There was a silence, then one of them called, “Buenas noches, señora.”
I slipped the Glock under my shirt and stood, but I didn’t call out buenas noches in my Maine accent.
The two men, who looked young, jumped out of the boat into the water, then took hold of a bow line and pulled the flat-bottomed boat onto the muddy shore. They made conversation with Sara as they dragged the small fiberglass boat farther inland.
Sara walked toward them, still chatting, and like fishermen everywhere, they showed her their catch, which looked like catfish. And they looked like poor fishermen. But this was Cuba, where everyone had a second job.
The men were barefoot, but they slipped sandals over their muddy feet and pulled the boat close to the Buick and glanced at the tarp.
They conversed with Sara, obviously about the station wagon, and gave me a few quick looks.
One of them went into the bush and came out pulling a small boat trailer. They put their fiberglass boat on the trailer, secured it with a line, and maneuvered the trailer around the Buick and onto the dirt road.
I can’t remember how many times my night patrols had run into locals, and how many times I had to make the decision of what to do with those people. I started with the premise that no one could be trusted, and I worked out a solution from there.
The two young men waved to us as they pulled their boat and trailer — a little too fast — up the road we’d come in on. Buenas noches.
I looked at Sara. “Well?”
“I... don’t know. They seemed... friendly.” She added, “They’re just fishermen.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“I told them we were waiting for friends to come in from fishing.”
“All right...” But if I had it to do over again, those guys would be looking down the barrel of my gun while Sara tied their hands and feet with their line, and they’d now be resting comfortably in the back seat of the Buick. But you don’t get do-overs.
I looked at my watch: 10:04. Nothing to do now except wait for our ride. And keep alert.
It was 10:30, and though I didn’t hear The Maine, Sara wanted to unload the station wagon. “They’re coming,” she assured me. We threw our backpacks on the dock, then Sara and I lifted the heavy steamer trunk filled with título de propiedades out of the rear compartment, walked it across the black tarp, and set the trunk down in the middle of the floating dock.
On our way back to get the second trunk, I heard the sound of an engine — but not in the swamp. It was on the dirt road.
Sara and I exchanged glances and I pulled my Glock.
There were headlight beams coming through the darkness, and the engine got louder, then the headlights illuminated the Buick and us, and the vehicle suddenly stopped about twenty feet away. Someone shouted something in Spanish. I don’t speak the language, but I know what “Guarda Frontera” means.
Sara said, “Oh, God...”
I jumped on the rear bumper of the station wagon and aimed my Glock across the Buick’s roof at the open Jeep vehicle.
A guy was standing in the passenger side, a rifle aimed at me above the windshield, and he shouted something.
I fired three rounds at him, and the blasts split the night air. I shifted my aim and fired three more rounds through the windshield opposite the driver, then fired my remaining three rounds, right to left, in case I missed anything.
The birds were silent now, and there was no sound from the Jeep except the idling engine. I quickly reloaded my second magazine into the Glock.
The rule is to wait fifteen seconds to see if your kill suddenly springs to life, so I waited, but there was no movement in the Jeep.
I jumped down from the bumper and made my way quickly but cautiously to the military vehicle. The guy slumped in the passenger seat was still alive, but the driver had caught one above his right eye. They were young guys. Maybe twenty.
I reached in and turned off the headlights, then shut off the engine and threw away the keys. I retrieved the rifle from the dying guy, which was an AK-47 with a thirty-round magazine. I found another loaded AK in the rear, along with an ammo pouch and four loaded magazines. I slung one of the rifles over my shoulder and started back toward the Buick, carrying the second rifle.
Well, I’d just committed murder in the People’s Republic of Cuba. Surrender was no longer an option. It never was.
Sara was calling my name, and I said, “I’m okay—” There was suddenly light around me, and I heard an engine behind me. I spun around and saw another set of headlights bouncing over the rough road.
I jumped onto the hood of the Jeep and knelt as I flipped the firing switch of the AK-47 to full automatic. The Jeep was less than thirty feet from me and slowing down as it approached the first Guarda Frontera Jeep. I could hear voices that sounded confused as to what was happening. Well, let me end the confusion. I squeezed the trigger and fired a long burst of green tracer rounds into the windshield left to right. The Jeep veered into the wall of brush and the engine stalled out.
I stood on the hood of the first Jeep and looked up the dark road, but there were no more headlights coming.
I jumped down and ran back to the Buick where Sara had already managed to get the steamer trunk full of skulls out of the wagon, and she was dragging it over the tarp toward the floating dock. “Mac! Are you okay?”
“I’m good.” I grabbed a handle and we carried the trunk quickly onto the dock. I slapped a fresh thirty-round magazine into the AK-47 that I’d fired and laid both rifles on the steamer trunks.
I pulled my Swiss Army knife from my pocket and cut the two lines that tethered the dock to the shore. Meanwhile, Sara had one of the poles and pushed off.
The dock floated a few feet, then started back on the incoming tide. I grabbed the other pole and together we pushed off again, then stuck the poles into the muddy bottom and began poling away from the shore.
The floating dock was not floating very fast, and it took all our strength to push against the poles and move the dock a few feet against the tide. But we were making a little progress and the dock was now about twenty feet from the shoreline. A few feet later, the bottom dropped and we had barely two feet of pole to work with, so we knelt to give us more leverage.
I looked up to see how far we’d gotten and saw head beams reflecting off the mangrove trees on the shore. Shit.
Sara saw it too. “Mac... look...”
“See it. Keep pushing.”
We got a few more feet out, but we were barely sixty feet from the shore and already we were getting fatigued. Meanwhile, where was The Maine?
The vehicle that had arrived was obviously blocked by my two kills, but he’d left his headlights on, which was not smart, because I could now see three men on the shore, silhouetted against the head beams. One guy was looking at the Buick and two were looking out at the swamp.
I grabbed one of the AK-47s and got down into a prone firing position. Darkness distorts perception — aim lower than the target you see. I held my fire, waiting to see if they spotted us. Then one of the guys shouted, and I saw a muzzle flash, followed by the buzzing sounds of green tracer rounds going high, and the almost simultaneous pop-pop-pop that the AK-47 makes. I hear that fucking sound in my nightmares.
I steadied my aim and returned the fire, raking the shore with six-round bursts, adjusting my aim as the streaks of my green tracers hit the shoreline. One man screamed and went down. I quickly changed magazines, and noticed that they’d shut off their headlights.
Tracers show where your rounds went, but they also show where they came from, and the return fire was more accurate. A few rounds hit the water in front of me, then one hit the steamer trunk next to me. Sara was still kneeling and pushing with the pole, and she was presenting too good of a target. “Get down!”