XII

“He hasn’t woken yet?”

“No. I think he’s nearly dead. Poor man.”

It was Bimini trying to cover for me. I flinched a little when she called me “poor man.” Too much sympathy wouldn’t go over well with Ellsworth.

I heard the sound of a match striking, and smelled the monoxide odor of a cigarette.

“He hasn’t spoken? Not even a word?”

Bimini’s voice was even, professional, unconcerned. I admired her for it.

“He cried out a few times. Let’s see, that was . . . yesterday. He mentioned some woman. Janet? Yes. Since then, nothing.”

I heard Ellsworth walk toward me; heard the movement of other men behind him. I felt him lean over me: smelled the heat of him, his sour tobacco breath. I had some idea of what he might do. And he did it. A trick from Vietnam to see if a gook was really dead.

I felt the radiant glow of the cigarette before it actually touched my eyelid. I forced myself to relax; forced my mind to go blank to pain. It hurt. God, how it hurt. And just when I could take no more, just when I was about to take a swing at that bibliophile face of his, Bimini screamed, “Stop that, you bastard! Stop it this minute!”

I heard a short scuffle, shook off the urge to join in, and then:

“You black bitch—if you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you!”

And Bimini hissed at him, biting off each word: “You ain’t man enough to kill me!”

There was a silence, as if Ellsworth was trying to regain some composure in front of his men. “Bimini, for your information, this big ugly bastard has already killed at least two, and perhaps more, of the Senator’s people. I was just checking—”

“I don’t care who he’s killed. And you can kill him, for all I care. But I don’t like to see any living thing mistreated that way. He’s dead, can’t you see that? His heart’s still beating, but his brain died when you hit him with that club.”

In the silence which followed I heard someone cough; the shuffle of feet. And then:

“Okay, men. Load him onto that cot. Take him out to the powerboat. Sammy, you find something heavy. Some chains, some concrete blocks—it doesn’t matter. And Jones, get some stout rope. I’ll want you two to go with me.”

So they carried me up the stairs, through the house, outside. I concentrated on being heavy, limp weight. I wanted them to think of me as something already dead; a big troublesome chunk of meat that they wanted to be rid of.

The two men huffed and puffed as they struggled with me up the stairs and down the loose footing of the shell mound.

“This son of a bitch am some kinda heavy, ain’t he, Sammy?”

“Goddam, I guess! Those friggin’ shoulders mus’ weigh a hundred pounds by themselves! . . . Aw, shit!”

The second one, Sammy, had lost his footing. I felt the stretcher collapse atop him, and I rolled out of it, down the mound, limp as a rag.

I should have made my move then. Just two of them. I wasn’t tied. Ellsworth would probably be down at the docks, readying the boat. I should have. But I didn’t. I thought about it just a second too long. I wasted that precious second of surprise I needed to take them. What is the saying? He who hesitates . . .

Well, I was lost. No doubt about it. Silently, I swore at myself. Poor man, old wounded killer, seven pounds overweight, and now a second too slow to save his own life.

They were on me in no time.

“Christ, Sammy, watch it, will ya? You like to give me a rupture, droppin’ him that way!”

“Well, I didn’t mean to, I guaran-goddam-tee you that! I got a bad back as it is. Told the Senator that. Shouldn’t be makin’ me do this heavy shit.”

They grumbled on as they carried me down to the boathouse, their feet clicking and echoing on the wooden dock in the silence of three a.m. They set me down finally, and I could hear the steady wash of water beneath me, and the cracking of pistol shrimp from within their tunicate hideaways on the pilings.

“Okay, get the boat started.”

It was Ellsworth.

“You two get him loaded—no, wait a minute. Wrap this canvas around his head. I don’t want a trace of him on this boat. And Jones, check him for a weapon—just in case.”

I felt big hands pat my legs, thighs, chest, and underarms—a thorough, professional job. I thanked God I hadn’t brought the knife. Bimini would have been dead within ten minutes: a soft brown body to join mine in the eternal dark of death and deep water. They dropped me into the boat like a big sack, wrapped my wounded head so that I would not stain the plastic bristle of boat carpet, then, to the roar of twin engines, jetted me toward my final destination.

