The Opening Chase

by Cap Daniels

  I headed southwest toward Marina Hemingway. “Run home to Papa” is what Thing Two had said back in Key Largo. There’s only one Papa—Papa Hemingway.

  I had actually done it. Not only had I killed Suslik, but I had also survived. I hoped I could piece together a getaway. I kept my head down and the throttle open as I roared down the shallow coastline, hoping to disappear before the sun rose. The mouth of the Rio Jaimanitas came into view. Thanks to my study of the charts, I knew that Marina Hemingway was the next inlet. I powered on, but to my horror, a pair of patrol boats with spotlights slicing through the darkness came plowing out of the mouth of the river. One turned to the southwest, but the other turned directly toward me.

  I should’ve panicked, but I didn’t have time. I simply rolled off the throttle and let the inflatable come to rest, bobbing on the sea. If I hadn’t stopped, the soldiers on the patrol boat would cut me in half with the deck gun. I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer to whatever god hears the prayers of an assassin. I feared that it might just be Saint Murphy who heard my prayer because it was certainly time for something to go wrong, and the patrol boat unequivocally qualified as something going wrong.

  I shielded my eyes with my hands against the cutting beam of the spotlight as the patrol boat approached and came to idle only feet from the bow of my dinghy. A voice come over a crackling loud speaker, asking, “Señor, has visto el accidente de avión?”

  I said a silent “thank you” to St. Murphy. The soldier had just asked me if I’d seen the plane crash.

  In my best Spanish, I tried to sound disinterested. “No, sir. I’m just going to get my fishing boat. What plane crash?”

  The soldiers never heard a word I said after “No.” The soldier at the wheel forced the throttles full forward and powered around me, nearly swamping my trusty little dinghy. I kept her afloat and restarted the motor, but I was still blind from the exposure to the spotlight. I had no idea how long it would take for my night vision to return. I kept my eyes squinted, almost shut, and continued southwestward toward the marina. Perhaps five minutes into my slow progress, I was able to pick out objects on the shoreline, and even the silhouettes of a few boats on the water.

  One boat in particular caught my attention as I motored ever closer. It appeared to be sitting still and pointed out to sea. I could see the starboard side and a faint flashing light a few feet above the waterline. The faint flashes of light were coming in patterns, sequences of short flashes followed by longer ones.

  The flashes came—short-long-pause-short-pause-long-long-short-pause-short-short-pause-short-short-short—and then several seconds of nothing, followed by the same pattern again and again. It finally occurred to me that it was Morse code. I squinted and watched the flashes closely again until I could finally put it all together. The signaler was saying, “AEGIS,” the name of my boat back in Key Largo.

  Having been trained to believe that almost everything is a trap, I proceeded with extreme caution as I approached the signaling vessel. When I pulled within a hundred yards of her, I peered over the bow of my dinghy with my Makarov in my left hand and my right foot on the outboard tiller. I didn’t want to give anyone on the vessel a broad target by exposing my head or body above the dinghy’s inflatable sides. Suddenly, the signaling stopped and the light went dark. A few seconds later, the light returned, but this time it was shielded by something. It appeared to be a cloth of some kind. It was blue, white, and red.

  “Run for the light. The good ol’ Red, White, and Blue will get you out of there,” is what Gunny had said seconds before I stepped from the freighter. Thank you, Gunny!

  I relaxed and took a deep breath for the first time in hours. The light was shining through a miniature American flag. I opened the throttle and powered toward the vessel. Before I came alongside, I closed the throttle to idle and watched carefully as Grey’s round, tan face came peering over the rail. From beneath his floppy hat, he whispered, “Get your ass up here, gringo.”

  I tossed him a line and he loosely secured the dinghy to a cleat near the stern of the boat before helping me aboard. Before my feet hit the deck, he asked excitedly, “Did you do it?”

  His eyes were wide and expectant, so I began to tell him the story of the past several hours, but he cut me off before I could start the second sentence of my story.

  “Did you do it or not?” he yelled.

