Caribbean's Keeper

by Boland, Brian;

  He took another sip from his beer and rubbed his lip with his thumb. “I figured what the hell, I’ll give it a try. I made two runs out of Colombia before they caught me. I had this crotch-rocket of a plane come up from behind and wag his wings right next to me. I mean, I could literally see the fucker’s face. I flicked the guy off and figured I was done. He was calling out on the radio for me to land, but I was getting pretty close to the beach line and figured I would make a run for open water, trying to get to twelve miles.”

  Murph quit for a second, looked at one of the gauges, and took another sip. Cole kept quiet as he had a sense that this story was going somewhere and that his adventures to date paled in comparison.

  “So anyway, sure as shit, he pulls behind in a loose trail and lights me up. I mean, I can hear bullets tearing into the plane. It was just a single engine Cessna, no match at all for whatever he was shooting me up with. And then the engine started smoking, fuel was leaking out of the wings, and I put her in a descent to the jungle. He blew right past me one more time as I was descending to rub it in my face. I killed the engine and lined up to ditch on a flat part of the landscape.”

  Cole was struck by it. “Shit, man. That’s one hell of a story.”

  They were both looking straight ahead and the silence was uncomfortable. Murph seemed like he was replaying it in his head.

  Cole pressed. “You gotta tell me the ending. I mean you’re still here, so what the fuck happened?”

  Murph paused and shook his head back and forth as if to say he didn’t even understand it himself. “I don’t really know. I put her down in the jungle and somehow walked away from it. The plane was a wreck, but I climbed out through the windshield that was busted out and waited.”

  Cole was puzzled. “You waited? You just sat there and waited?”

  Murph laughed and replied, “Yeah, I fucking waited. I was in the middle of the damn jungle wearing a pair of flip flops. What else was I gonna do?”

  The two laughed. It was a hell of a story and the two seemed to appreciate each other’s company for the next two hours. Cole laid out his whole story about Delaney, the migrant runs, and his decision to press further south. Murph seemed somewhat impressed with Cole’s stories as well and before long they were starting a slow descent down into the island of Curacao.

  Having never been there, Cole focused his attention outside the cockpit and strained to make out details about the island in front of him in the dark Caribbean sky. Murph took her off autopilot and handled the plane like a pro. He’d cut them both off at one beer for that leg, but had promised another once they were wheels up.

  As they neared the airport, Murph called out, “Gear down.”

  Taking that as his cue, Cole reached down and flopped the same lever down. Similar clunks followed and the plane surged just a bit before the three indicators all displayed ‘down’ and Cole was happy with his first flying lesson.

  Murph eased the plane onto the runway and from a pilot’s view, Cole saw firsthand the balancing act of bringing a flying piece of metal back onto the ground with grace. He was impressed. The landing was far more involved and intricate than tying a ship up to a pier. They taxied clear of the runway and over to another empty ramp, where a lone blue van waited in a corner. Taxiing over towards it, Murph instructed Cole to hop out the back with both of the briefcases behind his seat and give them to the guy in the van.

  Cole complied and in a matter of minutes they were taxiing again with Murph flipping switches and tuning radios. He paused briefly and pointed again up past the runway to a large hangar and some monstrous planes sitting on the dark ramp.

  “See them, that’s a U.S. base down here. Those planes are the ones out looking for you every night.”

  Cole squinted to make out the silhouettes of the planes, but in the darkness he couldn’t see clear enough to make much out of them. He wondered if that same P-3 wasn’t parked up there somewhere. It was an odd twist of fate that he was now practically kicked to the curb by David, and here he was twice in one day and in very different places looking practically eye to eye with the same guys trying every night to catch him.

  The planes were huge, sitting quietly on the ramp as Murph taxied them past. It was asymmetric warfare in every sense of the term. Cole set out with a boat, a motor, and a GPS. In front of him was an array of some of the most technologically advanced warplanes in the U.S. inventory, all focused on finding guys just like him and slowing the flow of drugs to North America.

