Authors: Stephen Coonts
2422 South Davis was smack in the middle of the Cuban section of town. The business signs were in Spanish. Latin rhythms floated from passing cars. Yocke paid the cab driver and stood on the sidewalk for a moment watching the passing swarms of humanity. The storefronts looked Mexican. Maybe that’s what Cuba looks like, sort of Matamoros East without the tourists, whores, and sex shows.
The black lettering on the glass of the door between a dress store and what he took to be a laundry had been painted freehand by someone in a hurry. cuBA LIBRE, it said, like the rum drink. “Free Cuba.”
Jack Yocke opened the door and went inside. He walked along a hall, then began climbing a flight of stairs. The worn steps creaked as they took his weight. At the top of the stairs was another door, one with no glass. He tried the knob. It turned.
The small office was empty. Two closed doors against the back wall presumably led to offices that overlooked the back
alley. He could hear people, men and women, arguing in Spanish behind one of the doors. Yocke took a seat and arranged his bag and computer on the chair beside him.
He crossed his legs and tried to figure out what the conversation was about. No soap. These people didn’t speak Spanish like Mrs. Grafton. They should have taken her course.
The phone rang. And rang. And mng, while the argument continued unabated.
It stopped, ly. Shortly thereafter a woman opened the door and started. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Jack Yocke. You the receptionist?”
“How long have you been sitting here?” She had a definite accent and her skin was a warm brown.
“Just a couple of minutes.” About fifteen, actually. “Your door was unlocked and … I hope you don’t mind.”
“We’re closed.”
A man came from the inside of the office and stood in the doorway looking at Yocke. “I don’t know him,” he told the woman. His accent was less pronounced than the woman’s, but noticeable. He was a slight man without a trace of excess flesh. His skin stretched tightly across his face; his eyes were deeply set.
Yocke took out his wallet and removed his press card. He handed it to the woman and smiled broadly. “Jack Yocke, Washington Post.,”
The man snatched the card and looked at it incredulously. “You, reporter?”
“Yes. I-was
“Out! Take your card.” The man threw it at him. “Beat it! Scram! Right now, hombre. his
Yocke pocketed the card. He slowly arranged the strap of the computer case over his shoulder and hefted the vinyl bag. “Could I get your name for my story’? I don’t know much Spanish, but I know bote and viaje por mar and a couple more words. I know that Santa Clam is a city in Cuba. And I can add two and two.”
“Tienes las orejas granites la mala lengua.
“Yep. Big ears and a bad mouth. That’s me.”
They stared at him openmouthed. The phone started nging again. They let it ring.
“What you want?” Back to English. “Same as you. To go to Cuba.”
“Why?”
“I’m a reporter. They’re having a revolution.” Jack Yocke grinned.
The phone was still ringing. The man and woman looked at each other. “No,” she said. “Still” The man stood partially aside. “Come in.”
“Why don’t you answer your phone?”
“Reporters.” He spit out the word. “They have treated us as cracked pots-that is the words, no?-for years, ignored us, and now they drive us loco. “A story, now give us a story! Tell us of Cuba and Fidel.‘ationow you want to spill on us some of the ink you use for your football and your stories of foolish rich men and silly women with the big tits, eh? Truly, sefior, yours is a miserable profession.”
There were two other men in the room. Cubans. In their thirties, lean and wiry, they were sitting in straight-backed chairs and they didn’t rise. They did, however, scrutinize Yocke’s face with the coldest stares he could remember.
The cadaverous man who had admitted him closed the door carefully and said, “But first let’s establish just what your real profession is, selor. his
Yocke turned to face him. “What do you think my profession might be, if I’m not a reporter?”
The man went behind the desk and opened a drawer. He extracted a large revolver and pointed it straight at Yocke. “Oh, let me think. What a puzzle! Can you help me?”
The revolver looked as big as a cannon. The black hole in the muzzle looked large enough to drive a car through. Jack Yocke grinned nervously. No one else smiled.
“Perhaps you are of Fidel. Perhaps you are CIA. Those possibilities leap immediately to my mind. Sit!” Yocke sat. “Now. Put that thing over your shoulder on the floor there
beside you. Place your hands on the table in front of you, sefior, and remain still as the most dead man you ever saw, or Holy Mother! I will make you very very dead very very quickly.”
