A Fortnight of Fury

by David Culberson

  Arlan braced for the firefight, aiming at the two Dreads on the porch as did Charlie, Winston, Captain Jay and Tommy, after he was able to pull his weapon out.

  Ras Kabinda raised his hand and shouted, “Nuff dis badness.

  “Okay, Mr. CIA. I and I doan have anudder white woman and doan care if dis white mon has been keeled by anudder white mon,” Kabinda said, looking down at Maynard’s body. “Dat is one less white mon on dis eart.”

  Captain Jay shouted toward Pam and Mary, “Where is Boiled Bob?”

  Pam, who’d hidden behind the log she’d been sitting on a couple of minutes earlier, said, “Long Bill and Lisa stayed on the boat. I don’t know where Bob is. He left last night.”

  Ras Kabinda said, “I and I doan know where Boiled Bob and de beef go to.”

  “That’s a load of crap,” Charlie said.

  What was a tense situation became more intense. Arlan was surprised nobody had fired a weapon yet. He wasn’t going to unless things went to hell in a handbag and it became a matter of survival.

  Ras Kabinda looked to Winston and said, “I and I tink it tis time fo you to go bock to Babylon. Dis is no place fo yo and yo dogs.”

  Charlie let out a deep breath and lowered his weapon. He started to back away, never taking his eyes from the Dreads on the porch. Winston turned, weapon held high, and surveyed the rest of the camp. Nobody moved. He then followed Charlie. Tommy, Arlan and Captain Jay did the same.

  “An doan be comin bock,” Ras Kabinda shouted.

  “Fat chance,” Charlie said under his breath, causing Arlan and Tommy to laugh.

  As soon as all five men were out of sight from the camp they turned and walked quickly to the Land Rover and drove back down the mountain to Roseau, where they would turn north and retrace their steps to Charlie’s house in Portsmouth.

  “Why’d we leave?” Captain Jay asked. “We could’ve taken them down.”

  Nobody answered. Arlan was happy to have gotten out of the camp without firing his weapon. He was pretty sure that, other than Captain Jay, the others felt the same.

  Charlie looked in his mirror at Tommy and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m f-fine.”

  Charlie then answered Captain Jay by saying, “Why take the risk of being shot? I know where they are and that they probably have a lot more AK-47s than they showed. We’d have been in a lot of trouble if they’d had a chance to arm themselves. They made a mistake not to post a lookout down the road.” Charlie then added, “I’ll send a team in to take them out in a few days—after we find Lisa.”

  “Do you think Boiled Bob and Lisa weren’t there?” Arlan asked.

  “Yeah. We’d have seen them. There was no place to hide,” Charlie said.

  “What about the Happy Hobo?” Captain Jay asked. “They could’ve sailed last night.”

  Nobody answered.

  Before turning north to Portsmouth, Charlie stopped in Roseau. The Happy Hobo was not in the bay. He made a call from a pay phone, and Arlan could tell from Charlie’s body language during the short call that something was wrong.

  Charlie returned to the Land Rover and said, “My guys told me the boat wasn’t at anchor when they got there this morning.”

  “I told you we should’ve gone there last night,” Captain Jay said and spit out of his window. “Get us back to my boat. We’re goin’ to Grenada.”

  “How do you know they’re going to Grenada?” Arlan asked.

  Captain Jay said, “They’re headin’ to Grenada, Rookie. That’s where the weapons are, and that’s where they’re goin’.”

  Ten minutes farther up the coastal road to Portsmouth, Winston said, “I tink dat’s right. Maynard was dealin wit de Dreads before, runnin guns from Grenada. I tink Kabinda sent your sailboat wit a crew to Grenada to pick up more weapons. De Cubans doan wanna be runnin guns in der boats wit the US Navy in de area.”

  “Fuck your guns,” Captain Jay said. “I want Boiled Bob.”

  “And Lisa,” Arlan said.

  “Like I said,” Captain Jay said with a shrug. “We need to leave as soon as we get back to my boat.”

