The Cuban Affair

by Nelson DeMille

  “They’re still there.” He complained again, “We have to tip the Guarda Frontera every time we cast off and tie up, and we make donations to keep them off the tournament boats.”

  Fishing for peace was expensive. “Any mechanical issues?”

  “I would have told you.”

  We were in a little bit of a pissing match, which we would not be in if Sara were named Steve. Men are assholes.

  Felipe took a key card out of his pocket, gave it to Sara, and said, “You go first. Room 318. I’ll be up shortly.” He looked at me. “And you can watch the car. Then it’s your turn to use the room.” He asked, “Is that okay?”

  Actually, no. “Let’s finish our business here.”

  “What else do you need to know?”

  “How was the fishing?”

  “It’s been excellent.” He let me know, “We were in third place, but today we’re in second.”

  “Congratulations.” Jack has an uncanny knack for finding fish. “Too bad you can’t stay a few more days.”

  He smiled, then looked at the key, which Sara had put on the table. He really wanted to get laid.

  I glanced at her and saw she was . . . tense? I think, too, that Felipe was baiting us. Or running a test.

  I asked him, “How was the Pescando Por la Paz received here?”

  “There were a few government press photographers when we arrived. But no one is covering the tournament. Why?”

  Sara replied, “We were worried that the fleet might be kicked out of Cuba.”

  Felipe nodded. “Well, that would have left you both high and dry.” He asked, “What would you have done?”

  Fucked our brains out until we figured out how to get out of Cuba. “I was thinking we could make it to Guantánamo by land.”

  He thought about that. “That’s possible.” He added, “But the question is now moot.”

  How could she love a man who said “moot”? I asked Felipe, “Did Jack mention my concern about the police connecting me to Fishy Business?”

  Felipe looked at me. “He did, and we made sure that none of the other fishermen mentioned to anyone that Fishy Business used to be The Maine, and we asked all the crews to tell us if anyone came around asking questions.”

  “Okay.” Glad Jack remembered. He, too, was motivated—by money and survival. The money wasn’t there anymore, but survival is a good motivator by itself.

  I said to Felipe, “You understand that the police in Havana could be making this connection right now, and calling the police in Cayo Guillermo as we speak.”

  Felipe had no reply, but I thought he went a little pale.

  “Also, I have to tell you—if Jack didn’t—that Sara and I came to the attention of the police in Havana.”

  He nodded, as though Jack had filled him in.

  “And now that we’ve disappeared from our tour group, the police will be looking for us.” I also told him, “And the Buick could be hot by now. So if there’s any way we can move up the sail time, I suggest we do it.”

  He nodded. “I’ll . . . check the tide table again . . . but . . .”

  “Is there a public phone you can use at the marina?”

  “There is . . .”

  It was time to get rid of Felipe, and I said to him, “Okay, so you need to return to the boat now, brief Jack, then leave a message here at the front desk for Jonathan Mills. That’s me. The message will be to meet for drinks at the Sol Club, at whatever time you think you can get The Maine into the mangrove swamp. Shoot for ten P.M. You have a depth finder. Also, if you are in the custody of the police, use the words ‘coming storm’ when you call. Meanwhile, get the boat out of the marina, ASAP. And if you see police cars at the marina, you can assume they’re there for you, and you’ll pedal your ass back here and we’ll get in the Buick and try to get across the causeway.” I added, “And make sure Jack is pedaling with you.” My instructions to him were so chilling that I’d scared myself.

  Felipe looked more pale and nodded.

  “If I don’t see you or hear from you in twenty minutes, tops, I’ll assume you are in the custody of the police, and Sara and I will be heading for the causeway. And you—and Jack—will hold up well under police questioning, to give Sara and me time to get to the mainland.” I looked at him. “Understand?”

  He seemed to have zoned out, but then he looked at me and said, “Maybe we should all get on the boat now. I think I can get you onboard without—”

  “We’re really trying to avoid interaction with the authorities, Felipe. We and the car may be hot.” I also reminded him, “We have cargo. And we can’t have the border guards looking at it.”

