Sink, Swim, Die

by Jay Giles

  After dinner, I spent an hour with the ship’s GPS system plotting our course. For the next several days, we’d be hugging the coasts of French Guiana and Suriname. From there my plan was to island hop north with stops in Barbados, Martinique, St. Kitts, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas, before our final leg to Florida.

  I figured the trip to be about 1,400 nautical miles and that the Venetian might be able to average 15-knots a day which worked out roughly to an eight-day trip. Of course, I was a novice at this. I had no idea what I was doing or if the Venetian would cooperate. I shrugged it off and moved on. I had one more task to do before anchoring for the night and heading to bed. I needed to update Sloane. I punched in his numbers with the intention of leaving him a voice mail and was mildly surprised when he picked-up.

  “Where are you?”

  I shook my head at how he could make a common phase sound blunt and officious. “We left Maceio about six our time. We’re cruising up the coast now, but we had some—”

  “Problems?”

  “Yeah, with the bilge pumps. We’re going to have to see—”

  “When will you be here? I need to know.”

  Whatever I did was never good enough or fast enough for Sloane. I was used to his being demanding, but I thought I detected an added sense of urgency in his voice. “I’m figuring in about eight days.”

  “You’re sure? This is important, Will.”

  There it was again. That extra bit of anxiety. “As long as the Venetian holds together. I told you, we had—”

  “I want twice a day updates. Call me in the morning and evening. I want to know exactly where you are. Understand?”

  “That’s fine, I—” He’d hung-up. As I headed down to my cabin, I wondered why he’d been so anxious.

  I fretted about it while I showered and brushed my teeth, but said, “Screw it,” when I got in bed. I wasn’t going to lose sleep over Ban Sloane. But it had been a hectic day and my mind refused to shut down. So I was awake when my cabin door opened quietly and a slim shadow slipped in, lifted the sheet and got in bed with me. As she pressed her naked body to mine, my whole body tingled with excitement. Or danger.

  Chapter 4

  We stayed in bed in the morning and consequently were late in raising the anchor and getting the Venetian underway. Once we were, I called Sloane from the bridge and, like the night before, he picked-up immediately. “Morning,” I said cheerily.

  “You’re on your way, making good time?”

  “Yeah. The Venetian’s cooperating, right now. I’m hoping to get pretty far up the coast today.”

  “Good. Call me tonight and let me know your GPS coordinates.” He hung-up, leaving me wondering where this GPS thing came from. It was unlike Sloane to be so down-in-the-weeds, and the more I thought about it, the more questions I had about his recent behavior:

  Why was he suddenly picking-up instead of letting my calls go to voicemail?

  Why was that added anxiety in his voice?

  Why did he now want to be called twice a day?

  Why did he want GPS coordinates?

  This had to be more than fear he might lose a potential buyer. Something else was going on.

  Su interrupted my speculation on Sloane’s sinister motives, bringing me a bowl of granola and glass of orange juice. “I’m going to do a couple loads of laundry,” she said putting her arms around my waist, snuggling up, and giving me a kiss. “I can throw your things in, too.”

  She got no argument from me. “Have at it. Thanks.”

  I watched her leave and went right back to worrying. I was pleased about our newfound relationship, but I was also wary. Trite as it might be, there had to be trust in a relationship. Trust was something I didn’t have. Until I knew what Su was hiding, I had to be on-guard.

  Mid-morning the weather turned. The sky grew gray. At noon, it started to drizzle. By early afternoon, it had turned to a steady rain. I switched on the marine weather report and learned storms were coming. By four o’clock, the winds kicked-up and the sea turned into a kiddie roller coaster.

  Without glass in the bridge windows, water was blowing in and I was getting soaked. Trying to blunt the worst of it, I pulled up some of the salon carpet—it had been ruined by the fire anyway—cut it into strips and fastened it over the side windows. The carpet made the space feel cramped and dark and stunk with that smoky fire smell, but at least I wasn’t getting quite as wet.

