“Toss it?” asked Junior.
“Damn straight.”
“Me, too?”
“You stay.”
Junior, perplexed, threw the vest through the open hatchway. I shoved the raft out, kicked a few other items overboard, then jammed the hatchway shut.
The Cuban was already banking around to investigate. He must have seen the raft or something in the water, because he took several passes before deciding to give up. By that time, we were twenty-five miles away.
“He’ll be bingo fuel in a minute,” M.W. said. “He won’t bother coming for us.”
Bingo fuel meant that the pilot had reached the end of his supply and would have to return back to base.
“Are you sure?” Trace asked.
“That’s the one Achilles’ heel those MiGs have—they can’t carry much fuel.”
“Maybe somebody should tell him that,” Trace said, pointing to the display that showed the MiG had turned in our direction.
Doc’s flying leap into the water was aided and abetted by an explosion, as the missile unleashed by the MiG set off the extra fuel cans lashed to the stern. The force threw him another forty or fifty feet beyond the others, who were doing their best impression of Olympic swimmers in an effort to get away from the boat.
By the time Doc hit the water, the boat had been turned into a fiberglass flambé. He immediately started trying to gather his team. He found Red first; she was bobbing a few yards away, held up by a life jacket. A minute or two passed before he spotted another head bobbing on the water. It was Mongoose, who’d managed to grab his ruck before jumping.
“You see Shotgun?” asked Mongoose.
“Negative,” said Doc.
Mongoose put one hand to his mouth and yelled for his friend. “Guns! Hey, you asshole, where are you?”
Shotgun didn’t answer.
The MiG, meanwhile, had taken a turn and was coming back. Fearing the worst, Doc told Mongoose to duck under the water. Then he grabbed Red’s life vest and began kicking backward from the boat.
A bright white light exploded overhead.
Damn, thought Doc; the MiG driver is going to shoot us.
He sank lower, still pulling Red along. She was kicking on her own, quiet, maybe in semishock.
Whether he saw them or not, the Cuban didn’t open fire. He took two or three passes, then roared off, probably returning to a round of drinks at his base.
Though the big flames had subsided, the boat continued to glow red as it sank at the bow. Doc could hear the sound of the flames crackling against whatever flammable material was left aboard the boat.
Mongoose once again began yelling for his friend.
“Yo, jackass,” he yelled, over and over. “Show your damn face! Shotgun! Shotgun!”
Doc faced the kind of decision every commander hates. He didn’t know if Shotgun was alive or not. He did know that he had two other people in the water who wouldn’t be if they didn’t start for shore soon.
“Shotgun, where the hell are you?” he yelled. “You have exactly sixty seconds.”
Thirty seconds went by. Nothing.
Twenty more seconds. Still nothing.
Ten. Nada.
“Sixty seconds,” repeated Doc. “Then we’re leaving.”
Once again, there was no answer.
“Let’s give him another minute,” said Mongoose.
Red’s breathing was getting labored—and not from anything good.
“We’re gonna have to go soon,” said Doc.
“Sixty friggin’ seconds, Shotgun!” yelled Mongoose. “Get your idiot butt in front of my face now!”
“You ain’t gonna make me kiss it, are you?” came a voice from the other side of the smoldering boat.
But it was the laugh that gave him away.
Shotgun appeared in the dim light, pushing a large hunk of foam and fiberglass that had splintered from the vessel during the explosion. There was a backpack on it.
“I figured I’d grab a few things,” said Shotgun. “Saved a couple of Twinkies.”
“You went back on the boat?” asked Doc.
“Just for a minute.”
“Good to know you risked your life for junk food,” said Mongoose.
“Gotta risk it for something,” said Shotgun.
“Let’s get to shore,” said Doc.
Shore seemed like the promised land to us at that moment. As soon as M.W. realized the MiG-29 pilot hadn’t fallen for his deception, he turned the ECMs back on, hoping to keep the Cuban’s radar scrambled.
