Chapter 9

The next few months went by in a rush of business, hospital visits, the odd Weed Run, and life in general. Al and I were regulars on the Weed Runs, with Cate coming along occasionally, with Angelique looking after Jenny.

Pablo and Antonio were good contacts, telling us a lot about life on the island. It was their sales of weed that allowed them to live above subsistence. We discovered that the cigars came from the Party Headquarters, with some going missing before the final delivery.

The disappearance of the gang had caused a big shake-up in the hierarchy. Santa Marta remained independent of the others, and Pablo passed us a letter, one meeting, which we opened when we got home. It asked if we could supply medicine, and listed what was needed. They could pay in US Dollars, now that there were places on the island that accepted them from the tourists. When we sent it on to Ward, he was very happy, and we had a delivery from him before our next trip.

Al sent the message through his contacts with what we would bring, and how much it would cost. We were only going to supply smaller amounts as we didn’t want to flood the market and get the attention of the Cuban police. At least some trips out would be without the constant smell of the weed. I was happy that neither of the brothers had taken it up.

Herb was taking his time getting well. There were worries about his lung collapsing, and he needed more micro-operations to inject powdered glue to keep the lung attached to the thoracic wall. He did make great strides once that was overcome, and Al would spend days at a time with him at Homestead, getting them both fit. When she could, Cate would go to Homestead to visit, sometimes for days at a time. Angelique would help with Jenny if I was needed to be out with clients.

Eventually, we were contacted from someone above Ward’s pay grade. We had a meeting in Homestead, with the two of us and the brothers. We were shown pictures of a ship that they had ‘found’. It had belonged to a treasure hunter, and was fitted with davits to lower a submersible, as well as a full set-up for divers, both scuba and deep dive. All of a sudden, I found that I had a certificate in deep diving, as Nikki Armstrong, but would need to go to Pendleton to take a sign-off dive with the SEALs.

When we asked about the cost of the ship, we were told that we would lease it, with our contract having payments to cover the lease. It was typical spook wheels within wheels. The thing was that the ship needed a crew that was more than just us, and also was too big to be anywhere other than Miami. We would be allocated a mooring in the Marina, next to the Bayside Market, among the dive charters and tourist ships. A crew would be supplied from a ‘work hire company’ when we were going out and would ensure that the ship was maintained.

So, we would take our trainees through basic diving at Geiger, then do some shallow dives off the Keys. After that, we would take them into deeper water and get them trained in deeper water dives. The ship had all the gear for that, including a decompression chamber if anything went wrong. The more we learned, the more it looked as if the operation was bigger than Ward had suggested, and that the two of us were really only being employed in a teaching role.

That was all right with us, as we carried on living as normal people, now with Al living with me at the business, and Cate taking Jenny and moving all of her things to stay with Angelique and Herb after he came home. The two of them would come to us when we had work to do, and Angelique looked after Jenny. For me, it was a wrench to have my daughter somewhere else, but it all added to our cover. A cover that was becoming more real with every passing day.

The night we delivered the first medicines, there was another man with Pablo and Antonio. He gave us the money and checked the goods before shaking our hands. He was just called ‘The Doctor’ and told us that Santa Marta would become the place to live once the hospital started getting better equipped. As time went on, we shipped more weed for the normal cigars, medicines for money, and even some pieces of equipment as a donation to the hospital.

We started to take more delivery trips, cutting back on tourist charters, and also equipping the ‘Lucky Lady’, now moored in Miami. We had started training divers, well, agents who needed dive training and were not going to show up at Navy schools. About a year later, ‘The Doctor’ met us again on one of our runs and told us that he had been visited by a Party Inspector, who had been amazed at the way the hospital was now being run, as well as the lack of dissention from the Santa Marta township.

“He told me that if we knew Yankees who were happy to break the Embargo, he, and Havana, would turn a blind eye, and for you not to be caught by the Coast Guard.”

“So, if we turned up in Havana with a ship full of banned goods, he’ll set up a marching band and give us the keys to the city?”

“Not yet, who knows what happens later. For now, just keep up the good work. My patients pray for you, every night.”

