Caribbean's Keeper

by Boland, Brian;

  Cole chewed his lip for a second and finished his Dos Equis. It was probably a test to see if he was really ready to turn his back on his country. Had he been sober, it may have taken some thought, but in his present state, Cole was up for anything. “Roger that.”

  David pointed at Cole as he stood up. “And stop saying ‘roger that,’ OK?”

  Cole laughed and leaned in a bit. “Roger that.” He walked around the far wall of the bar and up to a row of stools where the Americans were huddled. Each of them double-fisted drinks, and some had already latched onto a few of the working women who were quick to recognize the men as potential business.

  With his back to the Americans, Cole ordered another Dos Equis. Grabbing the beer and taking his first sip, he slowly spun around, ending up next to one of the younger Americans.

  “What’s up, man?” Cole nodded calmly.

  The young guy stared at him for a second then turned his body to face Cole. “Not much. You an American?”

  Cole took another sip and smiled. “Yeah, down here for a little rest. How about you?”

  The guy, probably just a few years older than Cole, finished one of his beers with a mouthful and struggled for a second to swallow before wiping a drip off his lip and grinning like a cat. “Not really supposed to say.”

  Before Cole could even respond, the other guys were giving Cole’s acquaintance a world of shit. One of them threw a handful of peanuts at him. “Hey, Secret Agent Man, tell him what you do!”

  “Don’t tell him; you’ll have to kill him!” said another.

  “Tell him the truth, you fucking air ninja!”

  They were all laughing uncontrollably. One poured the ice from an empty drink over another’s head. More peanuts flew back and forth. The ladies kept clear of the ruckus, but stayed close to keep watch over their men.

  The guy Cole talked to first finally settled down a bit and spoke quietly to Cole, his elbows pressed against the bar as he motioned for another beer. “We’re a Coast Guard C-130 crew, down here for a few weeks. Don’t mind the boys, they’re just celebrating a bit.”

  Cole grew a bit nervous if any of them might recognize him, but he didn’t seem to know any of them and they were well on their way to a drunken stupor, far beyond the point of distant facial recognition.

  Cole offered to buy the guy a beer and he quickly accepted. Over the next round, Cole got more details through light conversation. The American more or less laid out their night’s activity. With their radar and infrared camera, they’d latched onto a Go-Fast coming out of Colombia and orbited on top until a Panamanian Navy ship interdicted it in Panama’s territorial waters. Apparently there had been a bit of a gunfight between the two boats, and the C-130 crew had watched the whole thing from 1,000 feet. The guy went into great details about what a gunfight looks like through an infrared camera, describing the rate of fire between the Panamanians and the smugglers. He described it like a video game, except it doled out real death less than a quarter mile beneath them.

  The Coasties had found the boat, successfully vectored in the Panamanians—who were always hungry for a fight—and stopped that evening’s drug run. It was a good bust for the good guys and they were blowing off steam from near non-stop operations over the past two weeks before heading home in a day or two.

  Cole took a beer in return from the American and changed the conversation to women about 30 minutes later. By that point, the rest of the crew was out of their heads. Two of them had lost their flip flops on the dirty floor and were trying in vain to get them back on their feet. The others were laughing as the two shoeless clowns put left flip flops on their right feet and confused each other’s for their own. More peanuts flew back and forth. The bartender shook his head and laughed it off—just another night in Panama. After almost an hour, Cole looked back to see David still sitting patiently at the table.

  Two of the Americans started wrestling and Cole’s drinking buddy broke off the conversation to break up the fight lest they get themselves kicked out. The American stuck two new beers in each of their hands and sat them down at the bar. He yelled something at both of them, and they shook hands grudgingly. Making his way back over to Cole, the American laughed a bit.

  Cole looked at the bar where the two errant crewmen were seated, back to being best of friends.

  “You look like you’ve got your hands full.”

  The guy nodded and laughed, sipping from another beer before he replied. “Yeah, you stick these guys in a plane for twelve hours a day and there’s gonna be some infighting. But it’s still a damn good way to make a living. I love ʼem.”

