Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

PRAISE FOR RANDY WAYNE WHITE AND HIS NOVELS

“What James Lee Burke has done for Louisiana, Tony Hillerman for the Southwest, John Sandford for Minnesota, and Joe R. Lansdale for east Texas, Randy Wayne White does for his own little acre.”

—Chicago Tribune

“White takes us places that no other Florida mystery writer can hope to find.”

—Carl Hiaasen

“White brings vivid imagination to his fight scenes. Think Mickey Spillane meets The Matrix.”

—People

“A major new talent … hits the ground running … a virtually perfect piece of work. He’s the best new writer we’ve encountered since Carl Hiaasen.”

—The Denver Post

“White is the rightful heir to joining John D. Mac-Donald, Carl Hiaasen, James Hall, Geoffrey Norman… . His precise prose is as fresh and pungent as a salty breeze.”

—The Tampa Tribune

“White doesn’t just use Florida as a backdrop, but he also makes the smell, sound, and physicality of the state leap off the page.”

—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“This satisfying madcap fare could go seismic on the regional bestseller lists.”

—Publishers Weekly

“He describes southwestern Florida so well it’s easy to smell the salt tang in the air and feel the cool Gulf breeze.”

—Mansfield News Journal

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, December 1981

First Printing (Author Introduction), April 2008

Copyright (c) New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1981 Introduction copyright (c) Randy Wayne White, 2006

All rights reserved

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eISBN : 978-1-101-53059-7

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For the fish stalkers:

Steve, Hervey, Fize,

Wes, Marsh, and Cajun

Introduction

In the winter of 1980, I received a surprising phone call from an editor at Signet Books—surprising because, as a Florida fishing guide, the only time New Yorkers called me was to charter my boat. And if any of my clients were editors, they were savvy enough not to admit it.

The editor said she’d read a story by me in Outside Magazine and was impressed. Did I have time to talk?

As a mediocre high school jock, my idols were writers, not ball players. I had a dream job as a lighttackle guide, yet I was still obsessed with my own dream of writing for a living. For years, before and after charters, I’d worked hard at the craft. Selling a story to Outside, one of the country’s finest publications, was a huge break. I was about to finish a novel, but this was the first time New York had called.

Yes, I had time to talk.

The editor, whose name was Joanie, told me Signet wanted to launch a paperback thriller series that featured a recurring he-man hero. “We want at least four writers on the project because we want to keep the books coming, publishing one right after the other, to create momentum.”

Four writers producing books with the same character?

“Characters,” Joanie corrected. “Once we get going, the cast will become standard.”

Signet already had a template for the hero. He was a Vietnam vet turned Key West fishing guide, she said, talking as if the man existed. He was surfer-boy blond, and he’d been friends with Hemingway.

I am not a literary historian, but all my instincts told me the timetable seemed problematic. I said nothing.

“He has a shark scar,” Joanie added, “and he’s freakishly strong. Like a man who lifts weights all the time.”

The guys I knew who lifted weights were also freakishly clumsy, so … maybe the hero, while visiting a local aquarium, tripped during feeding time?

My brain was already problem-solving.

“He lives in Key West,” she said, “so, of course, he has to be an expert on the area. That’s why I’m calling. You live in Key West, and I liked your magazine story a lot. It seems like a natural fit.”

Actually, I fished out of Sanibel Island, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, a six-hour drive from Sloppy Joe’s, but this was no time for petty details.

“Have you ever been to Key West?” I asked the editor. “Great sunsets.”

Editors, I have since learned, can also be cagey. Joanie didn’t offer me the job. She had already settled on three of the four writers, she said, but if I was willing to submit a few sample chapters on speculation, she’d give me serious consideration.

Money? A contract? That stuff was “all standard,” she told me, and could be discussed later.

“I’ll warn you right now,” she said, “there are a couple of other writers we’re considering, so you need to get at least three chapters to me within a month. Then I’ll let you know.”

I hung up the phone, stunned by my good fortune. My first son, Lee, had been born only a few months earlier. My much-adored wife, Debra, and I were desperate for money because the weather that winter had been miserable for fishing. But it was perfect for writing.

I went to my desk, determined not to let my young family down.

At Tarpon Bay Marina, where I was a guide, my friend Ralph Woodring owned a boat with Dusky painted in big blue letters on the side. My friend, Graeme Mellor, lived on a Morgan sailboat named No Mas.

Dusky MacMorgan was born.

Every winter, Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus came to town. Their trapeze artists, I realized, were not only freakishly strong, but they were also freakishly nimble.

Dusky gathered depth.

One of my best friends was the late Dr. Harold Westervelt, a gifted orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Westervelt became the Edison of Death, and he loved introducing himself that way to new patients. His son, David, became Westy O’Davis, and our spearfishing pal, Billy, became Billy Mack.

Problems with my hero’s shark scar and his devoted friendship with Hemingway were also solved.

Working around the clock, pounding away at my old black manual typewriter, I wrote Key West Connection in nine days. On a Monday morning, I waited for the post office to open to send it to New York.

Joanie sounded a little dazed when she telephoned on Friday. Was I willing to try a second book on spec?

Hell yes.

God, I was beginning to love New York’s can-do attitude.

The other three writers (if they ever existed) were fired, and I became the sole proprietor of Captain Dusky MacMorgan—although Signet owned the copyright and all other rights after I signed Joanie’s “standard” contract. (This injustice was later made right by a willing and steadfast publisher and my brilliant agent.)

If Joanie (a fine editor) feels badly about that today, she shouldn’t. I would’ve signed for less.

I wrote seven of what I would come to refer to as “duck and fuck” books because in alternating chapters Dusky would duck a few bullets, then spend much-deserved time alone with a heroine.

Seldom did a piece of paper go into my old typewriter that was ripped out and thrown away, and I suspect that’s the way the books read. I don’t know. I’ve never reread them. I do remember using obvious cliches, a form of self-loathing, as if to remind myself that I should be doing my own writing, not this jobof-work.

The book you are now holding, and the other six, constituted a training arena for a young writer who took seriously the discipline demanded by his craft and also the financial imperatives of being a young father.

For years, I apologized for these books. I no longer do.

—Randy Wayne White

Cartagena, Colombia

1

I agreed to become an assassin one blustery windleached day in a Florida March.

Blustery isn’t even the word for it. Those of you who live in America’s northlands don’t hear much about our bad weather—and it’s not because we don’t have our share of it. The Sunshine State’s chambers of commerce become meteorological gestapos when the skies pale and the winds blow foul. It’s not the sort of thing they paste on Indiana billboards, or promote in double-truck ads in the Times. You can even see it on the faces of Florida’s TV weathermen. Their smiles are vaguely apologetic and their eyes dart between storm fronts like unfaithful husbands confessing they have contracted genital herpes. Transplants in Florida consider bad weather an affront, and to fellow tourists they aim silly, accusing barbs like: “Ya musta brought the cold with ya when ya flew down… .”

And as winters go, this had been one of the worst. Cold front after cold front funneled down from the Midwest, roiling the seas with careening winds. The white board shipbuilders’ houses on Duval and Elizabeth Streets stayed shuttered, and the sage of woodsmoke from the rare fireplace drifted across the pirate streets of Key West off and on all winter long. There were the brief winter weeks of eighty-degree temperatures. But just when you thought the bad weather was gone for good, holed up someplace in Ohio where it justly belonged, the blue northers would rage again through the palms and eucalyptus, and those of us on charterboat row would cluster around mugs of hot coffee at the Kangaroo’s Pouch and eye our empty boats sourly.

As Captain Gainey Maxwell of the Lookout II put it one bleak January morning, “Boys, I’ve come ta believe that the only thing that stands between Key West and the winds o’ Canada is a piddly line of mangroves and a barbed-wire fence someplace in Iowa.”

It was that kind of winter.

And when the seas are eight to ten feet outside the reef, there isn’t much for a bluewater fishing guide to do. It didn’t bother me as much as it did some of the others. They had wives and kids and mortgages to worry about. But not me—not any longer. My family, my world, had been wiped out in another lifetime. The drug pirates had seen to that. Balmy summer nights in the tropics are for love and long walks and—for little boys—time to play with their adoring father. Murderers don’t plant ignition bombs in cars when the nights are star-blazed and the winds blow sweet and warm out of Cuba, and explosions don’t scatter bits of the well-loved across lawns and vacation sidewalks.

It just doesn’t happen. Not on balmy summer nights, it doesn’t.

And the winters in Florida are never, ever cold.

Right …

So I was alone, alone in a volatile winter—my first in the little house built on stilts a mile from the nearest land in the shallow water off Calda Bank. The house had been built to ice-store fish until the lighter boats could get around and pick them up for transport into Key West. Now, fifty years later, I had converted it to a bachelor home—as close as I could get to living in the sea that I loved, and as far away from the memories of Key West as I could manage without leaving altogether.

On that blustery March day I was suffering a case of the blahs. Too much wind and too much cold weather, and much too little exercise. I had awakened as always just before first light. A black north wind was rattling the windows and seeping through the cracks in the floor. Beneath my double bed I could hear a nasty cross chop washing around the pilings, and the strange gray light beyond the window told me it would be another rainy dawn. I shook off the urge to crawl back under the covers and sleep the morning away.

I had been sleeping too many mornings away. When the winds blow foul, you don’t charter. And lately, with charters canceled, I had been doing a damn good impression of the typical suburban male animal who thinks boredom can be cured by eating too much and drinking too much, and wallowing in the gray confines of his own despair.

