Cuba Straits Read online

  Maybe it was true: a robot ship had hit a smaller vessel and dumped people into the water. It was the sort of diversion he needed, yet his mood took a hit. Poor bastards, he thought. “Good luck.” Said it aloud and meant it. Even on a bright, calm day, the odds of finding a person adrift were not good. In rain or fog? Or if the wind freshened? Forget it. Technology had yet to match the enormity of the open sea.

  For no good reason, the image of No Más popped into his head. Earlier, he’d tried to raise Tomlinson on VHF radio. He tried again on the four channels commonly used in Dinkin’s Bay.

  No response.

  He’d already done the mental arithmetic but reviewed anyway: two boats with different departure times, traveling unequal distances at greatly different speeds, might intersect, give or take a few hours, on a large acreage of Gulf Stream.

  In the electronics suite, the GPS chart suggested that No Más should be within radio range—fifteen to twenty miles. On a sailboat, antennas are mounted atop the mast, and Ford’s boat had a communications system unavailable to civilians. No surprise that Tomlinson didn’t answer his cell, but his radio? The man was a VHF whore when it came to local gossip.

  Unless . . . he had the damn stereo booming. Yes, that was probably it. The refugee shortstop wouldn’t have been fool enough to climb on a boat to Cuba, so Tomlinson was alone and drowning his solitude with Hendrix or Buffett.

  Ford was unconvinced, and remained subdued. Focused less on his destination and more on the water around him. Soon, tendrils of fog swept past the boat at forty knots. He slowed to thirty on the pretense of saving fuel.

  Not a chance in hell they’re looking for Tomlinson, he told himself. Even so, he activated the boat’s thermal imaging system. A lens overhead scanned the surface and translated temperature into colors on a screen. Lobster buoys and floating litter were gray. The sea was cool blue. A person adrift would appear as a speck of fiery red. It was the same imaging system used by the helicopter, so what was the point?

  He asked himself that and pursued the logical thread. What if you do find wreckage? Or even a survivor? You’ll have to involve the Coast Guard. Then you and Tomlinson are both screwed. So get back to speed and stop this nonsense.

  Ford was unaware that he often argued with himself. Part of him believed that emotion was a useless tie to the Stone Age. Not unlike the nub of prehensile tail at the end of his spine. He liked people, though, couldn’t help it, so empathy was his most consistent opponent.

  To be adrift out here, alone, in a thousand feet of water, would be hell . . .

  That kept going through his mind.

  In the distance, he saw what might be a box someone had thrown overboard. Dusky gray on the thermal screen. More objects bobbing nearby—a pod of flotsam that might be wreckage. He backed the throttles, his eyes moving from the water to the electronics suite. A bag of garbage surfaced momentarily, then submerged.

  Ford stood—something bothered him about the bag. He dropped the boat off plane and focused on the spot, because plastic bags don’t sink. Didn’t blink until the bag appeared again a boat length away, but this time resembling the back of a turtle. He checked the screen, saw a blob of orange heat, and knew then it wasn’t a bag or a turtle. It was a person, either dead or almost dead, the body losing heat fast. He killed the engines, dumped what he could from his pockets, and went over the side.

  A corpse . . . that’s what he found. It was obvious when he snatched a pale wrist, did a reverse thrust with his legs, and exposed what was left of the body. Nothing identifiable. A male, possibly, wearing ragged shorts, no shoe on his only foot, and no right arm to offer tattoos or prints as an ID.

  Going through the dead man’s pockets could wait. Ford sculled backwards to create distance.

  Sharks had been feeding on the body, which was still warm. Obvious. Just as obvious: sharks from a quarter mile below, and miles around, were not done feeding.

  “Dumbass.” Said this to himself aloud, not because he’d rushed to the rescue but because he hadn’t bothered to grab a safety line before jumping overboard. His feet had kicked the boat away. Now instead of a few yards, he had to swim the length of a pool.

  He started out with a breaststroke but, looking down into the black maw of the Gulf Stream, invented shadows that cruised beneath him. The elementary backstroke was more distressing: a dorsal fin breached the surface to his right and pirouetted to investigate.

