The Passage (56 page)

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Authors: David Poyer

BOOK: The Passage
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“Gustavo?”
The old man stared blankly at him before Dan realized he didn't recognize him. He said, “I'm the one who was in the boat with Graciela and Miguelito.”
“
¿Qué?
¿
Graciela, Miguelito?”
Okay, he had his attention now, but he didn't speak any Spanish. Dan glanced around, and a young woman got up from her blanket. “You want to speak to him? Tell me what you want to say. But slowly, please.”
“Thanks. Please tell him … tell him I was left in the boat, after he was picked up.”
She translated and the old man immediately stood, pouring out a torrent of questions. “Are they alive? Where are they? Did they come back to the ship with you?”
He explained lamely, conscious of the old eyes gradually turning disappointed, of the others who had gathered to listen. When he got to the part where he'd been forced to leave them, the old man looked at the deck and sighed.
“He thanks you for the news, and for helping with the birth. He knew the baby's father, he says. He will continue to pray for them all. Perhaps God will still bring them safely to land. You will pray with him? he asks.”
Dan nodded, bowing his head. And the people around them quieted, too, some crossing themselves as the old man looked up into the dim overhead of the hangar, speaking to his God.
CAY SAL
Miami, Florida
T
WO days later, he leaned over the wing, binoculars dangling from an aching neck, as the linehandlers backpedaled from underneath the crane-suspended brow. A warning tone beeped with monotonous insistence as the gangway seesawed in the breeze. The refugees stood along the deck-edge nets, watching in the glaring sun as one end of the steel ramp anchored itself on
Barrett's
deck and the other descended slowly, clanging and grating at last on the hot, scarred asphalt of Berth 5, Platform D, Dodge Island, Port of Miami.
A ragged cheer went up, and a smile touched his lips. To him, to the others watching from
Barrett'
s bridge, this was just a cluttered workaday slab of sheet-steel piling and rolled asphalt, transit sheds and rail lines and secure areas with hundreds of containers stacked under the baking sun. To the people embracing and dancing, it was what that first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty must have been to his ancestors. Not that long ago, not long at all in the short history of America … and off to the west, windows flaming back the morning sun, stood the skyscrapers, not of Manhattan but of downtown Miami.
The run in had been straightforward. He'd picked up the sea buoys off the beach and run in through Government Cut, then turned left at a gantry crane at the tip of Lummis Island into the South Channel. Following the occasional pointed finger of the pilot, he'd come right to 296, gradually shedding speed till they spotted their berth just past the banana terminal. Even the wind had cooperated, pressing them gently in the last few yards until the lines went straight down to waiting hands on the pier. He looked out through the open windows, relishing a beautiful Florida day.
The trip up had been uneventful, too, except for a fight among the passengers. One man had pulled a machete, and another
snatched a fire ax off the bulkhead. The respective families joined in, and Harper had to call away the security team to disarm all concerned. Aside from that, it had been forty-eight hours of hotel services: hot food, blankets, rationed water, medical care, and movies on the flight deck after dark.
And now
Barrett
was moored bow toward the city, stern to Miami Beach, starboard side to. He went out again to check the placement of the spring lines and whether enough slack was left for tide. As usual, the Navy was berthed at the ass end of nowhere. Across the island, he could see the upperworks of a brand-new cruise ship and two huge containerships. The sticks and stack of a break-bulk moved slowly across the roofs of the passenger terminals, headed out to sea.
“Mr. Lenson.”
He turned, to see the captain leaning back in his chair. “Yes, sir?” “Weren't the Immigration people supposed to be here when we pulled in?”
“That was my understanding, sir.”
“I don't see anybody. Let's see if port control's heard anything.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He was picking up the handset when he saw the gate go up and the yellow school buses turn in past a huge transfer shed. “I think they're here, sir.”
Leighty picked up the J-phone as Dan thanked the pilot and asked Morris to show him to the quarterdeck. He made sure Casey Kessler was finishing up the checkoff list, then called down to Main Control to secure the engines. By then, the captain was off the phone. Leighty glanced around the flat expanse of Biscayne Bay, dotted with sailboats and motor yachts headed out to sea, and swung down. “Go ahead and secure,” he said to Dan, and disappeared.
