Nelson DeMille - The Cuban Affair

Felipe concluded, “If we maintain this course, the Stenka’s cannons will get within effective firing range of us in... maybe ten minutes.”

“Who told you about thirty-millimeter cannons?”

“Amigos.”

I need a few amigos like that. “What’s his effective firing range?”

“Four thousand meters.” He did the math and said, “About two and a half miles.” Felipe also pointed out, “He could begin firing even sooner.”

Right. The Stenka’s rapid-fire cannons could put out a lot of shit from the twin barrels, and even if it wasn’t accurate fire from a long distance, something could hit you. Or you could be having an exceptionally good day and you could sail through the shit storm. It could go either way.

Felipe gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We need to turn away from him.”

That seemed obvious, but I pointed out, “If we keep a straight course north, we’ll be in international waters in maybe ten minutes.”

Felipe informed me, “He doesn’t give a shit. That bastard would follow us to Miami if he thought he could get away with it.”

“I know that,” I assured him.

Jack also gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We gotta head west.”

“Sara?”

She agreed with Jack and Felipe, but also said, “Do what you think is best.”

Well, there was no best. I reminded everyone, “If we head west, we’ll be running along the coast of Cuba, and if we do that there will be other Guarda Frontera boats sailing out of their ports that can intercept us along the coast.”

No one had any opinion on that, so I continued, “But if we continue north, away from the coast, the only patrol boats we need to worry about are the two that are already on our ass.”

My crew understood the dilemma. And that’s all any captain can ask for. I turned on the radio, which was still on Channel 16, and listened, but the Cuban patrol boats had gone silent. Basically, they had nothing to say to me, or to anyone else who might be listening to Channel 16.

I handed the mic to Felipe and said, “Broadcast a distress message, give our location, heading, and speed, then repeat it in Spanish for our Cuban amigos behind us.” I added, “Say we are being pursued by Cuban gunboats.”

He took the mic and asked, “Our current heading?”

“No. We’re taking a heading of... three hundred degrees.” I turned the wheel to port and picked up a heading that would take us northwest, toward the Straits of Florida. This heading would keep us a little closer to the Cuban coast than I wanted and keep us in Cuban territorial waters longer than I liked. But it was the most direct route home.

Felipe began broadcasting, first in English, then in Spanish. English is the international language of the sea, but I wanted to make sure that the Guarda Frontera understood, in Spanish, that we were ratting them out. So even if we didn’t make it, they couldn’t claim, “No comprende.” But to put myself in their position, they were justified in pursuing and firing on a boat full of murderers.

Meanwhile, the Zhuk had changed course in response to my change of course, and so had the Stenka. The Zhuk was gaining on us a bit. Now that I’d changed course and was moving almost directly away from the Stenka, he wouldn’t be in firing range for about fifteen or twenty minutes if my calculations were correct. All we could do now was maintain this heading and hope that the Guarda Frontera boats received orders to give up the pursuit. I mean, hopefully the regime wouldn’t want to cause an international incident on the high seas. True, we were no longer innocent tourists — we were wanted killers — but the bastards in Havana had to decide how to deal with that problem at one in the morning — militarily or diplomatically. I hope they were having as bad a night as I was.

I turned on my chart plotter for the first time and pulled up a view that took in Key West, which was about three hundred and fifty kilometers away — about two hundred miles. I corrected my heading and hit the autopilot, which would continue to correct for drift caused by the weather and currents.

I had the wind at my back, riding ahead of the storm, which I assumed was still tracking on a northwesterly course, and I was getting a full twenty-five knots out of The Maine.

The chart clock said it was 1:57 A.M. I should be in Key West by 10, maybe 11 a.m., and in the Green Parrot for lunch. If anyone had an appetite.

The only problem with this plan was the two Cuban patrol boats, which I assumed still wanted to blow us out of the water.

I glanced at my radar screen. The Zhuk was still gaining on me, but he’d have to follow me halfway to the Keys before I was in range of his machine guns. And he might do that. I didn’t think I wanted to take him on again. God gives you only one miracle to save your ass. The next one is on you.

The real problem was still the Stenka. He was doing about forty-five knots, and I remembered him anchored outside the marina — a big bastard, bristling with mounted machine guns, and two gun turrets, fore and aft, that housed the twin rapid-fire cannons. I also pictured him now, cutting through the waves, and the captain staring at his radar, watching the distance between him and me beginning to close.

I looked again at the chart plotter. I was already too far west to shoot for Andros Island. I would have had to do that soon after I’d exchanged fire with the Zhuk. Now I was in the middle of nowhere, committed to my heading for the Keys, which was the closest land — if you didn’t count Cuba.

We’d crossed into international waters about fifteen minutes before, and as I suspected, the Guarda Frontera boats also crossed that line without a pause. They were in hot pursuit, and international waters didn’t mean much except that anyone could go there without permission. U.S. territorial waters began twelve nautical miles off the coast of the Keys, and no matter how I did the math, it didn’t look like we were going to get that far before the Stenka caught up to us.

Jack came into the cabin. “How we doing?”

“What’s the radio frequency for Dial-a-Prayer?”

He looked at the radar. “I think you need a higher frequency.”

“Right.”

“You got any more tricks up your sleeve?”

“I’m thinking.” I asked him, “What’s happening below?”

“Sara’s in the port stateroom, maybe catching some Zs. Felipe’s in the galley lightening our load of rum.”

“He earned a drink.”

“You want one?”

“No. But you go ahead.”

Jack remembered one of his T-shirts and said, “I only drink a little, but when I do, I become a different person, and that person drinks a lot.”

I smiled. “I’ll take a smoke.”

He fished his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, and I could see he was in some pain from where the AK round smacked his vest.

I took a cigarette and he lit me up with his Zippo, then lit himself up and said, “These things are gonna kill me.”

“You should live so long.”

He looked at the fuel gauge, checked out the radar again, then the GPS and chart plotter, but didn’t say anything.

The seas were getting calmer as we traveled west, and outside the windshield I could see stars peeking through the racing clouds. We had the wind at our backs, and The Maine was making good time. But not good enough.

My radar was set for six miles, to keep a close eye on our pursuers, whom I’d code-named Asshole A and Asshole B. Asshole A — the Zhuk — actually seemed to have lost ground, and it occurred to me that he may have a fuel situation. If he wasn’t topped off when he left Cayo Guillermo for his nightly patrol, he’d need to calculate how far he could follow me before he ran out of gas in the middle of the ocean.