  Charlie said, “We’ll leave early tomorrow morning. The weather’s bad, and it’s going to be a wet ride. I’ve got access to a bigger boat with a dry cabin.”

  “I’m gonna leave tonight,” Captain Jay said.

  “We only have an hour or so of daylight. We’re taking my boat in the morning. Winston will prep it while I make some calls,” Charlie said.

  Captain Jay shouted, “Bullshit!”

  Charlie sighed and said, “The Happy Hobo has been sailing for twenty-four hours and will be in Grenada by mid-morning. Even if you left tonight you wouldn’t beat them there.” Charlie paused and then said, “You don’t even know where to look. It’s a big island.”

  “Bullshit,” Captain Jay said again. “We can get Forrest to fly down and search by air.”

  “Listen to me. Besides trying to find a needle in a haystack, there’s an invasion coming with a whole lot of firepower. Even if the weather was good, the US military isn’t going to let anybody fly around the island, and the Navy will be checking every boat in the area, especially power boats that look like they can run guns. If you get by the US navy, which is unlikely, you’ll have Grenada boat patrols to deal with. If you want to see the Happy Hobo again you better come along with me.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I’ve got connections you’ve never dreamed of.”

  Arlan saw Tommy smile. Arlan didn’t feel like being the referee between the two alpha males. He was still digesting all that had happened in the past few days, particularly the last few hours. He kept quiet. Captain Jay didn’t say anything the rest of the drive. Nobody did.

  After parking the Land Rover in the driveway, Charlie said, “Leave your weapons with Winston, and get some sleep. I’ve got a few calls to make.”

  “I wanna keep mine,” Captain Jay said. “We’re goin’ into a war zone.”

  Charlie smiled and said to Captain Jay, “That’s why you’re not taking weapons—especially you.” He turned and walked into his house.

  Arlan and Tommy stood next to the Land Rover and looked at Captain Jay, who grinned and said, “What are you two gay boys lookin’ at?” He then handed his MAC 11 to Winston and followed Charlie into the house.

  Arlan looked at Tommy, who shrugged, handed his weapon to Winston and followed Captain Jay.

  Arlan did the same.

  Chapter 13

  DAY 10: OCT 23

  It had taken the Pappy Bobo a night, all the next day and another night to sail the passage from Dominica to Grenada. The weather was bad, but the trip was uneventful—other than being shadowed and then dwarfed by a US Navy destroyer.

  Boiled Bob had been at the helm and had struggled to see anything during the moonless night. He’d asked both Long Bill and Skandar to stay on the bow and watch for navigation hazards. An hour before daybreak and a few miles north of Grenada, the Pappy Bobo was violently hit with bright lights, so bright they blinded Bob, who’d had to turn his head away and squeeze his eyes shut until his vision returned, fuzzy as it was. He’d looked to the bow and saw Skandar and Long Bill shading their eyes with their hands. A loudspeaker had crackled through the bright light, blasting out a radio frequency that the captain of the sailboat was to tune in to on his marine radio so that the sailboat captain could answer a few questions. Bob had had no idea what kind of vessel was near him or who’d requested the radio conversation. The bright lights had prevented him from seeing anything except the brilliant glow of everything on his boat exposed to the light. He’d thought about shouting to whomever was behind the light and telling them to fuck themselves but had sensed that the speaker was attached to something very large. He’d climbed down the companionway, turned a knob on the radio to the requested frequency and climbed tops
ide with the microphone, which was tethered to the base unit with a long, coiled cord. During the long sail from Dominica he’d practiced a made-up story in case he was confronted. His story was that he and his crew were returning the Pappy Bobo, which was a charter boat, back to its home port in Trinidad after having completed a charter that required them to drop their guests off on St. Martin, where they could catch an international flight back to the US.

