With the last glints of sun reflecting off the unburned portions of her silver fuselage, Betty was surrounded by curious villagers engaged in animated conversations all raging at once. Arms waved, reenactments occurred, and amazement slowly turned to concern, particularly in the women’s faces. I heard the word Americano several times, and politics aside, survival in Cuba meant keeping off the government’s radar. Maybe that would keep a lid on our appearance, at least long enough to get the hell out of here.
Ray remained seated in the younger man’s skiff and stared into the water. In shock from the knock to his head, or just despondent? I wanted to throw up but couldn’t afford the luxury. I was studying the fishing boats, dories, and skiffs, assessing whether any were seaworthy enough to cross the straits back to Florida, when the younger Cuban who spoke English stepped forward.
“My name is Juan Espedes.”
“Thanks for helping us ashore, Juan. I don’t know what we’re going to do about Betty—sorry, the plane.”
“It does not look good, Señor. I think she es muerte.”
“My friend here’s an airplane mechanic.” I turned to Ray. “You okay?”
I checked the gash on his forehead. It was swollen but didn’t look too bad. Ray pushed my hand away, stood up, wavered, then squatted down to steady himself on the side of the fishing boat. He had his cell phone in his hand but water dripped out of it.
“I’m sorry, Ray,” I said. “For not listening to you, for not telling you the whole story, for getting you into this mess, for—”
“Forget it, Buck.”
“I owe you the truth—”
“I don’t—”
“I was drafted—forced, really—to do something secretly—well, kind of undercover—for a government agency.” I paused. “I can’t tell you—shouldn’t even be telling you this much.”
Ray raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a spy?”
“More like a fucking errand boy.”
“That’s an awful lot to swallow.” Ray held his palms up. “But it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Considering our situation.” He rubbed his eyes. “And I’m sorry about Betty. I tried to steer—”
“You were great. It’s my fault, one hundred percent.”
He glanced back at Betty. “What are we going to do?” He shook the phone and more water flew out. “This thing’s shot.”
I glanced at the dories lined up along the beach.
“None of these boats go out into the gulfstream, Señor.” Juan must have read my mind.
“Are there any others we could charter in Puerto Esperanza?”
“To go to America?” He laughed, and then looked contrite. “No, sorry.”
A younger woman came up, took Juan by the arm, and turned him away from us. She spoke in quiet Spanish, nodding once toward us. After their brief exchange, she spoke to the other women, all of whom turned to look at us again, then she hurried back toward the cluster of small houses.
“Maria is my wife,” Juan said. “She has asked you inside for the dinner and to sleep. Nothing more can be done in darkness.”
Ray stood and stared at me. I shouldered my flight bag, nodded at Ray, and steered him in behind Juan. No, nothing could be done for Betty in darkness. Nothing could be done for Betty in daylight.
The question was could anything be done for Ray and me?
28
Juan and Maria’s home consisted of one bedroom they shared with their two young boys, a bathroom, and a kitchen with a small table and an ancient couch. By American standards it would be considered miniscule, but here on the western tip of Cuba, they were proud to have a free standing home to themselves. Only Juan spoke English, a result of his growing up in Havana and having a father who worked for Granma, the State-run news agency, where he was a liaison to the U.S. based news agencies with offices there. Maria and the boys were kind, gracious, and curious. Juan had a busy evening translating every word we said.
Exhausted from one of the longest days of our lives, Ray and I were dozing off in our black beans and rice. Once dinner was over, Juan pushed the table against the wall and provided us with blankets. I gave Ray the couch and he started snoring before I hit the floor. I awoke once, after a dream about Betty in flames and my being unable to get the fire extinguished or get the unconscious Ray out of his seat.
I went outside with Ray’s cell phone, but it still wouldn’t turn on. I walked down the shoreline until I came upon Betty, a black silhouette askew in the sand, alone and discarded like so much jetsam. The smell of low tide and rotted fish burned my nose and heightened the sense of death. I ran my hand down the cool skin of Betty’s fuselage until I reached what was left of her tail.
