The Cuban Affair

by Nelson DeMille

  Sara asked, “What do we do now?”

  “We wait.” I looked at my watch: 9:46. We had a long forty-five minutes before I heard the familiar sound of my Cat 800 diesel. Or longer if Felipe and Jack had decided to wait for high tide. Or never, if Felipe had left Jack at the marina and was now on his way to Miami. What I knew for sure was that Jack Colby would not leave Cuba without me.

  Sara said, “Tell me that everything is going to be okay.”

  I assured her, “Within a few hours we’ll be in open water, on a heading for Key West.”

  She took my hand. “That sounds nice.”

  Sara Ortega was not a clueless idiot, and she knew this was a very dicey plan. The mangrove swamp could damage the fiberglass hull of The Maine, but not as badly as a rapid-fire cannon. “Do you see that water?”

  “Yes.”

  “That water is a road that will take you anywhere you want to go.”

  She nodded, and stayed quiet for a minute, then asked, “What if they don’t . . . can’t come?”

  Well, that was the other problem. “Jack knows—you never leave a man behind.” I wasn’t so sure about Felipe, however. I mean, without the sixty million . . . But I was forgetting about Sara. I hoped Felipe still loved her enough to come for her.

  She got quiet again, then said, “I’m thinking about the last week . . .”

  “When we get back, we’ll have some good laughs. Even Antonio was—”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Quiet.”

  We listened and I heard something out in the swamp. It got louder, and we could both hear voices carrying across the water.

  Sara whispered, “There’s somebody out there.”

  I pulled the Glock from my belt and got into a prone firing position facing the water, trying to peer through the darkness. Sara lay down beside me.

  The voices got louder and it sounded like two males, speaking Spanish. I could hear oars splashing in the water.

  I saw a movement, then suddenly a boat emerged from the mist, coming toward the shore.

  As it got closer, I could see that it was a square-bowed swamp boat, and sitting in the flat-bottomed craft were two men. They saw the big Buick before they saw me and Sara lying on the black tarp, and they started jabbering.

  Sara stood and called out, “Buenas noches.”

  There was a silence, then one of them called, “Buenas noches, señora.”

  I slipped the Glock under my shirt and stood, but I didn’t call out buenas noches in my Maine accent.

  The two men, who looked young, jumped out of the boat into the water, then took hold of a bow line and pulled the flat-bottomed boat onto the muddy shore. They made conversation with Sara as they dragged the small fiberglass boat farther inland.

  Sara walked toward them, still chatting, and like fishermen everywhere, they showed her their catch, which looked like catfish. And they looked like poor fishermen. But this was Cuba, where everyone had a second job.

  The men were barefoot, but they slipped sandals over their muddy feet and pulled the boat close to the Buick and glanced at the tarp.

  They conversed with Sara, obviously about the station wagon, and gave me a few quick looks.

  One of them went into the bush and came out pulling a small boat trailer. They put their fiberglass boat on the trailer, secured it with a line, and maneuvered the trailer around the Buick and onto the dirt road.

  I can’t remember how many times my night patrols had run into locals, and how many times I had to make the decision of what to do with those people. I started with the premise that no one could be trusted, and I worked out a solution from there.

  The two young men waved to us as they pulled their boat and trailer—a little too fast—up the road we’d come in on. Buenas noches.

  I looked at Sara. “Well?”

  “I . . . don’t know. They seemed . . . friendly.” She added, “They’re just fishermen.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  “I told them we were waiting for friends to come in from fishing.”

  “All right . . .” But if I had it to do over again, those guys would be looking down the barrel of my gun while Sara tied their hands and feet with their line, and they’d now be resting comfortably in the back seat of the Buick. But you don’t get do-overs.

  I looked at my watch: 10:04. Nothing to do now except wait for our ride. And keep alert.

  * * *

  It was 10:30, and though I didn’t hear The Maine, Sara wanted to unload the station wagon. “They’re coming,” she assured me. We threw our backpacks on the dock, then Sara and I lifted the heavy steamer trunk filled with título de propiedades out of the rear compartment, walked it across the black tarp, and set the trunk down in the middle of the floating dock.