  The American must have been one of the pilots. He was younger than most of the other guys, but could lay down the law if it came to it. Cole figured he might have been a lieutenant, but didn’t want to ask too many questions. Cole tipped his beer against the lieutenant’s and they parted ways.

  Cole shuffled between the ladies and the bar’s other patrons back to David. Some of the girls reached out and grazed him with their hands as he walked by. He was unable to hide a sly smile as he walked. They were all gorgeous, every last one of them. Sitting back down, David leaned in. Cole summarized the details, and David looked pleased. He took out his phone and consumed himself with a text message he was sending out.

  Cole looked back towards the Coastie crew. The two guys were back to fighting and the lieutenant was once again breaking it up. It was well past midnight, and the entire crew seemed good and drunk. The lieutenant was busy gathering his guys, and Cole laughed as he watched the show. Each time the lieutenant got one of them up or away from the bar, another one would slip back into the fray for another drink and he had to go round them back up. The lieutenant would have had an easier time herding feral cats.

  After ten minutes, Cole heard him cussing at a few of them as he instructed one of the older guys to put a girl down that he had picked up over his shoulders. Even the security guys controlling the parking were laughing and joking to themselves as the aircrew slowly made its way out of the bar and across the street towards the Marriott. Cole heard one of the younger crew complaining from the far curb that the lieutenant had ruined it and that one of the girls had really liked him. The rest of the Coasties were across the street by then, but the lieutenant was busy dodging traffic trying in vain to get his last wayward crew member to the safety of his hotel room. The kid was probably no older than 19 or 20, only a few years younger than the lieutenant. The rest of the crew, now gathered on the far side of the street, seemed older and a bit more seasoned, eager to watch the lieutenant flex his muscle against a drunk kid’s logic.

  As the scene played out, everyone at the bar from the prostitutes to the bartenders and the security guys watched and laughed, smacking each other in the shoulder at each new turn. The lieutenant would run around the back end of a car stuck in traffic as the younger guy ran around the front and back towards the bar. The lieutenant, clearly not as tipsy as the kid, finally caught up to him and spun the kid around back towards the hotel with a headlock.

  “GO!” barked the lieutenant. He kicked the younger guy in the ass as he pushed him across the street.

  The kid stumbled forward and steadied himself yelling, “Dammit, Sir. She likes me!” He pointed back towards the club in defiance. The whole bar erupted in laughter and the pretty hooker at the center of all the trouble blew a kiss back at the crew across the street and they cheered loudly, throwing their fists into the air. Now even the police at the Marriott were laughing and pointing.

  Cars were honking their horns at the show, and Cole sat back in his chair remembering fondly the bond that came from working side by side with the same guys day in and day out. Cole again thought back to Delaney and wondered if there wasn’t something he’d missed all along. But at that moment, the lieutenant didn’t give two shits about any sense of brotherhood. He barked out again and pointed towards the hotel. “Go!”

  In a last act of vengeance, the young kid to
ok a flip flop off his foot and threw it at the lieutenant. He missed by a long shot, but the bar applauded and cheered the kid for his effort. The lieutenant now ran after him and the two made it across the street to the welcoming cheers of the rest of their crew. The kid stumbled again, almost falling down, and mumbled something about wanting his sandal back before the lieutenant grabbed the back of the kid’s t-shirt with a fist and dragged him into the hotel. They disappeared inside the hotel and the bar settled back down to its normal pace.

  David was shaking his head and laughing. “You Americans, you are crazy.”

  Cole finished off a beer. He’d long ago lost track of how many he’d put down throughout the night. David sent another text then closed his phone.

  “That was twenty million dollars that we lost tonight because of those guys.” David said it matter-of-factly, but Cole was impressed by the amount of money.

  David flipped his phone back open and read another text. He flipped it closed and tipped his bottle to Cole. “Looks like you’re up tomorrow, my friend.”