 

I kept a map in my mind as we went, sensitive to every shift of direction, every turn, every variation of impact of sea on bow.

I felt us roar northwest, then turn south, probably picking up Big Spanish Channel. I hoped they would stop and get it over with. Why not drop me into the deep water of the pass?

Divers, probably. They were afraid I would be found by the sport divers who hunt the holes and coral heads for Florida lobster. The divers flock to the Keys every August for the sport season.

They were smart. Or Ellsworth was smart. And it was my bad luck. Had they dropped me there, and if I could get loose once underwater, then I knew I could make it back to land.

But offshore? With my battered head and in my dubious physical condition?

I doubted it.

I heard the roar of a passing car, then the echo of our own engines, and I knew I was in trouble. We had just passed under the Bahia Honda bridge, heading for open sea.

How fast were we going? I tried to calculate time and distance. At least forty-five and maybe sixty miles per hour. It was hard to tell. The sleek cruiser knifed through the roll of sea so cleanly that it was difficult to judge speed. But I was familiar with the area, and I knew that if we put more than ten minutes between us and the bridge, I was a goner. An offshore reef line edges the Florida Keys. It runs from five to seven miles out, most of the way up. Once you pass the reef line, the water depth drops off sharply: from twenty feet to more than a hundred feet. In the Navy, my deepest free dive was to 190 feet. A life-and-death plunge one golden dawn in the South China Sea. And 190 feet is not all that great when you consider the free-dive mark set by a fellow Navy diver in 1968: 240 feet—a new American record. I had had nothing wired to my legs back then. And I was in top condition. But at night? With a concussion? Well . . . if they took me over the reef line, I was just as good as dead.

But the odd thing was, I wasn’t scared. Death? How can you fear death when life suddenly becomes one absurd succession of breaths and heartbeats which link you to some ghostly otherworld, a world where you used to laugh and love and function with reason? What had I to fear? A few minutes of darkness? The frantic, inevitable attempt to inhale a little life from the nocturnal sea, and then strangulation? If I was going to die, I wanted it that way. I wanted it to be under the water, away from prying eyes and the cold deathwatch of nurses and physicians in the sterile confines of a hospital.

No, I did not fear this death. But I wanted life—life not to live, but life to use as a vehicle. A vehicle for revenge. I lay there listening to the damp roar of racing engines, feeling the moist sea wind move across me, and I planned my escape.

“Sammy! Wire him up, Sammy! We’re almost there.”

Almost there. I did some calculating. We could have come no more than five miles from the Bahia Honda Bridge. That would mean what? Hawks Channel? Yes, Hawks Channel. A deepwater cut between the mainland and the reef. It began narrowly at Key West, then funneled open, wide like a river, skirting the outside archipelago of Florida Keys. I knew how deep the channel was around Key West: from thirty to thirty-five feet. And I knew that it was deeper off Bahia Honda. But how much deeper? Certainly no more than forty-five or fifty feet deep. That wasn’t bad. If I could loose myself from my bonds. If I could make it back to the surface. If they didn’t hang around to make sure I was down forever. And if I could make the long swim back to shore.

They used wire. Wire and concrete blocks. I could hear the dull impact of cement on cement when Sammy dropped one.

“Jesus Christ, Sammy—are you trying to ruin the Senator’s boat?”

“Sorry, Mr. Benjamin, but I got this bad back.”

The two flunkies huffed and puffed, rigging me for my last dive.

I was glad it was wire. Some kind of wire cable. It wouldn’t bight like good rope. The knots would slip if forced. And I was going to force them. I expanded my chest, my arms, and my legs as much as I could. An old escape artist’s trick. A ten-in-one show veteran had showed me how to do it. Julian Ignazio. Let them tighten the rope or wire on the flexed muscles, the inflated chest. And then, when you relaxed, the bonds were already loose enough to work.

“Put most of the weight on his legs. Some on his stomach. That’s right—nice and tight. Don’t worry about his arms. Mr. MacMorgan will be going nowhere after this.”

I almost blessed Ellsworth for those orders. And I hoped they would come back to haunt him.

