My forty-foot sloop, Fenian Bastard, was on a starboard tack as Bob and I moved her around Fleming Key from Garrison Bight. The wind was light but filled the jib, and we were doing three knots, without the mainsail, through quiet, clear turquoise water. We rolled the jib in and motored around the narrow channel that took us toward Key West Harbor. Just before the Coast Guard base, we dropped anchor, boarded the inflatable dinghy, and motored toward Conch Harbor, a private marina in Key West Bight. The harbor water was choppy and cold and sprayed us as the dinghy cut along.

The city’s ferry terminal had a large commuter ship berthed. Conch Harbor, across form the terminal, had two yachts, probably one hundred-feet long at its dock. We rode past the marina’s channels and slips toward Key West Bight City Marina, and then turned around.

“Lot of sailboats and yachts,” Bob said, as we made another pass by Conch Harbor.

“Yeah.” I turned the dinghy down the first channel.

Most of the marina’s slips were full and the names and homeports of the boats appeared on their sterns. We slowed down to eye a couple of boats that shared Miami as home. The water was dark and rainbow-colored-gas film floated on sections of it. Some boaters were not careful when topping off fuel tanks and the slimy film floated around the marina for days.

“Big and fast would eliminate the trawlers,” Bob said.

In the second channel, there was a white go-fast, Libertad stenciled on its stern, in one of the slips. I slowed down.

“It’s big and looks fast,” I said.

“It is. You think Doug’s on duty today?”

Doug Bean is the dock master at Conch Harbor and an old sailing buddy. I motored toward the dinghy dock.

“What do you know about go-fasts?”

“They go fast!” Bob laughed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Our world is sailboats and we hadn’t learned – or cared to learn – much about motorboats.

“I thought that was you, anchored offshore.” Doug walked over to meet us at the dock. “Anything wrong?”

Doug wore his thinning sun-bleached hair cut short, his sleeveless marina T-shirt was blinding white, while his old cargo shorts were faded from use, and worn flip-flops covered the bottoms of his feet.

We stayed seated in the dinghy and threw a line to him. His baseball cap could not protect him from the tropical sun and his legs, arms, and face were the color of burnt walnuts.

“The go-fast, Libertad, how long has it been here?”

“Midweek. Something wrong Mick?” He gave me a puzzled look.

“Two Cubans come with it?”

“Three.” Doug tied the line to a cleat. “They come in once or twice a month.”

He looked around and then gave Bob and me a hand up to the dock. As we stood there, he checked the pier again.

“They in trouble?” We shook hands.

“What makes you think that?”

“Hell, Mick, if they ain’t smugglers, no one in this town is.”

“Drugs or people?” Bob said.

“Where’s the easy profit these days?”

“People,” I said.

Smugglers of Cuban immigrants can get as much as $10,000 per person delivered to American soil. With the federal government’s wet-foot/dry-foot policy, Cubans caught on the water are returned to Cuba, while those who reach land are given asylum and a welfare check. There’s only a small risk in smuggling human cargo these days, since family members in the States pay the bill and usually arrange the rendezvous location. Once on land, the Cubans want Immigration officers to find them so they can be processed as quickly as possible. There is little chance that “dry” Cubans will be repatriated. Risk, to experienced smugglers, is minimal, though there have been reports of smugglers leaving passengers in the Florida Straights’ mangrove islands to perish. Smugglers, when caught and tried, face less than two or three years in jail. Inexperienced smugglers – sometimes family members – have gone out without the proper safety equipment and have perished or, possibly, ended up in Cuban jails.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Doug said. “What’s going on?”

We told him how we thought the men were involved in the beating of Tom, but did not mention Lu. Doug identified two of the Cubans from the photos as Jose Lopez and Carlos Gonzales and gave us their Miami marina address. The third man, not in the photos, was Pepe Fernandez. There was little else available since they paid for everything in cash.

I called Richard as we sailed back to Garrison Bight. I told him what we had and he asked me to come to his office, even though it would be dark when I got there. Bob said he didn’t feel comfortable in a police station and left me on my own after we docked.

I called from the slip and Richard, in his police blues, was outside the station when I arrived, and walked me to his office.

“They used their real names,” he said as we walked the empty second-floor corridor. “There are no warrants out for them.”

“There’s a third one,” I said, “Pepe Fernandez.”

“I know.” We entered his office. “You think these guys are villains.” He sat down.

“I know they are,” I took a seat in front of his desk.

Richard sat quietly. He turned his back to me and looked out the window. Small dock lights showed at the slips across the street, and headlight glare splashed along North Roosevelt Boulevard below. Stars shimmered in the black sky and the flashing light on the Navy’s bachelor officers’ quarters building blinked in the distance.

“These guys are well connected in Miami,” he turned toward me. “You’re right, they’re not good guys, but they serve a purpose and you’re not going to like it, but I can’t touch them.”

“You know they did Tom,” I was trying to keep my voice controlled, “and you can’t touch them?”

“If I had the evidence to arrest them, which I don’t, the Feds would come and claim them and that would be that.”

“The Feds are protecting them?”

“Kind of, ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend,’” he said but couldn’t keep a smile. “I ran the names and within a half hour Feds were calling me. Two agents are coming down to explain things.”

I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, these men had found a way for the federal government to protect them in their criminal activities, but what had they done to deserve this protection?

“What agency?”

“What’s the difference? Up there, it’s all one agency. Like a snake with too many heads, it still only has one body.”

“And I’m supposed to accept this? I’ve got outlets that can expose this, it’s what I do for a living.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, again without a smile, “and I’ve been told to tell you that if you don’t leave it alone your race to Havana will be stopped and everyone in it will lose their boats, or at least they will be tied up in the system for years. Walk away and maybe your race will go on without a problem.”

“Sounds like blackmail.”

“Not when the government does it. It’s called good advice.”

“I can’t believe this,” I said, as I stood, “aren’t you angry?”

“I’m made as hell, Mick.”

“And if Tom dies?”

“I’m glad I don’t have to think about that.”

“And what about justice?”

“They told me a bigger justice is being served.”