Authors: Steven Becker
One step at a time was all he could think about. He marched into the dark night: one foot, then the other. He knew he needed water and a place to rest, but with no boat or home, the only refuge he could trust was his wayward mate, Trufante, and he was several miles away. Finally he reached a point where he could no longer continue and was about to sit down on the street and give in to whatever was about to take hold of him when he saw the first sign of life ahead.
The sign was weatherworn and barely legible, but he knew what it was. After twenty years of traveling the only artery connecting the island chain, it didn’t take long to memorize every business. The yard was set well back from the road, but he had been here several times looking for boat parts. Mac waited for traffic before he crossed the frontage road and the highway. He climbed over the gate, entered the yard of the dry dock facility and walked between two rows of boats; inspecting each one for a place he could take refuge. He stopped at a sport-fisher set on blocks, an aluminum ladder standing by its transom.
It was not unusual for live-aboards to continue to stay on their boats when they were in dry dock, but from what he remembered, this boatyard didn’t offer the showers and bathroom facilities they needed when their boats were being serviced. There should be no one here, and with a quick glance in each direction, he started up the ladder and climbed over the transom. The deck was torn up, revealing a large fuel tank that he carefully skirted as he made his way to the cabin. He grasped the doorknob and slowly turned the handle. The door opened. He entered the cockpit, finding a control station on the right and a small galley on the left. His thirst drove him to the sink, where hoping the batteries were still good, he turned on the faucet. Water dribbled from the spout and he put his head under the small stream.
He drank his fill and washed his face before searching the cabinets for food. The refrigerator was warm and empty, but he found some crackers and peanut butter in a cabinet. After clearing the table, he sat and started to eat. Just as he was getting comfortable, something brushed against his leg. He jumped but recognized the furry outline of a cat and continued to eat. The cat coiled and landed onto the bench besides him. It started to meow and Mac succumbed, alternating crackers with it. The food exhausted, he went back to the faucet and drank before lying down on the bunk. He wasn’t sure of his next move, but without some rest, there wouldn’t be one. The cat settled into a ball by his head, and with no energy to shoo it away, he left it.
***
Voices startled him awake, what he thought was just a few minutes later, but when he raised his head to look where the sound was coming from, he saw daylight streaming through the curtains.
“Well, they found the girl and some Cuban refugee floating in a life raft. I think they’re about to call off the search for that low-life Travis character. Don’t guess he’s worth looking for.”
“He ain’t all bad. Just has a habit of getting mixed up in the wrong kind of things. They’re saying the woman’s in intensive care. Wonder what they do with Cubans these days?”
Mac’s heart beat hard in his chest at the news of Mel.
“Political sanctuary, probably; he’s probably out at the Krome Processing Center up in Miami getting groomed to be an American.”
Mac had heard all he needed to. He slid away from the door towards the V berth in the bow of the boat. The last thing he needed was to be discovered. He stood, released the latch on the hatch above the berth, and slowly pushed it open. The cabin would provide enough cover to crawl out the small opening and onto the deck, but getting off the boat was not going to be so easy. The cat moved around his ankles. He was about to kick it away when he got an idea and lifted it through the hatch. The men were still bickering about bad gas, the boat owner threatening lawsuits for collusion and fraud, when Mac pulled himself through the opening and crept forward on the deck. He looked over the railing; the ground was at least eight feet below, too far to jump without being noticed. With a whispered apology, he picked up the cat and hurled it towards the stern, hoping that cats did indeed always land on their feet. It squealed on impact and he grabbed the rail and hoisted himself over the bow, dropping to the ground with a thud.
The men were still going back and forth, apparently making some kind of a deal. He crawled on all fours into the brush, crouched, and waited while they finished their negotiation. The men moved towards the office and although they were out of sight there was nowhere for him to go. The daylight was his enemy and he eyed the other boats lining the road, finally selecting a sailboat clearly in need of maintenance. He went towards it, finding the cat at his heels, and couldn’t help but smile. Without a thought, he lifted it onto the deck of the boat before climbing the swim ladder behind it.
