The Cuban Affair

by Nelson DeMille

  Again she nodded, but pointed out, correctly, “The Zhuk is going to shoot at us.”

  “And we’re going to shoot back.”

  She had no comment, and I had nothing to add, but Jack said, “We’ll both be moving and shooting from unstable platforms.”

  Sara comprehended that and nodded.

  I added, “It’s sort of like a drive-by shooting on a bad patch of road, and both drive-bys are moving toward each other, so it won’t last long, and when we pass in the night, he has to turn around to pursue, but he loses a lot of speed in the turn, and we’re still making twenty-five knots.” That, of course, assumed his twin machine guns didn’t kill us all.

  Again she nodded, but didn’t comment.

  I looked at the radar screen and saw that we were about five nautical miles from the Stenka, who was in pursuit, but who hadn’t gained any ground on us, so maybe he wasn’t able to get full speed out of his engines—or he was lying back, waiting to see if I made another crazy move.

  The Zhuk was coming at me full barrel, though he was heading into the wind and waves, and maybe not making twenty-five knots. In any case, our closing speed was maybe forty knots and we would meet in about five minutes.

  I asked Jack, “What’s the ammo situation for the AR?”

  “I got ten empty mags that need reloading.”

  “See if you can do that in three minutes. And get yourself into a firing position through the forward hatch.”

  He disappeared below and I said to Sara, “I need you to go below, get a Kevlar vest, and bring one for me.” I handed her my Glock. “And get fresh magazines for this.”

  She nodded and disappeared below.

  The Maine didn’t have an anemometer, so I couldn’t measure the wind speed or direction, but I was guessing the winds were about twenty knots, still blowing westerly, and I could see that the waves were cresting at about six feet and not breaking over the bow. But the bow was rising on each wave, and Jack would only have a clear shot ahead when the bow pitched down. The good news was that the Zhuk had the same problem with his twin machine guns mounted on his forward deck.

  I looked at the radar screen and saw that the Zhuk was now three nautical miles ahead and still coming straight at us. He was playing chicken with me, which was my game—or more likely he thought that I understood I was finished and I was going to surrender. But if he thought that, he was being too rational.

  I saw the vent hatch rise up on the bow, and I expected to see Jack squeezing himself up with his AR-15, but it was Felipe whose head and shoulders appeared, and I could see he had the five-round automatic shotgun that was loaded with deer slugs. This may be the worst and most inaccurate weapon you can have in this situation, but it was better than a .38 revolver, and maybe even better than a Hail Mary.

  Felipe looked back at me and gave me a thumbs-up. Apparently he’d come to the only conclusion he could come to. Or he’d had a chat with Sara, who’d straightened him out. I knew Felipe was standing on something in the lower cabin, and I hoped it wasn’t Jack’s shoulders. But where was Jack?

  I looked at the radar. We were about two nautical miles from meeting the Zhuk. I couldn’t see him in the dark and stormy sea, and he couldn’t see me, but we both knew, thanks to technology, that we were on a collision course. In a minute or two, we’d both revert to something less sophisticated—bullets and balls.

  I glanced again at the radar and saw that the Stenka was still about five nautical miles behind us. He couldn’t turn his 120-foot boat as fast as I could turn, so I guessed that the Stenka captain, knowing he had more speed than his prey, was just waiting to see if I broke to port or starboard—then, when he got in range, he could open up with his radar-controlled cannons without taking a chance of hitting the Zhuk. Or, like the Zhuk captain, the Stenka captain was thinking I was going to raise the white flag. I mean, why else would I be heading toward the Zhuk?

  Jack appeared from below carrying a canvas bag of loaded magazines and the AR-15. He shouted over the wind and breaking waves, “I’m going up the tower!”

  Meaning the tuna tower, which was eight feet above the cabin roof and about twenty feet above the water.

  I didn’t think that was a good idea, with the tower swaying about 20 degrees from side to side, but he’d have the advantage of not having the bow rising and falling in his line of fire. I would never order a man to do that, but before I could think of a reason why he shouldn’t become the best target on the boat, he disappeared onto the deck and climbed up the side rungs to the tower. “Good luck.”

