Mac got a bad feeling and looked to where Norm was standing. The group was fifty feet away and coming right towards them when the phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket, his eyes never leaving the group, and flipped the screen open. He looked at the message and froze.
The head man called an order out and two soldiers separated from the group and grabbed a surprised Norm, turned him against the cabin and handcuffed him. He was led away and Mac suspected he would soon see what the infamous Cuban jails looked like. If they had no fear of the CIA man, he saw his future scratched in the rotting concrete of a cell - or worse. He had to do something.
“Vamanos,” he whispered in Armando’s ear. The armed men were approaching and he saw the look of recognition on the leader’s face as he spotted them. Armando eased away from him and moved forward as if he recognized someone in the group. Mac looked around for an escape, but saw only one. He grabbed Armando and ran across the deck to the port side. The man resisted, but he took his arm and torqued it behind his back. Armando was the only card he had left. “Vamanos,” he said louder, to make sure the man heard, and pushed him over the rail.
He followed, hit the water hard and swam for the cover of the boat as bullets entered the water around him. A blur came towards him and Armando surfaced next to him, a questioning look on his face. Mac pulled him closer just as another round of bullets was unleashed, but they were protected by the shape of the tapered hull.
Whistles sounded from above and he could hear orders being given over the screams of women and children. Bullets continued to enter the water around them and he searched desperately for a way out. The dock would be their best chance of escape, but it was on the other side of the boat. The only way to reach it was to swim around the hull, or under it. He looked at Armando, the fear clear in his eyes, and pointed under the boat. The man nodded his understanding and they both started to breathe deeply. Mac took one last breath and pivoted into the water. He kept a hand on the hull to guide him, thankful it was the maiden voyage of the boat and the bottom was free of barnacles and growth. A steady stream of bubbles exited his mouth as he reached the first keel of the catamaran and pushed up on the other side. The murky port water stung his eyes as he looked back for Armando. He thought he saw a shape coming towards him before the sting of diesel forced him to close his eyes. They breathed deeply under the protection of the hull, but the raised area between the twin hulls was visible from above and he feared they would be spotted. He took another deep breath, encouraging Armando to do the same, and submerged.
Just as his breath was exhausted, his leading hand found air and he popped to the surface. A quick look above and he saw the deck was clear, all the activity still on the other side. Armando surfaced next to him, gagging on the foul water, and Mac pointed towards the cantilevered understructure of the jetty. They breathed in again and submerged. The barnacle-covered concrete tore at his legs as Mac swam under the edge of the structure. Unable to see in the water, he popped his head to the surface and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light under the dock.
TWENTY FOUR
Norm lowered his head and looked away from anything that resembled a camera. He felt the sting of defeat as he was led off the boat in handcuffs. There was a massive manhunt on for Travis and Armando, but even their recovery was not going to solve his problems now. It would take every ounce of his experience and ingenuity to stay out of a Cuban prison.
The general walked ahead of them, a line of soldiers on each side clearing a path to his car. A hand reached out, opened a door and pushed Norm into the back seat. Siren blazing, the car sped off through the crowded streets. Norm was left staring at the tail lights of the general’s car ahead of them. Instead of sitting in the luxury of the late fifties Rolls Royce, he was crammed in the back seat of a vintage Renault, and he used that term only because it was old. A soldier climbed into the already cramped back seat and two more got in the front. The whine of a siren began and the convoy started to move away from the pier.
The hand-off had been an unmitigated disaster, the two men jumping, and at least so far, eluding capture. Norm expected his career would be ruined. He sensed the landscape had shifted and he needed to figure out how to reach Alicia and get some quick intel. He had not expected Choy himself to be on the dock waiting for his grandson, and realized the bomb threat was not for today. Besides seeing the mission to some sort of conclusion and ensuring Travis’s detention in a Cuban prison, he had a half-baked idea he could come out of this a hero, after finding the bomb. Now he was headed for ruin.
There was a risk to playing both sides, and his machinations had failed. Armando was missing and there was a bomb somewhere waiting to kill or maim hundreds of people. The blowback would be fatal to US and Cuban relations and the Chinese would strengthen their foothold in the country. He wondered if Choy ever intended to reveal the location of the bomb, or if he had been totally played. The car pulled up to a stone-faced building that looked like it had been built sometime around the Spanish-American war. A glimmer of hope surfaced as the attitude of the soldiers changed. They opened the door for him and led him into the building. It wasn’t quite respect, but neither were there gun-barrels jabbing at him.
A solider held the large, ornate door open for him and followed as they entered the interior, awash with ancient fluorescent lights. Another soldier, clearly holding a higher rank, evident by both his uniform and the deference with which the other men treated him, came forward. Norm thought for a second he was going to shake his hand, but instead he grabbed his bound wrists and forced him forward. Without a word, he was passed off to a more senior man who escorted him down a granite-lined hallway to a closed door he opened with a key from his belt.
Before the door closed, the general entered the room.
“You can’t hold me like this,” Norm said, trying to establish his position. “You know who I am.”
