“Hundreds. Maybe a hundred and fifty.”
“So, let’s go with a hundred and fifty. Now let me ask you another question. How many times does three go into a hundred and fifty?”
“Shit, I dunno. What do you think I am? A human calculator?” Bobby burped deeply and tossed his empty over his shoulder.
“Hell, Bobby, it ain’t like I’m asking you to divide goddamn Roman numerals! It ain’t rocket surgery! It’s simple damn arithmetic. You’re a car salesman. You ought to be able to do the calculation. Three goes into one- fifty, lemme see now, fifty times.”
“Sounds about right.”
“My point is, we’ve achieved about fifty-to-one beer-to-fish ratio. And I think that’s pretty goddamn good, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Considering the fact that I like Budweiser a hell of a lot better than I like fish. I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve never told anybody else. I can’t stand the taste of fish. Hate it. You ever tell my wife, Kathy, that, I’ll whup your sorry ass.”
“Well, that’s good, Red, that you don’t like ’em,” Bobby said. “ ’Cause if them damn helicopters and search- and-rescue boats are back here in the morning, your chances of catching any marlin’ll be about the same as they were today. Shitty.”
“I was monitoring channel sixteen earlier, up on the flybridge. I think they gave up on whoever or whatever was missing out there. We should be all right for tomorrow.”
“Maybe.”
“I will eat a tuna fish sandwich,” Red allowed after a long silence. “Long as it’s got a lot of mayo. Mayo I can eat out of the jar.”
“Hell, I’ve seen you do it.”
“How many times America save France’s ass, Bobby?”
“Least twice. And what’d they ever do for us?”
“That’s my point. The frogs invented mayo. In my book that just about evens things up.”
“Good point.”
“Hell, Bobby, I’d eat a mud sandwich, you put enough mayo on it. Hey. You hungry?”
“Could be. You want, I’ll go put that cow meat on the griddle?”
“I could eat—damn, it’s late—what the hell time is it?”
“Gotta be getting close to midnight,” Bobby said. “You want yours rare or—holy goddamn Christ! Red, what the hell is that?”
“Hell is what?”
“Look out there in the channel! Off to starboard. See it? Looks like the whole damn ocean is exploding!”
Red leapt out of his fishing chair and ran to the stern rail. Bobby was right. Something was going on out there. “Sonofabitch! Hand me them damn binocs, Bobby! Hanging right there by the tuna tower ladder.”
Red put the binocs to his eyes and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The sea was exploding. About a thousand yards off the Reel Thing’s stern, out in the middle of the dark deep channel.
“Shitfire, Red! Lemme see.”
He handed Bobby the binoculars.
“Jesus,” Bobby said. “What is it, Red?”
“Whale? How the hell do I know? What am I, a goddamn oceanographer?”
A huge mound of boiling white water was growing in the midst of the inky waves of the channel. It became a mushroom shape, rising and growing, and then the roiling sea did explode and a massive sharp-edged black snout emerged, surging majestically into the midnight sky at a forty-five-degree angle. Black and white seawater was pouring off her sleek dark sides in sheets.
“Well, I’ll be damned, Bobby,” Red said, passing him the binocs just as the strangely shaped hull finally broke the surface.
“A goddamn living breathing submarine!” Bobby said.
Red looked at it, shaking his head in wonder.
“You ever seen a submarine look like that, Bobby?”
“I ain’t never seen a goddamn thing looked like that. Sweet Jesus. Looks more like a UFO than a submarine.”
The thing was still rising at an impossible angle. Then the triangular-shaped bow came crashing down into the boiling sea and the bizarre craft began a slow turn toward one of the many islands on either side of the channel.
Red couldn’t believe his eyes. The hull was in the shape of a giant delta wing and what looked like some kind of weird conning tower was now rising from the apex of the two hulls. The sub was literally as broad abeam as an aircraft carrier.
“That’s the biggest, craziest-looking damn submarine I’ve ever seen,” Red said. “Hell, it looks like one of them stealth bombers and it’s as big as a goddamn battleship!”
“It ain’t natural-lookin’, Red,” Bobby said, staring at it. “Something spooky about it. Like it’s from goddamn Mars or something.”
“Shitfire. Aliens in submarines,” Red said. “What’s next?”
“Yeah. You always wondering ’bout flying saucers. Well, maybe here’s your goddamn answer!”
Water broke over the huge sub’s bow in great white torrents, and, with the binocs, Red and Bobby could make out the silhouettes of three small figures appear atop the now fully exposed conning tower. Someone raised a fluttering flag to the top of a tall post capped by a red light.
A powerful searchlight on the sub’s portside was switched on and swept the sea immediately around the sub. Just when the broad white beam was about to reach the opening to the little cove where Reel Thing was moored, it stopped and started back the other way. Deep in the cove, they would be pretty hard to see anyway.
“Look at the flag. It ain’t Russian, is it, Red?” Bobby asked. “I mean, it is one of ours, right?”
Red had the binocs trained on the conning tower.
“Naw, it ain’t Russian,” Red said, studying the flag. “Then again, it ain’t American either.”
“Well, what then? Mars?”
“I seen that flag around here before. I just don’t exactly remember which one it is. Jamaica?”
Bobby spewed beer all over the deck, he was laughing so hard. “Jamaica? Jamaica! They ain’t got any damn submarines in Jamaica, Red.”
“Well, you’re so smart, go down in the cabin and bring me up that atlas. We’ll look her up. Use a flashlight. And turn off that damn stereo, too. Maybe we’re not supposed to be seeing this.”
Bobby went below to get the book and Red stood staring at the sub, transfixed by it. He knew subs were down here in the Caribbean; hell, they were everywhere. But he’d never dreamed of eyeballing one up so close. Especially such an otherworldly machine.
The sub’s searchlight flashed three times, two short and then one long. Then it was extinguished. Some kind of signal? Had to be.
In the last long flash of the searchlight, he’d seen three people come out of the woods on one of the little islands, just to the west. They were dragging a big inflatable across the beach, with an out-board on the back. Red saw them put it in the water. Then he heard the engine sputter and start, and then the raft was moving at high speed toward the submarine.
Drug deal. Goddamn drug deal. Colombians, probably. Shit, he should get on the radio and call the Coast Guard. It was a good thing that searchlight hadn’t spotted them. But what if it was some kind of naval exercises thing? Top secret experimental shit. A joint U.S. war games thing with some allied country. Hell, where was Bobby with that atlas?
“It’s Cuban,” Bobby said, coming out of the dark cabin. He had the book in his hand. “I looked it up.”
“Cuban?” Red said. “Cubans ain’t got any goddamn submarines.”
“Yeah, well they do now. Look on page sixty-two,” Bobby said, handing Red the book and the flashlight. Before Red could make a move, Bobby started climbing like a drunken monkey up the ladder of the tuna tower.
“Bobby, goddamn you! What the hell you doin’? Come on back down here!”