  On our way back to get the second trunk, I heard the sound of an engine—but not in the swamp. It was on the dirt road.

  Sara and I exchanged glances and I pulled my Glock.

  There were headlight beams coming through the darkness, and the engine got louder, then the headlights illuminated the Buick and us, and the vehicle suddenly stopped about twenty feet away. Someone shouted something in Spanish. I don’t speak the language, but I know what “Guarda Frontera” means.

  Sara said, “Oh, God . . .”

  I jumped on the rear bumper of the station wagon and aimed my Glock across the Buick’s roof at the open Jeep vehicle.

  A guy was standing in the passenger side, a rifle aimed at me above the windshield, and he shouted something.

  I fired three rounds at him, and the blasts split the night air. I shifted my aim and fired three more rounds through the windshield opposite the driver, then fired my remaining three rounds, right to left, in case I missed anything.

  The birds were silent now, and there was no sound from the Jeep except the idling engine. I quickly reloaded my second magazine into the Glock.

  The rule is to wait fifteen seconds to see if your kill suddenly springs to life, so I waited, but there was no movement in the Jeep.

  I jumped down from the bumper and made my way quickly but cautiously to the military vehicle. The guy slumped in the passenger seat was still alive, but the driver had caught one above his right eye. They were young guys. Maybe twenty.

  I reached in and turned off the headlights, then shut off the engine and threw away the keys. I retrieved the rifle from the dying guy, which was an AK-47 with a thirty-round magazine. I found another loaded AK in the rear, along with an ammo pouch and four loaded magazines. I slung one of the rifles over my shoulder and started back toward the Buick, carrying the second rifle.

  Well, I’d just committed murder in the People’s Republic of Cuba. Surrender was no longer an option. It never was.

  Sara was calling my name, and I said, “I’m okay—” There was suddenly light around me, and I heard an engine behind me. I spun around and saw another set of headlights bouncing over the rough road.

  I jumped onto the hood of the Jeep and knelt as I flipped the firing switch of the AK-47 to full automatic. The Jeep was less than thirty feet from me and slowing down as it approached the first Guarda Frontera Jeep. I could hear voices that sounded confused as to what was happening. Well, let me end the confusion. I squeezed the trigger and fired a long burst of green tracer rounds into the windshield left to right. The Jeep veered into the wall of brush and the engine stalled out.

  I stood on the hood of the first Jeep and looked up the dark road, but there were no more headlights coming.

  I jumped down and ran back to the Buick where Sara had already managed to get the steamer trunk full of skulls out of the wagon, and she was dragging it over the tarp toward the floating dock. “Mac! Are you okay?”

  “I’m good.” I grabbed a handle and we carried the trunk quickly onto the dock. I slapped a fresh thirty-round magazine into the AK-47 that I’d fired and laid both rifles on the steamer trunks.

  I pulled my Swiss Army knife from my pocket and cut the two lines that te
thered the dock to the shore. Meanwhile, Sara had one of the poles and pushed off.

  The dock floated a few feet, then started back on the incoming tide. I grabbed the other pole and together we pushed off again, then stuck the poles into the muddy bottom and began poling away from the shore.

  The floating dock was not floating very fast, and it took all our strength to push against the poles and move the dock a few feet against the tide. But we were making a little progress and the dock was now about twenty feet from the shoreline. A few feet later, the bottom dropped and we had barely two feet of pole to work with, so we knelt to give us more leverage.

  I looked up to see how far we’d gotten and saw head beams reflecting off the mangrove trees on the shore. Shit.

  Sara saw it too. “Mac . . . look . . .”

  “See it. Keep pushing.”

  We got a few more feet out, but we were barely sixty feet from the shore and already we were getting fatigued. Meanwhile, where was The Maine?

  The vehicle that had arrived was obviously blocked by my two kills, but he’d left his headlights on, which was not smart, because I could now see three men on the shore, silhouetted against the head beams. One guy was looking at the Buick and two were looking out at the swamp.

