Black Horizon

by James Grippando

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I had a hunch yesterday, so I asked the concierge to make a run to the drugstore and get me a kit.”

  “A kit?”

  She dug into her pocket and showed him the blue test stick. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Chapter 5

  Wow, I’m gonna be a dad.”

  It was about the tenth time Jack had uttered words to that effect since leaving Big Palm Island. They were in Jack’s convertible, driving north toward the mainland on U.S. 1 with the top down. Andie looked much better. The sunshine and fresh air were working wonders on her morning sickness—for the moment, anyway.

  “I’m glad you’re happy.”

  “Of course I’m happy,” said Jack. “Only one little concern.”

  “What?”

  “How do I tell Abuela I didn’t marry a virgin?”

  “By my calculation you’ve got almost eight months to figure that out.”

  Jack had intended it as a joke, but the more he thought about it, the more he hoped that his grandmother simply wouldn’t do the math.

  The narrow highway stretched for miles before them. Not a building was in sight, the tropical sun glistening on clear and shallow waters on either side, the gulf to the west, the Atlantic to the east. The entirety of the aptly named Overseas Highway ran from Miami to Key West. It made driving seem like the way to get there, but at certain isolated segments along the way it was easy to imagine that Henry Flagler had just built the bridges and laid the railroad tracks that had originally connected the Keys, only to be blown away in the hurricane of 1935. The Seven Mile Bridge was particularly breathtaking, a concrete ribbon at odds with nature that somehow managed to maintain harmony with the surrounding natural beauty. For miles, the only sign of civilization was the traffic. Jack noted that virtually all of it was against them—heading south, toward Key West and the biggest news story on the planet. About every third vehicle was a satellite van.

  “When should we alert the media?” Jack asked.

  “What?”

  Andie didn’t get the joke, but Jack subscribed to the shotgun theory of humor, so rather than explain, he just moved on and hoped that the next pellet would hit the mark. “When can we start telling people you’re pregnant?”

  “Let’s wait until I see a doctor.”

  “That makes sense. Let’s go.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Yeah. Tell her we decided on Jamaica as Plan B for our honeymoon and we need a doctor’s okay to fly on an airplane.”

  “Pregnant women fly all the way up to the eighth month. I don’t need a doctor’s approval.”

  Jack thought about it, then realized that he’d seen many an expectant mother on airplanes. “I guess that’s right. But maybe you shouldn’t be visiting a foreign country.”

  “Jack, if you’re going to be one of those neurotic pregnant husbands, I’m going to head off into the woods, pop out this baby on my own, and call you when she heads off to college.”

  “How do you know our baby’s a girl?”

  “I don’t. Could be a boy.”

  “Or twins.”

  “Do you have twins in your family?” she asked.

  “No. But you might. You’ve said yourself that knowing who your birth parents are doesn’t mean knowing the whole family history. A set of twins somewhere along the genealogical line strikes me as something that an adopted child might not know about.”

  “I guess it’s possible.”

  “Or triplets.”

  “Jack, the woods are looking really good to this she-wolf right now.”

  “Sorry.”

  Andie’s cell rang, and Jack focused on the road as she took the call. The traffic ahead was stopped, so he braked to cut his speed.

  “Jack, please.” She was still on the phone, but apparently even the slightest motion in the car was more than her morning sickness could take.

  “Sorry,” said Jack. A long line of cars ahead of them was at a dead stop. It seemed odd that northbound traffic would be backed up, unless the authorities had road-blocked the entrance to the Keys, forcing southbound vehicles to turn around and head back toward Miami.

  “Jack, really,” said Andie.