THREE
Mac lay on the bunk sweating in the hot cabin, his mind churning through the possibilities. The vents did little to disperse the heat. He had tried the small fan by his head, but the boat’s batteries were long dead. Sleep eluded him and he tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, before finally giving up and searching the boat for anything that might prove useful. For what, he didn’t know. Somehow he needed to see Mel and get his life back on track, but beyond finding Trufante, he had no next step.
He prowled through the cabinets and holds, making a small pile on the table of anything more useful than the lint in his pockets. The boat was in rough shape and he didn’t think the owner would miss anything. Houses age, but boats decay, every day a little more, until they reach the point of no return, where it takes a complete overhaul to refurbish them. This boat fit that bill. It looked abandoned; the once proud owner had probably stopped paying the storage payments some time ago and the boat would continue to rot until the yard needed the space.
Under the bench seat he found an open case of water. It looked old, but even if it had an expiration date, he would have ignored it. He took a bottle, drained it, then opened another and resumed his search. A cabinet yielded some cans of tuna and beans. He set them on the table and prowled through the drawers, where he found an opener, and sat with the curtains drawn, eating, thinking and sweating. After finishing, he examined what he had collected from his search: matches, a small knife, and a few dollars in loose change. He slid the curtains enough to gauge the height of the sun in the sky and guessed it was about noon. With no choice but to wait, he found an old John D. MacDonald novel and spent the afternoon with Travis MacGee.
***
The cabin was in the shadow of the adjacent boat when he opened his eyes and realized he must have fallen asleep. He made his way to the head and used the contents of one of the water bottles to wash. A quick search of the cabinets in the berth upgraded his wardrobe to a clean T-shirt and shorts. An old Marlins ball cap caught his attention. Though not a hat fan, he decided to take it. By the time he washed and dressed, the sun had reached the horizon. He prepared to move out.
With two water bottles stuffed in the outer pockets of his cargo shorts, he loaded the small cache of supplies in the other pockets. He crept up the companionway and stuck his head out to look for any activity. The yard was quiet and he went to the transom, climbed down the swim ladder, and after scanning the yard, walked towards the road. The cat reappeared, meowing for attention, but he ignored it, pulled down the bill of the hat over his face, and stepped onto US 1. Twilight was rush hour in the Keys, with trucks pulling boats both ways and half-baked drunk tourists cruising bars and gift shops.
The traffic was heavy and he waited for an opening before crossing the highway. Back on the frontage road, he started walking west towards Marathon. Fisherman’s Hospital, where he suspected Mel was, and Trufante’s apartment both lay in that direction. He kept an eye on the road while he walked, twice ducking into the bushes when he saw Highway Patrol cars. An old International Travelall passed by and he wished he were close enough to flag down the driver. Jesse McDermitt owned the beast and lived on his own island, close to Wood’s place out by the Content Keys. Jesse was an acquaintance but, unlike a lot of the Keys’ residents, was dependable. He could have helped and Mac racked his brain for some way to contact the reclusive ex-Marine. He could often be found at the Rusty Anchor, but Mac didn’t want to risk being seen. Rusty, the owner, could be trusted though, and Mac thought about sneaking around back after closing for a quick conversation.
He decided on using Rusty as a backup plan, sticking with Trufante as his first option. The Cajun was already intertwined in the poaching scam and was ultimately responsible for the whole mess by getting conned into using his boat. He was trouble but Mac knew him inside and out. The man wouldn’t judge him and if he could help, he would. The frontage road turned into the Heritage Trail, a walking and biking path, as he reached the airport, but it wasn’t much more than a sidewalk. He was less worried about being recognized now. Most of the characters he knew would be in bars, not out walking or biking. He only had to cross one intersection before he turned right on the first street and walked towards the small apartment building, hoping the Cajun was home.