  “Leave it.”

  Sara said sharply, “We will not leave it.”

  I stood. “Time to go. We’ll see you—sooner or later.” I added, “Vaya con Dios.”

  He stood, and we made eye contact. He definitely understood he wasn’t going to have sex in Cuba with his girlfriend, and I think he knew why—and it wasn’t for the reasons I’d just laid out.

  He took a deep breath, glanced at Sara, then said to me, “I never liked this idea of me being on the boat and you being with Sara.”

  “Well, we all have different skill sets.”

  “I told Carlos I was best suited to go to Cuba with Sara and find the cave—and that he needed to find a different boat with a Cuban American captain and crew.”

  That may have actually worked better. And I’d be sleeping with Amber in Key West, blissfully unaware of the adventure I was missing. I assured Felipe, “Next time we’ll try it your way. But for now, we do it my way.” Regrets? I have a few.

  Felipe needed to get the parting shot and said to me, “When we come back for the money, only those who speak Spanish and those who hate the regime need apply for the job.”

  Sara said, “Felipe, that’s not—”

  He shot her a look and she stopped talking.

  Felipe needed some reality, so I said to him, “As you may know, I’m out three million dollars because of Eduardo. So I’m not in the best of moods, and when I step on that boat, I am in command, and I don’t want anyone second-guessing me about the weather, the patrol boats, the fuel, or when or if we use the guns.” I looked at Felipe. “Tell me you understand that. Or you can stay in Cuba.”

  Felipe was pissed, and embarrassed in front of his girlfriend. I would be, too. But as I learned the hard way in Afghanistan, there is only one top dog when the shit is flying. And you gotta get it straight who that dog is before it starts flying. “Comprende?”

  He was really pissed. But he managed a smirk and said, “Sí, Capitán.”

  “Adios.”

  Sara was standing now, and she hesitated, then gave Felipe a brief hug and kiss and said something in Spanish. That pissed me off, but maybe she told him to man up and vamoose.

  Felipe said, “I’ll see you later,” and removed himself from the triangle, forgetting the room key.

  Sara and I stood there, looking at each other. Finally, she said, “You handled that . . . well.”

  “I did.”

  “And you saved me from having to . . . go to the room with him.”

  “That wasn’t my purpose.”

  “Of course it was.”

  Maybe it was. “Have a seat. I’ll tell the front desk I’m waiting for a message.”

  I went to the front desk, showed my Canadian passport, and said to both clerks, a man and a woman, “I’m in the lobby bar, with a young lady, waiting for a phone message. Please deliver it to me as soon as you get it.” I incentivized them with ten CUCs each and they assured me they’d find me, even if I was in the baño.

  I went back to the cocktail table, called the waitress over, and settled the bill.

  Sara said, “We’ll be out of Cuban territorial waters by midnight.”

  “We will.” I thought back to my last days and hours in Afghanistan. The short-timers, who’d gone through hell without even a small pee in their pants, were all jittery that something wa
s going to happen before they boarded the freedom bird home. I mean, after you’ve cheated death for so long, you become paranoid, sure that death had just remembered you were leaving.

  Sara said, “I think he knows.”

  If he did, we might be waiting in that mangrove swamp for awhile. And Jack would be treading water while Felipe was in the cabin opening up the throttle as he took a direct heading for Miami, ahead of the storm and the Cuban gunboats. I mean, the money was still in Camagüey, his girlfriend was screwing around with the captain, and the police were closing in. Felipe would like to say adios to all that shit.

  Sara and I sat in silence and waited for the desk clerk or Felipe to appear. Or the police.

  I looked at my watch, stood, and said, “Time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Sara stood, and we collected our backpacks and walked to the lobby. I checked with the desk, and a phone message had just come in. I read the message slip—Anchors Aweigh. Will Try To Be At Sol Club 10:30—and gave it to Sara.

  She read it and looked at me. “Mac, this could be the last time we can be together. The car is locked. Let’s go upstairs.” She had the key card in her hand.