When we reported this to Ward, he got back to us with approval to buy a marlin boat, and we did so. When we took ownership, we four sailed it to Miami, to be worked over with upgraded radar and a location beacon. Our dive boat ‘crew’ would take it over, leaving us to fly under the radar with our 320. Angelique drove up to take us home.

On our next trip, we asked to be given a comprehensive list of medical equipment that needed replacing. Ward told us the bigger ship would take that, as long as it could get in closer to the Cuban coast, off Santa Marta. This would be the first time we had been inside their territorial waters. He told us that we would let the other ‘crew’ make the trip. We spoke to Pablo, a few weeks later, and he came back to us with the news that the Party was going to pull any patrols on the following Friday night. He would organise a small flotilla to transport the goods to the shore, with the marlin boat no further than ten miles offshore.

We took our boat out and tracked the marlin boat at a distance, staying on our side of the line while watching it continue towards Santa Marta. We were on tenterhooks until we saw it moving again in the early hours. When it had come withing ten miles of us, without any other radar returns, we headed home.

This was the turning point of the operation. The Agency now had a way to get within an inflatable ride from the Cuban shores, with total support from the Party. The marlin boat now took all the runs, and we were busy with the dive training when the crew were available. I didn’t know what they were transporting into Cuba. I knew that there were a lot of superseded medical supplies being conveniently ‘lost’, and the crew would sometimes let slip what else they were taking while on the dive trips.

From those conversations, we found that the marlin boat was taking old laptops, car parts for the old American cars that were a feature on the island, and general household items. If the original plan was to get the general population riled up to overthrow the Party, then it had failed completely. The odd time we would do a weed run, Pablo would tell us about how much better life was in Santa Marta, and that the Party officials were happy that the Yankees were helping them. If anything, the shipments had made the population of a small area even less upset with the Party, as long as the Party kept out of their hair.

It was on one of the weed runs that Pablo brought a stranger with him. Carlos was from Matanzas and wanted us to start supplying them with medical supplies. After the gang had conveniently ‘disappeared’ the various factions in the town had grouped together to be more democratic. They had been given some surplus items from Santa Marta and wanted to be part of the trade. Carlos told us that he was a Party member, but there were many in the Party who realised that you cannot rule by fear alone.

We set up a meeting with Ward, who took the suggestions upstairs. We had been given a list of things that Carlos wanted, and we were sent a shipment of the items, as a straight donation to show our trust. We sent a message to Pablo and set up a trip. This time, things were so much different from our early days.

The 320 was loaded with goods, and I sailed, with Al, in the late afternoon, towards Matanzas. Close to midnight, we entered the Matanzas harbour, following a route we had been told. It was testing our bravery as we passed the oil depot, and we came alongside a small jetty, almost within sight of the Muelle Puerto Government Office.

Our goods were unloaded and taken to trucks, with Carlos overseeing the transfer. We gave him a list of things that the Cuban community had asked for; foodstuffs that had been banned, mementos of the country, chocolate bars, and the like. He told us that it would take the next day to put the things together and invited us to stay until the next evening. We made sure that the 320 was secure and he took us to the Hostel El Asere, or the Dude Hostel, where we were shown to a room.

When we woke up, we were shown the communal kitchen, where breakfast was being cooked. Nobody asked us who we were, or what we were here for. After breakfast, we strolled along the road towards the town, stopping at the Castillo de San Severino Museo de la Ruta del Esclavo, or the Slave Museum. It was fascinating and we had lunch there before going back to the Hostel.

Carlos had left a message that he would pick us up in the middle of the afternoon, so we relaxed in the hostel lounge until he came for us. Back at the boat, it was a hive of activity as we opened up to store all the items that he had collected for us. The tanks were refilled from a truck, and we were all ready to go by six. Carlos, and some new friends, gave us hugs as we boarded to sail back to Florida. It had been a very strange experience. We rang our contacts in Key West and were told to head for the Marina on the north-west side of town, where the Fort Meyers ferry docked, rather than the Harborside Marina.