“I’m sorry, old girl.”
Black waves lapped against the shore. The water was warm as I waded around Betty and studied the gaping hole, the charred ailerons and rudder. With an antique airplane you’re always worried something will go wrong, or that you won’t be able to get parts as things wear out or break, but this I never imagined.
Shot down?
“You got us safely to shore, Betty.”
When I said her name aloud it reminded me of her namesake, my mother, which caused another missed heartbeat. She too died in an accident in a foreign land.
I walked in a fog of grief back to Juan’s. Once inside, I fell right back asleep on the floor and stayed there until a horn sounded a short series of blasts that awakened the entire household.
Juan appeared in the door of his room with Maria hanging on his shoulder. Looking at their faces it was obvious that the horn was not a normal occurrence. Their hospitality suddenly felt like a huge mistake. If it was the Cuban police searching for the American pilot, Juan and his family could be in serious trouble.
“Is there a back door?” I said.
Juan shook his head quickly.
“How about a window?”
Juan nodded and I jumped up.
“Let’s go, Ray.”
Maria, who had left Juan to peek out the corner of the window, said something to him, her hand over her heart.
“It’s a truck, a farmer’s truck from Pinar del Rio,” Juan said. “Mi madre!”
“You know him?” I said.
“I’ll be back,” Juan said as the horn blared again.
Out the window I could see an old truck with an older man standing next to it. It looked like Juan was asking what the heck all the honking at dawn was about. The old man pointed to Betty.
Double crap.
Juan held his arms up and lifted his shoulders.
“What’s he want?” Ray said.
Juan pointed up the road and slung his shoulders again.
“Is he looking for us?” Ray said.
I swung back to look at him. “How the hell would I know?”
Ray shrank under my glare
“I’m sorry, but we need to get out of here,” I said. “We can’t put Juan and his family in danger.”
We balled up the blankets and tossed them on the couch, then grabbed the flight bag. I saw Maria standing in the door to the bedroom, both boys at her sides, her hands over their mouths.
Crap.
The window in the back of the house was open, with a curtain made of burlap that fluttered in the light breeze. I smiled at Maria and rolled out the window like Butch Cassidy. I landed feet first on the ground, then hesitated while I listened. Ray fell on top of me and we both collapsed into the dirt.
“Oof!”
“Sorry!”
We edged around the house to the road. It was a dead end to the right, three houses down. The only way to go was left, where the old man’s truck was parked.
“What are we going to do?” Ray said.
I looked at the old man talking to Juan. No uniform, no antennae on his truck, no cell phone on his belt. No gun, either.
“Come on.” I stepped out from under the tree onto the road.
“What’re you doing?!” Ray said.
Juan and the old man we
re having a calm conversation, until Juan spotted me coming down the road.
“Buenos dias,” I said.
Juan stood with his mouth agape, but the old man had a small smile on his face.
“Buenos dias.”
Ray came up behind me just as the old man let loose a long statement, or question, in Spanish.
“No hablo Espanol,” I said.
“Ahh, Americano.” A bigger smile.
“I speak English,” Juan said.
“I understand Ingles too,” the old man said.
Juan asked some questions as if we’d never met, which Ray and I answered like the strangers we weren’t. Yes, it was our plane, we had an electrical fire, landed offshore and idled until we beached her last night. They both nodded and stared at me as if I were supposed to have more to say. I realized nobody else had emerged from their homes and imagined each of the fishermen’s families huddled under windowsills staring out and wondering what was being said.
The old man cleared his throat. “Are you CIA?”
Good grief!
Ray contributed a little shriek. I laughed.
“Actually, I’m a charter pilot and Ray here’s my friend and mechanic.”
Now the man laughed.
“Mechanic? You fix this plane?”
Ray shrugged but didn’t answer.