  Murph spun the plane around again and lined up on the dark runway, this time waiting until he was lined up properly before gunning the engines. Seconds later they were accelerating. The plane’s landing lights lit the pavement in front of them and an array of different colored lights marked each side of the runway with a single row of lights down the centerline. Other than the runway, it was dark. Cole felt the nose pitch up briefly before the familiar thump indicating they were in the air.

  Murph called for the gear and Cole flipped the same lever again without missing a beat. Once pointed east and on autopilot, Murph pulled out two more beers and the two of them toasted the evening. “I assume you didn’t want to stay in Curacao?”

  Cole took a sip and replied, “No. Let’s see what else El Caribe has to offer.”

  From 19,000 feet, it was total darkness below and above. There were some scattered thunderstorms along the route, but nothing like the ones they’d pushed through over Panama. Cole could see the stars above him and enough of the moon was out to bounce some light off the Caribbean below. Cole was now adjusted to the hum of the engines and compared to running a boat hundreds of miles, an airplane was certainly an easier ride.

  The flight to Martinique was just about two hours, and Cole pressed Murph for more details. Murph in turn laid out the pros and cons of running drugs by air. It had taken the better part of a day for anyone to find him after he’d ditched the plane. By the time the Colombian military arrived, he’d burned the whole thing down to ashes and, from the story he told, he met the Colombians with open arms and a shit-eating grin on his face. Without evidence, they had nothing that could have proved Murph’s guilt, as it had all gone up in flames. The Colombians put him in jail anyway, but in a matter of months, he was out and on his way.

  Since then, almost eight years ago, Murph had been moving mostly above-the-table shipments around the southern Caribbean. Sometimes he flew people from place to place, picking them up, dropping them off, and waiting for days at the nicest hotels money could buy. He told Cole that the two briefcases were nothing more than checks and documents as far as he knew. Like any other business, there was a paper trail. It was well guarded, but there was still a paper trail, and that was Murph’s niche in the business. If he wasn’t chauffeuring the middle management from meeting to meeting, he was moving their administrative necessities. From time to time he’d test out a new route or move cocaine if David was in a pinch, but it was a good life that Murph had carved out for himself.

  Cole was relieved that the cartel had kept its word and hadn’t sent Murph on his way empty handed. He compared his situation to Murph’s and the two agreed that Cole still had a decent chance of making something of it. In the interim, Murph would show him a good time in Martinique once they landed. As they started their descent into Fort-de-France, Cole couldn’t help but smile.

  Murph touched down again and taxied to a smaller ramp lined with planes similar to their King Air. He shut down quickly and the two stepped off the plane into the nighttime sky. Cole took a deep and long breath of the air. It was tropical just like Panama, but a strong steady breeze blew from the east and the air smelled fresh and full of salt. There was no city stench like Panama City nor was there the constant thumping of dance music from Habana’s. It was peaceful, at last. With his bag over his shoulder, Cole followed Murph inside the small terminal where Murph had a green Volkswagen rental car waiting, and the two were off.

  Murph drove like a madman through the s
treets, entering and exiting rotary intersections like he’d been at it his whole life. He grinned and giggled with each hard turn. Cole couldn’t help but laugh as well with his window down and the cool evening air in his face. The local radio station played something in French and Murph cranked it up as he hit red line speeds on the straightaways then played the gears down in the turns.

  Even though it was dark, Cole could sense the island was far different from the western side of the Caribbean. A refreshing breeze rolled in undisturbed from the Atlantic. The smell took him back to the first night he’d beached on the north coast of Cuba. The tops of palm trees moved with the wind, and the buildings were more spaced out and colorful than the congestion of Panama. It was getting late, but people were still lingering around the small cafes that lined the roads.

