by Eddie Jones
Too late, Sonny thought. She’s gone. They were like two ships passing in the night without running lights—except Sonny wasn’t really sure what the phrase meant since he’d only glanced at the headline of the article in a sailing magazine. The caption beneath the picture had mentioned how two boats collided in the dark. According to the article, this was a common occurrence with drug running boats in the Keys.
Walls of white water scoured away the sand. The concrete dock twisted and crumbled. Picnic tables and bamboo huts rolled like tumbleweeds down the beach.
Nearby, a man (he didn’t look like a soldier, but he didn’t look civilian, either) pawed at the sand spelling the word HELP. When he saw the copter he started jumping and waving his hands.
“That’s not one of ours, is it?” asked Sonny, pointing to the man.
“Intelligence officer on loan from the White House,” a soldier answered. “We’ll pick him up on the next run. Everyone strapped in?”
As a frequent flier of commercial aircraft, Sonny knew that protocol required everyone be in their seats and buckled before takeoff, but the copter didn’t have seats and straps, just lots of open space, where now, old, feeble, and frightened cruise ship passengers huddled together, trying not to fall out. Reaching over his head, Sonny grabbed a support strut and nodded to the corporal that he was ready.
“Let’s go!”
“Wait!” From the other side of the copter a woman struggled to stand. “I can’t leave. Not knowing she’s down there.”
“Sit down, Betsy!”
Sonny craned his neck to see past the heads of passengers blocking his view. At the far end of his row, a long-haired man was trying to wrestle a woman back down. With his honey-silk blonde ponytail, ratty shorts and sandals, the young man reminded Sonny of Gregg Allman. But what Sonny found more interesting was the cruise ship passenger sitting across from Gregg Allman.
Sonny, cocked his head, examined the disheveled appearance of his best friend, feeling both confusion and relief.
Joe flipped Sonny a two finger salute. “Que Pasa, hombre? Did you ever find that girl of yours?”
Sonny sighed. “Had her on the line but couldn’t get her in the boat.”
“Well, you know what they say. Easy come...”
“…Easy-bake-oven,” Sonny finished.
“What are you two talking about,” asked the congressman, wedged between an elderly couple sitting directly across from Sonny.
“My buddy there played with dolls when he was growing up,” explained Sonny. “Barbie, Ken, Casper the Friendly Ghost and G.I. Joe.”
“That’s sick.”
“No wonder you’re sensitive and attentive,” offered the buxom brunette resting her head on Joe’s shoulder.
The woman fought to free herself from Greg Allman’s two-armed chest-hug. “Please! We have to go back! There’s a woman—”
“Betsy, please. Drop it.”
“A woman? Down there?” Sonny scooted closer to the side of the open bay door and peered over the edge. “Alone, and left behind?”
“Just like in an apocalyptic Christian thriller,” quipped Joe.
The gal wagged a finger at the congressman. “He made us leave her in the cooler.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Told us to keep quiet.”
“She’s lying! Can’t believe a word these dope smoking, drug dealing, hip-hop singers say.”
“My wife doesn’t do drugs,” growled the Gregg Allman look-a-like. “And we play rockabilly folk music with an island theme, not rap.”
Sonny focused his growing anger at Joe. “Is this true? You left someone behind?”
“For her,” he said, apologetically, nodding to the woman draped on his shoulder. “Was afraid he’d hurt her, if I didn’t.”
“That skank?” said the congressman. “I wouldn’t touch her again if you paid me.”
“You left my girlfriend down there?” Sonny directed his glare towards the congressman.
“Girlfriend? Hoss, there’s nothing friendly about that girl.”
A hollow darkness chilled him. Looking down and back he watched the heaving waves smash into the ship’s hull, saw the wispy foam snatched away by the wind.
Slowly, as the whirlybird banked away, the harbor shrank to the size of a kiddy pool. The Coast Guard craft became a fleet of brightly-colored kiddie toys: the Wicked Witch a toppled and twisted tanker, swamped by the chaotic splashing of careless children.
