1 Red Right Return

by John H. Cunningham

  “How far away’s the Mohawk?”

  “Fifty miles, but they’ve got helicopters in pursuit.”

  “Can you patch me through to Frank Nardi?”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Franko, dude we play hoop with?” Lenny said.

  “You don’t need to be bothering—”

  “I’m on my way and I want Gutierrez’s twenty!”

  “Absolutely not, Reilly. Get your butt back to—”

  “A good friend of mine’s the hostage on board, I’m not going to let hurt get her.”

  “Karen?” Lenny asked.

  “There’s a two-hundred-person Coast Guard cutter bearing down on them!”

  “They’ll never make it. Listen, Killelea, I will not sit back and watch this go down. If he gets away, I’ll… I’ll….”

  “Hold on, goddamnit. You get yourself killed it’s your own fool fault.”

  “What about the Carnival?”

  “In custody after a brief battle.”

  “The girl?”

  “We fished her out.”

  “And?”

  “Tough as nails, prettier than—”

  “Shaniqua?” Lenny said. “The hell you guys talking about—Gutierrez, Karen?”

  “He’s behind killing the missionaries and all the Santeria crap. Now he’s snatched Karen and is headed for Cuba. All the bullshit bravado was just that, bullshit.”

  “You really CIA, man?”

  “Gutierrez is a Cuban mole, a spy, burrowed in deep to keep Havana informed. And no, I’m just a pissed-off charter pilot.”

  “Kiss my Conch ass.” Lenny pulled his lap belt tighter.

  “If what their Director of State Security said is true, and the president leverages the media’s coverage to do something stupid, Cuba’s set to retaliate throughout the U.S.”

  “Who was that dude you dumped?”

  “Scar.”

  A beep sounded in my ear and a Coast Guard communications officer aboard the Mohawk transferred me to the ship’s bridge, no questions asked. Another officer answered and hesitated at my request to speak to Nardi.

  “Tell him it’s Buck Reilly and I’m halfway to Cuba in pursuit.”

  My compass reflected the same course I’d flown several bruises ago, it being the most direct line to Havana.

  “This the asshole passing himself off as CIA?”

  “The son of a bitch in that speedboat has my friend prisoner, Frank.”

  Lenny suddenly keyed in on the microphone. “More like his girlfriend, man.”

  “Lenny Jackson? You fellas are a long way from Douglas Community Center.”

  “Give me a GPS mark, Frank, I’m closer to Gutierrez than you are.”

  “We’ve got helicopters armed with heat-seeking missiles, he won’t get away.”

  “You can’t shoot him, Karen’s on board!”

  “I’ve got orders, Reilly, he’s a Cuban spy—”

  “Worth a hell of a lot more alive.”

  The pause felt endless. Nardi had to be weighing the trouble he’d get into if he told me. I held my breath.

  “He’s only fifteen miles from their waters, you’ll never—oh, screw it. They’re at 23.7 degrees north by 82.2 degrees west on a heading of 186.”

  I punched in the coordinates into the GPS, and the machine mapped a course within seconds. We were already damn close to being on target.

  “Keep the line open,” I said.

  86

  LENNY RUBBED HIS PALMS together, a broad grin on his face. The news about Shaniqua was manna from heaven.

  “What’s the plan, Commander?”

  “I’ve got no idea.” My eyes were fixed on the horizon, anxious to see Gutierrez’s ocean racer in the distance.

  “What the hell should I be doing, then?”

  “Peel some duct tape off the windows and cover the bullet holes on the floor.”

  “Bullet holes! They been shooting at you?”

  “Ray Floyd put tape on the outside.”

  “Tape? We ain’t landing out here, right? Tape won’t hold out shit, man.”

  Was that a faint trace of spent wake in the blue water? What appeared to be gnats inside my windshield was a pair of helicopters in the distance. The boat! With both of Betty’s tachometers pressed to their red lines, we were gaining fast.

  “You there, Reilly?” It was Frank Nardi.

  “I’m closing in.”

  “We’re running out of time, and there’s another problem. Radar identified a Cuban Navy ship on their territorial line. Looks like they’re waiting for him.”

