Orestes Lorenzo taxied his twin-engine Cessna to the end of the runway at Marathon Airport in Florida, his hands shaking. He was about to fly illegally into Cuban airspace. Gripping his rosary around his neck, he squeezed tightly the medal of Our Lady of Charity.
“Thy will be done, O Lord,” he said aloud as he gripped the controls and pushed the throttles open all the way to full. The engines roared to life.
***
In Cuba, his wife Vicky and two sons walked along a new coast road by the beach. Suddenly Vicky produced some orange hats and vests and had the two boys put them on. As the sun began to dip lower to the horizon, she dragged the confused boys down the highway, away from the city.
“Are you crazy, Mom?” Reyniel protested. “Where are we going?”
“To hunt for crabs,” Vicky said preoccupied.
“Mom, no. Why are we going farther away from home with all the distance we still have to walk?”
“Listen to me!” Vicky said sharply. “Do what I say without arguing! It’s a matter of life and death!”
Reyniel looked up at her shocked. “Okay Mom. Let’s get going!” He said.
Vicky looked back along the road behind them. It was clear that no one was following them. She looked at her watch. It was almost time.
***
After leveling off at 1,000 feet, Orestes flew until he was ten nautical miles north of the twenty-forth parallel. Here, he shut off his navigation lights and his automatic radio transponder. Descending to only a few feet above the ocean, he flew at 240 miles per hour toward Cuba. His propellers kicked up spray from the wave tops that spattered along the length of the fuselage.
“Have they gotten to El Mamey Beach without a mishap?” He worried. “What will I find on the highway, too much traffic? I have to land on the first try and take off before they can shoot us down.”
***
Vicky stopped along the road near a culvert, nearly hidden with tall grass.
“Let’s go down there and look for some crabs,” she said, pointing to the field off by the highway. Silently the boys humored her and scuffed around in the grass for a while in an unsuccessful hunt for crabs.
“We’ll find an elephant here before we find any crabs!” Reyniel said in frustration.
Vicky looked at her watch again and searched the northern sunset sky. “Let’s go,” she said and they climbed back up on the coast road.
***
Orestes could now see the tops of the Pan de Mantanzas Mountains. “The anti-aircraft missiles must have already spotted me,” he thought to himself. The fifteen-minute window with only one minute on the ground and a ten second margin of error – it all began now.
Coming across the bay, he quickly pulled up and flew across the Canimar Bridge. Here, he cut his throttles and let his airspeed drop, banking steeply to the left. His wingtip barely cleared the side of the mountain. He flew just a few feet above the surface of the new coast road, “just like another car.” Unable to see around the bend, he kept the Cessna just above stall speed with his landing gear and flaps down. Coming around the mountainside, Orestes jerked up on the controls to barely fly over two cars. Far ahead, Orestes could see some figures alongside the road dressed in orange. Before he could get there, another car honked and Orestes pulled up, his landing gear just missing the roof of the small white car.
“There they are! It’s them!” He yelled to himself.
Still, there was more traffic. Ahead, a truck was passing a bus just opposite Vicky and the boys. Orestes had to land the plane. He had no time. Alongside the road was a large rock and to his right a traffic sign. In an extremely skillful and rapid maneuver, Orestes barely missed both the rock and the traffic sign. The truck and the bus saw him and jammed on their brakes as Orestes jerked back on the controls as far as he could and stalled the plane. The truck driver stared at him, his eyes popping out of his head.
Vicky was watching the truck and the bus, when seemingly from out of nowhere, the airplane descended right in front of them, “vertically, like a helicopter”.
“It’s Daddy! It’s Daddy!” She screamed, holding the boy’s hands as hard as she could. “Run!”
“It’s Da-a-d!” Reyniel yelled.
“The knapsack, Reyniel, drop the knapsack!”
Reyniel let the knapsack slide off his arm, and he ran as fast as he could, pulling his mother along.
Alejandro faltered for a moment. “My shoe, Mommy, I lost my shoe!”
“Kick off the other one!”
Seeing that the boys and Vicky were running toward him Orestes stomped hard on the left brake and pushed forward the throttle to the right engine. The big Cessna wheeled around, the wingtip, just missing the truck.
“They’re coming, they’re coming! Vicky! My sons! One minute! We can’t wait more than one minute!” Orestes shouted aloud to himself. Reaching backward, he jerked open the door and pulled up the seat.
