Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [32]
Behind him, water was beginning to empty out with the tide, flattening the long sinister reef. Albury pointed the Diamond Cutter toward the beach and nudged the throttle.
There was no dock, as Albury had known; and his passengers had no boat of their own, as he had feared. Even so, the transfer went smoothly until one of the Colombians drowned.
Augie had swum in easily, a three-quarter-inch nylon tow rope in his teeth. Albury could see him naked at the center of a knot of figures on the beach. Augie swam back alone, and Albury levered him into the boat. Gasping, the young Cuban needed no coaxing.
“There must be twenty of them, Breeze, including a few women. They all stink; Jesus, they stink. And they are in a big hurry.”
“Shit,” Albury sighed. A dozen, that was the agreement. Twenty was absurd; they would slow down the boat. Christ, where would he put them all? Albury furiously assessed the possibilities: he would have to take none, or take them all and try to settle with the Machine later. To leave any of them on this beach would surely spell trouble later, at Key Largo, when the welcoming committee started counting heads.
“The leader is a big guy with a mouth full of gold. Name of Oscar,” Augie reported. “I told him no luggage and no guns, and he said OK.”
Albury saw his plan for a swift, easy transfer slipping out with the tide. “How’s the water?” he asked Augie.
“Eight feet off the stern, no more, but the current is tricky.”
“Go back to the beach, Augie. Feed them out on the line, one at a time. Tell them to hang on tight and pull themselves hand over hand, OK? Warn them about the current. Tell ’em they’re going to have to move fast. You come last.”
“They’ve got some shopping bags and other shit.”
“Leave it on the beach. This ain’t the S.S. Norway.” Albury turned to Jimmy. “As they come in, you help ’em up the dive ladder and then shove ’em down below as fast as you can. No rough stuff unless you have to.”
“You want me to get the shotgun?”
“Jesus, no! Leave it where they can’t see it.”
Dark shapes, featureless from where Albury watched at the wheel, the Colombians came up off the line like fresh-caught grouper, heaving, grunting, cascading water onto the deck, then shuttling below at Jimmy’s urging. For the most part they came mutely, although twice Albury heard a whispered gracias, and once he smiled when Jimmy whistled appreciatively through his teeth. Even from where Albury stood, the wet silhouette, dimly seen, was spectacular. “Hola, lindo,” the girl called to Jimmy and was gone, like a fish to the ice.
The sea was black, calm, and empty. The Colombians were young, and they worked themselves along the rope with little trouble at first. Gradually, though, the rope began to bow as the current stiffened with the falling tide.
After the first dozen, the interval between arrivals began to lengthen. Number fourteen stopped twice for breath, and when he finally reached the Diamond Cutter, he could hardly climb the ladder. Jimmy had to bodily haul number fifteen, another girl, from the water.
Hurry, Albury wanted to shout. Hurry. Soon it will be impossible to come at all; soon the current will be too strong. Augie would see the water moving. He would tell them. Albury said nothing, not even when a faint draft of wind delivered the sound, distant but unmistakeable. He scoured the northern horizon, cursing under his breath.
The seventeenth Colombian didn’t make it.
Albury heard a muffled shout. He saw bubbles, then a half-submerged balloon of white—it must have been the man’s shirt—separate from the tow line and float away to port.
“Jimmy!” Albury yelled. “Watch the boat and keep them coming.”
He slipped out of his boots, took a quick bearing on the receding speck of white, and dove into the dark water. It felt like a warm bath. Albury swam underwater in virtual blindness toward the drowning man. When he surfaced, there was nothing.
“Jimmy,” he called, treading water, “where is he?”
“Ten yards to your right. He just went under,” came the call from the Diamond Cutter. Albury could see the