  That was tempting. And it’s sort of an Army tradition that you try to get laid before you try not to get killed. But I wanted to get out of the hotel. “Have you ever done it in the back seat of a station wagon in a mangrove swamp?”

  She smiled. “I’ll try anything once.”

  We left the Melia Hotel. I took the car keys from Sara, unlocked her door, and got behind the wheel. I fired up the Perkins boat engine, drove down the driveway, and headed west on the beach road.

  She said, “This has been the best week of my life.”

  Were we in the same place? “Me too.”

  “You’ve got balls. And heart.”

  “And you’ve got guts and brains.” And I meant it.

  “We’re a good team.”

  “We are.”

  “What time will we be in Key West?” she asked.

  “In time for lunch.”

  “I’ll buy at the Green Parrot.”

  Table for two? Or three? Maybe four with Jack.

  “I’ll tell Felipe after lunch that I’m not going back to Miami with him. And I’ll tell him why.”

  Then maybe I should buy lunch.

  “All right?”

  I thought about all this—past, present, and future—and I came to the conclusion that Sara Ortega was my fate. This was where my journey had taken me. And this was good. I took her hand. “All right.”

  CHAPTER 53

  We continued along the dark beach road. The sky was looking more ominous, with black smoky clouds racing across the face of the moon.

  Sara said, “There’s the sign.”

  I slowed down, and my headlights picked out a faded wooden sign: SWAMP TOURS. I turned left onto a dirt road that was hemmed in by thick tropical growth. The road was rough and the steamer trunks started to bounce, so I slowed down and shifted into first gear. My headlights showed a straight path through the ten-foot brush, and I switched to parking lights.

  Felipe said it was half a mile to the floating dock, and within five minutes I could smell the swamp, and a minute later I could see the sheen on the water and huge mangrove trees rising from the dark wetlands.

  I slowed to a crawl as I approached the water and stopped at the shoreline. Around me was a small clearing—a turn-around and parking area in front of the floating dock. There were no boats at the dock, no vehicles, and no people except us. I shut off the parking lights and we sat there, staring into the darkness.

  Sara said, “Back the wagon up to the dock.”

  “Right.”

  I maneuvered the Buick wagon around in the tight space and backed it up close to the floating dock. I killed the engine and said, “Let’s check it out.”

  We got out of the wagon and looked around.

  The fleeting moonlight reflected off the black, shiny water, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see that a thick wall of vegetation crowded the small clearing. Exposed roots from the giant mangroves provided some traction and kept the Buick from sinking into the waterlogged mud.

  I walked onto the floating dock, which was not much more than a log raft, held together with rope, about five feet wide and ten feet long, jutting into the swamp. The dock was tethered to stakes at the shoreline by two ropes. It would not support the Buick, but it seemed steady and sturdy enough to allow the transferral of the cargo between the wagon and our boat. I couldn’t help but imagine that the station wagon was a big panel van, filled with a dozen steamer trunks. This would have worked. Assuming we’d made it to Camagüey. And here. Well, we’d never know.

  “Okay. This is good.”

  Sara was staring out at the mangrove swamp. “Can the boat get through there?”

  Hopefully, Felipe had already answered that question for himself.

  I looked into the dark swamp. Mangroves grew up to the shore, but there was a channel through them, obviously man-made for boats to navigate the wetlands. It was hard to judge measurement in the dark, but it seemed that The Maine, with a 16-foot beam, could come sternway through the mangrove trees—very slowly and carefully—and reach the floating dock. The problem was not the channel through the mangroves—it was the depth of the bottom, which I guessed hadn’t been dredged because swamp boats were usually flat-bottomed. The Maine, however, had a keel that was about five feet below the waterline. And even if we had seven feet of water at high tide, there were mangrove stumps out there, and roots that could foul the propeller. The good news was that we were light on fuel and cargo. Four thousand pounds of money might have put us too close to the bottom. Every cloud has a silver lining.