  “How far out?”

  “Seven miles and closing fast.”

  The throttles were pressed into the headliner, and the airspeed indicator quivered at 210 knots per hour. The engines were operating dangerously beyond capacity, and the airspeed was in excess of the airframe’s rating. Betty’s sixty-year-old body could break apart at any second.

  “The choppers aren’t doing shit, Frank. Tell them to get out of my way.”

  “What the hell can you do in that old bird?”

  “Widgeons were torpedo planes in World War II.”

  “You have a torpedo?”

  “We got a torpedo?”

  I was locked in on the black speedboat, and my altimeter was dropping fast. Nardi must have warned the helicopters, because they parted in opposite directions as we bore down like a cruise missile. There were large spiders painted on the back of the boat along with some cursive writing that was illegible. It might as well have said murdering, thieving, kidnapping spy, but in my eyes it said target.

  “Buck?” Lenny shouted.

  “Five miles from Cuban waters,” Nardi said. “The helicopters have orders to disable the boat before it reaches the line. That’s less than five minutes from now.”

  Betty roared ten feet over top of the speedboat at two hundred miles an hour. The boat shifted suddenly to the left after we shot past them. Hopefully I’d given Gutierrez a heart attack.

  “Lenny!” I shouted into the mike. “Open up the back locker and grab every loose item you see.”

  He jumped out of his seat without question, confirming my instinct about having him join me.

  “Hold on!”

  I banked hard to the left and did a sharp 180-degree chandelle turn that put me on a nose-to-nose course with the surging ocean racer. With Lenny in the back, Betty’s turning was sluggish, the center of gravity thrown off just enough to impair performance.

  “Hurry up!”

  “Four miles!” Nardi’s shout pierced my ears.

  The distance closed fast. I counted three figures in the boat’s enclosed cockpit. Maybe it was the black color, but the shape reminded me of the Batmobile. Perfect for a megalomaniac like Gutierrez. He swerved again as we blew past.

  “I’ve got some shit, man, what do you want me to do?” Lenny said.

  I stomped on the right pedal, and the rudder pulled us hard that way. Our airspeed dropped and I pulled back on the yoke. Lenny crashed into the wall.

  “When I straighten out, open the hatch halfway. Remember, if you open it too far, I won’t be able to use the flaps, and we’ll yard-dart into the ocean. Use one of the bungee chords on the kayak to lock the hatch in place.”

  “Then what?”

  “What have you got?”

  “Your duffel bag, the magna-whatever-you-call-it, a basketball-sized wad of police-line tape, and an anchor.”

  I dropped Betty back down into position behind the boat.

  “All right, open the hatch. When I say so, drop the duffel.”

  “Right!”

  Twenty feet above the water’s surface, Betty’s nose was aimed up the rear of the boat like a dog sniffing out a bitch in heat. We closed the gap quickly, and at the last second I yelled, “Now!”

  I couldn’t see what happened but sensed the boat shift course again.

  “Missed!” Lenny yelled.

  We climbed and turned sharply. Gutierrez changed cour
se, and his boat catapulted off the wave tips and flew through the air before tacking back toward the invisible line that meant freedom for him and death for Karen.

  “Three miles!”

  “Keep those helicopters out of here!”

  “What next, Buck?”

  “Get the anchor ready.”

  Betty dropped down and glided smoothly over the surface like a duck over a Canadian lake. Gutierrez’s sneering face peered up through his windshield. “Four…three…two… NOW!”

  Lenny dropped the anchor twenty feet ahead of the boat.

  “I hit him! I hit the son of a bitch!”

  With the turnaround and drop procedure now perfected, we again came up behind him. There was a hole in one of the engine covers, but he hadn’t slowed a bit.

  “Two miles, Reilly! The Cuban Navy ship’s radioing warnings of its intention to defend their frontier. They’ll shoot you down if you get too close. Back off, we’re running out of time, the helicopters need to finish the job.”

  Visions of my Cuban incarceration flashed through my head. I’d be damned if Sanchez would get the best of me again. If Gutierrez got away now, an invasion would be unstoppable.

