Chapter 4 – Indian Summer

TWO WEEKS PASSED before Cole brought the subject up again with Kevin. They were under a palm tree on Fort Jefferson sitting idly under the noon sun when Cole spoke up.

“So when are we going again?”

Kevin laughed to himself, his arms up and crossed behind his head as he lay prostrate on the sandy grass. His eyes were closed when he answered. “It’s all you, bro. I like to go alone, plus the money is best when you go by yourself.”

“So I just call your guy?” asked Cole, who was sitting forward with his arms draped over his knees and his heels dug into the sand. He yawned as he spoke.

“Pretty much, man. I’ll give you his number. Don’t save it in your phone, just keep it written down somewhere. He’s a bit funny about his phones.”

Cole nodded, looking down between his feet and spent some time thinking about what he was asking for. Criminal networks—and that was what this was—were a slippery slope. That much Cole knew. Where it ended he had no idea. He thought about finding his own limits and he thought about jail, then he pondered the look on Potts’ face if he ever found out his errant junior officer was rotting in some Cuban prison. He also thought about extending his middle finger to Potts as he sped past on a midnight run and the satisfaction of doing something well. That thought took hold. Cole was his own captain, master of his own destiny. He took a deep breath and solidified a plan in his mind.

g

Nearly a month after their first run, Kevin handed Cole a piece of paper one evening and told him to call the number written on it. Cole took the note, stuffed it in his pocket, and played the part as if nothing had happened. They were in the midst of another raucous night and Kevin had been gone for about ten minutes when he returned with the note. Cole figured Kevin had been off talking to Miguel, “the guy,” and Cole’s chance rested on the other end of that phone number.

Cole nursed his drinks for the rest of the night, slowly sobering up to the thought of his first run as a captain. A young woman, pretty and barely in her twenties, had latched onto him earlier in the day. They’d been out on the Aquaholic and Kevin acted as a good wingman with her friends while Cole played the requisite games he’d become so good at. He was a bit burned by the sun and felt the dried salt on his skin from a swim he’d taken with her earlier. With smuggling on his mind, he’d slipped though and the night was slowing down. Worse yet, he’d forgotten her name, a major transgression in the game of drunken lust. She’d caught his mood change as well.

With her fingers clutching the pockets of his shorts and her body pressed against his, she momentarily had his attention.

“What’s got you so down?” she asked playfully and bit lightly on her lower lip, her head tilted to one side as she pulled herself even closer against Cole. Her fingers were now locked through his belt loops.

“Just a long day, I suppose.” Cole feigned interest, but couldn’t shake his mind away from the thoughts in his head.

“Something’s got you down.” She pulled his waist harder against her hips.

“How do you know that?” Cole looked into her pretty eyes.

“I can just tell, and I want to have fun.” She smiled shyly.

Cole, recognizing the cues at hand, went into recovery mode. “You’re a sweet girl, Crystal,” he said, thinking she looked like a Crystal. It was too late when he remembered that Crystal was the week before. Damn this rum, he thought.

“It’s Brittany.”

She released her grips, pushed herself away from Cole and slapped him on the left cheek. Clearly insulted and regaining her senses, she separated from the intimacy moments before.

Growing increasingly mad, she yelled, “You’re drunk.”

“So are you.” Cole laughed just a bit and pulled back thinking for a second she might swing again.

By this point, her friends had parted ways with Kevin and were on their way to her defense. The fat one looked like she could do some damage and Cole knew he’d been beat. Kevin was still casually leaning against the railing at the bar, looking at Cole, and laughing his ass off. The girls departed back onto Duval Street and Cole made his way over to Kevin, watching the girls as they disappeared down the street.

“That was awesome,” Kevin said as he finished up the rest of his drink and looked at his watch. It was just after midnight and Duval Street was at full speed.

“I’m done.” Cole tossed his plastic cup in the trash and the two departed. Kevin was still laughing as they rounded a corner and walked back on the side streets.

“Fucking Duval Street.” Cole was laughing now too, looking down and shaking his head.

“You gonna file charges?” Kevin punched Cole in the shoulder.

“Nah, she hits like you.”

Cole called the number Kevin had written down, but it wasn’t until a few days later that he heard from Miguel. Cole was to meet him at Garrison Bight on his day off later that week an hour before noon. The call was short and the words were few. Cole put his phone away wondering if it had even just happened. It seemed rather anticlimactic. He went about his normal routine for the next few days, always thinking in the back of his mind about the trip ahead.

g

At the appointed time, Cole sauntered down to Garrison Bight, wholly unsure of what to expect. He walked up and down the docks twice with a good sweat under the noonday sun. Nothing but the typical boats lined the dock. He thought about grabbing a beer at the Thai Island restaurant to save the seemingly wasted walk. Standing on the far end and now late for their meeting, an older Hispanic man approached Cole.

