SSC (2011) The Road to Hell by Paul Levine Read Free Book Online Page A

stole a boat and got the hell out of the worker’s paradise.”
    “ Old news, hombre .”
    “ Vic, still on two-zero-two?” Steve asked.
    “ I know how to read a compass,” she said, sharply.
    “ Where you taking me?” Cruz demanded.
    “ Jeez, how’d you ever get from Havana to Key West?” Steve said.
    “ Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees.”
    “ A bit east of due north. So what’s two-zero-two?”
    “ A little west of due south.”
    “ Keep going, Cruz. I think you’re catching the drift, no pun intended.”
    Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on. When it didn’t, he continued, “Two hundred two minus twenty-two is one hundred eighty. What happens when you make a hundred eighty degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?”
    “ Fuck!” Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the rail shuddered. “We’re going to Havana!”
    “ Bingo.”
    “ You’re taking me straight to hell!”
    “ Precisely. We’re repatriating you.”
    “ You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us. You remember that tugboat. Trece de Marzo. Forty people dead. ”
    “ The Marzo was trying to leave the island. We’re coming in, and we’re bringing a fugitive to justice. They should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana rum.”
    “ They’ll kill me.”
    “ Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of course, if you tell us where you’ve stashed Teresa’s money, we’ll turn this tub around.”
    “ Dammit, Steve,” Victoria said. “We have to talk.”
    * * *
    Steve put the boat on auto – two hundred two degrees – and took Victoria down to the salon.
    “ You could get us killed,” she said. “Or jailed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment.”
    “ That’s why I didn’t want you along.”
    Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He opened the ice maker. Empty, too.
    “ Cruz is a lousy host,” Steve said.
    “ Are you listening to me? Let’s go back to Miami. I’ll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges.”
    They both heard the sound, but it took a second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. “Sol-o-mon!”
    Followed a second later by machine gun fire.
    * * *
    Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late afternoon light.
    “ Warning shots,” Steve said. “Everybody relax.”
    Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. “C’mon Cruz. It’s now or never. When they pull alongside, I’m handing you over.”
    “ Do what you got to do, asshole.”
    “ Steve, turn the boat around,” Victoria ordered. “Now!”
    The patrol boat slowed. Two men in uniform at the machine gun, a third man holding a bullhorn.
    “ I’m not fucking with you, Cruz,” Steve said. “You’ve got thirty seconds. Where’s Teresa’s money?”
    “ Chingate!” Cruz snarled.
    “ Senores del barco de pesca!” The tinny sound of the bullhorn carried across the water.
    “ Last chance,” Steve said.
    “ Se han adentrado en las aguas territoriales de la República de Cuba .”
    “ Steve, we’re in Cuban waters,” Victoria said.
    “ I know. I passed Spanish 101.”
    “ Den la vuelta y salgan inmediatamente de aquí, o los vamos a abordar.”
    “ They’re going to board us if we don’t turn around,” she said.
    “ I kind of figured that out, too.” Steve turned to Cruz. “Absolutely, positively last chance, pal. I’m handing you over.”
    “ I’m betting you don’t,” Cruz said.
    The patrol boat was fifty