Cruise Control

by A. J. Stewart

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” he asked.

  “I need to get off.”

  “Listen, Mr. Jones. I can overlook the fact you jumped off my ship last night because you saved another passenger. But don’t mistake that for consent. I could just as easily have you charged and banned from the cruise line.”

  “You could, and I would get that. But let’s look at it this way. Think of the PR that would come with banning me, a person who saved someone who got pushed overboard. That’s attempted murder, right? It wouldn't be a good look for you. And it wouldn't be that much better if the story got out that you allowed three million dollars in jewelry to zoom away on a speedboat that is right outside that door.” I pointed to the closed hatch where the crew had been unloading goods that morning. I liked that it was at dock level and therefore close to the water. Not three high-dive platforms in the air.

  “We can launch a tender,” said Army.

  “A, that will take too long. You have to slow the ship to do that, right? And then B, a tender isn’t going to catch a speedboat. No chance.”

  “What are you going to do? Run on water?” he asked.

  “I had a buddy watching the cay. He saw the boat approach the uninhabited side and collect someone. Now’s it’s headed away at knots and he’s just off the ship waiting for me. He’ll pick me up.”

  Army shook his head. He shouldn’t do it. It was lose–lose for him. The rings had been stolen and that story was going to get out. Even if I got them back, that part was fact. So his upside was zero. But allowing me to jump off the boat again? There was plenty of downside to that. If I drowned, he’d never work in the cruise industry again. Hell, he’d probably be found guilty of some kind of criminal negligence and do time. His only hope was the fuzzy legal jurisdiction that went with being at sea.

  “I’m sorry, Miami. I can’t allow it.”

  “They’re getting away,” I said, although I had no idea who they were, or if they even had the rings. It was just a gut feel.

  “Can’t do it,” he said. He walked over to a cupboard that hung on the wall. “I’ll tell you why.” He pulled a life preserver out of the cupboard. “This PFD is not rated for jumping from a moving vessel. It might come off unless it was tied very well, between a person’s legs. Second, this hatch. It is not supposed to be opened at sea. It’s only about five feet from sea level. Besides, if you turned this wheel and then pulled down on this lever, an alarm would sound in the security room and security personnel would arrive within minutes.”

  Army stepped to me. “Do you have the comms device I gave you?”

  I took it out of my pocket.

  “See? You put it in your pocket like that, it can fall out and you’d be done for. A smart man would tie it to his wrist.” Army tied the device to me.

  “It’s water-activated anyway, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “It is, but you wouldn’t want anyone looking in the wrong place. Besides, if you hit this button and hold it, it will activate anyway.”

  He turned to Porter. “Flashlight?”

  She handed him a flashlight that was attached to her belt and he passed it to me.

  “Now, you see my point? I can’t allow it. So don’t do anything stupid. Porter.”

  Army marched away and Porter followed.

  “What just happened?” Danielle asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  I moved to the hatch and turned the wheel. It took some doing. Then I put my hand on the lever. I looked at Danielle.

  “Lucas is right out there.”

  “I know.”

  “I can swim back to Paradise Cay if I have to.”

  “I know.”

  I slipped the life preserver over my head and ran the straps between my legs and tied them tight. Then I pulled the lever on the door down and waited for the alarm. There wasn’t one. I assumed that Army hadn’t lied. It was probably sounding all kinds of trouble in the security control room. I pushed the door open. It didn’t open like a regular door. It was more like something I had seen on an aircraft. It pushed out and then the hinges pulled it back along the side of the ship.

  The water broke white below me. I took a breath. For a moment I agreed with Danielle and Army. Jumping would be a decidedly dumb thing to do. But Lucas was out there, and I had more confidence in him than I had in myself. I pressed and held the button on the locator beacon and a light began flashing red. I looked at Danielle.

  Hers was the last face I ever wanted to see. I knew that more than I had ever known anything in my life. But I also knew I wanted to see it again tomorrow. So I was coming back. I was almost certain of that.