It’s a cycle as easy to fall into as it is vicious. The longer you put off the training program, the diet, and the mental discipline, the easier it is to forget how the human machine is supposed to feel—how brain and body are supposed to harmonize in the fail-safe routine of hard work tempered with such well-deserved luxuries as cold beer.

And the moment you forget is the moment you are lost. You become only a dull brain governing the flabby remnant of your own humanity. The only place those two chubby legs are going to carry you is toward a rest-home rendezvous.

And I wasn’t about to let it go that far.

I threw back the brace of wool Navy-issue blankets. The boards of the stilthouse floor were cold against my bare feet. In the weak dawn light, I nursed the squat Franklin stove to flame, then put coffee on to boil. Outside, March clouds scudded beneath stars in the waning darkness. Across Florida Bay, beyond Miami, the coming sun was a leached white, and slate waves feathered beyond my dock.

I urinated and then walked down the rickety stairs to where my thirty-four foot charterboat, Sniper, was moored. Dammit, if it was going to be another nasty day in Florida, for once I was going to face it head-on. Naked, I forced myself not to shiver. This was the day I would jerk myself out of the rut. How long had I been letting myself go? My Irish friend Westy O’Davis had left months ago for the Caymans, where—when he wasn’t playing secret service agent for the United Kingdom—he passed the days teaching pretty tourist ladies how to scuba dive. And then that beautiful woman, that fine person, Saxan Benton had finally written me off as a hopeless loner and returned north to pursue her botany studies. It was what the soap-opera people might term an inadequate parting scene….

“Dusky, you know why I’m leaving. I have my own life to think about… .”

“I know.”

“And I have the feeling that no matter how much you might come to love me, you would still be tied to your past.”

“I know.”

The lovely model’s face had twisted, her composure shattered, and a trembling hand had brushed auburn hair away. “Dammit, don’t just stand there like a dumb hulk! You know I care for you. You know I’d rather stay, if you could just … just … dammit, Dusky, do you understand what I’m trying to say!”

“I understand, Saxan. The boat’s ready. I’ll take you back to Key West now.”

So I had spent the winter alone. People call it boredom, but it’s really self-pity. I had taken some strange masochistic joy in eating too much and drinking too much, watching myself get slack and slow. When the damnable wind settled enough, I chartered, as always, out of Garrison Bight. And when the northers set in, I retreated to my stilthouse upon the sea to read and listen to night voices around the world on my Transoceanic shortwave … and mope.

I had made some false starts getting back into shape. Those are danger signals—when you start, then allow yourself to stop. A Texas friend of mine named Treadwell has a saying: If you can’t profit from adversity, then you damn well deserve to suffer.

Now was the time to end my winter suffering.

The March wind that dawn had a razor edge to it. I stood, hands on bare hips, facing it. Half a mile away, I could see the fitful blinking of the white four-second navigation marker off Fleming Key. There was a gray corona of light haloing Key West, then tailing away eastward along the overseas highway like a comet’s tail. My hands tugged experimentally at the fat I had let settle on stomach and sides. I hacked, spit with disgust, then went back inside and poured myself a mug of black coffee. I use a fiftyfifty mix of espresso and regular grind. I drank it quickly, burning the sleep, the fogginess, the laziness away.

Today’s the day, MacMorgan. You’ve gorged yourself and slept the winter away. Now winter’s over, no matter what that bastard north wind says. One more false start and you may never start again… .

The roof of my stilthouse is covered with tin and braced with stout Florida heart pine. I washed my coffee mug, put it away neatly. I took a deep breath, then jumped up and grabbed the middle beam. When I’m in shape, when I have my weight down to two-oh-five, I can do thirty-six backhanded pull-ups. When you spend your boyhood in the circus, working the trapeze two shows a day—plus a morning practice session—your shoulders and arms develop a lot faster than your vocabulary. But I wasn’t in shape now. And I was twenty pounds over my best weight. I huffed and puffed and trembled and shook, and twenty-four pull-ups was the best I could do.

Disgustedly, I jerked a towel from the shelf and went outside to Sniper, mopping my face.

Dammit, MacMorgan, you may have let it go too long this time. Maybe that’s what you really want to be: just one more overweight, middle-aged American; just one more flaccid face in the crowd….

I reached above the wheel and the chrome gleam of twin throttles and snapped on my new Horizon VHF. Channel 16 was as empty as the March dawn.

“Fred Astaire, Fred Astaire, this is the charterboat Sniper, Whiskey Foxtrot Lima 7739, over.”

I gave it two minutes, then repeated the call. Finally, the VHF answered me: “Vessel calling the Fred Astaire, this is the Fred Astaire. Channel sixty-eight, Dusky?”

“Switching six-eight.”

I could picture Steve Wise aboard his floating hulk of a Houseboat, Fred Astaire. He’s dockmaster at my marina, and a popular man with the tourist ladies around Key West. When he’s not having a party, he’s usually enjoying a more private form of entertainment. More than one vacationing Midwesterner has caught the flight out of Key West with a flush on her face and a smile on her lips. And frankly, I felt kind of bad about waking Steve Wise up so early.

He didn’t seem too pleased about it either. After we had both switched channels, he said, “Dusky, old buddy, old pal, it’s not quite six a.m. by the lady’s wristwatch I can see on the counter by this VHF. I hope you have a good reason for calling me out of my warm bed a full hour before I have to start dealing with the rest of the crazy charterboat captains…. Over.”

“Stevie, you’d have a dull life without us, and you know it.”

“Yeah? Well, the young blonde who sleeps yonder in my master stateroom has been begging me to give it a try. She wants to stay aboard for the summer and go cruising across to the islands…. Over.”

“And you don’t have the heart to tell her that that floating strumpet parlor of yours doesn’t have a healthy engine in it. Right?”

He was still chuckling as he transmitted. “Hey, keep your voice down. People monitor this channel. So, what’s your business, captain? Now that I’m up, I don’t see any sense in wasting the rest of the morning…. Over.”

“Just wanted to officially cancel today’s charter. Tell Dr. Taylor of Baltimore that we’ll have to try it his next time through Key West. I’d have called you later, but I’m going to be busy. It’s such a pretty day I’m going to go for a long swim…. Over.”

“What? Oh yeah, sure, Dusky, sure. Winds gusting to thirty knots, seas eight to ten feet, and you’re going for a swim. Right. By the way, that bald friend of yours was at the marina yesterday. Said he wanted to see you. He must have got in touch, huh? Over.”

I thought for a moment. My bald friend? It could be only one person—Colonel D. Harold Westervelt. And no, he hadn’t gotten in touch with me. But if he had reason to see me he would—you could bet the bank on that. And he would have a damn good reason for seeing me. D. Harold doesn’t leave his private orbit of discipline and work capriciously.

It could mean only one thing.

A mission. And if ever there was a time in my life when I wasn’t fit for a mission, it was now.

“Yeah, that’s right. He contacted me,” I lied. “And if he stops back, Steve, tell him I’ll be in touch.” We chatted on a few minutes, trading good-natured barbs, and then signed off. I adjusted the squelch and turned the volume up full so that if someone tried to get in touch with me I could hear it in the house.

D. Harold Westervelt. We were similar byproducts of two very, very different wars. His was the world conflict where men died for a reason. Mine was the Asian exercise in political lunacy where the mealy-mouthed fat cats used us as pawns. Still, neither of us had been able to leave our wars behind us. For years I had thought that his only official capacity was that of weapons inventor for the United States military. Later, after the murder of my family had led to my being retained by a federal agency to help expedite its private wars, I learned that his unique genius was being used for much more than just unusual weaponry.

Even so, I was surprised that it was Colonel Westervelt who was trying to get in touch with me. My usual contact was an old acquaintance from Nam, one Stormin’ Norman Fizer. I put the coffeepot on the little Franklin stove so it would stay hot as I thought about it. Why Westervelt? Why not Fizer, as it had been on the other missions? Did that mean it was more important—or less important? Or maybe it wasn’t a mission at all; maybe D. Harold just wanted to say hello.

No, the key phrase was “That bald friend of yours was at the marina.”

And Colonel D. Harold Westervelt doesn’t “just happen” to stop by anyplace. He plans his days of exercise and work like a human computer, allowing himself only a few well-loved recreations like classical music and growing orchids.

It had to be a mission.

Still naked, I strapped on my Randall attack-survival knife. A long swim at open sea is not without its hazards. Outside, the gray March wind blew the tops off waves. Frigate birds soared in the high distance, omens of a storm. I stood on the dock and looked out toward the blinking navigation light a half mile away. That would be my destination—there and back. I did about five minutes of stretching, waiting for the sun. But it never arrived. Morning was to be a pallid slash in the east.

Another nasty winter’s day in Vacation Land.

But at least I was facing this one head-on. And there was the promise of a mission. Later, I was sure, D. Harold would offer it to me in intricate, calculated detail. Infiltrate what, attack where, and maybe kill whom. It didn’t matter. I’d accept. Because lately I’d been doing too good a job at slowly killing myself.

2

When the human machine has had a long and fattening vacation, the first sign of physical activity makes it whimper. It whimpers and pleads and begs you to stop. The lungs whistle, the throat burns, the heart pounds within its fleshy cage like an animal gone mad. The body is sending you a message. A false message. It’s telling you that no way, no how, can it do any more, go any farther. But it’s a lie. You can always do more. You can always find a way of going on.

My machine began its protest a quarter mile from the stilthouse—only halfway to the marker. The shoulders began to ache, and the lungs began complaining about the amount of oxygen I was burning. The cramping of hips and legs suggested that I was out of fuel. And that’s when the brain turns traitor—because it too has become soft, lost its disciplined edge.