  “What do you mean, I’m up?”

  “You gonna make a run to make up the losses from those drunks tonight. You ready?”

  Cole’s heart thumped a bit in his chest and he felt it in his stomach. The run tonight had ended in a gunfight. The lieutenant had said it looked like a bloodbath from what they could see through their infrared camera. The Panamanians played by a different set of rules and often opted to shoot first and ask questions later. Cole thought about what he’d gotten into. Guns never even came into the mix running across the Florida Straits. The Customs guys, the Coasties, even the local police never even drew a weapon against someone unless they were being shot at themselves. And no one Cole knew carried a gun. Kevin certainly hadn’t. Cole hadn’t shot one since he’d left Delaney.

  Cole looked back at David and asked, “Yeah. What time are we meeting?”

  David read another text, sent one back and turned his attention back to Cole. “Let’s meet in the lobby at noon.”

  Cole nodded and asked, “Am I checking out?”

  David shook his head no. “No, no, you should be back here a day or two after, sipping rum and smoking cigars to your heart’s content.” He smiled to lighten the mood.

  The two parted ways, and Cole made his way across the street and back to his room in the Marriott. Despite the unknown of the next day, he had little trouble getting to sleep.

  g

  The following morning, he was up just after eight. After a breakfast from the hotel coffee shop and a few cups of coffee, Cole spent almost an hour in the hotel gym. He worked out hard, but couldn’t take his mind away from thoughts about the run he was going to make. He hated the fact that he didn’t have any details. He didn’t even know what to bring.

  Taking a shower in his room, he dressed in a pair of shorts, his running shoes, and the same shirt he’d worn on the flight down. He had a light water repellent jacket and brought it along just in case. He also tucked five hundred-dollar bills into his pocket along with his passport and locked up the rest of the cash he’d brought in the safe in the room. Making his way downstairs, he had some time to kill before noon, so he made his way into the sports bar in the back corner and ordered a Cuban sandwich and water.

  Young Panamanian women wore soccer jerseys and knee-high socks to match the sports theme in the bar. It seemed out of place in Panama, but the other patrons didn’t seem to mind. It was someone’s interpretation of an American sports bar. Flat screens showed soccer games from around the world. Cole’s food came with a heaping portion of french fries, and he made sure to down half a dozen glasses of water to hydrate before the trip. He sat by himself and paid little attention to the televisions, his mind consumed by the task ahead.

  Finishing up, he walked to the lobby and found David waiting for him. They greeted each other like old friends and made their way out of the lobby into the midday sun. It was hot and the heat reflected off of the buildings, only making it worse. The night before was warm, but now, at noon, it was entirely uncomfortable, but still the locals on the street all wore jeans. Cole looked around the daytime traffic and couldn’t figure out how people could hustle around without sweating through their clothes.

  David directed Cole over to a waiting van. Climbing in, the air conditioning was running at full strength, and Cole settled into his seat against a window. He looked across the street to the now-quiet Habana’s and thought about the previous evening. It was a far cry from the debauchery of the night before as one older gentlemen swept the floors and a few men sat around smoking cigars in the shade. The van inched into the traffic, where horns blasted, people seemed to jump out in front of the traffic at the last second, and no one gave a damn about stop signs or traffic lights. It was chaos, but somehow it worked.

  David said nothing as the van pressed on through the city. It meandered through some side streets, into even less inviting parts of town, and finally merged into the moving traffic of what served as a main highway. They were heading north, paralleling the Panama Canal. As the van made its way out of Panama City, the country opened up around them. They were finally on a two-lane highway through open fields where cattle grazed. There were lean-tos built of scrap metal dotting the landscape and kids rode bikes down dusty trails. Some fields were growing crops and others were overgrown tangles of brush. It looked inhospitable, but there was a tropical feel and the occasional thick canopy of a jungle offered brief respites from the sun. They drove clear across the country to the Caribbean side, and three hours passed before they came to a stop on a dead-end gravel road. In front of the van sat a small bay with the rusted-out hull of a barge aground in the middle. A few small workboats bobbed gently in the breeze, and on the far side of the harbor against a backdrop of palm trees, two flatbed trucks were being offloaded by a bunch of guys to a panga floating ten yards off the beach. Cole and David walked over to the trucks and one of the men broke off from loading to greet them.

