Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,103
these waters. Called us the Hooligan Navy, they did. We never found any of those Nazi U-boats, but that doesn’t matter. The way I figure it, word of our antisubmarine patrol got out and kept them away.”
Jackie smiled at Papa again. Obviously, he couldn’t envision any outcome other than one that cast him in a heroic light. She suddenly shivered from the dropping temperature.
“If you’re cold, daughter, I’ve got some sweaters belowdecks,” Papa said. “Just take any one you like. Mary might have left one or two behind too.” Jackie knew that he was making a reference to his fourth and current wife. She’d read somewhere that Mary was nine years younger than Hemingway and that he called her “daughter” too.
Papa’s cabin was located right below the flying bridge. Jackie found it littered with clothes and fishing and nautical equipment, like the combined inventory of Abercrombie & Fitch and a ship chandler’s had been dumped in there. The only thing she could find to wear that looked appropriate was a tattered, faded fisherman’s sweater. She put it on, and it almost swallowed her up.
When she returned to the flying bridge, she saw that Papa wore a concerned look. Before she could ask him what was the matter, he said, “See those running lights in the distance?” He pointed to off to starboard and abaft Pilar. Jackie looked in that direction and could see the running lights of a boat coming up fast, looking like it was headed on an interception course with Pilar.
“I don’t like it,” Papa said, assessing the situation. “Going too fast for a fishing boat. Probably a Cuban patrol boat. We gave the country six of our Coast Guard patrol boats during the war. They’re faster than Pilar, more powerful engines. If it is them, we just have to hope we get to the three-mile limit before they catch up with us. Once we’re in international waters, there’s nothing they can do to us.”
“And if they do catch up with us?” Jackie asked, fearing the worst.
“Let’s just hope they don’t and leave it at that for now.”
Papa pulled out a pair of binoculars from a nearby cupboard and put the glass to the boat that was narrowing the gap with every passing minute. He put down the binoculars and pulled a face. “Damn it to hell, it’s the Cuban navy, all right.”
Jackie felt a chill as she realized that the long arm of Colonel Sanchez was reaching out to pull her back. And now he had called on the Cuban navy for assistance. Heaven only knew what story he’d told them to get her back in his clutches.
Papa pushed forward on the boat’s throttle and said, “C’mon, sweetheart, let’s see what you can do.”
Despite the danger she was in, Jackie had to smile hearing Papa refer to his boat as a woman (in fact, Pilar was the pet name of his second wife, Pauline). In Paris, Jackie had known a safecracker who said that opening a safe was like seducing a woman. She wondered what it was about men that constantly caused them to liken inanimate objects—safes, boats, race cars, and such—to women.
“They’re gaining on us,” Papa said, looking back. The three-mile limit was not far off now, but it was anyone’s guess whether Pilar would get to it before the patrol boat got to them. Turning forward again, Papa said to Jackie, “Hey, daughter, do me a favor and take the helm for a minute.”
Jackie looked surprised but immediately grabbed the wheel, which turned out to be a steering wheel from a car, good for easier handling. If she could steer an amphibious vehicle up the Seine on a wild chase to save a princess’s life, she could surely keep this fishing boat on course. As she took firm hold of the wheel, Papa disappeared down the ladder, and she could hear him rummaging in the locker directly under the flying bridge. When he returned, he carried a weapon that Jackie recognized from her firearms course at the Farm as a Browning automatic rifle, more commonly referred to as a BAR. As she watched, Papa slapped a clip into the slot beneath the rifle and said, “Say hello to my little friend. Kept it as a souvenir from my sub-hunting days. Knew it would come in handy eventually.”
“What do you plan on doing with it?” Jackie suspected that the Cuban patrol boat had more powerful weapons onboard.