“Amigo, you are here for the jet ski tour?”

Cole looked behind him then back at the unexpectedly short man talking to him and shook his head answering no. The old guy persisted.

“Amigo, it’s me. Mickey. We spoke on the phone.”

Cole squinted and asked, “You’re Miguel?”

The short man shook his head and answered, “Si, but everyone just calls me Mickey.”

Cole was caught completely off guard and embarrassed with his level of discomfort. Who is this guy? He was old, short, had graying shaggy hair, and wore cargo shorts with a t-shirt in the manner one would expect from a teenager. His face was leathered and wrinkled like that of a local. Cole expected some swagger. He expected slick hair, a gold chain, maybe someone in a track suit. This Mickey looked nothing like a kingpin.

“Let’s get going and see the sights,” Mickey said as he reached out to shake Cole’s hand. Cole complied, not letting his eyes leave Mickey’s as he looked in vain for some reassurance that this was actually the feared Miguel whom Kevin had talked so much about.

They walked back down the dock and Mickey kept talking about the Keys as if he really were a tour guide. He went on and on about the flats fishing, the tarpon, the restaurants, and the history of the island as if Cole really was a tourist. At the far end of the docks were two jet skis and Mickey stepped across the first to the second and pointed for Cole to jump on the first.

“Amigo, we will have fun, come on.”

Cole settled onto the cushioned seat and went to start the engine as Mickey threw a bright yellow life jacket at him. Mickey was already fastening one just like it around his chest.

“Put that on.” Mickey pointed back at the jacket then at Cole.

Cole laughed and set it aside. Mickey looked back and forth down the dock and looked sternly at Cole. “My friend, put the fucking life jacket on.”

Mickey smiled to relieve the tension and instructed Cole, “We must look the part my friend—always under the radar. It is the most important part.”

Cole did as he was told. It was one of those stupidly bright life jackets that no self-respecting sailor would be caught dead in. Cole, in his boardshorts and t-shirt, felt out of place. It was also a perfect disguise to blend into Key West tourism. No one would think twice about two mismatched men on rental jet skis, but he still felt like an idiot.

With both jet skis running, Mickey touched the throttle and idled out of the harbor. Cole followed. They headed back to the west, opened the throttles up passing the Coast Guard base and made their way for the main harbor. Just before entering, Mickey came to a stop. Cole pulled up next to him. They bobbed up and down in the lime green chop of passing boats and Mickey explained the purpose of the trip. He leaned his elbows against the steering column of the jet ski and talked with his hands animating his every word.

“My friend, there is a very nice boat in here. It is your boat. It’s been here two days.” He motioned with two of his fingers as if that was a big deal. “The owner, he is at a hotel and won’t be leaving for another four days. It’s gassed up. He doesn’t check on it. So tomorrow night, it’s your boat.”

Cole laughed at the audacity of the plan. “How the hell do I get it out of here?”

Mickey, bobbing in the churned up water and looking like a fool in his cargo shorts and ill-fitting bright yellow life jacket, shook his head dismissively as if he’d made it perfectly clear the first time. With his elbows still on the column, he threw his hands up in seemingly total disbelief. His accent took on a more Hispanic tone reflecting his frustration at repeating himself.

“Amigo, he don’t give a shit about his boat. He don’t check on it. He just leave it here. It’s yours. Maybe he get it back, maybe he don’t.” At the end of his sentence, Mickey shrugged his shoulders as if a six-figure boat was no big deal to anyone. Cole noted that Mickey pronounced the word shit as chit with emphasis.

Cole was both confused and amused at the circumstances.

“Got it Mickey. But how do I take it?” He emphasized the last two words as if it would change Mickey’s comprehension. To anyone watching they were two men arguing about where to go with the remaining time of their one hour jet ski rental. The skis drifted with the ebbing tide closer to the channel.

“I know where the keys are. No big deal. Then you go, OK?”

Mickey throttled up his jet ski and motioned with his hand for Cole to follow him into the harbor. Cole smiled to himself, shook his head a bit back and forth and followed, fishtailing his jet ski for his own entertainment.