The old man rubbed his whiskers. “I saw you last night, a flame across the night sky. I know this type of plane, a water plane. It is why I came to find you.”
“Señor Maceo is a veguero, a tobacco farmer near Pinar del Rio, one of the best known in Cuba,” Juan said.
“You own a farm?” Ray said.
The young man sighed. “The government owns everything. He’s the manager, now. His family did own the farm, before the revolution. He’s a little famous. The tobacco for Trinidad cigars comes from his land. They were the Beard’s favorite.”
Great. Why is a tobacco farmer so interested in us? If he makes the cigars that were Castro’s favorite, does that mean he’s wired to the government?
The old man started toward Betty, walking slowly, studying her. Now, in daylight, the sight left me speechless. It sunk in with painful clarity that the girl I loved was totaled. There would be no way to fix her in Cuba, especially on the run from Gutierrez, who’d search relentlessly for us. I inhaled a quick breath. If this old guy found us, Gutierrez couldn’t be far behind. We had to get out of here. I again examined each of the fishing smacks in the distance.
Could any of them make it ninety miles to Key West?
The old man said things to Juan that he agreed with (head nods), a few he didn’t (head shakes), then some more that he did. Ray and I exchanged we’re-fools-for-not-learning-Spanish glances.
“Come,” the old man said.
Ray and I followed dutifully.
Where? Ray mouthed the word.
I didn’t know the answer but followed anyway.
What choice did we have?
29
“My farm is near here.” The farmer nodded toward Ray. “That cut on your head needs attention.”
Ray stopped in his tracks and looked at me. I nodded, and he shook his head. I took him by the elbow and steered him toward the truck. We had to get out of here, whether we knew what the old man’s intentions were or not. There were no boats or options here that would help us, so putting some distance between Betty and us made sense.
“I’m sorry about your plane,” he said. “She was very old. We are accustomed to using old vehicles here, but I fear your friend will not be able to fix it. She’s a Grumman, no? But not the Goose, too small, eh?”
Wow.
“She’s a Widgeon,” I said.
He’d said he was familiar with “water planes,” but how, if he was a farmer?
Now at the truck, I cinched the flight bag up on my shoulder. The old man spoke in Spanish to Juan, who smiled and nodded his head. He looked from Betty to us and extended his hand to me.
“Good luck, Americano.”
I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry.
“Can you keep watch over my plane? I’ll be back for her.”
The old man and Ray exchanged a shake of their heads. Juan nodded, and we got into the Chevy truck, vintage 1955, and sat three across the bench seat. Juan waved once and turned back toward his home.
I caught a last glimpse of Betty before she disappeared behind sea grape and casuarina trees. We bounced up the rutted dirt road, my heart in my throat, our future uncertain.
“Where are we going?” Ray kept his voice calm, but I could see—no, I could feel that he was a nervous wreck inside.
Señor Maceo didn’t answer. He might have grunted, I wasn’t sure. He drove with a hand loose on the top of the steering wheel and his head cocked toward the open window. The old truck was in decent shape. The interior had been replaced with odd fabrics stitched with care. The manual transmission shifted smoothly and didn’t grind, smoke, or shimmy. I thought back to the last time I was in Cuba, impressed with all the old cars still in use. Few were in as good as shape as this one, though.
We’d hopped into the truck with this guy because we didn’t have any other options. But why had he come to Puerto Esperanza to look for us? He said he saw Betty in flames as she streaked toward the west and that he recognized it as a seaplane, a Grumman in fact, but why did that matter to him? He wanted to know if we were CIA but hadn’t indicated whether that was a good or bad thing.
Gutierrez and the authorities would hunt for Betty, and it wouldn’t be hard to find her. I didn’t think the fishermen would talk about it, but with the plane sitting on their beach, it’s not like they could pretend nothing had happened. The logical thing for them to do would be to report it, but would they say we left with Señor Maceo?