  He had barely touched the brake. He put the car in neutral and tried coasting to a stop. At least fifty cars were lined up ahead of them, and it was exactly as Jack had suspected. Florida Highway Patrol was shutting down the lower Keys and Key West. The only people getting through the roadblock were the media vans, cleanup convoys, and, presumably, residents. It was enough to erase any of Jack’s lingering questions about leaving Big Palm Island. The last thing any sane ob-gyn would recommend was a beach vacation less than ninety miles from an oil spill. And even if those tar balls on the beach were “unrelated” to the spill, and even if the fresh dolphin filet wasn’t contaminated, the hotel manager’s comparison of the Gulf Stream to a “conveyor belt” was hardly soothing. Jack’s house sat right alongside the road, so to speak, just another fifty miles to the north. His recollection was that it had taken almost three months to cap the Deepwater Horizon spill, and that was with the best equipment and most highly trained response teams in the world. Who knew how long it would take the Cubans to get this one under control? Fifty thousand barrels a day had to go somewhere.

  “I need you to take me to Tamiami Airport,” said Andie.

  Her phone call was over, and Jack didn’t have to ask if it had been work related. A flight out of Tamiami always meant one thing: a destination dictated by the FBI, unknown even to Andie, never to be known by Jack.

  “Today?”

  “Sorry, yes. The start date for my assignment has been moved up.”

  “But you cleared both the wedding and the honeymoon two months ago.”

  “That was then. The situation has changed.”

  The situation. That was as much as Jack would ever hear about one of Andie’s undercover operations. This time, however, he’d seen enough Cantonese-language instructional CDs around the house to figure out that there was a China connection.

  “Could this possibly have anything to do with the fact that the exploded oil rig is owned by the Chinese?”

  He glanced in Andie’s direction, but she was gazing out toward the ocean, showing him the back of her head, refusing even to acknowledge the question.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  Northbound traffic was suddenly moving again. Jack punched the gas to close the gap between him and the pickup truck ahead, but he’d accelerated too quickly. Andie suddenly didn’t look so good. She reached into the backseat and grabbed the ice bucket they’d borrowed from the resort. Her head went down between her knees, and those rare birds—the September geese of the Florida Keys—were honking again. Jack reached over and laid his hand between her shoulder blades. Finally she sat up, her eyes closing as her head rolled back against the headrest.

  “You might want to take that bucket with you.”

  “You might want to wear Kevlar,” she said as her left fist catapulted across the console and nailed him squarely in the chest.

  “Damn, girl! That hurt!”

  “Good,” she said, managing a little smile. “It was supposed to.”

  Chapter 6

  Jack parked along the road outside Tamiami Airport and watched from his open convertible as the jet cleared the runway and disappeared into the clouds.

  The first leg of Andie’s trip was under her actual credentials, a commercial flight to a destination that had nothing to do with her assignment. Leg two was where Andie Henning would vanish, and only after leg three or beyond would she settle into her new community under an assumed identity. The abrupt end to their honeymoon was a bummer, and even though Jack had married her with eyes open, the morning sickness had put an entirely different spin on her open-ended assignment.

  Next time I see you, our baby could be kicking.

  Jack drove away, not sure where he was headed. It wasn’t easy for a sole pr
actitioner to clear his calendar, but Jack had blocked out the entire week, and he didn’t especially feel like going into the office. He called Theo, who was his usual sympathetic self.

  “Bitch.”

  “It’s her job,” said Jack. “She’s not a bitch.”

  “No, I meant you, bitch. Looks like we’re a couple of honeymooners.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have called you.”

  “You totally called the right guy,” said Theo. “We’re going to Key West.”

  “To do what?”

  “To stand up for the fish and birds and everything else that is about to be covered in oil.”

  “How very social-minded of you.”

  “Not really. Journalists are a bunch of drunks. Business is about to explode at my buddy’s bar on Duval Street. He needs a hand.”

  “I hate to rain on your sudden conversion from nature lover to capitalist pig, but they’re shutting down the Keys. You can’t get to Key West.”

  “My buddy will get us through.”

  “How?”

  “Dude, trust me.”

  The last time Jack had done so, his classic 1966 Mustang with pony interior was reduced to a heap of charred metal by some very pissed-off Colombians. But his packed suitcase was still in the trunk and he had nothing else to do. “I’ll pick you up in twenty,” he said.