  Hammerhead, Ford, the biologist, decided. The damn fin was as tall as his arm.

  The shark submerged with a swirl that spun chunks of Styrofoam and other wreckage into a whirlpool while a pair of big remoras cruised past. Bad sign. They were shark suckers in search of a larger, more productive host.

  Ford, the biologist, wondered, Why don’t they glom onto me? then stiffened when he realized Because there’s something a hell of a lot bigger nearby.

  A few strokes later, his head collided with a chunk of debris—bamboo lashed to plywood. This evoked enough nervous laughter that he was disgusted with himself.

  Just swim to the damn boat and get it over with.

  Over many years and several oceans, he had swam a lot of open water, so no big deal—until he stood on the transom and looked down. There were so many sharks—one the size of a canoe—that the giddy sense of relief he felt was replaced by a new empathy: if there were survivors adrift out here, they wouldn’t survive long.

  • • •

  ON THE BOAT NOW, he reached down, grabbed the corpse’s belt, and noticed a shadow. Water exploded. He fell back with a pair of ragged shorts in his hand, that’s all. The dead man, if it was a man, was gone. Ford leaned over to confirm: below, far below, in shafts of angling light, only shadows and a sprinkling detritus remained.

  He thought: There can’t be anyone else alive.

  In the shorts, he found a wad of pesos, all worthless Cuban scrip. Folded within was the prize: a twenty-dollar bill, American. A wallet in the back pocket contained a photo ID, laminated: Alex Molera, Department of Sanitation, village of Cojimar, plus the equivalent of a Social Security number. A final treasure hidden under a flap: an antique cameo, the photo obliterated, on a necklace of beads and cowrie shells.

  Santería, the unofficial religion of Cuba.

  At idle speed, Ford did a slow circle of what had been a homemade raft: oil drums for outriggers, bamboo lashed to blocks of Styrofoam. Small; no engine, but a rigging pole suggested they had improvised a sail. Fewer than five people, he guessed, but no telling. In Cuba, desperation spawned crazy optimism. They would choose a secret spot and bet their dreams on vessels they constructed of wood, tar, inner tubes, and hope. Every year, thousands succeeded. Every year, unknown hundreds died.

  Something else: on this raft, a child had been aboard, a girl. He shifted to neutral and retrieved a plastic doll with nylon hair and a bright red dress. Floating nearby was a Tupperware canister. It contained family photos, an address book, and the girl’s medical records. Rosa Molera, age four, had been in good health when she, her father Alex, and her mother had been crushed by a cruise ship or freighter, registry unknown or yet to be reported.

  Ford stowed the items beneath the deck but couldn’t let it go after that.

  Maybe a second raft had been hit.

  He switched the radio to 83-Alpha, used exclusively by Coast Guard personnel, and followed a spattering of debris as he listened. The cloud bank lifted, creating a white dome that drifted with him at idle speed. He could no longer hear the helicopter, but it was visible on radar from thirteen miles away, distinctive because of its speed. From what the radar told him, and what he heard on VHF, at least one other vessel had been hit by the robot ship. The Coast Guard had clustered its assets, boats and a chopper, working one small section of water to the southwest. They had found wreckage, too.

  Ford turned northeast.

  Fifteen minutes, he told himself. Then I’m gon
e.

  Twenty minutes later, he spotted a wooden pallet. Nothing strange about that. He’d already seen a couple, probably dumped by passing ships. This pallet, however, was industrial-sized and covered with what looked like plastic bottles, hundreds of them, draped under shrimp net.

  Check thermal imaging: a shapeless heat signature that, probably, was plastic warmed by the sun.

  Trash. For a millennium, mariners had used the ocean as a dumping ground, but now, unlike the mariners, their garbage was impervious to the centuries.

  Ford veered away and shifted to neutral to prepare for the sixty miles of open water that lay ahead. The boat’s T-top and the electronics tower folded forward to reduce radar signature. Another stealthy touch was the neoprene spray hood coated with radar-absorbent paint. He pulled it taut, secured the cover with carabineers, then re-coiled the safety line he’d readied just in case he had to go into the water again.