  Sara came up the staircase wearing a Kevlar vest and carrying another one that she handed to me.

  I put on the vest and motioned to the windshield, which had three separate framed windows that could swing out on hinges and lock-arms. “Unlatch the window on the left, and when I give you the word, push it out, and it’ll lock into place. You stand in the stairwell and take aim out the window.”

  She nodded and unlatched the window over the stairwell, then drew the Glock from her waistband.

  “Don’t fire when the bow starts to rise.” I was going to add, “You might hit Felipe,” but I figured she was smart enough to know that, so why mention it?

  I glanced at the radar. The blip that was the Zhuk was about five hundred yards from us, dead ahead. Felipe was still standing in the hatch, his elbows on the bow deck, and the shotgun aimed straight ahead. Jack would be at the top of the tower by now, and Sara was standing beside me with the Glock in her hand and extra mags in her pockets, waiting for the word to fire. I was at the helm.

  The Zhuk captain must have realized that I was not running to him to surrender my ship and crew, and I saw the double flash of his twin machine guns, then the streak of green tracer rounds that went very high because his bow was rising, but his gunner adjusted—or overadjusted as his bow fell—and the next streak of tracers went into the water about a hundred yards in front of The Maine.

  The tracers showed where the Zhuk was, and I could hear Jack popping off a rapid succession of single shots from his firing perch.

  Felipe couldn’t see much from the pitching bow, but he did see the tracers, and he got off five rounds as the bow settled down, then reloaded as the bow rose, and waited to fire again.

  Jack was popping off rounds as though he could see the target, and maybe he could from up there, but I couldn’t see the Zhuk and I glanced at my radar. The blip was so close that I should be able to see him. I looked out the rain-splattered windshield and there he was—a black silhouette on the black horizon, and coming fast.

  I called to Sara, “Fire!”

  She moved quickly to the window, pushed it out, and raised the Glock with both hands as I’d taught her. The wind and rain were streaming through the open window, and as the bow dropped she emptied the nine rounds in a few seconds, but instead of dropping below the windshield to reload, she stared straight ahead at the oncoming ship.

  “Bastards!”

  “Get down!”

  I saw that Felipe hadn’t been hit by enemy fire—or friendly fire—and he was firing at the Zhuk, which I noticed was not firing back. And the only reason for that would be because the gunner had been hit. In fact, I heard Jack shouting at the top of his lungs, “Got him! Got that asshole!”

  The twin guns would have an armored shield, but Jack had the high ground and apparently he’d scored a hit. The Zhuk, however, had no shortage of gunners, and as we got within a hundred yards of him, the twin guns opened up again, and the tracers went high as his bow rose. But this gunner didn’t overcorrect, and he kept a steady stream of rounds coming, and as his bow settled down, so did the tracers, and suddenly the cabin was filled with the sound of breaking glass and impacting bullets.

  Sara screamed, then dropped into the stairwell, but she didn’t appear to be hit. I caught a brief glimpse of Felipe and he was still firing. Sara was sitting on the steps now, slamming a fresh magazine into the Glock. She stood and emptied her second magazine at the looming ship.r />
  The next burst of machine-gun tracers went high, not because the Zhuk’s bow rose, but because that’s where the gunner was aiming, so he must have caught sight of Jack in the tuna tower.

  We were on a collision course, and the collision was going to happen within the next ten seconds, and I knew I wasn’t going to change course because The Maine and everyone on her were as good as dead anyway. So he was going to change course, and all I had to do was wait to see if he was going to break to port or starboard.

  We were within fifty yards of each other now and I could actually see the windows on the high bridge where the captain was either at the helm or giving orders to the helmsman. Easy shot if I had a rifle. But I didn’t, and I didn’t hear Jack’s AR-15. I did, however, hear the twin machine guns open up, but The Maine was so close to the Zhuk and his forward deck was so high that the gunner had to depress his barrels to the max to get a burst off, and the tracers streaked over the cabin and impacted on the rear deck. And that was his last shot at me because the Zhuk suddenly veered hard to port to avoid a collision, and I caught a glimpse of his twin machine guns as the gunner swung them to starboard to try to get a burst off, but I was moving fast along the starboard side of the 80-foot Zhuk, so close that I could see men on deck.