It may have worked. The problem was that the MiG was also equipped with a passive infrared system, which could pick up heat sources like warm engines from several miles away.
M.W. didn’t have much of a solution.
“We just have to take our chances,” he told me. “We’re pretty low to the water. Maybe he misses us.”
The word “maybe” isn’t a word that belongs in a combat scenario. MacArthur didn’t say, Maybe I’ll be back, when he left the Philippines. Maybe you should wait until you see the whites of their eyes was not a rallying cry during the early stages of the American Revolution.
“Land the plane,” I told him.
“Land?”
“And kill the engine. If he can only see us with his infrared, the temperature of the plane will be pretty close to the temperature of the water.”
“The engine will still be hot,” said M.W.
“I’ll take care of that.”
“I don’t know if the plane’s going to stand up to a landing, Dick,” said M.W. “We’ve taken a pretty bad hit on that wing.”
“We have to find out sooner or later.”
“Yeah, but if we get in, maybe we can’t take off—”
There was that word again.
“If I hear the word ‘maybe’ out of your mouth again, I’m going to wash your face in that bucket you keep in the back.”
( VI )
Flp-tlpt-smack-smack-splasssshhhhh.
That’s the sound a flying boat makes when it hits the water during a normal landing.
Flp-tlpt-smack—blap-smack-spill-splasssshhhhh.
That’s the sound a flying boat makes when it hits the water with an engine out.
Flp-tlpt-smack—blap-shit-stink-damn-crap-smack-spill-splatspash.
That’s the sound a flying boat makes when it lands at sixty or seventy knots and its damaged wing smacks against the hard-as-blacktop ocean.
I’d grabbed the bulkhead between the cockpit and cabin as we went in, but the force hurled me backward. I flew into Junior and we tumbled against the side of the plane as it dipped. Then we were thrown forward as the plane skittered like a drunk sailor across the ocean.
Not having the float made things tough on M.W., and there’s no maybe about that. He slapped the damaged right wing hard against the water, overcorrected, and had trouble keeping the nose out of the drink. For a few seconds, the plane threatened to flip. Finally, the tail backed down. He got his hull flat and level in the water, then killed the engine.
“He flew past us,” yelled M.W. “He’ll be back.”
I yanked the port-side hatch open and pulled it back. Junior was in a bit of a daze, lying against the bulkhead near the tail section.
“We need buckets,” I told him. “Anything we can put water in. Start with the piss bucket.”
Even in the pitch-black of the interior, I knew his face had turned green.10
“We’re not eating out of the damn thing,” I told him, grabbing it myself. “Find something else.”
I leaned out of the hatch, scooped up a bucket of water, and threw it on the engine. There was a satisfying hiss.
Junior found a cardboard box and joined me; it held together for six or seven splashes, then disintegrated. I kept shoveling water onto the engine until I stopped hearing a hiss.
“Here comes the MiG,” said M.W.
We crouched down in the hatchway, waiting. A few seconds later, M.W. announced that it had pass
ed, but was banking to take another turn. It seemed to know we had landed nearby, but once more it shot past us. And this time it turned for home.
Because we’d made the engine cool enough that the MiG’s heat sensor couldn’t pick it up?
“Maybe,” admitted M.W.
That was one “maybe” I could live with.
Doc and company gathered around Shotgun’s “surfboard” and paddled toward shore.
Even for a former SEAL in excellent shape, a two-mile swim through rough surf at the tail end of a long mission is not exactly a lounge in the bathtub.11 People think of the Caribbean as a warm ocean—and it is, as oceans go. But let’s say that the ocean is, oh, eighty-two degrees—pretty much typical for August. Warm right?
Except when you consider that the average body temperature is 98.7 degrees, and that the laws of thermodynamics—yet to be repealed even by the U.S. congress—dictate that your body will attempt to heat the entire ocean as long as it’s submerged.
You may not feel cold right away—especially if people are shooting at you and you’re sweating your balls off trying not to drown. But even with a wet suit, eighty-two degrees is damn cold after you’ve been swimming in it for a half hour or so.
