“Well, Gray. How does this story end?”
I was speechless and just shook my head that I did not know.
“We win! Let’s go.” Ray slung the AK-47. “Take the wheel. Head straight for them.”
I took the wheel and did as I was told as Ray peered through the binoculars.
“Oh shit. Peruvian! A Peruvian patrol boat. I didn’t think they came this far out!” Ray said to the air or one of the gods he tried to please.
“What are we going to do?” I demanded and pulled Ray’s shoulder to me.
Machine gun fire erupted and sprouts of water shot into the air across our bow.
“That answer your question?” Ray shouted at me and waved for me to follow. “Bat! Take the wheel.” Ray left the wheelhouse and moved behind it. I followed as Batman took the wheel. I aimed the assault rifle and prepared to fire.
Ray shouted at me. “Not yet! That baby’s good, but not this far away. Wait until I fire.”
My finger moved away from the trigger as I watched the patrol boat approaching from the rear door of the wheelhouse.
Ray leaned back into the doorway and called out to Batman. “When I fire, turn her hard to port!”
“But that will put us across her bow!” Batman protested.
Ray turned his weapon on Batman. “Just do it!”
“Okay, okay. Don’t shoot me!”
Ray shouted to Robin. “Get down by the stern. Stay below the gunnels.” Ray looked at me. “You go too. Get on the gunnels half way toward Robin.”
I fell to the deck as I heard more machine gun fire. The wheelhouse windshield shattered and Batman ducked. I followed Robin toward the port gunnels, making sure that I kept my head down. I wanted to take a look and see how far away the patrol boat was. I lay on my side with the assault rifle at the ready. The temptation to take a look was too much and I did. The patrol boat had cut the distance between us by half! I ducked back down.
No one said a word as the Baby Blue and the patrol boat steered a collision course. A few seconds later I dared another look and almost died of a heart attack. Machine gun fire erupted and a piece of the gunnels above my head was blown away. I waited for the report from Ray’s rifle, but he did not fire. The patrol boat came closer and closer. I could hear the big engines getting louder. I rolled over and looked toward the bow where Ray was crouched beside the wheelhouse. Fire, fire, I said under my breath, but Ray did not fire.
Another burst of gunfire raked the Baby Blue.
“Now!” Ray shouted and opened fire.
Robin let loose half a clip. I fired, the recoil slight and my aim good. I sprayed a bullet line across the white hull of the patrol boat.
Batman spun the big wheel and the Baby Blue heaved to port, her stern slipping to starboard as she did, making the turn even tighter. The Baby Blue hit the crest of a wave hard and she rocked to starboard, leaving me on my heels and gasping for air. I heard Ray and Robin let loose more gunfire as I tried to gain my balance. More gun fire tore up the Baby Blue and I ducked my head. I saw Robin lying on the deck, blood soaking the front of his Grateful Dead t-shirt. I looked to the wheelhouse just in time to hear the machine gun and a thirty-caliber bullet rip out Batman’s throat. I ducked back down. I was shaking. God! I was going to die!
I looked at my hero, Ray Romero. Ray was still leaning against the wheelhouse and firing back at the patrol boat that was only fifty yards away. I heard gunfire and saw Batman walking out of the wheelhouse, his AK-47 firing at the patrol boat. When my eyes found Batman again, he was on his knees, still firing two round bursts as he tried to remain upright. Blood flowed from his neck like a fountain, soaking the deck. I jerked when half a dozen rounds cut him in half and he fell to the teakwood deck. I tasted the acid rising up from my stomach, but I was too scared to vomit.
Gripped in fear, I fired at the patrol boat until my second clip was almost gone. I looked toward the wheelhouse, looked for Ray Romero to save my ass. He was shot in the shoulder, but still held the assault rifle with one hand, firing at the patrol boat. He knelt in a puddle of blood that ran down the deck toward me. Two more rounds hit Ray and he raised the rifle in a futile gesture as two rounds found only the deck.