  I grabbed one of the AK-47s and got down into a prone firing position. Darkness distorts perception—aim lower than the target you see. I held my fire, waiting to see if they spotted us. Then one of the guys shouted, and I saw a muzzle flash, followed by the buzzing sounds of green tracer rounds going high, and the almost simultaneous pop-pop-pop that the AK-47 makes. I hear that fucking sound in my nightmares.

  I steadied my aim and returned the fire, raking the shore with six-round bursts, adjusting my aim as the streaks of my green tracers hit the shoreline. One man screamed and went down. I quickly changed magazines, and noticed that they’d shut off their headlights.

  Tracers show where your rounds went, but they also show where they came from, and the return fire was more accurate. A few rounds hit the water in front of me, then one hit the steamer trunk next to me. Sara was still kneeling and pushing with the pole, and she was presenting too good of a target. “Get down!”

  She got down a little, but kept pushing off.

  There were a few more men on the shore now, and I saw at least six muzzle flashes. The sounds of automatic rifles filled the air and bullets were striking the water around us, and another one hit the trunk. They definitely had our range now, and we were basically sitting ducks, about to be dead ducks.

  I was down to two magazines for the AK-47, and after that I couldn’t put out enough suppressing fire with the Glock to keep their heads down.

  I took aim at the shoreline, but before I squeezed the trigger, the sky lit up with a flash of heat lightning, followed by a roll of thunder. I am the storm. I shifted my aim to the Buick and squeezed the trigger. A stream of green tracer rounds impacted into the rear of the station wagon, and the incendiary material of the tracers ignited the fuel in the tank and the gasoline exploded in a huge red-orange fireball.

  The shooting from the shore stopped, and when the echoes of the explosion died away I heard the sound of a boat engine—my boat, my engine.

  Sara and I turned around and I saw the stern of The Maine coming toward us through the swamp mist. The boat was about fifty feet away, and as it got closer I saw Jack kneeling on the rear bench, aiming a rifle—the AR-15—at the shore, but he was holding his fire, obviously unsure of what was happening. I could make out the silhouette of Felipe in the darkened cabin, and I imagined he was glancing over his shoulder as he steered sternway toward us, maybe with a little guidance and encouragement from Jack.

  Felipe was making less than five knots, which would be normal for these water hazards but too slow for getting our asses out of here under fire. In fact, it was probably the gunfire that made Felipe display an abundance of caution. But, to be fair, he was still coming.

  Sara was kneeling, pushing off with the pole, and I was dividing my attention between the shore and The Maine. We were in thicker mist now, which was good regarding the guys with the AK-47s, who’d stopped firing, but I wasn’t sure Jack had actually seen us. So I stood and waved silently. Jack spotted me and waved back, and as I dropped to one knee a loud burst of AK-47 fire streaked over my head. I spun around and dropped into a prone position and fired my last magazine at the shoreline, and when my AK clicked empty I could hear the sharp sound of Jack’s AR-15 returning fire. Glad he remembered the extra ammo. Hope he remembered to put his vest on.

  I had two magazines of 9mm left and I slapped one into the Glock. We were about a hundred feet from the shore, well beyond the effective range of the Glock, but I emptied the magazine at the shoreline just to be involved. Jack meanwhile was pumping out rounds like he was surrounded by V.C.

  I glanced at Sara and saw she was exhausted, barely hanging on to the pole, and I noticed that the incoming tide was carrying us back toward the shore. Shit.

  The guys on the shore—maybe four or five of them—were apparently getting over the shock of the explosion and were starting to lay down effective fire. I saw tracer rounds streaking over The Maine, then it looked like a few rounds entered the cabin. I hoped that Felipe didn’t lose his nerve and hightail it out. Would he do that to Sara?

  The Maine was less than twenty feet from us, and if we could stop drifting toward the shore we’d meet up in a minute or two, but Felipe was not appreciating the situation and wasn’t moving toward us as fast as the tide was moving us away from The Maine.

  Sara suddenly called out, “Felipe! Faster! Faster!”