Red’s teeth started chattering after a half hour. She wasn’t nearly as strong a swimmer as the others, and her thin body gave up heat quickly; if it hadn’t been for her life vest, she’d’ve sunk to the bottom.
Everyone was affected by the cold and fatigue. Doc’s hands got numb with the cold, and Mongoose stopped grousing. As for Shotgun—he started singing.
Christmas songs.
“I can’t get over that body, Doc,” said Red, pushing her arms as best she could. “Hanging there in the dark. For days.”
Doc grunted.
“Fidel has a lot to answer for. In so many ways.” Red lapsed into silence for a moment. “You think there’s a heaven and hell, Doc?”
The question caught Doc by surprise. “Sure.”
“If you commit suicide, you can’t get into heaven.”
“Given that situation, Red, I’d say it was more like murder. Fidel took everything from him. Just about put the rope around his neck.”
“You think?” Her voice sounded a little less tired—but only a little.
“Sure.”
“That could’ve been my parents. My father.”
“I think we should swim, Red. As hard as we can.”
“OK.”
After they’d been swimming for nearly an hour, Doc spotted a light moving along the beach a half mile or so to their left. They aimed farther right. When they were still about three-fourths of a mile from the beach, the heavy whomp of a helicopter filled the air.
It was another ten minutes or so before Doc could see the helo in the night sky. It looked as if it were heading straight for them.
“Split up. Make your best way to shore. We’ll rendezvous when we can.” Doc took Red and pulled her with him, ducking under the waves as the chopper’s searchlight approached.
He was surprised when he felt an arm tugging on his side. Red had let herself out of the jacket, dropping down with him. They swam together a few yards, then resurfaced for air and ducked back as the helo’s searchlight did a zigzag through the area. They paddled together for a hundred yards or so, staying mostly under the water as the helicopter worked its search beam toward the spot where the boat had sunk.
Shotgun and Mongoose, meanwhile, were swimming silently twenty or so yards away, conserving as much energy as possible.
Well, Mongoose was. Shotgun was bemoaning the fact that he had just lost a bunch more of his goodies.
“Is everybody in the army as big a crybaby as you?” Mongoose asked when the helicopter finally headed west.
“Nah. I’m the top five percent,” said Shotgun brightly.
“One of a kind, more like it,” growled Doc from the distance. “You two bozos stop screwin’ around and get into shore before that helo comes back.”
“Right behind ya, Doc,” said Shotgun. “You think there’s crocodiles here, too?”
Doc decided that was a question best ignored.
With the MiG gone, M.W. decided to check the damage to the plane. He grabbed a flashlight and Mae West, then crawled out the cockpit window, climbing up onto the nose of the seaplane and back to the wing root. Junior and I pulled open the port hatch. Thinking I’d join the pilot, I reached up and pulled myself onto the good wing. But as soon as I did, the plane started to heave sharply toward the water. I scrambled up to the fuselage.
“I don’t think it’ll tip all the way over,” said M.W. “The floats are just to stabilize things a little. They’re not usually even in the water.”
He didn’t sound particularly reassuring. I stayed where I was as he slid out on his belly to the damaged starboard engine.
The metal cowling looked like the skin of a hot dog that had fallen into a charcoal pit. There were perforations along the underside of the wing; one or more of them must have accounted for the fuel loss. The float braces looked as if they’d been bitten off.
“It’s in better shape than I thought,” said M.W. He sounded almost cheerful. “I think we can take off.”
He fiddled around some, sniffing the metal before crawling back inside. Trace had pinned down our location with the GPS while we were wing crawling. She’d also tried getting ahold of Doc, without success.
“Probably just an equipment failure,” I told her. “Or else Doc forgot where the damn on-off switch is. You know how he is with technology.”
Trace nodded, though we both knew I was full of it.
Danny’s not that good a liar, so he didn’t say anything when we checked in, except that he hoped to hear from Doc at any minute.
