Cuban Death-Lift (14 page)

There was no laughter now.

Their trophy was nowhere to be found.

I grabbed a towel, stripped off my underwear, and dried off. The green glow of my Rolex watch said it was nearly three a.m.

Some rude awakening.

I hung my shorts over the stainless-steel wheel to dry, then pulled on the good dryness of khaki pants and T-shirt. It wouldn't do to be soaking wet when the soldiers started their search of boats.

And I knew they would. Sooner or later, if the body didn't appear, they would have to.

It surprised me when I heard the sound of a weak male voice coming from the cabin. I had told Androsa to call me if the refugee regained consciousness. And just as I was about to go below to see if he had anything to say, I stopped myself.

Maybe she hadn't called me for a reason.

Barefooted, I made my way along the starboard walkway forward. The port above the master berth was screened from bugs, but open for the breeze. I stretched out over and in, looking down into the cabin.

I could see them both clearly. The white T-shirt did a bad job of hiding Androsa's nakedness, and she had the man's head cradled in her lap. She spoke in whispered Spanish: rapid, inquisitive.

He was so weak that he could do nothing else but whisper. His words came in agonizing gasps. And I knew he didn't have much longer to live. Every now and then he would clutch at the bandage on his head in a spasm of pain. When he did speak, it seemed to be a rambling montage of nouns, all in delirious disorder.

Androsa did her best to calm him, stroking his head with a damp cloth and questioning him softly. There was a gentleness to her that I had only suspected.

He spasmed again, and she held him tightly.

He said this last in a hoarse shout, rolling out of Androsa's arms in his pain, and then, mercifully, was quiet. Sobbing quietly, the woman pulled his eyelids shut and covered his face with the tarp.

Quickly, I made my way back to the aft deck, his feverish last words echoing in my brain.

Hermanastro?
What in the hell did
hermanastro
mean?
Herman
was “brother,” but what was . . .

Androsa came onto the deck stoically, her eyes already dry.

“He's gone,” she said simply.

“I'm sorry.”

She touched my face with her hand. “You did more than most men would have done—Cuban or otherwise.”

It was an honest bitterness I felt; honest because it seems that, no matter how hard you try, no matter how desperately you fight, death is always the unchallenged victor. “Right,” I said. “Absolutely. I'm a real goddam ace. . . .”

It didn't take me long to verify that the dead “refugee” was really one of the Cuban-American CIA agents sent to Mariel Harbor to rescue General Halcón.

While Androsa stayed up on the deck, trying to recover while keeping an eye on the progress of the search boats, I went back below.

“I'll take care of the body,” I told her.

“But how? What will you do?”

She looked tired, depressed. There was a strange emptiness in her eyes. She still wore the baggy T-shirt and brief panties. I put my arm around her, and she sagged against my chest. Her hair smelled lightly of tanning oil, and her skin was soft.

“You need some sleep. You look tired.”

“Oh, I feel so damn . . . helpless!”

I thought she was going to cry again, but she didn't.

“You're anything but helpless. Just tired, that's all.” I patted her head gently. “I'll take care of things down in the cabin. When I'm done, I'll call you. And then you can get back to sleep.”

She looked up into my face. Her lips were moist and parted, and there was a soft sleepiness to her face. She looked very kissable, and I felt something in my stomach stir, but now was not the time.

She said, “Dusky, when we started this trip I . . . I hated you. And I hated the idea of having to be on this boat with you. But now I'm glad. You aren't like I thought, and . . . and I'm glad. . . .”

She left the sentence unfinished, sighing.

“I've wondered about that—why did you hate me? I've always thought I was a pretty swell guy.”

She almost smiled. “Do you want me to be honest?”

“Sure.”

“Well, so many Anglos come to Mariel to get rich. They charge my people unbelievably high prices to bring them here. My people had to mortgage their homes, sell their jewelry, and . . . well, I just don't like people who try to make money on the desperation of others.”

“I didn't come cheap,” I said. It wasn't true—but I had to say it.

“I know, I know.” She stopped and looked at me. “But no matter how hard I try now, I can't make myself believe that you came for the money. No one else would have jumped in to save . . . save that poor man.” She was studying me now, the way someone might study an enigmatic painting. “Dusky, somehow, you give me the feeling that you
care.
I never expected that—never, not from some big blond-haired charter-boat captain. But I'm . . . I'm glad. . . .”

Her face was tilted toward mine. It was a face from Gauguin; a dream face draped in a black sheen of hair. I felt myself drifting toward her, wanting her lips, wanting to hold her, wanting to take her as a part of me—to strip away that final reserve which was the mystery of her and discover the woman inside.

Abruptly, she turned her face aside.

“I'd better keep an eye on those . . . those search boats,” she said. Her breathing seemed strangely labored, and as she turned sideways I could see the points of her nipples erect beneath the thin T-shirt.

“Right,” I said. “Yeah, you better do that.”

“And you'll take care of—”

“Right.”

I went below and quickly lashed the tarp and bloody sheet around the body. His face was waxy, peaceful in death. And, as always, I felt that odd sense of loss in the face of death, like a member of some huge fleet who looks out and sees that boats are being quietly abandoned. That seemed to describe death better than anything else. Personalities don't die, they just disappear; abandon their vessels for—for what?

I pushed back the screen of the overhead port and shoved the body up onto the foredeck.

One of the gunboats had pulled up beside a big shrimp boat three hundred yards downtide. They figured, probably, if he had drowned his body would have drifted in that direction. The soldiers had the boat's searchlight fixed on the faces of the Cuban-Americans aboard the shrimp boat, and they were asking them questions in loud Spanish.

