Duby's Doctor (31 page)

Then she descended the three steps into the
cabin and disappeared within.

With a look at Duby, and his pistol pointed
at Heather, Iglesias descended into the cabin.

Duby moved carefully toward the cabin hatch.
He stole a quick look toward the restaurant rooftop, where he
thought he saw a glint of sunlight reflect off a lens – as if
someone up there was watching through a camera or binoculars. He
didn’t automatically think of someone having a sniper scope trained
on his boat; that was something the old Dubreau would have thought.
Duby hunched over, squeezed his bulk through the narrow hatch, and
stepped down into the cabin.

The curtains were drawn across the windows
that lined the outer bulkheads just below overhead level. Even the
best binoculars would not be able to see them here. Duby didn’t
think of directional microphones or infrared cameras; that was
something the old Dubreau would have thought.

Frank Stone and the lieutenant on the rooftop
had thought of them, however, and, as a result, were keeping as
close a watch on the boat’s passengers as they had when all three
had stood in the open cockpit. Stone, who was familiar with the
interior of Duby’s boat, could tell that Iglesias had taken a seat
on the port side sofa and had placed Heather and Scooby Dooby on
opposite seats in the starboard side dining banquette. The galley
lay between their sitting area and the hatchway to the aft cockpit.
Another hatchway led forward to the head (or toilet) and the
sleeping cabin.

Stone mentally congratulated Iglesias on the
strategy of his seating arrangement. Iglesias, on the sofa, had
freedom of movement and a clear line of sight from the aft cockpit
to the forward cabin. His two hostages, pinned in their dining
booth with the table between them, would need valuable seconds to
squirm their way out of their seats, if they wanted to take any
action against their captor. Any SWAT officers trying to enter
through the cockpit hatch or the forward cabin’s ceiling hatch
would have to enter one at a time, right into Iglesias’ bullets.
With the galley and the forward cabin between himself and the entry
hatches, Iglesias had assured himself an extra moment of warning,
should anyone from outside attempt to reach him.

By this time, the lieutenant had two Zodiacs,
with powerful motors, manned with four men each and waiting at the
pier to rush across the yacht basin and board the Doo Bee 2. On the
roof, snipers and spotters watched their infrared images of the
three silhouettes inside the boat’s cabin. Stone and the lieutenant
stood near the sound techs and listened to the sounds they were
picking up from their directional mic.

“I want to get out of here yesterday! What
else do you have to do to get this barge moving?”

“I need to study the charts—”

“You can do that after we’re out on the open
water. Surely, you know how to maneuver out of this small harbor.
You live here. What else?”

“We need to pull over to the end of the main
pier to fill the fuel tanks.”

“Forget it. It’s a sailing boat. We will
sail. Any fuel you have in the tanks now will have to be
enough.”

“But,
monsieur
, if we have to dock in
Havana’s crowded harbor—”

“
No te preocupes, Señor
Scooby
Dooby, I have a feeling the Cuban authorities will intercept us
before we reach the harbor. They will welcome me aboard their
craft, and you ... you will have no further worries.”

“Because we will be dead,” Duby
concluded.

“Okay, but I’m sorry, I really have to pee,”
chirped Heather. “Can I use your bathroom, Scooby Dooby?”

“It is ... in there,” Duby said, sounding
stunned. The gunman sitting not three feet away had just casually
promised to murder them, and Heather was as cheerful as a clown
with balloons.

Iglesias must have been bemused as well, for
he did nothing to stop Heather from leaving her seat and entering
the forward hatchway.

She paused just the other side of the opening
and, cocking her hip, winked – good grief, she actually winked – at
their captor. “No peeking, Churro,” she teased, and she closed the
hatch.

Iglesias leaned back on the sofa and looked a
question at Duby. Duby smiled and shrugged as if to respond, “What
can I say? She’s like that sometimes.”

On the rooftop, the lieutenant stepped away
from the sound tech and over to the infrared spotter. “What’s
happening?”

“The woman’s gone into the forward cabin,
sir, but she didn’t go into the head. She seems to be searching the
cabin.”

The lieutenant turned to Frank Stone. “Any
idea what she could be looking for?”