Mac heard the party before he saw it and knew trouble was brewing. He reached the two-story apartment building and stopped behind a clump of sago palms planted near a cluster of mailboxes. People were on the balconies, in the pool, and overflowing into the parking lot. As he had suspected, the center of activity was none other than Trufante’s apartment. He crouched down and finished the last of his water and watched the action, but the tall Cajun, easily recognizable with his lanky frame and grin resembling a Cadillac’s grille, was nowhere to be seen. Mac waited, wondering how to find him without being recognized. He also had to wonder why Trufante was having a party when Mel was in the hospital and he was supposed to be lost at sea. Another piece of his memory returned and he recalled giving him the dual engine go-fast boat to use as a decoy. Somehow he was sure that was tied to the party.
***
Norm leaned back into the plush couch as the girl swayed above him. He thought the strip club would take his mind off his problems, but the harsh music and lights were only increasing his headache. The song finished and the girl stepped off the couch and accepted the twenty-dollar bill, giving him a contemptuous glance as if it should have been more. Without a second look, she moved on to the next group of men, hoping for better prey. Norm leaned forward, drained his drink, got up and walked to the door.
Duval Street, the partying heart of Key West, was just picking up steam. He stood in the entry to the club watching the scene. Tourists and locals of all flavors were milling about, many drinking openly from red Solo cups. Usually he enjoyed nights like this, but in his current mood, he knew he was not destined to have fun. He asked the bouncer to hail a taxi, and when the pink cab pulled to the curb, the large tattooed man opened the back door, not willing to close it until Norm had laid a five in his palm. He gave the driver the name of his hotel, sat back and tried to ignore the party on the street flashing by the tinted windows. At the hotel, he paid the driver and got out on his own, refusing to be the victim of another door-opener. Relief came over him as he entered the air-conditioned lobby and found the elevator.
He stayed to the side of the hallway away from the cameras, burying his head in his shoulder in the event they caught his face. It never hurt to be careful, he thought, and after a glance in each direction, he unlocked the door, quickly closing it behind him. Crossing the room, he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and stared out.
His room overlooked the Atlantic Ocean and he stared at the small waves lit by the moon, a sight most tourists paid extra for. Like everything else, tonight it did nothing for him. He closed the curtains, sat at the desk and opened the military-grade laptop. The computer started up and he entered his password. When his desktop appeared, he clicked the CIA portal and entered another password to access the main screen. He held his breath, hoping the world had remained intact since he had last checked, clicked the email tab and waited while the messages downloaded. There were several hundred, about average for two days, and he started to sort through them. Anything he was Cc’d on, he left for later, and started opening the emails that were addressed to only him. Anything with another name on it, unless it was the President, would be handled by someone else. Two messages stood out.
One had a satellite image of a fire on a small island. He smacked the desktop when he realized it was his accomplice Jay’s hideout. The refuge of the smuggler, hidden in the back country of the Keys, had been torched, and someone was taunting him with it. A glance at the sender confirmed the email was clearly from a fake address and rerouted through several internet providers. He knew he could task Alicia with finding out who sent the message. The over-eager analyst was constantly hinting that she wanted field work and would do anything to get out of the office, but her idea of ‘anything’ and his were most likely different. A shame, he thought, fantasizing for a moment about her. But that would take time, and though her skills were impressive, it would involve resources that didn’t need to know about the island and fire. In his two years behind a desk, he had made more enemies than friends in the halls of Langley and many would delight in ruining his career. His friends and allies were still in the field, where he wished he still worked.
He deleted the message and looked again at the sender and subject line of the other email. It was sent through a Guerrilla Mail account, a private email server that erased messages upon delivery. Unlike the trash bin on a computer, for a small fee these messages were permanently gone. He opened the message, still unsure of the sender, but intrigued by the subject line: Key West to Havana Ferry. The message had no text, only 0600, which he guessed was a time, and two sets of numbers which he knew were GPS coordinates. After studying the numbers, he realized they were nearby. An uneasy feeling came over him. Whoever sent the message knew he was in Key West, something he had not told his office. He liked to be on the side, dishing out the intrigue - not taking it.