Steady As She Goes: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 21)

by Wayne Stinnett

  He dropped the book on the table and started to go inside.

  “That’s not where that goes,” I reminded him.

  Alberto picked up the book and carried it inside, speaking to Savannah as he closed the hatch.

  With little more than the turn of a knob and the pressing of a button, the stainless steel propane grill ignited. I preferred charcoal or hardwood, but on a boat, that was dangerous. The movement of the boat would cause the hot coals to roll around. After closing the lid to let it heat up, I went back inside.

  “Did you give him the Hemingway book?” I asked Savannah.

  She dumped vegetables from a cutting board into a steamer pot and looked up. “No, he found it in the little library in the crews’ lounge.” Then she smiled. “He said he thought it was about you.”

  “I’m nowhere near as old as Hemingway’s Santiago.”

  “And Alberto is no less devoted than Manolin.”

  I smiled and took her in my arms. “You really think that?”

  “I do,” she replied. “Maybe he isn’t as outward with it as ‘the boy’ in the book, but I’ve watched the two of you together. He adores you, Jesse. You’re his hero.”

  I started to kiss her, but there was a sound at the door.

  “Shoo,” she said. “Get those steaks on.”

  The door opened and the dogs came in first, followed by Alberto and Marcos and Mayra Santiago, along with their grandson, Fernando.

  “Bienvenidos, Marcos,” I said, reaching a hand out. “Por favor entra.”

  “Graçias,” he said, shaking my hand. “You are a kind man, Capitan.”

  I opened the refrigerator and took out the bowl with the steaks. “Care to help me at the grill?”

  He nodded and I led him toward the terrace.

  “Alberto, go show Fernando your room,” Savannah said. “We’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

  Woden followed the two boys into Alberto’s room and Finn curled up on the floor by the hatch to the companionway.

  I slid the glass door open and stepped out onto the terrace.

  “Your ship is beautiful,” Marcos said, measuring his words.

  “It’s not mine,” I said. “I’m just the captain.”

  “Still, it is a beautiful boat to care for.”

  “I’m afraid your English is better than my Spanish,” I said, closing the sliding door to the stateroom. I set my phone on the table and swiped the screen. “But we have an app for that.”

  A slightly mechanical woman’s voice spoke from my phone. “Pero tenemos una aplicación para eso.”

  Marcos smiled knowingly. “Es una época maravillosa en la que vivimos.”

  “It is a wonderful age in which we live,” the phone translated.

  Marcos reached down and closed the app. “Is a crutch, no?”

  “Si, es una muleta,” I replied.

  We both laughed.

  Marcos wasn’t a young man. I guessed him to be in his late forties, maybe early fifties. Like me, he’d grown up in a time without computers and instant information. I agreed with him that using a translator to exchange thoughts and ideas diminished a person’s ability to learn new things in some ways.

  “I want to learn to speak English like my wife and our girls.”

  “Where did they learn?” I asked, making sure to speak slowly and clearly. “They barely even have an accent.”

  “Mayra attended university in Miami. It was before we met in Maracaibo. Our daughters went there, as well.”

  I opened the grill and started to put the steaks on.

  “Eso es demasiado, señor,” Marcos said.

  I looked at him questioningly. “Six people, six steaks.”

  “Too much,” he insisted. “Mayra and Crystal will take only half, as will Giselle and Fernando.”

  I ignored his protest and put the sixth rib eye on the grill. Alberto could eat a whole one, easily. “I’ve decided to take you up on your offer, Marcos. You will all eat enough to give you the strength to give a full day’s work.”

  I knew he was just being polite. They’d had no food on the boat and few belongings. They’d likely left in a big hurry.

  He smiled. “Graçias, Capitan. Crystal worked in the… ropa sucia at Mayacoba.”

  “The laundry?

  “Si, Capitan,” he replied. “She was much impressed with the one on this boat.”

  I waved a hand toward the stateroom. “Here, I am just Jesse.”

