Authors: Steven Becker
Mac went to the helm and pushed the button to raise the engines. He wanted to make sure they were clear of the water. He thought about using their power to help pull them off, but decided against it. Pulling by hand, although harder, let him feel their progress. One burst from the engines could grind them deeper into the mud - deep enough that even the tide couldn’t help.
Both men were standing in the cockpit with the line in their hands.
“Pull,” Mac called out, and their muscles stained as they struggled to gain line. They tried twice more without bringing in even an inch. What they needed was mechanical advantage and Mac looked around the bare boat for anything that could help. A block and tackle were the tools he needed, but the boat didn’t even have a windlass for the anchor. He looked at the engines, the stainless steel blades of the propellers glistening in the sun, and had an idea.
He took the line from the cleat and brought the end over to the port engine. If they’d had a single engine, he never would have tried this, but with two, it was worth the risk. They could sacrifice one if it got them out of the mud. He took the line, wrapped it around the propeller shaft and went to the helm, where he lowered the engine until the intake was barely submerged. The engine started and he called for Trufante to stay clear of the line. With the lightest touch he had, he pushed the throttle forward. The propeller shaft spun, but didn’t grab. Mac goosed the throttle and the motor started to stall as the line caught. As it came tight he pushed harder. Drops of water flew from the fibers of the rope, the tension increasing until finally, the boat jerked. He breathed deeply and pushed a little further.
“Shit, its working,” Trufante yelled.
Mac ignored him. They were not free yet. He checked the propeller and saw the line neatly wound around the shaft. As long as it didn’t start to wrap on the blades, he could pull more. Two things could happen if the line caught the blades, and both were bad. Either the line would be sliced by the sharp propeller or the blade would be bent, disabling the entire engine.
“Watch the line on the blades,” he called to Trufante. Once more he pushed the throttle and the line jerked. He pursed his lips and gave it a little more power. The engine sounded like it was ready to stall again. He was just about to back off when the boat shifted. With a quick push forward, it moved again. Finally the gas cans had done their job and were floating in front of the boat. He shut down the port engine, lowered and started the starboard one, and pulled the throttle back into reverse.
“Take in the slack,” he said to Trufante, who stood behind him watching. He didn’t want the line stretched behind the boat to entangle the other propeller.
The boat slid backwards as Trufante pulled in the line.
“Secure it,” Mac ordered.
Trufante went forward and tied off the anchor. The boat swung around with the current, unimpeded by the bottom. Mac went back examining the shaft as the line unwrapped from the port engine. It looked OK, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he ran it. Even the slightest deformity would cause the shaft to spin out of true and trash the lower unit.
***
Norm accepted the cigar and sat in the deck chair next to the small man, whose pockmarked face was visible even with the cover of his beard.
“You have something that belongs to me?” the general asked in a tone of voice that told Norm he already knew the answer.
A cloud of smoke hid Norm’s face as he thought about the implications of what the man said. He had been at this game for years and had many things that belonged to many people; specific to Cuba was the string of baseball players he had smuggled out of the island. Surprised his operation had caught the attention of a high ranking official, especially one of the old guard like General Choy, he looked blankly at the man. For years he had been smuggling younger players with promise, taking a chance on their talent. He carefully avoided the big-time players that would attract the attention of the regime. Once they were in the US, his business plan was to falsify the players’ identities and get them minor league tryouts. About half made it; the ones that did owed him ten percent of their earnings for life. Over the years he had many wash out, but a few big hits had enlarged his offshore bank account.
He decided to play along. “And what might that be?”
“Please don’t play us for fools. We know what you’ve been doing. Very smart, really,” he said, and blew a smoke ring towards Norm.
“So why not stop me?” Norm asked.
“The players were of no consequence. If you had gone after bigger names we would, of course, have been forced to put you out of business, but the men you chose had no risk of embarrassing us. We chose to sit back and watch, especially your rise within the organization.” He paused and blew another smoke ring. “Very impressive. You Americans are not known for your patience.”
It was all out in the open now and Norm needed to find out what they wanted from him. “And how may I be of service to you?”
The general smiled, taking the bait. “I don’t expect your government will appreciate what you have done like we do. You could make a case for helping political refugees escape our tyrannical government, but there is the matter of the money. I can see you sitting in front of one of those witch hunts your press calls Congressional investigation panels. Those grandstanding politicians will be waiting in line for a piece of your hide.”
Norm looked down, no longer interested in either the conversation or the cigar. He just wanted to find out what they wanted from him and to get out of there. “So, general…”
The general paused again, chewing on, trimming, and then relighting the cigar. This was clearly a tactic to annoy Norm, and he should have known it for what it was, but instead he pushed. “What do you want from me?”
“My grandson, Armando Cruz.”
The name took him by surprise. He knew he had made a mistake and also knew there would be no negotiation.
“You have two days. The inaugural voyage of the Key West to Havana ferry leaves then. There are many people - some high up in the Cuban Government - that are against these new relations between our countries. I am one of them, but am willing to sacrifice the cause to get my grandson back. You deliver him to me and the boat will make its voyage.”
The threat was clear.
EIGHT
“Where is he?” One of the men leaned forward and checked his watch. “Jules would have been here on time. She had a lot more respect than this new sheriff.”
The five heads comprising the ethics committee appeared to nod, but not one lifted their head from the screen of their phones. The blinds were closed to keep the morning sun out, the group happy to trade comfort for the view of Boot Key Harbor.
“I have surgery in an hour,” a woman chimed in. “Can we get started? He doesn’t need all the details.”
“Probably wouldn’t understand anyway,” another voice added.