The two spectators came over and, carefully staying out of the possible line of fire, emptied Yocke’s pockets, turning them inside out. The contents they put on the desk.
Stand in the corner, seior, facing the wall.” Jack ‘allyocke obeyed.
He heard the door open, then fifteen seconds later close again. He heard the sounds of zippers being opened. His computer case. Maybe his suitbag.
“You could call my editor at the Post and ask him what I look like.”
“I know I look like a fool, sefior. For that I blame my father. But a foot I am not. If you are a Fidelista or a CIA, you have a wonderful cover. I expect no less. Por favor, sefior, do not twitch like that! The noise of this pistol is distressing in such a small room.”
After several minutes the cadaverous man, who was the only one who had spoken, told Yocke, “Turn around.”
The reporter did so. The contents of his wallet were spread all over the desk. One of the Cubans was punching the buttons of the computer, slowly, randomly, absorbed, while he watched the screen. The third man was pawing through Yocke’s clothes and underwear, which were piled on the floor.
With his gun just under his right hand, the man at the desk was ripping open cigarette packs. He crumbled the cigarettes into piles of tobacco and paper and ran ripped apart filters with his fingernails. It took two more minutes. Satisfied at last, he raked the mess into a trash can beside the.desk. Most of it went into the trash, anyway: the rest went onto the wooden floor.
Now the man wiped his hands together to get rid of the tobacco crumbs, then picked up the revolver. He pointed it at the reporters belly s you say. The truth.”
a reporter for the Washing
Post. I left Washington this morning to go to Cuba. I red that none of the other correspondents trying to get re would think of going over to Cuba with the exiles. So I flew into Miami Airport and looked in the telephone book. I looked under’Cuba’and found an address for Cuba Libre. I hailed a taxi. Here I am. That’s the truth.”
The man stared. The other two finished their explorations and joined in the scrutiny.
“We don’t have time for your games. We have things to do.”
“Take me with you to Cuba, please. I’m asking you as nice and polite as I know how.”
“What makes you think we are going to Cuba?”
“Please, mister, don’t jerk my chain! Some of the Cubans must be going! If you guys aren’t, who is? I need to get to Cuba one way or the other. What the hell you want me to do-hire an airplane and parachute out of it? Goddammit ” my paper wants stories from Cuba and sent me to get them. I won’t write a story about you or mention your names without your approval. Is that what you’re worried about? You can be a confidential source. I’m just asking for your help. But with or without you, I’m going to Cuba.”
The three men glanced at each other. Nothing was said.
After several seconds, the man behind the desk put the pistol back in the drawer and gestured. “Your things.” He shook his head. “Only in America.
.
His name was Hector Santana. He didn’t introduce the other two, but Yocke later learned their names: Jesds Ruiz and TomAs Garcia. The three conferred briefly in whispers in the far corner, then Santana faced him again.
“You must understand the danger. There is much danger. We will go by boat. We will have to avoid your Coast Guard, which will be alert for boats going to Cuba, and we will have to avoid the Cuban Navy, which will be even more alert. If we are caught by the Americans, we will be in serious trouble. If we are caught by the Cubans, we will be dead.” “I understand. I want to go.”
“You say it so easily, so lightly. A ride in a pedal-boat on a
park lake! You would risk your life for your employer’s sake, to write a story for a newspaper?”
“Well, it does sound sort of stupid, when you put it like that. But yes, I-was
“You are a fool. his
“You’ll be just as dead as I.”
“Ahh, but we are fighting for our country. For Cu . You, you risk your life for money, for glory. And those things they are as nothing. They are as smoke. You are a very great fool.”
4’allyou Ive told me the risks. You’ve given me your opinion.
I still want to go if you’ll take me.”
Santana shrugged grandly. “You must stay with us and make no calls. You may telephone anyone anywhere, if the telephones work, when we get to Havana. Not before.”
“That’s reasonable. Sure.”
“And we, of course, accept your offer of professional secrecy. No stories about us. No names. Ever. You must swear it.”
“I swear. When do we get to Havana?”