  Solemnly, I said, “Yeah, I did it. Suslik is dead, and the fish in the mouth of the Rio Almendares are feasting on what’s left of him.”

  He slapped me on the back. “Great job, Chase. Great job. Now, get your ass to Elbow Cay. You’ll meet some old friends there. They’ll have a surprise for you. Go! Go!”

  With that, he slipped the painter line and leapt over the rail, landing solidly in my dinghy. He didn’t look back as he motored away into Marina Hemingway.

  I quickly took the helm of the cruiser and fired up the twin diesels. I loved the way the engines felt and sounded beneath my feet. I checked my fuel quantities, oil pressure, and temperatures before gently pressing the throttles forward and feeling the boat accelerate.

  I turned due north to put as much distance between me and the Cuban coastline as possible before turning northeast for Elbow Cay. I decided to run completely black, no lights at all. If I had done my nautical geography correctly, Elbow Cay was about a hundred twenty miles from Havana. That would take me between nine and ten hours at my current speed. I wouldn’t risk turning on the GPS until daybreak since I didn’t know how brightly the screen would glow, and I didn’t want anyone to notice the cruiser disappearing northeast out of Havana with the peculiar green glow at the helm. I glanced at my watch and discovered that it was just past one o’clock in the morning. I would be on Elbow Cay before noon if I didn’t get caught.

  There isn’t much to do at night at the helm of a powerboat in calm seas except scan the horizon for other vessels. I locked the wheel in place and watched the horizon. Two cruise ships and eight freighters were all I saw in the five hours before the sun peeked over the eastern horizon. I had never been more thankful to see a sunrise.

  I finally felt comfortable bringing the GPS to life. It took several minutes for it to find enough satellites to determine where I was, but finally it depicted my location, first in extremely large scale. I could see the outline of the island of Cuba and the southern tip of Florida on the small green screen. I found the zoom button and pressed it several times until I could no longer see either coastline, but I could see Elbow Cay. I’d committed an unforgivable sin of nautical navigation—I’d failed to consider wind and current in my speed calculation. The roaring current of the Florida Straits had hurled me northeastward at over twenty knots. I was less than an hour from Elbow Cay.

  The hour passed peacefully except for the sounds of the engines and the water rushing past the hull. I loved both sounds, but I was beginning to get very sleepy since my adrenaline had settled and I believed I was out of harm’s reach. For the first time, the thought of money came to my mind. I wondered how much I would be paid for what I’d done. I realized I’d never asked, and no one had ever mentioned an amount. I wondered if it was appropriate to ask or even negotiate. Was I permitted to refuse assignments or negotiate higher fees? I didn’t even know who to ask.

  As I drew near Elbow Cay, I began to see the silhouettes of several motor yachts and sailboats at anchor a few hundred feet off the Cay. When I was less than five hundred feet from the anchorage, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lying there, at anchor, with an American flag flying in the rigging, was Aegis. I pulled binoculars from their nest at the helm and seated them against my cheeks. As Aegis’s deck came into focus, I saw two men looking back at me through binoculars of their own. The younger of the two gave me a subtle thumbs-up sign, and I immediately recognized them as Thing One and Thing Two, the duo who had delivered my assignment aboard Aegis two days before.

  I tossed three fenders over the starboard rail and gently nestled my vessel alongside Aegis. I tossed a
bowline and a stern line to Thing One, and he secured them to cleats. Protocol demanded that I ask for permission to come aboard, but Aegis was my boat, so I leapt the rail with ease and landed gently on the deck. Neither man said a word. Both just stepped across the rail and aboard the cruiser that had been my getaway ride. Before I could say anything, Thing Two pointed at the lines holding the two vessels together. I cast off both lines and tossed them to him. Before the lines landed on deck, the powerful diesels roared, and the pair powered away, disappearing to the southwest.

  I wondered where they were going, but I suppose it didn’t matter. I had pulled off my first professional assignment without a hitch. The target was dead, and I’d escaped unscathed.