I got all the spare chain I had from the forward locker—about fifty pounds' worth—and took a roll of wire, the side-cuts, and my spare thirty-pound anchor.

Except for my rock anchor, it was all the extra ground tackle I had, and if another squall came blasting across the Straits like the last one . . . well, it would be time to head for deep water and break out the canvas sea anchor.

But I couldn't worry about that now.

Before I climbed out onto the deck, I fished my black watch sweater and wool cap out of my sea bag and pulled them on.

It was no time to be seen.

I tossed the chain over one shoulder, then pulled myself up through the porthole.

Wiring weights to a corpse is not what you call pleasant duty. I hitched the first link firmly to his right ankle, then wrapped the chain around him barber-pole-like, then added more wire at the neck. The wire snugged up with grisly ease. When the chain was in place, I secured the anchor to his stomach.

Staying low, I pulled him across the foredeck. I didn't want to risk making a loud splash. I positioned his head so that it hung off the deck. Bracing my legs as best I could, I got down on my stomach and began to lower him over.

What would the total weight be?

One hundred and seventy pounds plus eighty?

In that area.

One hell of a heavy load.

The stripping around the deck cut into my arms and my shoulders creaked with the strain. Hand over hand, I lowered him head first into the black water.

He went down in a swirl of green phosphorescence, sparkling into the depths, as if he fell through stars.

I looked up. The gunboat was finished with the shrimp boat. It used no running lights. And it was coming our way.

So let them come. What they were looking for was now five fathoms down, already disappearing into the soft mud bottom.

I slid back through the porthole, pulling the screen shut behind me.

The woman was still back on the fighting deck. So I had time to check what I wanted to check.

I pulled off the sweater and cap and stuffed them back into my sea bag. The biographies Norm Fizer had given me were well hidden. I pulled back the indoor-outdoor carpet above the forward bilge. The bilge was dry and empty—except for one spare marine battery. It was the best kind of hiding place—no one wants to mess with fifteen pounds of wet-cell.

But this was no ordinary battery.

Using my Gerber knife, I pried the whole top off it, hearing water slosh in the fake cap compartments. The file was in there; the biography file and more. There was my Randall attack-survival knife, the knife that had saved my life—and taken others—more than once. And beneath that were the seven one-pound blocks of RDX plastic explosives: Cyclonite, the deadliest military-strength explosive available. And that wasn't my only offensive option. I stuck my arm into the bilge and felt the roof of the compartment.

The handmade aluminum arrows were all there, taped in place. They were precision instruments that fitted the Cobra crossbow I had disassembled and stored innocuously in the engine compartment.

The file was rolled into a tight tube. I slid the rubber bands off and leafed through the pages until I had found what I was looking for. Even without the head wound, it was easy to see that the man who was chained thirty feet beneath
Sniper
was the same man in the black-and-white glossy photo:

It was all straight from the sterile computers at the sterile headquarters in Washington, where a man's life, like certain chemicals, can be readily distilled into a few nouns, and where even honors are worthy only of abbreviation.

I wondered if they had a printout on me, and knew, of course, that they did. Empty facts and figures, the biographical skeleton of me. I was surprised to find myself suddenly furious; mad at the facts-and-figures bastards in Washington; bitter at the truth that I too had become nothing more than a killing pawn for the “Organization,” one more name on a list.

In childish protest, I ripped up the photo and short biography of the late Ovillo Gomez. I wouldn't give the computer goons a chance to stamp
Killed in Line of Duty
across them.

And I hoped that, someday, someone would do the same for me. . . .

 

Captain Lobo was in a surly mood when his gunboat finally rumbled up beside
Sniper.

His fat face glistened with sweat as if hunting down a corpse were the hardest work of all. The snap on his holster was undone, the little Russian revolver ready.

I had gone back out to the aft deck to stand with Androsa and await their arrival. One by one, they were searching boats. And I knew that our time would come.

Almost on queue, the gunboat's searchlight painted us in its stark glare. Androsa shielded her eyes, then looked away.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you going to be able to handle this?”

“You just take care of yourself, Captain.”

“You're trembling.”

“Only because I'm cold.”

“It might be that outfit you're wearing—not that I don't like it.”

She looked absently at the long T-shirt she wore as a nightgown. “Oh,” she said. “I'd forgotten.” She tried briefly to cover herself with her hands, then realized how ridiculous it was. “The boat's coming—I don't have time to—”

“I've got an old robe I'll lend you.”

By the time I got back up and helped her put on the robe, Lobo's crew was making lines fast to
Sniper
's cleats. It was the same twosome: Lobo, looking surly; Zapata only grim, like some diseased hawk. But even in Lobo's mood, the expression of amusement was pasted onto his face. Only now the grin was more of a sneer.

“You are up very late, señorita,” Lobo said, coming aboard, trying to straighten his uniform and hat all at the same time. And then to me: “Ah, and you too,
Capitán?
May I ask why?”

“Gunshots seem to give me insomnia, Captain Lobo.”

“Ah?” And then the broad smile: “So we are all up when some of us would much rather be in bed. No?”

He looked meaningfully at the woman. If he wanted a game, I was happy to play along. I reached out and put my hand on Androsa's shoulder. “I just wish that was true,” I said.

As I hoped she would, she jerked away from my grasp.

Lobo laughed with ugly delight. “So! A hot-blooded one, this? Hah!”

Zapata had said nothing. The spotlight was still aimed at
Sniper,
and he stood in the brief shadow of the cabin. Increasingly, I was becoming aware that the crew of the gunboat was giving me special attention, eyeing every move I made. Their automatic weapons were in evidence, but it was more than just a military attention. Their faces seemed amused, expectant. Some of them even smiled, looking from me to Zapata.