  About the time I was finishing the port windows, the weather service issued small craft warnings. The Venetian wasn’t small, but I took the warning to heart. I was a fair-weather sailor. Not George Clooney in The Perfect Storm steering his boat into mountainous wave after mountainous wave and riding down the crests.

  I re-checked the radar. The Brazilian coastline showed as a raggedly drawn bowed line. There wasn’t a harbor or protected area that looked like it would provide relief.

  Around six o’clock, lightning and thunder kicked-in, and we graduated from the kiddie coaster to the adult screamer. The Venetian was up, down, sideways. I held tightly to the wheel and tried to keep us moving forward. My inexperience at handling rough water was causing the Venetian to take a pounding.

  Su appeared on the bridge and shouted over the storm. “Isn’t there someplace we get out of this?”

  “I’ve been looking,” I shouted back. “Haven’t seen anything.”

  The Venetian rolled down the side of a wave. Su grabbed the instrument panel to remain standing upright. “What’s the weather report?”

  The last report had the worst of the storm ahead of us. It wasn’t due to let up until early morning. “It’s not good.”

  By ten that night, waves were crashing over the bow and sides. We were taking on water. The bilge pumps were running constantly. Su had been to the bridge twice yelling that the water in the engine room was deepening. My phone had rung every five minutes for the last hour: Sloane, angry he hadn’t gotten his evening update.

  Struggling at the wheel, I ignored him. Rain was blowing sideways whipped by a thunderous wind. Visibility was iffy. I had to strain to see the waves that hammered us. Not knowing what else to do, I had the Venetian angling into them, but she was wallowing badly.

  I was wet, cold and tired. My hands and arms ached from holding on to the wheel. My concentration was waning and there was no sign of a break in the weather.

  The Venetian rode up the side of a huge wave, tilting the bridge far to the left, it straightened momentarily at the crest, then the bridge tilted wildly to the right as we slid to the bottom of the trough. I braced myself for the next one. The waves were now the size where one could swamp her or roll her over.

  When I could, I stole glances at the radar, searching for anything that might provide shelter. Around eleven the town of Sao Luis appeared on the radar with what we needed most—a protected harbor.

  To get there, the Venetian would have to head directly into the waves.

  Would she hold together?

  Only one way to find out. I cranked the wheel over, felt her turn, her bow rising on the upcoming wave. Had to be a thirty-footer. She rode it up at a forty-five degree angle. At the top, her screws came out of water, props spinning wildly, before the slide from hell down the backside of the wave. At the bottom, she buried her bow as if she was on the fast track to the bottom. As the wave rolled away behind us, her stern leveled. The Venetian creaked and groaned as she struggled against the weight of the water to raise her bow.

  It didn’t happen fast enough. The next wave rode over us, sending water flooding through the bridge. Once past, we fell with a stomach-dropping thud into the trough, the bow rising harshly with the swell of the next wave.

  I had no idea how much water we’d taken on. If windows had been blown out. If there’d been structural damage. I was riding a bucking bronco and lucky to be holding on. For forty agonizing minutes, the wild ride continued before we slunk like drowned rats into the calmer waters of Sao Luis harbor.

  Anchor down, I r
aced to the engine room anxious to see how much water we’d taken on. I sloshed in and found it came to mid-calf. The bilge pumps were going thumpa bumpa like crazy. I stood in the water, watching, willing the pumps to keep running. There were sputters, moments where I imagined one of them clearing its throat, but gradually they got the upper hand and the water level began to fall.

  By one in the morning, the water was gone and the pumps clicked off. I wearily climbed the stairs to the cabin level and found Su already asleep, hogging the middle of the bed. I stripped off my wet clothes in the bathroom, rolled her over to one side of the bed, got in, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Something vibrating woke me. Sat phone. I grabbed it off the bedside table, looked at the time—9:10. I didn’t need to look at Caller ID, I knew who it was. I groaned. I hadn’t called him back last night.

  “Why didn’t you answer?” Sloane demanded immediately. “I called you for a solid hour.”

