Gardens of the Queen Read online

  She drew in a smooth, deep lungful of air and ducked back into the water reaching down and fumbling for a way to pick her boyfriend up. With her feet to either side she found his armpits and heaved him upwards. A sudden thud forced her to drop Carlos as they both slumped against the roof. They’d hit the sea floor. She shot back up to get another breath of air but the pocket had gone. Panic washed over her again and she fought it back, she knew she had to think clearly. She reached her hand out along the floor of the plane that was now her ceiling. The bubble was probably still there but the plane had now settled over so the bubble must have shifted, moving to the highest spot.

  Her hand broke surface to her right and she quickly stuck her head up in that direction. Her shoulder bashed against something and as her head found the air pocket her forehead jammed on something else. Wincing, she felt around as she drew in more of the valuable air. By touch she could make out the shape of a foot pedal – that’s what she’d hit her head on and the thing now wedged into her back was the yoke. She reached straight out to her right and touched nothing. She’d found the door opening. Her thoughts turned back to Carlos who’d now been out for maybe a minute although it felt like ten. With a gulp of air she reached down again and found his armpits. Dragging him up she heaved him towards the air pocket but his limp body bounced and caught on various things in the confined space. And then he moved in her arms.

  Carlos had no idea what world he was in. Everything was a dense fog and he felt like he was floating. His body seemed to be a separate entity from his mind. In his thoughts he was light as a feather and could fly like Peter Pan. His body didn’t appear to agree and had no reaction at all to his requests. The fog was thickening as his body finally seemed to react, and he felt himself slowly rise. He wasn’t sure why he was doing that but instinctively it felt right so with all the might he could muster he pushed with his feeble legs.

  Sydney thrust Carlos’s head up so his mouth was in the air pocket and he coughed and choked as air slowly replaced water in his throat. Sydney babbled incoherently as she struggled to hold him up. Slowly he regained control and use of his limbs and supported himself, gulping lungful after lungful of air. He took hold of her face and pressed his lips against her cheek.

  It was ink black inside the sunken plane but she felt his hands on her face and his lips pressed against her. She pictured those pretty eyes. We’re God knows how deep down on the ocean floor, she thought, and still completely screwed, but I got one more look into those eyes. She turned her head and kissed him.

  Chapter 4

  Silvio heard the key turn in the front door and nervously looked around his desk to make sure there was no mess or anything else that he could be yelled at for. He really wished he’d put some clean jeans and a nicer shirt on instead of the torn tracksuit pants and scruffy tee shirt he’d planned to lounge around at home in.

  Mikhail entered. A tall, firmly built man with short, fair hair greying around the sides, wearing black slacks and a button-down shirt. He was always perfectly put together, even in an emergency. Silvio wondered if he slept in business clothes. Closing the door behind him he spoke first, “Carlos, correct?”

  Silvio looked surprised. “Yes, he came back in about thirty minutes after we left. How did you know?”

  Mikhail looked disdainfully at the Cuban. “Who else can fly the plane and has the access code we change every two weeks?”

  Silvio kicked himself; that one didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out and he just let his boss point out his stupidity once again.

  Mikhail continued, “Besides, based on his social media and online activity recently, he was the most likely to cause a problem.”

  Two things bothered Silvio about that statement. The first was the casualness with which the man explained how they’re watching every move the employees made and the second was the fact that they were watching every move the employees made. He was born and raised in Cuba, so being observed and controlled by the government wasn’t new but they didn’t have the technology or resources to track people in depth like this. He was glad he didn’t use social media.

  Mikhail pulled his mobile from his pocket, commenting to Silvio as he did so, “He wasn’t flying alone either; I guarantee he had a passenger.” With that he stepped into his own office, closed his door and began barking orders into his phone in Russian.

