distant clouds over Bimini or even beyond.
So far I’d seen no sign of law enforcement boats, but that meant nothing. They could be watching us from blacked-out vessels using night vision, or from powerful infrared telescopes atop the condos. Or even from aircraft. But that was out of my circle of influence. Now I finally had the open ocean in front and a solid boat with both racing and smuggling pedigrees under my feet. Topaz was far ahead of us, but we were much faster. A miniature hound chasing a gigantic hare. Nick had summed it up well: it was going to be a long night.
Both of us were settled firmly back against our encircling bolster seats, our toes against the bottom of the cockpit bulkhead. I punched Nick’s shoulder and hollered, “You ready for blastoff?”
He gestured with his right hand as if shoving the throttle all the way forward and yelled back at me, “Hell, yeah! Do it!” Instead of a steering wheel and the instrument panel, his side of the cockpit had only a silver grab bar for him to hang onto when we went airborne, and when we slammed back down. He clutched it with both hands.
I pushed the throttle ahead, and as the Pantera accelerated and leaped forward and the engine rose to its full roar, Nick let out his own piercing, prolonged scream that sounded some-thing like “wah-hooooo!”
The digital speedometer on the GPS was climbing through the forties when I became aware of another sound—more of a feeling, actually. I throttled back and hollered at Nick, “What the hell was that?” Had something broken loose down below or in the engine compartment? Had we struck flotsam? Then the two cuddy doors between our legs exploded back, and a girl’s thin arms and ponytailed head appeared at our feet. She rolled over and sprawled on her back between the bolsters, shaking in pain and fear.
****
“Kelly? Kelly! What the hell?” I throttled back even more, and the hull pounding stopped. Our wake caught up to us and rolled under our transom. I had to do some tricky wheelwork at the new speed as we wallowed along, and a little warm salt wat
er slopped over the engine cover. At low speed on the ocean you needed to stand with your legs apart, as you would on a teeter-totter, even with your back against the bolster. I looked at Nick and switched the exhaust to underwater so we’d be able to hear each other. “Were you in on this?”
He shook his head without hesitation. “Dan, I swear I didn’t know.”
Half out of the cuddy, Kelly put her hands up, imploring. Nick and I each grabbed one slender arm and pulled her up to her feet. She was still wearing her white shorts and red top. The boat snap-rolled and she fell first against me, then back against Nick.
“Where were you hiding?” I demanded.
“Under the pointy bed, all the way up front.”
“You could have been killed up there if we’d gotten into big waves. Or you might have suffocated.”
“Tell me about it.” Kelly was still quick with a comeback, but seemed chastened.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. “Anything broken?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’m okay.”
Under the triangular plywood panel of the V-berth there was enough room for a scrawny girl her size. Her back would have been nestled against the reinforced fiberglass V that cut the water. It had been okay for her up there until we hit our first waves and the hull had made a few slams. The plywood triangle latched down from the outside to keep it in place when the bow was lifting up and down. Kelly would not have been able to lock it down while hiding beneath it and the mattress. Once we were in open water, the mattress, the plywood panel and Kelly Urbanzik had all bounced up and out of position.
I still had an iron grip on her upper arm from lifting her to her feet. I stared at her and said, “What the hell were you thinking?” I resisted the strong urge to shake her.
“I’m sorry, Dan, I’m sorry! But I just couldn’t go home. Couldn’t!”
She looked at me and then at Nick with forlorn eyes.
My first reaction was to spin one-eighty and drop her off at the closest pier, but we couldn’t risk making multiple trips through the inlet. Going out once was chancy enough. I did not want to be tonight’s anomaly for the watchers to ponder, the contact for them to tag for further study. Kelly clearly had planned on this when she hid herself.
“So, where did you put your car? Not in your garage. There wouldn’t have been time.” And she was in the same white shorts and red top. She hadn’t been home at all.
“Don’t worry—the car is fine where it is.”
“Where?”
“In our neighbors’ carport. They’re up in Michigan until October. I leave it there when I’m coming in late and going back out with somebody else.”
“It’s just a carport? There’s no door on it?”
“No. So what?”
“So what?! Tomorrow morning every cop in Broward County might be looking for a silver GTI!”
“How?” she asked. “Nobody saw us.”
“Surveillance cameras, somebody walking his dog, do I have to paint a picture? Girl, what the hell were you thinking?” We were less than a mile from the inlet and I kept the speed to a lazy twenty, steering away from the coastline. I expected more beseeching sobs and pleading for understanding, but she swept my hand away with her forearm and said, “I can still help you, damnit! Somebody needs a brain in this sorry outfit! And anyway, I’m not stopping until this mission is over.”
I was so taken aback by her defiance that after a moment I burst out laughing. Nobody needed to remind me that we were chasing Topaz by satellite beacon only because my crew had taken the initiative. Meanwhile, their fearless leader with the rusty lance had charged at two windmills and missed them both. Oh-for-two.
Her stubborn won’t-quit attitude must have come from Nick. They’d shared several hours in her car without me, with Nick sitting up front next to her. What had transpired between them during those hours I could only conjecture. For relationships forged under fire, a few hours can be a lot of bonding time. I’d seen this happen over and over again in the sandbox. Two hours under fire with a new battle buddy could equal two years of casually interacting with someone in garrison.