The 1MC said, “Now secure the special sea and anchor detail. Set the normal in-port watch. On deck, watch section one.”
Vysotsky was suddenly beside him. Dan started; he hadn't seen the executive officer arrive. “Where's the captain? Do you see his car yet?”
“He just went below, sir. A car?”
“The port people are supposed to have a sedan here for him and a pickup or a station wagon for a duty vehicle. There should also be some people from Tracor Marine to look at the evaps.”
“I'll find out, sir.”
“Okay.” Vysotsky passed a hand over his cowlick, but it sprang right back up again. “Just so you don't have to ask, we'll pass liberty by divisions to expire on board at zero-six. Make sure everybody gets the word to exercise caution. There's been some racial tension here lately. I'll be in the captain's cabin if you need me.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He revolved in his mind what had to be done but
didn't come up with much. The guys had worked hard for four weeks; they deserved a break. He decided to let them all go, except of course the duty section.
Vysotsky left the bridge. Dan called port services and found the woman responsible for the vehicles. She said they were at the agency; all
Barrett
had to do was send someone over to pick them up. She would call Tracor and find out what the story was on their team. Dan called to Kessler, “Casey, you CDO today?”
“Yeah, why?”
He told him about the cars, then called Vysotsky and told him it was being worked. After which, he went out on the wing, checked the lines and rat guards again, then looked aft.
The first Cubans were filing off, a slow-moving line that inched down the brow. Security types in brown uniforms watched in the heat. Men and women clutched their possessions. Children clung to hands and skirts. Not one looked back at the ship as they climbed slowly up into the buses.
Harper appeared, lean in rumpled khakis, fore-and-aft cap cocked jauntily. “So, what's the plan? We gonna let the guys rampage?”
“Liberty by divisions, Jay. Start at eleven. Warn them to be careful; the exec said something about racial trouble.”
“Good enough.” The chief warrant started to turn away, then completed his rotation 360 degrees. “Say, some of the guys from the department are going to get dinner, then hit some reggae bars. Want to come? Get off the ship, rub bodies with some significant female companionship?”
“I have a place to go first, but maybe we can link up later. Where's dinner?”
“Place called East Coast Fisheries. Sounds like a canning factory, but it's supposed to be the best restaurant in town. Mitch Miller's gonna rent a car, but I don't think it's more than a mile; you can walk it or take that bike of yours if you don't want to wait for a taxi. After that, we'll head out to Coconut Grove.”
“Well, don't wait on me. But I'll try to make it.” Dan remembered another loose end. “Hey, how about checking with Dr. Shrobo before you make libs, find out if he wants to go home or what? We may have to make some calls, get him a ride to the airport, whatever. I don't want to overlook him like we did last time.”
“Roger, wilco,” said Harper.
 
 
THAT afternoon, he stopped on Biscayne Boulevard, just outside the gate, feeling conspicuous in his trop whites, and raised a hand for a cab. Taxi after taxi went by; the traffic was heavy, but none
stopped. He wondered if it was the uniform. This was another decade, but no one who'd worn a uniform through the seventies would ever feel entirely comfortable in public in one again. But it might give him more clout where he was going. Finally, a Yellow pulled over. The driver looked Hispanic, and when Dan asked him, “Say, you know where they're taking the refugees?” he flicked dark eyes at him in the rearview mirror.
“You mean Freedom City?”
“I don't know. Where they're taking the people who just came in from Cuba.”
“That's it, but it's way the hell west of town, Krome Avenue.”
“Can I get there on a twenty?”
The cabbie flipped the meter on and pulled out, and Dan settled back, looking out at a changed city.
He remembered the Gold Coast from years before, driving down with Susan during his summer leave: St. Augustine, Disney World, the Space Coast, Palm Beach, the Everglades, Key West. They'd taken A1A most of the way. How bitter recollected happiness became … . He looked out, trying to stop thinking about it. He didn't remember all these new buildings. Miami was booming all right.
“So, what's the Navy think about the trial?”
“I don't know; we just pulled in. What trial?”
