Caribbean's Keeper

by Boland, Brian;

  The older man shook a fist in the air and repeated Cole’s words. “Vamanos!” His enthusiasm was contagious.

  Cole motored at half speed until clear of the points of land that blocked his view. Scanning left and right, happy to see not a single boat in his vicinity, Cole opened her back up to 30 knots and pointed north. He had more than half a tank of gas and once on speed, he felt good about the trip so far. It was just after three in the morning.

  The first hour went off without a hitch. The passengers had mostly sat down, but a few stood up, their arms braced in any way they could find to steady themselves as the boat leapt up and over the swells marching in from the west. Cole thought himself lucky that they ran with the Gulf Stream. Had they run from the east, they would have stood up tall against the current and made the ride unpleasant.

  Approaching five in the morning, Cole noticed several of the Cubans looking back to his port quarter and pointing. Three of them were talking. Cole glanced over his shoulder quickly but couldn’t see what they were talking about. They were looking at him now and asking questions in Spanish. Over the wailing engines, he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He looked again over his left shoulder and saw a red flashing light above the horizon, not too far behind him. He looked ahead to process what it might be. Checking his GPS, he was 25 miles from the sea buoy. He had less than an hour to go.

  Cole looked again behind him and clearly saw the silhouette of a helicopter. It was low and clearly flying along with him. “Fuck,” was all Cole could manage under his breath. He felt butterflies again. He yelled out over the engines, “Sientate,” thinking that it meant something along the lines of sit down. It must have, as the migrants all sat and pressed their backs against the sides for support.

  Cole punched the throttles. The boat gave him another ten knots and he was making 40 over the ground. She felt unsteady, as she had before, but now Cole needed the speed. With only her back end dancing off the tops of waves, the boat jolted from side to side, forcing Cole to spread his legs further apart to absorb the impact.

  He was still heading north, towards the Key West sea buoy, and the wind stirred up tears in the corners of his eyes. The Coast Guard station at Key West would respond, that much he knew. It was anyone’s guess whether or not they had small boats coming from Marathon and Islamorada. Worse yet, he had no idea what Customs and local police were doing. He knew well enough though that the crews of more than half a dozen units were now being roused from their sleep and running towards their boats, all to give chase for him. There was even a chance Delaney was out that night and Cole wondered if Wheeler was preparing his boarding team somewhere in the distance.

  Eighteen miles to go. Cole had to assume the worst. Boats were already under way and making best speed to close in on him. His chances rested on outrunning them, something his Intrepid was capable of. But if they were intercepting from the north, there was little he could do but thread the needle between them and hope to shake them off in shallow water. He strained to think clearly and analytically about his plan, but each time the boat soared off the back end of a wave and slammed back down, he would lose his most recent thought and had to begin again. He pushed the throttles again, but they were already maxed out.

  His best plan was to risk the boat by running straight over the reef, a route that no lawman would take. They wanted to catch him, but they wouldn’t risk their own boats or their lives by running over the reef at night. It was a gamble in that there was no way to tell where the coral heads sat. They could be six inches or six feet under the water. The move was smuggling’s version of a Hail Mary throw by a desperate quarterback. If they didn’t follow him over the reef, he’d have enough time to run her up somewhere and go from there. This all assumed that he made it through their initial intercept and lucked out with a deeper pocket over the reef. If he hit the reef, the boat would tear open and wreck, throwing him and his passengers into the air.

  The helicopter was still behind him and flew a lazy pattern on his stern, going from one side to the other. He focused his eyes ahead, scanning for the blue lights of law enforcement but saw none. If they were blacked out, he wouldn’t see them until they were right on top. Cole was 12 miles from the sea buoy.

  At eight miles, he saw the blue lights—two sets of them almost side by side, they were heading directly at him. He pushed the throttles again, but they were still maxed. He scolded himself for doing so as it was nothing more than a game of nerves at this point. Looking back to his left, he couldn’t see the helicopter. To his right he couldn’t see it either. He looked back left and right again and it was gone. Perhaps they’d run out of gas and headed home? he thought. Cole knew he lucked out on that one. His odds were now improving.

