How long are you going to stay mad at me, Rikki?
I don’t like being blindsided.
I didn’t have a choice, said Sarah. And neither do you.
Rakkim turned at the sound of Leo vomiting over the side of the small fishing boat, hanging on to the railing with his chubby fingers as he upended his gullet for the tenth time in the last two hours. There hadn’t been anything left for the last forty-five minutes but he kept trying. Rakkim half expected the kid to hurl his intestines into the Gulf.
Leo looked over at Rakkim, the kid still bent over, clothes soaked from the salt spray. Snot ran from his nose, glistened along his chin like an iri-descent beard. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? I can feel your brain stem twitching with glee.”
“I told you to take Dramamine.”
“I’m allergic to it.”
“Anything you’re not allergic to?”
Leo started to respond, grimaced, and lurched over the rail.
“That pendejo never been on a boat before?” said Vasquez, captain of the Esmeralda, bare-chested, his stringy hair billowing around his grease-stained cap.
“Kid must have had a bad tamale back in Rio Concho,” said Rakkim.
“You should choose your companions more carefully, amigo. A strong man tied to a weak man…when there is trouble, the strong man’s strength counts for nothing.”
Rakkim turned his face into the wind. “I don’t see any trouble.”
Vasquez spit, perfectly timing the wind to carry his burst of tobacco juice away.
Rakkim walked past the wheelhouse. Took a position forward. Bumpier near the bow but he liked watching their progress and catching the full force of the wind. Still no sight of land. He felt the Esmeralda’s engine underfoot. Heard the two mates, Hector and Luis, banging around belowdecks. The Esmeralda was in even worse shape than ten years ago, when Vasquez had delivered him to Santabel Island in a squall, lightning crackling all around them. Best way to avoid the Belt patrol boats. Vasquez thought he was a smuggler then, thought he was a smuggler now. He told Vasquez that Leo was a diamond cutter, a freelancer on his way to an unnamed client in Atlanta. A lot of the fishermen supplemented their meager income ferrying human contraband in and out of the Belt.
You would have thought the warming of the Gulf of Mexico would have made life easier for independent fishermen like Vasquez, that the waters would be teeming with even more fish than ever. Not so. Global warming had turned the Gulf into a cauldron of sudden storms and a hurricane season lasting six months and rising. Small boats like the Esmeralda were forced to remain idle half the year, and the central government of Aztlán, which now claimed most of the Gulf, awarded contracts to massive commercial trawlers who could better handle the storms, and whose miles-long nets swept the waters bare.
Rakkim glanced at the salt-pitted glass of the wheelhouse, then back to the sea. The boat groaned, engine sputtering briefly before kicking in. The best piece of equipment on the Esmeralda was a sophisticated new radio/sonar unit. Vasquez said he had spent three months’ wages on it, hoping the sonar would allow him to compete with the factory ships in the search for fish. Rakkim checked the stern, saw the kid slumped on the deck, holding his head in his hands. Pathetic. Thanks, Sarah. He tried to remember the last argument with her that he had won.
Did the other teams have a Brainiac along for the ride? Rakkim asked. Did Spider already lose one of his kids?
No, Sarah said. This is the first time he’s risked one of his children.
We’re at that point, are we?
We’re that desperate, yes, said Sarah.
Desperate enough that you think I need help? Rakkim shook his head. I don’t need Leo to evaluate this weapons system. I could just blow the fucker up. Problem solved. But you don’t really want me to hotshot it, do you? You want me to bring the weapon back. That’s why the kid’s tagging along. So he can tell me if it’s worth the effort.
No…bringing it back wouldn’t be practical, Sarah said softly. She reached for him but he didn’t respond. You’re not supposed to know about this, Rikki. No one is.
Rakkim waited.
It’s not the system per se that’s important, Sarah said finally. It’s the science behind it. The schematics. The theoretical leaps the former regime did so well. Leo can evaluate the data, but there’s more. Much more. She moistened her lips. Leo…he’s been modified.
Leo inched his way toward Rakkim from the stern, bent forward slightly, hanging on to the railing for support. The rain gear that Vasquez had loaned him was ridiculously small. He flopped beside Rakkim, tucked in his chin as the storm broke, sheets of warm rain slanting across them. The full force wasn’t supposed to hit until tomorrow morning. So much for satellite imaging.
“Is there some rational reason why you’re standing here and not inside the cabin?” shouted Leo, voice cracking. “Are you even capable of forming a rational judgment?”
“Just working on my tan.” Rakkim spread his arms, knees bent, swaying with the rolling of the boat, eyes half closed in the warm rain. “Why don’t you go inside? Vasquez makes good coffee.”