There’s always tomorrow. Turn here and swim back to the stilthouse. After all, a half-mile swim in stormy seas is a pretty good workout. And you can go farther tomorrow—or the next day, or the next….

It’s a critical moment in the dreary process of getting back into shape. You can heed the message and give up. After all, that’s what most people do. Or you can lock in on the cold-sober brain-whisper: to stop is the loser’s game; the winners go on and on, always and forever.

It’s a decision the world-class athlete makes every day of his or her life.

And you know what their decision always is—because they’re the ones you see in national championships. Or the Olympics.

So I stopped momentarily, sculling in the thrust of green sea, feeling the north wind blow spray across my face. Behind me the stilthouse looked invitingly close. Smoke angled out of the tin chimney, dissipating in the wind. Ahead was the white flash of marker—too far away to see that it was green, or that it was number 13 of the Garrison Bight channel way. I sighed, vectored in on the marker, and forced the arms to pull onward, swimming up one side of a wave and sliding down the other.

So I played the game. It is a game I learned when I was young. And all my life, when the going gets tough, I’ve played it. An old circus escape artist, Julian Ignazio, taught it to me.

“Always remember, Henry MacMorgan, that while it is impossible to separate body from brain, it is possible to separate brain from body. You must watch yourself as if from above. Coldly, objectively. You are the spirit. The body is nothing more than a machine. By removing yourself, you can command the machine precisely, with a minimum expenditure of energy. Believe me, my boy, it takes practice. Only with daily meditation can you make it a dependable fixture of self. With me—especially in my submerged escapes—it is a way of life. Without the ability to remove brain from body, I would have drowned long, long ago… .”

So I played the game.

I tried to see myself as if from above. Naked man swimming through green morning storm sea. His shoulders ache, but the pain is not as important as the goal. His breathing is labored, yet there is air aplenty. His leg muscles are cramping, but all he must do is relax and command them to carry on.

The game was difficult at first. My body kept jerking the drifting mind back to earth, rubbing the mind’s nose in the pain of the long swim.

I hadn’t been doing my morning meditations. When you are feeling good you always come to believe that you no longer need the fifteen minutes alone in your own brain.

And you are always, always wrong.

So it was tough. But finally I could thrust my body away for longer and longer expanses of time. And then it didn’t matter, because the marker was only a few hundred yards away. The body had found its place again; found its rhythm as a machine. The lungs felt better; the cramps and knots had worked themselves out.

Dutifully, I swam on toward the loom of the light tower. And when I was near enough, I adjusted my course so that I was down-sea of it. The pilings were barnacle-covered, and the last thing I wanted was to be washed into it.

It was late enough now that the light-sensitive switch had snuffed out the four-second flasher. I hung on the bottom brace of the light station, feeling my legs sweep up behind me in the rush of wave and current. There was the acrid odor of bird guano and creosote on the wood. And beyond that was the distant black hedge of mangrove island off Fleming Key.

I was feeling good now. Fulfilled. The long swim back meant nothing. There was no dread involved. If I wanted to get back, I had to make it. And I would. The important decision had been made halfway out. That’s what I was enjoying now. The victory of mind over body.

But I didn’t have long to enjoy it.

Because that’s when I saw it. That’s when I saw her. Some crazy woman in a pretty little sloop. Only a few hundred yards away. In the battle against body and cresting waves, I hadn’t noticed the boat before. The hull was yellow with a red waterline stripe. The wind was driving it farther and farther onto the sand-and-coral bottom of Calda Bank. She stood on tiptoes upon the cabin of the small boat in a blue rain slicker. She was fighting to get the sail down and not having much luck. The hood of the rain slicker was off, and her blond hair was braided in a long rope to the small of her back.

More than hear it, I felt the small boat crash into the bank. It heaved, listed to port, then took a full wave over the bow before smacking back heavily aground.

Stupidly, I began yelling commands at her. But there was no chance of her hearing me above the surf. So I took out for the boat in a long fast crawl stroke, timing it so I could grab a breath and a quick look at the top of every wave.

It didn’t take me long to get there. Even so, the boat had been shoved even farther aground. She was still battling the sail, but she had at least gotten it partway down.

I stayed well up-sea of the sailboat. If it went over I didn’t want to be under it. Remotely, I noticed the name of the boat in blue script upon the stern: Sleek.

I scared her, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Hey—do you have a centerboard?” The water was so shallow, I stood in stomach-deep water, cupping my hands to yell at her.

“What? … Oh, Jesus!”

Surprised, she jumped backward, caught her foot on something, and tumbled ass endward into the cockpit, disappearing momentarily. I timed the next wave and used it to propel me toward the boat. I caught the gunwale and pulled myself aboard, realizing at the last minute that I wasn’t exactly dressed for a meeting with a strange woman.

In fact, except for the belt and knife, I wasn’t dressed at all.

“Are you okay?”

She lay cupped in the cockpit, legs draped over the tiller, one arm braced against the port seat, the other hand rubbing the back of her head. She looked to be in her mid-twenties—far enough into life to exude a certain aura of independence. She wore new Topsiders, the standard shoe of the pop boating set, and no socks. The rain slicker was the expensive kind, a material that resembled honest oil cloth. The face was well tanned, a little too square-jawed to put her in the moon-faced beauty queen category, but a striking face nonetheless. It was the kind of face that, in later years, would make her a very handsome lady indeed. With the long blond hair, the eyes should have been blue. But they weren’t. They were the brown of natural leather. And right now they were wide with shock and, then, anger.

“Who the hell are you?” She pulled herself to her feet, bracing herself because with the ebb of every wave the boat smacked on the sandbar.

“The patron saint of crazy women. Now, do you want help or don’t you?”

I felt the eyes sweep over my body, saw the obligatory cringe when she noticed the jagged scar on my pelvis from a long-ago shark attack. But there was no blushing, no comment on my being naked. Just this:

“After we get this boat off, remind me to get the address of your tailor.”

“You have my solemn promise, lady.”

And that quickly, she went back to work on the sail, yelling over her shoulder, “I’ll handle this. The big thing is, that damn centerboard is stuck. If you can manage to crank that up, we can swing her around, give her just a touch of canvas, and I think we can sail her off.”

So I went to work. No need to tell her about the brain coral and staghorn downwind that would rip the bottom out of her boat if we didn’t get things under control quickly. Warnings in a desperate situation are a waste of time.

The crank on the centerboard had been knocked loose. I refitted it and gave it a try. The centerboard wasn’t stuck—just wedged between boat and sandbar. With every lift of wave, you could gain a few inches on it, but then the boat would collide again with the bottom and knock the crank handle off. I gave it four tries with the same results.

“Damn!”

“How’s it going down there?” She stood on the little cabin, holding the sail bundled in both arms. “Need some extra muscle?”

“You just get the sail ready, lady!”

There was an opening in the centerboard trunk for ready access to the pin and cable. By wedging my hands in, I could get a pretty good hold on the cable. It took every ounce of strength to budge it and hold it when the little boat smacked bottom. But slowly, hand over hand, I pulled it free, then finished with the crank. I didn’t need to tell her we were off. The boat righted itself, lifted, then careened sideways toward the coral.

“I’ve got the tiller—get some sail up!”

She handled herself well. She went to work fast, but not so fast that she made mistakes. She did a dandy piece of jiffy reefing, got the light lines tied. I was surprised—surprised that someone foolish enough to be out sailing on such a day could handle herself at all. That done, she came aft, staying low. Her hair was darker, water-soaked. She wiped her face, and I noticed, absently, the wedding ring on her left hand.

“I’ll take it now,” she said. There was no hesitation in her voice. It was not a request.

“You know about the coral ahead?”

She paused, looking forward. There was too much wind to read the reef. She made the wise decision. “Guess not.” She studied me for a moment, evaluating me. It was her boat, and, obviously, if the boat was going to be reefed again, she wanted to be the one at the tiller. Suddenly satisfied, she nodded. “Okay. You take it. But take a little more line through the clam cleat. We’re luffing.”

I did as told. The little boat bore down toward the coral. She could see the reef now: black shapes beneath translucent waves. I expected her to call out, to yell some nervous warning. But she didn’t. At the very last possible moment, I said, “Ready to bring her about?”

“More than ready.”

I shoved the tiller hard, ducking beneath the swing of boom. She handled the lines flawlessly, and the boat sailed herself out of danger, rocking in the new beam sea.

I heard the woman exhale a long-held breath. “Nice sailing,” she said.

“Living around here, I have the advantage of knowing the water. It helps. You ready to take over?”

She took the tiller and, without looking at me, said, “I’ve got an extra pair of foul-weather pants below that might fit. They’re in the starboard closet.”

Fit they didn’t. I stood hunched in the cramped cabin and pulled them on. They were too tight around the waist and thighs, and came up well over my calves. I decided to wear them anyway. I’m no less modest than the next guy. The sag of cold and flaccid manhood is something only the sculptors can make look anatomically proper. Snoop that I am, I hesitated long enough to look around the cabin and make a sweeping evaluation of this woman. Everything nice and neat. One-burner stove on chrome pivots. Small rack for charts and sextant. Leaving Key West for a long trip? Maybe. Perhaps one of those driven people who want to sail the world alone? Probably not. No VHF radio. No self-steering device. Plenty of canned goods, though. And the right books in the mahogany rack: Dove, by Robin Lee Graham; Far Tortuga, by Peter Matthiessen; the southern edition of Waterway Guide; some others. Conjecture: The lady had recently begun a long cruise, but not around the world. She was either widowed or divorced or would meet her husband later. She knew how to sail, but didn’t know local waters.