In that moment, he saw his life from God’s perspective, a fleeting mist of sea spray, nothing more. The shock of his eternal insignificance galvanized him and he lunged, launching himself across the bay.
He grabbed the congressman by the collar. “Where is she?” he shouted. “What’d you do to her?” Anger and fear erupted. “Hol’ still!” said Sonny, as the Congressman peeled free, burrowing behind the elderly man next to him. “I said, Hol’ still!”
Two soldiers pounced and pulled Sonny off, slamming him against the bulkhead. “Sir, you need to stay seated.”
“Didn’t you hear him? She’s down there!” Sonny charged again.
A swinging pair of legs clipped his ankles, dropping him hard. A second soldier pinned him to the deck.
“Mister, we’ll go back, I promise. Right after we drop you off. If there’s anyone aboard, we’ll find them. But we can’t if you don’t sit still.”
Sonny watched the soldier through blurred vision, the man’s face close and distorted. He’d cracked his skull on the deck when he’d fallen and his head hurt something awful. Still trying to shake away the stars, his voice echoed, bouncing off the canyon walls of his head: “Now! We have to go back, now!”
With polite attentiveness, the G.I. pivoted his head back-and-forth in an empathic ‘no.’
Sonny relaxed and felt himself deflate.
The G.I. asked if Sonny would behave.
He nodded.
Two pairs of arms hoisted Sonny into a sitting position and dragged him back to his place in the aircraft.
The copter dipped its nose and accelerated forward. Sonny took a final look down at the still storm-tossed surf. The bow of the ship passed beneath them. A rim of breakers marked the edge of the reef flanking one side of the harbor. The deafening roar of helicopter propellers cancelled all conversation, turning the giant flying bee into a whirring air bus.
With no thought of what lay below Sonny leaned out and fell.
****
The floor of the cooler was cold, the boxes, metal racks and slabs of beef heavy. Anna had tried to shove aside the cases but every time the ship shifted (which was happening with increasing frequency) another rack of lamb or chicken breast smacked her in the face. She lay there trying not to panic. I’m a data analyst, she wanted to scream, not Jane Bond!
The minutes clicked off. More cases fell, and then…
Pots clanked, dishes broke. Someone was in the kitchen, just outside the door.
In a husky voice she called out. “Help! Please!”
A sliver of light spilled onto the jumble of boxes as the cooler door opened. A rough hand squeezed her shoulder, pulling her from the thawing cases of frozen food. She had no sooner sobbed “thank you” when a moist rag was pressed over her face. The acrid odor sent alarms racing through her brain, stunting her reflexes. A deafening ringing drowned out her raspy cries.
Fatigue fell, slamming her eyes shut. A monster pulled her, dragging her clear of the clutter in the cooler. She tried to push up the window shade, willed her eyes open, but the effort was too much. The rag was over her mouth again. She inhaled and the shade dropped, leaving her with the sensation of floating. Am I dead? Is this a dream? Does it matter?
****
Sonny found the dining room awash with luggage, busted furniture, and political posters floating like soggy corn chips. Water raced into the cafeteria through a broken plate glass window. Cheap wall paintings bled watercolors. Laminated menus floated like upturned face cards.
He waded past the over
turned lectern of the hostess station. Stepping over crushed cases of garden peas, cream corn, and naked chicken nuggets, he wedged his shoulder against the cooler and pried it back, yelling for Anna.
****
A tight band cut into her wrists. Her head slammed against something hard, rattling her skull. Prying open one eye, Anna saw the duct tape wrapped around her wrists. She had clown hands, swollen and round like a purple turnip. There were dimples in her skin where her knuckles should be.
Her head struck the hard wooden flooring and another wave of salt water washed over her lips. The outboard screamed as it pushed the tiny boat. A breaking wave launched her high. She hovered momentarily and then the deck raced up to meet her, whacking her sharply on the cheek.
