Dusky MacMorgan: Cuban Death-Lift Part 11

"I didn't come cheap," I said. It wasn't true-but I had to say it.

"I know, I know." She stopped and looked at me. "But no matter how hard I try now, I can't make myself believe that you came for the money. No one else would have jumped in to save . . . save that poor man." She was studying me now, the way someone might study an enigmatic painting. "Dusky, somehow, you give me the feeling that you care. I never expected that-never, not from some big blond-haired charter-boat captain. But I'm . . . I'm glad. . . ."

Her face was tilted toward mine. It was a face from Gauguin; a dream face draped in a black sheen of hair. I felt myself drifting toward her, wanting her lips, wanting to hold her, wanting to take her as a part of me-to strip away that final reserve which was the mystery of her and discover the woman inside.

Abruptly, she turned her face aside.

"I'd better keep an eye on those . . . those search boats," she said. Her breathing seemed strangely labored, and as she turned sideways I could see the points of her nipples erect beneath the thin T-s.h.i.+rt.

"Right," I said. "Yeah, you better do that."

"And you'll take care of-"

"Right."

I went below and quickly lashed the tarp and b.l.o.o.d.y sheet around the body. His face was waxy, peaceful in death. And, as always, I felt that odd sense of loss in the face of death, like a member of some huge fleet who looks out and sees that boats are being quietly abandoned. That seemed to describe death better than anything else. Personalities don't die, they just disappear; abandon their vessels for-for what?

Who the h.e.l.l knows. Or cares.

I pushed back the screen of the overhead port and shoved the body up onto the foredeck.

One of the gunboats had pulled up beside a big shrimp boat three hundred yards downtide. They figured, probably, if he had drowned his body would have drifted in that direction. The soldiers had the boat's searchlight fixed on the faces of the Cuban-Americans aboard the shrimp boat, and they were asking them questions in loud Spanish.

I got all the spare chain I had from the forward locker-about fifty pounds' worth-and took a roll of wire, the side-cuts, and my spare thirty-pound anchor.

Except for my rock anchor, it was all the extra ground tackle I had, and if another squall came blasting across the Straits like the last one . . . well, it would be time to head for deep water and break out the canvas sea anchor.

But I couldn't worry about that now.

Before I climbed out onto the deck, I fished my black watch sweater and wool cap out of my sea bag and pulled them on.

It was no time to be seen.

I tossed the chain over one shoulder, then pulled myself up through the porthole.

Wiring weights to a corpse is not what you call pleasant duty. I hitched the first link firmly to his right ankle, then wrapped the chain around him barber-pole-like, then added more wire at the neck. The wire snugged up with grisly ease. When the chain was in place, I secured the anchor to his stomach.

Staying low, I pulled him across the foredeck. I didn't want to risk making a loud splash. I positioned his head so that it hung off the deck. Bracing my legs as best I could, I got down on my stomach and began to lower him over.

What would the total weight be?

One hundred and seventy pounds plus eighty?

In that area.

One h.e.l.l of a heavy load.

The stripping around the deck cut into my arms and my shoulders creaked with the strain. Hand over hand, I lowered him head first into the black water.

He went down in a swirl of green phosph.o.r.escence, sparkling into the depths, as if he fell through stars.

I looked up. The gunboat was finished with the shrimp boat. It used no running lights. And it was coming our way.

So let them come. What they were looking for was now five fathoms down, already disappearing into the soft mud bottom.

I slid back through the porthole, pulling the screen shut behind me.

The woman was still back on the fighting deck. So I had time to check what I wanted to check.

I pulled off the sweater and cap and stuffed them back into my sea bag. The biographies Norm Fizer had given me were well hidden. I pulled back the indoor-outdoor carpet above the forward bilge. The bilge was dry and empty-except for one spare marine battery. It was the best kind of hiding place-no one wants to mess with fifteen pounds of wet-cell.

But this was no ordinary battery.

Using my Gerber knife, I pried the whole top off it, hearing water slosh in the fake cap compartments. The file was in there; the biography file and more. There was my Randall attack-survival knife, the knife that had saved my life-and taken others-more than once. And beneath that were the seven one-pound blocks of RDX plastic explosives: Cyclonite, the deadliest military-strength explosive available. And that wasn't my only offensive option. I stuck my arm into the bilge and felt the roof of the compartment.

