Randy White - North of Havana

I crab-walked the motor to the stern and screwed it tight to the little boat's transom. Checked the oil plug and cowling before attaching the fuel line and lowering the boat into the water. I pumped the fuel-line bulb hard, pulled the choke, then yanked the starter rope.

It took me five or six tries, but when the carburetor was getting a steady flow of gas, the engine caught and held, gurgling, missing, blowing blue smoke out its exhaust. It probably had some water in the gas from condensation.

I ran the boat to shore, where Geis stood waiting.

"I'll be damned," he said. Quite a surprise-I'd done what I'd said I was going to do.

"We're going to need fuel. There's not much more than a pint in either one of these tanks."

"Fuel, that's always a problem. But we've got something a little more pressing than that. There's a two-man coast guard outpost at the mouth of the harbor, the Guardia Frontera. We try to run past them without stopping, don't have some official papers to show them, we're going to have patrol boats after us."

I'd already considered that. What I thought might work is that I'd swim back to the sailboat, cut the anchor line and raise the sails. Lash the rudder so the boat would sail north toward the mouth of the harbor, then dive overboard. Sooner or later, the men at the coast guard station would notice her and come out to investigate. With their attention diverted, we might be able to slip past them and out to sea.

But Geis said, "Yeah, but where we gonna get fuel once we leave Mariel?" He was looking at a coil of rope on the deck of the Avon. "I think I've got a better idea."

"What's that?"

He used the automatic rifle to gesture. "Put your hands out in front of you, let me tie you up. I'll tell them you're my prisoner, that I'm in a hurry."

"They're not going to believe that. If I were under arrest, you'd take me to Havana by car, not boat."

Geis's smile told me how naive I was. I watched him turn his head to look toward the abandoned naval academy, as he said, "See that cliff? Sometimes they take prisoners up there, sometimes they take them for boat rides. Depends on how important the person is and if he's actually been arrested or not." He laid his weapon across a log and came toward the Avon. "Now-you want to hand me that rope?"

There were four men at the Guardia Frontera outpost, not two. They had been sitting around in cane-back chairs but now stood as they noticed us approach. Their office was a one-room block building that sat out over the water on cement pilings, everything painted military green. A small patrol cruiser, gray with big white numbers, was bumpered off a pier that jutted away from the platform; some kind of high-bowed cutter with a 50-caliber machine gun was mounted forward and another aft near the red, white, and blue lone-star flag of Cuba.

Geis was sitting in the back of the inflatable, steering. He nudged me and whispered, "There's the boat I'd like to take… only it would attract too much attention." He didn't seem to be joking, like he was actually thinking it over.

"That would be crazy."

Small snort of laughter. "If you'd stayed in the business longer, you wouldn't worry about little things like that." Now he brought the Avon around, starboard side against a floating dock where a couple of dinghies and a dugout canoe were tied. He was already calling orders to the four men, bluffing it out in loud Spanish: "I'm going to need some gasoline right away. And a bottle of water. A couple of bottles, if you have it… yes, and some cigars, too. I'll pay-for the cigars, I mean. Not for the gas. Come on! I'm in a hurry."

He was so convincing that, for a moment, I thought Geis knew the men, that he'd given them orders before. One of them was already hustling toward a big gas storage tank that stood higher than the block building.

But no…

The officer in charge-he had red lieutenant's bars sewn into his epaulets-wasn't intimidated; not much, anyway. The officious type, with his uniform neatly pressed and an attitude, wearing a. 45 in a webbed holster. He stood there with his hands on his hips; told his men to stop what they were doing-one was getting water for us now-before he asked Geis, "Who are you?"

"You don't need to know who I am." Geis was reaching into his back pocket; took out a laminated card. "All you need to know is this."

I saw the lieutenant's face blanch slightly as he read the card, then handed it back. I wondered what it said-probably something about the office of the president and please extend every courtesy to this man… A typical clandestine device. But the guy still wasn't going to allow himself to be bullied. "Then you must have your department telephone me and ask for these things. You will need a proper requisition. We can't just hand gasoline out without the proper forms."

A bureaucrat.

Geis,. the MP5 slung over his shoulder with the barrel down, looking pissed off and bearish, threw a line around a cleat and stepped onto the dock. "Mister, I'm not going to stand here and repeat myself. I don't have time. Get the gas, get the water-or I'm going to make a telephone call and have you arrested."

In Cuba, that word-arrested-has so much weight because it has so many meanings. I was watching the lieutenant's face and saw it jar him. "I'm not saying you can't have what you need, please understand." But then he regained his composure, adding, "As to the phone, it's for official use only. I can't allow unauthorized personnel to make or receive calls."

Geis's face was getting red. I wondered if that, too, was a device; part of his many acts. I watched him advance toward the lieutenant, as he said, "What I understand is that I have a prisoner and I'm in a hurry and you are interfering with my orders which come from the Maximum Leader himself."

Maximum Leader-Castro's title of preference.

But the officer wasn't going to budge. His men were listening, judging him, judging his behavior. He said, "But I, too, have my orders. You come to me, you're carrying an illegal weapon. You're in a boat that I recognize; you've stolen it. You don't offer your name or the nature of your business. You could be anyone. And you have no forms! But here's what I will do. I will telephone my superior officer and he will say if you may have the things you need."

Geis watched the officer disappear into the office before turning to me and saying in English, "If his boss has half a brain, we'll get the gas. These people are scared of their own shadows. Mention arrested? They fall apart."

I said, "I don't like it. Let's get out of here." I didn't, either. Didn't like the contest of egos Geis had gotten into with the officer; didn't like the way the three guardsmen were standing in a tight klatch, eyeing us. Two of them with side arms, their hands resting on the grips.

Geis was shaking his head. "Hey-it was your idea to take a boat. You going to give up so easily?"

"We can find fuel someplace else. Or find another boat. You don't have access to a boat?"

"Three of them. Two back in Havana, another at Cojimar. But that would add thirty, forty miles to the trip. You want to take the time?" Geis seemed to be enjoying my uneasiness. Acting as if he could play it one way or another; didn't matter to him. I didn't like that either. All I wanted to do was get down the coast and try to find Dewey, but

Geis was treating it as sport. He loved this sort of thing. It was his life. Everything else was just role-playing. These sorts of situations were probably the only time he felt… real.

I said, "When we pull out of here, you and I need to have a talk."

"Sure. Anything you say." Still enjoying it, but something predatory in his tone now. "Before I untie your hands or after?" Then he looked away when he heard the lieutenant call, "Excuse me, sir."