When we arrived, we were met by a guy in a speedboat, who guided us to a dock where we moored. There were people waiting for us to unload, and the job was very quick. One of Al’s friends told us that we were true angels for bringing the things that the community missed. His wife took charge of us after the unloading. We locked the 320 and she drove us to the Marker Hotel, where we were shown a room and given toiletries.

The next morning, we were taken back to the boat, to cast off and head home. It had been a strange experience, being feted on both sides. When we had moored at home, we got onto the internet and emailed Ward with a report of everything that had transpired. We scanned the list that Carlos had given us of all the things that his town needed, along with a letter, on Party letterhead, that agreed to look the other way whenever we wanted to go to Matanzas.

This altered the entire concept of the operation. With Agency help, we all moved to Miami, near Homestead. Cate had a house big enough for her and Herb, and a granny unit where Angelique lived. Jenny transferred to a junior school in the area and made new friends. Al and I had an apartment near the Coconut Grove Marina, and we had two moorings. One was for the 320, and the other had a bigger boat already moored. It was a seventy-foot Striker, with a flying bridge, modern radar, and a lot of space. We were told that it was seized from a drug trafficker and was ours to use as we wanted. The main advantage was that it was able to do the trips to Cuba and back without need to refuel, and that the original cabin interior was already stripped to carry baggage.

Both houses in Geiger and Key West were sold, with a local taking over the dive and fishing business. We were all now semi-official members of the Agency. Cate and Herb were now working with the ‘Lucky Lady’, training divers, with her adding a deep-water certificate to her submersible driving one. That left Al and me to carry on with the Matanzas runs. We would leave Coconut Grove empty, load up from trucks at Black Point, near the Homestead base, and then sail directly to Matanzas, now mooring at the Capitania de Puertos, a Government Office where Carlos was boss. It was only a short walk into the city, with a shopping mall and hotels. We started to stay over two nights, having travelled during the day, with the Striker being reloaded, then sailing back the next morning, to be unloaded in Key West.

This made every trip almost a full week away from home. We settled into a routine of doing two trips a month, almost like a regular delivery service. We took surplus equipment and brought back Cuban food, cigars, chocolate and other items.

Al and I married in Key West, with a full church of friends and relatives. Jenny was the Flower Girl, and Herb was Best Man. Cate was my bridesmaid, and it must have stirred something with her, as she and Herb married a month later, with her already pregnant with their child.

We lived like this for another five years, until our Government finally lifted the Embargo, and our services were no longer needed. That was a worry, for a while, but Ward assured us that we would all remain on the Agency books, and that we could continue to train divers until something else came up. The ‘lease’ on the marlin boat was discontinued, and it was taken down to Key West to be put on the market. The 320 was sold to a film star in Fort Lauderdale, after we had removed the locator and reworked the gun storage into a fish cooler storage.

It was a surreal time when the four of us were flown to Havana, to be part of a ceremony put on by the new, moderate, leader of the Party. I doubted that Al and Herb would have thought that one evening, they would have a medal of honour pinned on their chests by the Cuban President. Cate and I were given medals on sashes, all to honour our small part in improving the stability of the island, through the supply of needed medicines and other things. Neither Ward, nor the marlin boat crew, could attend, being officially CIA.

We all spent a week in Cuba, being taken to Matanzas and Santa Marta, where we were given the equivalent to the keys of both towns. Carlos was now the chief administrator of both towns, and Pablo was part of the administration of Santa Marta. We were taken to lunches by both hospitals, where four wards were renamed as the ‘Cook Wards’, two in each hospital. It was a wonderful time, but we needed to go back to Florida.

We kept the Striker in case we needed it for future work, being able to go longer distances. Al and I set to work returning the main cabin to leisure boat condition, and we would take it out with some of our Cuban friends for a day of fishing. It took a year before we got our next assignment. It was, at first, a move to a new home, with the Striker moored in a new Marina.

Our new home was a small house on Hillgrove Street, and the Marina was called the Seaview Marina. Both were in Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos, in the Turks and Caicos group. We flew there to take the keys of the house and set it up. We loaded the Striker with all of our personal things and made our farewells to Cate, Herb, and my daughter.

