Cuba by Stephen Coonts

husband’s
    assignments hurt his career?”
    Rita knew what he meant. Toad had not
    followed the classic career path that was supposed
    to lead to major command, then flag rank.
    “Perhaps.”…She gave a minute shrug. “He made
    his choice. Jake Grafton appeals to a different
    side of Toad’s personality than I do.”
    “Oh, of courseea”…sd the captain, feeling his way.
    “Spouses and friends, very different, quite understandable …”
    “Jake Grafton can trade nuances with the
    best bureaucrats in the business, and he can attack
    a problem in a brutally direct manner.”…Rita
    searched for words, then added, “He always tries to do the
    right thing, regardless of the personal consequences. I
    think that is the quality Toad admires the most.”
    “I seeea”…sd the chief of staff, but it was obvious
    that he didn’t.
    As Toad walked toward the table with a coffee cup in
    each hand, Rita Moravia took a last stab at
    explanation: “Jake Grafton and Toad
    Tarkington are not uniformed technocrats or clerks
    or button pushers. They are warriors: I think
    they sense that in one another.”
    The shadows were dissipating to dusky twilight as Ocho
    Sedano walked the streets toward the dock area.
    Over each shoulder he carried a bag which he had
    stitched together from bedsheets. One contained a few
    changes of clothes, a baseball glove, several
    photos of his familyall that he wished to take with
    him into his new life in America. Truly, when
    you inventory the stuff that fills your life, you can
    do without most of it. Diego Coca said to travel
    light and Ocho took him literally.
    The other bag contained bottles of water. He had
    searched the trash for bottles, had washed
    them carefully, filled them with water, and corked them.
    Diego hadn’t mentioned water or food, but Ocho
    remembered his conversation with his brother, Hector, and
    thought bringing water would be a wise precaution.
    He also had two baked potatoes in the bag.
    Diego would laugh at himthey were not going to be at
    sea long enough to get really hungry, or so he said.
    Please, God, let Diego be right. Let us be
    in America when the sun rises tomorrow.
    There would be a man waiting in the Keys, waiting on
    a certain beach. Diego showed Ocho a map with the
    beach clearly marked in ink. “He was a close friend
    of my wife’s brotherea”…Diego said. “A man who
    can be trusted.”
    The boat was fast enough, Diego said, to be in
    American waters at dawn. They would make their
    approach to the beach as the sun rose, when
    obstructions to navigation were visible, when they could
    check landmarks and buoys.
    Diego was confident. Dora believed her father,
    looked at him with shining eyes when he talked of
    America, of how it would be to live in an American
    house, go to the huge stadiums and watch Ocho play
    baseball while everyone cheered… to have a
    television, plenty to eat, nice clothes,
    a
    carl
    Dios mio,
    America did sound like a paradise! To hear
    Diego tell it America was heaven, lacking only
    the angel choir … and it was just a boat ride
    away across the Florida Straits.
    Of course, Diego said they would probably get
    seasick, would probably vomit. That was inevitable,
    to be expected, a price to be paid.
    And they could get caught by the Cubans or
    Americans, get sent back here. “We’ll be no
    worse off than we are now if that
    happensea”…Diego argued. “We can always try again
    to get to America. God knows, we can’t get any
    poorer.”
    Dora with the shining eyes … she looked so
    expectant.
    She was the first, the very first woman he had ever made
    love to. And she got pregnant after that one time!
    When she first told him, he had doubted her.
    Didn’t want to believe. She became angry,
    threw a tantrum. Then he had believed.
    He thought about her now as he walked the dark
    streets, past people sitting in doorways,
    couples holding hands, past bars with music coming through
    the doorways. He had spent his whole life