“But he’s in air space he shouldn’t be in,” she said.
“Yeah, and in a few hours you’re going to be on a beach you shouldn’t be on. Around here, this part of the ocean, people know better than to ask too many questions. So who’s going to know? Who’s going to do something?”
“No one, hopefully,” Alex said. “And hopefully the air space is empty.”
Anastacio shrugged. “It usually is,” he said with a smirk. “And if somebody else is in it, it’ll only happen once.”
Guarneri tapped Alex’s hand. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Stuff like this goes down all the time between Miami and Havana. It takes care of itself.”
“Let’s hope so,” she said.
“You’re jittery,” Paul said.
“I’ve seen things go off the rails too many times,” she said.
“Who hasn’t?” Paul answered. He pondered. “Let’s add a final fillip to our disaster plan,” he said. “If everything goes haywire at any point and we get separated, there’s a nice hotel in Havana called Hotel Ambos Mundos.”
“Both worlds,” she said, translating.
“Obviously, the two worlds are Cuba and everywhere else,” he said. “But it’s an Old Havana place. Dates back to the 1920s. Big pink place on a corner, half dozen stories or so, I’m told. Cuban owned, popular with European tourists.”
“So what’s the point?” she asked.
“If there’s a major screw up,” he said, “go there and sit in the lobby. Let’s say from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., more if you can, and just wait. We’ll each try to find our way there.”
“I assume it’s easy to find if it’s a tourist place.”
“You can assume that,” Paul said. “There’s one other thing, … and take this any way you want.”
“Go ahead,” she said. She finished her sandwich as well as her water.
“There are some nasty people in Havana who consider me a friend, some nasty people who hate my guts. It’s a family thing going back a generation. There’s some messy stuff to be done, but
“Want to tell me what it is?”
“I already did. Grabbing the money and moving it.”
“And there’s nothing else?”
A long pause, then, “Nope,” he said.
“You remember about how I warned you about lying to me,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t ‘mean’ anything. It’s a reminder.”
“Point taken,” he said.
“I hope so,” she said.
“Wake me up when it’s time to leave,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night,” he said.
She went back upstairs and crashed onto the bed. It took several minutes just to unwind, to gather her senses. For some reason – nerves, stress, the weight of baggage, the emotional outburst, the slap, cramped passage in the small aircraft and van – her shoulder was killing her. Or maybe it was just subconsciously reminding her of her own mortality. She lay down in her clothes. Then she pleasantly surprised herself, despite the fact that Cuba, about a hundred miles away, was beckoning. She was, when she finally calmed, able to sleep.
PART TWO
THIRTY-NINE
On the bed in Anastacio’s house, in the middle of a muggy Florida night, Alex blinked awake on the morning of June tenth. The door to the room was open. Paul Guarneri was sitting on the edge of her bed, gently shaking her.
“Come on, Alex,” he said. “The pilot’s here. LaReina made coffee. We can take it with us with some rolls. Got to move.”
She sat up and blinked. The new day was unwelcome. Beyond the window the sky was still dark. It was the middle of the night. Then part of her indignation from the previous night started to simmer. “Okay,” she grumbled. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Let’s just get this done, Paul,” she said. “For both our sakes.”
“I agree.”
He got up and left the room, leaving the door partly open. A harsh light flooded in from the hallway. She waited a moment, then another, then threw off the sheet and blanket. She was on her feet, stepping into her shoes.
Five minutes later, she was downstairs, her waterproof emergency kit strapped to her thigh where otherwise one might carry a gun or a knife. Her gun was on her ankle, also in waterproof packing. Her duffel was in her hand.
True to his word, Anastacio was awake, as was LaReina, who had packed a bag with breakfast rolls and thermoses of coffee, as promised. She was barefoot and wore a thin T-shirt and a pair of men’s boxers, her legs tan and supple with a cat tattoo on the back of her left calf. She handed each of the voyagers a stash of granola bars wrapped in waterproof foil. Alex jammed two into her pockets. She went to her purse to pack a pen also. She looked for her silver Tiffany pen, the one her boss had once given her, and couldn’t find it. Nor, in her tiredness, could she recall when she had last seen it.
Anastacio glanced at his watch. He held the back door open and led Guarneri and Alex toward the pier. The plane’s engine was not yet running.
A huge black man, Pierre, sat in the pilot’s seat of the Cessna. He gave his two passengers a big toothy grin, then opened the passenger door. He extended a hand to help Alex aboard, then pulled Guarneri up.
In the dark, they held up their hands and waved. Pierre pulled the door closed. The only light was from the house and, an instant later, the airplane’s interior. Anastacio gave the fuselage a push with his two hands, and the plane eased back from the pier. Pierre settled into the pilot’s chair and cranked the engine. The plane came to life. The engine revved louder, and the aircraft turned quickly on the water to face southward over the straits. Alex and Guarneri settled into their seats next to each other, immediately behind the pilot, and buckled in.
“Ready!” Alex called back.
Paul gave a thumbs-up.
A second later, Pierre slammed the throttle forward and they were hurtling across the choppy water. They skimmed the surface for a moment and lifted off; they went upward in a low flat ascent, and then they were on their way. Pierre was flying by the stars and by radar. He had illuminated no exterior lights.
Alex peered over his shoulder. The altimeter leveled out at four hundred feet and stayed there. Alex heaved a nervous sigh and said a short prayer. There were some air pockets and down-drafts, and the plane shook, dipped, and bounced back up for more. She loved this kind of excitement – and hated it at the same time. She felt like a gambler who kept going to a casino with the rent money; deep down, the gambler knows she’s eventually going to lose, but the excitement is worth the risk. She wondered why she did it. She couldn’t answer her question.
Then the flight smoothed. Hardly a bump.
