But then I saw something else. I’d adjusted my radar to get a tight picture of the Zhuk coming at me, but now I readjusted the picture to twelve miles out to see where the Stenka was, and I saw a blip to the east — the only blip on the stormy sea — and it was on a course to intercept The Maine, so it had to be the Stenka, and it was about eight nautical miles away. Shit.
If I maintained a due north heading, I’d be out of Cuban territorial waters in less than twenty minutes, but the Stenka might get within cannon range before I crossed that boundary. If I changed course to head northwest toward the Keys, I’d be in Cuban waters longer than I wanted to be, but I’d also be running away from the Stenka and also ahead of the storm. I kept looking at the radar blip, trying to do the math and the geometry, like thousands of sea captains before me. You only get one shot at this, Mac.
Sara was sitting in the chair beside me, and she may have been there awhile, but typical male, I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I didn’t notice.
I said to her, “How you doing?”
She nodded.
“Can you do me a favor? Go see if Jack... Go see how he is...”
“He’s alive,” said Jack as he came into the cabin, drenched from the rain. Then he turned around, went out to the deck, and threw up over the side. That happened to me once when I came down from the tuna tower in rough seas. Not the worst thing.
I noticed that Felipe had disappeared from the hatch, and he appeared from below with a bottle of Ron Santiago, which I’m sure he had already sampled. He passed the bottle to Sara, who handed it to me. I said, “I’m driving.”
Sara took a gulp.
Jack came into the cabin, and Sara offered him the bottle, but Jack looked a little green and went below. I heard the head door open, then close.
Felipe was starting to notice that the cabin windows had holes in them and that some of the wood and plastic was chewed up. He said something in Spanish that I guessed was “Holy shit.”
Felipe moved behind the chairs, between Sara and me, looked at the radar, and pointed. “Is that the Stenka?”
“It is.”
“Shit!”
“And behind us is the Zhuk.” I let him know, “You did an excellent job, amigo.”
He didn’t reply immediately, but then said, “I think I got the gunner.”
Jack was halfway up the stairs now and said, “I nailed that bastard right between his fucking eyes.”
Which was more likely, but for all anyone knew, Sara had one of those impossibly lucky shots that no one would believe, including the guy who caught the bullet.
Felipe asked, “What are we going to do?”
I reminded him, “We are going to let the captain make that decision.”
He didn’t reply, but kept looking at the radar screen. He said, “The Zhuk... he seems to be too far behind...”
“He’s gaining on us, but not fast enough to get into firing range unless he keeps following us into international waters.” Which he’d do, because the Zhuk captain was very pissed off and he had a score to settle, and he had superiors to answer to who I was sure were reaming his ass in Spanish over the radio. I’ve been on both ends of radio transmissions like that.
Felipe concluded, “If we maintain this course, the Stenka’s cannons will get within effective firing range of us in... maybe ten minutes.”
“Who told you about thirty-millimeter cannons?”
“Amigos.”
I need a few amigos like that. “What’s his effective firing range?”
“Four thousand meters.” He did the math and said, “About two and a half miles.” Felipe also pointed out, “He could begin firing even sooner.”
Right. The Stenka’s rapid-fire cannons could put out a lot of shit from the twin barrels, and even if it wasn’t accurate fire from a long distance, something could hit you. Or you could be having an exceptionally good day and you could sail through the shit storm. It could go either way.
Felipe gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We need to turn away from him.”
That seemed obvious, but I pointed out, “If we keep a straight course north, we’ll be in international waters in maybe ten minutes.”
Felipe informed me, “He doesn’t give a shit. That bastard would follow us to Miami if he thought he could get away with it.”
“I know that,” I assured him.
Jack also gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We gotta head west.”
“Sara?”
She agreed with Jack and Felipe, but also said, “Do what you think is best.”
Well, there was no best. I reminded everyone, “If we head west, we’ll be running along the coast of Cuba, and if we do that there will be other Guarda Frontera boats sailing out of their ports that can intercept us along the coast.”
No one had any opinion on that, so I continued, “But if we continue north, away from the coast, the only patrol boats we need to worry about are the two that are already on our ass.”
My crew understood the dilemma. And that’s all any captain can ask for. I turned on the radio, which was still on Channel 16, and listened, but the Cuban patrol boats had gone silent. Basically, they had nothing to say to me, or to anyone else who might be listening to Channel 16.
I handed the mic to Felipe and said, “Broadcast a distress message, give our location, heading, and speed, then repeat it in Spanish for our Cuban amigos behind us.” I added, “Say we are being pursued by Cuban gunboats.”
He took the mic and asked, “Our current heading?”
“No. We’re taking a heading of... three hundred degrees.” I turned the wheel to port and picked up a heading that would take us northwest, toward the Straits of Florida. This heading would keep us a little closer to the Cuban coast than I wanted and keep us in Cuban territorial waters longer than I liked. But it was the most direct route home.
Felipe began broadcasting, first in English, then in Spanish. English is the international language of the sea, but I wanted to make sure that the Guarda Frontera understood, in Spanish, that we were ratting them out. So even if we didn’t make it, they couldn’t claim, “No comprende.” But to put myself in their position, they were justified in pursuing and firing on a boat full of murderers.
Meanwhile, the Zhuk had changed course in response to my change of course, and so had the Stenka. The Zhuk was gaining on us a bit. Now that I’d changed course and was moving almost directly away from the Stenka, he wouldn’t be in firing range for about fifteen or twenty minutes if my calculations were correct. All we could do now was maintain this heading and hope that the Guarda Frontera boats received orders to give up the pursuit. I mean, hopefully the regime wouldn’t want to cause an international incident on the high seas. True, we were no longer innocent tourists — we were wanted killers — but the bastards in Havana had to decide how to deal with that problem at one in the morning — militarily or diplomatically. I hope they were having as bad a night as I was.
I turned on my chart plotter for the first time and pulled up a view that took in Key West, which was about three hundred and fifty kilometers away — about two hundred miles. I corrected my heading and hit the autopilot, which would continue to correct for drift caused by the weather and currents.
I had the wind at my back, riding ahead of the storm, which I assumed was still tracking on a northwesterly course, and I was getting a full twenty-five knots out of The Maine.
The chart clock said it was 1:57 A.M. I should be in Key West by 10, maybe 11 a.m., and in the Green Parrot for lunch. If anyone had an appetite.