Unlawful Chase by C.J. Schnier (new books to read .TXT) 📗

foam mattress under me and let my muscles relax. It had been an endless day of work, and quickly I fell into an exhausted but fitful sleep, waking every hour, nervous with anticipation. Each time I awoke with a start, and each time I let the still darkness lull me back to sleep, only to have my eyes snap open again an hour later.

Early the next morning, annoyed by my lack of sleep, I slipped Paramour's mooring lines as the sky changed from midnight blue into a dim pre-dawn glow that hovered over the sleepy island town of Marathon. The seabirds were waking from their slumber, squawking and calling to each other, rallying for their morning meal of fish. And, like their avian cousins, the human fishermen and other early risers were starting their morning rituals. Charter operators sprayed the morning dew from their vessels and scrubbed the decks of their boats to prepare for their daily fares. But, even with all of this activity, a sort of sacred hush held sway over the harbor.

Paramour's hull slid through the flat mirror-like waters of the inner harbor, her Volvo engine purring a little above idle. I waved to one or two people perched in their cockpits enjoying their coffee, and before long, I had left the mooring field behind me. To my left were a handful of boats anchored on the outskirts of the harbor. Many of these boats were in some sort of disrepair, and the majority belonged to owners that were too cheap or too poor to rent a mooring ball. They were a solemn reminder that if this job didn't pan out, I could be joining them.

Beyond them were the remnants of the old bridge, left to rot alone in the salt air. Its lifting section had been removed years ago, leaving two towering sections, one on each side of the channel. These strange twin monuments acted as the gateway to the inner harbor and were as much a landmark to boaters as the more famous Seven Mile Bridge stretching off to the southwest outside of the harbor.

Once past the bridge, I quickly turned to starboard and made what I hoped would be the only stop on my trip to southern Cuba, Pancho's Fuel Dock. As I neared the dock, the attendant came over and helped catch my lines. A few moments later, as the sun was peaking over the trees of Vaca Key, I was ready to go. I handed a wad of cash to the attendant, slipped the lines, and pointed my bow south, heading for open waters.

The thought of sailing over 700 nautical miles nonstop and alone didn't bother me. There were few places I felt happier and more at home than on the pitching deck of a boat under sail. My biggest concern was slipping past the net of Cuban patrol boats undetected. Pruitt had ordered me to call him twenty miles offshore of Punta del Diablo, my initial destination. I had to trust he would have a way for me to get me into the country unseen or that I would get lucky.

The sunrise proved to be excellent, but soon enough Sol's morning show was over and I found myself reaching for a hat and sunglasses. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the temperatures rose with it, and with them a pleasant sea breeze filled in. I went about raising all of Paramour's sails and gained a knot and a half of speed.

Being a ketch rigged boat, she was easy to sail single-handed, yet also quite capable of dealing with the big seas common on an ocean passage. Storms were part of sailing and I had been in more than a few. I knew Paramour could handle more punishment than I could.

But I wasn't expecting any big storms this trip. Under ideal conditions, she was a joy to sail and easy to balance. With a little attention to sail trim, I didn't need an autopilot to keep her on course, and for several years I sailed without one. Eventually, though, I joined the rest of the modern sailing world and bought one of the useful, but pricey, contraptions. Working it was simple, I just had to line up the boat and press a button. It would follow the current magnetic heading until either the boat stopped or I turned it off. The added amount of rest the autopilot provided was worth every penny I had spent on it.

For the first few days, the weather was perfect. Paramour and I made excellent time down the chain of islands that made up the Lower Keys. We passed Key West around 1400 hours on the first day and then turned west to run with the wind towards the Dry Tortugas. I piloted Paramour a bit offshore, careful to avoid the current in the Gulf Stream that ran through the Straits of Florida. Sometime around 0200 in the morning I was due south of Ft. Jefferson and the westernmost part of The Keys.

I then turned the boat south by southwest, into the relentless current. For several days we fought our way around the west end of Cuba. Due to the current, and a few contrary wind angles, the trip proved less comfortable than I had hoped for. Yet, I pressed on, letting the autopilot do most of the work while I trimmed sails and caught fifteen minute naps in between visual sweeps of the horizon for ships.

Once a day I would call Pruitt on the satellite phone and provide an update on my progress. In turn, he would provide me with the latest intel on the idol, and any information he could gather about the movements of the military patrol boats. I dreaded the daily calls, but I had to admit, having someone to talk to, even if I didn't like them, was a nice change from the solitude. Still, I kept our conversations to a minimum.

Paramour bashed heroically and tirelessly through the waves until