I was alone! I was so scared, I was getting mad. I had only eight or ten rounds left. The patrol boat was on the port side coming along near the bow. The wheelhouse blocked my view of my enemy, and their view of me, I suddenly realized. I was lying on the deck behind the gunnels. My legs began moving me toward the starboard gunnels and I kept in a line with the wheelhouse, so that the men boarding the Baby Blue would not see me. I slid over the gunnels and into the Pacific Ocean. The splash I made would not be heard over the engines of the patrol boat. Had they seen me during the battle? They surely saw Robin, but maybe not me. Did they know there had been four of us?
As I tried to right myself underwater, though only weighing eight pounds, the AK-47 acted as an anchor, taking me down to the depths of the Pacific Ocean. I argued with myself about keeping the weapon or letting it fall to the bottom of the ocean. I realized it was not likely that I could tread water and aim the rifle, if indeed it did discharge. I let loose the sling and the rifle disappeared below me.
I swam for the surface and clung to the side of the Baby Blue as I moved toward the bow. I was able to reach the gunnels and pulled myself up for a look. I saw a tall man with a dark tan and blond hair, English I think, his back toward me.
How did these men know we were here? Who are the two men not in uniform? Why did they open fire first? Should I surrender? Jail time was preferable to drowning in the Pacific Ocean, wasn’t it? I thought about surrendering, but that voice, actually all three voices, my little voice, Ray Romero’s and Remington’s, were all saying, “Don’t!”
The tall man is looking at something on the deck beside the wheelhouse. Then I knew what. Ray!
“Fuck you!” I heard Captain Raymundo Ruiz Romero say, and then, “and your mother!”
A lone pistol shot rang out and I heard a thud as, what I supposed was Ray’s head, hit the deck. I moved back down the skin of the Baby Blue and waited. I would not surrender. They were taking no prisoners!
I heard movement and realized the men were taking the crates from the wheelhouse. I dared another look. Two men were in white uniforms trimmed in blue. The tall man and a shorter, dark skinned man, wore khaki shirts, shorts, jungle boots, and Aussie style hats.
“Get behind them.” The three voices, as a choir whispered.
As if separate and possessing independent thought, my hands and feet, legs and arms, pushed me away from the Baby Blue and down into the Pacific Ocean. I grabbed a large gulp of air as my head disappeared beneath the surface. I began swimming toward the bow of the Baby Blue. I swam upside down, clinging to the hull as I kicked my legs. It was a cloudless day and I could see the blue-green hull of the Baby Blue and the white hull of the patrol boat. The patrol boat was lashed to the Baby Blue and both hulls rose and fell with the roll of the waves, as did I.
I swam beneath the patrol boat toward its stern, my lungs beginning to burn. I pushed away from the hull with one hand, pulling water with the other as the waves tried to crush me against the patrol boat. I was running out of air. I saw the large twin propellers churning water beneath the transom. I felt the keel, and pulling hard, moved to the starboard side of the patrol boat, before I was sucked into the propellers!
The pilot of the patrol boat would be looking forward at the activity on the Baby Blue, not toward the stern. I gasped for air as I grabbed the gunnels and hung there for a few seconds getting my wind. I looked over the rail. I saw the back of the uniformed pilot’s head. “Okay, what now”, I asked Ray Reming-ton. No one answered. The big inboards reversed! The pilot would look to the stern now as he backed away from the Baby Blue. Had one of the men taken the helm of the Baby Blue? Had they commandeered her?
After backing away about a hundred feet, with me still clinging to her hull, the patrol boat stopped and idled. I surfaced and took air, preparing to submerge again. I hesitated as I saw the two men not in uniform moving one of the two crates to the stern of the patrol boat. I knew they were trouble the first time I saw them.
“Now what?” I heard a scared voice say, my voice. In a few moments the patrol boat would be speeding away. My lungs were burning as I clung to the patrol boat. I was about to take another breath when I heard a hollow sounding boom! A second later a concussion reverberated through my body. The patrol boat rocked to port pulling me up and out of the water. I gripped the gunnels with one hand. The patrol boat rolled back and I was again submerged.
