Cuban Death-Lift (24 page)

“Oh god, O'Davis.”

“I'll wager ya didn' think me a slovenly child when meself, Westy O'Davis, clouted the Cuban guard who was about ta shoot ya. . . .”

“Do I have to listen to this again?”

“An' knocked the bloody Russian rifle from the other guard's hands . . .”

“O'Davis?”

“. . . jest when he was about ta' shoot ya, ye ugly little snit . . .”

“O'Davis. Just tell me why you're looking at the charts, okay?”

He stopped in mid-sentence, looked at me, and grinned. It was the kind of pleasant banter we had been enjoying all week; the kind the big Irishman reveled in. He rattled the chart meaningfully and said grandly, “Because, brother MacMorgan, tomorrow we're gettin' on that black-hulled power demon of yers and takin' a trip. All week long ye've been tellin' me that the only coastal wilderness left in Florida is the southwest coast, an' now that I've seen the Ten Thousand Islands on the chart, I want to see them in real life.”

I shrugged, hiding my enthusiasm. Truth was, my stilthouse is awfully close quarters for two big men. And I, like the Irishman, was getting a little antsy. Besides, I loved the Ten Thousand Islands and the wilderness below them. On a map of Florida, it looks like the area below Naples and that concrete grotesquerie called Marco Island breaks into a massive jigsaw puzzle of windswept islands and sea. It's wild and deserted—a hundred miles of tidal rivers and mangrove islands and stretches of desolate beach.

“Bugs will be bad,” I said.

“Devil take the bugs.”

“I have a friend who lives on one of the backcountry islands. He's a hermit.”

“The island with all the tarpon?”

I nodded. “But there'll be no women, O'Davis. Don't forget that. You're not going to be able to slip into Key West like you did last night and cat around.”

He put on his special lecherous look and winked at me. “After last night, who needs the ladies, brother MacMorgan? I felt like a candle in a town full of moths, I did—so who needs 'em now?”

So that's how we happened to be cruising off White Horse Key on a full-moon night in June. It had taken us three very lazy days of fishing and diving to get across Florida Bay and idle our way along Cape Sable and past the mangrove giants of Shark River. We had spent the best of the twilight nosing around Indian Key Pass on the outgoing tide, taking five good snook on sweetened jigs and releasing four. So now I steered from the main controls of the cabin, vectoring in on the distant flare of Coon Key light with the vague idea of running into the backcountry, where the tarpon would be rolling in sheens of silver moonlight by the old houseboat across from Dismal Key.

Because of the bright moon, we ran without lights. The VHF was off in favor of a Fort Myers radio station that fed a steady diet of classic old jazz throughout
Sniper.
O'Davis was up on the flybridge, supposedly watching for crabpot buoys that could foul
Sniper
's twin brass wheels. But he was actually gazing at the moon, drinking beer, and singing. It is the secret belief of most ethnic descendants that those little ethnic legends are full-blown truths, as if some mystic source seeds our brains with the talents of ancient birthright. With Italians it is cooking, with the French it is love, with the Swedes it is sailing, and with the Irish it is singing. I don't know about the Italians, French, and Swedes, but Westy O'Davis was seriously shortchanged in his atavistic talents. His Irish tenor sounded more like a water spaniel having difficulties with a bear. Even so, he still loved to sing—and that's really why he was up on the flybridge.

I was relaxed, listening to the strains of vintage Cole Porter waft across water and airwaves, studying the hulking shadow of mainland coast.
Sniper
was running a conservative twenty knots, and the silver expanse of sea spread out before us. It was a good night to sip at a cold beer and enjoy the nocturnal desolation only the sea and certain northern forests can offer, and I was caught up in the beauty of it all when the roaring voice of O'Davis snapped me out of my reverie.

“Back 'er, Dusky! Back 'er
now,
Yank!”

At sea you don't question a command like that—and back her I did, driving both gearshifts into abrupt reverse, cringing at the strain I knew was being put on the transmission. There was a slight
clunk
against the fiberglass hull, then nothing. I switched the engines off, then went running back to the aft deck.

“What the hell did you see, you crazy—”

“There's someone out there, Yank!” He pointed anxiously to port. “Someone swimmin'—I swear it. Thought it was a bloody dog at first!”

And then I saw it too. A dark shadow on the silver veil of water. Someone clinging to something. Someone weak, floundering. And disappearing rapidly astern as the momentum of
Sniper
carried us onward. In one long step I was on the transom, quickly diving headlong into the night sea. I swam with head up, keeping a close eye on the dark shape in the distance. Behind me, I heard O'Davis start
Sniper
and turn to follow.

It was a person all right. Someone hanging on to one of those cheap weekender life vests. The Coast Guard says the vests are fine for pleasure craft. And they are—if said pleasure craft doesn't sink. I tried shouting, and got a low moan for an answer. So I made a quick forward approach, grabbed a dangling arm, pulled and took the chin firmly in my right hand, then switched to a cross-chest carry with my left.

And that's when I realized my victim was a woman. A very, very naked woman.

O'Davis came up carefully behind us, reversed engines expertly, and rigged the boarding ladder. I slung her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry and pulled her up onto
Sniper.
He had a blanket ready, and I put her down back first on the deck. The cabin lights were on and you could see her clearly. She looked about twenty or twenty-one, though she could have been a few years older. Blond hair, cut as short as a boy's, surrounded a fine, angular face with a strong nose and full mouth. She was short—all breasts and shoulders, with slender hips and thin legs. No rings. No necklace. And not a stitch. O'Davis quickly pulled the blanket up around her—an admirable show of character because, as they say in the commercials, she was a very full-figured girl.

“Do ye know first aid, Yank?” We stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the girl wrapped in the blanket.
Sniper
's engines burbled quietly in the moonlight, and somewhere a wading bird squawked.

“I do for drowning—but she wasn't drowning. She had a life vest. I think we may have clipped her with the hull when we went by.”

O'Davis knelt and gently searched the fine blond hair with his meaty hand. “Aye. There's a lump here, sure enough.” He looked up at me. “What in bloody hell do ya think she was doin' at midnight a quarter-mile off shore in the Ten Thousand Islands?”

I shook my head. “Damned if I know. Maybe she was on a boat that went down. Or went for a swim and got caught by the tide. It happens.”

The Irishman picked her up and carried her down into the forward vee-berth. She moaned softly, stretched her neck as if to yawn, then opened her eyes. The shock registered when she realized she was on a strange boat, and both hands strained to pull the blanket tightly around her body. “Hey! Where am I? Who are you? What in the hell do you—”

“Shush . . . shush now, child,” O'Davis said gently. He reached to pat her head, and she jerked violently away.

“Keep your rotten hands off me!” She threw herself back on the bunk, twisting her head away.

I looked at the Irishman. “Like moths to a candle flame, huh?”

“Ah, she's young, Yank. Very young. But give 'er time and she'll be baskin' in me light.”

“Well, we're not going to give her much time because I'm calling the Coast Guard right now and having them send out a helicopter. A head injury is nothing to toy with—”

“No!” It was the girl, sitting up again, a wild look in her eyes. “No, don't call the Coast Guard. Please—”

I didn't have time to ask her why she didn't want me to notify the Coast Guard. Because that's when the sea turned to fire. The mangroves a quarter-mile away were caught in a stark-white light—the same fiery light that showed me the shock wave rolling toward us.

That's when the boat—less than 800 yards away—suddenly exploded, lighting
Sniper
in its orange chromosphere, and catching the half-smile on the face of the girl. . . .