  Just as I reached the stern of the ship, I cut hard to starboard, directly into his wake, which sent The Maine airborne, and when we came down it felt like we’d hit a brick wall and The Maine bounced wildly. The rear gunner was either not at his station, or if he was he didn’t know what was happening or it was happening too fast for him to react, and his stern swung to starboard, away from me, as the Zhuk continued its swing to port.

  The Maine was more maneuverable than the bigger ship, and I cut hard to port so that my stern was lined up amidship to the Zhuk, and moving away from him. His forward- and aft-mounted guns could swing only one hundred and eighty degrees, so there was a blind spot about forty feet wide at his midship point, and I kept glancing over my shoulder, trying to stay perpendicular to him as he continued into his port turn. The Zhuk’s crew, however, armed with AK-47s, had no blind spot and I could see muzzle flashes from the forward and aft decks, but the tracers were going wild as the oncoming waves started to slam against the starboard side of the Zhuk. The captain changed course to get his stern lined up so that his rear gunner had a shot at me, but I changed course to keep that from happening, and it was a little like a dog chasing its tail except that the tail—me—was getting some distance from the dog’s teeth.

  He finally gave up on trying to outmaneuver me, and came around hard so that he was now following me as I took a direct northerly heading toward international waters, which were about eight miles ahead—maybe twenty minutes if I could maintain twenty-five knots.

  I couldn’t visually see the Zhuk in the darkness now, but he’d lost some time and distance with his maneuvers and my radar showed he was about five hundred yards behind me. And that’s where he’d stay if we both maintained our max speed. But with this weather, the Zhuk, which was big, could more easily cut through the waves and might be able to maintain a speed that The Maine couldn’t match. If I saw him gaining on me, I could run a zigzag course—like trying to outrun a big, fast alligator—and because the Zhuk wasn’t as responsive as my smaller boat, that might slow her up more than it slowed me up if he tried to mirror my moves. Works with an alligator.

  Meanwhile, he was apparently pissed off and he’d decided to open up, but from five hundred yards in the dark rolling sea, his tracer rounds were all over the place, and mostly falling into the sea behind me.

  I looked at the fuel gauge and saw we’d burned some diesel, but we could still make it to Key West—or if I had to, I’d head for one of the closer Florida Keys, maybe Key Largo, or even Andros Island in the Bahamas. I didn’t have to make that decision yet, and maybe not at all. Key West was where I started, and that’s where I wanted to finish. We weren’t out of the woods yet, but I could see daylight ahead.

  But then I saw something else. I’d adjusted my radar to get a tight picture of the Zhuk coming at me, but now I readjusted the picture to twelve miles out to see where the Stenka was, and I saw a blip to the east—the only blip on the stormy sea—and it was on a course to intercept The Maine, so it had to be the Stenka, and it was about eight nautical miles away. Shit.

  If I maintained a due north heading, I’d be out of Cuban territorial waters in less than twenty minutes, but the Stenka might get within cannon range before I crossed that boundary. If I changed course to head northwest toward the Keys, I’d be in Cuban waters longer than I wanted to be, but I’d also be running away from the Stenka and also ahead of the storm. I kept looking at the radar blip, trying to do the math and the geometry, like thousands of sea captains before me. You only get one shot at this, Mac.

  Sara was sitting in the chair beside me, and she may have been there awhile, but typical male, I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I didn’t notice.

  I said to her, “How you doing?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you do me a favor? Go see if Jack . . . Go see how he is . . .”

  “He’s alive,” said Jack as he came into the cabin, drenched from the rain. Then he turned around, went out to the deck, and threw up over the side. That happened to me once when I came down from the tuna tower in rough seas. Not the worst thing.

  I noticed that Felipe had disappeared from the hatch, and he appeared from below with a bottle of Ron Santiago, which I’m sure he had already sampled. He passed the bottle to Sara, who handed it to me. I said, “I’m driving.”

