The Deep Six

by Striker, Randy

  “I don’t know where it is, Ortiz.”

  “I think it is very clear that you do, and—”

  “The last time you thought clearly, Ortiz, is the last time you sat down to piss.”

  I heard him get to his feet. He said, “I believe you have met our Iranian friend, Isfahan? He is one of our comrades. And we have many like him around the world. We are united, gringo. We are smarter and stronger, and living in your country these past years has demonstrated just how easy it will be when the time comes. Perhaps I should send Isfahan in to speak with you? He will hurt you, MacMorgan, and then, if you still refuse to talk, he will kill you. With his bare hands.”

  “Ortiz?”

  “Yes.”

  “The only way that Iranian grease slick of yours could beat me in a fight is to cut my head off—and then hide it from me.”

  It worked. He was raging. He sputtered as he talked.

  “You American fool! You have the audacity . . . he has already beaten you once! And you still insist . . . So be it! You will have your meeting with Isfahan! And when it is over, we will throw your body to the fish!”

  He went out and slammed the door behind him. I heard their voices faintly. Ortiz was still angry, yelling. While I waited, I tried to formulate a plan. I didn’t have much to work with. But I had to use what I had. It was my only slim chance.

  When the Iranian came through into the hold he had a wry smile on his face. I heard the sound of the door being locked behind him.

  “You have upset my Cuban comrade, Yankee.”

  “Gee, I’m sorry as hell, Isfa-fool.”

  He started to correct me, then caught himself. He forced himself to smile again. “It will not work with me, Yankee. But before we are finished with our meeting perhaps I can persuade you to say my name correctly.”

  We stood just about eye to eye. He might have had an inch on me. He was corded, sinewy; all grace and self-assurance. The look in his eyes belied the smile. They were the same color as his short coarse beard, and they were filled with hatred. And what did I have on him—fifteen pounds? Yeah, fifteen pounds and probably ten years.

  I was ready for the first kick, but he still got me. He feinted to the left, then caught me with a whirling, glancing blow behind the ear. He wanted to finish it fast. But I blocked just enough of it to keep my feet. He was quick. Too damn quick. I glanced up at the ceiling at the lightbulb. It was sealed in with wire. Perhaps I should just knock it out now and take my chances with the Iranian in the dark.

  No, he would call for the guards. And it wasn’t part of my plan.

  He threw a series of low quick kicks at me, then nailed me right under the chin. I could feel my jaw grate as I moved my mouth. It had knocked me backward onto the bunk.

  “Perhaps you would like to try my name again, Yankee?” There was no smile now. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. I had to somehow get in close on him, but how? If Wayne, an All-American wrestler, couldn’t do it, how would I?

  I got shakily to my feet. I had to lure him into a mistake; make him hesitate in the process of taking me apart with his feet. I said:

  “Do you know what I like about you Iranians?”

  He looked momentarily surprised. “No, Yankee. What is that?”

  “Not a goddam thing, Isfa-fool. Not a goddam thing.”

  He started to come at me. I held up my hands, then reached slowly into my pocket and took out my tin of snuff. Watching him carefully, I took a big pinch, then held out the can toward him.

  “Like a little taste before I kill you?”

  His mouth became an ugly slit within his beard. “You silly American fool!” He jumped and kicked the can out of my hand. The silver lid caromed around the room.

  “Buddy,” I said, “you’ve just really pissed me off.”

  He made his mistake. The one I had been praying for. He came at me with a twisting flurry of kicks, and then tried to use his hands on me. I ducked under and caught one of the wrists, holding him with my arm around his stomach. I had spent my entire boyhood in the circus gripping a trapeze bar. I knew how to grip. I squeezed until the sweat came; I squeezed until I heard the thin radius and ulna bones pop. He gave a soft low squeal, then put me on my knees with a back kick to the groin. A direct hit. I fought back the nausea, trying to fend off his kicks at my face. I took a solid shot to the ribs and felt some bones go. I waited for him, knowing what he would do. He leaned over me then, his one good hand folded like an ax, and took a swing at my throat. I caught it, twisted, and nailed him with a Copenhagen stinger right in the eyes. He gave another squeal, rubbing at his face. By that time, I was on my feet. I hit him with a straight overhand that split his mustache up to his eye, then swung him around to the bunk and sat him down, my hand on his windpipe.