The man at the head of the table opened a folder, lifted a page and started reading aloud. “Patient is Melanie Woodson: admitted by medevac approximately forty-eight hours ago. Patient had severe head trauma and water in her lungs after surviving a boating accident.” He thumbed through several more pages. “The latest prognosis is bad. She has been unresponsive and in a coma since she got here, and she meets several of the criteria for brain death.”
“Insurance?”
“We located a Blue Cross account through a computer search. They have a rep coming down from Miami now.”
The hospital administrator tried to hide her smile with the revelation that at least the hospital would not be on the hook for the cost of the medical care.
“Next of kin or living will?” someone asked.
“The only family I know of was her dad, Bill Woodson. Wood lost his wife several years ago. He is deceased as well.”
The group was silent for a minute as they remembered how Wood had died exposing a corrupt presidential candidate and saving South Florida from a nuclear blast.
The man cleared his throat, clearly growing impatient. “Does anyone know anything? And where is that sheriff?”
“I knew her dad pretty well, used to fish with him,” one of the doctors said. “He built the dock on my house too.” Eyes turned to him and he handed a piece of paper to the man at the head of the table. “She used to work for Bradley Davies in DC. I called the firm and they sent this over. It appears to be the only document they have.”
The man took the paper and started reading. Just as he was about to speak, the door burst open and a heavy man in a tight-fitting uniform entered. He mumbled something and went to an empty seat, his coffee spilling as he sat.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” the doctor said.
The sheriff looked at his watch. “Still morning by my clock.”
The others suppressed giggles as the sheriff missed the barb.
The man stopped reading and looked up. “OK. The first decision maker was her dad, now deceased. The next is Mac Travis, currently missing by the last reports I heard. I’m not sure how long until he is assumed dead.”
All eyes turned to the sheriff.
He cleared his throat. “Ms. Woodson and the Cuban fellow were rescued. We haven’t found any sign of Travis, although we’d surely like to beat the feds - dead or alive, makes no difference to me.” His radio squelched causing several in the group to jump. “Y’all got any food at these meetings,” he asked after turning his radio off, dismissing the call.
The head man ignored him. “After Travis, the executor of the will is Bradley Davies.”
“That old boy’s shacked up in some country club prison in Virginia.” The sheriff said.
A new voice chimed in, “Is there any precedence in a convict making medical decisions?”
The room was quiet for a minute. “Yes,” the administrator said. “If that’s all we have, I suggest we contact him.”
The leader closed the file and turned to the man who had handed him the paper. “OK, you contact Davies.” He turned to the sheriff, his look clearly contemptuous, “And you find Travis. We will meet again after the insurance rep gets here.”
***
Mac moved the anchor line to the bow cleat, fighting as the boat spun against the strong current until it was tied off. The tidal force sounded like a river as it moved against the stationary hull, but they were secure. They were less mobile to pursue the CIA man with the hook set, but the current in the narrow cut forced his hand. Under power, they would burn precious fuel, fighting the current to remain in the center of the cut. He looked over at Trufante’s prone body laid out on the deck, asleep.
Might as well let him get some rest, Mac thought.
He had no idea how long the watch would last, or if the man would even come back this way, but it was the only card he had left.
He thought about Mel in the hospital and hoped she was all right, but as much as he wanted to be there, he knew there was nothing he could do until he cleared himself. The only thing he had left was his name, and right now it was as mucky as the bottom underneath the boat. He looked up as several fish jumped pursuing a school of baitfish past the boat. It had been a half hour since they had freed the boat and several boats had passed at a distance, including some bigger charter boats probably heading for Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. He wondered where Norm could have gone - and why. The rental boat didn’t have the range to get to the Tortugas and back. The only thing that made sense was some kind of clandestine meeting, and he thought the Marquesas Keys would be the likely place for that.
His head bobbed as sleep tried to take him, but the wake of a passing boat snapped his neck erect. This was starting to feel pointless, sitting here. If the man chose to return even a mile further offshore, he would be invisible without binoculars. Maybe heading back to Key West and scouring the bars would be more productive. Either way, finding the man was going to be like catching a single minnow in the ocean. He started the engines and went to the bow to release the anchor. Trufante stirred and he thought about waking him on the way back to the helm, but he remembered his promise to let him sleep.
Hand over hand, he pulled the boat closer to the anchor until the line was perpendicular and the hull was right over it. With a quick jerk he yanked the hook from the bottom and brought it aboard, careful to dip it several times to clear the muck from the flukes and chain. Once secured, he moved back to the helm where he corrected the drift and steered the boat back into the middle of the channel. Something glimmered in the distance - the unmistakable shine of sun on bright metal - what he guessed was a quarter-mile offshore. He shielded his eyes from the sun, once again wishing for binoculars, and studied the outline of the boat. Without hesitation he pushed down on the throttles and sped out of the cut.
***
Bradley Davies sat in front of the warden, working hard to conceal the smirk on his face. Aside from the orange jumpsuit and the two-star rating he would give the kitchen, his stay here had been anything but hard. Female companionship was even scheduled after he faked a marriage license with a call girl and petitioned a judge he knew for conjugal visits. He was living large on the government’s dime. Gardening and tennis had to substitute for golf. His trimmer waistline was the only benefit of his forced lifestyle. He sighed.
“Someone actually left you as executor on their will?” the warden asked.
If not for his years of putting on a game face in front of juries, he would have laughed out loud. “Why the hate? You don’t need a license for that. And some people trust my judgement.”
He had been the head of one of the biggest firms in DC, before his fall from grace after it was revealed, partially through Mel’s efforts, that some old terrorist clients had blackmailed him into setting up the President for an assassination attempt. Near the end of his first year at the old country club, as his fellow inmates called it, he was ready for a divorce and getting fidgety for the comforts of the outside world. He often wondered how he would survive the hardships of the remaining four years of his sentence.