Troubled Sea

by Jinx Schwartz

  “Good thing. That helicopter might just have a marine radio on board. As it is, they don’t know who we are.”

  “There is a God.”

  Jenks went back into the engine room to check the oil and water levels. He didn’t say anything to Hetta, but he was worried the old Perkins workhorses might be headed for the pasture.

  “Just a little more Splash Zone, por favor.”

  “Splash Zone, aye.” Jenks scooped more goop onto a putty knife and handed it to Hetta, then held his penlight beam on the last unfilled bullet hole in their dinghy.

  Using a two-part epoxy that no boater in his right mind would be without, Hetta smoothed over the last bullet hole and leaned back to inspect her work. “There. Jenkzy’ll live to float another day. How long until this stuff dries?”

  “We could launch her now, but let’s give it until first light. Which I figure will be in about, uh...” Jenks pushed a button on his watch, “three hours.”

  “And none too soon.” Hetta sighed, gave her handiwork one last glance and vowed to sand the rough spots later. Exhaustion burned her eyes and tension banded her head, but patching Jenkzy was the last major task needed before reaching Puerto Escondido. Since their lives depended on slipping into the anchorage with as little fanfare as possible, showing up with a dinghy shot full of bullet holes was a really bad idea.

  After making the decision to head south, Hetta and Jenks let the autopilot do the driving and spent the night poring over a photo from their cruising album, and methodically working on HiJenks’s profile.

  Taken from atop the lighthouse in the small port of Mulege, the photograph was a bird’s-eye—or helicopter’s—view of the boat. During what seemed an interminable night, they studied the photo under the soft glow of red night-cruising lights, and changed what they could to modify the boat as it looked from the air.

  Repairs to the dinghy completed, they returned to the cabin and the photo.

  “Okay, we’ve folded the bimini,” Jenks said, pinpointing the collapsible stainless steel and blue canvas shade on their top deck, “and snapped on its white cover. Since it was open and shielding the entire top deck from view during the attack, they couldn’t have gotten much of a look. At us or the bridge.”

  Hetta nodded, concentrating on the snapshot. “That alone makes a big difference from the air, huh? I took down the Texas Navy flag, moved the Mexican one to a different location, and furled the American flag, since it's full of holes. I'll get out our spare before we get into port. It's small and newer. Little things, but they might add up.”

  “Oh, I think so. For folks who don’t own one, most trawlers look the same. And HiJenks isn’t an unusual design, which works to our advantage. Overall, we look pretty much like every other 40-some-odd-foot pleasure boat in the Sea of Cortez.”

  Tapping the photo, Hetta asked, “What do you think about lowering the aft deck boom and putting the sun shade over it? That’ll cover that whole deck.”

  “Good idea. Also stash the table and chairs inside and put these blue coolers away.”

  “You know, Jenks, by daylight, with Jenkzy trailing behind us, we might look like a whole ‘nother boat. Any more ideas?”

  “Fresh out. Let’s put up the shade, then why don’t you take a short nap.”

  “Surely you jest, sailor. No way. I still have enough ‘scared’ coursing through my veins to keep me up for hours. I couldn’t sleep now if you paid me. I’ll wait until we’re safe in port. But you grab a few winks, Honey. That way at least one of us won’t be brain dead when we arrive. I’ll wake you up at first hint of light and we’ll launch the dink.”

  “You’re sure? Sometimes you just think you can’t sleep.”

  “Trust me.”

  Hetta sat in the darkened cabin, her face illuminated by the faint glow of the instrument lights and radar screen.

  Log of HiJenks, November 10, somewhere off Isla Carmen

  Time: 05:30 Hrs.

  Sky: Clear (after we left the fog bank) Wind: Calm

  Barometer: Steady

  Lord, what a night we’ve had. It’s still pitch black out, and we are nowhere near San Carlos. In fact we’ve changed course for Puerto Escondido and will be there in a couple of hours. A little matter of witnessing a panga full of dope being blown to smithereens, then us being chased and shot at by a helicopter. No, these are not the dark of night delusions of a Clive Cussler fan. It really happened! And just where is Dirk when you need him? Actually, ole Jenks was pretty Dirkish. I’ll write details when I’m not so, you will pardon the pun, foggy. We are headed for Puerto Escondido and, I hope, safety in numbers. Then we have to decide what to do next. H.

