He finally gave up on trying to outmaneuver me, and came around hard so that he was now following me as I took a direct northerly heading toward international waters, which were about eight miles ahead—maybe twenty minutes if I could maintain twenty-five knots.
I couldn’t visually see the Zhuk in the darkness now, but he’d lost some time and distance with his maneuvers and my radar showed he was about five hundred yards behind me. And that’s where he’d stay if we both maintained our max speed. But with this weather, the Zhuk, which was big, could more easily cut through the waves and might be able to maintain a speed that The Maine couldn’t match. If I saw him gaining on me, I could run a zigzag course—like trying to outrun a big, fast alligator—and because the Zhuk wasn’t as responsive as my smaller boat, that might slow her up more than it slowed me up if he tried to mirror my moves. Works with an alligator.
Meanwhile, he was apparently pissed off and he’d decided to open up, but from five hundred yards in the dark rolling sea, his tracer rounds were all over the place, and mostly falling into the sea behind me.
I looked at the fuel gauge and saw we’d burned some diesel, but we could still make it to Key West—or if I had to, I’d head for one of the closer Florida Keys, maybe Key Largo, or even Andros Island in the Bahamas. I didn’t have to make that decision yet, and maybe not at all. Key West was where I started, and that’s where I wanted to finish. We weren’t out of the woods yet, but I could see daylight ahead.
But then I saw something else. I’d adjusted my radar to get a tight picture of the Zhuk coming at me, but now I readjusted the picture to twelve miles out to see where the Stenka was, and I saw a blip to the east—the only blip on the stormy sea—and it was on a course to intercept The Maine, so it had to be the Stenka, and it was about eight nautical miles away. Shit.
If I maintained a due north heading, I’d be out of Cuban territorial waters in less than twenty minutes, but the Stenka might get within cannon range before I crossed that boundary. If I changed course to head northwest toward the Keys, I’d be in Cuban waters longer than I wanted to be, but I’d also be running away from the Stenka and also ahead of the storm. I kept looking at the radar blip, trying to do the math and the geometry, like thousands of sea captains before me. You only get one shot at this, Mac.
Sara was sitting in the chair beside me, and she may have been there awhile, but typical male, I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I didn’t notice.
I said to her, “How you doing?”
She nodded.
“Can you do me a favor? Go see if Jack . . . Go see how he is . . .”
“He’s alive,” said Jack as he came into the cabin, drenched from the rain. Then he turned around, went out to the deck, and threw up over the side. That happened to me once when I came down from the tuna tower in rough seas. Not the worst thing.
I noticed that Felipe had disappeared from the hatch, and he appeared from below with a bottle of Ron Santiago, which I’m sure he had already sampled. He passed the bottle to Sara, who handed it to me. I said, “I’m driving.”
Sara took a gulp.
Jack came into the cabin, and Sara offered him the bottle, but Jack looked a little green and went below. I heard the head door open, then close.
Felipe was starting to notice that the cabin windows had holes in them and that some of the wood and plastic was chewed up. He said something in Spanish that I guessed was “Holy shit.”
Felipe moved behind the chairs, between Sara and me, looked at the radar, and pointed. “Is that the Stenka?”
“It is.”
“Shit!”
“And behind us is the Zhuk.” I let him know, “You did an excellent job, amigo.”
He didn’t reply immediately, but then said, “I think I got the gunner.”
Jack was halfway up the stairs now and said, “I nailed that bastard right between his fucking eyes.”
Which was more likely, but for all anyone knew, Sara had one of those impossibly lucky shots that no one would believe, including the guy who caught the bullet.
Felipe asked, “What are we going to do?”
I reminded him, “We are going to let the captain make that decision.”
He didn’t reply, but kept looking at the radar screen. He said, “The Zhuk . . . he seems to be too far behind . . .”
“He’s gaining on us, but not fast enough to get into firing range unless he keeps following us into international waters.” Which he’d do, because the Zhuk captain was very pissed off and he had a score to settle, and he had superiors to answer to who I was sure were reaming his ass in Spanish over the radio. I’ve been on both ends of radio transmissions like that.
Felipe concluded, “If we maintain this course, the Stenka’s cannons will get within effective firing range of us in . . . maybe ten minutes.”
“Who told you about thirty-millimeter cannons?”
“Amigos.”
I need a few amigos like that. “What’s his effective firing range?”
“Four thousand meters.” He did the math and said, “About two and a half miles.” Felipe also pointed out, “He could begin firing even sooner.”
Right. The Stenka’s rapid-fire cannons could put out a lot of shit from the twin barrels, and even if it wasn’t accurate fire from a long distance, something could hit you. Or you could be having an exceptionally good day and you could sail through the shit storm. It could go either way.
Felipe gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We need to turn away from him.”
That seemed obvious, but I pointed out, “If we keep a straight course north, we’ll be in international waters in maybe ten minutes.”
Felipe informed me, “He doesn’t give a shit. That bastard would follow us to Miami if he thought he could get away with it.”
“I know that,” I assured him.
Jack also gave me his unsolicited opinion. “We gotta head west.”
“Sara?”
She agreed with Jack and Felipe, but also said, “Do what you think is best.”
Well, there was no best. I reminded everyone, “If we head west, we’ll be running along the coast of Cuba, and if we do that there will be other Guarda Frontera boats sailing out of their ports that can intercept us along the coast.”
No one had any opinion on that, so I continued, “But if we continue north, away from the coast, the only patrol boats we need to worry about are the two that are already on our ass.”
My crew understood the dilemma. And that’s all any captain can ask for. I turned on the radio, which was still on Channel 16, and listened, but the Cuban patrol boats had gone silent. Basically, they had nothing to say to me, or to anyone else who might be listening to Channel 16.
I handed the mic to Felipe and said, “Broadcast a distress message, give our location, heading, and speed, then repeat it in Spanish for our Cuban amigos behind us.” I added, “Say we are being pursued by Cuban gunboats.”
He took the mic and asked, “Our current heading?”