  “Listen to me, asshole . . .”

  He tried to struggle, and I gripped down on his Adam’s apple.

  “Listen! You do exactly as I say, and I’ll spare you. When I give you the word, I want you to shout to the guards. Tell them I’m dead and to let you out.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” he hissed. He was scared, ready to bargain.

  “Let’s just say that you can bet your life on it.”

  He nodded. I pulled his shoe off, reached up, and knocked the ceiling light out on my third swing. I stood him up, my hand still at his throat.

  “Now!”

  He yelled it, and he yelled it loud. And the moment the words were out of his mouth, I jerked his windpipe loose, and he went fluttering around the room like a dying balloon.

  Guess what, asshole . . . I lied . . .

  By the time the guards got the door open, I was ready and waiting. There were a lot of voices: fast, enthusiastic Spanish. They must have been listening from outside, maybe even betting on the fight. The first guard came in, squinting into the darkness. I grabbed the assault rifle from his hands, dented his face with the barrel, then opened fire. There were four or five of them, and they went down wide-eyed, horrified, trying to ready their own weapons. They were shocked. The American had won. They were shocked to death.

  I gave them another sweeping burst, and saw the ass-end of Emanuel Ortiz disappear up the steps, onto the deck. And like an idiot, I charged after him.

  He stood flat against the outside cabin wall, waiting. When he knocked the rifle from my hands, I stumbled and heard his pistol explode above my ear. I made a blind grab for his hand and fell into him, punching wildly at his face. I heard other voices as I finally connected with Emanuel’s jaw. There were more of them; more Castro Cubans. Without looking back, I made a headlong dive into the water. There was the moist pop-a-pop-a-pop of automatic weapons behind me, and I dove.

  Dive deep, MacMorgan. Dive and swim until the broken ribs throb and your lungs are ready to burst. Push yourself until it’s impossible to go any farther, because they’re up there waiting, and you used up all your luck a long, long time ago.

  They didn’t expect me to surface seventy-five yards away. When the searchlight finally found me, their shots were wild and low. Rough breaking seas and a wild storm moon. Some night for a swim. They had another searchlight trained on Sniper. They had brought her back to Fullmoon Cay, and she heaved on her anchor line. They expected me to swim to that blue haven, and that’s exactly why I couldn’t.

  The slugs were smacking into the big waves, closer to me now. I dove again, heading for the island.

  Pull, frog-kick, glide.

  When I came up again, the searchlight tunneled crazily in the darkness, sweeping back and forth. They had lost me. I heard them start up one of the skiffs. Search-party time. I gulped down the heavy storm air, testing my ribs with a swollen hand. The Iranian bastard had definitely busted a couple.

  But he had paid a damn high price for them.

  I dove again, heading toward the surf which crashed up on the darkness of the jungled beach, away from the camp. And with a final last breath, I let the sea throw me onto the cold sand.

  I knelt on the beach, m
y head turning. One of the skiffs had landed, and men scurried in the moonlight, far down the island. They were onto my little game.

  The last thing I heard before disappearing into the mangrove swamp was the voice of Jason calling to his group. I had escaped, and he wanted them to all join in the search.

  I could hear Christ’s Children in the darkness. They were all around me, moving across the island in a web of humanity. I heard the low voice of the lithe blonde a few yards away, and remembered her strange song: Come with Him,

  He has chosen us,

  To win our peace

  The chosen must . . .

  The poor mixed-up kids. I felt sorry for them all. It was easy to see how it had happened. The cult groups were filled with them: the lost ones, rich and poor, looking for goals, a cause. They wanted only hope and a reason to follow. They wanted a God who would answer all the questions that have never truly been answered; they yearned for a leader to show them the way.

  This way.

  That way.

  Any way . . .

  I had climbed to the top of a big gumbo-limbo tree, hiding myself in the foliage. Clouds streamed by overhead, and I could hear the pounding sea. They were headed across the island, in the darkness toward the other side. Fine. Good. That’s where I wanted them to go.