When they had the weights secured, they dragged me across the carpeted deck to the stern. Low freeboard there: I could feel the transom digging into my back. The engines were off now. We were drifting. The sleek glass hull of the powerboat lifted and fell in the slow roll of night sea. Light penetrated my eyelids. Probably a spotlight. Ellsworth wanted to watch me sink away.

“Jones! Hold this a second.”

“What’re ya gonna do, Mr. Benjamin?”

“I going to make sure this bastard is dead. I know him. He dies hard.”

“If you cut him there, Mr. Ben, he’s goin’ to bleed all over the Senator’s—”

“I know what I’m doing, Sammy. Hold him over the transom. Just his head. That’s right.”

I let my eyes slit open. I could see the dark silhouette of Ellsworth coming toward me and the icy glimmer of the knife. I tested the weights on my legs. I could hardly move them. They had wired me well. A couple hundred pounds or more. Ellsworth came closer and closer. Sammy leaned over me, holding me. A lanky black man with steel in his grip. The other one, Jones, stood back at a distance, as if he didn’t care to watch.

So, Ellsworth was going to add a little flourish to my death—his own bloody signature on my throat.

I had to make a move. But I wanted him closer. He had to be closer if I was to have any chance at all. With the weights on my legs, my mobility was nearly zero. I felt his left hand take a tight turn on my hair. I could feel him leaning over me; I could smell his harsh breath. Sammy held me, right hand supporting my head, left hand on my collar.

“Sammy—his eyes. Are his eyes open?”

“Naw. Mr. Ben. Dead people that way sometimes. Eyes slide open. I seen them plenty o’ times.”

Deep sadistic chuckle.

“Go ’head, Mr. Ben. He all ready for the knife.”

I watched the silver blade swing back in its cold arc. And when Ellsworth swung it back at my throat, I was ready. I jammed my thumb in Sammy’s ear and shoved his head down to my face. I could feel his thick nose against mine. I felt the blade slice my wrist, then I heard the razor edge grate across the back of Sammy’s spine. It had happened too fast for Ellsworth to stop the momentum of his swing.

There was a horrible scream. It was Sammy. He fell sideways onto the deck, holding the back of his neck.

“You kilt me, Mr. Ben! Aw, God! You kilt me!”

Ellsworth watched the frenzied movements of the lanky flunky, shocked. Red blood looked black in the harsh white glare of light. Jones rushed up to his friend’s side: white puffy face, dazed eyes.

“What are we gonna do, Mr. Benjamin? We got to get Sammy to shore—”

“Shut up!”

“We got to get him back! He’s hurt real bad—”

Ellsworth slapped him so quickly with the back of his hand that it surprised even me. And then he leveled his gaze at me. Even in that unsteady light, I saw the hot glow of his hatred for me. The seaman who had defeated the ROTC hotshot, again and again and again. I had never seen such a look of pure hatred. His voice was not even now. It was not well modulated. It cracked with emotion, like the voice of an old drunken woman.

“You’re dead, MacMorgan. Do you hear me? You’ve made one stupid move too many. And now I’m going to open your throat. Enjoy that breath, captain, because it’s your last!”

The blade of the knife caught the light and reflected it in bands, back across the face of Ellsworth. He looked like a madman. And I knew I had but one chance.

It took a supreme effort from my leg and stomach muscles; muscles that creaked and cracked with strain. I kicked the weights on my legs upward while I fell backward. I felt the blocks of cement peak above me and then, with a final surrender to gravity, topple off the stern, dragging me along like a rag doll, through the black water of Hawks Channel.

How many feet?

I couldn’t tell.

It seemed like forever before I finally heard the soft crunch of weight against coral-sand bottom. I was at least forty feet down. Forty feet beneath the night and black sea. The water made a soft familiar roaring in my ears. I heard the low grunt of some nearby fish echoing strangely. There was a total void of light, as if in a dream.

I forced myself to relax. The slightest movement, the most minuscule effort, burns oxygen. And I could afford no nervous indulgence.

I found the knotted cables. They were banded tightly around my ankles and stomach. Bad knots. Silently, I cursed the bad knots. Any sound knot is relatively easy to untie. But these—these were the messy clusters you see tied by the suburbanite boaters from the north who don’t know what in the hell they are doing.

Dangerous knots, because they slip when you don’t want them to, and bind when you try to back them out.