End of conjecture. If you read enough Conan Doyle when you’re a kid, personal deduction and induction become automatic when you meet someone you’re interested in.

And she was a very interesting lady indeed.

I hunched my way out of the cabin, ducked under the boom, and took the bench seat across from her. She was laughing. A nice laugh, but reserved—the way a person laughs in the company of a stranger.

“You look like that guy in the monster movie who started growing into a giant. Clothes all got too small for him, and he finally busted out of them.”

“Guess they don’t look any better than they feel, huh? But thanks for the loan anyway. I won’t be wearing them long.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Does that mean I’m taking you to wherever it is you live—or that you’re going to slip back into the water again?” She gave a snorting laugh, shaking the pretty head. “I swear to God, when you first came aboard I thought I was either dead or hallucinating. What are you doing out here, swimming stark naked in seas like this?”

“Just getting my morning exercise, lady. And my name is Dusky. Dusky MacMorgan.”

She held out her hand, and I took it. Firm businesslike handshake. The new wave of feminism has brought women into the old world of ridiculous and meaningless ceremony—hand shaking, holding doors, and picking up tabs. Next they’ll be wearing ties.

“Marina Cole, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan. Before you even ask, I’ll tell you. My dear old dad was a boat nut. Dressed like a sailor, read all the books, pictures of the tall ships on his study wall, even had a little sloop that he could never use because his job on the New York Stock Exchange kept him too busy. I was the son he never had. I got all the sailing lessons and the yacht-club classes—and the name Marina.”

“Pretty name.”

She shrugged, holding the tiller hard, getting all she could out of the reefed sail and wind. “It’s better than Sloop, I guess. From what they told me, that was second choice. And it came all too close to being first choice, I gather.”

“So now you’re the sailor in the family?”

She nodded. “Captain Cole at your service, sir. Duly licensed by the United States Coast Guard.”

“Anything on the test about not running aground in foul seas?”

It was a chancy comment. She could have taken it as an affront. Women in a field historically male usually grab at the slightest hint of insult, then use it as a bunker to stand their ground. But Marina Cole didn’t hesitate. The tan face crinkled, complete with dimples. And she laughed. “Jesus, what happened was I just wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to find a little place up the coast called Cabbage Key on the Estero Bay to Lemon Bay chart, and before I knew it I had let her slip out of the channel. Just didn’t notice that the damn shoal water reaches out so far.”

“Awful being human, isn’t it?”

She raised her eyebrows, studying me. “Does that mean you’ve never gone aground, MacMorgan?”

“It means that just when I think I know every inch of water around here, I reach for a beer and let my eyes wander, and I end up making a complete fool of myself. I charter out of Key West, and folks who pay a lot of money to fish don’t take kindly to waiting on a sandbar for the tide to come back in.”

“Are you just telling me that to make me feel better, MacMorgan?”

“Would I lie about such a thing?”

She eyed me shrewdly, that same look of evaluation. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think you would. Maybe you are a guardian angel, MacMorgan. I never believed in such things before. I mean, you turn up out of nowhere at dawn and save my boat, and now you’re trying to save my pride.”

“Just a real swell guy, that’s me, Captain Cole. And by the way, you see that shack with the tin roof standing in the water a few points to starboard? That’s my destination.”

“Aye aye,” she said with a mock salute.

We sailed on in silence. Not a particularly comfortable silence, either. People come and go so quickly in this world of interstates and moving vans and jumbo jets that the parting scene between strangers should be as comfortable and commonplace as saying hello. But not with this lady. There was an uneasiness—a tangible uneasiness. And for one very simple reason: I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her. There was the face, the hair, both striking enough to turn the heads of passersby. And while the foul-weather gear she wore didn’t show much, there was the narrowing of elastic around waist and a slimness of shoulders that promised an interesting and totally female body beneath. But there was something else: an air, an attitude, an ease of movement and voice that suggested she was one of the rare ones—a woman who really was self-reliant; a woman who really went out and did what she wanted to do rather than march around bitching about what she couldn’t do.

So I struggled through the uneasiness and tried to open her up a little.

“You said you were looking for Cabbage Key on the chart. Any particular reason, Captain Cole?”

“Yes. And the name’s Marina.” She caught my eyes briefly, then turned away, embarrassed, perhaps, by the chemical attraction that was building between us. “I was looking for Cabbage Key on the chart because that’s where I’m headed.” She saw me nod. “You know the place?”

“Very well.”

“So tell me about it. I guess I ought to know something about it before I officially accept the job I have there. What I want to do is work my way clear to Oregon. Really learn the coastal areas of this country. So I figured working at Cabbage Key would be as good a place as any to start.”

“Not a good place, Marina. A great place.” So I thought back to when my late wife, Janet, and I used to go there. I told her about that tiny island near Fort Myers of Indian mounds and palms where the only access is by boat. I told her about the old white house on the mound built by the son of the mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, and about the bar of wood and brass, and the ceiling fans and the fireplaces in the inn where commercial fishermen and yachtsmen alike go to drink beer, eat seafood, and laugh.

When I had finished, she smiled. “Sounds nice. Sounds like you wouldn’t mind working there for a while, MacMorgan.”

“A fellow could do a lot worse.”

There was something I wanted to ask her. But before I got a chance, she saw what I was looking at: the wedding ring. Her left hand moved involuntarily, as if to hide it, then—knowing that I had seen—she rested the hand again on the tiller in plain sight.

“I guess this is your stop, huh, MacMorgan?” She I nodded toward the stilthouse now only fifty yards or so away. “Looks like a nice place to live.”

“It is if you like solitude. And your own cooking.”

“I do. The solitude, anyway.”

“Why don’t you come in for some coffee? I’ll promise to wear clothes.”

She chuckled, then hesitated. “I’d like to. I really would, but …”

“Will your husband be joining you at Cabbage Key, Marina?”

I caught her eyes and saw something I couldn’t decipher. “Stranger things have happened, MacMorgan.” She held out her hand again. I took it, returned the extra squeeze, and more felt than saw that she didn’t turn away as I stripped off the foul-weather pants and dove into the water toward my stilthouse. When I came up there was that laugh again, a low alto chuckle. She yelled, “MacMorgan, I really do want to get the name of that tailor. Everyone should dress as well as you do.”

Then with a wave of her hand, she was gone. The last time I saw her, she was putting up more sail, tiller lashed, pretty yellow sailboat and handsome blond lady going like hell through the green March sea… .

3

I had another surprise waiting for me when I pulled myself up the ladder and climbed the dock to the stilthouse.

I wasn’t alone.

There was an old mahogany cruiser in absolutely Bristol condition tied and well bumpered alongside my thirty-four-foot sportfisherman, Sniper. Even if I hadn’t known whose boat it was, I could have guessed. There aren’t many people around with the tenacity—or the discipline—to keep an old wooden hulk in such perfect shape.

I grabbed a towel from the railing, wrapped it around me, and went inside.

Sure enough, there was D. Harold Westervelt waiting for me. He had poured himself a mug of coffee and was going over a sheaf of papers from a briefcase placed neatly on the table. He looked up briefly when I came in, but did not stand.

“You make a passable cup of coffee, Captain MacMorgan. Out trying to work off a little of that excess weight you’ve allowed to build up, I see.”

“Don’t want to lose my boyish figure, colonel.”

He looked out the window momentarily where Marina Cole and her sailboat were disappearing into the distance, but said nothing. I buffed my scraggily blond hair dry, took clean khaki pants and an old ragged L. L. Bean sweater out of my foot locker, pulled them on, added dry cotton socks, and treated myself to the new pair of Norm Thompson Razor Cut loafers with the glove-soft leather.

“Another mug of coffee, colonel?”

He shook his head. I should have known. D. Harold limits all of his vices—including caffeine. And if his physical appearance was any indication, it’s not all that bad an idea. He looked fifteen years younger than his fifty-odd years. He wore a white crew-neck jersey, with sleeves rolled which showed the corded forearms and the swell of biceps. His head was completely shaved, and the winter-blue eyes peered out from a ledge of frontal eminence that suggested—and correctly—a massive amount of brain matter within. Even with the age difference, D. Harold was not a man I would want to tangle with.

“I got a message from the marina that you had stopped down to see me, Colonel Westervelt. I was surprised.”

He flashed one of his rare smiles. “I do leave my home every now and then, captain. I’m not a hermit. Recreation—on a limited basis, of course—is as important to doing good work as the work itself.”

“Of course,” I said. “So this is recreation?”

He shook his head, the face stoic. “I’m afraid not, captain. This meeting is business. Desperately important business at that.” He leveled his gaze at me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel any plans you might have for the next ten days—that is, if you accept the mission.”

I felt the old stirring deep inside the abdomen again; felt the nervousness that was the ever-present prelude to any mission I had ever had.

“Nothing pressing, sir,” I said.

He nodded. “Good.” He began going through his papers, settled on the one he needed, then began to talk. “So!” he said. “This will be your preliminary briefing. Feel free to ask any questions you may have—but please wait until I have finished.”

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Westervelt sighed, tugged at an earlobe absently. “Do you know anything at all about world trade organizations, captain?”

“Almost nothing.”

He made a waving motion with his left hand. “It doesn’t matter, really. I just want to give you a little background information. It is generally thought that governments gauge, control, and direct the political and economic growth or regression of the world. While that’s true to a point, the real political and economic clout comes from business. World business. In truth, world business—and the very few men who hold the reins on that level—are very much like countries unto themselves. When they shift directions, the nations of the world swing and sway behind like old wagons until they finally get in line.”

“This has something to do with my mission?”

D. Harold gave me a warning look. “If you can just wait until I’m finished, captain?”

“Sorry.”

