Now the jet was turning toward the north, still climbing and trailing smoke. Soon it was out of sight amid the altocumulus clouds.
The overturned boat had been hit by cannon fire, which punched at least six holes in the bottom. One man in the water had a broken arm, the other two were dead. A cannon shell had hit one of the men in the torso.
Chance and Carmellini managed to get the injured man aboard.
“The bodies too,” Fitzgerald demanded. “They’re my men.”
“What about the Cuban pilot?” Carmellini asked Fitzgerald.
“He’s probably dead,” the SEAL lieutenant said. “If he isn’t, I hope he’s a good swimmer.”
The naval officer used a handheld GPS to set his course to the submarine rendezvous.
Jake Grafton walked down the hill from the Officers’ Club and along the pier between the warehouses. He walked past foxholes and strongpoints made from piles of torn-up concrete, each of which contained a handful of marines, wide-eyed young men in camouflage clothing and helmets, armed to the teeth. Someone in every strongpoint watched every step he took. He walked by the muzzles of a dozen machine guns and a few light artillery pieces.
The whole area was well lit by floodlights mounted on the eaves of every warehouse. Some marines were gathered around a mobile kitchen, eating hot MREs, and some were gathered around a headquarters tent near the hurricane-proof warehouse. They all carried gas masks on their belts.
Jake stopped at the tent and said hello to the landing force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt, who was still awake and keeping an eye on things at this hour. The colonel poured Jake a cup of coffee.
“Your chief of staff, Captain Pascal, was here about an hour ago, Admiral,” the colonel said. “He tells me that cleaning out that warehouse will take three more days. The ordnance crew from Nevada is working around the clock.”
Jake nodded. Gil Pascal was briefing him four times a day.
“The men have been told that this whole operation is classified, not to be discussed with unauthorized personnel,” Eckhardt replied.
“Fine. Is there anything I can do for you, anything you need?”
They discussed logistics for a few minutes, then the colonel said, “I assume you’re keeping up with the news out of Havana, Admiral.”
“I was briefed before I came ashore,” Jake replied.
“I got a message from Central Command advising me that there are large riots going on in three or four major Cuban cities.”
“I have heard that too.”
“Does that have any bearing on our posture here, sir?” the marine officer asked.
“If I knew what the hell was going on, Colonel, you’re the first man I’d tell. Washington isn’t telling me diddly-squat. I don’t think they know diddly-squat to tell. Yes, the intel summary says people are rioting in the streets in several Cuban towns, everyone in Washington is waiting for Castro to tell his people to shut up, for the troops to wade in. So far it hasn’t happened.”
“Maybe Castro is dead,” Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt speculated.
“God only knows. Just keep your people alert and ready. Three more days. Just three more.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Try as they might, Ocho Sedano and the old fisherman could not get the water out of Angel del Mar. With both of them pushing and pulling on the pump handle they could just keep up with the water coming into the boat. If either of them stopped, and the other lacked the strength to work the pump quickly enough, the water level rose.
They struggled all night against the rising water. At dawn they knew they were beaten. No one else on the boat was willing to come below and pump. Some said they were afraid of being trapped below deck if the boat should go under, and others plainly lacked the strength. The passengers of the Angel del Mar lay about the deck horribly sunburned, semiconscious, severely dehydrated and starving.
On the evening of the previous day one woman drank sea water. The old fisherman didn’t see her do it, but he knew she had when she began retching and couldn’t stop. She retched herself into unconsciousness and died sometime during the night. When he went up on deck in the middle of the night, she was dead, lying in a pool of her own vomit.
The other children were also dead. Three little corpses, now still forever.
No one protested when he threw their bodies overboard.
Then he went below to help Ocho.
The losing battle was fought in total darkness against an inanimate pump handle and their own failing strength in a tossing, heaving boat as water swirled around their legs. Ocho prayed aloud, sobbed, babbled of his mother, of his deceased father, of the days he remembered from his youth.
The old fisherman remained silent, not really listening to Ocho — who never stopped pumping — but thinking of his own life, of the women he had loved, of the hard things life had taught him. He would die soon, he knew, and somehow that was all right, a fitting thing, the proper end to the great voyage he had had through life. Life pounds you, he thought, knocks out the pride and piss of youth. Live long enough and you begin to see the big picture, see yourself as God must see you, as a flawed mortal speck of protoplasm whose fate is of little concern to anyone but you. You work, eat, sleep, defecate, reproduce, and die, precisely like all the others, no different really, and the planet turns and the star burns on, both quite indifferent to your fate.
He understood the grand scheme now, and thought the knowledge worth very little. Certainly not worth the effort of telling what he knew to the boy, who would also die soon and lacked the fisherman’s years and experience. No, the boy would not appreciate the wisdom that age had acquired.
When the gray light from the coming day managed to find its way down the hatch and showed him the level of the water sloshing about, the old fisherman said “Enough. Out. Up the ladder before she goes under.” He pulled Ocho away from the handle, shoved him up the ladder.
“Up, up, damn you. I want out of here too.” The words made Ocho scramble out of the way.
The sea was empty in every direction. The old fisherman looked carefully, then shook his head sadly. Where were the ships and boats that were usually here? Why had no one seen the drifting wreck of the Angel del Mar?
“Into the ocean with you. The boat is sinking. You must get into the water, swim away, so the mast and lines will not trap you and pull you under when she sinks.”
They stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Into the water, or not,” he said softly, “as you choose. May God be with you.”
And he walked aft and stepped off the stern of the ship into the sea. The salt water felt refreshing, welcomed him.
Ocho Sedano stood on the rail a moment, then stumbled and fell in. He paddled toward the old man.
“Ocho!” Dora stood there on deck, calling to him.
“You must swim,” Ocho said. “The boat is sinking.” There was little freeboard remaining, the deck was almost awash. Indeed, even as he spoke a wave broke over the deck.
Dora looked wildly about, unwilling to abandon the dubious safety of the boat. Other people joined her, some on hands and knees, unable to stand. They looked at the two men in the water, at the horizon, at the swells, at the sky.
One woman rocked back and forth on her heels, moaning softly, her eyes open.
“Swim,” the old man told Ocho. “Get away before it goes.”
He turned his back on the boat and began swimming. Ocho followed.
After a minute or so Ocho ceased paddling and looked back. The boat was going under, people were trying to swim away. He heard a woman screaming — Dora, perhaps.
The mast toppled slowly as the swells capsized Angel del Mar. Then, with an audible sigh as the last of the air escaped, the boat went under.