  19

  Island

  My sleep was dreamless and perfect. I knew I should’ve felt some remorse for taking another human life for a price, but that remorse never came. The psychologist in me was concerned, and even a little frightened, that I could be so cold. I tried to approach the self-analysis as if I were interviewing a patient and asked myself the same psychobabble questions.

  “How did it make you feel when you shot a Russian mafia boss in the shoulder?”

  In true schizophrenic fashion, I answered myself. “I wish I’d been a better shot and hit him in the face instead of the shoulder.”

  “But Barkov wasn’t your target, so do you not regret shooting him?” I asked.

  “No, not at all,” I replied. “He may not have been my target, but he was an obstacle between my target and me, so I eliminated the obstacle.”

  “Interesting.” Then I asked myself, “Do you think Barkov survived the shoulder wound?”

  That’s when I realized I’d made the worst possible mistake, short of getting caught or killed. I had let a witness survive. Not only was he a witness, but he was an extremely powerful, vengeful, and wealthy witness who had no fear of the law and almost limitless resources. Barkov had surely survived the shoulder wound, and if he could identify me, he’d be coming after me with everything he had.

  My self-psychotherapeutic counseling session ended abruptly, and I began to play the events of the previous night over in my mind.

  Had Barkov seen my face? Had he been sober enough to identify me? Had I left any evidence at the scene that could be used to identify me?

  Other than Barkov seeing my face, I couldn’t think of anything that I’d done or overlooked that could make it possible for anyone to determine that I’d been in Cuba.

  I decided that some distance would be a very good thing, so I fired up Aegis’s engine, weighed the anchor, and motored away from Elbow Cay as the evening sun was making its plunge into the western horizon. The consistent southwesterly wind and the Gulf Stream would make for very nice conditions for sailing eastward toward the Bahamas. Other than distance from Havana, I didn’t have a particular destination in mind.

  I slid an old Jimmy Buffett tape into the stereo and listened as “Island” began to play. I’ve always found it interesting how song writers are capable of writing lyrics that are so poignant and prophetic for so many people they’ll never meet.

  I don’t know if Jimmy smoked exactly the right amount of ganja or one lid too much, but with the lyrics of that song, he’d cracked open my skull and taken a peek inside. I felt exactly like an island. I wondered if there were no other men on Earth exactly like me. Was I truly alone in the world? Mysterious people flashed into my life at unpredictable intervals and vanished just as quickly. My family was dead. My home was forty-five feet of teak and fiberglass that bobbed up and down at the ocean’s will. I was alone, but just like Jimmy said, unlike that island, heart and soul accompaniment seems to make me different. I wanted a hand to hold and a heart to love. I wanted to share my fears and doubts with someone who would listen and care, even if she didn’t understand. I wanted to do the same for her. I wanted to feel the delicate skin of a woman as we fell asleep every night. I longed to feel her breath on my shoulder as we slept. I yearned to taste her lips on mine when we could make the world disappear and get lost in each other’s bodies and souls. Dr. Richter had called a wife and family a burden in this line of work. Perhaps he was right, but that didn’t diminish my desire to find a woman who could make me forget that I was just an expendable weapon for rent.

  The lyrics of the old Buffett song warned of torn sails and broken oars and seemed to echo Dr. Richter’s warning. Is that what would happen to me if I tried to approach a real relationship? I was beginning to think it might be worth risking a few torn sails and a broken oar to find out.

  There had been no shortage of young coeds back at Georgia. I had been a prominent athlete, so the rewards of staying in prime physical condition, hitting more than my share of homeruns, and wearing tight white pants on the baseball field were grand when measured by the standard of the average college student. Girls came and went in droves, but my interest in the next girl tended to deplete my interest in the previous one, so in my four years at UGA, I never had an enduring, meaningful relationship.

  The bonds I’d built with my teammates should’ve been the bonds that lasted a lifetime, but I had seen to the thorough destruction of those after my accident. I couldn’t bear the anxiety and angst associated with continuing relationships with the other members of the team. Watching those who were talented enough to be drafted to play professional baseball filled me with envious rage and left me to be an outsider. I wouldn’t dare blame any of them for my exile. Any separation and isolation I experienced was entirely self-imposed. Sometimes the self-imposed punishments are the most brutal.

