Chapter 13
As the drug-induced drowsiness wore off, sharp awareness replaced it, turning Alex’s paranoia into action. As dusk fell, he stole a car and headed out. Havana was where he had knowledge that could get him out of Cuba.
A pang of regret at abandoning Katie stabbed him before he remembered she’d been a willing participant in his drug-assisted interrogation and had let the CIA use her as a weapon against him.
He had to make a quick trip to Washington D.C. to take care of a few loose ends, and then he was going off the grid for good. He’d had it with double-crosses and backstabbing. He wasn’t about to stick around and let the CIA kill him. Or worse.
He was furious that Katie had betrayed him and gone over to the enemy like that. Although, she’d never made any secret of being a dyed-in-the-wool American patriot. He rolled his eyes at her naivete.
He knew better than just about anyone how dirty governments really got their hands. Screw them all. He was done.
Katie ate her snacks and hid in the infirmary for the evening. Whether the crew would actually gang rape her or not, she had no idea. She suspected the Aussie had said it just to mess with her. But she wasn’t a hundred percent certain, hence the hibernation act.
A ship’s mate of some kind had come in to meet her and ask if she was properly provisioned to sail. She’d managed to maintain a pleasant expression and meet the man’s eyes when she said she was. She lied and said a crewmember had already given her a tour of the ship, too.
“And he showed you the evacuation route and where your life boat muster station is?” the guy asked.
“Yes,” she lied again.
He checked off a box on a clipboard and left quickly after that.
She napped on the bottom bunk until it was time to sail.
The Caelum started to rumble and shake as its mighty diesel engines came to life.
The sound was shockingly loud. She couldn’t imagine weeks on end living with that roar around her.
It was maybe an hour until the ship began to rock ever so slightly. They must be under way.
It was disorienting and more than a little nauseating being tucked in this tiny, windowless cabin that rolled faintly but continuously.
She barfed into the sink and then downed a packet of anti-seasickness pills she’d spotted in a drawer earlier.
Too miserable to sleep, she browsed through a medical reference book she found in the desk drawer. It was outdated by about fifty years.
She had no idea how late it was when a quiet knock sounded on her door. She cracked it open to reveal the big Aussie. “It’s toime, lassie. Oi’ve got the conn for the next hour.”
“Umm, okay.”
“Grab yer loife jacket and c’mon.”
Crap . He was going to throw her overboard!
Donning the bulky orange flotation device, she followed him down the passageway, which was lit at long intervals by bare light bulbs in metal cages.
It was creepy as heck. He led her into a stairwell and headed up.
She jogged after him and emerged onto the open deck of the ship with a gasp of surprise.
It was raining. Ribbons of gray streaked downward in the glow of the ship’s running lights.
“Are we meeting up with someone out here?” she asked doubtfully.
It was pitch black beyond the ship’s rails.
She couldn’t even see where the ocean ended and the sky began.
It was just blackness and more blackness stretching beyond the rusty metal deck.
How on earth was another vessel going to find them and rendezvous with them in this mess?
“A ship’ll be along to scoop ye up afore long. ‘Ere’s yer dinghy.” He shoved a bulky, heavy pack into her arms.
Her dinghy ? “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Pull the orange tab and climb aboard. She’s got a transponder. Saltwater activated. Yer roide’ll pick up the signal and come along.”
Stunned, she let him take her by the upper arm and lead her over to the railing at the edge of the ship. Holy crap, it was a long way down. No way was she jumping off that. There’d better be a ladder around here somewhere for her to climb down. Although even that was a daunting prospect.
“Be sure to jump well clear of the ship. ‘Twould be a shame if ye got sucked into the Caelum’s propellers and minced to bits.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got quite a way with words?” she asked dryly.
He tied some sort of line coming from the dinghy around her waist as he replied, “Sheila’s call me a silver-tongued devil all the toime.”
Emphasis on devil .
“Ship’s watch’ll be makin’ rounds soon. Off ye go, then.” The Aussie grabbed her around the waist and had the gall to actually grin as he bodily hauled her to the rail.