  “I know.” I sat up and rubbed sleep out of my eyes, looked around. Su wasn’t there. “We were having one horrendous storm. It was all I could do to keep the boat afloat. The waves were that bad.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Sao Luis. The harbor saved us. I don’t think we could have taken much more, Ban.”

  “How’s the ship?” He asked, his voice a mixture of anxiety and concern. “The ship’s okay?

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. How much time did you lose?”

  There it was again. That worry about when he’d get his boat. “Honestly, I don’t think we lost any. The weather slowed us, sure, but it was after eleven when we made the harbor, so we put in a full day.”

  “Your weather’s better today?’

  I quickly glanced out the window. “Appears to be, yeah.”

  “Well then...good job yesterday. Make up any time you lost today.” He rang off.

  Leaving Sao Luis harbor, there was a moderate chop. Nothing too challenging. Still, I wondered if the beating the Venetian had taken in the storm would cause us to take on more water. I kept checking the engine room expecting the worst. There was a trickle of water seeping in, but no gushing leaks.

  At noontime, Su and I had a leisurely lunch on the bridge. She’d made a big salad and brought up a bottle of red wine. She was fun and flirty over lunch. All curious about what Florida would be like. She wanted to go to the discos and stay in one of the Art Deco hotels. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we weren’t headed for South Beach.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between watching the Venetian’s controls and staring out the window at the sea in front of us. The radar was clear. The autopilot had us on course to Barbados. The engines—knock on wood—were running beautifully. The trickle showed no signs of getting worse. In the absence of anything that required my attention, my thoughts kept drifting back to Su. I saw the smile in her eyes. Heard her laugh. Felt the touch of her lips. Knew how perfectly our bodies fit together. I’d fallen hard. I loved being with her. When I wasn’t, I longed for her. Yet even while I fanaticized about her, something nagged at me. Something troubling I couldn’t put my finger on. It wasn’t her mysterious I-ran-with-a-bad-crowd background or even her dexterity with weapons. It was something that involved me. And the more I tried to pull it out of my subconscious, the more lodged and inaccessible it became.

  The following day, we reached Bridgetown, Barbados. After leaving the comfort of the South American coast, I was glad to see land again. Bridgetown, viewed from the harbor, was a picturesque mix of modern and traditional Caribbean buildings. There were two cruise ships in port—Holland American’s Zuiderdam and Carnival’s Victory. We anchored well away from them, took the skiff in, and joined the bevy of tourists. Ship’s passengers, cameras around their necks, both hands carrying shopping bags, were everywhere. We moved with the hustle and bustle of the crowd, enjoying the energy of being with people, again. We overheard two New Yorkers, judging by their accents, talking about a great restaurant—Fisherman’s Harvest. We got directions and headed there for dinner.

  Maybe it was because we had trouble locating the restaurant—even with their directions. Maybe it was because the crab in lobster sauce I’d ordered was very rich and I ate way too much of it. Who knows? Whatever it was, I woke in the middle of the night with a chilling feeling of dread.

  Lying next to me, Su slept peacefully.

  I tried to remain calm and not wake her. It was hard. That thing that bothered me about her had popped out of my subconscious.

  Chapter 5

  How had Su been able to find that remote jail where we were being held in Salvador?

  Seriously, we had trouble finding a restaurant that wasn’t five blocks away.

  I tried to remember how long I’d ridden in the bed of that truck. With a commando standing over me, gun pointed at my head, my concept of time was distorted, but the trip had to have been half an hour, at least. The truck hadn’t gone fast, maybe forty tops, but we were constantly moving. That would create a big search area.

  Now that I thought about it, the truck had been pretty anonymous, too. Sure, it was newer but it wasn’t some splashy color that people would instantly remember, saying it went thataway.

  Of course, in the middle of the night, one question never stays one question. It multiplies. Why had the men-in-black abducted us? How had they known we’d be in Salvador? Why hadn’t they killed us? If Su was involved, why had she rescued us?

  I’d assumed the men-in-black were after the cocaine. When we retook the Venetian and the cocaine was onboard, undisturbed, I’d thought that strange. Crazier still, the guy hadn’t given chase after we burned down his house. I mean, that’s just weird.

