Nelson DeMille - The Cuban Affair

I was about to go look for something in the bush, but I noticed that toward the end of the floating dock were two pilings — actually long poles, rising about six feet above the dock, and about the thickness of a baseball bat. The poles had been driven into the swamp mud to tie up boats and to keep the floating dock from swaying in the currents. I went over to one pole and Sara joined me. Together we pulled on it, trying to free it from the muck. We pushed it from side to side, and pulled again, and finally the pole started to rise out of the swamp floor.

We freed it and laid it on the dock. It was about twelve feet long, fairly straight, but waterlogged, so it had some flex in it, which was not good for raft poling. But if we had to use it, it would have to do.

We went to the other piling and after about ten minutes of sweating and swearing we got the pole out of the sucking mud and onto the floating dock. Teamwork makes the dream work.

We wiped our muddy hands on our pants, and I said, “Okay, we’re all set to unload the trunks onto this dock, cut the lines, then pole into the swamp to meet The Maine. But we’ll do that only if The Maine can’t get to us.”

“Should we unload the trunks now?”

“I want to hear my diesel engine before we do that.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and we looked into the swamp, where an evening mist rose off the water. Tree frogs croaked, and night birds made weird sounds, insects chirped, and something leapt out of the water.

“It’s spooky,” she said.

But no spookier than the spidery caves I crawled through looking for UBL. Who knew the asshole was in Pukeistan? But at least in the caves, everyone had everyone’s back. Here, I wasn’t so sure.

She said, “Let’s sit in the wagon.”

I think I promised her a ride in the back seat, but now that I was here, I was reevaluating the situation, and I thought we should keep our pants on. “We need to keep alert. But you go ahead. I’ll keep watch.”

She walked to the station wagon, opened the rear window and tailgate, and pulled out the black tarp that covered the trunks. She spread the big tarp on the muddy ground between the wagon and the dock and invited me to lie down and relax awhile.

There might not be a next time for this, so we made love on the tarp — quickly, quietly, and with our boots on — listening to the sounds of the swamp and the mosquitoes buzzing around my butt. While we were going at it, Sara said, “Keep alert,” and laughed.

Afterward, we sat on the tarp with our backs to the station wagon bumper and shared a bottle of water that she’d gotten from the Ranchón Playa. I thought about the remains of the men that were a few feet from the back of my head. If we all weren’t soldiers once, I might think that I had somehow dishonored the dead; but it could’ve just as easily been me who didn’t make it home. And those who did make it shouldn’t feel guilty about anything. We all understood that.

Sara asked, “What do we do now?”

“We wait.” I looked at my watch: 9:46. We had a long forty-five minutes before I heard the familiar sound of my Cat 800 diesel. Or longer if Felipe and Jack had decided to wait for high tide. Or never, if Felipe had left Jack at the marina and was now on his way to Miami. What I knew for sure was that Jack Colby would not leave Cuba without me.

Sara said, “Tell me that everything is going to be okay.”

I assured her, “Within a few hours we’ll be in open water, on a heading for Key West.”

She took my hand. “That sounds nice.”

Sara Ortega was not a clueless idiot, and she knew this was a very dicey plan. The mangrove swamp could damage the fiberglass hull of The Maine , but not as badly as a rapid-fire cannon. “Do you see that water?”

“Yes.”

“That water is a road that will take you anywhere you want to go.”

She nodded, and stayed quiet for a minute, then asked, “What if they don’t... can’t come?”

Well, that was the other problem. “Jack knows — you never leave a man behind.” I wasn’t so sure about Felipe, however. I mean, without the sixty million... But I was forgetting about Sara. I hoped Felipe still loved her enough to come for her.

She got quiet again, then said, “I’m thinking about the last week...”

“When we get back, we’ll have some good laughs. Even Antonio was—”

“What’s the matter?”

“Quiet.”

We listened and I heard something out in the swamp. It got louder, and we could both hear voices carrying across the water.

Sara whispered, “There’s somebody out there.”

I pulled the Glock from my belt and got into a prone firing position facing the water, trying to peer through the darkness. Sara lay down beside me.

The voices got louder and it sounded like two males, speaking Spanish. I could hear oars splashing in the water.

I saw a movement, then suddenly a boat emerged from the mist, coming toward the shore.

As it got closer, I could see that it was a square-bowed swamp boat, and sitting in the flat-bottomed craft were two men. They saw the big Buick before they saw me and Sara lying on the black tarp, and they started jabbering.

Sara stood and called out, “Buenas noches.”

There was a silence, then one of them called, “Buenas noches, señora.”

I slipped the Glock under my shirt and stood, but I didn’t call out buenas noches in my Maine accent.

The two men, who looked young, jumped out of the boat into the water, then took hold of a bow line and pulled the flat-bottomed boat onto the muddy shore. They made conversation with Sara as they dragged the small fiberglass boat farther inland.

Sara walked toward them, still chatting, and like fishermen everywhere, they showed her their catch, which looked like catfish. And they looked like poor fishermen. But this was Cuba, where everyone had a second job.

The men were barefoot, but they slipped sandals over their muddy feet and pulled the boat close to the Buick and glanced at the tarp.

They conversed with Sara, obviously about the station wagon, and gave me a few quick looks.

One of them went into the bush and came out pulling a small boat trailer. They put their fiberglass boat on the trailer, secured it with a line, and maneuvered the trailer around the Buick and onto the dirt road.

I can’t remember how many times my night patrols had run into locals, and how many times I had to make the decision of what to do with those people. I started with the premise that no one could be trusted, and I worked out a solution from there.

The two young men waved to us as they pulled their boat and trailer — a little too fast — up the road we’d come in on. Buenas noches.

I looked at Sara. “Well?”

“I... don’t know. They seemed... friendly.” She added, “They’re just fishermen.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“I told them we were waiting for friends to come in from fishing.”

“All right...” But if I had it to do over again, those guys would be looking down the barrel of my gun while Sara tied their hands and feet with their line, and they’d now be resting comfortably in the back seat of the Buick. But you don’t get do-overs.

I looked at my watch: 10:04. Nothing to do now except wait for our ride. And keep alert.

It was 10:30, and though I didn’t hear The Maine , Sara wanted to unload the station wagon. “They’re coming,” she assured me. We threw our backpacks on the dock, then Sara and I lifted the heavy steamer trunk filled with título de propiedades out of the rear compartment, walked it across the black tarp, and set the trunk down in the middle of the floating dock.

On our way back to get the second trunk, I heard the sound of an engine — but not in the swamp. It was on the dirt road.