“So! What I’ve told you, captain, is really nothing earth-shattering. It’s fairly well known there are upper-strata organizations of businessmen, investors, and manipulators that carry fully as much financial power as any one nation. And those men come from nations around the world. Unfortunately, their allegiances are not always to the nations from which they come. Their allegiances, in many cases, are dedicated purely and simply to profit; to profit and to the control of those governments which might serve them.”

He stopped and glanced briefly at my Transoceanic radio with its fifty feet of copper wire strung out the window to the roof.

“Captain, you have no doubt heard about increased terrorism around the world. Iran, Palestine, South America—the list goes on and on. While it might seem to occur capriciously and randomly to the average reader, we have known for some years that there had to be some single organization behind it. Their methods are too sophisticated for the work of a few loosely organized radicals. Yet their procedures are, in many cases, far too brutal, too singular in intent, to be the work of any government—not because there aren’t ruthless governments, for there are. But because, in these most brutal acts of terrorism, a government would stand to lose much more in world respect than it could ever gain economically or politically.”

“If that government was caught in the act, you mean?”

“Yes.” He studied the inside of his coffee mug. “About a year ago, we finally got a lead on this autonomous terrorist organization. It was the X-factor in our equation. We still don’t know much about it—just that it is somehow linked to one or more powerful world trade organizations. We assume that it is a weapon—a very effective weapon, I might add—that a trade organization could use to politically embarrass, harass, or temporarily weaken a country’s governmental process.”

“I can see how it would be effective.”

“Economically? Obviously. And that brings us to our proposed mission, captain. For the sake of clarity, we have been referring to this organization as FEAT—Freelance Extortion and Terrorism. It has no national base whatsoever. It seems to be the natural cancerous product of a world of nations that depend increasingly upon their neighbors for goods and foodstuffs. And that makes it all the more lethal. With no single nation or government to answer to, it stands only to profit from its deeds. This organization, FEAT, seeks to become the pimp in a world of befuddled governments, playing one against the other.”

“And just how in the hell am I supposed to stop that?”

Colonel Westervelt paused, looked at me for a moment, then chuckled. It was a rare display of emotion. “Captain, there’s no way one man could. As good as you are—and that is very good, indeed—there is no way that you alone could more than dent such an organization. I’m afraid the extermination of FEAT will take worldwide cooperation between governments.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as worldwide cooperation between governments.”

“Quite right, normally. But the world has never been threatened as one before. Let me give you an example. Have you ever heard the term ‘strategic metals’? No? Well, captain, there are certain rare ores absolutely essential to the manufacture of modern weaponry. And, unfortunately, the bulk of those metals comes from unstable countries in South Africa. Do you remember back in 1977 when a gang of rebels closed down the mines in Zaire where nearly ninety percent of the world’s cobalt is produced? Just before the rebels struck, the Soviet Union made an unusually large purchase. Superficially, it seemed to put the Russians in a very advantageous position. The price of cobalt quadrupled on the world market—and they had more than they could use. But on a deeper political level, the closing of the mines was damaging to the Soviets. Obviously, it looked as if they had masterminded the rebel attack. They not only lost some prestige, but Free World countries immediately funneled huge amounts of money into research, hoping to find a substitute for cobalt. World money manipulators smart enough or ‘lucky’ enough to acquire stock in the private-sector research centers around the world did far more than just quadruple their money during those months, I assure you. Say what you want about the Russians, but they are not a stupid people. Clearly, some other organization was behind the rebel takeover; an organization that had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Other countries, socialist and democratic, have been publicly embarrassed in much the same way—and, yes, that includes the United States. But so far, FEAT hasn’t had the courage—or, perhaps, a motive—for bringing its terrorism for profit to our nation’s soil. Until now.”

“They’re planning a terrorist strike here?”

Westervelt shook his head. “Planned, captain. Past tense. Planned. We got word of it from the Red Chinese, of all people—which illustrates how seriously the world’s governments are taking this organization. God knows how they found out. But they did. They’re planning an assassination here. And it’s due to take place within seven to ten days.”

“Jesus—one of our political leaders?”

“No, captain. That’s not FEAT’s style—not unless the assassination was on the very highest level. No, their modus operandi is to publicly embarrass or compromise a nation, then be there waiting and ready for the resulting economic swing.”

“Pretty ingenious, you have to admit.”

“Certainly. They’re smart and perfectly ruthless. And you see, captain, in the complex webbing of world finance and trade, there’s no easy way to find out exactly who ‘they’ are. For the moment, we will have to be satisfied with a simple grass-roots offensive—prove to them we know what they are doing and why. That’s where you come in. Interested?”

“As I said: I have no pressing plans for the next week or so. And if I did, I’d cancel them.”

Colonel Westervelt smiled slightly. “I know the feeling,” he said. He studied me momentarily, and I found myself trying to suck in the gut, square the shoulders. He said, “You’ve been letting yourself go, captain. May I ask why? I recommended you for this mission assuming that you were at least mentally fit. If you are still suffering some psychological disturbance from a past assignment …”

“Exactly who are they planning to assassinate, colonel?” I interrupted shortly. It made me mad—though not mad at D. Harold. It was his job to be absolutely sure he had the right man. No, it made me mad at myself; angry for letting myself go to the point where my effectiveness might be questioned. And questioned by an old friend at that.

Westervelt tugged at the earlobe, his only nervous mannerism. He was silent for a while, then began going through some papers. The subject was obviously closed. “So! We have narrowed it down to two possible targets, both of whom will soon be vacationing on Florida’s west coast. It is not a matter of luck on our part—it is a matter of exceptionally fine planning on FEAT’s part that both targets would be in the same vicinity at the same time. Obviously, it’s twice as hard to protect two men.”

“And the targets are?”

“The probable targets are either a Soviet diplomat named Kiev Evenki, or a high-level Israeli spokesman, Samuel Yabrud. Have you heard of either man? No? I’m not surprised. While they are both very important people, each is similar in that they handle the bulk of the behind-the-scenes work. They are the ones who pound out the agreements and treaties and contracts, then step aside to let the high-profile government leaders do the signing. The assassination of either of these men on American soil would put us in an extremely difficult position, and probably have far-reaching political and economic repercussions.”

“But you’re not sure which is the actual target?”

“No. It’s very doubtful that it’s both of them.”

“So why don’t you just cage them three deep with some inconspicuous Secret Service people?”

Westervelt lifted his eyebrows. “I assure you, captain, we are taking every defensive option at our disposal. You need not worry about that. Thanks to the warning we received from the Red Chinese, there is less chance that the assassin will succeed. But there is still a chance. You Captain MacMorgan, are our offensive option. We want you to find FEAT’s assassin, stalk him, and then … eliminate him.”

“Assassinate the assassin.”

“Yes. And make it very plain that it was no accident.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

“None. That is why this new terrorist movement is so diabolical. It could be anyone, male or female, of any color or nationality. The assassin probably doesn’t even know who he is killing or why he is killing. It is all too easy to find willing murderers these days, captain.”

“So what I will be doing is …”

“Just a symbol—a message to FEAT that we will not tolerate terrorism in the United States.”

“I have little to go on, and not much time, colonel.”

He sighed, “I know, I know. But you will have the locations of the possible targets. The Russian, Kiev Evenki, will arrive tomorrow at a private home in a remote and very wealthy settlement on Florida’s west coast called Boca Grande. Do you know it?”

“Pretty much. I used to do a lot of tarpon fishing up that way. I know some of the fishing guides. And you’re right about its being affluent and remote. Some American political figures vacation there, too, right?”

“Which is exactly why Evenki is there.” He checked his watch. “In just a few hours the first of the most preliminary and informal talks about a nuclear-arms pact will begin there. He’ll be on vacation—but a working vacation.”

“And the Israeli?”

“Samuel Yabrud will be staying only a few miles away by water, at a health resort called St. Carib Island. They call it a health resort, but it’s really a very plush fat farm where the wealthy go to lose weight. It’s an island of about a hundred acres southeast of Boca Grande, and north and west of two other inhabited islands called Useppa and Cabbage Key. Why the change of expression, captain?”

“You’re the second person this morning that’s mentioned Cabbage Key, that’s all.”

Westervelt glanced quickly out the window. The sailboat was a bobbing speck on the far horizon. “Your friend was interested in Cabbage Key?”

“A stranger I met this morning, colonel. And yes, she was interested. She thinks she’ll be working there.”

He jotted down the name when I told him. “We’ll check her out. By the way, that’s the sort of thing you’ll have to watch for, captain—people new to the area, jobs or not.” He stood up and began packing his papers back into the briefcase. “We’ll expect you and your vessel at the naval base tomorrow at oh eight hundred. Right. There you will be briefed further on who your contacts will be in the Boca Grande and St. Carib Island areas. But I must remind you that, as always, you are working independently of all our established agencies. You will not seek out those contacts unless absolutely necessary.”

“So how do you suggest I start, colonel—just go up there and start blundering around?”

I didn’t expect the grin. “I suggest you join your new friend in a job at Cabbage Key”—he looked meaningfully at the small roll around my waist—“or enroll yourself in a course at the St. Carib fat farm.”

4

Feeling dwarfed, I nudged Sniper in behind one of the massive nuclear subs at the Boca Chica naval base, tossed lines to the sailors waiting there, and pulled myself up onto the cement quay.

The sailors said nothing, only eyed me suspiciously. They were obviously expecting me—and wondering why in the hell someone was allowing a civilian vessel in a military harbor.

A young lieutenant was waiting at the concretereinforced machine shop by the docks. Safely out of sight of the sailors, he snapped a salute. Dressed in khakis and blue denim shirt, I felt a little ridiculous returning it.