  “Get ready with the magnetometer, Lenny.”

  My treasure maps were gone, and my old man’s puzzles were unsolvable, and Gutierrez and Emilio had to be Bush and Clinton, which meant I’d never see my pouch again. I bit down with a force that could powder my molars and felt a hot sensation on my cheeks. The taste of salt stung my lips.

  “Three…two… NOW!”

  We lifted off the boat and began to climb before Lenny could report if he’d scored a hit. The magnetometer didn’t have enough weight to matter.

  “I’m out of ammo, man, what are we going to do?”

  I continued south and saw the Cuban Navy vessel looming large on the horizon. Gutierrez was ninety seconds from safety, destined to be greeted in Havana as a Hero of the Revolution. The thought twisted my gut, but not nearly as much as failing Karen. She had to be terrified, watching my feeble attempts to stop them, enduring Gutierrez’s certain laughter at yet another Buck Reilly mishap.

  “One mile! The helicopters are launching missiles in thirty seconds. Clear out, Reilly, or the heat seekers will nail your ass instead of the boat. That’s an order!”

  “Buck!” Lenny shouted. “I’ve got an idea. Try one more pass, make it slow.”

  “Right.” I didn’t ask any questions, just dropped the nose and cut the rudder hard left, aiming for the water in front of the speedboat. “All right, Lenny, he’s closing in.” I heard him struggling with something behind me, but we were too close to the water’s surface for me to risk a glance back.

  “The missiles will be launched in ten seconds, clear out now!”

  “Ready, Lenny? Four…three…two…GO!”

  “Bombs away, baby!”

  The boat suddenly swerved.

  “Got him! Oh, shit…Ohhh shit, ohhh—”

  “What happened?”

  “I skewered him with the kayak, man, right through the windshield.”

  “And?”

  “They flipped, Buck, the boat flipped.” Lenny’s voice was a whisper.

  87

  THE OCEAN RACER WAS on its side. There was no sign of movement. Our airspeed had dropped to eighty miles per hour, and as anxious as I was to find Karen, it would be suicidal to repeat the same landing mistakes that almost sank Betty in Bimini. We bounced hard onto the water’s surface and the props cut into the waves, which shot prop wash in all directions. The boat was a quarter-mile ahead.

  A deafening explosion, then a geyser of water erupted fifty feet away from the foundering boat.

  “Nardi! Call off the dogs, the boat’s dead in the water. Cease fire, goddamnit!”

  “Abort missiles!” Nardi’s voice screamed in my headset.

  “They’re upside down.” Lenny’s voice was a whisper.

  “If you hadn’t scored with the kayak, they’d be on that Cuban Navy ship by now.”

  Another cannon round landed seventy feet off our nose. I squeezed the microphone button so hard it nearly broke the stick in half.

  “Nardi, cut the shit! That one almost hit us!”

  “We’re not firing, neither are the choppers.”

  “What the hell?” Lenny pulling the fuzz out of his chin.

  “Got to be the Cubans,” I said. The black hull of the ocean racer was starting to sink into the purple water. “Nardi, you hear me?”

  “Ten-four, Reilly, what’s the boat’s status?”

  “Bow down and sinking fast. And the Cubans are shooting at us! Where the hell are the helicopters?”

  “On their way.”

  “Do something about the damn Cubans!”

  Another round landed off our starboard side. I glanced at Lenny, expecting terror, but saw fierce determination instead.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “We’ll be to the boat in thirty seconds, I’m going in after them.”

  “What about the plane?”

  “You’ve got the helm.”

  “I can’t—”

  “The foot pedals steer your direction. Use the throttles to make a quick one-eighty turn back into the waves. By the time you get back, I’ll have Karen.”

  “What throttles, where the hell—” He searched the cockpit, his eyes frantic.

  “You’ve driven a boat, right?” He stared at me. “It’s the same concept. Think of Betty as a twin-engine boat, and these are her throttles.” I tapped the twin metal handles extending down from the ceiling. His complexion had a sickly cast, but there was no other choice. I was going in after Karen. If Betty sank, she sank.