The man spoke as if he had never met him, “This is Cuba.” He looked down at him, “We can do whatever we want. I don’t think your government will risk an invasion to save you, and after today, relations will be back where they were in the eighties.”
He might as well be held in Beijing, he thought, and that might be his eventual destination. The Chinese would be eager for the secrets he held.
***
Mac and Armando were near exhaustion. Forced to tread water, there was nothing to cling to other than the crustacean-covered concrete overhang above them, which would have no mercy on their hands. The sharp mollusks would slice through their skin if they dared to grab hold. He would have liked to hide under the structure, but the jetties were solid underneath, built to support the weight of the buildings, not like most docks supported by piers and girders. Mac searched frantically for a way out, knowing it would be only minutes before the Cubans added boats to their search. The ferry was tied up on the north-facing side of the jetty and they were trapped between the hull of the boat and the structure. Mac could see nothing but steel and concrete. The small sliver of open water at the bow of the boat was the only avenue of escape, but it was too exposed. They would be spotted immediately. Instead he started to swim towards the seawall hoping a yet unforeseen option would present itself. Whatever they did, they had to move - both men were close to failing.
The whine of an outboard engine sounded like it was moving towards them and he swam back under the scant cover of the short overhang. The pursuit was closing in and Mac inhaled deeply, filling his lungs. The only thing he could do until an option presented itself was to avoid the men by going where they weren’t. He motioned to Armando that he was about to swim back under the boat. He had no idea how to escape from there, but he had to try.
They swam back under the boat and surfaced on the other side, both men gasping for breath. Mac started to feel chilled, even in the eighty-degree water, and knew they had to get to land. He could hear several boats, but the focus of the search was on the pier side of the ship. Seconds later a man yelled an alarm and a boat app
roached.
***
Alicia shut down the computers and started to unplug the wires. “Do you have an inverter on the boat?” she asked carrying one of the monitors through TJ's living room and out the door.
“What’s she up to?” TJ asked Trufante and turned to the girl. “Yeah, but there’s no internet.”
“Best just follow along, CIA secret shit and all. You know they’ll pay you for this right. They commandeer stuff all the time and pay top dollar,” Trufante said.
Alicia smiled allowing his interest and recognition of her computer skills to put a little swagger in her walk. She walked down the steps to the dock, set the monitor down and ran back upstairs for the rest of the equipment. “You guys need to put together some food and water. It’s almost two hundred miles.” She stared them down. Finally Trufante reached for a twelve pack of beer. “Water,” she said and grabbed the router and computer. “This would be easier if you had a laptop.”
“Slow down, sister.” TJ picked up the monitor and started upstairs. “You just have to ask. I have a fully mobile FOB.” TJ went into what she thought was the bedroom, re-emerged and handed her the computer.
“Maybe a tablet too?” she asked hopefully.
“Got one downstairs we use for credit cards and stuff. I suppose you’re going to commandeer that too.”
She nodded, set down the heavy computer and grabbed the laptop. “Can you guys put a little urgency into this?”
The two men looked at each other and shrugged.
Great, she thought, stuck with a couple of stoners. If her field career hadn’t started off badly enough, now she had these two. Finally her stare paid off and the men gathered a cooler of food and several gallons of water. They were about to leave when Trufante grabbed the beer.
“It’s a long ride,” he said and tucked the box under his arm.
She decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting and looked around the room again. TJ's cell phone was charging on the counter and she grabbed it on her way out. Minutes later they were aboard. Trufante cracked a beer and TJ fired the engine. He called out several orders she didn’t understand, something about slipping lines, and they pulled from the dock. She glanced at TJ's phone and took note of the time. It was two o’clock. They needed to be in range by midnight.
“Where’s the PFDs?” she asked, already unsteady as the boat left the canal and entered the choppy inshore waters.
TJ shot a look at Trufante who shrugged.
Trufante crossed to her and she flinched. “You can swim, can’t you?” he asked
She nodded, wondering what he was getting at. “In a pool, but this is the ocean.”
“Water’s water. You want to be a secret agent, we gotta break you of some of your fears.”
She looked at him, ashamed. “OK. Just tell me where all the safety stuff is.”
He gave her a quick tour of the boat, answering her questions, and disappeared up the ladder to the flybridge. She heard two beers open, shook her head in dismay and went into the small cabin.
Minutes later she was set up in the lounge. The laptop sat in front of her, the cell phone next to it. Fully aware the phone would be tracked the minute she enabled it as a hotspot, she worked quickly to download the software she needed to the laptop. She held her breath and clicked the link. Thinking, just another minute and she could turn off the phone, she frantically worked the browser to download the software from the Internet Radio Linking Project. It started slowly and she peered out the windows. If they remained close to land and stayed in the same cell, anyone monitoring the system would not know they were traveling by boat and would assume they were land-based. Once they moved to another cell, they could be tracked.