What blew up? I heard no other engines in the water. Then I knew. The Baby Blue. They blew up the Baby Blue! The patrol boat settled in the water and I took another look. The two men were moving the second crate to the stern. I saw the main mast sway back and forth and topple over, crashing through the starboard gunnels. Then the second mast fell and the Baby Blue began to take on water. She tipped to starboard, seawater flooding her decks. My heart sank. I had only been aboard her for a short time, but it still hurt to watch her slipping beneath the waves.
I knew I should duck back down into the ocean, but I pulled my legs up under me and held there. The two men were walking back to the bow. The pilot and other sailor were watching the Baby Blue sink beneath the water. The taller of the two men pulled a pistol, the same one he killed Ray with, from his pocket. He calmly fired two shots, both hitting the pilot and sailor in the back of the head. Oh, God! What was happening now? I submerged.
I heard two objects hitting the water. I looked behind me and saw two bodies. In a moment bullets from a rifle ripped up the water and the two lifeless corpses. To let the air out of the bodies so that they would sink? I heard moaning and groaning and looked toward the Baby Blue as she listed and started to go down stern first. The water around her began to spin as she sank below the waters, slowly spinning like a top, until she slipped beneath the sea. Debris was floating all about. Clothing, pots and pans, a piece of the main mast, part of a mattress bobbed up and down in the water. The lifeboat! Where was the life boat? I could not see it. It must have sunk with the Baby Blue, since no one unlashed it.
Panic began to set in as I realized I was going to be left adrift in the Pacific Ocean. What could I do? If I tried to surrender, the tall blond man would kill me. I surfaced for another look while holding onto the gunnels.
“Muy bien, si Capitán.” The shorter man said as he turned toward the tall man.
“Si, si, mi amigo.” The tall man raised his pistol and shot the man between the eyes. “Estúpido!” The tall blond man said as the man fell to the deck. He dragged the body to the rail and rolled the dead man overboard. He did not bother to riddle this body with bullets.
The tall man moved to the bow. I sucked in one last lung full of air and with my feet pushed down and away from the patrol boat just as the big Merc’s revved up. The engines roared to full throttle and the patrol boat leapt up on the water and sped away. I held my breath until I heard the engines beginning to fade and surfaced. I could barely see the patrol boat now as it and my life sped away into the horizon.
“Get away! Get away!” That little voice commanded me. I realized there was enough blood in the water to bring every shark for miles around. I began to swim away from the bloody waters of the South Pacific.
I swam as fast as I had in my life, away from the dead bodies, away from death. I wished I had taken to the pool more often. A quick look back told me I had put about two hundred yards between me and the sharks beginning to feed on the bodies the tall blond man had provided. I stroked harder, feeling that two hundred yards was not a safe enough distance from the crowd that six dead bodies would bring. I tried not to think about Ray and the others as I counted, pacing myself.
How far from Santa Cruz had we been? Then I realized it did not matter. The Galapagos Islands were against the current! I could never make it in the four-foot seas, which might get larger. That thought frightened me even more. I was lucky I realized. The current would take me east, back to the South American coastline. Then I remembered how far it was and realized that I would not be alive by then.
I heard a disturbance in the water behind me and looked back. A dozen or more sharks were already feasting on the dead bodies, the churn of white water around them turning red. I stroked as hard as I could toward the south and away from the growing school of sharks.
After what may have been ten minutes or thirty, I rolled onto my back and floated, letting the waves carry my body. I was exhausted. I could no longer see the sharks or the lifeboat that I prayed would appear. I moved up one swell and down the other, riding the waves more than swimming.
My mind wanted to focus on the great expanse of the South Pacific. It was too large to consider. If I did, hopelessness would soon set in. It already was. I needed to focus on something. How did I get into this nightmare?
“How did you get us into this shit?” My little voice said.
How, I knew. Why, was another question entirely. I thought back to two weeks ago, in search of the answer.