The handmade aluminum arrows were all there, taped in place. They were precision instruments that fitted the Cobra crossbow I had disa.s.sembled and stored innocuously in the engine compartment.

The file was rolled into a tight tube. I slid the rubber bands off and leafed through the pages until I had found what I was looking for. Even without the head wound, it was easy to see that the man who was chained thirty feet beneath Sniper was the same man in the black-and-white glossy photo: Ovillo Gomez, 37. Divorced, 2 dep. (girls 13, 10) living with subject's former spouse Aurora (Abeta) Gomez (which see). Nat. Cit. Aug. 1966, Grad. Yale June '71. PBK, Dean's List, 2Lt. ROTC. Recruited by Organization Sept. '71, 6 Promotions (which see). . . .

It was all straight from the sterile computers at the sterile headquarters in Was.h.i.+ngton, where a man's life, like certain chemicals, can be readily distilled into a few nouns, and where even honors are worthy only of abbreviation.

I wondered if they had a printout on me, and knew, of course, that they did. Empty facts and figures, the biographical skeleton of me. I was surprised to find myself suddenly furious; mad at the facts-and-figures b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in Was.h.i.+ngton; bitter at the truth that I too had become nothing more than a killing p.a.w.n for the "Organization," one more name on a list.

In childish protest, I ripped up the photo and short biography of the late Ovillo Gomez. I wouldn't give the computer goons a chance to stamp Killed in Line of Duty across them.

And I hoped that, someday, someone would do the same for me. . . .

Captain Lobo was in a surly mood when his gunboat finally rumbled up beside Sniper.

His fat face glistened with sweat as if hunting down a corpse were the hardest work of all. The snap on his holster was undone, the little Russian revolver ready.

I had gone back out to the aft deck to stand with Androsa and await their arrival. One by one, they were searching boats. And I knew that our time would come.

Almost on queue, the gunboat's searchlight painted us in its stark glare. Androsa s.h.i.+elded her eyes, then looked away.

"Hey," I said. "Are you going to be able to handle this?"

"You just take care of yourself, Captain."

"You're trembling."

"Only because I'm cold."

"It might be that outfit you're wearing-not that I don't like it."

She looked absently at the long T-s.h.i.+rt she wore as a nightgown. "Oh," she said. "I'd forgotten." She tried briefly to cover herself with her hands, then realized how ridiculous it was. "The boat's coming-I don't have time to-"

"I've got an old robe I'll lend you."

By the time I got back up and helped her put on the robe, Lobo's crew was making lines fast to Sniper's cleats. It was the same twosome: Lobo, looking surly; Zapata only grim, like some diseased hawk. But even in Lobo's mood, the expression of amus.e.m.e.nt was pasted onto his face. Only now the grin was more of a sneer.

"You are up very late, seorita," Lobo said, coming aboard, trying to straighten his uniform and hat all at the same time. And then to me: "Ah, and you too, Capitn? May I ask why?"

"Gunshots seem to give me insomnia, Captain Lobo."

"Ah?" And then the broad smile: "So we are all up when some of us would much rather be in bed. No?"

He looked meaningfully at the woman. If he wanted a game, I was happy to play along. I reached out and put my hand on Androsa's shoulder. "I just wish that was true," I said.

As I hoped she would, she jerked away from my grasp.

Lobo laughed with ugly delight. "So! A hot-blooded one, this? Hah!"

Zapata had said nothing. The spotlight was still aimed at Sniper, and he stood in the brief shadow of the cabin. Increasingly, I was becoming aware that the crew of the gunboat was giving me special attention, eyeing every move I made. Their automatic weapons were in evidence, but it was more than just a military attention. Their faces seemed amused, expectant. Some of them even smiled, looking from me to Zapata.

And then I put two and two together.

Nowhere does rumor travel as fast as among a platoon of soldiers. They had probably heard all about my run-in with Zapata, and, from the looks on their faces, they thought it a pretty funny story. I was the Americano who had embarra.s.sed their captain. And I imagined Zapata to be something less than a popular officer-even before the incident.

Now he had become a joke.

I looked at Zapata standing in the shadows, smiled-and got a glare for my trouble.

It was something to keep in mind.

I turned to Lobo. "You never did say, Captain, what your people were shooting at."