  Jack made it in half that time, but every extra minute and then some was lost on U.S. 1, which south of Sparky’s had become a veritable parking lot. Florida Highway Patrol had moved the middle-Keys roadblock up to Key Largo, a pretty reliable indicator that the NOAA’s projected zone of impact had expanded north to the upper Keys. Southbound traffic was backed up all the way to the mainland. Theo spent the entire trip surfing the Web on his iPhone, giving Jack oil-spill updates in real time as they crept along in stop-and-go traffic.

  “Get this,” said Theo. “Says here that if American cleanup equipment isn’t allowed into Cuban waters, it could take anywhere from fifty to seventy days for the right equipment to arrive from Africa or South America.”

  There was a new oil-spill tidbit every two minutes, and Jack had no idea how much of the Internet slosh was true. Ninety minutes into the trip, the FHP checkpoint was in sight. Theo had yet to contact his friend who owned the bar in Key West, so he tried calling one more time.

  “He still doesn’t answer,” said Theo as he tucked away his phone.

  “This guy’s a friend of yours?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “You dropped everything in Miami to help out a friend of a friend in Key West?”

  “It’s business. Word on the street is that Rick’s looking to sell his café. I got a group of about five guys thinking about making an offer. Two of ’em actually have money. I’m the scout.”

  “Well, scout. How are we getting through the roadblock?”

  Theo fell silent for a moment, thinking. Jack’s gaze returned to the roadblock, where just about every other car was being turned away. They were in need of a plan, and from the expression on Theo’s face, one had just come to him.

  “Do you still have your room key from Big Palm Island?” asked Theo.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Give it to me.”

  “This is your plan to get us through the roadblock?”

  “Just give me the key,” said Theo.

  Jack opened his wallet and handed him the plastic card. The convertible inched forward to the checkpoint, where a state trooper stopped them and approached the vehicle from the driver’s side.

  “Afternoon, fellas. We’re turning away all sightseers. What’s your business in the Keys?”

  Theo leaned over from the passenger seat and handed him the key. “We’re staying at Big Palm Island Resort.”

  The trooper looked skeptical. “The two of you are staying on Big Palm Island—together?”

  “Yes,” said Theo. He reached across the console and slid his hand onto Jack’s knee. Jack froze.

  “Is there something wrong with that?” asked Theo.

  “Well, uh, no,” the trooper said, backpedaling. “Of course not.”

  “Because you’re acting as if there is something wrong,” said Theo, indignant.

  “Nothing wrong at all,” said the trooper. “I have lots of friends who are . . . well, I have a few friends who probably know some gay people.”

  “May I have our key, please?” asked Theo.

  The trooper gave it to him.

  “I’ll have you know that this key is to the honeymoon suite at Big Palm Island Resort. Isn’t that right, Jacky?”

  Jack hesitated. “Technically, yes, that’s true.”

  “So you two are on your honeymoon?” asked the trooper.

  “Yes,” said Theo.

  “No,” said Jack.

  “It wasn’t a trick question,” said the trooper.

  “I’m on my honeymoon,” said Jack. “But he’s not . . . I mean, we’re not—this is not our honeymoon.”

  Theo folded his arms in pouty fashion, glaring at Jack. “So hurtful, Jack. You promised: no more double life. Officer, could you please let us through before my so-called partner ruins everything?”

  The trooper hesitated.

  “Please,” said Theo.

  “All right.” The trooper stepped aside and waved them through. “Enjoy your honeymoon. But you may want to check out early if that oil comes this way.”

  “Thank you,” said Theo as they pulled forward.

  Jack massaged away an oncoming headache as he drove. “Theo, you just lied to a state trooper.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I know,” said Jack as they entered the Keys. “Bitch.”