I made myself work slowly. Only my hands were alive; my body floated, tethered to the blocks like seaweed, trying to conserve my air. My left wrist ached, as if there were a ten-penny nail driven through it. It was the wrist Ellsworth had cut.

Finally, my left leg was free. But I was running out of air. The cable on my right leg was wrapped and knotted, wrapped and wrapped and knotted again. The knots wouldn’t come. I felt myself start to panic; my hands started to pull and strain in a frenzied effort. I was growing dizzy. Steadily, I had been releasing the used air; letting it bubble from my lips when I knew that it was useless to me. But now there was no more air, good or bad, to release.

Once more I ordered myself to work slowly. I had some residual air. You have some residual even when you think there is none left. The first knot was some kind of overhand jumble. I worked it carefully, backing it, loosening it, and finally it came.

One knot left.

How long had I been down? I didn’t bother checking my watch. I didn’t have time to check it. But it seemed like forever. And forever while working underwater is about three minutes. I once had held my breath for just over six minutes. But that was floating face down in a pretty little resort pool, playing liberty games with fellow SEALS. And when you are relaxed, you can stay down a lot longer.

But I wasn’t relaxed now. My air gone, life just one badly tied knot away, I strained to keep my head. I tried slipping the cable down over my foot. No way. Too tight. Once again, I worked at the knot. What if I just tried making it to the top with the blocks on my right leg? Could I haul fifty or more pounds to the top from forty feet of water? Maybe. With plenty of air. And fins. But not now.

My head roared, my chest strained to inhale; motor reflexes taking over. And then my fingers somehow found the way. The knot dissolved beneath them. I reached down with my feet, found the bottom, and pushed off toward the surface. And with the last bit of clear thinking I had left, I let myself float upward and upward, propelling myself gently with easy, even strokes, and finally, just as consciousness was leaving me, I was at the surface, sucking in the good, sweet night air.

The powerboat was still there. Someone scanned the empty sea with the powerful searchlight. They had drifted down and off to my right, back toward Bahia Honda. The light turned toward me. With one more good bite of air, I submerged to about ten feet and swam toward the boat. I saw the light glimmer above me, then pass over. Twenty yards, twenty-five yards, and I found the bottom of the boat above me. I held myself beneath them momentarily, holding myself down, one hand on the glassy hull. Not a barnacle on it. A well-cared-for death craft.

I slid along the bottom toward the bow, careful to cause no noticeable movement beneath the water. Quietly, I surfaced at the sharp thrust of bow and held onto an anchorage eyebolt. I could hear them talking. Sammy moaned softly in the night.

“Jesus Christ, he’s gotta be dead by now, Mr. Benjamin! Let’s get out of here!”

“We’ll go when I say, Jones.”

It was the old Ellsworth. Voice controlled, now. He had killed me. He was sure.

“We’ll give it a few more minutes.”

“But what about Sammy?”

“Sammy’s going to be fine. Just fine. I’m going to give you men a little bonus for this. Yes sir, a little bonus.”

“Mr. Benjamin, Sammy’s my bes’ friend, an’ I couldn’t—”

“You can take the bonus and you will, Jones. I know you men. I know what you’re like. You’ll take the money whether poor old Sammy dies or not. Isn’t that right, Jones?”

Jones muttered something unintelligible. But Ellsworth wasn’t listening. He chuckled gaily. “If you only knew how much I wanted that bastard dead. If you only knew. When we get back, I’m going to have a little celebration. Yes sir. . . . ”

When the engines rumbled to life, I inhaled deeply and dove toward the bottom. I could stay down now for two or three minutes without difficulty. From beneath the dark water, I heard the vibrant roar of the boat as it jumped up onto plane and headed away, back toward Cuda Key.

When I was sure that it was safe, I surfaced. In the waning moon, drifting westward on the far Key West horizon, I saw the faint glimmer of the disappearing boat. High frost of stars and distant lights off toward Big Pine Key. I checked the back of my left wrist. A deep slice, but no artery had been damaged. I floated for a few minutes, relaxing on the bleak night sea, then started my swim back to shore, back toward Ellsworth and Cuda Key, soft roll of ocean behind me.