“Captain MacMorgan?”

“Yes.”

“This way, sir.”

D. Harold Westervelt was in a munitions office no bigger than a garage. A desk lamp made his shaved head look luminous. He was studying some papers. He looked upset about something. He glanced up when the young lieutenant delivered me, then shut the door behind, leaving us alone.

“You’re early, captain.”

I checked my Rolex Submariner. It said three minutes to eight. “Sorry, colonel.”

He stood up, straightened his shirt collar, and went to a gray metal closet. It was already unlocked. “You still have the Cobra crossbow?”

“Yes. But I could use some shafts and some weights.”

He placed two boxes on the table, then returned to the closet.

“And the AK-47 Russian assault rifle?”

“Yes, it’s stowed aboard.”

“I’m afraid it would a very bad choice to use the AK-47 on this mission. To have the would-be assassin of a Russian or Israeli eliminated by a Russian weapon might give FEAT the wrong impression.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

One by one he brought out two rifles I recognized, and one I didn’t. He placed them on the table, bolts open. “I would suggest either of these two weapons.” He pointed to the Lee Enfield No. 4 Mark I rifle, and the Remington Model 700. Both had stocks with the dull military finish. He said, “Both use 7.62mm NATO ammunition. The Enfield is heavier, and its effective range is not as great—five hundred meters compared to the Remington’s eight hundred and twenty—but, with its charger-loaded magazine, the action is somewhat faster. And it holds ten rounds compared to the Remington’s five. It’s British, of course, but it’s still being used around the world, and, like the Remington, by NATO forces primarily as a sniper rifle. We can equip either with a special silencer.”

“I’d prefer the Remington. More familiar with it.”

“I thought you would. Fine Mauser action with an almost fail-safe knockdown trajectory. Muzzle velocity of eight hundred and fifty meters per second.”

“And scopes?”

“For daylight work, you’ll have the Redfield variable-power, three to nine power. For night work, you’ll have the Star-Tron MK 303a night-vision system with a 135mm F-16 lens. You probably know how it works—light intensification; gathers all the available starlight and moonlight, and amplifies it fifty thousand times. Extremely effective.”

I had been eyeing the other rifle on the table. I’d never seen one like it. Westervelt noticed. He picked it up and handed it to me. It was built entirely of metal, but was still surprisingly light. It had an odd skeleton stock complete with cheek rest and pistol grip. At first it struck me as being an ugly excuse for a rifle; but then, on closer inspection, rather striking in a lethal sort of way.

“I brought that rifle out as a reminder, captain.”

“Reminder, sir?”

“Yes. That’s the SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, used by the Warsaw Pact forces, built by the Russians. Compared to your Remington, it has more pluses than minuses. In the past, FEAT’s terrorists have leaned toward Warsaw Pact weaponry. It’s a reminder that the man you are hunting is at least as well equipped as you—and perhaps better.”

“It’s a pretty graphic reminder, colonel. I appreciate it.”

I put the Dragunov back on the table while D. Harold opened another box. He pulled out what looked like an aluminum camera case, flipped the latches, and lifted the cover. “And this is the last of the equipment, captain. It’s possible you won’t need it. But if you do, it can be invaluable. It’s a Persid seismic intruder alarm system. You bury these small geophones in an area you want secured. They’ll detect men on foot a hundred meters away. It’s batteryoperated, it doesn’t weigh much, and it can save your life—or the life of one of our two foreign visitors. It’s easy to use—directions are enclosed.”

Westervelt collected all the gear and placed it on the table before me. He still looked strangely troubled; worried about something.

“Something wrong, colonel?”

He rubbed at his temples, as if he had a headache. “As a matter of fact, there is. I’ve been wondering if I should tell you.”

“What is it?”

“You no doubt wondered why your normal government connection, Captain Norm Fizer, didn’t get in touch with you about this mission.”

I had indeed wondered. Stormin’ Norman Fizer had seen my men and me through two very, very nasty missions in Cambodia long ago, and it was Fizer who had made it possible for me to take revenge on the drug kingpin who had murdered my wife and two boys. He was a friend from the past who was still a friend. A good friend.

“I wondered, colonel, but I didn’t want to ask. I thought it might suggest that I was unhappy working with you.”

“That was kind of you, captain—but unnecessary.”

“I suppose.”

“The reason I’ve been wondering if I should tell you is strictly a pragmatic one. I’ve been wondering how it might affect your work.”

“What might affect my work, colonel? I’m no schoolboy. Just tell me.”

He straightened himself at his desk, leaned closer toward me, and said, “The reason Captain Fizer is not your adviser on this case is that he was to be one of your contacts. I have a list of Secret Service and CIA people here, and he was among them.”

“What do you mean, ‘was’?”

“Just that, I’m afraid, captain. Fizer has been in the Boca Grande-St. Carib Island area for the last three days. He apparently was on to something. An excellent man, Fizer. Wonderful intuitive and intellectual police skills… .”

“But what happened, D. Harold?”

Colonel Westervelt made an empty motion with his hands. “He turned up missing yesterday. And last night, a clandestine search for him was fruitless. Dusky, Captain Fizer is missing and assumed dead. I’m sorry.”

And so was I. Damn sorry. Fizer was one of the good ones; a rare combination of good humor, horse sense, and toughness that had seemed unbeatable.

But in the end, we are all beatable. Death sees to that, as it had, apparently, seen to my friend, Stormin’ Norm Fizer.

“Any leads as to exactly who he was on to, colonel?”

He shook his head. “Afraid not. He was a paying guest at the Gasparilla Inn—one of the old hotels on Boca Grande. He was using his real name. No reason not to, really. Under the guise of being a fishing enthusiast, he had rented a boat all three of the days he was a guest there—ostensibly to check out the area. Yesterday was so windy in Boca Grande they were reluctant to rent him the boat. He insisted. When he didn’t return yesterday afternoon, they called the Coast Guard. They found his boat adrift off Captiva Pass last night, not far from your Cabbage Key.”

“Any sign of a struggle?”

“None.”

“How do you know he was on to something?”

“Very simple. He notified one of his superiors—in code, of course. He indicated he had a good lead, and would report in full after a preliminary investigation.”

“Why didn’t he get someone to go with him if he thought he was on to something?”

“That wasn’t his style, apparently.”

Westervelt was right. That wasn’t Fizer’s style. He wouldn’t ask for help until he was sure he needed it. Fizer was the kind of guy who didn’t like to waste someone else’s time.

“FEAT, colonel?”

“We can only assume that, barring some freak accident, Fizer was indeed onto FEAT’s assassin, found him, and was eliminated by him.”

“Murdered, you mean, dammit!” I found myself cracking the table with my fist.

“And that’s exactly why I was reluctant to tell you, captain,” D. Harold said sternly. “In this business of international terrorism—and that’s what it is, by the way, a business—there’s no room for that sort of schoolboy emotion, MacMorgan. That’s all very fine for playground confrontations and after school fights, but if you bring it into an encounter with an individual as cold and ruthless as one of FEAT’s assassins, you’re going to finish second-best. Just as Captain Fizer apparently finished second-best. Understand?”

“Then why in the hell did you pick me for the job?”

“I’m wondering that myself at the moment.”

I found myself glowering at the man across from me. The blue eyes were frigid, the hands placed calmly in front of him. I took a deep breath, exhaled. “I’m sorry, colonel. You’re right, of course. It’s just that Norm and I had been through a lot together.”

He nodded. “I know. He was a very good man. And after you leave, I have the unenviable job of notifying his wife and children. Not a pleasant task, I assure you. But we have already lost one man to FEAT, and we don’t want to lose you. Not only for personal reasons, but because it would be a devastating blow to our international image if they bested us again. We can’t afford that, do you understand? In Vietnam you seemed to excel in this kind of oneagainst-one assignment. I’m betting that you’ve lost none of your mental or physical abilities—just don’t let emotion cause you to do something foolish.”

“I understand, colonel. And I’m sorry for the outburst.”

We both stood. He helped me carry the new weaponry out to Sniper.

The sailors who had helped me tie up were nowhere to be seen now. It reinforced the impression that the mission was highly classified.

“You will arrive sometime today, captain?” He stood, hands on hips upon the quay, looking up at where I stood on the flybridge.

“Seven, eight hours from now, depending on the weather.”

“I can still have a chopper fly you up to Boca Grande, then make arrangements for you to secure a vessel there.”

“No thanks, colonel. I’m kind of attached to this boat.”

“Yes. I see.”

I turned the keys, pressed the buttons, and Sniper‘s twin 453 GMC diesels rumbled to life, sputtering salt water through the exhausts. The wind was still out of the northwest, visible in the coconut palms around the military harbor.

“Remember, captain. If you find the assassin, it is to look like no accident. I leave the method to you.”

I looked down and saw the slight smile crease his face. It was D. Harold’s way of giving me the final free rein. I gave him a short salute and said, “Colonel, if I find the guy, there will be nothing accidental about it. That much I promise… .”

On the long solitary boat trip across Florida Bay, I flirted with the idea of catching Marina Cole and her little sailboat. Throughout the day, I kept a watch through binoculars. Once even went so far as to go off my course to get a better look at a little yellow sloop.

But it wasn’t hers.

In a way, I was glad. On the memory screen, I played and replayed my meeting with her; saw again the unusual face, the dark eyes, the braided rope of blond hair—and the wedding band. As someone who had loved marriage, I still took the marriage vows seriously. And who in the hell was I to try to interfere with the lives of her and her husband?

Still, there was that cryptic reply to a simple question.

