The young couple sat quietly,
barely breathing and hidden in the darkness, as the three swimmers emerged from
the bay. The mid-summer moon was
obscured by clouds and an evening fog brought a chill in the air as it progressed
off of the bay toward the small California town of Sausalito, barely a mile
from where Karen Kaplan and her boyfriend, Army Specialist Mike Wolters hid.
Alarmed,
Karen whispered “Mike. Who are those
men?”
“Sshhh. I don’t know,” he replied equally alarmed and
quietly.
Waves washed
over the rocky surface then receded, mingling with the rumbling of an
occasional vehicle on the bridge above to create competing rhythms and across
the bay, past the well-lit federal penitentiary on Alcatraz, the midnight
lights of San Francisco twinkled in the distance.
The
men appeared to be exhausted as they crawled over the rocks at the water’s edge
and after the last one made it out of the water, pulled out by the others, he
turned, kneeled down and pulled a knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbed
a small brown raft to deflate it then tossed it back in the bay.
Karen
started to crawl out from under the blanket they shared until Mike put his hand
on her shoulder to stop her. “Where are
you going?” he quietly asked as he turned toward her.
“I’m
going to get our clothes. We need to get
dressed.”
“No. They’ll see you. We need to stay here under the
blanket….quietly.”
The
three men all wore baggy grey slacks and shirts with black shoes and although
they were cold and wet, they moved with strength and agility as they hastened
over the slippery rocks and into the brush along the hillside. About thirty yards from where Karen and Mike
were hid under their blanket, the men settled behind a large boulder and removed
their wet clothes. Karen and Mike heard
the men talking as they beat their wet clothes against the rocks but could not
make out all that was said. While not
full sentences, they did manage to overhear a few terms like ‘hold up,’ ‘Need a
car,’ and ‘Alaska.’
“Shit!
Karen, those men are convicts. They must
have escaped from Alcatraz,” whispered Mike as he looked over his shoulder,
wide eyed at Karen.
“Oh
my god. That’s impossible,” Karen
slipped further under the blanket.
They
remained quietly under the blanket….watching.
Mike felt Karen shiver, whether from the cold of being naked or from
fear he didn’t know, but he pulled her closer to him to share the warmth of
their body heat.
“Mike. I want to get dressed….and I’m scared.”
“I
know. I’m scared too but we can’t move
or they will see us. If they are
convicts, I don’t want to have to face them.”
The
men remained for about thirty minutes.
They tore the identifying marks
off their shirts and trousers before they put their prison uniforms back
on and scurried up the hill toward California State Route 1. When the men were out of sight the couple
hustled back to the secluded sandy beach area about twenty yards from where
they had hid to where they had carelessly removed and tossed their clothes earlier.
As
they nervously dressed Mike cautioned Karen, “You can’t tell anybody what we
saw tonight.”
“Huh? Why?
If they’re escaped convicts we have to tell the police.”
“Karen. Think about this. People will want to know what we were doing
here. You’re only seventeen and I’m
nineteen. I will get in trouble with the
Army. And, I’m supposed to ship out next
week. If we tell anybody that will all
get changed. Our whole plan for when I
return in a year will be wrecked. We
need to keep this a secret, at least until you’re old enough.”
Karen
pulled on her blue mod shorts and while standing on one foot, slipped on one
loafer then shifted to the other foot and thoughtfully replied, “Yea. I guess you’re right. We would both get in trouble wouldn’t we?”
“Yes…we
would,” replied Mike as he pulled on his Bermuda shorts. “It’s better if we just stay out of it. Agreed?
They’ll probably be caught in a day or two anyway.”
Mike
watched Karen as her face lit up with a mischievous smile and happy eyes. He smiled back and asked, “What are you
thinking?”
She
rose up on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “This will be another of our little secrets.”
Mike took Karen’s hand and helped her up the
hill toward his parked Suzuki motorcycle.
Within a few minutes, they were scooting across the Golden Gate Bridge
toward the Presidio where Mike was stationed and Karen lived with her Brigadier
General father.
