Randy White - Twelve Mile Limit

At the time, I was a columnist for one of the nation’s great magazines, Outside. My editor gave me free rein to do whatever it took to find out the truth about the sinking of the boat. Exactly four weeks after the event, I accompanied several professional divers and a former FBI agent to the wreck of the Baja California. They’d been hired to bring up equipment and personal effects that had been lost when the boat sank. Ironically, the weather was nearly identical to the weather on the day of the accident, with a wind out of the northeast fifteen to twenty knots. Aboard our fifty-three-foot cruiser, the four- to six-foot seas were unpleasant. In a twenty-five-foot boat, conditions would have been miserable.

Like Marion Ford, I dived the wreck. Like Ford, I got into the water near midnight in an attempt to gain some understanding of the terror those divers experienced that night.

Over the next two months, I investigated every minute aspect of the event and interviewed many dozens of people, including the diver who was found atop the light tower. Investigators hired by the families and I were all seeking answers to the same questions: Why weren’t the three divers found? If dead, they would still be afloat somewhere.

My story was published. I remained in contact with the father of one of the missing three divers, Bill Madott. He refused to give up hope. All of the families refused to give up hope. Because I travel a lot, I helped the families circulate posters in Cuba and countries in Central and South America. Perhaps a boat-a boat used in some kind of illegal enterprise-had picked them up and carried them off to a foreign land. Perhaps they were being held hostage, or maybe they were being used as slave labor.

Perhaps.

Years passed. I continued to stay in contact with Bill. Recently, when I called and told him I was considering writing a fictionalized account of the tragedy, he was enthusiastic.

“Anything to get the word out,” he told me.

The story you’ve just read of their disappearance is precise and factual in every small detail, including actual quotes from many of the people associated with what happened. However, I have completely reinvented not only all four divers, but everyone and anyone involved directly or peripherally with the event. Why? The reason that all the characters in this novel must be fictionalized is simple: No one can write from the perspective of the divers but the divers themselves. Because I wanted to explore the possibilities of what might have happened in fiction, they and everyone else had to be newly minted. The only things the divers of fact have in common with the missing divers in this book are similarities assigned intentionally by me: All were strong, productive, intelligent, and decent people. All were capable of behaving and performing as well as others who have actually survived similar tragedies.

After voluminous research, after hours of interviews with their friends, families, and coworkers, I am convinced that all were capable of enduring heroically and that they probably did endure heroically-three lone stars out on the Gulf Stream.

The political realities of South America as portrayed here are also based on extensive personal research and are accurate in each detail, including information on the natural history of Amazon rain forests and the work of terrorist cells that have found safe haven in the South American country of Colombia. For instance, the fictional Hal Harrington speaks factually when he writes: “Maicao, Colombia, is an Islamic extremist stronghold. Our government has yet to deal with anti-American organizations here, but it is time we started.” The same is true about the data on the international flesh-trade business, white slavery, and the smuggling of illegal aliens.

I should add, however, in fairness to Colombia and its 48 million people-most of whom are extraordinarily friendly, gifted, and generous-that this country remains one of my favorite travel destinations despite its troubles. Jamaica? The Bahamas? San Jose, Costa Rica, or Mexico? I feel much safer in Cartagena, and, in my opinion, it’s a heck of a lot more fun and far more interesting.

The trick is choosing where you go outside Cartagena, and when. The same is true of all rain-forest countries and other wild regions-open sea, for instance-for, in these places, “civilized” people disappear every day.