“Will you be meeting your husband at Cabbage Key, Marina?’ ‘

“Stranger things have happened, Dusky… .”

On a boat alone, you toy with the mind, play little games. You listen to the VHF radio, lock in the little Benmar autopilot when it’s time to go below for another cold beer and a fresh dip of Copenhagen, and then return to the pilot’s seat to watch the inexorable surge of open green sea.

So why think about the woman? Hadn’t I tried to start a relationship with the lady with the auburn hair, Saxan Benton? Yes, and had failed miserably.

So why pursue another?

Because the life of the celibate has never ever appealed to me. Yet a sexual relationship without benefit of an emotional relationship has never interested me either.

As modern and as fashionable as the “bedroomfor-recreation” philosophy is publicized to be by such print whores as Playboy and Penthouse, it’s always struck me as about as appetizing as hunting cavewomen with a club.

So I passed the hours away, rolling with the swift wave surge, feeling Sniper‘s blue-black hull cut northward through blustery seas.

It was the quandary of the romantic caught in the quandary of life.

And there was no simple answer.

Only life. Death. And the compromise that comes between.

Four hours out, Florida Bay and the mangrove giants of the Shark River behind, I picked up the light tower at Coon Key and decided to refuel and give myself a short break from the rough March weather by cutting in behind Goodland and taking the intercoastal waterway to Naples. At Goodland, I topped off the tanks and had a hot lunch at Stan’s Idle Hour. Interesting place, Goodland. When Deltona Corporation decided to turn Marco Island into a secluded west-coast suburb of cement, concrete-block homes, and expensive condominiums, they purchased the land from the fishermen who lived on the island, and literally moved their houses—lock, stock, and families—to Goodland. Tiny Goodland gained the atmosphere Marco Island had forfeited; the atmosphere and forty or fifty unfortunate mobile homes to boot. I took the time to stop at the post office and leave a card for Al Seely, a hermit friend of mine who lives alone on Dismal Key, then boarded Sniper once again and headed up the Gordon River at a steady twenty-five knots toward Naples, Fort Myers, and, finally, Pine Island Sound, where the little island settlements of Cabbage Key, St. Carib, and Boca Grande waited.

It was time to start planning. All plans had to be loosely woven, with plenty of options; options enough to take me to the X-factor: an assassin alone, like me. A man or woman assigned to murder. Like me.

So how do you find a killer before he has killed?

And then I knew. Once on R & R in Southeast Asia, some buddies finally talked me into going on a tiger hunt. I was reluctant, because I admire the big cats; have loved them since I was a boy in the circus. Besides, the idea of killing an animal—any animal—for something other than food just doesn’t appeal to me. But I finally went—not to see the cat die, but to see to what extremes human hunters had to go to in order to kill the master hunter.

But the hunt was depressingly simple. It was a matter of staking a lamb to a tree.

And then waiting.

Well, I had my lambs: a Russian and an Israeli.

Now all I had to do was maneuver them into a stakeout.

And wait….

5

It was nearing dusk when I finally idled up the channel to Cabbage Key. Clouds were a brilliant rust to the west. An osprey in a gumbo limbo whistled at me with ascending disapproval. Orange sun held the old wooden inn, the water tower, and the jungled shell mound in a tenuous fiery light.

There were three or four big yachts moored at the dock along with a half-dozen smaller cruisers and open fishing boats. A small yellow sloop, sails furled, held my attention longer than the others.

The name on the stern confirmed that it was hers: Sleek.

So she had made it. And how was I going to explain my sudden reappearance after our meeting that morning? It would look as if I was following her. But it couldn’t be helped.

And maybe I was following her.

There were plenty of other places I could have stayed that first night. I could have pulled in at Sanibel’s Tarpon Bay and traded one-liners with old friends there. Or gone on to Boca Grande and looked up one of a number of fishing-guide acquaintances.

But I had chosen Cabbage Key; even rationalized the decision by telling myself that if there was anyone new to the area they would, sooner or later, end up at the old bar and restaurant there, like a tiger at a watering hole.

It would be an awkward moment.

But it couldn’t be helped.

Luckily, I was saved the embarrassment by the island’s owner, Rob Wells. Rob is in his mid-thirties, looks younger, and he and his wife Phyllis run the old inn with a combination of reserve and flourish that assures them a dedicated flow of boating clientele. By chance, Rob was acting dockmaster. He came ambling up after I had docked Sniper, hand outstretched, tall and blond, a look of surprise on his face.

“Man, I’d heard you’d gone hermit down in the Keys. Why the honor of the early visit?”

I laughed. “You mean it’s not May, and the tarpon aren’t running yet?”

“I mean exactly that.” He winked. “But I think I can put you onto a few kingfish off Boca. Or did you just come up here to eat our food, drink our beer, and assault our waitress?”

“Do I have to choose?”

After I checked Sniper‘s lines a second time, we walked up the mound toward the inn. Briefly, I told Rob about my earlier encounter with Marina Cole, and made it clear what I hoped he would do. Professionals in an enterprise that deals so intimately with the public, like those at Cabbage Key, become used to keeping confidences. And on another level, I knew that I could trust Rob Wells. Period. So I told him I was in the area on personal business and didn’t want Marina to think that I was there in pursuit of her.

He smiled, his North Carolina accent heavy with mock intrigue.

“And you’re not following her, right?”

“Right. Unless she’s not really married. I reserve the right to change my mind on that one.”

“So how about I go inside before you do, and mention to her that an old friend of mine is coming in, and that you’ve been planning your stay here for months, and that she should take special care your beer is cold and your supper is hot?”

“So she is working here?”

“On a trial basis. To see if she likes us and we like her, as always with someone new. And I thought you weren’t interested.”

“You’ve forgotten the reserve clause. And yes, I’d appreciate it if you would do that. It would save us both some embarrassment.”

He gave me a light lockerroom punch on the arm. “Never a dull moment when you’re here, MacMorgan.”

“Is it ever dull at Cabbage Key?”

“Not if you like peace and quiet, good food, and fishing—and especially not if you have two boys like mine to keep you hopping.”

“And how are those sons of yours?”

“Great. As always.”

I puttered around outside for a few minutes to give Rob time; even climbed the old wooden water tower to see what there was to see. The water tower had, ostensibly, been built the same time the mystery writer’s son had built the house. Constructed to store a large supply of fresh water, it spired some sixty feet above the peak of the mound. And even after fifty-odd years of service, it was still in pretty good shape; wood sound and kept whitewashed by Rob Wells’s crew.

It offered a fine view of the islands in Pine Island Sound. Far to the north I could see the brown phosphate silos at the tip of Boca Grande, the affluent island village where the Russian, Kiev Evenki, would soon be arriving. And directly to the east, with its air of Southampton and old Florida wealth, was tropical Useppa, where such notables as Teddy Roosevelt, Gene Tunney, and Gloria Swanson once vacationed; and, more recently, where the CIA had trained Cuban troops for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. And midway between the two was St. Carib Island, looking lush and remote at dusk. I had never been on St. Carib; indeed, had always wondered exactly what was on the island. Geometric shards of white buildings, luminous in the failing light, protruded from the foliage, and a white water tower, similar to the one on which I stood, crowned the green haze of poinciana, banyan, and mango. So that was where the Israeli treaty-smith, Samuel Yabrud, would be staying; an island where the rich could melt their fat away in style.

Pine Island Sound was a tranquil sweep of water and islands in the saffron dusk.

Osprey whistled and pelicans drifted in formation, arrowing toward their roosts.

It was a postcard setting; the amiable Florida that’s promoted at Disney World.

But there was something in the March wind: a hint of something lethal; a quality of light and air suggestive of that darker side where a killer stalks within us all.

With a sweeping gaze, my eyes went from island to island to island. Somewhere out there was my adversary. At that very moment he sat or stood, heart pumping, lungs siphoning, brain considering his options just as I now considered mine. What did he look like? What were his strengths, his weaknesses?

And just what in the hell was his plan?

I stood there for a moment longer on the tower in the wind, thinking about my friend Norm Fizer. I told myself the fact that he had disappeared didn’t necessarily mean that he had been killed. But in the deepest part of me I knew the truth. And it made me mad. Damn mad. Not just that I had lost a friend, but because someone out there had been a little smarter, a little faster, a little more deadly than a man I had come to look upon as unbeatable.

But he had a new adversary now.

The hunter was being hunted. Again. And I felt the shadow of that unknown assassin and the weight of the task draw over me like a cloud. And for the first time in a very, very long time I felt fear, because the shadow and the cloud were both death….

Marina Cole was on the back porch of the old inn waiting tables when I finally went inside. Rob Wells sat at the bar with his wife, Phyllis, both sipping at orange juice in tall glasses. We exchanged greetings, and after brief pleasantries, Rob said, “That matter you mentioned—I think it’s all taken care of.”

“Very efficient man you have here,” I said to Phyllis.

She chuckled. “Efficient because I helped. Hope you don’t mind that Rob brought me in on it, Dusky, but women are much better at this sort of thing than men. And by the way, from the look of her, I can’t blame you for leaving your options open.” She was still chuckling as I walked away.

Without the tentlike rain slicker on, Marina Cole was a striking lady indeed. She wore pleated safari shorts, long dark legs based on leather sandals. The thick braided hair was coiled atop her head, and she wore an old cotton madras shirt that displayed the tapering ribs and upward thrust of breasts. She moved with affable grace beneath ceiling fans and soft lights, the tanned face smiling as she traded jokes with her customers. As I watched her work, I decided that she had probably never waited tables before—but that she was the type of person who would become good at anything she tried in the shortest possible time.