“Some nigger on a motorcycle, he resisted arrest, took two cops on a high-speed chase, then ran himself into an abutment. So what's Dade County do? The cops are Cuban, right? So it puts
them
on trial. The verdict's coming out today.”
“Is that so?” He stared out, only half-listening as the driver railed on. Looking down from the highway, he saw cafés, bodegas, outdoor markets. One sign read, ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE. Then gradually the city fell away, till they were in open country, scrub forest, fields of what looked like cane.
Then he saw new chain-link fence and buses and trucks idling on raw dirt. “Krome Avenue,” said the driver. “Where you want out, at the gate?”
Dan peered out, heart sinking as he saw what he'd feared: hordes of people, guard towers, barbed wire … . “Yeah.”
“Want me to wait?”
“No. Thanks.” He paid and got out and stood outside the gate, adjusting his ribbons. A convoy was coming in, charter buses flanked by Florida State Police with blue lights flashing. Scrub brush grew in a trash-littered ditch, then there was the fence, so new that straw was still stuck to its concrete footings.
When the convoy was through, he went up to the gate. A guard in a sweat-stained uniform faced him through a metal-bar turnstile he made no move to open. He wore a badge and a revolver. His
name tag glittered in the sun. It said STANT. “Help you?” he grunted.
“I'm looking for someone.”
“Detainee? Guard?”
“Uh, detainees. They're Cuban. Might have just come in.” He cleared his throat at the hostile stare. “I'm on a Navy ship docked over at bayside. We were picking up refugees in the Straits. There were two, three people I wanted to check on, see if they made it.”
Already, Stant was shaking his head. “When they get in?”
“I'm not sure. But this is where they all come, right?”
“No. They're routing them to Army camps now—Eglin, Fort Chaffee, Indian Town, all over the country.”
“But isn't there a central registry—”
“What? No, no, no. This ain't the
Navy,
Captain. What you're looking for flat don't exist. See those trucks? We're taking in three hundred a day. They've got sixteen thousand in tents in Key West. We are totally overwhelmed.”
“How about your roster, then? I can check that and see if she's here.”
“There
ain't
no list, I told you. Shit, half these people change their names anyway once they hit the United States.”
“You mean you don't know who you have in there?”
“Well, some. But others, hell, we got no idea.” Stant seemed to overcome some internal bitterness. He unlocked the turnstile and waved Dan into a guard shack. “Sorry, I been on eighteen hours now. You want to come in, you can look at what we got. But it ain't much. I mean, this caught everybody by surprise. It's like there was a signal on the twenty-sixth of July and all of a sudden everybody hauled ass for the beaches. At first, they were sneaking out. Then they realized nobody was stopping them, so they all started coming, and now two days ago we find out fucking Castro's opened all the jails. We're getting nutcases, murderers, smugglers, homos, psychopaths, you name it.”
“What, he's releasing criminals?”
“You don't get news out there on your ship, huh? Pretty clever, he gets rid of his deadwood and sticks it to us at the same time. FBI's got teams flying down. Now they got to decide who's kosher and who they better hold on to. Give us two months and we'll have it sorted out, but right now it's a madhouse. You ask me if Juan McSanchez is here, all I can give you's the old Customs and Immigration salute.” He shrugged and pulled a printout from under a counter. “This here's all we got, and I'll tell you now it's a week out of date.”
“Well, can I go in and look?”
“No can do, sir. Orders are no visitors, not even family. We can't
guarantee safety. We got just enough personnel to man the gate. You got a name, I can put the word out, have them show up here. That might take all day, though.”
“But how do they contact their families?”
“Over there.” The guard pointed; Dan saw lines at a row of pay phones. “They get two free calls—anywhere in the country. They got relatives or friends, they come down and pick them up. After the paperwork and shots, and after they get their green cards.”
“Can I leave a message?”
Stant nodded. “Sure. No guarantee your friends will get it, but we'll put it out down the grapevine, like I said.”
He wrote her a short note, telling her who he was, where
Barrett
was, asking her to call. He folded it, wrote “Graciela Gutiérrez” on the flap, and handed it over. After a second, he took out his wallet.

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