“No! You can’t do this!” She fought with all her might but was no match for the burly sailor. He scooped her up off her feet and threw her out into space.
Alex pawned the solid gold bracelet operatives like him wore for emergencies just like this one. He got a fraction of its value but he wasn’t concerned. A casino was open just down the street.
He walked down the Havana beachfront to a hotel and its attached casino, keeping careful watch for tails. He knew he hadn’t been spotted when he entered the city, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t picked him up in the past hour. Watchers were everywhere on this island.
The all-consuming panic from before had settled down enough for him to function with caution and discretion. A lifetime’s worth of training came down to this moment. He was a spy, fully in his element and at the peak of his abilities.
At the casino, he traded his meager stack of cash for chips and headed for the blackjack tables. Of all the games casinos ran, its odds were most in the player’s favor.
Also, it was the easiest game to cheat at and the fastest way to accumulate winnings.
Of course, the blackjack tables were closely watched for card counting and other illegal behaviors.
But he had at least an hour to play before anyone got suspicious enough to detain him.
He glanced at the dealer’s watch and got to work.
A horrible, gasping scream escaped Katie on the heart-stopping fall thirty or more feet down to the water. What breath she had left was ripped out of her by the freezing temperature of the water as she slammed into it.
Panic clawed at her as the black water closed over her head. Bubbles tickled her face as the life jacket did its work and carried her back up to the surface. She popped up like one of the little red and white plastic float balls her dad attached to her fishing line as a kid.
She heard the roar before she felt the pull of the Caelum.
Turning in the water, she recoiled, backpedaling hard with hands and feet as the massive hull of the ship loomed shockingly close.
A terrible, churning turbulence tried to suck her forward.
She kicked with all her might, scared out of her mind, certain that she was about to be chopped to bits, after all.
As quickly as the awful suction started, it stopped. The ocean settled into blackness around her once more, and she bobbed, tiny and helpless on the not inconsiderable swells as the Caelum quickly retreated into the night. The dinghy. Where was it? Had she lost it in that damned fall?
She felt at her waist and found the line.
She reeled it in and spotted the bundle floating in the water beside her.
She fumbled around on its slick surface and found what felt like a T-handle.
She gave it a tug, and the damned thing practically exploded in her face.
If she ever saw that Aussie again, she was going to have to hurt him.
The dinghy turned out to be a tiny little circle of yellow rubber tubing with a membrane suspended in the middle.
And it was a pain in the butt to climb aboard.
She tipped it over twice before she managed to heave herself across it far enough to grab the far side and scrambled into the middle.
She flopped on her face and got a foul mouthful of sea water, but managed to right herself, cursing.
She didn’t know whether she was more eager to kill Alex or the Aussie for getting her into this predicament.
She scouted out the tiny vessel and found a small cone made of heavy plastic.
She used it to scoop out most of the water out of the bottom of the boat.
Attached to a nylon cord, she found the emergency locator beacon.
An orange light flashed on one end of it, so she presumed it was activated and calling in her supposed ride.
The beacon turned out to have a flashlight built into it, not that the thing did her a lick of good.
All it showed her was rain falling from above and scary big swells below.
She turned the light off. Ignorance was bliss right about now.
She was delighted to discover some sort of waterproof cover rolled up and tied to one side of the raft.
She unfurled it over herself. Wet, cold, and miserable, she huddled beneath it and listened to the rain pattering off her meager protection.
The thin rubber floor of the raft did little to insulate her from the heat-leeching chill of the sea beneath her, and she curled into in a ball of misery, hugging her knees in a failing effort to conserve body warmth.
She held the cone outside the tarp and caught a few ounces of rainwater at a time in it, which she drank. Up and down, up and down the dinghy went. She barfed over the edge of the raft enough times that her stomach finally was completely empty and she only dry heaved now and then.
Once her clothes sort of dried out, she warmed up a little. Just enough to make the mistake of peeking out from under the tarp. She was a tiny speck in the middle of a giant, yawning blackness. There was no way anyone would ever find her out here.