The left engine coughed a few times before spinning to life. As it did, the plane jerked forward to the left, cutting a diagonal in the water. Straightening it out wasn’t as easy as you’d think; the plane slapped up and down against the waves and responded with a random assortment of jerks and gentle pulls.
Junior was curled up against the side of the plane near the hatch, which we’d closed again. He had the piss bucket next to him and wasn’t complaining about the smell anymore.
“I don’t feel too good,” he confessed. “I think I’m seasick.”
“Nah,” I told him. “You’re just having too much fun. Imagine we’re in an amusement park.”
He leaned over and started filling the bucket. Imagination wasn’t his strong suit.
The engine revved, and suddenly we were airborne—moving nearly as much sideways as forward, but still airborne.
Then we heard a crack. Real loud.
Either M.W. is a damn good pilot, or we were all damn lucky, because somehow he managed to get the plane onto the water without turning it over.
I can’t say the same for the wing. It had sheered off.
Junior looked up from his bucket as we coasted forward, relatively stable.
“Have we hit goat-fuck stage?” he asked. “Or is there still a ways to go?”
Actually we were well past goat fuck, riding with a wind at our backs.
It was now about 2:00 A.M. We were barely ten miles from the Cuban coast. The best we could hope for from the Cubans was that they would do the socialist thing and go back to bed until the morning. Even so, there was bound to be a patrol plane at daybreak. Not even M.W. could muster a “maybe” estimating the odds of it missing us once the sun was up.
“Can we get somebody out here to tow us back?” M.W. asked me.
“Not a chance. Not before they send daylight.”
“We’re screwed. We can’t fly on one engine.”
“We’re not screwed,” I said. “Rev up the engine, point us toward Jamaica, and get us there.”
“What, taxi to Jamaica?” asked M.W.
“It’s either that or we get out and push,” I told him. “And I’m not ruling that out, either.”
Mongoose was so hyped about crocodiles that when he brush
ed against a log a few yards from the boggy coastline, he tackled it and pounded fiercely on what he was sure was its head. Shotgun came to his rescue; when he realized Mongoose was pounding wood he naturally thought this was just the funniest thing in the world and began laughing so loud his guffaws were probably heard in Havana. Mongoose cursed him, which only stoked Shotgun’s laughter.
“You two assholes are going to laugh yourselves into the grave,” said Doc, paddling with Red a few yards behind them.
Shotgun stopped yucking it up long enough to grab the log Mongoose had wrestled with and push it over toward Doc, who helped Red hoist her exhausted arms over it. They all rested for a minute or so, then made their way to shore.
They were roughly two miles east of the spot where they’d landed earlier. Mongoose found a spot about a hundred yards inland where a pair of fallen trees created a natural hiding place. After scouting the area to make sure they were alone, Doc set up camp there and took stock.
All of their weapons except for Mongoose’s Beretta had been lost in the ocean. They had two magazines to go with it. Shotgun’s ruck—unlike Mongoose’s that had been ripped by the explosion—contained a knife, most of his first-aid kit, the cell phone they had taken from Senor Fernandez, a piece of loose licorice, and a fistful of candy wrappers.
Doc took the cell phone and examined it.
“You gonna turn it on and see if it works?” Shotgun asked. “We can call Danny and tell him where we are.”
“It’s probably bugged,” said Doc.
“You think?”
“You dumb shit, the guy was a courier for the CIA,” said Mongoose. “They knew that. That’s why they killed him. You don’t think they’re listening in on his line?”
“Maybe they stopped listening because they know he’s dead,” Shotgun replied.
“Your mother have any smart kids?”
“Just one. I’m an only child.”
Mongoose shook his head.
“We don’t need to use the phone,” said Doc. “Right now we’re going to rest up. Then we’ll go up through the jungle here and see if we can find a town or something. We’ll find a way to get hold of Danny without using Fidel’s dime. Or maybe we’ll just go to Havana and fly out. Right now, we’re going to get some rest. Starting with you, Red.”
RW15 - Seize the Day Page 6