  Hetta glanced up from her laptop to check their position and radar screen. They were on track and didn’t have company. She put away the computer and looked outside. Still inky. Darkest before the dawn and all that crap. She mourned the loss of the fog bank’s protective blanket and, feeling exposed and vulnerable, she both anticipated and dreaded the impending dawn.

  The sliding door beside the captain’s chair was open so she could poke her head out once in a while. Not that I can see a damned thing. She shivered in the cold damp air drifting through the opening, but Jenks was snoozing on the settee and she was reluctant to chance waking him by shutting the squeaky door. Instead she tiptoed to the master suite, closed the heavily lined curtains and turned on a small light.

  Hetta and Jenks’s sleeping quarters, although only ten by fourteen feet, held a queen-sized bed, three large hanging lockers, built-in drawers and a “head” with a toilet, sink and bathtub/shower. The blue wool carpet cushioning the main saloon continued throughout the boat.

  She opened her closet, pulled a sweatshirt from a hanger and slid it over her head, then grabbed a blanket for Jenks. As she reached into the bathroom for a bottle of hand lotion, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. There was a bullet hole in her sweatshirt.

  “Son of a bitch,” she squealed, tearing off the shirt and flinging it across the room as if it were on fire. Still cursing softly, she grabbed another one, and the blanket, and returned to the main saloon on weak knees. Jenks half-smiled but continued to snore softly as Hetta tucked the blanket around him and giving him a fond pat as she did so.

  But she hadn’t always thought so kindly of his snoozing. When they first started dating, Jenks’s ability, and inclination, to fall asleep any place, any time, annoyed her. She learned not to take it personally, and told people that Bob Jenkins could fall asleep with Sharon Stone next to him.

  Hetta picked up the small flashlight and aerial photo for the umpteenth time, then sat at the steering console looking for more ways to disguise HiJenks’s outline. To heck with Dirk Pitt, where’s David Copperfield when I need him? Hell, he made the Statue of Liberty disappear, a trawler would be no contesto.

  She glanced at the ship’s clock, but it had run down, and her watch ticked it’s last over five years before, that day in October when they sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge to begin their voyage to Mexico.

  “Are you ready?” Hetta asked Jenks as they looked back at the receding San Francisco skyline that morning.

  Jenks nodded. “You first, on three. One. Two. Three!”

  With fierce determination Hetta began launching a collection of objects overboard: her wristwatch, followed by a daily appointment calendar, business cards, and alarm clock. She dramatically dusted her hands and waited while Jenks took a last puff of his cigarette and threw it, and the rest of a carton, over. They both then celebrated their freedom with champagne.

  Hetta’s links to the workaday world were history, but Jenks’s resolve to give up demon tobacco only lasted until the next port. By then, Hetta’s knight in shining armor had metamorphosed into a very cranky dragon and Hetta decided she preferred living with a smoker than being stuck at sea with a fire-breathing reptile.

  And here I am, all these years later, wanting my watch back. So much for resolutions and good intentions. Even their plan to spend only t
hree months in Cabo San Lucas, then sail back home to race the rat did not quite work out. Dismayed by the crass commercialization of that once beautiful little fishing village, they moved on to La Paz and the Sea of Cortez. And never returned. Until tonight, Hetta never had a regret.

  Hetta’s reverie was brought up short by a noise outside. Her heart skipped several beats and her mouth went dry. Jumping from the captain’s chair, she peeked out the door, then sighed and giggled with delight. Hundreds of neon-like silver and green splashes erupted on the sea’s surface as dolphins, themselves glowing fluorescent in the dark water, cavorted in a feeding frenzy. She resisted going outside to watch, adhering to their nighttime cruising rule of not leaving the interior of the boat while the other slept. As she leaned out the door, fatigue hit her hard, and the dolphin’s light show suddenly reminded her of gunfire and explosions.

  Tears welled, blurring her vision. How could their idyllic lives have gone to hell so fast? The boater’s credo, Shit Happens, had graduated to MegaShit Happens.