The grin edged with sneer again. "That's right, Capitn. I did not. But we have no secrets-despite what your newspapers say about us, huh?" He didn't wait for an answer. He continued, "A very foolish man, an escaped criminal, tried to swim to an American boat tonight. It was foolish because, as you have seen, our beaches are well guarded and he had no chance of success. Unfortunately, one of our navy's officers ordered the guards to-how do you say it?-'open guns' before they had a chance to see which boat he was trying to swim to. So now we are all awake because of an officer muy estpido."

I didn't have to turn around and look at Zapata to know which officer Lobo was talking about. Poor Captain Zapata had had one very bad day.

"The man got away?"

Lobo made a noncommittal gesture with his hands. "The guards say the man went underwater and did not come back up-but who is to say? It is very dark, no? And we have found no body. So now we search."

"You're welcome to look around my boat if you like."

For a microsecond, the mask of congeniality disappeared from Lobo's face-and I saw just what a ruthless son of a b.i.t.c.h he really was. He said, "Thank you, Capitn, but we do not need your permission to search this boat."

He signaled the soldiers waiting on the gunboat, and three of them came aboard, their AK-47s ready.

While two of them looked over the engine compartment with flashlights, Captain Lobo went below with the third. They would make a thorough search-but for a man. Nothing else.

Or so I hoped.

I moved over closer to the woman. She had her head down, as if tired. But then I realized that she had her head down for a reason-she was looking at something. Zapata still glared at me. Slowly, nonchalantly, she turned away from him. I put my arm around her, holding tight, telling her with the firmness of my grip that I did not want her to pull away. It was a rea.s.surance and a question in one; a question she answered by letting the robe open briefly, then pulling it tightly around her.

And then I knew what she had been looking at.

On her T-s.h.i.+rt, low and off to the left where she had cradled the head of Ovillo Gomez, was a black blotch of blood.

I patted her shoulder and said nothing, thinking all the while: You'd better come up with something good, MacMorgan-just in case. If they see that bloodstain, both of you are going to spend the next forty years playing one-on-one with rats.h.i.+t in some Cuban prison. . . .

Lobo came out of the cabin preceded by the soldier. In his hand he held something, and then in the glare of the searchlight I saw it: Androsa's snubnose .38.

He came up to me, almost sauntering, the damp bulk of him sliding across my deck.

"I am wondering, Capitn MacMorgan, why you thought it necessary to come to Cuba with such a weapon," he said, holding the handgun up for my inspection.

And I was about to give the weak explanation that I used it for sharks, when Androsa cut in, speaking in fast Spanish-too fast for me to understand.

Lobo tilted his head, listening, seemingly entertained by what she had to tell him. When she was finished, he turned to me. "Capitn, do you know what this woman says? She says that she brought this little gun because she did not trust you."

I tried to look shocked. "What?"

He chuckled; a lecherous laugh. "But I think you are not the kind of man to remain a stranger to any woman, eh?"

I still had my arm around Androsa's shoulder. His inference was obvious. I shrugged and said nothing.

Waving his hand, Lobo ordered his men back aboard the gunboat. And he was about to step across himself when Zapata, looking meaner than ever, stopped him with a harsh burst of Spanish. Lobo answered briefly, then waited stoically while his fellow officer let go with another emotional tirade.

Captain Lobo turned back to me, saying, "My friend here says that I have been remiss in my search."

"Is that so?"

"Perhaps. He says that we did not look up on your flybridge."

I sighed, relieved-but tried not to show it. And then: "He says that I also failed to check your . . . individuo . . . the clothes on your back, eh?"

I lifted my hands theatrically. "The body is in my back pocket, Captain. I must confess."

Dry laugh without humor. Lobo didn't like jokers. "No, of course not." He motioned with the woman's revolver. "But you might have another of these, yes?"

"No, but you're welcome to look."

While a soldier scampered up the ladder to have a look around the flybridge, Lobo frisked me. His hands were fat, stubby, and they pounded down my sides like little bricks.

"Convinced?"

"S! For now."

I wanted to do something, anything, to make them forget about searching the woman.

But it was too late. Zapata was already vectoring in on her, giving her orders in sharp Spanish. I felt all eyes turn toward the woman. She was beautiful, unbelievably so, and all of the soldiers wanted to see what she wore beneath the robe.

She backed away from Zapata, clutching the bulky cloak around her, moving toward me instinctively.

"You're not going to let that creep take her clothes off, are you? She's naked underneath-"