  Dumbass, he reminded himself. At sea, when alone, never lose contact with your vessel. A cardinal rule.

  Port side on his boat, a door opened into a storage area beneath the helm. It was a large space, enough room for a chemical toilet, a handheld shower, and an electrically cooled Igloo. He ducked inside to grab a Diet Coke and a bag of peanuts. Or would a sandwich be better? He was deciding when he heard a radio transmission: a girl’s voice that warned “¡Silencio! Va a atraer a los tiburones.”

  Ford translated without giving it much thought: Be quiet! You are attracting sharks.

  Odd, though. Why was a child transmitting on a channel used exclusively by the Coast Guard?

  Then, again in Spanish, he heard, “I’m tired of paddling with my hands, you brat, and you are not my boss.”

  Not the same voice . . . And it wasn’t coming from the radio.

  The console door was small. Ford banged his head going out. He idled closer to the pallet.

  It took some cajoling. Soon, the pile of bottles stirred, netting parted, and two frightened girls appeared, both in flowered dresses, the oldest no more than thirteen.

  No . . . only one was frightened. The younger was pissed. “You can’t arrest me,” she hollered in Spanish, “because I’ll swim.”

  Ford didn’t speak down to children, believed it was demeaning to both. “That’s foolish. It’s better to get on my boat while we wait for the Coast Guard. Are you thirsty?”

  “So they can arrest us,” the girl countered. “Fascists in uniforms. It’s a lie, and I won’t be tricked by a gringo fascist. I’m warning you, stay away.”

  “No one’s going to arrest you. I have water and sandwiches; peanuts, if you want. Key West is thirty miles. Can you swim thirty miles? Even if you can, you’ll need to eat something for energy.”

  “To hell with Key West, I want to go home. I’ll swim home if you try to make me go to Gringolandia.”

  The older girl was less agitated. He spoke to her. “How long have you been adrift? You need water and medical attention. Please explain this to . . . Is she your sister?”

  A nod, the older girl saying, “She’s mad because she didn’t want to come to America. Then this happened. She gets mad a lot.”

  “How many people were on your raft?”

  The sisters bickered for a moment, the older one finally saying, “Three—five, counting us—but a large ship hit us and that was the last we saw of the others.”

  Ford assumed their parents were dead, so Cuba and Tomlinson would have to wait. He spoke more gently. “I’m a fisherman, not the Coast Guard. No uniform, no gun, see?” He extended his hands for inspection and smiled. “You’re safe with me, I promise. No one will force you to do anything. I promise that, too. You’ll be more comfortable on my boat while we talk. Have a look, then decide.” He started the engines.

  That’s all it took. The youngest girl launched herself into the water while her sister yelled warnings about sharks.

  Ford did it again—went over the side without a safety line.

  • • •

  THEIR NAMES were Maribel and Sabina Esteban, ages thirteen and ten, no relation to the Alex Molera family, but they had been paying customers aboard the same raft. In recent years, more and more parents had sent their children alone in the hopes of a better life in Norteamérica.

  He gave them bananas and peanut butter on bread, which they ate, but they refused Gatorade and even a can of cold condensed milk, which Ford thought might be good for children. The pallet that had saved their lives was loaded with bottles that had been filled for the long trip, so they weren’t dehydrated, nor were they sunburned. A few careful questions confirmed they needed no crème for rashes, no medicine for sickness, and their disinterest when he demonstrated the toilet calmed his concerns about diarrhea.

  Even so, he had only two options: contact the Coast Guard or take them to Key West. That would require some convincing, especially ten-year-old Sabina, who was a fireball, smart and perceptive, and suspicious of Ford’s every move.

  When he put the boat in neutral and broke out the fishing rods, he noticed her eye the GPS. “I know which way is north,” she warned.

  Her sister Maribel replied, “Of course. You know everything. That’s the way she is.”

  “I know you can’t fish without bait. This man has no bait, only plastic things with hooks. The liar claims to be a fisherman. You’re an idiot, Maribel, to believe him.”