  Murph pulled off the main highway, and Cole strained to read the street signs. It was all foreign to him, a new language. He hoped that enough time would pass here that he would come to learn a few phrases. With one last hard turn, Murph settled the car into a parking spot and the two hopped out and walked into the entrance of the Hotel Bakoua. The lobby was open-air and had smooth tile floors. Soft music played from a radio behind the desk. It was remarkably quiet and Cole was again struck by the contrast. In broken English, the woman at the counter checked both of them into their rooms and gave them keys. From the reception area, the two walked around a corner, down some steps, and to the bar that overlooked the pool and the bay below. They were elevated on a cliff and Cole fought for a moment to keep a smile from creeping across his face.

  Murph saw Cole’s reaction, laughed, and pulled a stool up at the bar. Cole followed and the old man behind the bar brought them a plate of green olives and peanuts. They both drank rum punch and snacked on the peanuts for an hour or so, still swapping stories about wild nights, women, and the places they’d been. It was almost midnight when they turned in. Murph set off down towards his room and Cole found a sign pointing him to the left and down an open-air walkway to the end. To his left was a steep rock embankment covered in small flowers and brush. To the right was a single row of rooms with the beach on the far side. He found his number on the last room on the right and walked in, not knowing what to expect.

  Like he always did, he set the thermostat a few degrees lower and walked over to the sliding glass doors. Opening them and stepping out onto his balcony, he saw a sand beach below and two dozen sailboats at anchor in the small cove to the left. He could hear the breeze whistle through their aluminum masts and halyards. Listening to it, he thought of Key West for a moment. So much had happened since he’d left the Conch Republic. He took one last deep breath and turned in for the evening.

  g

  He awoke the following morning later than usual. With nothing to do, he made some coffee in the room and went again out on his balcony. He’d missed it the night before, but the balcony wrapped around to the left and opened up onto a covered deck, almost hanging over the coral jetty below him. Taking a seat on a bench and throwing his bare feet up on the table, he shook his head and grinned at his fortune.

  It wasn’t long before he heard Murph calling up to him from the beach below, “You lucky son of a bitch.”

  Cole grinned even wider and quipped, “Better to be lucky than good Murph.”

  Murph shook his head and looked away towards the water for a second before returning with a light-hearted smile. “Get down here, man. You gotta see this.”

  Cole finished his coffee and made his way back through the room and down a set of wooden steps to the beach. He had on only a pair of board shorts and tucked the room key in a pocket. Murph walked quickly back down the beach, almost to the water, before motioning with his head for Cole to look out into the water behind him. There, two tanned and pretty girls were topless and lounging around in a foot or two of water. Cole stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at Murph, who was now the one with a smile on his face. “Welcome to France, buddy.”

  From there, the two of them made their way out onto a small dock and walkway that led out to another bar jutting into the small cove. Once there they drank themselves quickly into a mess and recounted the previous 24 hours. The bartender again brought out peanuts and green olives, which did little to help manage the rum punch that soaked their bellies.

  The bartender eventually gave them the cold shoulder, and with their cups empty and their minds clouded, they settled back into some chairs on the beach and set about watching the French girls that walked past. They were all beautiful and paid little attention to the two drunk Americans. At some point Cole had nodded off and woke around noon under the shade of a palm tree. Murph had found another drink somehow and was fidgeting in his chair, unable to sit still and appeared to be looking for mischief.

  “What’s up, man?” Cole was still waking up from his nap.

  Murph was scanning the cove and said, “I’m bored. There’s a drink for you on the table.”

  Cole rolled over and sat up, reaching for the rum punch and he took a good long sip. It brought him back to life.

  Beyond the bar, a young couple was seated in a pedal boat and they slowly chugged along out into the cove cutting a wide circular path. Even with the language barrier, it was clear the women was loudly nagging the man, who seemed to be trying to explain himself for some perceived transgression. Taking another sip from his punch, Murph set it down and spoke under his breath. “Watch this. I’ll give her something to bitch about.”

  Cole said nothing, but watched Murph walk calmly out into the water and dive under for a moment before taking a few strokes out. He seemed to be lining himself up with the pedal boat and Cole chewed at his lip for a second trying to figure out what Murph was up to. He took another sip from his drink to finish it off and watched intently as the couple unknowingly made their way closer to Murph.