  They reached the southernmost city in the continental United States at dinnertime and headed straight to Rick’s Key West Café on Duval Street. The owner, Rick Cavas, was out. The hostess had “no idea” where Rick was or when he would return. Jack and Theo took an outside table and killed the waiting time with a plate of “con fuego” chicken wings and a cold pitcher of beer.

  Overnight, Key West had become ground zero for the American response to the impending oil disaster—a quirky coincidence, since it was also mile marker zero of U.S. Highway 1. Duval Street, the main drag in the Key West tourist district, was known for its art galleries and antique shops housed in renovated Victorian-style buildings. But day trippers and cruise-ship passengers really flocked there for the offering of reef-diving excursions, deep-sea fishing charters, bicycle rentals, overpriced junk jewelry, and—the really big sellers—enough T-shirts to clothe a Third World country and an assortment of sex toys worthy of Fifty Shades of Grey. Crucial to the lively mix were dozens of open-air bars and cafés where local bands and musicians from all over the Caribbean created a mélange of rock, salsa, and calypso. Jack took note of the usual attractions, but they were clearly secondary to a much bigger phenomenon. Duval and its cross streets had become media central.

  Every major news organization had pounced on the oil-spill story and literally staked out ground. Mallory Square, a public gathering spot on the wharf where musicians, jugglers, and portrait artists turned sunsets into a festival every day of the year, had been overtaken by a temporary but monstrous two-story shelter for reporters and crews. No national news show was without its own Duval Street café for live broadcasts, roundtable discussions, and immediate “man on the street” audience participation. Environmentalists marched down Duval, posters and banners in hand, fighting to save the ocean, shoreline, and wildlife. On every street corner stood a television reporter, microphone in hand, interviewing tourists, locals, and business owners. The must-get story of the day was the firsthand account from someone in the commercial fishing or tourist industries. It was the perfect mix of drama and journalism, personal and angry pleas to the U.S. government to do something to avert a potential death blow to the Florida economy.

  They were about to order a second
plate of wings when Theo got a text message.

  “Rick says to meet him at the marina,” he told Jack.

  “He owns a bar and a boat?”

  “He has a charter fishing business on the side.”

  “I want his life.”

  “No, you want my life. I own two bars and borrow your boat.”

  The marina was a short walk from the café, and even on overcrowded sidewalks, they got there in five minutes. It was a good thing they’d left the car behind, because the parking lot was transforming into a staging area for cleanup equipment. Volunteers filled sandbags by the shovelful. Teams of handymen assembled floating booms to contain the oil. Cases of dish soap—the waterfowl-cleanser of choice in the Deepwater Horizon spill—were being unloaded from the back of pickup trucks. A palpable sense of urgency coursed through the marina, at times bubbling up into disagreements over containment strategies or arguments over salvage priorities.

  Rick stepped off the stern of his fishing boat and greeted them on the pier, giving Theo a bear hug and a friendly slap on the back. It seemed like a lot of love from a “friend of a friend,” but then he gave Jack the same big hug and back slap. It was just Rick’s style.

  “Glad you came, boys.”

  Rick was almost Jack’s height but he was packing at least another thirty pounds of muscle. Jack attributed the added bulk to wrestling with ninety-pound marlin or tuna on a daily basis. Clearly it wasn’t all recreational “catch and release,” as evidenced by the too-tight T-shirt that bore the stains of dried fish blood and the logo for “Rick’s Deep Sea Fishing Adventure.”

  “You done for the day?” asked Theo.

  “Yup. But there’s a little group of us leaving at dawn to see if we can catch a glimpse of the spill. You guys want to come?”

  “Sure,” said Theo.

  “Jack, you up for it?” asked Rick. “It’s about three hours each way.”

  “Jack’s in,” said Theo. “Trust me, he’s got nothin’ to do.”

  “How close can we get?” asked Jack.

  “How good is your Spanish?”

  Jack knew it was a joke, but Theo laughed even harder than he should have, as if Jack needed to be reminded how many times his god-awful “Spanglish” and general lack of awareness for all things Hispanic had embarrassed his abuela.