  Danielle grabbed me by the life preserver and pulled me in and kissed me deeply.

  “Call me,” she said.

  I nodded, and then for the second time in two days, I jumped off a perfectly good cruise ship.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  This time, I didn’t have as much time to think on the way down. I just pushed out to get as far from the hull as I could, and hit the water like I was entering a pool from the deck. Not hard at all. I didn’t even go all the way under. The life preserver did its job, although it very nearly neutered me in the process. I saw Army’s point.

  Like last night, the water was cold. I'd thought before that feeling had been a result of fear or maybe adrenaline, but now I figured it was because it was dark and I was being pushed back and away by the ship's wake. Once the major buffeting stopped, I turned on the flashlight.

  I saw no evidence of Lucas. Not the sound of an engine, not running lights on a bow. I spun slow circles, turning my flashlight around like a lighthouse. I slowed a little each time I faced the ship, which was moving away, getting smaller.

  As I circled I checked the locator beacon. It was still attached to me and the light still flashed red. I hoped that meant something. I preferred having a life preserver around me to having Frederick Connors around me. And I resolved never to go swimming in a tuxedo again. Shorts and a shirt made the going much easier. I watched the ship slip away and wondered if Lucas had broken down. I circled again.

  Then I heard it. The steady throb of a powerful engine being held back from its full potential. More boom, boom, boom, than putt, putt, putt. I pointed the flashlight in the direction of the sound, and soon my light was mirrored by a light pointed at me.

  The torpedo-like hull of a speedboat burst from the darkness. The engine dropped to an idle and the boat pulled alongside, and Lucas’s smiling face appeared. He directed the boat past me and then threw down his hand to grip mine as I reached the low point at the stern. He pulled up with an uncommon strength. This wasn’t the kind of power you hear about, like when people pick cars up off their trapped loved ones. This was more the result of years of pulling in really big fish.

  He yanked me into the boat and let me drop unceremoniously onto the floor. I saw fishing tackle arranged along the side and I used a large ice chest to lever myself into a sitting position. Lucas smiled.

  “Fancy meeting you here.” He turned the drivers seat around and put one knee on it and then pushed down hard on the throttle. I was driven back into the ice chest as the propeller bit and the rear of the boat dropped low in the water and the boat took off like a rocket.

  Getting up while wearing a life preserver wasn’t easy. I grabbed the other seat and hoisted myself up, then turned it and mimicked Lucas, a knee on the seat and a foot planted on the floor. I held onto the windshield.

  My hair was dry inside of thirty seconds. We were going that fast. I saw the lights of the Canaveral Star making its way toward Florida, while we cut away to the south.

  “Nice jacket,” Lucas yelled.

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or not. He delivered most comments in a drawl that sounded like sarcasm.

  “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “No worries.”

  “You find me okay?”

  He nodded. “Trawled behind the ship, figured I’d
come upon you sooner or later.”

  “The beacon helped I’m sure.”

  “The what?”

  I held up the comms unit-cum-locator beacon. It was still flashing red.

  “Oh that. Yeah, I can’t track that.”

  “You said you could.”

  “You wouldn’t have jumped in if I hadn’t.”

  “You might have missed me.”

  “I told ya, I was behind the ship. I saw the hatch open. Where were you going to go?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t going to win, so I let it go.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  He nodded ahead. “They went this way.”

  “Can we find them?”

  “If we go fast enough.”

  “What if they cut back to the north?”

  He smiled. “Then we’ll lose ’em.”

  We kept going at pace. The ocean was calm and the speedboat skimmed across the surface like a hydrofoil. I untied the beacon and sent a message to the ship that I was safe on board with Lucas. I really didn’t want Danielle to have that feeling. Then I set the device in a cubby in the console of the boat. I left the life preserver on.