Three quarters of the way down a pier, Mickey doubled back and came to a stop. Cole pulled up again next to him and Mickey mumbled something trivial about Key West’s charm. At the same time he motioned behind him and to the right with his head. Cole picked up on the cues, as comical as they were, and saw that Mickey was idling ten yards from an Intrepid center console. It must have been close to 40 feet long and the hull had recently been waxed. She was bigger and sleeker than the Grady-White Cole had run on with Kevin. She was clearly fast and begging to open up on the high seas.

Mickey didn’t stay long and motioned for Cole to head back out. They opened up again leaving the harbor and their skis jumped up and over the wake of passing boats as they headed back past the Coast Guard base and towards Garrison Bight. The ride back was fun. Mickey threw a hand behind his back and howled as if he were riding a bull as he bounced over a wave and the engine surged, momentarily sucking air through its intake before settling back down. He looked like a fool and his cargo shorts were wet from the salt spray. He was clearly energized by the thought of sending someone else’s boat on a midnight run to Cuba and back. Smuggling was like a drug, and Mickey had just taken a hit. Cole could feel it as well. Mickey reminded Cole of someone’s crazy uncle, but he knew Mickey had a firm grasp on the darker business of the Florida Keys. Mickey stopped once more before heading into the harbor and gave Cole some basic instructions.

“The keys are in the compartment on the console. The code for the gate at the pier is twenty twenty-five. Get on the water at eleven. I’ll drop a GPS off at your place in the afternoon. If anyone asks, you just tell them you’re moving it for Mr. Thompson. Call me when you’re a mile south of Key West.”

Now Cole couldn’t hide his confusion and he didn’t like not knowing the details of such a mission.

Mickey laughed. “I’ve been watching this one. They stashed the keys when they gassed it up and I asked the dockhand whose boat it was. Relax a bit, my friend; Señor Thompson will understand. This is easy. You call me before midnight, OK?”

Cole eased up a bit and nodded his head in approval. They returned the jet skis to the same spot and parted ways without more words. Cole watched Mickey walk away, his t-shirt and shorts wet in spots from the ride. No one in their right mind would guess Mickey’s profession. It occurred to Cole that Mickey’s appearance was entirely intentional. Mickey may have looked a far cry from the pirates of centuries past, but Cole couldn’t help but guess that Mickey ranked somewhere higher in Caribbean lore than most.

g

As he’d done before, Cole called out of work that Friday. On Thursday, he went about his normal routine on the Yankee Freedom. Kevin never said a word but knew full well Cole was making his first run that night. At the end of the day, Kevin was talking to some girls on the pier while Cole made up the last of the lines and hopped onto the dock. As Cole walked, Kevin looked at him for a brief moment and grinned as Cole went past.

“Have fun, brother.” Kevin’s grin was a way of testing Cole’s determination and at the same time was a genuine wish that the night went well. Kevin’s grin reminded Cole briefly of the way Wheeler would test Cole’s resolve before taking a team out on a migrant interdiction; they knew each other well enough that no words were needed. Cole nodded back with confidence and told Kevin to do the same, his eyes briefly looking back to the girls then at Kevin.

Back at the apartment, he crashed on the couch for almost three hours. This time he slept and when he awoke, Cole felt refreshed, unlike the last time. He went over to a cabinet where he kept his money from the last run. He took five hundred-dollar bills and put them in his pocket. It was a gamble, but if he ran into trouble on the Cuban side, bribes were never out of the question to get out of a tight spot. Besides the cash, he took only his driver’s license. He left his passport, figuring that any interaction with Cuban or U.S. Customs wouldn’t involve getting a stamp. He was wearing the same shorts he’d worked in that day and they were faded from the past few months. He’d traded out his Yankee Freedom shirt for a dirty button down linen one that he’d meant to wash for a week but hadn’t gotten around to. On his feet were a pair of new running shoes, because he thought if it came down to it they’d be better than flip flops. They were the only thing he’d spent any of his money on from the last trip. It was dark, the sun having set almost two hours before, when Cole walked out onto the porch and saw the handheld GPS sitting on a chair.

“Son of a bitch,” Cole said out loud but under his breath as he picked it up and hit the power button. It had a full charge and three waypoints saved in it, labeled “A,” “B,” and “C.” By the looks of it, the thing was brand new. He stuffed it in the other pocket of his shorts and walked back inside. Cole ate half a sandwich and drank as much water as he could stand before heading out the door, down the steps, and towards Duval Street.