  Boiled Bob had stood on the deck near the companionway so he could hear the radio’s speaker, which hung on a wall in the galley. He’d had to look away from the blinding light as he’d listened to the commander of the other vessel introduce himself and ask where the sailboat was from, where it was headed and who was on it. Bob had heard the words destroyer and US Navy and lost some of his swagger. He’d tried to picture what was behind the light, but couldn’t. He’d shakily answered the commander’s questions and told his made-up story. After a long pause, Bob had started to think his story wasn’t working and wondered if he could slip away from the other vessel. What he hadn’t known was that the destroyer had inched closer to the Pappy Bobo during their conversation.

  As abruptly as it had appeared, the light, just as abruptly, had disappeared, leaving a glow in Boiled Bob’s brain that had, momentarily, caused him to lose all perception of distance and shapes. His eyes had needed time to adjust. When they did, Boiled Bob looked to where the light had been and jumped back and had almost fallen over the rail and into the sea. He’d glanced to the bow and had seen Skandar and Long Bill still crouched down, their eyes open with shock.

  Boiled Bob had turned his head back toward the navy destroyer. All he saw was grey. He couldn’t see the sky or the sea or anything to either side of the mass of steel a few yards off his port side. As the destroyer began to move, the commander had used the loudspeaker to thank the sailboat captain for his patience and told him to have a safe sail. Boiled Bob had then watched as the five-hundred-foot vessel slid by for what seemed like an eternity, until it had finally vanished into the dark.

  An hour later, just as the sun pushed a grey haze ahead of its appearance, Boiled Bob looked back and saw specks on the edge of the northern horizon. Maybe he was being too paranoid, but he was pretty sure he was looking at a fleet of ships.

  * * *

  Well after sunrise, and still shaken by the abrupt presence of the US Navy destroyer, Boiled Bob sailed along the west side of Grenada, glancing behind him every few minutes. The nautical chart that he kept under the cushion of the seat just behind the helm was out, and he reviewed the anchorages on the lee side of the island. The aerial view of Grenada reminded him of a tiny Greenland, which reminded him of a fat tadpole with a short tail. In Grenada’s case, the tail at the bottom of the island curled to the west, as opposed to Greenland’s tail, which curled to the east. He looked toward the island as the boat traveled south, comparing the chart with what he saw on land. The mountainous tropical forests that spilled onto beaches and rocky shores were occasionally interrupted by villages near the ocean with colorful shacks and houses built along the beach. The chart showed him just two dimensions and offered little of the three-dimensional, real-life graphics. A couple of coastal villages were built on relatively flat land where the beaches tended to be longer, which allowed homes and shacks to be built close to the shoreline. These villages were linear, and it was hard to tell from sea level how deep into the island they spread, if at all. Villages built where mountains ended at the beach were much more vertical, with houses stacked up the mountain behind each other until the slopes became too steep to carry the construction materials needed to build roads and homes.

  Bob would have normally pulled into Grenada’s main port of entry, St George’s’ Harbor, on the southwest side of the island, but Skandar insisted they sail past St. George’s, around the southwest tip of the island and into one of many deep, narrow bays on the south side of the island.

  As they sailed around the tip of Grenada’s tail, called Point Salines, Bob could see the controversial nine-thousand-foot runway that was being built by several hundred Cubans. The almost completed runway ran east-west and hugged the south shore of the point, its western tip having been built out into the sea on fill. A multitude of military and construction vehicles were on the runway, and many more were grouped near warehouses on the distant eastern end of the airstrip. Some of the construction vehicles were abandoned, apparently on purpose, while others, mostly front-end loaders and dump trucks, deposited boulders and construction debris up and down the runway. Bob didn’t know much about military tactics but was pretty sure the workers were attempting to make the runway useless to invading aircraft. Bob smiled and wondered if any of them knew the size of the fleet that was coming for them. All the boulders on the island wouldn’t stop it. There was going to be a slaughter—one that he’d be far away from. He had no plans to stick around once Skandar left the boat.

  An hour after passing the new runway, Skandar pointed to a deep bay and said, “Dat’s where we go. Take da boat all de way to da back of de bay. Der is a dock der. Tie along de back side of de dock.”