The wind chilled her. She wanted to sit up, stretch, rotate her face toward the sun, but cold rain and stinging sea spray lashed her face and bare legs. Fatigue returned. She fought it, straining to remain awake, but it was no good. The heaviness became too great. The shade slammed shut.
Sleep was her friend and she embraced it.
****
Sonny returned to the pool area, searching for the helicopter. The violent wind roared across the island, blurring the horizon between sea and sky. Clamping his arm around the ship’s railing he steadied himself and looked down toward the ladder which he’d used to climb aboard. Only mangled piping remained. From his vantage point, the ruby-red hull appeared steep and rusty and cratered with barnacles. A heavy beard of sea growth coated the waterline. Had he missed her? Had she escaped the cooler? Or was he too late?
He stared into the fierceness of the storm. He found it nearly impossible to breathe due to the dampness of air and the oppressive weight of the low pressure. With each shrieking gust it became harder to see past the ship’s bow. Still he tried.
Then he saw it. A small rubber boat clawing over a wave, its blunted nose pointed up, teetering on the crest. Frothy foam broke over its front; the tiny vessel dropped from view.
Salt stung his pupils, wind flattened his eyelashes. He saw the boat, again. A man sat hunched forward in the stern, his hand working the outboard’s throttle and making better time than Sonny would have imagined given the size of the waves.
When the tiny boat broached the swells again he saw the lifeless rag doll bounce off the flooring. The teal shirt was hers. Shorts, too. Knees tucked in the fetal position with hands bound.
The rubber boat dropped out of sight and he half-jogged, half-flew back to the pool area. With a deck chair, he broke through the vented slats of a storage closet and reaching in, turned the handle. He began rummaging through a bin of pool equipment: yellow noodles, ribbed floats, deflated air mattresses, volleyball net, drink huggers, soggy beach towels and a…kite board.
It might work, he thought. It had to work.
He bundled the kite board, sail, steering frame and harness, and cradled it to his chest, skating toward the low side of the ship.
The ship’s towering superstructure protected him just long enough to assemble the steering bar and control lines. Sliding his arms through the harness straps, he tensioned the buckles. He’d only tried kite boarding once, and it hadn’t ended well. The wind had snatched him off the water and carried him down the beach, dumping him into a school of mullet feeding in the breakers. The men and women surf-casting had pelted Sonny with their lures while he’d struggled to untangle himself.
He placed the kite board on the deck and wedging his feet into the bindings, he tucked the foil to his chest. He’d get one shot. Miss and he’d be blown across the island, or worse—to Cuba.
He hurled himself over the railing.
The wind wrenched him sideways, casting him skyward into the charcoal swirl of clouds discharging lightning. Aluminum. Electrically charged atoms.
This can’t be good, he thought. Can’t be good at all.
36
The kite foil ballooned, flinging him westward and over the island’s interior. Instantly, the ship vanished from view, lost behind a leadened curtain. Shifting his weight, he tugged on the steering bar, pivoting the kite board to bring it down and towards the crust of spume marking the edge of the island. He rocketed seaward at an incredible speed.
To his right the gray blow-up boat appeared as a fat slug, its silver wake a slime of suds amongst the mountainous waves. He couldn’t understand why the skipper was heading out to sea, especially in such conditions. Was he suicidal?
It occurred to him that had the skipper looked up he might have asked the same question of Sonny. Angling down and out to sea, Sonny began to close the gap, pulling even with the tiny boat.
Suddenly an enormous leviathan broached the surface less than a hundred yards from the tiny gray boat. Dark, sleek, and shimmering wet, the beast flattened the swells as it powered through the sea, its glistening body marred by a single pectoral fin.
Plastered against the side of the submarine’s conning tower was the Cuban flag.
Awestruck by the size and nearness of the ship, Sonny failed to hear the “whop-whop-whop” of the approaching helicopter. The chopper blasted into view from a wall of clouds, its forward spotlight spraying first the sub in blinding light and then, too late, Sonny.