Stone shrugged. “My guess would be anything
that could be used as a weapon.”

“She found something!” the spotter
reported.

All three men bent over the laptop computer
screen and watched the infrared video feed. The woman pulled a box
out of a stowage compartment behind the starboard bunk. She opened
the box, and it was clear even on the fuzzy video that she pulled
out a pistol. Then she turned the box upside down and shook it over
the bunk, but nothing fell out of it. She fussed with the gun for a
few seconds, then threw it down on the bunk.

“No ammo,” said Stone. So, the good news was
that Duby had kept the pistol Stone had given him on his 31st
birthday. The bad news was that the gun would be no help in saving
the lives of Duby and his lady doctor.

“What’s she doing?” the lieutenant whispered,
as if helping the woman remain unnoticed.

“Looks like she’s gonna climb out the forward
hatch, sir, if she can reach it.”

“Good girl, Doctor,” murmured Stone. “Get
out, and get off that boat.”

“She’s out!” cried the spotter.

“Jump off, jump off!” Stone said, clenching
his fists and jerking them forward as if he would push her off the
sailboat. “Jump off!”

But, Heather didn’t jump off the boat. The
SWAT team watched the wet-tee-shirted red bikini cross the length
of the boat, as Heather tiptoed across the cabin roof to the
cockpit and opened one of the cockpit bench compartments.

“Now what?” Stone said between gritted teeth.
“Just get off the boat already!”

Heather didn’t find what she wanted in the
first compartment, so she closed it softly and opened a second. She
found what she sought, grabbed it, and disappeared over the aft
cockpit gunwale to crouch low on the teak dive platform.

At almost that very instant, Iglesias
growled, “She is gone too long.” Keeping his gun pointing in Duby’s
direction, Iglesias opened the forward cabin hatch and stuck his
head inside. Immediately, he saw the gun on the bunk, the disturbed
cushions where Heather had stood to reach the overhead, and the
open overhead hatch.

Iglesias heard nothing, but he pulled his
head back into the sitting area just in time to see Duby’s feet
leaving the three-step ladder into the cockpit.

When Iglesias bolted up the ladder and
through the hatch, pistol foremost, Duby was about to dive from the
port side cockpit bench into the water below.

“Stop!” Iglesias shouted and fired the
gun.

“Go! Go! Go!” yelled the lieutenant on the
rooftop.

At the marina pier, two engines roared like
jet planes, and two Zodiacs skimmed the water, racing toward the Do
Bee 2.

Duby froze, expecting a bullet’s impact, but
the shot went wide of its mark as the gun fell from Iglesias’ right
hand — which was pinned to the bulkhead by a bolt from a spear gun.
Iglesias screamed in pain and shock, struggled to pull his hand
loose from the three-foot-long spear, then screamed again when he
only made his pain worse.

Duby turned to see Iglesias nailed to the
wall, screaming and bleeding, and Mitchell Oberon, in an
incongruous tiny red bikini and wet tee shirt, kneeling on the dive
platform with an empty spear gun braced upon the aft cockpit
gunwale. He scooped up Iglesias’ fallen gun, tossed it overboard,
and rushed to Mitchell’s side, lifting her off her knees with one
hand while relieving her of her weapon with the other.

He expected the woman to be weeping or
fainting or shaking with fear from the whole ordeal. Instead, she
began pounding on his chest with her fists.

“What is wrong with you?” she shrieked. “Why
are people always shooting at you? I’m sick and tired of it! Don’t
do it anymore! How could you let this happen? That man was going to
kill you! I hate this! Don’t do it anymore!”

“You said that already.”

Two Zodiacs bounced off the sides of the
sailboat, and two armed men from each side crowded into the cockpit
and onto the cabin roof, taking charge of the hysterically
screaming Iglesias.

“Sir, are you both all right?” a fifth
policeman asked Duby.

“Get us off this stupid boat!” shouted
Mitchell. “Right now!”

“She doesn’t mean it,” Duby said soothingly
to the policeman. “She’s normally very nice. She’s just upset. I
apologize.”