  Chapter 12

  And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky. Thomas Campbell

  Jerry Fisher lumbered into the darkened room he dubbed Star Wars Central as unobtrusively as his size allowed. Clumsily settling into an empty workstation, the head drug enforcement agent in San Diego acknowledged Nicole’s grin with an offhand wave.

  Nicole Kristin, Jerry’s chief analyst, as well as his assistant and best friend, broke off her six a.m. briefing by pointing at Jerry.

  “Bogie. Ten o’clock.”

  A dozen trainees and analysts turned from their monitor screens in unison to confirm her sighting.

  “Thanks, Agent Kristin. Carry on,” Jerry grumped.

  Nicole’s even white teeth, long dark hair, and pale skin glowed in the light radiated by a wide screen blowup of the image duplicated on each workstation’s monitor. She turned, stepped in front of the screen, and a satellite image of the Baja California peninsula painted her shapely back. Vamping over her shoulder she wiggled her bottom and quipped, “Seismic disturbance, Cabo San Lucas.”

  Laughter filled the room, lifting the slight tension induced by Jerry’s arrival.

  "Now that I have your undivided attention," Nicole continued, "check the center of your screens." She clicked a remote control.

  Jerry focused on his monitor as Nicole zoomed in on a map of a coastal area along central Baja. A blinking arrow pointed to a group of white dots a few miles offshore. A date, three days past, was superimposed on the bottom right-hand side.

  “What you see...right...here,” Nicole said, freezing the arrow, then creating a circle around it, “is a fleet of squidding pangas off Santa Rosalia, in the Sea of Cortez. That’s the Gulf of California to you Gringos.”

  The Mexican trainees smiled uncertainly at their American classmates’ laughter. Evidently these Americans did not realize, or care, that “Gringo”, loosely interpreted as “foreigner” by most, was less than a term of endearment. While the Mexicans had learned during training that norteamericanos had few qualms about referring to themselves as Gringos, they themselves used the word with caution until they knew a Gringo well enough to call him one.

  Another zoom. The flotilla filled the screen.

  “This image is a few days old. There’s a gale bollixing things up right now, so we’re using an old shot.”

  Jerry smiled at Nicole’s habit of occasionally lacing Victorian terminology, like bollixing, into her vocabulary. It was a by-product of her passion for nineteenth century literature. A modern lass with a Jane Austen wont. Not bad, Jerry, he silently congratulated himself for such creative thoughts.

  “Anyhow, most evenings, just before dark, hundreds of pangas leave the port of Santa Rosalia to fish for squid. And just for background, we’re not talking about those little calamari that look like fried onion rings at your local Greek deli. These behemoths of the cephalopod world run from ten to forty kilos. Over eighty pounds. We’re talking major calamari here. If any of you saw “The Beast” on television, you might be interested to know that Peter Benchley supposedly based his book on an American diver’s report that he was attacked by several giant squid in the central Sea of Cortez. He almost lost his, well, uh...tentacles.”

  More laughter.

  “At any rate,” Nicole continued, “the panga fleet returns to port around one or two a.m., loaded to the gunwales on a good night, with slimy critters. Trucks meet the boats, weigh and pay, then transport the squid to Ensenada on the Pacific coast of Baja for shipment around the world. Some squid is also processed right there at Santa Rosalia. Questions?”

  One of the trainees timidly raised a hand and Nicole grinned. “John, do you need to go number one or number two?” The trainees roared. Above the raucous laughter and catcalls, Nicole rescued the hapless man. “Just a touch of waggery at your expense, John. It’s not necessary to raise your hand here. We’re a team. Feel free to speak your piece at any time. Don’t wait for an invitation. And for pity’s sake, ask what you will. Even the most innocent of inquiries might very well be important. Now John, what was your query?”

  “How much do these fishermen make a night? I saw calamari in a store last week and they wanted eight bucks a pound. That means an eighty-pound squid would run almost six-hundred and fifty dollars.”