  He nodded. “Si, Jesse. Kassandra, my middle daughter, worked with me in the kitchen, making sure we had all we needed and she made the menus for our guests.”

  “Sounds like a ship’s purser to me,” I said. “But we have everything aboard that is needed for a month at sea. Mostly frozen, so knowing when to get it out and how much is one less task for Grady. For the last six months, he’s done that, as well as prepare four meals a day for our around-the-clock crew.”

  He looked at me, dismayed. “That is too much for one man.”

  “What about Fernando’s mother? And your wife?”

  “Giselle was… How you say? Empleada de escritorio.”

  “She worked the front desk?”

  “Si. Much organized, my Giselle. And Mayra, she is teacher.”

  “How’s her math?”

  “Que?”

  “Matemáticas?” I said, as I opened the grill and started turning the steaks. “Is she good with numbers?”

  “Very good,” he replied. “Mayra studied hard and is very smart.”

  We ate on the terrace and I told Savannah about what Mayra and Marcos and their daughters did in Venezuela.

  “We are very short-staffed in the galley,” Savannah said. “Any help would be appreciated.”

  “I would like to meet your cocinero,” Marcos said.

  “After dinner,” I said, “I can take you to the galley and introduce you to Grady. I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet you.”

  “If it is good with him, I will start mañana.”

  After dinner, Alberto and Fernando took the dogs down to the aft deck to do their business and Savannah opened a bottle of wine, inviting our guests back out to the terrace to watch the sun go down.

  I went to the small but well-stocked bar and opened the cabinet. “What’s your preference, Marcos?”

  His eyes went straight to one of my favorites, as if it were the only bottle on the shelf.

  I grinned and reached for the squat, gray bottle of Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva rum.

  “Mine, too,” I said, taking down two highball glasses.

  Later, as the sun was beginning to reach the horizon, Marcos leaned toward me. “Is the owner not aboard?”

  “No,” I replied. “He rarely is.”

  “You are going to Bimini to pick him up? Is only a few days in a boat such as this.”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  These people were refugees from a tyrannical government that bent to the will of the drug cartels. Their future was uncertain, but I was sure of one thing—they would never see Venezuela again. At least not while the country was under the control of those who made the lives of its people so intolerable, they’d risk everything to escape.

  Savannah was talking with Mayra at the other end of the table, telling her how we’d come to adopt Alberto.

  I leaned toward Marcos slightly. “This vessel is owned by a man who would like nothing more than to see the cartels destroyed.”

  Marcos’s eyebrows rose, creating lines across his forehead. “Is that why you have armed men aboard?”

  I looked him in the eye for a moment, but I already trusted the man.

  “We’re looking for a ship that carries drugs and people away from Venezuela.”

  “El barco fantasma,” he breathed softly.

  “A ghost ship?”

  “It is rumored that the people who disappear are taken to a ship,” he said. “They are herded into the bottom like cattle.
”

  “The hold of a cargo ship?”

  “Si,” Marcos said. “They are never seen again. The cartels have tried three times to take my daughters. Giselle once, and Crystal two times.”

  “What stopped them?”

  “It was two days ago,” Marcos replied. “Ricardo stopped the men from taking Giselle.” He made a diagonal slicing motion across his chest. “He was cut with the machete.”

  Either the wound was superficial, or Ricardo had a remarkably high tolerance for pain. He hadn’t acted as if he were injured in any way.

  “And Crystal?”

  “Do not underestimate mi hija mas pequeña, señor,” he replied with a proud grin. “She is small but a fierce fighter.” Then he shrugged. “They were but two men. She beat them both.”

  “This also happened two days ago?” I asked, wondering how a girl so small could ward off two cartel thugs.

  “Si, and again later that night. That was when we took the boat and fled.”

  “It wasn’t your boat?”

  “Ricardo built it,” he replied. “He’d planned to take Giselle and Fernando away. We were only a few miles off the coast when the engine failed.”

