Meg Green (Chicago Sun-Times): Mr. President, there have been recurring rumors of American soldiers captured when the Bay of Pigs operation failed, and rumors that at least two such prisoners have been executed. What can you tell us about this?
President Kennedy: Im sorry, Meg, Ive agreed not to get into that in public.
Meg Green: Agreed with whom, Mr. President?
President Kennedy: Charley Whaley, I think you were next.
Charles Whaley (Conservative Digest): Mr. President, were any American military personnel taken prisoner during the Bay of Pigs invasion?
President Kennedy: I just answered that.
When pressed for clarification, Presidential Press Secretary Salinger said, Obviously, I have no comment on that. END NOTHING FOLLOWS.
1
I
(One)
Key West, Florida
1430 Hours, 28 November 1961
Tom Ellis had never been on a yacht before, nor had he ever been farther at sea than up to his waist in the waters lapping a Cuban beach. He was a fair-skinned young man, slightly built with light brown hair, who looked to be about seventeen.
He was in fact twenty. He was the sort of pleasant-faced young man whom older people were prone to call son. They seldom did so twice. Tom Ellis did not like to be called son, nor to be thought of as a pleasant young boy, and when that happened, ice came into his eyes, enough to chill whomever he was looking at.
He wasnt sure that Over Draught II was technically a yacht. That word called to his mind the President and Jackie on his sailboat, or that rich Greek and his opera singer on his private ocean liner. Maybe there was a word that he didnt know that properly described a boat like this one. He didnt think it was motorboat . In the end he decided that Over Draught II was indeed a yacht. Yachts were luxurious boats designed for pleasure, not work, and the interior of Over Draught II was as luxurious as anything he had ever seen outside of the movies. The floors were carpeted, and there was a king-size double bed in the teak-paneled master stateroom. To his eyes the main cabin seemed a floating version of a penthouse living room. Set discreetly in a corner was a bar with its own little sink and refrigerator. There were softly upholstered chairs, nice paintings, a twenty-four-inch television, and a stereo.
On the back of the boat, chromo-plated lettering, like the Plymouth FURY or CA-DILLAC Sedan De Ville things you saw on cars, identified the boat as first a Bertram and then as Sport Fisherman 42, which he decided made reference to the length of the boat.
The owner was aboard, a middle-aged, silver-haired man in expensive clothing who looked the sort of guy who would own something like this. The captain had a friend with him who was also middle-aged and tanned. The captain, a good-looking guy of about thirty with blond hair, dressed very casually in washed soft khaki pants and a polo shirt, had introduced him to the owner and to the other member of the crew, who looked like a younger version of the captain. They could have been brothers, Ellis decided. The young blond guy was the mate and Tom Ellis was sailing aboard Over Draught II as the deckhand.
I hope you know how little I know about boats, Ellis told the mate when he was showing Ellis where to put his stuff in the little cabin up front.
No big deal, the mate told him. Were fueled and stocked, and all we have to do is untie her and take her out.
3
4 / W. E. B. Griffin
What if I get seasick?
He was embarrassed to ask the question, but he had long ago learned that it was less embarrassing in the long run to ask embarrassing questions up front than it was to make an ass of yourself later.
Its like a mirror out there today, the mate said. I wouldnt worry about that.
But just to be sure, if you start feeling funny, take a couple of these.
He handed Ellis a small plastic vial. The label said it was Dramamine.
This stuff work?
Ninety percent of the time, the mate said. There are some people who seen determined to get sea sick. It doesnt work on them.
The boat shuddered as the engines were started, one at a time. Ellis looked at the mate with a question in his eyes.
Now well untie her, the mate said with a smile, and motioned Ellis ahead of him out of the little cabin.
When they were on the back of the boat, on what Ellisfor lack of a better wordthought of as the veranda, the mate pointed to the half-inch woven nylon rope tying the boat to the pier.
You handle that, he said. Ill go forward. When Captain Bligh gives the order, you just untie it, bring it aboard, and stow it in the locker.
He pointed to a compartment built in the low wall that surrounded the veranda.
Got it, Ellis said.
If they had told him about this job earlier than they had, Ellis thought, he would have found out something about boats, learned the right words. There were certainly books that he could have looked up in the library. He watched as the mate made his way to the front, nimbly half running along a narrow walkway.
Let loose the lines, fore and aft, the captain called down from the roof of the cabin. Ellis had noticed that the boat had two sets of controls, one up on top and