  And when they had passed, I swung painfully down. My only hope was to get to a boat. Or at least get to a VHF and tell the Coast Guard just what in the hell was going on before they killed me.

  I made my way through the night, one careful step at a time. This was my game now; this was what I had been trained for. Slide from shadow to shadow. Test every bit of footing. You never know where someone might be waiting. In the jungle, in the night, the anxious and the hasty end up very, very dead.

  The camp seemed empty when I finally crept out of the darkness onto the beach. I had sat in the brush and watched it for a long time. From the other side of the island I could hear shouts, and the occasional pop of gunfire. I wondered who they were shooting at. I wondered who they were killing.

  Themselves, probably.

  There were no lights on aboard Sniper. But in the moonlight I saw a sudden shadowed move, and I knew that they had guards on it. Both the Jose Martí and the Superior were brightly lighted. But there was still my little Whaler. I knew where it had to be—and it was: fifty yards offshore, within easy range of anyone shooting from the shrimp boat. It was just beyond the camp, across the beach. And I had to try for it.

  I had no choice.

  When you have to abandon your cover and move across a clearing, you can’t allow yourself to rush. You can’t act like the hunted, or they know. When there is only enough light for shadows and silhouettes, you have to act as if you’re one of them, and do it as if your life depends upon it—because it does.

  I stepped casually onto the beach, my hands in my pockets. I walked slowly but surely toward the surf. Passed one tent. Passed another. And just as I was about ready to disappear into the water, I heard a voice.

  “Hello, Dusky.”

  It was Jason. He sat inside the last tent, holding a revolver.

  I turned slowly, my hands up.

  “Hello, Jason.”

  He got to his feet, brushing off the sand. He moved a little closer to me, but not too close. I could see his face plainly in the moonlight.

  “I knew what you would do, Dusky. I tried to tell Emanuel, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  I should have realized earlier that it was true. I could fool the rest of them, but not Jason. Not a Green Beret.

  I shrugged. “The surest means of escape . . .”

  “. . . is through the enemy’s camp,” he finished softly. There was a strange emptiness in his voice; the same great sadness in his eyes. He looked like a pathetic big kid who hears voices no one else can hear. He leveled the gun at my face, and I heard the double click of the hammer. “I have no choice, Dusky. I can’t let you go. You would ruin . . . ruin my mission.” He stopped, tilting his head, listening again. And then: “Besides, you wouldn’t have a chance anyway. Emanuel and his men would follow you in my boat. It’s faster. If the sea was calmer, your Whaler could outrun them—but not when it’s like this. They’d run you down and kill you anyway. And then they would wonder why I hadn’t.”

  I heard a thin little whimper from within the tent. It was Jennifer. She came crawling out, wiping her eyes. She said, “Jason . . . Jason, please give us a chance. We won’t say a word—not to anyone. Honest.”

  Jason looked at me. “You talked to her out there on the shrimp boat, Dusky. You made her doubt. That’s not good, Dusky. We can’t afford a loss of faith among my children. You and Wayne are too much alike, Dusky. You make people doubt . . . even my own son . . .”

  From the island came the flat, distant sound of gunfire.

  “You know what’s happening in there, don’t you, Jason?”

  He made a helpless motion with his hand. “I told them not to shoot unless they were absolutely sure, but . . .” He stopped and looked at me. “But they’re not like us, Dusky. They don’t know how it is. They don’t know how it is in the jungle at night, when you can smell the . . . smell the flesh . . . the awful, burning flesh . . .”

  He cocked his head, listening. It was as if he heard a voice too far in the distance to understand. In the moonlight, his beard was a flowing crimson. Jennifer burst into tears and came running into my arms. I stroked her hair. Down the beach, I saw a boat land. One of the little skiffs. The Castro Cubans jumped out and started running toward us.

  “They’re coming, Jason.”

