10
Not only the crackle and roar of the flames grew louder but some other noise did too. Claire craned her neck to look up. A drone with a camera buzzed overhead and turned back to hover above them, coming lower, lower. No wonder their pursuers had located them in this thick maze.
She ripped her shoulder bag off her arm, grabbed her meds and wallet out in case she lost the purse. She slung it like a boomerang at the low-flying drone. The leather shoulder handle snagged the drone’s rotors, and it went down several yards away into the cane.
“Way to go!” Jace blurted. “But we got to go. No time to find the purse.”
“It’s okay,” she said, torn between pride and panic. “I’ve got my ID and meds, so—”
But as she bent to gather her pill case and wallet, she saw the case had come open. Her pills were strewed on and in the damp soil. She’d stepped on most of them. Without them, she’d be in such trouble.
She went to her knees and started to dig the pills out of the ground, but many had dissolved to wet powder. She clawed at two, three of them, her nails raking the damp soil until Nick hauled her to her feet.
“They’re still coming,” he whispered, looking more desperate than she’d ever seen him. He grabbed her wallet and jammed it in his front pocket. “Let’s go!”
Jace took Lexi again. Nick, who’d been calming the others, snagged the green whale, smeared with mud. He dragged Claire so fast through the cane away from the devouring flames that her feet almost left the ground.
Men’s voices, shouts. Suddenly, a towering wall of orange flames roared close behind them. Choking smoke. No choice, she thought. No choice but to die in the fire or run for the road and be taken, maybe shot, maybe kept here forever.
Before they even saw the opening ahead, they exploded from the far edge of the cane field. It was a strip of land with no plants and barbed wire and watchtowers just ahead. It was hilly ahead and blue-gray mountains huddled in the distance.
Their pursuers ran out just behind them, guns drawn. “Stop! Halt! Alto! Alto!” different men shouted. Shots rang out, exploding little dust balls near their feet while the flames reached the edge of the cane field, so the men came farther toward them.
Every instinct in Claire’s body said to keep running, but there was that fence and barbed wire to keep them from the safety of the base. So close yet so far.
Her brain threw pictures at her of the day she was shot leaving the Collier County Courthouse, the day Nick helped her. In that instant, she felt the fear, the searing pain again. Cloaked in smoke, she stopped running with her back to the intense heat.
Bronco also stopped and turned. Gina skidded to a halt and put her hands atop her head. Jace stopped but didn’t turn, no doubt to protect Lexi, cradled in his arms.
Nick turned to face their pursuers, yet he called out loudly enough to be heard in the watchtower behind them, “We’re Americans. We’re here seeking asylum from the officers at this base so—”
Claire screamed as someone shot. Nick went down, clutching his left leg. Gunfire erupted over them from two directions as they hit the ground. Shots from the guard tower spit back at their pursuers.
Next to her in the damp dirt, Jace’s body covered Lexi. They were not hit but Nick was.
“The marines in the tower are covering us!” Jace shouted at her. “Crawl up to the fence.”
He had to be crazy, she thought. There was nowhere to go through the fence, and they’d be trapped against it. Coils of barbed wire topped it. But when he rolled Lexi over to her and belly-crawled backward, she did as he said, on her knees, covering and dragging Lexi.
Lexi was screaming, but Claire ignored that. She darted a glance back. Nita crawled close to help her with Lexi. Bronco rolled toward Nick too; Heck held Gina. Now Jace was dragging Nick, whose leg was leaving a trail of blood behind them.
Suddenly the fence made sense: at least ten marines ran out from somewhere on the other side of it, pointing rifles and handguns through it at their pursuers. When she looked back again, Jace had a belt around Nick’s leg, and a green, camouflaged Humvee was roaring madly toward them on this side of the fence. Their pursuers had run along the burning edge of the field toward the road just outside the wire fence, dragging two of their injured with them. The marines didn’t pursue them, but helped Nick.
At last, what had seemed an eternity of gunfire stopped, though the smoke and roar of heat and flames from the field was worse, an inferno.
Claire left Lexi in Nita’s and Gina’s care and bent over Nick.
“Just a leg wound,” he told her through gritted teeth. His handsome face was distorted in pain. “We’ll be all right now. The marines—and Jace—saved me.”