  “You were a good twenty miles from shore when we found you.”

  He shrugged. “I was smart to have brought a paddle.”

  We watched, each lost in our own thoughts, as the sun slipped below the horizon in a magnificent display of color. Marcos closed his eyes, his mouth moving silently.

  The boat they’d been on was okay for two people and a boy but adding four more adults had severely overloaded it. The small outboard might have been overtaxed, pushing that much weight that far out into the sea.

  In just a few minutes, it was dark, and low-level deck lights started coming on all over the ship, including the terrace.

  “Come, Marcos,” I said, rising from my chair. “You and Mayra must be tired from your ordeal. I will introduce you to Grady, then you should turn in for the night.”

  Savannah and Alberto said goodnight to our guests, and then I led them to the galley. Grady Lawson was busy when we arrived. When he wasn’t busy, he was sleeping. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner every four hours for a constantly rotating crew of thirty-four had put him under a lot of strain. Other crew members helped in the galley whenever they could, but everyone on board knew it was only a matter of time before Grady would disappear while at some port.

  “Grady, I want you to meet someone,” I said, as I led Marcos and Mayra into his galley.

  “I already heard, Captain,” he replied, not looking up from a cutting board where he was furiously chopping carrots. “More mouths to feed.”

  “This is Marcos Santiago and his wife, Mayra,” I said, ignoring his attitude. If anyone on board was entitled to have one, it was Grady. “Marcos is a cocinero, the former head chef at a resort in Maracaibo.”

  Grady stopped and looked up from his task. “A cook?”

  “And his daughter was his sous-chef and purser.”

  A slow smile spread across the young black man’s face. “Really?”

  Grady had grown up in Atlanta’s inner city. At an early age, he’d found that he liked being in the kitchen more than playing games with other neighborhood kids. At twenty-two, he’d landed a job in an uptown, five-star restaurant, where his talents were soon brought to light and his skills honed.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “They need to get some rest, they’ve been through a tough day, but Marcos will help with the cooking starting at zero-six-hundred.”

  Marcos turned to his wife and spoke to her in their own language. I caught a few words—trabajo for work and dormir for sleep—but not much else.

  She nodded and he turned back to face me. “With your permission, Capitan, I will start now.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Si,” he replied with a curt nod. Then he looked at Grady. “I think he is more tired than I.”

  Grady picked up a towel and wiped his hands, then extended one to Marcos. “You’re standing, so I won’t argue that point, my man.”

  Marcos shook his hand then turned to his wife. “Mayra, por favor trae mi gorro blanco.”

  She started to turn, but Grady hustled to the corner of the kitchen where his desk was. “Wait! I got a coupla spare toques right here.” He yanked open one drawer after another. “Where are they? Ah, here they go.”

  He turned and presented a folded chef’s hat to Marcos.

  “Graçias,” Marcos said, taking and unfolding it.

  “De nada, amigo,” Grady said. “We can work in English or Spanish; I can speak both, just a little bit ghetto.”

  Marcos looked at me and smiled, putting the hat on, and pulling it slightly to one side. It suited him well.

  “I enjoyed working in the kitchen more than running the resort,” he said. “I will work now and rest later.”

  I nodded and held the hatch for Mayra. “I will see that your wife finds her way back.”

  I escorted Mayra and Fernando to their quarters. When the boy opened the door to his parents’ cabin, Ricardo was lying on one of the bunks, his shirt off. Giselle was removing a bandage that was wrapped tightly around his chest.

  “Do you need help?” I asked. “We don’t have a doctor on board, but one of the crew used to be a medic in the Army.”

  “I found him,” Giselle said, without looking up. “He gave me the things I need.”

  She carefully peeled off the bandages, revealing a long but shallow gash starting at Ricardo’s left shoulder, then crossing diagonally over the left side of his chest.