  Nicole nodded. “That’s so. But not straight off the panga. The average catch runs thirteen hundred pounds, depending on weather, phases of the moon and the like. The fishermen get about two pesos a kilo, roughly ten cents a pound depending on the exchange rate, but only for the edible part. So they end up with somewhere around a hundred, hundred-fifty dollars a night. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? But gasoline is near three bucks a gallon and it takes at least two pangueros to operate each boat. Propane for the lanterns to attract the big buggers is cheap, but cheap is relative. The work is hard and dangerous. The panga fishermen are barely clinging to the bottom rung of the economic ladder.”

  “Why dangerous?” another trainee asked.

  Nicole's demeanor changed from light to serious. “Mexican scientists from the Sea of Cortez report these giants are hunting in packs of up to a thousand, and they've found forty footers weighing five-hundred pounds. Not long ago, a pack of these diablos rojos, as the Mexicans call them, attacked a panga and killed seven fishermen.”

  The room grew very quiet.

  “And if that isn't bad enough, these boats have leaky gasoline containers coupled with a propane lamp with a flame. A Coast Guard nightmare. Then there’s the weather. This time of the year, strapping great north winds raise havoc for days. Even on a calm night a person could fall overboard hauling one of these big suckers into the boat. And doing a half gainer into a feeding frenzy of giant squid is a sure-fire way to ruin your whole evening. Also, when the squid are hauled in they have the last laugh by spraying caustic ink all over their tormentors. And even the smaller ones bite. They have parrot-like beaks that can take a man’s, or woman’s,” Nicole twirled her finger, “pinkie off as cleanly as a pair of pruning shears. Oh, and where there are squid, there are sharks.”

  Some of the trainees shifted uneasily in their chairs. Few could imagine livelihoods centered around large slimy creatures with beaks and tentacles, surrounded by Jaws.

  “So,” a Mexican trainee said, “it is no surprise that some of our fishermen have switched from calamari to cocaine.”

  “Correcto, Raul. You get the big gold star. One night out, pick up a few bundles dropped from a plane, hand the cargo over to a mother ship or a runner, and that fisherman has cleared several hundred dollars. Or half in money, half in dope.”

  Another Mexican added, “And those drugs taken as payment have become a local problem, something new in my country. In my hometown of Mulege, only forty miles south of Santa Rosalia, drugs are being sold in the schools.” He looked a little unsure for a moment before adding, “We Mexicans thought for years that drug abuse was a Gring...uh, North American, problem, but now we have troubles like t
hose of the United States.”

  Nicole nodded. “I was only using Santa Rosalia as an example for this session. The problem is throughout Mexico.” She tapped her pointer on a new image. “This shot, taken a couple of hours after dark, shows a burst of activity emanating from the calamari fleet’s core. We suspect drug runners mingle with the fleet, then, under the cover of darkness, take off like bats out of Hell, headed north and northeast. We know they need fuel, but we don’t really know where the drogistas—I call the drug running boaters pangistas—are getting it. Probably not from the squidders.”

  “How do you know that?” a trainee asked.

  “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” Nicole quipped. Jerry laughed loudly, prompting her to ask him, “Wanna tell ‘em, sir?”

  “No thanks, Agent Kristin, you’re doing just fine.”

  “Okay, but it stays within the confines of this room. We have ‘sources’ in Santa Rosalia, and all over the Baja, keeping tabs on fuel sales. They count the number of pangas leaving port, and we compare those numbers with our data. In some locations, but not Santa Rosalia, the numbers yell tilt.”

  A Mexican asked, “What is tilt?” and Nicole took time to explain the pinball machine slang, speaking fluent Spanish learned from her Cuban grandfather.

  “Anyone else have a question? Comment?”

  John said, “So the bad guys mix with the squid fleet at some point. Why? If the squidders aren’t refueling them?”

  “Good question. Sharp eyes keep vigilance on the one Pemex station fueling the squid fleet, and they say there has been no evidence of excess usage by the legitimate fishermen. We think they just use the pangueros for cover until they think it’s safe to head north. So the big question is, where’s the fueling station? Figure that out and you win a cigar. Not Cuban, of course.”

  The Mexicans grinned. The United States government’s silly economic embargo against Fidel Castro’s island created a booming Mexican trade in Cuban cigars. American tourists loved the slightly naughty act of lighting up a forbidden stogie.