  Silvio wasn’t sure what was expected of him now so he stayed at his desk and brought up Carlos’s social media page on his computer. Most Cubans didn’t have the luxury of the Internet; it was expensive and solely available through the government provider ETECSAN, which made it easy to monitor. They were fortunate to have access at the office at a reasonable connection speed.

  Nothing struck him as odd. There were pictures of Carlos with various aircraft – no surprise, he was a pilot. A few pictures of himself with family – that was nice, nothing seemed out of place. He clicked on his profile and read a few details: went to university at Ciudad Universitaria Jose Antonio Echeverria in Havana, studied in Miami for a semester, he’s in a relationship… Silvio sat back, surprised. He’s in a relationship? He had never heard Carlos speak of a girl. The two worked together for over six months now and not once did he mention a girlfriend.

  Mikhail burst out of his office, startling Silvio, who quickly closed his Internet browser and stood up. “Prepare the boat,” Mikhail ordered. “Make sure it’s full of fuel, with provisions for at least a week and ready to go at midnight.”

  Silvio bumbled, trying to process the change of plan. “Provisions for a week? By midnight? But sir, the markets are all closed…!”

  Mikhail stared blankly at him, his eyes unblinking, and Silvio could sense the disdain radiating from the Russian’s mind.

  “Then have one open for you. This is government business, a matter of state. Find the market owner and do it fast; we’re leaving at midnight with or without food.”

  Mikhail turned to leave but hesitated and turned back to the still stunned Cuban, adding, “I’ll have two other officials with me, so provision accordingly.” He pointed a menacing finger at Silvio. “Breathe a word of any of this to anyone and you’ll spend the rest of your days as a guest of the G2, understand me?”

  Terrified at the mention of Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia agency, their equivalent of the KGB or CIA, Silvio vehemently nodded with his voice escaping him.

  Apparently satisfied, Mikhail turned and left.

  Silvio slumped back in his chair. He knew his boss carried some weight in official circles but it seemed he’d underestimated just how far up the food chain his influence ran. G2 were a scary bunch: they made people evaporate, never seen again, and he wanted nothing to do with them. Freshly inspired by a solid dose of fear he nudged himself into action. He needed to get organised if he was to be ready by midnight, and sleep, apparently, was not in his foreseeable future.

  Chapter 5

  Carlos’s head began to clear enough for him to consider their options for escaping the plane, since they’d turned it into a submarine. They were both gulping down as much air as they could from the little bubble that had formed in the foot well.

  “We need to make a move, Sydney, we’re using all the oxygen out of this little bit of air and we’ll be taking in our own carbon dioxide soon – that won’t be good.”

  Sydney nodded, precariously keeping her mouth above the water line. “We sank a while but I’ve got no clue how deep we dropped, it felt like forever.” She thought for a moment, “You know, if we were inside the sound it’s twenty feet deep at most, I’m pretty sure we went down farther than that.”

  Carlos converted that to metres in his head. “Okay, so that wouldn’t be bad, about six or seven metres to the surface.”

  She frowned. “Yeah, but if we’re outside the reef then it’s more like thirty to eighty feet deep.”

  The math on that didn’t seem so appealing and he cringed. “We should hope for the shorter side of that.”

  Sydney hesitated be
fore continuing, “And if we’re farther north the wall drops off to hundreds of feet…”

  Carlos wriggled to keep his mouth in the air. “The pressure would have reduced this pocket to nothing at that depth. I don’t think we’re off the wall, we’d have nothing to breathe off. Speaking of which, this air is starting to taste really stale. We don’t have much time.”

  He shuffled again. They were still in complete blackout so everything was by feel. “Okay, we have to get the life vests from behind the seats; I’ll drop down and try and find them.”

  “Wait!” Sydney snapped. “Don’t leave me! You just came around again; I’ll go, you need to keep breathing the air. I’ve groped around the cockpit in the dark already, I’ll find them faster.”

  Carlos hesitantly agreed and explained where she should find them in mesh pockets on the backs of the seats.

