Tanner’s Tiger

Then how-

Ah, I thought. Forget the guards on the door, because one couldn’t possibly sneak up on them. But how about the three at the far end of the building? They were goofing off, and they were within easy pistol range of what looked like fairly thick woods. We could get to them. It wasn’t easy, but it was feasible. We would have to stay in the woods and work our way all around the perimeter of the landing strip. A long walk, but we would have good cover all the way and for a large part of the trek we would be out of hearing range.

Then three quick shots, or as many as it took to dispose of the three loafers. We would be in the dark while the other two guards would be outlined against the walls of the building.

I liked the odds.

“Evan?” Randy was whispering into my ear. “Got anything?”

I nodded. Then the door of the building opened, and the two guards flanking it snapped to attention, and the three bearded loafers threw away their cigarettes and came forward.

“Tell me.”

A short, stocky type came through the door and headed for the jet. He was wearing a flying suit, heavy boots, goggles, and a crash helmet. He was either the pilot or a man looking for a masquerade party. He crossed over to the plane and climbed a flight of steps, disappearing into its belly.

Two more bearded types followed him from the building. After them came several clean-shaven men in close-fitting khaki slacks and blouses. Guards from the pavilion, I guessed.

“The plan, Evan.”

The big jet engines kicked in and the pilot began the warm-up. I tried counting the guards, but they were moving around too much. It looked, though, as if there were more guards than we had bullets. One of them came out of the building now, his left hand fastened upon the forearm of a tall man in a rumpled suit, his right arm around the man’s waist. He walked the man across the clearing to the plane. The man in the suit was a Negro. At first I thought the guard was leading him that way to keep him from resisting, but when they drew closer, I saw that it wasn’t that at all. The Negro trudged on like a zombie. Either they had him drugged to the eyes or else he was ninety-five percent dead.

“Evan-”

I clenched my teeth. “The plan just washed out,” I said. “It went down the drain.”

He passed this bit of information on to the rest of them, speaking in a thin whisper that couldn’t entirely hide his nervousness. I watched the guard lead the Negro up the steps and into the midsection of the big jet. Then more guards were following him, each with a man or a woman in tow. They would tuck their passengers into the plane and turn around and go back for more.

There were about four men to each woman. There were a few children, but not many of them. All of them, men and women and children, walked in the same robot fashion, shuffling along like the living dead. All of them had wide, glassy eyes and wore rumpled clothing.

And all of them, men and women and children, were Negroes.

I sat there watching this little parade without even trying to guess what it was all about. The Cubans were stealing Negroes. Male Negroes, female Negroes, juvenile Negroes. Fidel was starting a Negro collection. He wanted Cubans to develop a natural sense of rhythm. He-

Then they brought out Arlette and, a few Negroes later, Mi

Mi

Something happened when I saw her. I realized, for the first time since her disappearance, that deep down inside I had not expected to see her again. A part of my unconscious mind had quietly written her off as dead, even while I was rushing around searching for her. I felt this way without ever being aware of it, and now I was seeing her again, and she was alive.

There was sudden intense pressure behind my eyeballs. Then my eyes were wet, and tears spilled down my cheeks like raindrops on a windshield. I was not sobbing. I was sitting still, breathing normally, remaining quite calm while silently crying my eyes out.

My tears were still flowing when Mi

Of course they needed the nurse aboard the plane. Otherwise they would need a full complement of guards to keep the passengers tractable. This way they would slump in their seats all the way to Havana and-

I whirled around. I said, “The plane.”

They stared at me, the three of them. I swung my head around again. The clean-shaven guards were walking toward their cars. The barbudas had thi

I said, “They do it themselves all the time. They get on a plane going from El Paso to Kansas City and make the pilot fly to Havana. It’s about time somebody turned the tables on them.”

“You mean-”

“Right. We steal the plane.”

“How?”

“All we have to do is get on it. The place is crawling with guards, but they’re all staying on the ground. The airplane’s got a pilot and a cargo of Negroes and that’s all.”

“And that hatchet-faced bitch.”

“But no guards.”

“One or two may have stayed aboard-”

“I don’t think so, but so what? One or two we can handle. Once we’re inside, what can the yoyos on the ground do? Shoot us down?”

I looked at them, Randy and Seth and Baron von Richthofen. They were nodding in agreement. For my part, I wasn’t sure it would work out the way I told it.

Nor did I care. All we had to do was get on that plane. That was the only thing that mattered. Once we were aboard, I didn’t care if we got jumped by eight guards and an orangutan. Because all they could do was take us along to Havana, and if Mi

I kept this to myself, by no means convinced that the others would see it my way. I watched the plane and I watched the guards, waiting for the right moment. We had to time things so that we made our move at the last possible moment, just before they closed up the belly of the aircraft.

“Get ready to jump the minute I do,” I said. “I’ll lead, then Seth, then Randy, and you bring up the rear. Shoot anything that gets in the way. Any questions?”

There weren’t any, thank God. I kept waiting for the magic moment when all the guards would be gone. It looked as though that moment would occur a few minutes after takeoff. I braced my feet under me and got a good grip on the pistol.

I said, “Now!”

I could paint a more vivid picture of our charge across the field and up the steps and into the plane if I had been watching it from the sidelines instead of leading it. As it was, I had no real way of knowing what happened. There was some shouting. There were some gunshots – mostly ours, I think, and as far as I know, none of them hit anything. I fired the Marley three times and wasn’t even aiming at anything in particular. That’s what there was, shouting and shooting and ru

And it worked.

They could not have been less prepared for us. I think a flash flood would have come as less of a surprise to them. There we were, blitzing their pretty plane, and there they were, standing around like morons with their rifles hanging around their necks. By the time they knew what was happening, it had already happened.