  Four miles from the sea buoy, he could make out the wake from both the boats coming out to meet him. He kept on his course directly at them, with a closure rate of more than 60 knots. Suddenly, one broke off to his right but the other kept on with a high-speed game of chicken. Seconds later, one boat passed in an instant close enough that Cole could clearly see the faces from the boat staring at him. His Intrepid rolled hard to the right then went completely into the air off the wake of his pursuer. It landed horribly and nearly threw Cole to the deck. Recovering, he made a 30-degree turn to the east and pointed now at the unlit line of coral only a mile or so ahead. Looking back to his right, the first boat had come around and was now almost abeam at less than a mile. It must have been U.S. Customs as it seemed to match Cole’s speed and slowly closed the gap as it angled in. Cole was impressed for a second at the coxswain’s timing of the maneuver. The reef was less than a mile away. The boat crew pursuing him would have to act quickly to stop him. The first boat, belonging to the Coast Guard, had lost too much ground in its intercept and was no longer a concern despite their pursuit from a half mile or so back.

  Cole turned 15 degrees back to the west to buy some time from the closing pursuit. He looked at his GPS just as the blue dot marking his position crossed the reef. He held his breath and clenched the wheel for the impending impact with the reef, but it never came, and she glided right over it and into the shallows. With the swells subsided, he had another three knots of speed and screamed towards the dark coast ahead of him. He turned harder to the east towards the darkest islands. Key West was far to his left and some smaller islands were directly ahead. He didn’t look back, but knew that the Customs coxswain had broken off the chase at the reef. He brought the speed back to 15 knots.

  He yelled ahead to the migrants to hold on and waited for the boat to hit bottom. When she finally did, it came on slowly at first. He heard and felt the propellers digging into the sandy bottom. As the hull caught hold it slammed him against the console and his chest pressed hard against the wheel. His feet came up and off the deck as she dug in and finally came to a stop. One engine was still grinding at half speed and kicked up a horrible sludge of water and sand. Cole killed the engines, and it was quiet for the first time in hours. Cole’s ears were ringing. He looked back behind him and saw nothing but the calm waters of the protected shallows as it trailed off into the darkness behind him.

  The migrants, all 12 of them, were already hopping over the side and into the knee deep water. They understood dry feet meant terra firma and they literally ran up to the beach, only 20 yards in front of them, where they huddled up close. Somewhere to the east, a dog was barking, reassuring Cole that he wasn’t far from civilization. He basked in the silence for a few more seconds before he heard the faint rumble of a helicopter. More than likely it was state or local police on their way to track him and his cargo down. He hopped over the side, into the knee-deep water, and made his way up to the beach, mad that his new running shoes were now soaked.

  Chapter 5 – Points South

  THE MIGRANTS WERE GONE. They’d surely been briefed about what to do in the event plans changed and clearly, the plan had changed. Cole was standing up under the overhang of some palm fronds as he fumbled for his phone—the
dog still barking in the background and the helicopter still a ways off. Dialing Mickey, Cole tried his best to explain what had happened.

  Mickey cut him off before Cole even got a full sentence out. “What the fuck man, you woke up the cavalry. Where are you?”

  Cole thought about it but didn’t know. “I dunno. I’m somewhere east of Key West. The cargo is good and dry, but I don’t know where they are at. They split pretty quick.”

  “OK. You go hide. Let things settle down. I’ll call you in a few hours.” Mickey pronounced the word you as jew.

  Cole hung up the phone and tucked it back in his pocket. Mickey wasn’t much help and Cole was mad at himself for letting things get so out of control. He meandered his way around the small beach a bit until finding a trail, then followed it some 50 yards or so until he spotted some lights. Proceeding carefully, Cole figured out that he was butted up against someone’s backyard. Sure enough the lights were all on in the house and Cole ducked behind a patch of palmetto grass and sat down in the cool sand, his back against the trunk of a palm tree. It was early morning and the stars were still bright with enough moonlight to see a good ways in any direction. Cole knew he was not in a good spot and the chopping sound of helicopter blades in the distance was his greatest concern.