  Ford said, “I’m going to troll a couple of lines while we talk. If we’re not fishing, the Coast Guard will wonder what I’m doing out here. You’re wrong about them, they’re very nice people, but this will give us some time.”

  “Where are they? Are there cameras?” The girl in her flowered dress was on her toes, scanning the misty horizon.

  “They have radar screens, too,” he said. “Later, I’ll show you how it works, but after we discuss what’s best for you two.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean? If you’ve already figured out the GPS, learning to use radar won’t be a problem for a smart girl like you.”

  “He promised us,” Sabina said to her sister. “He promised to take us home to Cuba. I knew he was lying. I told you, but you didn’t believe me. You never do, you brat.”

  Repressing a smile, Ford said, “What I promised was that you and your sister would be safe and you are. I didn’t say I would—”

  “Yes, you did! You promised not to force us to do anything I don’t want to do. If the Guardia comes, they will send us to Guantánamo Bay, or put us in buses with strangers in Miami. Isn’t that true?”

  Ford’s smile faded. “Well . . .”

  “See? It is true.”

  To Maribel, Ford said, “If your sister didn’t want to come to America, why did your parents send her? And what about you, Maribel? What do you want?”

  The teenager, frightened again, looked away.

  “She can’t tell you,” Sabina chided. “Mama made her promise not to talk about it. But I didn’t promise. Mama didn’t know I was listening, so—”

  “Shut up, just shut,” the older girl said and began to cry.

  Ford wondered if he should pat her on the back or something but only said, “Once we’re moving, I’d like to talk about a few things, Maribel. But only when you’re ready.”

  He rigged a privacy curtain forward and placed cushions under the spray hood so the girls had a space of their own. Beneath the console, he heard the toilet flush, then the sump of the shower as he idled toward the Coast Guard vessels, ten miles away, his fishing lines out. It had been a while since he’d tried hailing Tomlinson. He had the mic in his hand when ten-year-old Sabina appeared and approached in a sneaky, tiptoe sort of way.

  “We’ll wait for your sister,” Ford said.

  “Not if you want to know why Mama sent us away,” the girl shot back. She looked at the GPS. “Why are you driving west? Cuba is south. Are you lost?”


  Ford patted the seat next to him. “Hop up, I could use a good navigator.”

  “Only if you keep your promise to take us home.”

  “Sabina, if your mother and father were here, what would they—?”

  “No father,” she interrupted, “so keep him out of this. I never wanted to meet him anyway.”

  Ford tried a different approach. “Okay . . . what would your mother want you to do? She paid money to get you to America and you’re so close. Only thirty miles. I can’t go against your mother’s wishes without a good reason.”

  A dramatic sigh of impatience before the girl climbed into the seat next to him, neatened the dress over her knees, then waited until she had Ford’s full attention. “Mama didn’t want us to leave. We had to leave. Mama was scared we would be killed because of what Maribel saw.”

  “Oh?” Ford didn’t give it too much.

  “Something very bad. At night, sometimes, Maribel still has dreams. That’s why Mama made her promise not to speak about it to anyone.”

  On the console was a box of cheese crackers. He offered them to the girl. Watched her arm, no thicker than a sapling, disappear into the box, then reappear with a handful. “This sounds serious,” he said. “It happened recently?”

  “No, I was only nine then. After that, Mama was too afraid to sleep—but she and Maribel are always afraid of something. Then a man said he would drive us to Florida in a big boat, but he lied. It was a very small boat with a motor, and that night, our first night, he made us get on the raft with Mr. Molera. I didn’t like Mr. Molera, but his wife was worse. She spanked me, called me a spoiled little nag, and made us sleep on the front of the raft.”

  The girl popped a cracker into her mouth and chewed while Ford said, “I wouldn’t worry about them now. I’m more concerned about your mother. If she was afraid, why didn’t she come with you?”

  “The man who lied about his big boat charged so much money, Mama had to borrow the rest and said she would come later. She didn’t want us to go, understand?”