Nelson DeMille - The Cuban Affair

I didn’t like his tone of voice to Sara, and I said nicely, “It doesn’t matter what happened. It only matters that we didn’t get to Camagüey.” I asked him, “What did Eduardo tell you?”

He stared at me. “Eduardo, the last time I saw him, was undecided about Camagüey.”

“Well, he decided.” I asked him, “How’s Jack?”

“He’s good. And he’ll be happy to hear you’ve made it.”

Did he tell you I was probably fucking your girlfriend?

Felipe said, “You weren’t supposed to meet Jack in Havana.”

Felipe was a little more cocky than I remembered. “It was Eduardo who I wasn’t supposed to meet in Havana.”

He had no reply to that, but asked Sara, “How was my uncle when you saw him?”

“He was happy,” Sara assured him. “He was ready to go home.”

Felipe nodded. “He’s walking with God.”

I said, “He’s walking with too much information.”

Felipe informed me, “You don’t understand.”

I almost said, “Sara has been trying to make me understand,” but I bit my cocktail stirrer.

Sara said, “I pray for him.”

Felipe seconded that. I could see they had a lot in common.

Felipe asked me, “Do you still have the gun?”

“Why would I not?”

“I can take it if you’re uncomfortable carrying it.”

Sigmund Freud would say he wanted to take my dick off. I didn’t reply.

The waitress brought our drinks, and Felipe asked us, for her benefit, “So are you staying here?”

Sara replied, “No. We’re at the Sol Club.”

“Just in from Toronto,” I added.

The waitress left and Felipe told me, “This is where the tournament is staying, and there’s an extra room that you can use to freshen up before our cruise.”

“Sara said.”

He looked at me as though I needed a bath. “I have the key. You can go first, and Sara and I will follow when you come back.”

Really? I didn’t think so. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“We’ll have time after Sara and I use the room.” He smiled. “I need a real shower after five days on your boat.”

I leaned toward him. “Let me make something clear. When we step on my boat, I am in charge. And let me make something else clear — there is no time when you are in charge.”

So we locked eyeballs, and if we’d had horns we’d have locked them, too.

Felipe backed off and said, “The showers can wait.”

Sara said, “Thank you.”

She was obviously a little intimidated by her boyfriend — or feeling guilty. I asked him, “What time do we sail?”

“About eleven.”

“Why eleven?”

“Two reasons. One is port security. The Guarda Frontera — the border guards — have two patrol boats, and Jack and I have watched them. One goes out at dusk, and returns at about three or four in the morning. The other, the faster one, goes out at about midnight and returns at dawn.” He continued, “We want an hour head start on that one.”

“Then let’s leave earlier and get a two-hour start.”

“We can’t. The second reason is the tide. It’ll be high tide at eleven-twelve and I’m going to take the boat into the mangrove swamp on the south side of the island, and I can only do that at high tide.” He added, “I will meet you both there.”

I’d thought we were going to load up and cast off at the marina, and I wasn’t sure about The Maine in a mangrove swamp. “We have only two trunks to load. Why can’t we leave from the marina?”

He explained, a bit impatiently, “Because the border guards want to know what you’re doing, who and what you’re bringing onboard, and if they don’t recognize you, they check passports and tourist visas.”

“They actually want a donation to their retirement fund.”

Felipe nodded, but said, “I don’t want you two to interact with them.”

He sounded like he knew what he was doing. If he could stop thinking about me screwing his girlfriend, he should be able to concentrate on the great escape. “And we meet you in the mangrove swamp?”

He nodded. “This place was scouted a few months ago, and I checked it out and drew a map for you.”

Apparently every Cuban thought he was Magellan.

He continued, “There’s a dirt road that goes down to a floating dock in the mangrove swamp. Locals and tourists use the dock, usually during the day, and the road will support a heavy vehicle.” He asked, “What are you driving?”

Sara replied, “A Buick station wagon.”

He looked at her. “What’s in the two trunks?”

I replied, “If your uncle didn’t tell you, you don’t need to know.”

“I think I know.”

“Then don’t ask.”

He started to say something, then thought better of it and finished his daiquiri, then signaled the waitress for another. I didn’t want him drunk, so I said, “That’s the last one.” I asked, “Is there a problem for you and Jack getting the boat out of the marina at that hour?”

“I just need to have the Guarda Frontera sign a despacho for some night fishing, which I’ll do when I get back to the marina. If it’s just Jack and me, and if I don’t have our three fishermen aboard, the Guarda won’t think we’re all trying to escape from Cuba for some paranoid reason.”

“Will your fishermen be okay after we disappear?”

“They’ll be as surprised as the border guards tomorrow morning. They should be okay under questioning.” He added, “They have tickets to fly to Mexico City on the last day of the tournament.”

Unless they were in jail. Well, every mission has collateral damage. “All right. And you’re sure you can navigate through the mangrove swamp.”

“No, I’m not sure, and neither is Jack. But my tide table says I have seven feet of water at that dock at high tide, and Jack says The Maine draws about five feet, depending on her weight, and we’re light on fuel.”

I wasn’t sure he should put so much faith in the tide table. “Side clearance?”

“There’s a path cut through the mangroves that the sightseeing boats use, from the dock to the Bahía de Perros — the Bay of Dogs.”

I liked that he translated.

“I’ll back it in, then we load up from the dock and off we go.”

I was going to miss the Buick Roadmaster. But not as much as I was going to miss my red Porsche 911.

I didn’t want to sit here too long, and the question of who was going to use the room and when was still not resolved. Would I let Felipe and Sara go to the room together? Would Sara go, and take one for the team and the mission? Stay tuned.

Well, when you’re looking for something to talk about, the weather is a good subject. I asked Felipe, “What’s the weather looking like?”

He sipped his daiquiri. “Not good.” He glanced out the window. “There’s a late tropical storm developing, and it’s about sixty K east of here, moving west-northwest at ten or fifteen K. So it should hit” — he looked at his watch — “maybe midnight. Maybe earlier or later.” He complained, “It’s hard to get an accurate forecast here.”

“What are the winds?”

“About thirty to forty knots. Waves are between five and ten.”

I hoped he meant feet, not meters.

“We should be able to keep ahead of the storm,” said Felipe with the phony nonchalance of all seafarers. “Depending on its speed and how it tracks.”

Thanks for your insight into the obvious. Sara was looking a little concerned, so I said, “The Maine can handle much worse weather.” With me at the helm. “In fact, a little weather will be good if the patrol boats are out and about.”

Felipe agreed, and had some good news. “I’m told they don’t usually go out in bad weather.” He explained, “They’re mostly out there to look for rafters, so they might not be out on a night when there’ll be no one trying to escape this paradise.” He smiled.