Strong hands helped all of them up, then put Nick first in the big, boxy vehicle. “First stop, the hospital,” someone said. Claire saw the others were covered with mud and smudges of smoke, so she must be too. But all of them—even Nick—were safe. And in American hands.
“Those weren’t Cuban police, Sarge,” she heard one marine say behind her when she climbed in behind Lexi. They had to watch their feet; the marines had put Nick flat on the floor. “Kind of looked like it, but fake outfits. And the guy giving orders was in civvies.”
Jace, already in the Humvee, was still holding the belt tight around Nick’s leg. “Thank you,” she told Jace and gripped his shoulder, then leaned down to take Nick’s hands in hers. He was trembling, and his eyes looked dilated.
Lexi squirmed out of Nita’s arms and crowded in between Claire and Jace as if they were a family again.
Between clenched teeth, his eyes shut tight in pain, Nick told Jace, “Thanks, man.”
Narrowing his eyes in a laser look at Claire, Jace mouthed to her, I did it for you too.
“Hey,” Bronco said from the seat behind them, the big man’s voice as shaky as a child’s, “we’re in US hands! We’re going home—even if it’s not quite home.”
Claire looked out the vehicle’s dusty big square window as they passed through the checkpoint to enter the base. It was getting dark. The marines were lowering the flag from the pole. How good it felt to see the Stars and Stripes instead of Cuba’s single star. One palm tree and some scrub pine seemed to guard the entry to Gitmo. Still holding Nick’s hands, leaning against Jace, she noted they passed a sign that read:
WELCOME TO US NAVAL STATION
GUANTANAMO BAY
* * *
That evening was a blur. Nick’s leg was tended to at the base hospital, and he walked with crutches, but the bullet had passed through, so they didn’t have to dig it out. He’d kidded Claire that he was now on narco meds too. And everyone, even the marines, had told Claire she did a helluva “who-ya!” job knocking that drone out of the sky.
They’d all had showers and been given clothes. Claire’s jeans felt tight on her, which was weird since she thought she’d lost weight since the plane went down. Surely, if she was pregnant, she wouldn’t be showing already.
Someone had given Nick a bobblehead doll of Fidel Castro, taped to one of his crutches. Gina kept covering the bearded figure with tissues so she didn’t have to look at it. They were staying for the night in two apartments for married couples who would be arriving soon. The places were Spartan and smelled of paint. Despite the aura of tradition and tragedy that hung over the area, they were greatly relieved and thankful. And, though they were so exhausted they didn’t feel like celebrating, they thought it would be good to take Lexi to the McDonald’s on the base. Anything to get her back to feeling safe—and to get rid of her alter ego, Lily.
Lexi had been so thrilled to hear that that Claire wondered for one moment if heading to “Mickey D’s” for a Happy Meal could solve the child’s trauma. But they’d all been through hell. Their rescuers were nervous about Gina since she had no passport, until Rob Patterson, who had flown in to debrief them the next morning, said she could stay. Jace told Claire he imagined Patterson would give her a very thorough debriefing. What strings he pulled so fast in Washington to get her an entry visa for here and to the US they might never learn and didn’t want to ask. He’d even promised her a green card.
Rob Patterson had turned down their offer to join them. Of course, Claire thought, they should have known better than to even ask. He didn’t want to be seen in public with them even here, and the marines had snagged one of the bogus Cuban police they were questioning. Patterson had told Nick the guy had done it for money and knew nothing about who was behind it. Now Patterson was consulting with the base commander.
Claire breathed a sigh of relief and free air for the first time in days. They were in good hands and heading back to the US tomorrow, and Heck had Gina leaning against his shoulder. Bronco and Nita smiled at each other, and Lexi, hugging her war-torn plush whale that had been bathed and tended to with a blow-dryer, seemed content. Still, Jace looked—well, restless, staring at her.
Suddenly, although she’d dreaded it before, Claire was glad they’d hide out this winter in the snowy depths of another island far away. Patterson, who now knew Clayton Ames’s Havana address, said he’d get his hands on him somehow, get him extradited and on trial so Nick could testify and they could return to their normal lives—whatever normal was since she’d met and married Nick Markwood.
Yes, she thought, as she dipped another french fry in the ketchup, that was the way it would be, calm and quiet in Northern Michigan where Ames could not find them, but he would be found and arrested here. Surely, nothing else could go wrong now.