It was loud and for a Thursday night the town was in full swing. He walked with the crowd and ran through scenarios in his head. He would stop a few times on the run south to listen for helicopters or planes and scan the horizon for the familiar lights of Coast Guard cutters. On the run back north, just as Kevin had done, he’d go all out and hope to avoid the hornet’s nest of local, state, and federal authorities that were most certainly out that night looking for his kind.

Rounding the corner to the marina, he passed the Schooner Wharf and wished for a second he could sit as he did so many nights and soak up a few rum drinks making small talk with the patrons. It was a balmy early-fall evening, the kind that felt just right in the Keys, but Cole knew he had work to do. With a deep breath he pressed on to the gated dock and entered the code as he’d been instructed. The gate clicked open and Cole strolled down the dock like it was his business. No one noticed. A few of the yachts were lit up with festivities on the back decks. Empty beer cans and half-empty bottles of rum littered the makeshift tables as conversations came and went. Muffled music came from the cabin of one boat and a woman’s high-pitched laugh rose up from the cabin of another. The sounds trailed off as Cole neared the end of the dock. Cole’s boat was dark and bobbed silently in her slip. She was as pretty as he remembered and wore two oversized outboard engines on her back end. They were immaculate. He stood there on the dock for a moment or two and felt butterflies build in the pit of his stomach.

“Fuck it,” he said as he hopped onboard and went straight to the console. Sure as Mickey had promised, the keys were on a foam keychain and Cole fired up the two engines. They shook to life on their mounts and settled to an idle. Cole took a few seconds to familiarize himself with the setup. There was a wheel and two throttles, all of which were perfectly polished chrome. Neutral, forward, and reverse were marked on the bottom of the quadrant. There were more gauges than Cole needed, but RPM and fuel were easy enough to read. Again as Mickey had promised, she had a full tank of gas.

Someone called down to Cole from the dock, “Sweet boat man.”

Cole froze for just a second before turning around to see an overweight middle-aged man with a plastic cup in his hand and a flower print shirt over his belly. He must have heard the engines start up and come up from one of the other boats.

“Thanks.” Cole threw off the two spring lines and untied the bow lines before hurrying back to the wheel.

“It’s late, man. Where are you going?” They guy was slightly unsteady and Cole figured there was a good chance he wouldn’t even remember the encounter.

“I’m moving the boat for Mr. Thompson. Can you grab those stern lines for me?”

Without putting his drink down, the fat guy looked down with his head and neck, but the rest of his body remained in its unsteadily upright posture. He was clearly more intoxicated than Cole first thought.

“Can you just untie them for me?” Cole almost felt bad for the guy and it was clear he had not the faintest idea of how to untie the line from a cleat. Not wanting to stay any longer, Cole untied the lines on his end and tossed them into the water and away from the engines.

“Can you just pull those lines in for me?” Cole asked.

The fat guy smiled at the simplified request and reached down with one hand, his other wholly focused on not losing his drink.

“You got it man. That really is a sweet boat.”

Looking forward and speaking to himself, Cole mouthed, “I know.”

He idled forward out of the slip, and turned once to nod back at the fat guy, who was still smiling.

He idled ahead for some time until well clear of the marina, and after entering the main channel, he pointed the boat south. Past Tank Island, or Sunset Key as it was known now with its immaculate cottages, Cole jammed the throttles to half speed and she lifted up and out of the water. The bow rode high and with another push of the throttles, she came up on a plane. Settling into a rhythm with the light chop, Cole scanned behind him as downtown faded in the darkness. Passing Fort Zachary Taylor, and with the dark Florida Straits in front of him, Cole turned hard to the east so as to give off the appearance he was simply heading for another key. After a few more minutes of running east, he eased off the throttles and let the boat settle. Still inside the reef line, the water was calm except for a light land breeze and ripples coming from the north.

He phoned Mickey. It was 2300 when Mickey answered and asked if everything had worked out so far. Relieved to be away from the lights, Cole told Mickey he was good to go.

“Point Alpha has some great fishing. I caught twelve just the other day. You should check it out. Call me when you’re back inside the reef line,” Mickey said and hung up.

It seemed simple enough. Cole wondered if all the coded language was really necessary, but then again Mickey was one of the pros who wasn’t sitting in jail and he probably knew best.

Cole pulled the GPS from his pocket and highlighted Point A. Moments later, the GPS drew a straight line in that direction and Cole whipped the Intrepid around and back to the south. He pointed at the sea buoy marking the main channel and again opened the throttles up to a full plane. At 30 knots over the ground, he was cruising and still hadn’t opened her up all the way.

