“I told Carlos I was best suited to go to Cuba with Sara and find the cave — and that he needed to find a different boat with a Cuban American captain and crew.”
That may have actually worked better. And I’d be sleeping with Amber in Key West, blissfully unaware of the adventure I was missing. I assured Felipe, “Next time we’ll try it your way. But for now, we do it my way.” Regrets? I have a few.
Felipe needed to get the parting shot and said to me, “When we come back for the money, only those who speak Spanish and those who hate the regime need apply for the job.”
Sara said, “Felipe, that’s not—”
He shot her a look and she stopped talking.
Felipe needed some reality, so I said to him, “As you may know, I’m out three million dollars because of Eduardo. So I’m not in the best of moods, and when I step on that boat, I am in command, and I don’t want anyone second-guessing me about the weather, the patrol boats, the fuel, or when or if we use the guns.” I looked at Felipe. “Tell me you understand that. Or you can stay in Cuba.”
Felipe was pissed, and embarrassed in front of his girlfriend. I would be, too. But as I learned the hard way in Afghanistan, there is only one top dog when the shit is flying. And you gotta get it straight who that dog is before it starts flying. “Comprende?”
He was really pissed. But he managed a smirk and said, “Sí, Capitán.”
“Adios.”
Sara was standing now, and she hesitated, then gave Felipe a brief hug and kiss and said something in Spanish. That pissed me off, but maybe she told him to man up and vamoose.
Felipe said, “I’ll see you later,” and removed himself from the triangle, forgetting the room key.
Sara and I stood there, looking at each other. Finally, she said, “You handled that... well.”
“I did.”
“And you saved me from having to... go to the room with him.”
“That wasn’t my purpose.”
“Of course it was.”
Maybe it was. “Have a seat. I’ll tell the front desk I’m waiting for a message.”
I went to the front desk, showed my Canadian passport, and said to both clerks, a man and a woman, “I’m in the lobby bar, with a young lady, waiting for a phone message. Please deliver it to me as soon as you get it.” I incentivized them with ten CUCs each and they assured me they’d find me, even if I was in the baño.
I went back to the cocktail table, called the waitress over, and settled the bill.
Sara said, “We’ll be out of Cuban territorial waters by midnight.”
“We will.” I thought back to my last days and hours in Afghanistan. The short-timers, who’d gone through hell without even a small pee in their pants, were all jittery that something was going to happen before they boarded the freedom bird home. I mean, after you’ve cheated death for so long, you become paranoid, sure that death had just remembered you were leaving.
Sara said, “I think he knows.”
If he did, we might be waiting in that mangrove swamp for awhile. And Jack would be treading water while Felipe was in the cabin opening up the throttle as he took a direct heading for Miami, ahead of the storm and the Cuban gunboats. I mean, the money was still in Camagüey, his girlfriend was screwing around with the captain, and the police were closing in. Felipe would like to say adios to all that shit.
Sara and I sat in silence and waited for the desk clerk or Felipe to appear. Or the police.
I looked at my watch, stood, and said, “Time to go.”
“Where?”
“Let’s find out.”
Sara stood, and we collected our backpacks and walked to the lobby. I checked with the desk, and a phone message had just come in. I read the message slip — Anchors Aweigh. Will Try To Be At Sol Club 10:30 — and gave it to Sara.
She read it and looked at me. “Mac, this could be the last time we can be together. The car is locked. Let’s go upstairs.” She had the key card in her hand.
That was tempting. And it’s sort of an Army tradition that you try to get laid before you try not to get killed. But I wanted to get out of the hotel. “Have you ever done it in the back seat of a station wagon in a mangrove swamp?”
She smiled. “I’ll try anything once.”
We left the Melia Hotel. I took the car keys from Sara, unlocked her door, and got behind the wheel. I fired up the Perkins boat engine, drove down the driveway, and headed west on the beach road.
She said, “This has been the best week of my life.”
Were we in the same place? “Me too.”
“You’ve got balls. And heart.”
“And you’ve got guts and brains.” And I meant it.
“We’re a good team.”
“We are.”
“What time will we be in Key West?” she asked.
“In time for lunch.”
“I’ll buy at the Green Parrot.”
Table for two? Or three? Maybe four with Jack.
“I’ll tell Felipe after lunch that I’m not going back to Miami with him. And I’ll tell him why.”
Then maybe I should buy lunch.
“All right?”
I thought about all this — past, present, and future — and I came to the conclusion that Sara Ortega was my fate. This was where my journey had taken me. And this was good. I took her hand. “All right.”
Chapter 53
We continued along the dark beach road. The sky was looking more ominous, with black smoky clouds racing across the face of the moon.
Sara said, “There’s the sign.”
I slowed down, and my headlights picked out a faded wooden sign: SWAMP TOURS. I turned left onto a dirt road that was hemmed in by thick tropical growth. The road was rough and the steamer trunks started to bounce, so I slowed down and shifted into first gear. My headlights showed a straight path through the ten-foot brush, and I switched to parking lights.
Felipe said it was half a mile to the floating dock, and within five minutes I could smell the swamp, and a minute later I could see the sheen on the water and huge mangrove trees rising from the dark wetlands.
I slowed to a crawl as I approached the water and stopped at the shoreline. Around me was a small clearing — a turn-around and parking area in front of the floating dock. There were no boats at the dock, no vehicles, and no people except us. I shut off the parking lights and we sat there, staring into the darkness.
Sara said, “Back the wagon up to the dock.”
“Right.”
I maneuvered the Buick wagon around in the tight space and backed it up close to the floating dock. I killed the engine and said, “Let’s check it out.”
We got out of the wagon and looked around.
The fleeting moonlight reflected off the black, shiny water, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see that a thick wall of vegetation crowded the small clearing. Exposed roots from the giant mangroves provided some traction and kept the Buick from sinking into the waterlogged mud.
I walked onto the floating dock, which was not much more than a log raft, held together with rope, about five feet wide and ten feet long, jutting into the swamp. The dock was tethered to stakes at the shoreline by two ropes. It would not support the Buick, but it seemed steady and sturdy enough to allow the transferral of the cargo between the wagon and our boat. I couldn’t help but imagine that the station wagon was a big panel van, filled with a dozen steamer trunks. This would have worked. Assuming we’d made it to Camagüey. And here. Well, we’d never know.
“Okay. This is good.”
Sara was staring out at the mangrove swamp. “Can the boat get through there?”
Hopefully, Felipe had already answered that question for himself.
I looked into the dark swamp. Mangroves grew up to the shore, but there was a channel through them, obviously man-made for boats to navigate the wetlands. It was hard to judge measurement in the dark, but it seemed that The Maine, with a 16-foot beam, could come sternway through the mangrove trees — very slowly and carefully — and reach the floating dock. The problem was not the channel through the mangroves — it was the depth of the bottom, which I guessed hadn’t been dredged because swamp boats were usually flat-bottomed. The Maine, however, had a keel that was about five feet below the waterline. And even if we had seven feet of water at high tide, there were mangrove stumps out there, and roots that could foul the propeller. The good news was that we were light on fuel and cargo. Four thousand pounds of money might have put us too close to the bottom. Every cloud has a silver lining.