Or would they burn Betty to the ground to get rid of the evidence? That thought twisted my gut, along with my awareness that no harbor was safe until we found passage out of Cuba.
If what Truck said was accurate and Gutierrez was involved with the Atocha theft, how crazy was it that we collided with him on the dive site? Could he have known we were coming? And how could he be connected with the Peruvians? Hero of the Revolution or not, he was just a colonel in the Secret Police. I pondered this for a moment. What about his boss, Director Sanchez? Now he could have connections to Peru, being a big shot in Havana, and all. Could Sanchez be the connection to the Peruvians, if in fact they were connected at all?
Having followed a coastal road for fifteen minutes, Maceo turned south and drove inland. The landscape changed quickly, becoming agricultural. Farms and shacks were scattered across the countryside, all of which seemed threadbare and dilapidated. Only a few had electrical lines connected to the single wire that ran along the road. This was one of the poorest regions of Cuba. Agriculture didn’t require electricity, only mules, fertilizer, sunlight, dirt, and a lot of sore backs.
We had to pull over twice for horse-drawn carts to pass, and both drivers waved to Señor Maceo. He stopped to pass the time of day with one of them.
“Do you like Cuban cigars?” he asked.
“Occasionally,” I said.
“Rum, too,” Ray said.
“These farms are where the tobacco for the best cigars is grown. Partagas, Cohiba, Cuesta del Rey, Trinidad. The fields are nearly ready to be cut.”
Large ramshackle barns with rusted roofs dotted the landscape. No John Deere or Kubota tractors were in sight. The harvest here was done manually. The broad tobacco leaves swayed in the breeze, bright green and dense in the fields. It looked like a bumper crop. In the distance, rugged gray mountains, plateaus, and buttes jutted up dramatically from the green surface.
“Pretty, huh?” I said.
“Sure is,” Ray said. “I wonder if they need any mechanics around here.”
Señor Maceo laughed, showing his tobacco-stained teeth.
“We Cubans are resourceful mechanics. Chevrolet does not ship us parts for these vehicles.”
We drove
another twenty minutes. I felt as if we were being sucked into the country’s interior, ever further from any chance of getting back to Key West.
Señor Maceo waved his arm out the side window. “My farm starts here and goes as far as you can see.”
“Your farm?” Ray said.
The old man sighed and was quiet for a moment.
“I still think of it as my family’s farm. A piece of paper or government declaration does not change our history here.”
Was that a note of political discontent? God, I hoped so.
He slowed the vehicle and turned down a dirt driveway that was better maintained than any of the roads we’d taken from Puerto Esperanza. A small but handsome farmhouse sat atop a slight knoll at the head of the drive in an oasis surrounded by tobacco plants. Multiple outbuildings were behind the house, including two large barns, one of which was built on the edge of a hill. A jungle of tobacco plants surrounded everything.
We pulled to a stop beside the farmhouse, which was situated just high enough to enjoy a spectacular view of the countryside and out toward the coast. An old Russian Lada was parked there too.
Señor Maceo saw me looking at the porch.
“I was seated here in my chair last night when your plane streaked through the sky,” he said. “Through my binoculars I could tell it was a Grumman.”
A door slammed, a young woman emerged from the house, and suddenly the landscape’s beauty was eclipsed.
She walked with purpose toward Señor Maceo’s side of the truck. She wasn’t smiling. The moment the motor was off she began a short series of questions, pointing to us as if we weren’t there.
Señor Maceo responded patiently, without raising his voice. He glanced toward us out of the corner of his eye, nodded, then answered another of her questions. Her hands were on her hips one second, a second later one was pointing toward the house, then toward us again. A roll of her dark eyes made it clear she was less than pleased to make our acquaintance.
“Oh, jeez,” Ray said.
The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, stomped back up the steps of the farmhouse, spun and waited, hands bunched in fists. Her long dark hair had swung around her neck. Her gaze was fiery yet controlled.
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