Free Cuba Straits by Randy Wayne White Page B

Yeah, thoughtless, that’s him.”
    More typing. The dog’s yellow eye closed; he returned to sleep while the alpha figure spoke, occasionally, in a tone that communicated nothing, but tilted his head when he heard “What the hell?”
    Ford’s neighbors Rhonda and JoAnn, who lived aboard an old Chris-Craft,
Tiger Lilly
, had sent an email, subject:
Man of the Year
. There were photos of Tomlinson, naked on a bed, posing with three topless women—two large-breasted blondes, the other dark-haired, younger and attractive, despite cat whiskers painted on her face. Little tufts of horns on her temples, too, which caused her to resemble a woodland creature with teeth.
    Ford was no prude but closed the photo after reading Rhonda’s note:
    Copied from Facebook just now before they took it down. 726 likes. Capt. Quirk went back to Key West?
    Relief, is what he felt at first. A foursome negated the chances of radiation poisoning or a bullet. Yet, something about one of the blondes tugged at his subconscious. He opened the photo again . . . had to zoom in tight to avoid the distraction of her Teutonic breasts. Tomlinson’s boney thighs, thank god, vanished, too. Ford removed his glasses, cleaned them, and focused on a necklace the blonde wore: a silver shield transected by a tiny ornate sword. Atop the sword’s hilt was a star.
    “Jesus H. Christ.” Ford pushed his chair back as the dog’s head bounced to attention.
    “He has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. I’ll call Rhonda. It might help to know when this was posted.”
    The dog didn’t bother to stretch, trotted to his side, while Ford, talking to himself, picked up the phone and muttered, “That woman, she’s with the goddamn KGB.”
    Actually, the FSB—Russian Federal Security Service. No reason to explain to a dog that only the name had been changed.
    •   •   •
    M OORED BETWEEN PILINGS beneath the stilthouse was his boat: a 26-foot rigid hull inflatable purchased through friends at the Special Ops base in Tampa—a confiscated cocaine boat, supposedly, but he knew otherwise. It tugged at its lines on this night of calm and stars, no moon, no clouds, no wind or waves.
    Weather blew through the tropics with the indifference of airplanes passing overhead.
    Ford found the light switch. Mullet scattered; shadows of big fish drifted under the dock until the dog vaulted after them.
    “Damn it. Now I’ll have to get a towel for the truck.”
    Instead, he stepped aboard. The deck, mounted on hydraulic shocks, absorbed his weight without listing. Couldn’t hurt to check a few things, although he was a fastidious man who obsessed over his tools, from microscopes to fly rods, dive gear, and weapons.
    Boats received special attention. This one was made by Brunswick Tactical in Edgewater, Florida. It had all the high-tech frills: a radar tower aft, a cavernous console, and an electronics suite above the wheel. The hull was Kevlar encircled by tubes of black carbon fiber that looked bulletproof—and maybe were, considering the agency that had commissioned it. To minimize radar signature, the boat was built low to the water with few right angles or vertical surfaces, and had a bow hood made of neoprene polymer sheeting that was radar-absorbent. When opened, the hood covered the bow like a tent.
    For power: twin Merc 250s, top speed over sixty, a range of four hundred miles—almost to Cuba and back, or almost to the Yucatán.
    Almost
being the operative word.
    Ford checked fuel, oil, and plugged in the charger even though all four batteries were new.
    At Jensen’s Marina on Captiva he had stored a fifty-gallon gas bladder, thinking he would never need it. He told the dog, “Let’s hope I don’t.”
    •   •   •
    F ROM HIS TRUCK, he phoned Scottsdale, Arizona, Colorado Springs, and an unnamed city in Maryland. The process was so complicated it resembled ceremony. Six calls, five recordings, and, finally, one human voice: Hal Harrington, an