Cuban Death-Lift by Striker Randy

Author:Striker, Randy [Striker, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: USA
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1981-05-02T14:00:00+00:00

10

There was the scream of siren.

And shots.

A machine gun, and it wasn’t far away.

It slipped into my dreams like some malevolent creature, and pulled me down into those memories that, even in reality, were nightmares.

They’re dead, Dusky. All dead. Three bodies scattered like broken toys. . . .

And then the shots came from the perimeter of a base camp up a jungle river long ago and far away, and I was leading a watch of SEALs neck-deep in black water into a firefight that could only end one way—with Charlie hunting us with sampans and converted assault skiffs, and us knowing even before we fired our first round that it was going to be one hell of a deadly swim back to the World, and some of us weren’t going to make it. . . .

And then I suddenly was awake.

The searchlight from the military outpost on the peninsula was tunneling through the darkness, pounding out an area of stark daylight on a patch of water a hundred yards or so from Sniper. The water was a phlegm green where the searchlight scanned, and I could see the white flare of spray which marked the trajectory of bullets coming from the beach.

I jumped to my feet, throwing off the blanket, then swung down the ladder onto the deck.

The woman was already up, leaning out anxiously over the railing trying to see what the Cubans were shooting at.

“Get down, dammit!”

I jerked her roughly down onto the deck. The light swept across Sniper, showing her face pale, wide-eyed. She wore a white T-shirt and sheer panties which, in the brief shock of light, showed her as she would look naked.

“Those bastards are crazy,” I said. “They’re not even sure what they’re shooting at, and one dead Cuban-American woman isn’t going to bother them one way or the other. So stay down, got it?”

She nodded quickly. She was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cool night wind. I knew what was on her mind. She thought that this was it: Castro’s way of getting rid of one American spy.

When the searchlight had crossed back over Sniper, I poked my head under the railing and followed the path of the beam.

And then I saw it.

A human figure swimming for his life. In the brilliance of the beam, steam came up off the water, and the swimmer appeared oil-black. He was doing a ragged, overhand crawlstroke. He swam with his head up, legs way too low, and I knew that only fear and adrenaline could provide the strength it would take for him to make it the sixty yards to the nearest boat—my boat, Sniper.

“Why don’t they just send a boat out and arrest him?” the woman wondered out loud, angry, almost yelling it.

“Oh, they’re sending a skiff out right now—see the light over by the wharf? But they don’t want to arrest him. They want to make an example out of him. They want to kill him.”

The searchlight was full on the refugee. It was pathetic.

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