“Right.”
“He’s a foxy old bastard.”
“So are you.”
“He told me when he left The Maine in Havana Harbor that he had something important he was going to give to you and Sara, and that when I saw it, I’d understand.”
That sounded familiar.
“I guess what I just saw is it.”
“It is.”
“So now we’re gonna go on TV and talk about it.”
“Let’s get to Key West first.”
“Yeah, I guess those . . . those guys are gonna be used to fuck up the peace talks.”
Sometimes, as someone once said, the dead past should just bury its dead. “I think those men should be identified, and returned to their families for a proper burial.”
“Yeah . . .”
“What did Eduardo offer you?”
“Don’t matter.”
“Okay.”
“You need help at the helm?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He started down the stairs, then said, “Get us the fuck out of here.”
“Can do.”
The military teaches you about the loneliness of command, and the weight of command that sits on your shoulders and is the combined weight of everyone whose lives you are responsible for. It is the worst feeling in the world. But that’s what you signed on for, and no one ever said it was going to be easy.
I took The Maine through the windswept passage between the islands and I was out into the Atlantic.
I looked at my radar screen and saw only two craft—one was to the west, about ten nautical miles from me, and the other was to the east, only six nautical miles, traveling west.
These could be any ships on the sea, but I was fairly certain I knew who they were, and I knew I was about to earn my pay.
As I watched, both craft, having spotted me on their radar, changed course and began converging on The Maine.
We were in trouble.
CHAPTER 54
The Maine was getting tossed around by the wind and waves, though I was able to keep her on a straight northerly heading toward international waters, which were about ten miles ahead. But no matter how I did the math, the two Guarda Frontera patrol boats were going to intercept us before I crossed that imaginary line—which was imaginary enough for them to ignore.
In fact, the two patrol boats had by now been told what happened to their colleagues in the mangrove swamp, and it didn’t take too much genius for them to figure out that the radar blip they saw was the boat used by the murderers in the swamp. A little more thought would draw them to the conclusion that this was the American fishing boat Fishy Business, and those patrol boats would follow us to hell to get revenge.
The rain was getting heavier, and I wasn’t able to see much through the windshield, even with the wipers going full speed. There wasn’t much to see anyway; if you’ve seen one storm, you’ve seen them all. The radar, however, showed a clearer picture of the danger, and it wasn’t the weather.
Jack came into the cabin and looked at the radar screen. “Do I see what I think I’m seein’?”
“You do.”
“Shit.” He asked, “What’re we gonna do?”
Well, we were going to get captured or killed. Unless the other guys made a mistake. Or unless I could make them make a mistake. “It’s like a chess game. Except everybody gets only one move.”
“Okay . . . what’s our move?”
I looked at the radar screen. The Zhuk-class patrol boat was heading for us from the west, probably at his full speed, which was twenty-five knots. If I maintained a direct north heading, he’d veer north, and at some point his machine guns would be within firing range of us, but he couldn’t actually overtake us. The real problem was the Stenka-class boat, which at forty-five knots was close enough at six nautical miles to be alongside us within maybe ten or fifteen minutes—or within firing range with his radar-controlled guns sooner than that.
I wasn’t sure of the effective firing range of the Stenka’s 30mm rapid-fire cannons, but that’s a relatively small caliber, and the cannon shell was about the size and shape of a big Cohiba in an aluminum tube—but this was an exploding cigar. Guns like that were used mostly for anti-aircraft and ripping up a small ship—like The Maine—and I knew it was a close-range cannon. Maybe accurate at two miles.
The question was, did these guys want to kill us, or capture us? I would have said capture, except I’d left a lot of Guarda Frontera corpses back on the shore. So the guys in the patrol boats would fire first, no questions asked.
“Talk to me, Mac.”
“I’m thinking.”
“I think you gotta make your move.”
I turned on the radio and switched to Channel 16, the international distress and hailing channel, where the Cuban gunboats might try to contact me. I could hear voices in Spanish, and they weren’t singing “Guantanamera.” I would have called below for a translator, but I understood “Guarda Frontera,” and I was also able to translate “Feeshy Beesness,” and that’s all I needed to know. I shut off the radio.
Jack said, “Holy shit.”
“What do you do, Jack, when any move you make is the wrong move?”
“You hope the other guy makes a bad move.”
“Right. And what do you do when you’re in contact with a superior force and you can’t break contact?”
“You do the unexpected.”
“Right.” I looked at the radar screen. If I kept a northerly heading, I’d be intercepted from the east and the west. If I turned south, I could get back into the inter-coastal waters between the archipelago and the coast of Cuba, and maybe play cat-and-mouse with these guys for awhile, but that would just delay the inevitable.
I asked Jack, “So if the bad guys are pressing you from two sides and you can’t break contact, what do they not expect you to do?”
“Attack.”
“Right.” I turned the wheel to port and took a direct heading toward the Zhuk-class boat that was coming at us from the west.
Jack said, “I guess you want to get this over with sooner than later.”
“Correct.”
Felipe came up to the cabin, wondering, I’m sure, about our new heading. “What are you doing?”
I tapped the screen. “We’re meeting the beast. The Zhuk.”
“Are you crazy?”
Why do people always ask me that? But I took a moment to explain, “We need to stay as far from the Stenka as possible, so we’re heading directly away from him.”
Felipe looked at the radar screen. “But you’re heading right for the Zhuk—”
“I know where I’m heading.”
He asked again, “Are you crazy?”
“Go below.”
But he had a suggestion. “Turn around and get back into the archipelago.”
“Go below.”
Felipe was staring at the screen, transfixed. “Listen . . . if we get back into the archipelago, they’ll lose us on their radar—”
“Until they follow us.”
“Their radar is going to pick up shore clutter, islands . . . We can get into a mangrove swamp—”
“I’ve had enough mangrove swamps for awhile, amigo. Go below. That’s an order.”
But Felipe was not taking orders from me and he said, “You’re going to get us killed.”