Miami, Florida, August 3, 2012
Waiting is the worst. Waiting, and the heat. Outside, the sun has barely breached the horizon, but already Seth Morgan is shirtless and sweating. After a year and a half spent in tropical locations, his New York City blood still boils with each sunrise. A year and half – has it really been so long? He hears his colleagues chattering in fast Spanish outside the boat shack, and scrubs a hand over his face, feeling stubble along his jaw that he would never would have let grow in the clean cut world of his other life. He slumps against the high-backed stool and lets his head fall back as his legs stretch to prop onto the table top.
Their yacht docked in Miami in the smallest hours of morning, beneath the cover of darkness. The product on board has been unloaded and packed away into safety to avoid prying eyes – mostly from curious coast guard patrols or marina agents. Now, they're waiting. The call to confirm delivery was scheduled for dawn, and it's late. Late in this sort of operation is never a good sign, but Seth knows better than to think they will give him any details if he asks. He's just a grunt in this world, just a gun and a mule – not quite the royalty he is at home.
He pops the clip out of his .40 caliber Springfield without looking at it, idly fingering the first round. He's been on plenty of these runs by now, so many trips shuttling top grade blow from Cuba to Miami, each time with the shuddering fear of the DEA, the ATF, the CIA and who knows what other US agencies. The American “war of drugs” has been after Seth's mysterious boss since well before Seth was old enough to play the game. If anyone can wonder how the kingpin has stayed out of trouble, it's not Seth. No, he is not surprised at all, because though he is the son of a powerful stateside syndicate, even he has not yet met the man known simply as Havana.
A cell phone rings outside, and Seth thinks fleetingly of his family to whom he hasn't spoken since he left. It's a matter of trust, a test from this foreign syndicate that he have no contact with his other life, no chance for split loyalties. He will never admit it aloud, but the silence from home is crushing in moments like this. A flurry of Spanish curse words dulls the moment, and a few beats later, someone rushes into the shack.
“Let's go, yuma , the plan has changed.”
It's Miguel, the closest thing to a friend Seth has found during his stay. The lithe Cuban is the same age as Seth, separated by just a few months, and he is Seth's direct superior on this job. The words “plan” and “changed” snap Seth into action, and he shoves the magazine back into his pistol. He stands with inherent grace, snatching his white t-shirt from the table top in the same movement. It's never a good thing when the plan changes this late, but he knows better than to ask for any details he has not already been given. Old habits die hard, or something like that. Even after so long, the brat in Seth chews at the corners of his mind when someone gives him orders. He savors the indignation that sours on his tongue, and follows his boss out into the stifling morning.
The two of them load into an early '90s model Camaro as the others take the van with the false cleaning company logo on its side – the van with enough keys of coke hidden inside to send them all to jail for life. Miguel trails the van for several blocks, but turns off to an alternate route. Seth runs through possibilities in his head as the radio blares a Spanish advertisement for a nightclub on the beach. Even though Seth has been embedded with the Cubans for so long, a moment never passes without the nagging fear that this is the day they will kill him, that somehow he has angered them – he, or his family in New York.
He swallows his nerves as they riot in his chest and try to rise in the back of his throat, and he forces long, steady breaths. He has performed
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