  Suddenly Lucas pulled back on the throttle and the boat lurched forward and came to a stop. The engine cut out and the boat floated forward.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Shhhh,” he said. He put his finger to his lip for effect.

  I kept quiet. My ears were still ringing from the sound of the engines. It was like walking from a light room into a dark one. At first you see nothing, and then come shapes, which grow more precise as your eyes adjust. My hearing got used to the silence around us. Water lapped gently against the hull. Then I heard it. The distant growl of a marine engine. Another speedboat. I wasn’t sure which direction it was coming from.

  Lucas knew. He hit the throttle and we took off again. As we gained speed he flicked off the running lights. We were going fast. I couldn’t tell how fast. The dark ocean offered no visual cues. But it was fast. Fast enough that if we hit something in the water, we would be toast. At least the locator beacon would tell authorities where to find the wreckage and our dead bodies.

  We went hard for another few minutes and then Lucas pulled back a little on the throttle. Not like before. We didn’t come to a full stop. He just slowed down, like he could see in the darkness or had sonar. He broke hard to starboard and then straightened up.

  We were running west now. I could see the moon glow across the water like a reverse Bat-Signal. Up ahead, running in the trail of moonlight, was another boat.

  I pointed. Lucas nodded. He knew. He kept our heading off the other boat’s rear quarter, so that whoever was ahead wouldn’t see us in the moonlight if they chanced to look back. It didn’t take long to gain on them. They weren't going anywhere near as fast as us. They were running without lights, too, but clearly weren’t feeling anywhere near as reckless. Lucas pulled up on their rear starboard quarter and backed off the throttle so we wouldn't pass them. We could see the outlines of two men.

  “What now?” I asked. I’d told Danielle the truth. I really hadn’t thought that far ahead. I wasn’t sure how we could stop them. We couldn’t shoot out their tires, and ramming them felt like a really poor option.

  “I’ll pull alongside and you jump over,” Lucas said.

  “Jump over? Are you nuts?”

  “I’ll get close.”

  “I’m not jumping from one speeding boat into another speeding boat.”

  “Why?”

  “Physics?”

  He shook his head. “Physics. Seriously.” He yanked the wheel to bring us just behind and then pushed the throttle down again and we moved alongside. Our boats were inches apart. If everything was stationary I could have easily stepped from one to the other. I licked my lips and looked at the men. Even if I jumped and somehow didn’t smash my head and drop into the water and drown, I would pretty certainly hit the floor hard. And I had no reason to believe these men didn’t have guns. I heard Danielle’s voice in my head.

  Save me from that feeling.

  Lucas tapped my shoulder.

  “Take the wheel,” he said.

  I didn’t have time to discuss it. He put one foot onto the gunwale and pushed up and thrust his other foot out over the water. Then he strode casually from one boat to the other. Most people looked less confident stepping over the gap into a stationary train car. I grabbed the wheel with one hand and once I was sure he was across, edged away from the other boat so we wouldn’t collide.

  Lucas got his balance in the other boat. The two guys were still standing up the same way we had been, eyes forward. They had no idea he was there. Like a nautical ninja, Lucas moved toward them, and I watched as he tapped the outline of the guy in the passenger’s position. The guy appeared to turn around and Lucas may have punched him in the solar plexus. I couldn’t have said for sure. It was possible he knew how to do that Star Trek Vulcan thing. I put nothing past Lucas.

  All I knew for sure was that the guy collapsed back in his seat. Lucas turned to the driver, who must have got the message, because he instantly slowed. This caught me by surprise, and I sped right past them into the night. I pulled back on the throttle and did a wide turn. but couldn’t see the other boat.

  Then their running lights came on and they cut the engine. I pulled slowly alongside, putting the throttle into neutral so we touched nice and gentle, and I grabbed the side of the other boat to keep us that way.

  Lucas was having words with the driver. My ears took a moment to rid themselves of the ringing. The driver was speaking. He appeared to apologizing. Or maybe pleading. He had a distinct Bahamian accent.