  “Yes, I see them.” His head tilted, straining to listen. “Wayne . . . I killed him, Dusky. In my own way, I killed my own—”

  “Jason, back in Nam! In the jungle! We were all hurt . . . but you were the best, and you were hurt the worst. But it’s not too late. That voice you hear, Jason, the voice you’re hearing right now, is no stranger. It’s a voice you haven’t heard in a long time, Jason. Remember? It’s the man you used to be before . . . before the jungle.”

  He shook himself. His eyes moved slowly from side to side like a man just coming out of a trance, unsure of where he was.

  “It’s not too late, Dusky, is it? Damn! It’s not!”

  “No, Captain. Come with us. We’ll get help and come back for the rest of them.”

  He smiled slightly. His eyes suddenly looked clear; good. “I’ll come later. I’ll . . . get the rest and—”

  The Castro Cubans opened fire then, the slugs throwing stripes in the sand with the trajectory of arrows. Jason shoved us roughly toward the water. “Get your ass in gear, MacMorgan!”

  As I pulled the girl along behind, Jason made a diving roll and came up firing. One of Ortiz’s people fell clutching his face. Another crawled toward the bushes holding his stomach. The rest took quick cover.

  “Dusky! We can’t just leave him there!” The girl was near hysterics. “They’ll kill him, Dusky!”

  “Not before he’s killed most of them!” I jerked her roughly toward the water.

  The last time I saw Jason Boone was after I had jammed the Whaler into gear and gone roaring off through the heavy swells. He was a dark bulky figure in the soft light of the beach. He had used his six shots and left the revolver behind. The Cubans had caught on. Five of them were black heaps in the night. The rest had sought the safety of the inner island. Jason was on his belly, crawling toward them. He disappeared into the jungle . . .

  Jason Boone was right, of course. He had predicted exactly what was to happen. When Emanuel Ortiz realized that we were escaping in the Whaler, he loaded the few men he could find in the sleek steel-hulled Superior.

  It was also true that we didn’t have a chance.

  On a flat day, the Whaler can do right at forty mph. But on the stormy night sea, with the wind out of the west northwest, I had to quarter into it. Seas were six to eight feet, and we would either swamp or pitchpole if I tried to open her up.

  The Superior was abo
ut a half mile behind, but gaining. Its big heavy hull crushed the confronting seas, and her twin screws drove her on. Every now and then, looking back, I could see the moonlight on the huge wake she threw. Her searchlight swept back and forth over the water, hunting us.

  The most obvious sanctuary for us was the shoalwater around the Marquesas. In foul seas, the shallows would be awash with surf—it would be as risky as it was obvious.

  Maybe it was a little too obvious.

  Maybe Emanuel Ortiz was so confident that we would head for shoalwater that he wasn’t paying attention.

  It was worth a try.

  “Hold on, woman!” I yelled to Jennifer. She sat huddled next to me, soaked and shaking. She braced herself with her hands white on the wooden bench seat of the little fourteen-foot boat. Some boat, the Boston Whaler. It will take any weather, survive any sea. And it was about to get the acid test.

  I picked my wave, cut sharply to starboard, then surfed momentarily before sliding down the backside of the wave, heading toward the Straits of Florida. Another black wall of water came up behind us and threw us onward. It was dangerous work. If I gave her too much throttle, the wave would crest with us and pitchpole us end over end. If I gave her too little, the stern sea would shove us sideways and cause us to broach.

  “Keep an eye on that boat! If he starts to follow us, let me know!”

  I kept at it: five minutes, ten minutes.

  “Dusky!”

  “Yeah!”

  “They’ve turned! They know where we are!” She wasn’t crying now. She was scared. Damn scared. And so was I. I was just hoping that I hid it as well as she did. The game was over. Emanuel had been paying attention.

  They had us on radar.

  My little gamble had cost us precious time. And we didn’t have any to spare. I cut back to the north and east, headed for the dark grace of the Marquesas. It was winner-take-all time, and I pushed the little Whaler as hard as she could possibly go, riding right on the edge of disaster. Every breaker we quartered tossed us airborne, then let us pound back into the trough with spine-shattering impact. I winced with each assault, feeling my broken ribs jab into my lungs. I felt weak. Sick. Beaten.