Around midnight the three men, with Jack Yocke wedged in the backseat, drove through a steady rain to a marina. Yocke never knew where the marina was because the Cubans made him wear a blindfold. He was led from the car to a slick gangplank which he stumbled up carrying the computer. Only when he was in a little cabin below decks was he allowed to remove the blindfold. His escort tossed the vinyl bag on the deck, then left, closing the door behind him.
The engine on the boat was already running, a muffled throbbing that pulsated the deck and bulkheads. After sitting in the darkness a few minutes Yocke tried the door latch. Locked. There was a tiny porthole, but the view was only of black water and shimmering lights.
Within minutes the boat got under way. The deck tilted and the vibration changed and the noise level rose. Yocke checked his watch: twelve forty-six a.m.
Yocke tried to decide how large the boat was. It wasn’t he concluded. But it wasn’t a ship. It turned too — He stretched out on the couch bunk in the darkness and tried to sleep.
After a half hour or so the motion of the vessel changed. She began to roll and pitch with authority. Sometime later the motion changed again as the growl of the engine rose. Now the motion was more vigorous, the roll and pitch sharper and quicker.
The day had been a long one. Jack Yocke slept.
He awoke sometime later. The vessel was pounding in the sea, the engines throbbing heavily. They were pushing her hard. He wedged himself into the bunk and in minutes was again asleep.
Hector Santana shook him awake at five a.m. “You may come up on deck now.”
The boat was still pitching enthusiastically. Worse than when he went to sleep, but not as badly as it had several hours ago. Above the engine noise Yocke asked, “Where are we?”
“Just off Andros Island.”
“Are we in the Gulf Stream?”
“We’ve crossed it. The ride was much worse.”
On deck the only illumination was from several little red lights above the chart and binnacle in front of the helmsman. The rain had stopped. The boat appeared to be a giant cabin cruiser. This high above the water the motion was even more pronounced. Yocke found a handhold.
A ghostly white wake stretched away behind the boat straight as a highway into the vast, total darkness. Not a star or other light in the entire visible universe.
He could hear a radio, the announcer speaking in Spanish. When his eyes became better adjusted, he could just make out the figures of four or five men huddled around it. “How goes the revolution?”
“Fighting in the cities. Much of the army is still loyal to Fidel.” “Where will we land?”
“Caibaridn.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning, before dawn.”
“How fast are we going?” “comrwenty-eight knots.” After a few moments, Yocke asked, “This your boat?”
“Belongs to a friend.”
“Nice of him to let you use it like this.”
“He will report it stolen this evening.”
“Why are you going to Cuba?”
“It’s my country.”
Yocke eased himself to another handhold. His eyes were fairly well adjusted now and he could just make out Santana’s face. “Uh-uh. Nope. Yesterday evening I told you why I wanted to go, but you didn’t bother to tell me why you and your friends were going. And I didn’t ask.”
“We noted the omission. Very good manners for a reporter. Tomis thought too good. I said no. He is diplomdtico, I said. Finally Tomis agreed.”
“Perhaps you can tel me now.”
“Maybe later. We’ll see. If you’re still alive.” With that Santana went below.
CHAKER TwEL-VEvery
At dawn the blackness faded to slate gray. A gray, indefinite sky above a gray sea. Visibility about a mile in log. There were no other vessels to be seen, no land, nothing but gray in every direction.
The helmsman slowed the boat to two or three knots and it began to roll and pitch sloppily. On the low fantail, behind
the raised bridge, the other passengers baited fishing rods with small fish and rigged them to troll. One man went UV on the high fish platform. Jack Yocke had no desire to join him. The motion of the boat would be much worse the re.
Sandwiches and coffee were brought up from below. Yocke had had two bites before he realized he had made a mistake. He puked over the rail and the wind sprayed some of it over the men sitting on the fantail watching the fishing rods. They were angry at first, then they laughed.
“Go below and lie down,” Santana told him. Yocke was back on deck in two minutes, heaving again. The motion of the boat was impossible to endure in the confined spaces below.
He ended up lying on the deck forward, crawling to the rail to puke, then lying on his back waiting.
Hours passed. He was reduced to dry heaves.