  I don’t know if he’d ever heard that word before in another context, but it worked, and I heard the engine growl and The Maine got closer.

  I scrambled over the raft, grabbed Sara, and pulled her behind the two steamer trunks. The AK rounds couldn’t penetrate the wads of paper, but they’d probably go through skulls—just as they had forty years ago in Villa Marista prison. I positioned myself between the trunks and Sara, then pushed her flat on the raft. I heard a round smack into one of the trunks but it didn’t exit, so the trunks gave us some cover, and the dark and the mist gave us some concealment. Theoretically we were not in the line of fire—until we had to get ourselves and the trunks onboard.

  The Maine was less than ten feet away now and I could see Jack’s face as he took careful aim and kept up a steady volley of fire, and I could hear the crack of his rounds as they sailed over my head.

  Then, for some reason, Jack suddenly stood, maybe to get a clearer shot of the shoreline, and I yelled, “Get down!”

  But he kept standing, steadied his aim, and got off a few rounds before a green tracer knocked him off the bench and back onto the deck.

  Sara saw what happened and let out a scream, then got herself under control and shouted, “Those bastards!”

  Hey, they’re just kids doing their job. Been there. Jack, too. Come on, Jack. Get up. “Jack!”

  But he didn’t answer.

  The stern of The Maine was only a few feet from the raft now, and I heard Felipe shout, “Jump! Jump!”

  I said to Sara, “Go ahead. Quick!”

  “The trunks . . .”

  “Go!”

  “No!”

  Shit.

  Felipe shouted again, “Jump! I’m leaving! I’m going!”

  Asshole. You’d think he’d never been shot at. The Maine was at idle, and the tide and current were starting to separate us again. I yelled out, “Reverse!” I grabbed Sara around the waist and started to lift her onto my shoulder. A few more rounds hit the trunks, and I saw a tracer hit the stern, putting a dot right above the “I” in Fishy Business. Holy shit.

  Diesel doesn’t explode like gasoline but . . . we didn’t need any more incendiary rounds in the fuel tank.

  Time to get aboard before we got shot or left behind. I said to Sara, calmly and slowly, “You have to get up and get on that boat.”

  She got into a crouching position, gla
nced at the two trunks that were between her and the gunfire, then looked at the boat, which was now about five feet from the raft.

  I don’t know what would have happened next—Sara jumping for the boat, or Felipe pushing forward on the throttle and leaving us there—but something hit me in the face, and it took a second for me to realize it was a line thrown from The Maine. I grabbed it and heard Jack’s voice. “Secure the line!”

  I dropped to the deck, looped the line through the hemp rope that bound the logs together, and shouted, “Forward!”

  The Maine began to move forward, and the floating dock was towed away from the shore and the gunfire, and deeper into the mist.

  Jack appeared at the stern, kneeling on the bench, and he was staring at me. I called out over the sound of the engine, “You okay?”

  “What’s it to you, asshole?”

  He sounded fine. “You get hit?”

  “Vest.”

  Good purchase.

  We were clearing the mangroves, and Felipe put on some speed, and within a few minutes we were in the Bay of Dogs, on a westerly heading.

  Sara sat up and put her arm around my shoulders. She was breathing hard, but getting it together.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  I glanced up at the cabin and saw that Felipe was checking us out.

  It was time to come aboard and I called out, “Idle!”

  Jack shouted to Felipe, “Idle!”

  The engine got quieter and The Maine slowed.

  Jack pulled the line, hand over hand, until the raft was against the boat’s stern.

  Sara and I stood, and Jack reached his hand out to her, as he’d done when she first came aboard The Maine—but this time I put my hands on her butt and she kicked her legs out to the stern while I pushed and Jack pulled. She tumbled onto the stern bench, and Jack said, “Welcome aboard!”

  She gave him a hug, hesitated, then glanced at me and went into the cabin.

  So Jack and I, with two secured lines, pulled the trunks onboard, and he set them on the deck. I pitched the two backpacks to him, scrambled aboard The Maine, then cut the line. Felipe opened the throttle and we picked up speed across the bay, leaving the floating dock behind us.