  He’d been cut by a right-handed man, in a downward slashing motion meant to go deep into the shoulder and sever the spine, but the wound didn’t look deep. I guessed that Ricardo, who I could now see was built like a bull, had managed to step back enough so only the tip of the blade had made contact. The skin was held together with a number of butterfly bandages.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Ricardo said, as his wife flushed the wound with an alcohol solution.

  “Maldita sea!” he said, wincing. “That hurts more than the blade.”

  “You’re a lucky man, Ricardo,” I offered with a grin.

  He put a hand on his wife’s knee. “Si, Capitan. I am lucky to have such a woman to take care of me. When can I start work?”

  I’d noticed this generational ethos among many people. A hard- working man and woman raised hard-working children, who in turn looked for the same qualities in their spouses. They then passed their work ethic on to the next generation. Unfortunately, the same held true for lazy people.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “I’m up at zero-five-hundred, and if you feel up to it, I can take you to meet the ship’s engineer then.”

  “Graçias, Capitan,” he said, as Giselle placed fresh, sterile bandages over the cut. “I will be ready and able.”

  I closed the door and turned to Mayra. “Get some rest, Señora. Grady will only keep him a few hours.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” she said. “You have done so much. The smile on my husband’s face when he put the hat on his head was his first in many weeks. You have given him back his dignity. Ricardo, as well.”

  “You have a hard-working family,” I offered, then we said goodnight and I returned to my quarters.

  Later that night, after Alberto had gone to bed, I went to the bridge to relieve Matt so he could go down to the mess deck for lunch.

  “Nothin’ to report, Cap’n,” Matt said as I entered. “Sonar has identified 148 vessels. No contacts have gone unidentified, mind.”

  “That seems a lot.”

  “Oye,” he replied. “About normal for these waters, yeah?” He handed me the binos. “I’ll be back dreckly.”

  When he left, I looked at the water all around us, then used the night- vision binoculars to scan the sea ahead.

  The first quarter moon was astern, nearing the western horizon, but the stars provided enough
light for the optics to show the surface in great detail. The wind had died down after sunset and the sea looked like a pond, barely a ripple on its vast surface.

  I picked up the bridge Metis and scrolled though the dozens of contacts. Most were far off, but nearly twenty were near shore, arriving or leaving the seaports along the Venezuelan coastline.

  Looking closer at the water all around, I saw the lights of a ship moving in the same direction, about halfway between us and the mainland.

  I tapped the sonarman on the shoulder to get his attention. “What ship is that due south of us?”

  He moved to his left and looked at the chart plotter. Radar and AIS imagery was laid over the chart. He touched a boat-shaped icon on the screen and it displayed the ship’s name—MV Canopus, a coastal freighter.

  I remembered the name from earlier in the day, as the ship was coming out of the small seaport just west of Caracas. It made regular runs from there to the eastern tip of Brazil, with many stops along the way.

  Looking up, I searched the stars to the south and easily found Carina, the keel constellation. Canopus was the brightest star in that group and the second brightest star in the sky, after Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major.

  The star Canopus was directly above the ship Canopus.

  Glancing down at the chart plotter, I saw that Canopus was making fifteen knots, matching our own speed. Unless she stopped at a port on the way, they’d be with us for a while.

  Looking at her through the binos, I couldn’t see much in the way of detail. In fact, most of the hull seemed to be under water.

  Standing on the bridge, my head was about thirty feet above the water, so the horizon would be a little under seven miles away. The plotter showed Canopus to be about ten miles south of us, which would explain why she appeared to be sinking. She was beyond the horizon.

  The distance to the horizon is a fairly simple calculation. On the water, where everything can be measured in height above sea level, the distance to the horizon in miles was the square root of one and a half times the observation height in feet.

  It was dark on the bridge at night. All the gauges and screens were in subdued tones of red, as were the two overhead lights above both side hatches. Glancing back into the op center, it was the same. Indirect red light doesn’t interfere with our eyes’ natural night vision, when the pupils are fully dilated to allow as much light to reach the optic nerve as possible.