Leo shook his head. Looked even younger somehow. “They don’t like me.”
Rakkim noticed a slight change in the engine vibration, started toward the wheelhouse as Leo called after him.
Vasquez turned away from the wheel as Rakkim reached the top of the ladder. Hector, the first mate, slouched in the corner, rain dripping off him as he sucked on a bottle of beer.
“You’re turning northeast,” said Rakkim. “We at the cutoff point already?”
Vasquez grinned silvery teeth as he cut the running lights. “You have radar too, amigo?”
Rakkim’s itinerary called for Vasquez to take them due east from his village of Laguna Madre, then cut toward the Texas coast and drop them off outside Nuevo Galveston in a small inflatable raft.
“Change of plans,” said Rakkim. “Drop us off just south of Corpus Christi.”
Vasquez peered through the windscreen as the boat shuddered and groaned. “Corpus?” He narrowed his eyes. “Bad idea. Very dangerous currents. Rocks and sandbars-”
“Bery, bery dangerous,” echoed Hector.
“I’ll take the chance,” said Rakkim.
“Hey!” Leo called up from the deck. “I don’t like being left alone out here.”
“We clear, Alejandro?” said Rakkim.
“Gone cost you another five hundred,” said Vasquez.
“Fine.” Rakkim slid down the railing of the ladder, landed with a splash on the deck. He silenced Leo with a raised finger, scrambled silently back up the ladder. Stopped just below the wheelhouse, listening as the wind howled around him.
“Cambio de planes,” Vasquez muttered, giving news of the change of plans to his people onshore, bounty hunters or worse. “Cerdo americano-”
Rakkim launched himself up the last couple of rungs, slammed Vasquez’s head against the wheel. The radiophone fell to the floor as the captain slumped against the com. Rakkim heard the sound of a shotgun being racked, and grabbed the dazed Vasquez.
“Please, señor,” said Hector, pointing the barrel of a sawed-off pump at Rakkim. “Be so kind as to move aside.”
Rakkim held Vasquez closer. A friendly embrace.
“Señor.” Hector’s eyes were the color of mop water. “Por favor.”
Vasquez struggled but Rakkim held him tight. With no one at the wheel, the Esmeralda lurched through the waves, rolling from one side to the other.
“Rakkim?” called Leo.
Hector’s gaze didn’t waver at the interruption. He raised the sawed-off slightly, considering a head shot.
Rakkim pushed Vasquez aside, kicked the shotgun as Hector fired. Splinters from the roof of the wheelhouse drifted down. Ears ringing, Rakkim grabbed the sawed-off, clubbed Hector over the head with it.
“What blew up?” shouted Leo. “Are we on fire?”
“Go sit down, kid.” Rakkim watched Hector fall to the floor, then grabbed Vasquez, pushed him against the wheel. He jabbed the sawed-off against the back of the captain’s fat neck. Hector’s blood dripped off the barrel. “North by northwest, verdad?”
A knot the size of a robin’s egg had formed on Vasquez’s forehead. He blinked as he stood at the wheel, knees shaking.
“Verdad?” repeated Rakkim.
“Verdad.”
“Capitán!” Luis’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Qué pasa?”
“Nada,” said Vasquez. “Nada, vato.” He switched off the intercom.
“You’re a disappointment, Alejandro,” said Rakkim, quickly binding Hector’s wrists and ankles.
“Please, don’t kill me,” said Vasquez. “Business…this is what the business has become.” He breathed heavily, as though he had run a long race and was nearing the finish line. “The Texas Rangers pay hard money for illegals, and my boat needs work…so much work. What is a man to do?”
“A man’s supposed to abide by his word, motherfucker,” said Rakkim.
For the next hour Vasquez steered the boat as best he could, the storm gaining strength behind them while Luis kept busy coaxing the engine back to life. Once Leo poked his head up, saw the situation, and scuttled back below. The Esmeralda rode high on the peaks of the waves, then crashed down into the troughs, repeating the process over and over. Hector lay hog-tied in the corner, blood crusting his face. He rolled from side to side as the boat skidded over the waves, watching Rakkim with fiery eyes. The radiophone blinked constantly with incoming calls that Rakkim didn’t answer.
The boat listed hard to port, timbers groaning as the bottom scraped along a sandbar. Water poured over the gunwales before Vasquez righted it. The captain threw the Esmeralda into reverse, the engines smoking as he finally broke free. “Señor, we get stuck here, the storm will tear us to pieces!”
Rakkim could see the lights of Corpus Christi in the distance. Close enough. “Tell Luis to ready the inflatable.”
Vasquez did as he was told.
