“It’s fabulous, Al,” Dennis said, gawking at the sparkling-white sportfishing boat docked beside them. “But what’s with the pink stripe?”
“Fuck you, Deuce!” Al said. “You don’t know style when you see it.”
“Florida, baby,” Crawford said.
“Fuck you, too.”
“She’s impressive,” Crawford said, running his hand along the bow of the boat. “What can she do? Thirty, thirty-five knots?”
“Forty-two,” Ricky said. “She’s fully loaded.”
“How’s that possible?” Crawford asked.
“Custom-built,” Brinkley explained. “Alejandro made some modifications to the standard engine package.”
“Ricky juiced it for me,” Alejandro said, his face again beaming with pride.
“The Big Pig flies,” Ricky said, hands on his hips. “But if you boys want to catch some marlin today, you need to get going. Vamanos.”
Ricky started unloading cases from a huge red Ford pickup truck on oversized tires.
Al whistled. “When’d you get this?”
“New F-150 Raptor SuperCrew. A 6.2-liter V-8 under the hood.” Ricky strained with the weight of a large steel case, his muscles flexing and showing off his tattoos. “And las chicas, they love it.”
“I’ll bet.” Al raised his eyebrows. “It’s fucking beautiful, asere.”
“Geez, Al,” Dennis said. “A private plane, this fishing boat, monster trucks. What the heck is going on down here?”
“What can I say? We Latinos are lovers. And we love the toys. Same goes for the brothers. Isn’t that right, Craw?”
“Am I your only black friend?” Crawford joked.
“Nah. We Cubans are all black. Don’t you know that—”
“I don’t want to interrupt your discourse on contemporary race relations,” Brinkley interrupted. “But we’ve got marlin to catch. Can we get the boat loaded, gentlemen?”
“I’ve got this one,” Ricky said as he hauled a large case onto the boat and then disappeared down the hold.
A few seconds later, Ricky’s head reappeared. “Let’s get the rest of these down below and then I’ll run an engine check for you, Al.”
“Bueno, Ricky. Where’s the new GPS?”
“In the secure case in hold four. It’s with the backup satellite phone. I’ll leave you with a spare battery, too.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Dennis asked.
“Not today.”
“I’m the fucking captain of The Big Pig,” Al said. “Plus I’ve got two Navy boys with me. You can be my radio officer, Deuce. Not a bad crew for a little fishing expedition.”
Crawford set down a crate. “This is a shitload of gear for a fishing trip, Al. What the hell are we loading?” he asked.
“Provisions,” Al said. “You never know what you’ll need hunting out in the open ocean. And we can’t run out of beer and Cuban sandwiches.” Al winked, then lifted a red cooler.
“All this for marlin fishing?” Dennis asked.
“Marlin.” Brinkley nodded. “Maybe some bonefish.”
14.
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY, 9:03 A.M.
Judd had arrived in the office early that morning to continue working on his memo for Landon Parker. He was trying to anticipate scenarios that might go wrong in Cuba and outline responses for the State Department. It was precisely why his Crisis Reaction Unit had been created.
This morning, however, Judd was stuck. What causes revolts? It was a question that politicians had been mulling for centuries. What final straw causes people finally to rise up and overthrow their own government? Analysts had been trying to unlock that puzzle for decades. It had been an academic interest of Judd’s when he was a graduate student and then a professor at Amherst College. Databases had been compiled with every variable possible: population, demographics, ethnic composition, corruption, and financial data. Complex statistics attempted to tease out the factors that were associated either with a rebellion or with prolonged periods of stability.
Judd had used this exact approach of building large databases and quantitative analysis to come up with his Golden Hour theory about the need for speed when responding to an international crisis. He had discovered that slow reaction time was statistically correlated with failure. He then made a slight—and he thought defensible—leap to claim, therefore, that waiting too long to react to a coup or outbreak of civil war meant a steep decline in the chance of U.S. policy success. It was the kind of conclusion that would be scorned in the academic community. But they gobbled it up in Washington. The Golden Hour was the basis for S/CRU. His job was built on a data model. And on Landon Parker’s enthusiastic support.