Further, I guessed that after a day in our gravity she was simply picking up our vibe. A rapid form of Stockholm syndrome, perhaps? Or just Kelly’s youthful hormones, raging for Nick or perhaps even for yours truly? Women were an inscrutable lot. I glared at her through my clear goggles and she glared right back. “When this is over, I’m not going back to Florida, and neither is this boat. You’re on your own to find a ride home.”
“That’s fine with me,” she snapped. “I can take care of myself.”
After today, I hardly doubted the truth of that.
There was room for her to sit on the rear bench seat with her left side against the big Igloo cooler. Each bolster seat had a wide grab bar on the back for the rear-seat passengers. “Hang onto these handles,” I told her. “Sit down when you can, but when it gets too rough, stand up but keep your knees bent. Okay?”
“Okay.” Kelly moved into position in the center of the rear seat.
“If it gets really bad, stand behind my seat.”
“Why?”
“So you don’t get launched up the middle if we come to a sudden stop.”
“That happens?”
“Yes, that happens, among other things.”
She moved side to side, sitting and standing, trying different positions.
I turned around in my bolster and said, “Let me tell you this now: while you’re on this boat, you have to do what I say. We’re not going to nice places like Ireland or Spain. Before this is all over, people will die. You realize that?”
She nodded yes and added, “People already died tonight.”
I stared at her. “Yes, they did.”
“But not us.” She held and returned my gaze.
“No, not us.” I turned forward again, switched the water-muffled exhaust back through the straight pipes, and pushed the throttle ahead until we were loping along at an easy thirty, getting our legs. No more rolling. Like a motorcycle, the narrow V-hull Pantera stiffened up with speed. She ran solid and steady, as if she were on rails. I hoped the fuel sloshing around in her belly would be enough to get us to Bimini.
I looked forward, scanning the ocean ahead for ships’ lights. Enough well-lit vessels were out there to provide me a decent virtual horizon and prevent vertigo. There was a lot to worry about. Slamming into a small, barely lit fishing boat at fifty miles an hour would put a quick end to the mission, and probably to our lives. And although the water was flat enough for blasting forward into the darkness, there was the ever-present and unavoidable risk that we would hit some freak swell or the wake of a ship, go airborne in a bad way, and face immediate disaster. But I put all the what-ifs out of my mind: what I can’t control isn’t worth worrying about. Too much.
Our course was a straight line to Bimini. It would have made better tactical sense to parallel the coast for a few miles, apparently on an “innocent” domestic jaunt, than to head directly offshore. But we just didn’t have the fuel to spare. I turned for a last look at Florida. Only a few miles out and already the electrified buildings along the coast had shrunk down to tiny Lego blocks. If the feds were observing us from their perch atop the thirty-story condo at the inlet, they were going to get only a view of our backs. If they had filmed the cluster foxtrot when we discovered our stowaway, I could only imagine what they thought of it.
I hollered, “Nick, put on your NOD and point out anything that can hurt us.”
“Aye-aye, skipper.” He chin-strapped the hockey helmet and flipped the NOD down over his left eye. It rested against his goggles, lending them a sparkly green glow. After studying all points of the compass he declared, “We’re clean.”
I nodded and advanced the throttle until we were making fifty, the Pantera’s best fast-cruising speed. We ate up the sea miles. Halfway across the Florida Strait I noticed a flashing red beacon far distant on the horizon. “See the light?” I shouted to my crewma
tes.
Nick said, “I’ve been watching it. What is it?” Kelly’s chin was nearly on my left shoulder so she could hear us over the engine.
“B for Bimini,” I said. “Morse code.” The red light came on for a few seconds, disappeared, and then blinked three times. The pattern repeated every twenty seconds. Dash, dot-dot-dot. The telegraphic alphabet was invented before the Civil War, and now it lived on in just a few legacy niches, such as atop navigational aides. Each significantly inhabited Bahama Island had a tall radio tower keeping it in touch with the outer world. Only in the middle of the fifty-mile-wide Florida Straits did a mariner lose sight of the highest light towers on both sides. That meant we were more than halfway across. The GPS said less than twenty miles to go.
****
Most people have heard of Bimini and vaguely know it’s off the coast of South Florida. Ernest Hemingway drank and fished there, and he wrote Islands in the Stream based on some of his experiences there. In succeeding generations rumrunners and drug smugglers used Bimini as a launching platform. But actually there are two Biminis, North and South, a fact that matters only to those few who visit. North Bimini has Alice Town, the only settlement of note in the two-island group. Years before when I had visited for one day, it’d had a few relatively nice marinas, some bars and restaurants, and what passed for law and order.
South Bimini is noteworthy only because it has the sole airstrip on either island. The location of the unlit runway on South Bimini had led to much amusement over the years. Smugglers would bring in cases of battery-powered electric lanterns to light the five-thousand-foot runway for mystery planes that came and went after dark. Meanwhile, the DEA had a tiny base on North Bimini. For years they played cops and robbers, but South Bimini remained by and large a law enforcement “no-go zone.” This was part of an undeclared truce to ensure domestic tranquility on the better-off northern island.
Castigo Cay Page 41