Rakkim pointed the sawed-off at the radio/sonar unit, stopped when he saw the agonized look on Vasquez’s face. Had the man begged, made excuses, Rakkim would have blasted it apart. As it was…his pained silence was more persuasive. Rakkim opened the unit up with his knife, cut through the wiring harness, and slit the motherboard. The system could be easily fixed when Vasquez returned to Laguna Madre, but he wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone until then.
“G-gracias,” whispered Vasquez.
Hector spit on Rakkim’s boots. “Puto!”
Rakkim tossed the sawed-off over the side and slid down onto the deck. Slung his small, waterproof sack across one shoulder. He saw Luis and Leo struggling to keep the inflatable from sailing into the wind, the two of them drenched and frightened. The wind made it impossible to talk, so Rakkim simply pushed Leo onto the raft and launched it over the side. They hit the water hard, skidding over the surface, the inflatable tumbling end over end. Twice Rakkim had to grab Leo to prevent him being pulled under, the kid gasping and screaming, swallowing water. It was no big deal. Just a matter of hanging on until the wind and waves drove them to shore. You just had to keep your mouth shut and remember to breathe. Which seemed to be more than Leo could manage. Rakkim hooked one arm around the kid, kept a grip on the inflatable with the other, and let Mother Nature take care of the rest.
Ten minutes later Rakkim felt sand underfoot and let the inflatable go, dragging Leo to shore. Leo was unable to walk, kept coughing up seawater, doubled over. Rakkim slung him over one shoulder and walked higher onto the dunes. Dropped him off behind a huge chunk of driftwood, the flotsam providing some shelter from the wind.
“I almost drowned,” sputtered Leo.
“You didn’t.” Rakkim walked back toward the water and stood there, catching the full force of the storm, smiling as he struggled to stay on his feet. Sand stung his face, burned his eyes, and his clothes flapped around him so hard it hurt, but he didn’t care. He was back in the Belt.
Leo crawled over on his hands and knees. “We got to get out of here!”
Rakkim pulled Leo to his feet. “Spread your arms out,” shouted Rakkim, leaning forward into the wind, searching for the balance point. “There…right there.” He leaned at a forty-five-degree angle, held in place by the wind.
Leo hesitated, tried it. Almost was blown backward…tried it again. And again. Until he succeeded.
The two of them stayed there, a couple of scarecrows on the shore, hair beating against their faces. Leo howled into the wind, still nervous, but laughing at his own distorted voice. Probably figuring vectors and parabolas at the same time, trying to decide what scientific journal was worthy of his research.
Rakkim reveled in the power of the storm. In the distance he could see the Esmeralda chugging toward the open sea. Vasquez had left his running lights off, but Rakkim’s night vision had been amped up, just like the rest of him. Vasquez pressed on, trying to avoid running directly into the storm, wisely choosing an oblique path back south into more familiar waters. Making good progress too, the boat a dim speck among the high waves. Rakkim waved, though no one on the boat could see him, even if they were looking. Vaya con Dios, Alejandro.
Vasquez’s plan worked fine until the boat ran aground. Like the captain had said, with all the hurricanes, the seabed changed from month to month, sandbars appearing and disappearing overnight. A fisherman needed sonar and a marine echo-location system to know where he was going, and Rakkim had taken care of that. He hadn’t meant to sink the boat. He just wanted to make sure that Vasquez didn’t alert his contacts on the mainland. Not that Rakkim’s intentions mattered now.
Leo kept laughing, arms outstretched, unaware of what was going on around him.
Rakkim saw the boat shudder as the waves boiled around it. He couldn’t hear the engine, but knew Vasquez was trying to rock it free-full-throttle forward, then reverse. It wasn’t working. The boat seesawed, seemed to be suspended for a moment, then a forty-foot wave crashed down, buried it under tons of water. Rakkim waited. Waited…When the waves rolled away, the Esmeralda was gone. Torn apart or sucked under and out to sea. Rakkim wondered if Hector had had time to curse him again before he died. Wondered if Luis had died in the engine compartment, down in the dark, trying to coax a little more power out of the ancient diesel. In a week or two Vasquez’s captain’s cap might wash ashore someplace. Maybe some little girl would pick it up, put it on her head, the oversize hat falling around her ears while she capered on the sand. Until her parents told her to take the filthy thing off. No telling what she might catch just by touching it.
“What is it?” said Leo, squinting. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“You look upset.” Leo sniffed, hitched up his jeans, posing. “This isn’t so bad, really.” He shivered, watching Rakkim out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction. “It’s actually…kind of fun.”
The idiot actually believed he could pass in the Belt with a drawl and a lazy walk. He had no idea. Rakkim stared out to sea. “The fun’s just beginning, kid.”