“Dad!” Reyniel screamed, tearing his hand free from his mother’s grip and he crawled up on the wing.
“Da-ad-dy!”
“Reyniel!” Orestes shouted over the roar of the idling engines.
“I saw a thousand emotions at once in my son’s face, as there must have been in mine. He was crying, shaking, frightened, crazed. He jumped into the backseat and I felt his hand on my shoulder, in my hair … Now Alejandro was by the door. Pale, shocked, happy … petrified. Vicky pushed him in … ‘My Love!’ Vicky screamed hoarsely. Her eyes were very red … In her face were those two years of suffering, which now escaped from her in a flood. She was shaking from head to toe, as we all were. She got in and reached out with her hands to touch my own, exclaiming, ‘Better to risk it all than to be slaves!'”
The clock was ticking. Joyful reunions would have to wait.
“Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me,” Orestes said as he closed the door to the aircraft and turned to his controls. Now, however – there was a major problem. The road went back around the mountainside too soon for him to gain enough airspeed for a takeoff. Orestes nevertheless prepared to go. He had no choice. In less than one minute, they had to be airborne, or risk ground to air missiles from the very mountaintop there in front of them.
Orestes jammed both feet down on the brakes and pushed open both throttles all the way forward, letting the engine’s RPMs come up to full speed. The big Cessna practically leapt forward as Orestes let up on the brakes. The groundspeed slowly increased – 20 MPH – 40 – 60 –. The hillside in front of them loomed, presenting as great a threat to their flight to freedom as all of the missiles in the Cuban air defense arsenal.
“Let’s pray! Let’s pray!” Vicky told the boys.
An airplane the size of Orestes’ twin engine Cessna needs a minimum of 74 MPH to become airborne, but at 70 MPH they ran out of roadway. He had to take off now or crash into the hillside.
“I eased the controls softly, but all the way. The plane lifted painfully over the hillside … and I felt its wings stagger helplessly, as though we were poised on a needle with its point resting on a billiard ball. I knew that I had to be very, very careful with the rudder at this point. If I had the slightest amount of drag from the tail, we would have fallen down, just like that. But the Cessna has two powerful engines on it and as soon as we were airborne and over the hill, the airspeed came up and away we went over the ocean.”
“We did it, you bastards!” Orestes burst out suddenly as Vicky and the boys continued to pray behind him. “We did it!”
It was now dusk and so dark, that Orestes could just barely see the surface of the Caribbean Sea less than ten feet below. At full speed, the Cessna’s airframe shuddered, plowing through the thick air near the surface of the ocean. By now, the order to shoot them down was making its way to the missile installation on the mountaintop behind them. Vicky and the boys sat huddled together in the back seat. Orestes checked his watch. Eleven miles now from the Cuban coastline and the missile crews were already targeting them. Eleven and a half miles and they had the range. Twelve miles – they were slewing the missiles around in preparation to launch. Twelve and a half miles and then – finally – at long last – they were out of range of the missiles.
No longer able to see the surface of the ocean anymore, Orestes climbed to two hundred feet and turned up the cabin lights dimly. If any fighters were scrambled to intercept them, it was already too late.
At 6:02 PM on the evening of December 19th, 1993, Orestes Lorenzo, Vicky, and their two sons Alejandro and Reyniel crossed the 24th parallel and flew into United States airspace unscathed, unhurt and free. Orestes reached back with his hand and felt the many hands of Vicky and the boys behind him.
“We did it! We’re together – together forever!” He exclaimed.
“Forever!” Vicky repeated.
A few short minutes later, the reunited family landed at Marathon Airport in the Florida Keys, where a small group of cheering friends and photographers awaited. Orestes, Vicky and the boys were suddenly celebrities and found their pictures in every major newspaper and magazine all over the world. People everywhere were enthralled with their incredible love story and their daring flight to freedom.
The courageous story of Orestes and Vicky Lorenzo is unique in this world today, where half of all marriages end in divorce and frequently men and women eye each other with suspicion. Their story of undying love reminds us all that there is indeed hope in the world still. It’s like a sudden sweet recollection of a feeling in all of us – almost forgotten but not quite – of what real love is supposed to be all about. It’s a story where goodness triumphs – where truth prevails – and where true love finally does indeed conquer all.
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