“You bet I’m upset! Don’t apologize for me! I
can apologize for myself if I need to!” she shouted. And, turning
to the poor policeman, she shouted at his face: “I apologize! Okay?
And I want to get off of this boat!”

“Yes, ma’am. Right this way.” The policeman
ushered them into the port side Zodiac, where another officer
waited with the motor idling. The motor rumbled to life and the
Zodiac pulled away toward the shore. The policeman couldn’t hear
her words, but it appeared that the woman in the shirt-draped red
bikini was still yelling at the big, scarred man who had given her
his shirt.

When Mitchell finally stopped screaming (more
of the same things she had been shouting while on the sailboat),
Jean hugged her close and spoke close to her ear to be heard over
the noisy motor. “Thank you for saving me,
Michel
.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Was that your first time to use a spear gun?
That was a very good shot!”

“It wasn’t so good. I was aiming for his
heart.”

By the time Jean and Mitchell’s transport
docked and they began to climb wearily from the Zodiac to the pier,
the SWAT team lieutenant and Frank Stone were arriving from the
restaurant building at a run. When the four of them met on the
pier, Stone grabbed Duby and wrapped him in a desperate bear hug,
blinking moisture from his eyes.

Duby did not release Mitchell’s hand, and
Stone backed off long enough to reach for her and bring her into
what was now a three-way hug. Mitchell began sniffing back tears,
also.

Duby pulled back from the group hug, “What is
the matter? Why is everyone crying? Everything is fine now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, boy.
I never cry,” growled Stone, and he sniffed.

“Thank you for coming to help me, Frank
Stone.”

“You’re very welcome...
Jean
.” Stone
patted Mitchell’s shoulder and stepped back to face the couple.

Duby had moved from holding her hand to
circling her waist with one arm, keeping her close to his side. She
was resting her head against his chest, as happy and natural as a
kitten nestling on a sunny windowsill.

Stone said, “I didn’t do much, as it turns
out. Doctor, you nearly gave me a heart attack when you swam out to
that boat.”

Duby said, “Me, too.”

A policeman arrived with two blankets and
said, “Us, too” as he wrapped one around Mitchell’s shoulders. He
handed the second blanket to Duby.

Stone reached over and helped wrap the
blanket around Duby’s bare shoulders. It was clear that Duby would
not relinquish Mitchell’s hand simply to keep himself from freezing
in the sea breeze.

From the direction of the parking lot, they
heard shouting in rapid French. Duby, being the tallest in the
group, was first to spot the source of the voice. “
Maman
is here.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Stone said,
producing a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping away the
evidence of his tears.

“
Jean! Jean, mon cher
!” Mandy Stone
shouted when she spotted him in the center of the small throng on
the pier. She swept through the gathering, a short, round,
unstoppable package of motherly love, and threw herself into Jean’s
arm, clinging to his neck. Mitchell patted Mandy on the shoulder
comfortingly and smiled, with absolutely no idea what Mandy was
saying. French words spewed from the lady’s lips with the speed of
machine gun bullets. She paused only when she needed to draw breath
or wipe at her copious tears.

Jean was trying to answer her, to calm her
and tell her everyone was all right. At least, Mitchell thought
that’s what he was doing. He was speaking French, too, and because
Mandy seldom paused, most of the time they were both speaking at
once.

After a minute or so, Mandy had quieted
enough to breathe more-or-less normally and converse in English.
She had hugged Mitchell, also, and even allowed her husband to put
his arm around her shoulders and pull her a few steps back from the
exhausted couple.

They heard the second Zodiac rev its engine
and pull away from the Do Bee 2. When they turned to look, they
could see policemen and paramedics escorting a haggard, bloody
Iturralde Iglesias toward the pier and a waiting ambulance.
Iglesias sported a grapefruit-shaped white bandage covering his
right hand.

The lieutenant stepped up to Duby and, after
shaking hands and welcoming the couple back from their unfortunate
ordeal, asked Duby and Mitchell to come to the police station to
make formal statements. “I’ll drive you there and bring you back,”
he told them. He didn’t know that Duby was still only learning to
drive, but it was clear to any onlooker that both the man and the
woman from the sailboat were too tired and emotionally shaken to be
trusted behind the wheel of a car.