  I got out of my seat just as another cannon round landed off our port side. The explosion and plume of water shot high above us. The Cubans were zeroing in, and if the Mohawk couldn’t stop them, we’d soon be vaporized.

  “Damn!” Lenny yelled. “You better hurry up!”

  The hatch was still half open, and I sat on the edge. The fabric of the sky tore with the shriek of another round coming in. It hit just behind the plane. Water blasted inside the open hatch and drenched me.

  “Nardi!” I screamed into the sky.

  “Here it is, Buck, you better hurry, man, I ain’t seen shit moving.”

  I dove into the water. The cold shocked me. The screaming engines launched water pellets at my face like shards of glass. I ducked under as Betty lumbered past. Another shell struck the water and ripped me back to the surface in a concussion of roiling wake. My arms pumped into the waves, and I dug hard toward the boat.

  88

  THE BLACK HULL GLEAMED in the sunshine. The sudden taste of gasoline choked me, with vapors burning my eyes. I swam through a slick of fuel that if ignited would burn the boat and me to a crisp. The air filled with another wail of cannon fire, but in a different pitch. The shell screamed past and landed off the bow of the Cuban Navy ship a half-mile away.

  I pulled myself on top of the capsized hull and shimmied toward the bow, which was almost completely under water. I dove down and found the door handle just below the surface. I swam into the cockpit, only to find it engulfed in a cloud of bloody water.

  No!

  The kayak was wedged through the windshield. It had impaled the person in the closest seat. I couldn’t see who it was because of their helmet. Somebody else was moving in the middle—Karen!

  Her helmet was off, her face pressed up into the corner of what had been the floor but was now the ceiling. Gutierrez was gone.

  I swam to the other side, reached in and grabbed her leg. She swung toward me, her eyes bugged wide.

  “Buck!”

  “This way, let’s go!”

  “I can’t move, my seat belt’s crushed together.”

  The boat shifted in the water, and the door I’d entered was now completely immersed. The air bubble sustaining Karen was getting smaller by the second. I dug in my pocket for my knife—something grabbed my leg! An incredible tug dragged me out
the door. We bobbed to the surface.

  Gutierrez!

  “You!”

  He dove at me, and a blurred silver slash grazed my forehead. Blood squirted down into my eye. His arm swung back, and there was a huge knife in his hand. Instinct took over and I dove away from the next strike. Karen was sinking into oblivion, and this lunatic’s thirst for revenge was now aimed at me.

  “You ruined everything!” His voice was an angry shriek.

  A cannon shell landed in the water near us, and its concussion rocked the speedboat over further. Gutierrez swung again, but this time I deflected the blow and counter-attacked with a right jab that caught him square on the nose. His eyes crossed for a second, and he must have inhaled water, because he started gagging. I attacked his wrist with a chop, and the knife fell from his grasp.

  I dove back under and swam toward the open door. Just as I pulled my knife out of my pocket, Gutierrez caught my arm and knocked the knife away. The shining blade spiraled into the depths.

  Bastard!

  We crashed together in a death grip. I felt his fingernails dig into my neck, searching for my juggler. He landed a punch across my ear, but anger deflected the pain. I summoned an uppercut from twenty leagues beneath the sea that connected under his chin and lifted him out of the water. His body was limp before it splashed down.

  A giant air bubble broke the water’s surface. The boat was almost fully submerged. I kicked with all my strength back toward the boat’s open door, now ten feet under water. Inside, Karen’s face was pressed into the now Frisbee-sized air bubble. She was frozen with panic. I sucked in as little of the air as possible, pulled myself back down her seat belt, and pushed Emilio’s limp leg aside to reach for the mangled—something caught my eye.

  Under Emilio’s leg was the edge of a yellow, plastic—Yes!

  Karen’s squirming pulled at the seat belt in my hand, but my attention was fixed on the yellow, waterproof—I let go of the seat belt and pulled the corner of… my pouch!

  Something hit the side of my head. I lost half my air thinking Gutierrez had returned.

  It was Karen, convulsing wildly. With my lungs burning, I dove back on the belt. My knife would have cut the webbing like butter, but now I had to improvise.