Passing the channel markers at the mouth, the boat surged up and down now with the open swell. Cole slammed the throttles down and she lurched ahead, only the last few feet of her hull even touching the water. She was hard to control and took even the gently rolling swells with difficulty. Too much power, he thought. Cole braced his lower back against the seat and his feet against the console to keep himself in place. After ten minutes, he’d had enough. The boat was making 43 knots over the ground but the ride was brutal. She felt like a bull at a rodeo, surely hell bent on kicking him off. Cole settled at 30 knots for the rest of the trip.

He stopped twice, just as Kevin had shown him. Scanning the horizon and the sky, he was happy to see no lights but the stars and lingered each time to take a gulping breath of the nighttime air. He sighted Cuba just after two in the morning. It was nearly three when he was within shouting distance of land. Point Alpha was outside Havana but not so far that he couldn’t see its lights to his west. Paralleling the coast, the GPS got him within 50 yards of a small beach in an exposed cove. He nosed the boat in towards the 30 or so yards of beach and felt her drive the deep V-hull into the sand. He smelled the exhaust of his engines first then as the breeze caught up with him, the familiar smell of a tropical night took hold. The moonlight bounced off palm fronds as they gently played back and forth as Cole looked around for any signs of his cargo.

A flashlight came on in some tall grass just beyond the sand. Cole toggled the navigation lights on and off three times then left them off, as he’d done all night. Bodies emerged onto the sand and towards the boat. Sure enough, Cole counted 12. They were all dressed in the same manner as he’d always seen from Delaney. Dirty clothes, holes crudely patched with yarn, and worn-out shoes. Cole knew someone had money back home to pay for this trip and so long as he held up his end of the bargain, their life of destitution would soon be over.

With all 12 up and over the bow, they settled in various places. One man remained on the beach until Cole had backed her away then he disappeared back up the beach and into the grass. In such a small cove, Cole put his port engine in reverse and his starboard engine ahead to spin her around in place. The nose came around wildly and Cole smiled at the amount of power at his fingertips. Some of the migrants lost their footing as the bow spun around and Cole apologized as best he could in Spanish, saying, “Lo siento.” Then he smiled.

An older man smiled back at him and mumbled something to the rest as they reached around for handholds and prepared themselves for the ride north. Cole again spoke. “Vamanos.” Let’s go.

The older man shook a fist in the air and repeated Cole’s words. “Vamanos!” His enthusiasm was contagious.

Cole motored at half speed until clear of the points of land that blocked his view. Scanning left and right, happy to see not a single boat in his vicinity, Cole opened her back up to 30 knots and pointed north. He had more than half a tank of gas and once on speed, he felt good about the trip so far. It was just after three in the morning.

The first hour went off without a hitch. The passengers had mostly sat down, but a few stood up, their arms braced in any way they could find to steady themselves as the boat leapt up and over the swells marching in from the west. Cole thought himself lucky that they ran with the Gulf Stream. Had they run from the east, they would have stood up tall against the current and made the ride unpleasant.

Approaching five in the morning, Cole noticed several of the Cubans looking back to his port quarter and pointing. Three of them were talking. Cole glanced over his shoulder quickly but couldn’t see what they were talking about. They were looking at him now and asking questions in Spanish. Over the wailing engines, he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He looked again over his left shoulder and saw a red flashing light above the horizon, not too far behind him. He looked ahead to process what it might be. Checking his GPS, he was 25 miles from the sea buoy. He had less than an hour to go.

Cole looked again behind him and clearly saw the silhouette of a helicopter. It was low and clearly flying along with him. “Fuck,” was all Cole could manage under his breath. He felt butterflies again. He yelled out over the engines, “Sientate,” thinking that it meant something along the lines of sit down. It must have, as the migrants all sat and pressed their backs against the sides for support.

Cole punched the throttles. The boat gave him another ten knots and he was making 40 over the ground. She felt unsteady, as she had before, but now Cole needed the speed. With only her back end dancing off the tops of waves, the boat jolted from side to side, forcing Cole to spread his legs further apart to absorb the impact.

He was still heading north, towards the Key West sea buoy, and the wind stirred up tears in the corners of his eyes. The Coast Guard station at Key West would respond, that much he knew. It was anyone’s guess whether or not they had small boats coming from Marathon and Islamorada. Worse yet, he had no idea what Customs and local police were doing. He knew well enough though that the crews of more than half a dozen units were now being roused from their sleep and running towards their boats, all to give chase for him. There was even a chance Delaney was out that night and Cole wondered if Wheeler was preparing his boarding team somewhere in the distance.

