, she accepted his outstretched hand.
Macho, who had a plan in mind, then spoke. “C’mon, and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the guys. They are probably down at the pool. Do you have a swimsuit?”
Shane appeared uneasy. “Yes, I do, but….”
“Great, let’s get changed! Please excuse us, sir.”
Wilson nodded. As the women left, he sensed Shane’s unease with meeting her squadronmates in a swimsuit and wondered if he should stop them.
(Caribbean Sea, 100 miles north of Barra Patuca, Honduras)
At that moment, one thousand miles to the west, Enrique Martinez had to take a leak.
Pounding over the choppy seas at 80 kilometers an hour, the cigarette boat transferred continuous rapid-fire shocks to his spinal cord. They were taking a toll, especially after their mid-point “meal” aboard the trawler some forty minutes earlier. At this rate they were three hours from landfall at Banco Chinchorro, an atoll just north of the Belize coast, and the weather looked to hold. How he wanted a shower. After they’d spent hours loading product into the hold and forward sleeping compartment, the sonofabitch Pablo said the boat was out of balance and had to be reloaded.
All that work for nothing. And Pablo just stands there pointing his finger while we break our freakin’ backs.
The men had to take it all out, then load it back in. And as soon as it was secure, Pablo got spooked by headlights on the wharf and frantically motioned for them to shove off. Now!
Enrique hated Pablo and all the fancy-suited narcotraficales with their gold chains and thick-necked muscle, who pushed him and his partner, Jorge, like dogs. We are the ones taking the risk out here. Pablo and his prositutas just sat around the pool until the next shipment. Middlemen, that’s all they were, and Enrique was filled with contempt for them, all of them. Ashore the campesinos grew old before their time with the drudgery of cultivating and harvesting product, and now he and Jorge risked their lives on the open ocean or, if caught, in prison. And the pigs — like Pablo — take a big cut and do nothing. They are the ones who should be in prison, the bastards.
Enrique scanned the horizon before his face was lashed with spray. Wiping the water off with his right hand, he held the wheel with his left. Even in the open cockpit of a boat with over 40 knots of wind, he could smell the familiar odor of marijuana wafting up from the cabin door next to him.
“Jorge. Jorge!” Enrique yelled to his partner below.
Jorge stumbled to the hatch and looked up at Enrique with squinty eyes, a lighted joint in his hands. “What the fuck do you want?”