  Sydney gathered her wits and with a final long intake of air ducked under the water and Carlos could feel her moving around below him in the pitch black. Everything being upside down was confusing, especially in the cramped cockpit area, and she started feeling her way around the instrument panel and yokes before realising she was facing the wrong way. Turning around she found a seat, felt behind it and quickly discovered the mesh bungee pocket and ran her hands down until she could feel the opening. Fortunately the elasticated mesh pocket had held its contents in place despite being inverted. Finding what she assumed was the life vest she dragged it out and shoved it up towards Carlos. He figured out what she was doing and took it from her as she moved sideways across the roof to retrieve the second one from the other seat. It already felt like she’d been holding her breath forever although she knew it had only been twenty seconds at most. That panicky feeling started creeping in again and she clawed at the mesh behind the seat while telling herself to calm down and be efficient. She finally plucked the vest from the seat back and shot back up to get air, running straight into the yoke with a sharp pain from her already bloody head.

  Carlos felt her bashing around below him and grabbed her shirt to guide her back to the air pocket. She gasped for air and desperately clung to him, relieved to feel the safety of his presence even if she couldn’t see him.

  “Great job my love, now we need to get out of here.” He wheezed as he spoke, the air in the pocket providing much less oxygen than before. Sydney too could feel the difference; she struggled to catch her breath after the effort and had to force herself to settle down and draw long, gentle inhales.

  He continued, “Put your vest on and make sure it’s secure. We’ll inflate them just a bit to help us go up, but not too much. When the water pressure gets less as we go shallower – the air inside will expand and fill out the vest.”

  They found the valves on the vests and tried putting some air in but, between the effort and the fact they had to dunk their heads under water to do it, they didn’t get much accomplished.

  Straining for breath and tiring out, they agreed it was time to go, “Once we’re out the door opening kick smoothly using your whole leg, don’t flap your feet…” Carlos started but Sydney cut him off.

  “I grew up on this island, I know how to swim, Carlos!”

  They both coughed and spluttered, all the valuable oxygen gone from the small reservoir of air that had kept them alive.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said softly and with a long, final intake of air they ducked for the doorway, clutching each other’s hand.

  Bouncing off each other and the door frame they struggled out of the sunken seaplane and pushed off the fuselage in what they hoped was the direction of the surface. After several long sweeping kicks it was clear they were more than twenty feet submerged. Sydney made big steady strokes with her long legs and soon felt the strain on her arm of Carlos falling behind. Hoping she was heading in the right direction, she kept swimming hard and pulled him along but her lungs were screaming for air. She could feel a puzzling pressure all around her chest and midriff and instinctively put her free hand to her chest. The life vest was inflating just as Carlos had explained, which meant they were ascending. A surge of relief ran through her for a moment but the desperate urge to get air soon overcame it. The natural impulse to suck in air was becoming powerful despite her brain telling her that’s the reflex that causes people to drown. She kept kicking smoothly but was losing strength and her heart rate was climbing alarmingly from the effort. Carlos felt like a sack of potatoes dragging behind and her hypoxic mind felt angry at him for holding her back. Despite the lessening pressure letting the air expand in her lungs, it was stale, used air depleted of oxygen and her body begged to take a breath. Sydney’s mind seemed to fold in on itself and everything became instantly overwhelming where thought was no longer possible and instinctual reaction consumed her. Her mouth opened wide and drew in as hard as her lungs could manage, no longer able to fight off the craving. A salty mix of sea water and air shot down her throat causing her to splutter and cough and gasp for more air, which she got.

  Carlos surfaced beside her, was immediately blown into her, and the two were swept away on a wave. The noise was deafening after the silence of submersion and the wind-driven rain and spray felt like a machine gun of water pellets stinging their faces. They fought to stay hold of each other as the seas threw them around like toys. Sydney kept coughing and fighting to catch her breath but Carlos appeared fine.

  She shouted to be heard, struggling to speak between breathes, “I almost drowned!”

