BY TERE FIGUERAS

  They were family, friends and neighbors who lived on the same block just outside Havana. For weeks, they labored on a daring secret plan to flee to the United States.

  But even before they set off, suspicious Cuban police got wind of their plan.

  The officers searched the homes of the 12 -- nine men, two women and a child -- looking for oars, a boat, sails, anything that would finger the group as would-be rafters. They found nothing.

  They never thought to look at the truck.

  ''It was right there in front of them,'' said Marcial Basanta López, chuckling as he remembered the heart-stopping search.

  Two days later, Basanta and his neighbors boarded their last hope for a new life: A 1951 Chevy truck, customized for the first-ever road trip across the Florida Straits.

  The image of the battered flatbed -- chugging along on a bed of floating steel drums and powered by makeshift propellers -- captured headlines and imaginations in South Florida and across the country last week. By the time the pictures hit U.S. newspapers and TV networks, the group of 12 -- intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, the ingenious contraption destroyed and sunk in a volley of machine gun fire -- was back in Cuba.

  NOW WORSE OFF

  Now, a week after their return, Basanta told The Herald in a phone call from his home in the neighborhood of San Miguel del Padrón, they have no money, no truck and precious little hope.

  His only comfort: that he lived to tell his wife and two children the tale of the beat-up Chevy and how it came to spend more than 24 hours at sea.

  It began as the fantasy of two men -- Basanta and his childhood friend, Luis Gras -- who drove their beat-up trucks around Havana, doing odd jobs to feed their families.

  The flatbeds were just two of the diesel-powered dinosaurs that travel the streets of Cuba, kept alive by resourceful mechanics who barter parts and scrounge for fuel. For a few bucks, preferably American, Gras would shuttle people or furniture across town in the green Chevrolet.

  Basanta, a 33-year-old former tae kwon do champion who dedicated his youth to winning medals for his country, provided the same shuttle service with his red 1952 Ford truck. A glitch in paperwork, however, put the Ford out of commission and sent Basanta's life into a tailspin.

  ''I went to renew the tag, and they said the papers had disappeared. And I couldn't drive it without documentation,'' Basanta said. ``I couldn't make money.''

  Basanta said he and Gras were trying to think of ways to make a living or leave the island when they hit on the idea of making the properly documented Chevy into a floating flatbed.

  After all, they reasoned, they were veteran tinkerers, with years of practice patching up their ancient trucks. They had certainly heard of Cubans taking to the straits in far less seaworthy vessels.

  ''We also wanted to call attention, to get noticed,'' said Basanta, who said the group hoped that, even if intercepted at sea, the sight of an unsinkable Chevy truck would be novel enough to earn the Cubans a pass into the United States.

  ''So we started getting what we needed, working in secret, hiding,'' Basanta said. A few of their neighbors, equally broke, were brought into the scheme. They began selling their belongings to buy pieces of scrap iron, life jackets and fuel.

  ''We each gave what we could, little by little,'' Basanta said. ``We got someone to make the propellers out of metal, but everything in secret, always.''

  READY FOR VOYAGE

  Two days after the police officers burst in, Basanta, Gras and the rest were ready.

  Gras decided he would take his wife, Ixorita, and their toddler son on the voyage.

  Basanta insisted that his wife and their children, an 11-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, stay behind.

  ''There were concerns about capacity on the truck, but also I felt it was too much of a risk,'' Basanta said. ``I would go over there and work and send money back. That was our hope.''

  Shortly before 3 a.m. July 16, a Wednesday, the green Chevy made its way through the streets of San Miguel del Padrón on its way to a strip of beach.

  ''When we got to the coast, the border guards looked to see if we had a vessel,'' Basanta said. ``All they saw was the truck.''

  They drove past the guards and quickly unloaded segments of the makeshift pontoon -- designed to float the truck above engine-crippling saltwater -- assembled it on the beach, and pushed the truck into the water. It was a few minutes before people on shore noticed.

  ''That's when the guards realized what we were doing,'' Basanta said. ``They ran toward us and shot flare-guns at the truck. But we were already gone.''

  Powered by a propeller attached to the drive shaft and two others mounted on the rear axle, the truck churned the dark waters. No one followed. By daybreak, they were well on their way, seasick but hopeful. Luckily, they had managed to acquire 12 doses of motion sickness medicine.

  `A PERFECT DAY'

  ''The only one of us who wasn't sick injected us with the medicine, one after the other,'' Basanta said. ``The weather was perfect, the truck was running. It was a perfect day.''

  The plan was to hit dry land, pop off the propellers and keep the Chevy going.

  ''They could have driven all the way up here to Lake Worth,'' said Kiriat López, a cousin of Basanta's who lives in Palm Beach County. ``They had enough gas to get to Hong Kong.''

  Basanta agreed: ``We left the tires on. We could have kept going.''

  López, an air conditioning mechanic who arrived eight years ago from Cuba, was expecting them. But after a few days with no word, López and his wife, JoAnn, were consumed with worry.

  ''When we didn't hear from them, I thought they were dead,'' JoAnn López said. 'But Kiriat kept saying, `I know he's alive; I know they're okay.' ''

  Her husband was right. The crew aboard the Chevy was alive -- but by the end of the first day at sea, the Cubans had been spotted by U.S. authorities about 40 miles off Key West.

  A government plane flew over the bright green and yellow flatbed, which was puttering along at 8 mph. A few hours later, two Coast Guard vessels appeared.

  One of the Coast Guard patrol boats pulled alongside the Chevy. A Spanish-speaking officer told the truck's passengers they were trying to enter the United States
  illegally, Basanta said.

  ''Then he said we could do things the easy way or the hard way,'' Basanta said. The presence of Gras' little boy convinced the Cubans not to resist.

  Clinching the deal: Basanta said the Coast Guard officer promised the truck would be towed back to Cuba if the group was repatriated.

  ''We told them the truck was private property, that it was all we had,'' Basanta said.

  Shortly after boarding the Coast Guard vessel, the 12 Cubans were given earplugs.

  ''They told us to cover our ears, that there would be a big noise,'' Basanta said. ``Then they fired at the truck. There was so much fuel aboard it just exploded.''

  CRADLE OF HOPE SINKS

  The group watched as the flaming Chevy sank.

  ''Nos engañaron,'' Basanta said, quietly. They tricked us.

  Lt. Tony Russell, spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami, said he would not speculate about what transpired between the Coast Guard agent and the Chevy passengers. ``But in my experience we are always honest and upfront with migrants to bring them off the vessels in an orderly manner.''

  Towing the Chevy -- either to Cuba or Key West -- would have been out of the question, Russell said.

  ''That vessel is not designed to go to sea,'' said Russell, adding that the lack of lights, save for the headlights, made it a risk to other vessels at night. ``Boats are designed to slide efficiently through the water. [The Chevy] is almost brick-shaped; it wouldn't be an easy pull.''

  A few days into their stay aboard the Coast Guard vessel, Basanta met with a U.S. immigration official. The decision: repatriation.

  By last Sunday, four days after their journey began, the group was dropped off at the port of Cabañas on Cuba's northwestern shore.

  ''We were interviewed by security, and they put us in cars to take us back home. That was it,'' Basanta said. As the cars made their way to San Miguel del Padrón, word spread that the 12 had returned home.

  ''People filled the street,'' Basanta told his cousin, López, over the phone.

  Basanta's wife, Mirlena, opened the door, saw her husband and burst into tears.

  ''Happiness and sadness,'' Basanta said. ``Happy that I wasn't dead, but sad that I was home.''