We don’t spot the marina until we almost drive past it. Frank slowly wheels into the lot and parks next to the pedestrian entrance. If there are other vehicles here, we can’t see them in this darkness. We step out into the slashing rain and hold on to the Expedition to keep from being blown off our feet, then interlock arms with each other and stagger to the entrance. We go past a lightless front office and out onto the main dock and the loud clatter of dozens of hulls against their moorings on the undulant water. The only light is a pale glow from the far side of the marina, most likely from some boat. It’s barely bright enough for us to see that the layout of the marina is as Gallo described, three docks branching from the main one—one on either side of the basin, one down the center—and a cross dock on the other side. There doesn’t seem to be an empty slip anywhere, but no other boats show light or any sign of occupancy, their owners evidently having chosen to wait out the storm somewhere other than on board.
“That light across the way!” Frank says, yelling through the hull knockings and the hammering rain. “Isn’t it about where Gallo said the Espanta’s moored?”
“Ah, Christ! You think she’s still here?”
“She damn sure is!” says Rayo’s voice as a bright light comes on behind us and casts our shadows far down the middle dock.
We whip around and squint into the glare of her flashlight, unable to see her behind it until she turns the light upward right below her face, producing a Halloween effect, her eyes wild, her grin lunatic. She’s wearing a hooded slicker and clutching a mooring line to keep her balance against the wind. She laughs and lowers the light.
“Rayo!” Kitty says. She rushes to her and they hug, and Rayo says to us, “What took you guys so long?”
“Why the hell aren’t you gone?” Frank says.
“Because when those guys said it was time to go, I was ready for it and got the drop on them!” Rayo says. She opens the slicker and shines the light on the Glock in her waistband. “I told them we were waiting till you got here, then took their flashlight and told them to leave the cockpit light on and I sat on a bench over on the right-side dock there, where I could guard against them sneaking up on me and still be on the lookout for you coming through the entrance! Let me tell you, it’s been—”
A bright shaft of light flashes briefly through the pedestrian entrance, and through the keening wind comes the sound of a crash.
“Could be Sinas!” Frank says.
“Come on!” Rayo says, hustling past us.
As we follow her down the center dock she flicks the flashlight off and on just once and there’s a deep rumble of engines firing up. At the cross dock, the Espanta’s tossing in its slip, moored with the bow facing out, ready to go, its two crewmen in the front seats. We hustle into the cockpit and the pilot cuts off the panel light and Rayo switches her flashlight off and we’re in full darkness. The four of us hunch low and press tightly together against the back seat as the pilot eases us out of the slip and bears left, the engines growling low. I get the sense that he knows this place so well he could maneuver into or out of it with his eyes closed. Then there’s a shout from the main dock and he works the throttle and we accelerate out of the marina as automatic weapons open fire, the gunmen shooting wildly toward the sound of our engines.
We exit directly into a furious head sea that starts the boat bucking like it’s becrazed. There’s less chance at the moment of being hit by a bullet than of being bounced overboard or of the bow plowing into the foot of a head-on wave that takes us under. The pilot turns us sharply to port—out of the Sinas’ narrow field of fire and broadside to the waves—and we’re suddenly hoisted so high and tipped to our left so steeply that I’m sure we’re going to capsize or get smashed against the outer wall of the marina. But the pilot cuts back into the wave at an angle and begins zigzagging obliquely through the heave and roll of the broadside swells, the bow rising and dipping. It’s the only way to navigate such a sea and he’s an evident master of it. As he settles into this steering pattern, he turns the cockpit light back on. The other crewman pats him on the shoulder for his expert seamanship and then shouts introductions of him as Disco and himself as Raul. In case you haven’t heard, he says, we’re now in a hurricane! He gestures at the instrument panel, saying, Seventy-nine-point-six on the meter!
He passes out life vests from the equipment compartment and we strap them on. The money bag’s a hindrance, so I take it off and give it to Raul to put in the compartment. He hands us rolls of nylon-web safety lines with D rings, clip-on connectors, and quick-release buckles. Twelve feet long! he says. Might want to hook yourselves up to each other so that if somebody goes overboard you can pull him back in! Unless he pulls you out, too! Ha!
Frank clips one end of his line to his vest and the other to Kitty’s, and I do likewise with Rayo. Raul then provides nylon rain jackets, saying they might at least warm us a little. Try to enjoy the trip for the next two hours! he says. Like a long carnival ride that’s windy and wet! And don’t worry if someone comes after us! There’s not another boat in that marina can catch this one!