Eighteen miles to go. Cole had to assume the worst. Boats were already under way and making best speed to close in on him. His chances rested on outrunning them, something his Intrepid was capable of. But if they were intercepting from the north, there was little he could do but thread the needle between them and hope to shake them off in shallow water. He strained to think clearly and analytically about his plan, but each time the boat soared off the back end of a wave and slammed back down, he would lose his most recent thought and had to begin again. He pushed the throttles again, but they were already maxed out.

His best plan was to risk the boat by running straight over the reef, a route that no lawman would take. They wanted to catch him, but they wouldn’t risk their own boats or their lives by running over the reef at night. It was a gamble in that there was no way to tell where the coral heads sat. They could be six inches or six feet under the water. The move was smuggling’s version of a Hail Mary throw by a desperate quarterback. If they didn’t follow him over the reef, he’d have enough time to run her up somewhere and go from there. This all assumed that he made it through their initial intercept and lucked out with a deeper pocket over the reef. If he hit the reef, the boat would tear open and wreck, throwing him and his passengers into the air.

The helicopter was still behind him and flew a lazy pattern on his stern, going from one side to the other. He focused his eyes ahead, scanning for the blue lights of law enforcement but saw none. If they were blacked out, he wouldn’t see them until they were right on top. Cole was 12 miles from the sea buoy.

At eight miles, he saw the blue lights—two sets of them almost side by side, they were heading directly at him. He pushed the throttles again, but they were still maxed. He scolded himself for doing so as it was nothing more than a game of nerves at this point. Looking back to his left, he couldn’t see the helicopter. To his right he couldn’t see it either. He looked back left and right again and it was gone. Perhaps they’d run out of gas and headed home? he thought. Cole knew he lucked out on that one. His odds were now improving.

Four miles from the sea buoy, he could make out the wake from both the boats coming out to meet him. He kept on his course directly at them, with a closure rate of more than 60 knots. Suddenly, one broke off to his right but the other kept on with a high-speed game of chicken. Seconds later, one boat passed in an instant close enough that Cole could clearly see the faces from the boat staring at him. His Intrepid rolled hard to the right then went completely into the air off the wake of his pursuer. It landed horribly and nearly threw Cole to the deck. Recovering, he made a 30-degree turn to the east and pointed now at the unlit line of coral only a mile or so ahead. Looking back to his right, the first boat had come around and was now almost abeam at less than a mile. It must have been U.S. Customs as it seemed to match Cole’s speed and slowly closed the gap as it angled in. Cole was impressed for a second at the coxswain’s timing of the maneuver. The reef was less than a mile away. The boat crew pursuing him would have to act quickly to stop him. The first boat, belonging to the Coast Guard, had lost too much ground in its intercept and was no longer a concern despite their pursuit from a half mile or so back.

Cole turned 15 degrees back to the west to buy some time from the closing pursuit. He looked at his GPS just as the blue dot marking his position crossed the reef. He held his breath and clenched the wheel for the impending impact with the reef, but it never came, and she glided right over it and into the shallows. With the swells subsided, he had another three knots of speed and screamed towards the dark coast ahead of him. He turned harder to the east towards the darkest islands. Key West was far to his left and some smaller islands were directly ahead. He didn’t look back, but knew that the Customs coxswain had broken off the chase at the reef. He brought the speed back to 15 knots.

He yelled ahead to the migrants to hold on and waited for the boat to hit bottom. When she finally did, it came on slowly at first. He heard and felt the propellers digging into the sandy bottom. As the hull caught hold it slammed him against the console and his chest pressed hard against the wheel. His feet came up and off the deck as she dug in and finally came to a stop. One engine was still grinding at half speed and kicked up a horrible sludge of water and sand. Cole killed the engines, and it was quiet for the first time in hours. Cole’s ears were ringing. He looked back behind him and saw nothing but the calm waters of the protected shallows as it trailed off into the darkness behind him.

The migrants, all 12 of them, were already hopping over the side and into the knee deep water. They understood dry feet meant terra firma and they literally ran up to the beach, only 20 yards in front of them, where they huddled up close. Somewhere to the east, a dog was barking, reassuring Cole that he wasn’t far from civilization. He basked in the silence for a few more seconds before he heard the faint rumble of a helicopter. More than likely it was state or local police on their way to track him and his cargo down. He hopped over the side, into the knee-deep water, and made his way up to the beach, mad that his new running shoes were now soaked.