  Cole told himself to be smart. His mind got away from him for a second and he forced his thinking to slow down. He was facing the house, the beach behind him, and he saw a gravel driveway to the right. Cole knew cops would be here soon and hiding in someone’s backyard was not a good option. Bent at the waist, he hustled over to the driveway, ducking behind trash cans and a minivan. The driveway led out to a road and he made a quick run for it to get some distance between him and the boat. The gravel crunched under his wet shoes as he ran and Cole felt the onset of blisters on his feet. He could hear the helicopter closer now and as he approached what must have been the main road on the Key, he could see the helicopter to his east, its spotlight combing back and forth.

  He took off in a full sprint, hitting the main two-lane road where he saw another gravel drive opposite the one he’d just come up. Cole sprinted north 100 yards or so until it opened up in an empty lot. There was a rocky beach just to the north then dark open water beyond that. If it was anything like the rest of the Keys, it would be knee-deep water for hundreds of yards and full of shells, rocks, and the occasional coral head. Swimming for it wasn’t an option—the helicopter would spot him in minutes. But going back wasn’t an option either and Cole exhaled loudly, fighting back the first tinges of desperation.

  In the lot were a few abandoned and dilapidated overturned boat hulls. The helicopter wouldn’t be able to see him under the hulls, even if it had infrared cameras. At the same time, the cops would probably bring dogs to sniff Cole’s trail. With that in mind, he jogged towards the water and ran in up to his knees, then turned west and waded back around the mangroves to where one of the hulls was overturned about 50 yards away. His feet were cold and made it all the more difficult to walk over the uneven rocky bottom, but he was able to grab the phone in one hand and flop the rest of his body in the water to wash his scent as best he could. He rolled a few times then waded directly towards the hull, shivering as he walked.

  Cole was careful to take as few steps as possible as he crawled up to and under the boat. With the glow of the phone, he looked around his cramped hideout then curled up under the bow and waited. Cole was soaked. Shivering in the chilly pre-dawn air, he was frustrated, but knew he’d have to sit tight for a while. This was not where Cole hoped to be, and as the sky grew lighter to the east, he heard the helicopter pass overhead several times—a constant reminder of his current predicament.

  Less than 15 minutes from when he’d beached, police sirens sounded in the distance. Cole figured the cops were on the main road when the sirens cut out and he heard a car door slam shut. The helicopter passed overhead again, but he never saw the bright spotlight near his hideout and it seemed that the helicopter kept its speed up. His stomach was in his throat as 30 minutes passed by before daylight took hold and warmed him up enough to stop shivering. With a bit more light, he looked at his surroundings, finding he was was sitting amid small rocks with some old fishing net down by his feet. Grabbing it, he made it into a bed of sorts to ease the pain of sitting on jagged rocks for the past hour. He began to relax and soon nodded off.

  g

  Cole woke to the cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He was groggy and slow to answer.

  Mickey was yelling at him, “What the fuck man. Where you at?”

  “I’m under a boat, Mickey.” Cole saw the clock on the phone telling him it was past ten in the morning. He’d been asleep for almost four hours.

  “What the fuck you mean, you under a boat?” Mickey seemed confused.

  “I’m under a fucking boat, Mickey. I don’t know what boat. I don’t know where. Thanks for asking, though.”

  Mickey relaxed his voice a bit, “Well, I’m out here looking for you. I’m on a jet ski.”

  Mickey’s pronunciation of jet substituted a yet for jet and Cole again laughed quietly and shook his head. The humor of it helped ease his mind. He wanted to say, “So jew are on a yet ski?” but knew Mickey wouldn’t get the joke, especially at this particular point in time.

  Mickey continued, “They were all over Sugarloaf Key this morning. The news said the police picked up the twelve already. Where you at on the key?”

  Cole connected the dots in his head. Sugarloaf Key made sense. He’d turned east during the chase and Sugarloaf wasn’t too far. He scolded himself for not thinking about it during the chase—if he’d been any further to the west, he might have ended up on the Navy base and his chances of hiding out would have been slim to none. It was dumb luck that he ended up on a sparsely populated key. Better lucky than good—but he’d have to do better next time.

