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concerning it. The first Sanabela had been ripped apart during an ill-timed, ill-conceived plot to carry six Cuban families to Florida in a bid for sanctuary under cover of a tropical storm.
    Luis’s father, Miguel Estrada, had been convinced to challenge nature and the Florida Straits in a bid for ninety nautical miles. But his gamble had ended in death for all aboard—every man, woman, and child gone to the deep. When the younger Estrada named his boat in memory of his father’s vessel, people talked of his tempting fate, and now this. Was the entire Estrada family and all who associated with it cursed?
    Now as they neared the world of Havana, Qui kneeled near the bodies, doing a preliminary examination with gloved hands. The wind had shifted, and her nostrils filled anew with the stench of what was left of the three relatively young-looking, pale-skinned victims. The smell of decaying flesh made it hard to concentrate on processing the scene, setting the ‘grid’ as she’d learned to call it.
    A few breaths, just a few more breaths, and the scent will be less noticeable.
    With both hands, she worked one body loose from the heap and turned it over. With the movement, came an audible poof —an escape of gas—followed by an even louder collective gasp from the crew, many of them crossing themselves. This response sent old Estrada into a minor tirade, shouting at his men. “ Los estupidos ! I must work with imbécils ! This is the dead! They have no power over you! They cannot harm you! Have you never been with the dead, you fools?”
    “I know what my mother and my father taught me,” countered one crewman.
    “The man who goes too near the dead,” began another, “he can be next.”
    “Go with God , ” muttered a third, hurriedly crossing himself.
    The crewmen had huddled at one end of the boat, as far from the dead as possible given the confined space. Estrada jabbed a huge finger and shouted, “What are you fearing, fantasmas , brujas ? Ghosts? Foolish sailors! Superstitious shrimpers —you’ve got no brains, the lot of you!” He pointed to his own head. “God help us. All of you, go put your faces to the sea!” But even Estrada knew that his words fell on deaf ears, that he could not combat the old African gods and ancient religion that was the underpinning of so much of Cuban belief: Santeria and Abukua.
    Qui admired how Luis managed to forego the superstitions common to many. He was a special sort, this man, one who made his own rules and openly complained of government ineptness and cultural mores and what he considered fairytales, despite the danger of doing so. However, Qui wondered how much of his bravado would be suppressed if he were not given protection as a snitch from her Colonel Gutierrez—a fact she’d only recently discovered. How much of his words were for show, as a cover, and how much was true dissent—impossible to say now. Still, his roguish reputation as a scoundrel of sorts, somehow above reproach remained intact. In every way, Luis resembled his independent and daring father. Having heard stories about his father since a child, Estrada now believed he must uphold the family’s honor against his father’s unfair image and infamy.
    Qui looked back to the body she’d earlier focused on. Blond hair lay matted and layered with seaweed, and the blue eyes of this one looked similar to those of a German or American tourist. This victim was perhaps in his late twenties, early thirties. Definitely a foreigner.
    The second male victim also seemed foreign born and of a similar age. Qui then turned her attention on the female victim, who also appeared in the same age range. However, bloating has a way of erasing age lines, and Qui decided that their true ages would be hard to estimate with any accuracy— better left to a forensics expert. A quick body scan showed one of the young woman’s hands had been crudely amputated. Additionally, all three victims showed signs of acid burns, an