  The deeper the feelings of loneliness ran, the more I dreamed of the sniper. I knew nothing about her beyond what I’d seen through my binoculars at Belmont Park, but I was drawn to her by some force, real or imagined, that pulled my soul toward her like the wind in Aegis’s sails pulled me seaward. I had no idea how I would ever find her, or if I would ever actually see her again, but I prayed that fate, chance, dumb luck, or divine intervention would soon creep its way onto my island and deliver the beautiful, blonde sniper into my arms.

  20

  Ghosts

  I decided that Charlotte Amalie would be my destination. That would give me a nice long voyage and plenty of time to think while also falling off the edge of the Earth for at least three weeks, as far as Dmitri Barkov was concerned. I would sail northeast around the Bahamas and Eleuthera Islands to put some ocean and a few rocks between Cuba and me before I headed southeast for the Virgin Islands.

  The voyage took a little longer than I expected. I blame rum and beach parties for the bulk of the delays, but in all honesty, I think it was the escape from the rest of the world I enjoyed the most. I took my time, never got in a hurry, and enjoyed every mile of the journey. On the tenth day of my trip, I sent my passport with the Cuban immigration stamp, tied to a lead weight, to the bottom of the ocean in just over nine hundred feet of water. I couldn’t afford to have it turn up. Small details like that can have a nasty bite when they show up at inopportune moments.

  When I finally arrived in the anchorage off Charlotte Amelie, I set my anchor in twelve feet of clear blue water. I had planned my final day of the journey so that I would arrive midmorning and at high tide. It was one of those postcard perfect days. The wind was warm and consistent at just over ten knots, and the ocean was calm and welcoming. Aegis had performed like a battleship and never offered a moment’s trouble. My first solo mission was a success. My first solo long-distance cruise was flawless. I feared that it was time for a train wreck. Things just couldn’t continue to flow as smoothly as they had over the past few weeks.

  Since St. Thomas is a U.S. territory, I didn’t have to check in with immigration. I was thankful for that little blessing. I decided to make my way ashore and find a rum drink and a nice hammock in the shade. The rum drink was easy, but the hammock was a bit of a challenge. I opted, instead, for a wooden barstool in a small bamboo hut overlooking the sea. The rum flowed, and I was beginning to believe that life just
couldn’t get any better. That’s when I caught my first glimpse of her.

  Her golden blonde hair glistened in the midday sun as she strolled along the shoreline with her sandals dangling loosely from her left hand. She was tall, perfectly toned, and graceful. She wore a flowing white cotton shirt that draped off her shoulder and blew lightly in the breeze. Beneath the open shirt was an orange bikini top that fit her toned figure as if it were part of her flawless skin. A pair of perfectly short cutoff blue jeans clung to her hips and offered the slightest hint of the curve of her bottom. Her jawline was sharp and her cheekbones exquisite. I watched as she slowly tilted her head skyward as if to soak in the warmth and beauty of the perfect Caribbean sun. The way her hair danced on the wind, and how her inviting smile shone perfectly on her face, was more beautiful than words can describe. I was completely mesmerized by her grace, and more than anything, her familiarity.

  My heart pounded in my chest, and my mind raced with a million thoughts and one terrible fear. If the girl on the beach was the sniper from Belmont Park, she certainly wasn’t there by coincidence. There has never been a coincidence that incredible. More likely, the girl on the beach bore a striking resemblance to the sniper I’d seen from a thousand yards away through the lenses of my binoculars, but it certainly couldn’t have been her. My mind was imploding as I tried to process the possibility of it actually being her. If she was the sniper, she’d been dispatched by Barkov to find, identify, and kill me—just like I had done to Suslik.

  I was unable to look away. Every ounce of me was captivated by her. I wished I hadn’t had so many rum drinks. Maybe I could’ve thought more clearly and figured it out, or maybe if I was sober, I wouldn’t have imagined that some random blonde on the beach was the woman I’d been dreaming of for months. It had to be a case of hopeful mistaken identity.