  “Is this the cowboy?” He extended his hand to Cole.

  Cole took a firm grasp and grinned.

  David piped up and said, “This is your guy. His name is Cole. He’s making his first run down here, but he has a bit of a reputation from running boats up north.”

  The man looked pleased. “Great, great, you are early which is good. We will have her loaded and gassed up in about an hour. You just relax and we’ll finish getting her ready.”

  The panga looked to be in decent shape. Pangas were unique to Central America. They were the workboat of every fisherman from Mexico on down. Built of fiberglass, they were usually painted in pastel colors with beautifully upward sloping bows and graceful lines. Normally, they were an open cockpit with a small center console just forward of the engines. This one had two outboards, both carrying 275-horsepower engines. Sometimes pangas had only one, and Cole was thankful this one had two motors in the event that one seized up on him. Both the outboards looked to be in good shape and newer than the panga itself.

  Perhaps it was stolen or perhaps it was reserved for jobs like this, but from the dings and scratches along the hull, Cole figured it had seen its fair share of time on the open water. With a wide bow and the upslope, pangas could handle open water better than the sportier models in the States. Pangas weren’t built to dazzle or set speed records, but they were a workhorse and many seagoing men trusted their lives to these boats. Cole had never driven one, but he had always admired their lines when he was a boarding officer working in the Caribbean.

  The six men finished loading bales onto the deck of the panga and began spreading fishing nets and gear over the top to give off the appearance of legitimate intentions. It was almost five in the afternoon when the last of the two external plastic fuel tanks were topped off. Cole knew that most smugglers used big drums and thought it clever that this panga was outfitted with square plastic tanks painted white to blend in with the white fiberglass bench seats. Even from ten feet away, he had a hard time s
potting any tell-tale signs of drugs.

  The same man came back to Cole and gave him a quick rundown. Two of his guys would go with Cole. One, Hector, was just along for the ride if anything came up, but the other, Diego, was a whiz with engines and would handle any mechanical trouble that came up on the run. Diego was a veteran and the old man assured Cole that he was in good hands. Diego had an athletic build and moved quickly around the panga, giving Cole a thumbs-up when they made eye contact. Hector, on the other hand, was pudgy and angry with Cole’s presence. After exchanging looks with Cole, Hector looked down at the water and muttered a few words under his breath. Diego yelled something back at Hector, putting him in his place, then flashed a smile back at Cole to let him know all was well.

  The old man handed Cole a handheld GPS and explained that this trip would go a bit under 300 miles of open water to the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The waypoint saved in the GPS was a river mouth where Cole would have to cross a shallow sandbar then take a left turn up the river to a small set of shacks. Diego and Hector would know where to drop off the boat. They planned for it to take 12 hours. Casting off a few hours before sunset, Cole would be there in the morning before the sun was up.

  Along with the GPS, the man gave Cole a smaller bag. Cole took it and it felt heavy. He unzipped the bag just a bit and saw a Glock pistol and a half-dozen magazines. Crouching down, Cole set the bag on the dirt. Picking up the Glock, he could tell it hadn’t been cleaned in a long long time. Salt had dried all over the frame and it had been shot since its last cleaning. Gunpowder residue was caked all over the forward end of the slide. Cole inserted a magazine, felt it click in place, and racked the slide with the gun pointed down and away from the others. It chambered a round with just a bit more grit than normal. If he had to take a dirty gun with him, a Glock was a good choice. It would run with just about any amount of dirt and grime covering its innards. He tucked the pistol in the small of his back, tightened his belt a bit to hold it firm, then tossed in his jacket with the spare magazines and zipped the bag back up.