Finally the software loaded and she disabled the link, shut off the power to the phone and removed the battery. She thought about throwing it overboard, but weighed the risk and decided to keep it. With a click on the trackpad, the install process started and she waited while the timer on the screen flipped back and forth. A confirmation message appeared and she turned to the hand-held VHF radio that Trufante had showed her on his safety tour. She removed the case and examined the ports on the back allowing the unit to be used as a base station. With a knife she had found in the galley, she took the phone charger from TJ’s cell phone and cut the cord. With ease, she stripped the wires on the device side, leaving the USB connector. Carefully she inserted the bare wires into the audio out ports on VHF and plugged the connector into the USB port on the computer.
The Echo software started and she held her breath, turned on the VHF radio and set the channel to 79. She had no idea of the network here, but with this many boats, there had to be other enthusiasts who had rigged their radios as repeaters. The screen jumped and she tapped her foot, waiting for a connection. Seconds later, the dual panes on the screen showed a link. She opened the internet browser and typed Havana map into the search box. The screen changed and a map slowly became clearer as the image loaded.
The engines came up to speed and she felt vibration change under her feet. She looked away from the screen and out the window again, having to fight a slight wave of nausea as spray shot by the windows, obscuring the comforting view of land. Knowing there was no use in worrying about things she couldn’t control, she looked up at the life jackets over her head and reached for one. Ensconced within the comfort of the orange fabric, she watched the video stream of the ferry docking in Havana. That was the good news; a stream of Spanish came over the computer’s speakers and she heard the word: fugitivo.
TWENTY FIVE
The two men froze when they saw a soldier point straight at them from the bow of an approaching boat. Mac was past fatigue and his body felt heavier with each breath as he fought to keep his head above water. He looked over at Armando who looked like he only had seconds left and Mac worried his decisions could end badly again. Thoughts of surrender crossed his mind and he was about to give up and call to the closest boat when something pulled his leg. His first reaction was to pull back, thinking it was a shark, but he could feel the synthetic material of a glove and was able to grab a deep breath before he felt the cool water embrace him.
The men were pulled to the bottom. A dive mask appeared in his face and a hose with a mouthpiece was handed to him. The diver patiently showed him how the rebreather worked and Mac was soon piggybacked on him, alternating breaths with the awkward hose. The first few tries, he panicked as no air came out, but remembered that unlike an open circuit system where the air was released on demand, the regulator had a manual shutoff to prevent air from escaping. The equipment was designed to recycle and scrub a divers’ air, using a succession of filters to remove the CO2 and add oxygen or mixed gas so that the diver could breathe under water without releasing bubbles. Mac had never used a rebreather, but knew the theory, and his years of diving training and experience paid dividends as he knew he could trust the system. To his right he saw another diver wrestling with Armando.
He tried to attract Armando’s attention, hoping he would copy him, but the Cuban was flailing in the water, fighting the diver. Mac knew what had to happen before it did, and was not surprised when the other diver removed his knife and smacked the man several times on the temple with the blunt end. Rescue divers were often injured and sometimes killed by out-of-control victims.
Mac passed the regulator back and forth with the diver below him, the short hose hard to handle, but they soon found a natural rhythm. Armando was calm now, or maybe unconscious and the other diver stood him on the sandy bottom, inserted the mouthpiece in his mouth and opened the air valve. Mac squinted through the murky water, his eyes burning from the salt, but he thought he saw Armando move, and tapped the diver below him, motioning him closer to the two men. They reached them and Mac saw that Armando was conscious, a small stream of green running from his temple. He tapped him and saw the man’s eyes open. Once he had his attention he exaggerated the movements to buddy breath with the equipment. Finally, the panic left Armando’s face an
d he calmed down. Both men climbed on the back of the divers, who inflated their buoyancy compensators to stay neutral in the water and started to swim.
Used to the constant stream of bubbles from standard SCUBA gear, the rebreathers were incredibly quiet and it took him a few minutes to adjust to the feeling. The sound of propellers came from above and between breaths he looked up at the surface, barely visible through the harbor water. Through squinted eyes he estimated the visibility was less than ten feet, the other pair barely visible beside him, the ferry lost in the murky water.
They stayed at this level in the eerily dark water, in a kind of purgatory, neither the surface nor the bottom visible. The diver checked his compass and gauges, making small adjustments to their buoyancy and course. Mac kept his eyes shut and focused on his breath, trying to make it easy for the diver below him. His thoughts started to focus as he got more comfortable in the strange surroundings and started speculating where these divers had come from and how they happened to be in a position to save them. There was no way, from the distance they had already travelled, that they had been in the water just to rescue them. No, they had been there doing something else, and Mac thought back to the bomb threat. There was no other explanation and he started to speculate whether they were friend or foe. He felt the diver add air to his BC and ascend. Before he could react, a hand grabbed him from above and he was hoisted from the water.
***
Alicia looked up, wondering what the loud noise was, and smacked her head against TJ who was looking over her shoulder. Instinctively she closed the screen and stared at him, not knowing how long he had been there or what he had seen.
Wood's Harbor: Action & Sea Adventure in the Florida Keys (Mac Travis Adventures Book 5) Page 15