  Sara took a gulp.

  Jack came into the cabin, and Sara offered him the bottle, but Jack looked a little green and went below. I heard the head door open, then close.

  Felipe was starting to notice that the cabin windows had holes in them and that some of the wood and plastic was chewed up. He said something in Spanish that I guessed was “Holy shit.”

  Felipe moved behind the chairs, between Sara and me, looked at the radar, and pointed. “Is that the Stenka?”

  “It is.”

  “Shit!”

  “And behind us is the Zhuk.” I let him know, “You did an excellent job, amigo.”

  He didn’t reply immediately, but then said, “I think I got the gunner.”

  Jack was halfway up the stairs now and said, “I nailed that bastard right between his fucking eyes.”

  Which was more likely, but for all anyone knew, Sara had one of those impossibly lucky shots that no one would believe, including the guy who caught the bullet.

  Felipe asked, “What are we going to do?”

  I reminded him, “We are going to let the captain make that decision.”

  He didn’t reply, but kept looking at the radar screen. He said, “The Zhuk . . . he seems to be too far behind . . .”

  “He’s gaining on us, but not fast enough to get into firing range unless he keeps following us into international waters.” Which he’d do, because the Zhuk captain was very pissed off and he had a score to settle, and he had superiors to answer to who I was sure were reaming his ass in Spanish over the radio. I’ve been on both ends of radio transmissions like that.

  Felipe concluded, “If we maintain this course, the Stenka’s cannons will get within effective firing range of us in . . . maybe ten minutes.”

  “Who told you about thirty-millimeter cannons?”

  “Amigos.”

  I need a few amigos like that. “What’s his effective firing range?”

  “Four thousand meters.” He did the math and said, “About two and a half miles.” Felipe also pointed out, “He could begin firing even sooner.”

  Right. The Stenka’s rapid-fire cannons could put out a lot of shit from the twin barrels, and even if it wasn’t accurate fire from a long distance, something could hit you. Or you could be having an exceptionally good day and you could sail through the shit storm. It could go either way.

  Felipe gave me his unsolicited opinion.
“We need to turn away from him.”

  That seemed obvious, but I pointed out, “If we keep a straight course north, we’ll be in international waters in maybe ten minutes.”

  Felipe informed me, “He doesn’t give a shit. That bastard would follow us to Miami if he thought he could get away with it.”

  “I know that,” I assured him.

  Jack also gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We gotta head west.”

  “Sara?”

  She agreed with Jack and Felipe, but also said, “Do what you think is best.”

  Well, there was no best. I reminded everyone, “If we head west, we’ll be running along the coast of Cuba, and if we do that there will be other Guarda Frontera boats sailing out of their ports that can intercept us along the coast.”

  No one had any opinion on that, so I continued, “But if we continue north, away from the coast, the only patrol boats we need to worry about are the two that are already on our ass.”

  My crew understood the dilemma. And that’s all any captain can ask for. I turned on the radio, which was still on Channel 16, and listened, but the Cuban patrol boats had gone silent. Basically, they had nothing to say to me, or to anyone else who might be listening to Channel 16.

  I handed the mic to Felipe and said, “Broadcast a distress message, give our location, heading, and speed, then repeat it in Spanish for our Cuban amigos behind us.” I added, “Say we are being pursued by Cuban gunboats.”

  He took the mic and asked, “Our current heading?”

  “No. We’re taking a heading of . . . three hundred degrees.” I turned the wheel to port and picked up a heading that would take us northwest, toward the Straits of Florida. This heading would keep us a little closer to the Cuban coast than I wanted and keep us in Cuban territorial waters longer than I liked. But it was the most direct route home.

  Felipe began broadcasting, first in English, then in Spanish. English is the international language of the sea, but I wanted to make sure that the Guarda Frontera understood, in Spanish, that we were ratting them out. So even if we didn’t make it, they couldn’t claim, “No comprende.” But to put myself in their position, they were justified in pursuing and firing on a boat full of murderers.