The helicopter turned suddenly as the pilot tried to avoid Sonny, but the tail’s rotor blades clipped the kite’s foil and shredded the controlling lines. Liberated from the marionette’s strings, Sonny flailed his arms and legs as he plummeted towards the sub. Had it not been for the pair of sailors emerging onto the conning tower’s platform, Sonny would have landed with a lethal “splat.” Instead, the sailors cushioned his fall, becoming Bert’s first casualties.
****
Anna awoke to the sound of pinging and popping and the pulsating floor of a room vibrating. Overhead a yellow bulb flashed off-and-on. Next to the light, a network of conduit pipes ran along either side of a gray curved wall. Gauges clicked, valves hissed. A series of tiny lights blinked red, then green. The needle on a depth gauge moved slowly, spinning in a counterclockwise direction as the ship descended.
Her hands tingled. The wrists had been retaped, allowing the blood to flow again, but she still couldn’t lift her arms. She lay on her side, wedged between two metal cradles. Her feet remained bound. On the saddle support near her head, a bedding of black foam cushioned the porpoise nose of a huge torpedo. Stenciled onto the metal casing was the word “опасность.” Danger, she thought, translating the Russian phrasing. You think?
With great effort, she managed to rock into a sitting position and brace herself against a curved support. Martinez sat across from her.
The contents of her purse lay scattered between his boots. Lip gloss, makeup kit, tissues, ballpoint pen, hair brush, pepper spray, breath mints, wet wipes, box cutter. Unsnapping the flap of her billfold, he removed her driver’s license and held it at arm’s length, looking first at her, then the photo ID.
Frowning, he asked in a husky whisper, “This is you?”
She noted the confusion on his face. “I was having a bad hair day.” It hurt to talk. Whatever he’d used to knock her out had scorched her vocal chords. Carefully, he put the license back in her billfold.
“You come to kill me, no?”
The comment startled her. “What? Kill you? No! Why would you think that?”
“‘Been a lot of chatter.’ I’ve heard it, too.” His English was much better than she’d imagined. Certainly better than Boggs had suggested.
“The world is an anxious place. People talk. You have to know my people will come for me and when they do they’re not going to like that you kidnapped an American intelligence technician.”
He shrugged. “So sue me.”
“Or that you are holding me hostage on a Soviet sub.”
“Dees one es ours. Bought it off Craig’s List.”
Anna tried a different tack. “Look. Let me help. I know your people are poor and frustrated and desperate for change—”
“Those are the North Koreans,” Martinez
interrupted. “I hear things are much better now that we have the Internet.”
“But your people still suffer under a brutal dictatorship.”
“Is not as bad as you think.”
“Seriously? Castro turned away the Red Cross when they tried to help after the last hurricane.”
“A simple disagreement over a matter of payola.”
“What about Cuba’s rampant medical fraud, forced sterilizations, and barbaric surgical experiments?”
“You have us confused with your Medicare.”
“OK, well, how do you explain your country’s travel restrictions? Your people can’t leave.”
“And yours can’t visit.”
“That’s not the same,” said Anna.
“No? Your government jails people without cause, listens to their phone conversations, and steals property. At least my government guarantees its citizens the most basic rights like education, housing, and jobs.”
“You know, for an enemy combatant you speak pretty good English.”
“Rosetta Stone.” He said, naming the popular language software.
“And you’re wrong,” said Anna. “My government doesn’t take land from its citizens.”
“What of those poor homeowners in New London, Connecticut? They lost their homes to a narcotics factory.”
“Pharmaceuticals plant, but I see your point.”
“So you see, our countries, we are not so different.”
“Yes we are! Cuba is a socialist cesspool that denies its citizens even the most basic human rights.”
“And yours kills its young, jails it’s poor, and tosses the sick, frail, and mentally-deranged into the streets. Whatever happened to love your neighbor as yourself, feed the poor, and heal the sick? I may not believe in your God, but I know of His writings.”