  When he was within a few feet of them, he waved hello and they waved back, the woman stopping her tirade for just a moment, before Murph turned to make his way to the beach. As they passed him, Murph suddenly dove underwater again and emerged just inches from behind the pedal boat as it took a leisurely course further out into the cove. He was up to something and out of sight of the couple as they pedaled along. Seconds passed, and Murph finally slipped back under the water and emerged with some distance between him and the boat, this time making his way on in. Stepping out of the water, he again walked matter-of-factly back to his seat, dried off with a towel, and cleaned the rest of the melted ice and rum punch from his drink.

  “What was that all about?” Cole had missed whatever Murph was up to.

  Murph grinned and extended his right palm out with his fist closed before opening it and revealing the two hull plugs from the pedal boat. Cole looked for a second at the plugs then back out at the pedal boat making its way into the deeper water of the cove. The two young lovers were now giving each other silent treatment.

  “No fucking way.”

  Murph was now sitting back down on his chair and laughing hysterically. Cole followed suit. They both looked out at the cove to try and see if the boat was getting any lower in the water but couldn’t tell. But not more than a minute later, they heard the first yell. From its pitch, it must have been the woman, and she clearly had realized their boat was sinking. Cole and Murph looked out again, this time squinting harder and both giggling like little girls. The man driving was trying to turn the boat around, but it was now sinking lower and lower into the water and not responding to the two of them pedaling frantically.

  The woman yelled some more towards shore and the man followed suit, both of them waving their hands in the air towards the beach. After a few seconds, the woman slapped the man and yelled at him once again. With the two of them yelling, Cole and Murph had to steady themselves so as not to fall out of their seats. The couple had caught the attention of the boy working the dock who was now yelling back at them and motioning with his hands for them to pedal faster. Guests on the beach were now standing up and
talking as the couple on the boat yelled at the boy on the dock and the boy yelled back at them. It took a serious turn when the dock boy finally jumped in the water to swim after them.

  Moments later, the pedal boat finally succumbed to Murph’s sabotage, and with a titanic-esque dramatic list to one side, it finally went under. The couple, now without a boat, swam back to shore and the woman was out of breath by the time she reached the shore, not so much from the swim, but more from her tirade against her man while they swam the 30 yards to shore. The dock boy swam out to the boat and was the only one left yelling after it had sunk before he realized the futility of it all and swam back to the dock.

  It had caused quite a scene. Murph buried the two plugs in the sand and suggested that he and Cole make a run for some lunch at the bar by the lobby. Cole agreed. They both tried to contain their laughter, but could take no more than ten steps before one of them would start laughing again and it inevitably triggered the other to do the same. It was in this condition that the two of them made their way up the steps and sat at the bar, ordering sandwiches and another round of rum punch.

  Cole had to wipe his eyes from the sweat and laughter, finally controlling himself when his drink arrived. Murph was still giggling, his forearms against the bar and his head bent low as he tried to regain his composure. Cole took a sip from his drink and as he set his glass back down on the bar, he saw a girl walk down from the lobby. Her long hair, dark and curly, bounced around her shoulders with each step and her skin was olive with a slight tan.

  She walked up to the bartender and spoke in French with him, no more than five yards from Cole. Cole watched the words roll off her lips and wanted desperately to understand her language. She carried a clipboard with her and must have worked at the hotel from the way the two of them talked. A long green cotton dress hung from thin straps over her bare shoulders and she couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23, but she carried herself like she was older, or at least more mature than her age. Cole stared motionless. She was thin at the waist and through her dress Cole could see subtle but curved hips. The top of her dress hung low and Cole saw enough of her to lose his normally cool composure around beautiful girls. His mouth went dry. He bit down on his teeth, exhaled to steady himself, and just as he did, she looked away from the bartender and directly at Cole.