  “Mac?”

  “Well . . . it’s doable.” Which didn’t sound like a sure thing. I added, “If The Maine can’t get to us, we can swim to her.”

  “What about our cargo?”

  “Well . . . I don’t see why we can’t use this dock for a raft and meet the boat in deeper water.”

  She nodded.

  I was tempted to point out that Felipe was more of an optimist than a sailor, but this may have been his only option. And I didn’t like to second-guess men under my command when they showed initiative—even if they had a stupid solution to a problem.

  “We’ll see how it goes at ten-thirty.” I looked at my watch. It was now 8:45. We had a long wait. But I’d rather wait here for The Maine than wait in the Melia for the police.

  I checked out the ropes that tethered the floating dock and saw they were one-inch hemp lines, easily cut with my Swiss Army knife.

  Sara stood on the dock and asked, “If we have to make this dock into a raft, how do we move it into the swamp?”

  Good question. The dock seemed too big and heavy for us to move it by hanging on and paddling with our feet against the incoming tide, but I suggested we could do that if we waited for the tide to start running out.

  Sara replied, “I don’t want to wait . . . Maybe we can do what the balseros do when they’re launching their rafts from the wetlands.”

  “Which is?”

  “They use poles—to push off into the deeper water.”

  Right. I think Huck Finn did that. “Okay. Good solution.” I suspected she was smarter than her young boyfriend. Anyway, if we had seven feet of water here at high tide, as per Felipe, we needed at least a ten-foot pole.

  I was about to go look for something in the bush, but I noticed that toward the end of the floating dock were two pilings—actually long poles, rising about six feet above the dock, and about the thickness of a baseball bat. The poles had been driven into the swamp mud to tie up boats and to keep the floating dock from swaying in the currents. I went over to one pole and Sara joined me. Together we pulled on it, trying to free it from the muck. We pushed it from side to side, and pulled again, and finally the pole started to rise out of the swamp floor.

 
We freed it and laid it on the dock. It was about twelve feet long, fairly straight, but waterlogged, so it had some flex in it, which was not good for raft poling. But if we had to use it, it would have to do.

  We went to the other piling and after about ten minutes of sweating and swearing we got the pole out of the sucking mud and onto the floating dock. Teamwork makes the dream work.

  We wiped our muddy hands on our pants, and I said, “Okay, we’re all set to unload the trunks onto this dock, cut the lines, then pole into the swamp to meet The Maine. But we’ll do that only if The Maine can’t get to us.”

  “Should we unload the trunks now?”

  “I want to hear my diesel engine before we do that.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder and we looked into the swamp, where an evening mist rose off the water. Tree frogs croaked, and night birds made weird sounds, insects chirped, and something leapt out of the water.

  “It’s spooky,” she said.

  But no spookier than the spidery caves I crawled through looking for UBL. Who knew the asshole was in Pukeistan? But at least in the caves, everyone had everyone’s back. Here, I wasn’t so sure.

  She said, “Let’s sit in the wagon.”

  I think I promised her a ride in the back seat, but now that I was here, I was reevaluating the situation, and I thought we should keep our pants on. “We need to keep alert. But you go ahead. I’ll keep watch.”

  She walked to the station wagon, opened the rear window and tailgate, and pulled out the black tarp that covered the trunks. She spread the big tarp on the muddy ground between the wagon and the dock and invited me to lie down and relax awhile.

  There might not be a next time for this, so we made love on the tarp—quickly, quietly, and with our boots on—listening to the sounds of the swamp and the mosquitoes buzzing around my butt. While we were going at it, Sara said, “Keep alert,” and laughed.

  Afterward, we sat on the tarp with our backs to the station wagon bumper and shared a bottle of water that she’d gotten from the Ranchón Playa. I thought about the remains of the men that were a few feet from the back of my head. If we all weren’t soldiers once, I might think that I had somehow dishonored the dead; but it could’ve just as easily been me who didn’t make it home. And those who did make it shouldn’t feel guilty about anything. We all understood that.