We sailed via the Bahamas, and the West Indies, taking our time. Being a British Overseas Territory, it was almost like coming home for me, as I had been there before, when one of the destroyers I was on had visited. It was nice to buy a few of the products I had missed while living in Florida. Unfortunately, my tastes had changed, and the first jar of Marmite went in the bin after the first breakfast.

Our job would be to run supplies to a tiny jetty at Port Pwent-Zwazo, on the island of Tortuga, just off the north coast of Haiti. The items were mainly small-arms and ammunition, as well as medical supplies, destined for the group wanting to become the next proper government of the country. The country had been without an operating government for some years, and armed gangs had taken control of a big part, mainly the bigger towns. We were just a small part of the plan, with a lot smuggled in from the Dominican Republic, across the border between the two countries.

Our part of the plan would be a tiny supply route, but into an area that the gangs hadn’t managed to take over, being too remote and small. Our shipments would be used in training on Tortuga, so that the next step would be the ‘invasion’ of the north coast of the main island. We had to buy a truck to transfer the boxes of arms from the airport near our home, to the Striker.

Whenever we sailed from Caicos to Tortuga, we both changed into fatigues on the way, and made sure we were fully prepared to withstand any attacks. Our destination was only ten kilometres from the mainland, and we wanted to get home again. The trip was a bit over two hundred kilometres each way, so we would leave in the very early morning to arrive at our destination in the dark, then be on the way back by dawn.

We got into a routine, making a dozen trips a month, for almost five years. We had a short break until the ‘rebels’ took control of Cap Haitian, which allowed us to deliver directly to the mainland. Like the Cuban plan, it was very long term, and it took until we were getting close to sixty before the country was stabilised enough to hold elections.

Another year later, we flew from the Caicos to Port Au Prince to be part of the swearing-in ceremony for the new President and government. Again, we had medals presented to us as appreciation for our part in making history, along with several hundred others. When we got back to Caicos, we were contacted by our new controller, Ward having retired some years before.

As far as the Agency was concerned, we had done our part for democracy, and the future was ours to live as we wanted. There would be funds to allow us to relocate and set up a new home, and pensions to follow. So, we said our goodbyes to all the friends we had made on Caicos, loaded the Striker with our personal items, once again, and sailed it back to Miami, where our loved ones were.

Angelique had passed on, and both Herb and Cate had passed control of the ‘Lucky Lady’ to new instructors, with the boat now stationed at the Naval base in San Diego. Jenny was now in her early forties, and a respected surgeon in Orlando; married to a politician and with three children of her own. Cate and Herb had produced another two children, both of which hardly knew their Uncle and Aunt.

We got an apartment nearby and settled into a quiet life. We were still feted by the Cuban community, with fishing trips the Striker did so well. It was pleasant just to be us, and to enjoy life. I had lived an interesting life, from sending cruise missiles to the Kremlin to taking part in the stabilisation of both Cuba and Haiti. That I had to ‘die’ as far as the world was concerned, and to reemerge as Nikki, a woman, was just part of it all.

I loved Al, my husband, as much as any normal woman. Although we hadn’t had children, we could now spoil our grand-nephews and nieces. Jenny never knew that I had been her father. In the end, it didn’t alter our relationship. She had grown up, thinking that her Auntie had been doing serious work for the government, and that was enough for us.

I often wondered what I would have done had I not been chosen to join Yuri on his yacht. I doubt that it would have been half as exciting, or as dangerous. I had my life changed when I was knocked overboard from that Palma ferry. It had changed again when the ‘man’ had been chucked overboard so that the woman could emerge. I had enjoyed being a woman, loved being able to dress well and look good, even if it took more time than Al to get ready.

There was one thing about my life that dominated my time as a woman. It was that I was able to appreciate what changes we were making to the lives of people less free than us. It was a feeling of satisfaction in making others happier that I would never have felt without the new hormones. If nothing else, being a ‘Man Overboard’ had made me a better person.

Marianne Gregory © 2024