  In her sleep, Su rolled over to face me, hand rested against my upper arm. New questions sprang up. Why was she still here? Was any of this real?

  At some point, I fell into a fitful sleep. Su woke me in the morning, I must have been grumpy. A night of unanswered questions will do that to you.

  “Why so grouchy?”

  “Just not awake, yet,” I said with a shake of the head and as big a smile as I could muster. “Try me after I get out of the shower.”

  Determined not to let on that I suspected anything, I put on an Oscar-worthy display of normalcy as we cruised to Fort-De-France, Martinique. It was an easy leg of the trip, the sea was smooth, the weather all blue skies and sunshine.

  We anchored in the harbor, but didn’t go ashore. Instead, we had dinner on the sun deck. Su had made chicken stir-fry with broccoli and water chestnuts, but before I had a chance to enjoy it, she fixed me with a look and said, “Spill. You’ve been acting strange all day. What’s going on?”

  Lying would only have made it worse. “Searching for that restaurant last night, I realized how hard it must have been to find that jail in Salvador. I’ve been wondering how you did it.”

  If she hadn’t had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, I’d have missed it. Under her left eye, where the scar ran down her cheek, a nerve twitched ever so faintly. Once. Twice. “I—” She faltered, her gaze dropping to avoid mine. “It wasn’t—”

  I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. “Just tell me,” I said encouragingly.

  “It was totally by accident,” she said haltingly. “We’d been looking closer to town. Luis wasn’t paying attention and he missed a turn, drove out some crazy road and got us lost. He stopped at that bar next to the jail for directions. We had no idea that’s where you were. It was a fluke.” Her gaze met mine. Her eyes had welled up with tears. “An accident. I made it sound like tracking you to that place was my hard work. It was all a lie to be more important.”

  “You found us. That’s what counts.” In reality, I found this story harder to believe than her earlier one.

  She rubbed tears from her eyes with the back of her right hand, sniffed a couple of times. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “It was stupid to lie.”

  I tried to read duplicity in her eyes, but all I saw was w
orry. “It’s okay. But no more secrets.”

  She gave me a wan smile. Either she was a very practiced liar or she was sincere. I was no closer to knowing the truth than before. And I wouldn’t be until I was able to put her actions in context.

  Dinner was subdued. Even as we looked out at the lights of town, lingering over the last of the wine, she was withdrawn. I took the opportunity to make my call to Sloane and fill him in on our progress. He seemed pleased we’d made Martinique and waxed glowingly about our next port, St. Kitts, where he and one of his ex-wives—Melody, by my reckoning Mrs. Sloane the third—had vacationed in the luxurious seaside compound of some movie star. He told the story to be more than it was. Looking across at Su, I wondered if that’s all she was guilty of, too.

  The following day, we made Basseterre in St. Kitts shortly after sunset. We should have arrived earlier, but the port engine began acting up and, taking no chances, I slowed our speed. Mindful of the engine, we left Basseterre before sun up and cruised at a sedate pace toward Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas.

  We weren’t at sea an hour when the starboard engine began sputtering. Five minutes later it quit all together.

  “What’s the matter with it?” Su wanted to know.

  I looked at it but had no clue. This was different than anything on which Nestor had schooled me. As we putt-putted into Charlotte Amalie harbor, I began calling to find a mechanic who could do triage.

  It was the Harbor Master who recommended Odell ‘Jamie’ Jamison. I called, reaching him at his shop, and he agreed to make us his first call in the morning.

  Jamison turned out to be a muscular young black man, no more than 27 or 28, with a short afro, well-trimmed goatee, and blue wrap-around Oakleys. A metal prosthesis extended from the left leg of his dark green cargo shorts and he kept his left hand bunched up tight to his side to hide damage to his hand.

  As he climbed aboard, he gave a wary look at the bullet holes in the Venetian’s side before nodding at them. “You buy it this way or you run into some badasses?” He placed his toolbox on the deck, extended his right hand. “Jamie.”