  Clinging to Carlos and wheezing she added, “And I thought you had!”

  He managed a smile. “I was conserving my air and trying to stay relaxed and you were dragging me like a galloping horse!”

  After the inky blackness of being underwater the dim light of the stormy night was a welcome relief but they still couldn’t see any lights. They blew a little more air into the life vests for as much buoyancy as they could manage and looked all around as the choppy waves raised them up. The rain was too heavy to see any distance so even if there were lights close by they’d be out of their sight.

  Carlos cursed in Spanish. “The case, I forgot the case!”

  In their haste to survive and escape the plane he hadn’t given it a thought and now the cargo they’d risked everything for was on the sea floor in a wrecked plane.

  Sydney tried to calm him. “We’ll retrieve it after the storm clears. There was no way to get it out of the plane with us, we barely made it alive. Our bag of clothes too, our passports are in there.”

  He shook his head, water flinging from his soaked hair. “They’ll be looking for the plane as soon as the weather breaks, we’ll never get back to it without being seen.”

  The noise of the waves and storm seemed to be getting louder and Sydney screamed to be heard, “I think we have bigger problems right now!”

  They were picked up and thrown on a huge wave that crashed instead of rolled beneath them, tossing them underwater like rag dolls. They felt like they were inside a washing machine getting turned and tossed around but really moving nowhere until suddenly they launched forward with alarming power. Both their bodies were scraped over something hard and jagged before bursting through the surface and carried up on a swell again.

  Sydney gathered up her wits and winced with pain – it felt like her whole body had been raked by a barbed wire fence. Carlos hung on grimly to Sydney’s hand, terrified he’d lose her in the chaos. His legs were on fire from whatever they’d hit but the water seemed less tumultuous now and he pulled her back close to him.

  “That was the reef!” she shouted excitedly. “We’re in the sound, the waves took us over the reef!”

  He looked around but still couldn’t make out anything in the squall. The storm and the waves were incredibly loud but the crashing of the ocean on the reef was dying away and the size of the swells had dropped in half.

  “How far are we from land if we’re inside the sound?” he asked.

  “About five miles to the south side, but less if we knew which side to head f
or. Trouble is we’d have to swim as the storm is blowing us south. If we chose the wrong way we could go five miles across the path of the storm.”

  They rode the waves and thought for a minute. Maybe the best idea was to let the storm carry them towards the south shore, but that was a daunting prospect. Sydney finally broke the silence.

  “The lights I saw were on our left as we flew south – they must have been Rum Point. We circled back and crashed outside the reef which we just went back across to get into the sound so my best guess is we flew up and back on the east side of the sound. If we head parallel to the reef and go east, which is right if we turn back around and face the reef, we will come to Rum Point.”

  He nodded, impressed at her deductions. “What if we’re actually on the west side of the sound?”

  She shrugged. “Then we’ll swim a lot further but still get to Rum Point.”

  “Okay, we swim east, but we need to keep within earshot of the waves crashing on the reef or we’ll not know which direction we’re going.” He finally let go of her hand to start swimming.

  “Yes,” she shouted, “and try to keep up this time.”

  Carlos immediately checked up and reached for Sydney again, clutching her vest straps. “Hear that?”

  She strained to hear over the weather. She could definitely make out a new sound. “What is that?”

  The boat idled into view, rocking and rolling on the waves, a bright light scanning the waters. Sydney instinctively yelled, “Over here, we’re over…” Carlos lunged and covered her mouth, knocking her underwater for a moment. “Be quiet! We have no idea who they are!”

  Sydney was stunned but realised he was right. It didn’t matter, the search light was on them and the boat eased over carefully as the two bodies and the boat got tossed around in the surf. It deftly rotated around and a ladder swung down between the two outboard motors that shut down so they could safely board. Sydney grabbed the ladder and hauled herself up, assisted by two pairs of hands on the boat.