  Long Bill dropped the sails and Boiled Bob started the engine. It took fifteen minutes to navigate through the dozen boats anchored in the bay. Several homes and shacks lined the slopes on either side of the bay, but the only commercial structure was a warehouse on the shore behind the dock, which had been built east-west and took up half of the narrow back of the bay.

  After tying alongside the inside of the dock, Boiled Bob could see that the Pappy Bobo was hidden from the entrance of the bay by the dock, which made him smile for the first time in three days. With increasing cloud cover and hidden by a dock, he was confident he wouldn’t be spotted by anybody chasing him, not that that was possible with the US military hovering nearby. His problem now was how to ditch Skandar and get the boat back to sea before the invasion started.

  * * *

  Just before sunrise Arlan was awakened by Charlie greeting Winston at the front door of his house. It took him a moment to remember where he was and then thought back to the previous night and trying to sleep while listening to Charlie making preparations for their journey from Dominica to Grenada. Through the thin walls of the house, Arlan had heard Charlie make several calls from the living room. One call was to Forrest. He could tell from Charlie’s end of the conversation that Forrest and Henry were still on St. Martin. Charlie had told them that, weather permitting, they should leave early in the morning and search the waters north of Grenada for the Happy Hobo. He had then added that they would likely run into a US carrier group and should steer clear, though he’d make some calls to ensure Forrest’s plane was recognized as a friendly. He had then told Forrest that the only functioning airport on the island, Pearls Airport, was closed, and he’d need to return to St. Martin after his flyover.

  Arlan had then heard Charlie call Winston and tell him to take a team up to Trafalgar Falls after dropping them off at the boat the next morning to retrieve all of the weapons Kabinda had in his camp. After a pause Arlan heard, “Take them out if you have to.”

  During the next call Arlan had heard Charlie describe a boat and the route they’d be taking to Grenada. He’d then heard a lot of “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.”

  He remembered, just before falling asleep, thinking that he was way over his head in this adventure and wondered what made Charlie, Tommy and Captain Jay so confident that they would not only survive, but thrive, during the next few days. Maybe they were able to tune out the risks. Not ever having gone through anything close to an invasion, Arlan had no idea what the risks were. His last conscious thought had been that he’d find out soon enough.

  * * *

  Winston drove Charlie and his crew to the dock in Portsmouth where Charlie’s borrowed boat, an old wooden trawler, was tied along the dock. It was a clunky, fifty-foot-plus boat that made Arlan smile.

  It will be dry, he thought.

  “Wha
t the fuck is that?” Captain Jay said with a laugh as they walked toward the dock.

  Charlie said, “It’s a down island freight boat. It’ll blend in.”

  “I’d like to get there this year,” Captain Jay said.

  Charlie stepped onto the boat and said, “Don’t worry. It’s been retrofitted with a new engine and keel. It’s a lot faster than your boat. It also has the best navigation and electronics of any boat in the area.”

  Captain Jay snorted and stepped onto the boat. He looked back to Arlan and Tommy and said, “Come on. We’re gonna get Boiled Bob.”

  “What about Lisa?” Arlan asked.

  “Yeah. Her too,” Jay said with a shrug. He then smiled and said, “We’re gonna shoot some Cuban beaners too.”

  Arlan looked at Charlie, who rolled his eyes.

  “W-we don’t have anything to sh-shoot with,” Tommy said with a grin.

  Captain Jay flicked his hand and snorted. He then said, “No big deal. We’ll find somethin’.”

  Charlie smiled, shook his head and said, “Untie us.”

  The retrofitted trawler made good speed over the rough seas. They put two hundred miles behind them in the next ten hours and would be in Grenada by nightfall if they kept that pace. Eight hours into the trip, Charlie, who sat alone at the controls in the pilot house, slowed and started a garbled dialogue on the radio that Arlan and the others, who sat in the cabin a few feet below Charlie, couldn’t make out. Charlie then turned the boat to starboard.

  “Who did you call?” Captain Jay shouted up to Charlie.