Hector Santana sucked in a bushel of air and sighed audibly. “Have a nice day,” he said over his shoulder as he went through the door.
Jack Yocke stared at his face in the mirror. Blood was still trickling from several of the deeper cuts.
The boat glided gently through the shallow waters of an inlet behind an island as the daylight came. The remains of the fishing tower above the bridge listed at a crazy angle. The back end of the bridge didn’t look any better in the gray half light of dawn than it had an hour ago. The plexiglass fragments were charred a sooty black.
As Yocke watched, Santana ran the boat into a cut on the bank sheltered by several trees. A half dozen men came aboard and carried the LAW rockets, still in their olive-drab boxes stenciled U.S. ARMY, over a plank to a truck barely visible amid the vegetation.
When the job was complete, the men piled into the truck and drove away. Everyone went with them except Santana. He stood on the bridge with Yocke. “Well,” he said, “that’s done.”
“What next?”
“Unless you’re in the mood for a swim, I suggest you go ashore. Better take your stuff with you. Oh, and take my bag from the galley ashore with you. And this.” Santana drew his revolver from his waistband and tossed it at the reporter, who barely caught it.
With Yocke standing on sand trying to readjust his muscles to the absence of motion, Santana maneuvered the boat from the cut and slowly eased her several hundred yards out into the inlet, where he killed the engine. He went forward and heaved the anchor overboard.
He worked on the boat for ten or fifteen minutes while Yocke sat on the vinyl suitbag watching. The quiet was uncomfortable after two nights and a day listening to the engines. Yocke could hear birds singing somewhere and the slap-slap of water lapping at the shore, but that was about it. No engine noise, no jets overhead, no barely audible radio or television babble. Just the chee-cheeing of the birds and the water.
The pistol felt strange in his hand. Yocke examined it. A Smith & Wesson .357. It wasn’t a new gun or even in very good condition. He could see bare metal in places where the blueing was gone. But the thing that struck Jack Yocke was the weight. This thing was heavier than he thought it would be. He knew very little about firearms and had handled them on only a few occasions. Looking into the chambers from the front, he could see the bullets. Shiny little pills of instant death. Ugliness. Everything he didn’t like about the world and the people in it was right here in his hand.
He carefully laid the pistol on top of the computer case and wiped his hands in the sand.
Santana came off the boat in a clean dive and began swimming. The sun was up now and the water was a pale, sandy blue. The man swam efficiently, without wasted effort.
He was standing beside Yocke taking off his wet clothes when a dull “crump” reached them and the remains of the fish tower toppled slowly into the water. Ten seconds later another explosion, more powerful but still strangely muffled.
Santana stripped to the skin and opened his bag. He had his underwear and trousers on when he next looked at the boat. She was down visibly at the head and listing.
“How deep’s the water there?”
“Sixty or seventy feet, maybe. That’s the channel.”
“Clear as this water is, she’ll be visible from the air.”
“No one will look from the air for a few days. Then it won’t matter. We’ll be in Havana.”
“Or dead,” Jack Yocke added.
“You are very intuitive. Your grasp of the situation is really remarkable.”
“Fuck you very much.”
The forward deck was completely awash when Santana stood and dusted the sand from his trousers. He tucked the revolver into his waistline and let the loose shirt hang over it. “Come on,” he said, slung his bag over his shoulder and began walking as Yocke hurried to pick up his gear.
From a low dune a hundred yards or so inland Yocke paused and looked back at the inlet in time to see the water close over the bridge of the boat. Hector Santana kept walking. He didn’t bother to look.
“Campaigning with Cortés,” Jack Yocke muttered under his breath. He shifted the computer strap to ease the strain on his shoulder and hefted the vinyl suitcase. “Or perhaps, Walking Across Cuba by Jack Yocke, ace reporter and world-class idiot.”
An hour passed as they walked. Yocke got thirsty and said so. Santana didn’t say a word.
They were on a dirt road leading through sugarcane fields. The cane was knee high or so and green, rippling from air currents that never seemed to reach the two hikers. Away off to the south, the direction they were walking, Yocke could see clouds building over low hills or perhaps mountains. “Are there mountains in Cuba?” he asked.
They passed several empty shacks. One had an ancient, skinny chicken wandering aimlessly in the yard. No other living thing in sight.
“Where is everybody?” he asked. “Maybe we ought to look around for some water, huh? I’ll bet they got a well or something.” Santana kept walking without replying. “What’s wrong with that idea, Jack?” Yocke muttered loud enough for the Cuban to hear.
“Hey, Hector,” Jack Yocke said five minutes later. “Wanta tell me where we’re going? If we’re going to walk clear to Havana maybe I should lighten the load. What d’ya think?”
When Santana didn’t reply, Yocke stepped near his ear and yelled, “Hey, asshole!”
“Did it ever occur to you,” Santana said patiently, “that if we are stopped by Cuban troops, the less you know the better? For you, for me, for everyone?”
They walked for another hour. A small group of shacks came into sight and Santana headed for them. He went into the yard and motioned for Yocke to stay. Then he went up to a porch and looked through the screen. “María? Carlos?”
Santana went inside. Yocke sat on his vinyl bag and took his shoes off and massaged his feet. A skinny chicken came over to watch. Does Cuba have any chickens that aren’t skinny?
An old car, almost obscured by grass and weeds, sat rotting in a shed beside the house. Yocke went over and examined the car as murmurs of Spanish came through the window. An ancient Chevrolet sedan. Forty years old if it was a day. There wasn’t enough paint even to tell what the original color had been. The back window was missing. Several chickens had obviously been raising their families on the rear seat.
At least he wasn’t seasick. That was something. He was hungry enough to eat one of those scrawny chickens raw. He was watching one and trying to decide if he could catch it when Santana and a young woman came out of the house. The woman stood by Yocke as Santana went over to the car, got in, and ground on the engine.
Amazingly enough, a puff of blue smoke came out from under the car and the engine caught.
Santana backed the car into the yard. The woman opened the rear door and raked the chicken shit and straw out onto the ground. Santana got out of the car, leaving the engine running. “This is it. This is our transportation to Havana.”
“You gotta be shitting me!”
“Put your stuff in the trunk.”
“Can I have some water?”
“In the house. They don’t have any food, so don’t ask.”
The young woman took him inside. There was an old woman in a rocker, and she nodded at him. His escort dipped him a glass of water from a pail that sat in the kitchen. He drained it and she gave him another.
“You speak English?”
“A little,” she said.
“What’s your name?”
“María.”
“You know Santana?”
“Who?”
Yocke jerked his head toward the yard. “Santana.”
“Oh. Pablo.” She smiled. “He’s my brother.”
Yocke handed back the glass. “Thanks. Gracias.”