  “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t know.”

  “Dumb, just dumb,” said Lucas.

  “You can’t tell him, man. You can’t.”

  I grabbed ahold of the other boat’s windshield frame. “What’s the deal?”

  Lucas turned me. “Miami, meet Ridley.”

  The driver was nothing but eyes and teeth in the darkness. He said nothing.

  “You know each other?” I asked.

  “Ridley’s dad owns a fishing charter on Chub. And he’s going to be mightily pissed that Ridley has been zooming around after hours without running lights.”

  “Lucas, man. Don’t tell him, please. I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what, mate? How to turn your running lights on? Or who you were driving?” Lucas bent over the guy in the passenger’s seat, who was doubled over and breathing hard. “And who exactly do we have here?” Lucas pulled the guy up by the lapels and looked at him close. He shook his head and looked at me.

  “You know this plonker?”

  In the dark and from the back, I couldn’t tell, so Lucas dumped the guy in the seat and I flicked on the flashlight.

  And saw the deep set features of Guy X.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lucas asked Ridley if he had a gun. The answer was an unequivocal and somewhat frightened no. He asked about Guy X and Ridley said he didn’t know. Given he had come from a cruise ship it seemed unlikely, but Lucas wasn’t about to take any chances. He patted the guy down with prejudice and then dumped him back in the chair. Then Lucas had me toss him some rope, and he lashed the two boats together. I turned on our running lights, too.

  “So what are you boys doing out here in the dark?” asked Lucas.

  “I’m just picking up this guy, Lucas, I promise you,” said Ridley. With some light on him, I noticed he was younger than I’d thought. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

  “But why?” asked Lucas. “Rid, do you understand that if this guy is carrying drugs you’ll get charged with drug trafficking, too?”

  “Are you serious? The guy just paid for a ride. He said he needed to get away from his nagging wife for a while.”

  “Keep your mouth shut, kid,” said Guy X. It was the first time I had heard him speak. He was all New York, despite the loud shirt. Lucas kicked him in t
he guts.

  “You keep quiet, you’ll get your turn.” Lucas turned back to Ridley. “So you’re saying this scumbag’s got nothing with him?”

  Ridley shook his head. “Just his little bag.”

  “Where?”

  Ridley nodded toward the stowage space in the bow. Lucas reached in and pulled out a familiar blue travel bag with the cruise line logo. The same bag Guy X had carried to the bar, except I was sure it wasn’t the same bag. It just looked the same.

  Lucas unzipped the bag.

  “This is an illegal search,” said Guy X.

  Lucas smiled. “We ain’t cops, champ.” He pulled the bag open and removed a black box, which he handed across to me.

  I put the box on the seat and opened it. A collection of Super Bowl rings gleamed at me in the muted moonlight. I had no idea if they were real or real fakes or fakes fakes, but I knew one thing: They were in the correct order. Green Bay was first.

  “There’s another box in here,” said Lucas.

  “You stole the rings,” I said to Guy X.

  “Those aren’t mine. They belong to the kid.”

  Lucas moved to face Guy X. “So who exactly are you?” Lucas asked.

  Guy X said nothing.

  “His name is Francis Martelli.”

  Martelli shot me a look that suggested we wouldn’t be golfing together anytime soon. I wasn’t sure if he was disturbed by me knowing his name or by me calling him Francis.

  “What do they call you?” I asked. “Frankie?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  I knew he was a Frankie. “I know who you are.”

  “You don’t know squat.”

  “I know you’re in possession of stolen property. I know we have video of you attempting to commit murder.”

  He frowned but said nothing.

  “So why don’t you tell me how you did it? How did you steal the rings?”

  “What rings? I just picked up the wrong bag.”

  “You did. And a Florida law enforcement officer saw you do it.”

  “We’re not in Florida, hotshot.”

  “You going to take the fall for this are you? You happy to do time in a Bahamian jail?”