  He answered Mickey, “I’m on the north bank of the Key. Hang on.”

  Cole thumbed through the phone until he found a GPS menu that gave him the coordinates and he read them off to Mickey.

  Mickey took the coordinates and told Cole again to sit tight—he was on his way.

  Cole relaxed a bit. The pressure was off, and he’d kept his cool through the toughest parts and was now on the home stretch. His mouth was dry to the point that he had a hard time swallowing and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. His clothes had fared no better than his body, having been soaked for almost 12 hours. The salt that had dried on his skin itched to no end, and as Cole shrugged it off and waited, he thought about drinking a beer and taking a hot shower.

  He was a long way off from where he’d been a few months ago. As he sat, soaking wet under an abandoned skiff waiting for Mickey, Cole did a bit of self-reflection. Smugglers had run all manner of contraband through these waters for centuries. Cole’s career had started off on one side of the law and he’d found that life dull. Moreover, he’d been told over and over again that he was not good at it. The Coast Guard small boat from the night before summed it up well. They were duty-bound to respond but had played it safe when it came down to it. There were operating procedures the crew had followed and that particular coxswain wasn’t willing to venture outside of those parameters to make the intercept. The U.S. Customs boat was similar. While the coxswain had shown some damn good seamanship in timing his intercept, he’d bailed when Cole approached the reef line.

  Their hearts weren’t in it like Cole’s was. As he sat there Cole realized that he’d just put every ounce of energy he had into avoiding capture and had come out on top because of it. Cole knew he’d won because he’d worked harder and taken more risks. There was far more at stake for him than for the boat crews that came after him. He felt a renewed sense of courage, the kind that comes from doing something well entirely on your own. He’d risked everything and basked in the satisfaction of it under the rotted hull of an abandoned boat as he waited. His soaked clothes, the blisters on his feet, and the fatigue that wo
re heavy on his mind were akin to a badge of honor.

  It wasn’t long before he heard the hum of Mickey’s ‘yet ski.’ Peeking under the hull, he saw Mickey idling up towards him and scanning back and forth in the sky for trouble. Cole crawled out and waded to Mickey.

  “Let’s go man!” Mickey was still scanning the sky.

  Cole joked, “You didn’t bring one for me?”

  Mickey was not amused. “Get on the fucking jet ski.”

  “Only if I can drive,” Cole quipped.

  Mickey was not happy. “Get on the mother-fucking jet ski or I’ll leave your dumbass for the cops.”

  Cole climbed on the back and Mickey throttled ahead out towards a creek taking them south to the open flats.

  As Mickey punched the throttle, Cole yelled over the engine, “Nice Yet Ski Mickey.”

  Mickey yelled back at Cole, “What did you say?”

  Cole was laughing as they screamed back west to Key West. “Nothing,” he replied, almost as an afterthought.

  The warm sun and breeze against his face were a welcome relief from the hours he’d just spent huddled under the skiff. Life was good once again. His fingers were still a bit numb from the nighttime chill, but the sun warmed the back of his shoulders and Cole smiled.

  Mickey dropped him off at a dock inside Garrison Bight, from which Cole walked several blocks back to Kevin’s apartment. As he meshed back into the midday atmosphere of Key West, Cole realized he was free and clear. Hours before he was a wanted man, but now he was just another face on the street in dirty clothes. A police car slowed as he cut down a side street and Cole waved with a smile as it passed. He laughed out loud after the officer drove past him.

  Rounding the last corner, he walked up the steps to the apartment. He strolled inside directly to the refrigerator and grabbed a Dos Equis. Popping the cap off, he downed half of it in his first swig before kicking off his sandy shoes and making his way to the shower. Hotter than he normally had it, the shower shook the last bits of cold from his core. He took long, deliberate blinks under the steaming water and felt the crusted salt melt from his body, taking the opportunity to finish his beer with another swig. The salt from his skin burned the corners of his eyes as the hot water trickled down from his matted and sun-bleached hair. He soaped up then stood under the water in silence for another minute or two.