She was carrying a tray when she finally noticed me. Even with Phyllis Wells’s warning, it surprised her. She damn near dropped the tray. But she recovered quickly and held up one finger accompanied by an uncomfortable smile.

I was to wait a minute.

I took an empty chair in the combination bar and library. A mounted tarpon, its eyes aglow with catatonic plasticity, hung over the door along with an old percussion-cap fowling piece. A few fishermen sat trading stories over their bottles of beer beneath the slow whirl of the fan while Kathy McKee, the enduring bartender, alternately polished glasses and answered calls on the island’s VHF radio under the counter. Long ago, God knows when, someone decided that the way to become a part of Cabbage Key was to sign the name of his vessel on a dollar bill, then tape that dollar bill to the wall. The custom caught on, and now the walls and ceilings are papered with signed currency. There were even dollar bills taped to the old upright piano where a sweating bald man pounded out a torchy version of “Tangerine.”

It was longer than a minute. In fact, I was halfway through my first Beck’s when Marina finally slid into the chair beside me.

“Whew,” she said, wiping her face. “Some first night. When Rob told me he needed help because it was the peak of the busy season, he wasn’t kidding.”

“So how do you like it so far?”

She reached over, took a sip of my beer, hesitated at her own familiarity, then took another. “I love the island. Got here early this morning, slept for a few hours, then went right to work. People seem nice. So I hope to stay awhile.”

Our hands touched briefly as I took my beer. The texture of her skin suggested she might be a little older than I had guessed earlier. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. No older. Nothing in the legs or breasts to suggest the sag of age or childbirth.

But still the smooth gold ring on her wedding finger.

“Told you you’d like it,” I said, then added a little awkwardly, “I’m glad.”

Then came the uncomfortable silence again; the silence of people who realize that a relationship could begin, but, for whatever reasons, shouldn’t.

Marina cleared her throat, toyed with a napkin. “Phyllis Wells told me you come here a lot. Said you’d been planning this trip for a while. I was kind of surprised you didn’t tell me that yesterday morning.”

“Thought it might sound like I was offering something … or, damn, I don’t know. Then I realized after you’d left that not telling you would make my arriving here even more suspicious. I mean, what I’m trying to say, Marina, is that I’m not hot on your trail or anything like that. I’m not following you.”

She considered that for a moment. Someone called her from the kitchen, and she stood up quickly. She said, “Are you going to be on the island for a while?”

“I’m staying the night. And I’ll be around the area. I’m up here to do some fishing and take care of some business.”

She gave me a sudden swift smile, as if she had decided something.

“Any chance of you and me having a drink here in the bar later, MacMorgan?”

“My calendar’s pretty full—but for you, yeah.”

“I still don’t know how to take this vehement insistence that you’re not following me.”

“I’m not!”

She gave me a sisterly wink, with just a hint of vampishness on her face. “That’s what I mean. I don’t know if I should be relieved. Or disappointed.”

And with that she hustled to the kitchen to pick up her order.

I finished my beer and walked back down the mound to the docks, where Sniper shifted in the wind, tugging experimentally at her lines. Lights were on in the neighboring yachts, where the stayaboards filled the March night with the soft laughter of cocktail hour. A half mile across the sound the houses on Useppa, their windows aglow, stood out ghostly in the distance. St. Carib Island was a darker line on a dark horizon.

Rob Wells showed me to a room in the inn with a private bath, then apologized for having to leave the island for the night. I was disappointed. I had questions to ask. It was another blustery evening, and he had seen to it that my fireplace was lighted. Stout black mangrove logs flickered and roared in the draft. I stripped off my clothes, put a new Wilkinson blade in the razor, shaved, showered, then lay down and slept for an hour before dinner. The water takes it out of you—especially eight hours in choppy seas. Alone.

I awoke with a taste for stone crabs. Kathy McKee, looking taller than her five eleven in slacks and sweater, got me a table on the porch and brought beer.

“Long time no see, huh?”

“Yes indeed. Your boat still sunk?” She laughed. It was a standing joke. Long ago she had owned some ancient hulk of mahogany yacht—an unusual playtoy for a woman. Its sinking in some frozen New Jersey harbor had prompted her to head southward and, finally, to Cabbage Key.

“Still housing fish as far as I know.”

“And some people just talk about conservation. I won’t need a menu. Just a double order of stone crab, plenty of toast, and drawn butter—and maybe a little conversation when you get a minute?”

She tilted her head, surprised. “It wouldn’t be about our new waitress, would it?”

“No. A private matter.”

“Do I look like a gossip?”

“Not hardly. But you can’t tend bar at a place like this without knowing what’s going on. Right?”

She nodded. “Sure, Dusky. I’ll stop back when I can.”

If there’s a seafood—or any food, for that matter—better than fresh stone crab claws, I’ve yet to discover it. So when the food came I gave it my full attention, cracking the claws, dipping the crab meat in hot butter, and washing it down with the fine Beck’s beer. And I was just about finished, trying to decide if I should order the excellent Key lime pie immediately or wait until later, when Kathy returned.

“You have time to talk?”

She nodded, stretched wearily. “Yeah. God, what a week. Seems like more people find out about this place every year. I dream about the ingredients of a rum punch in my sleep. So I’m on a ten-minute break and I put this gin and tonic on your bill. It’s very good, by the way. Made it myself.”

She sipped at the drink, smiling. Truthfully, I didn’t know how I should start. I knew that I could trust Kathy McKee just as I could trust Rob. But there was only so much I could tell either of them. It demanded a one-sided exchange of information, no questions asked. So I gave it a try.

“Kath, I’m looking for someone.”

She grinned. “From the way you’ve been ogling that new girl—Marina, is it?—I’d say you’ve already found her.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“I guess you could be even less subtle—say, club her on the head and drag her off to your room.”

“Believe me, this has nothing to do with Marina. I’m looking for someone else. Could be a woman, I guess—but it’s probably a man. And I have no idea what he looks like. But I would guess that he is very tough, very smart, and possibly isn’t American. And he would be a stranger to the area.”

“A stranger? Or a tourist?”

“A stranger. I know there’s a lot of water and a lot of islands in the area—but there aren’t very many people at all. And sooner or later those people end up here at Cabbage Key. Have you seen a guy who might fit the description?”

She thought for a moment. “One guy?”

“Probably.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t seen one guy who fits the description—but I have seen half a dozen of them.”

“What?”

“Don’t look so surprised, Dusky. You’ve been away for quite a while, remember? The islands in Pine Island Sound are no longer the tight little community of boating folk they once were. Oh, there are still plenty of great people around. Larry Davis still fishes around here, and Jim Lavender, the Hamiltons and Doug Fisher, Duke Sells, Ted Cole and Mike Fuery, and the rest. But there are more and more outsiders now. A lot of big money has been piped into some of the islands. Much of it foreign money. Like St. Carib—it used to be just another beautiful private island. The old owner threw great parties. He’d boat the whole staff of Cabbage Key and Useppa over, and we’d set dance-marathon records. But then, out of nowhere, some outsiders bought the place and completely renovated it. It was all very hush-hush for a while. Then, suddenly, there was a nationwide publicity push. Television, newspapers, magazines like the New Yorker—all about how St. Carib was the new jet-set fat farm. We were all kind of excited at first. But then some of their movie-star clientele started sneaking over here looking halfstarved and acting like they were too good for the place, and we suddenly weren’t very excited anymore. We get our share of film stars and big-time athletes at Cabbage Key, but they come here to let their hair down. They want to be treated like private people—no better or worse—and that’s just what they get. They don’t get fussed over, and we all have a good time. But those folks from St. Carib have been a real pain. I think the hunger or the program or something makes them mean. And it rubs off on the St. Carib staff, I think. You mentioned foreigners— they’re almost all foreigners. You know the type: European macho.”

“All from one country?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. A couple of them look like Germans or Swedes—they’re blond, anyway. The rest of them are pretty dark. Some Italian, some Mediterranean, maybe.”

“And they give you a hard time?”

She nodded, stood, and checked her watch. “It’s about nine now. About midnight, when we want to close, is when the fun will probably begin. They get real nasty at closing time, and Rob isn’t here to put the fear in them, so it should be real interesting.”

I was surprised. “You mean they’ll be here tonight?”

“Not ‘be’ here, Dusky. They’re already here. Back in the bar. They’re drinking scotch like it’s due to be banned. They’ve got a new session starting tomorrow, and I guess they’re trying to get their minds right for all the chubby starlets they’ll have to service.”

“You sound a little bitter, Kath.”

“Not bitter. Just tired of getting pinched, Dusky.” She headed back toward the bar, then stopped suddenly, a quizzical expression on her face. “You know, you didn’t even tell me why you wanted the information.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Private, huh?”

“For now.”

She smiled, satisfied with the simple explanation. “Anyway, it’s good to see you around again, Dusky. And make sure you get a chance to see Larry Davis and the rest. They’d strangle me if I let you get away without saying hello.”

6

There were five of them at a table by the fireplace across from the piano in the bar.

The bald man had changed clothes, but he was still sweating and still banging at the old upright, playing “As Time Goes By” with a Casablanca edge to it. Kathy stood behind the bar talking to a clutch of locals, laughing with them and freshening their drinks. A young married couple, looking as though they were fresh from an Iowa farm, played darts in the corner, giggling and nuzzling. The ceiling fan churned the light haze of cigarette smoke and spread the warmth of the fire.

I went to an unoccupied corner of the bar, feeling the five St. Carib staffers eye me in sudden silence as I passed. Kathy brought me a Beck’s without my having to ask.

“Our friends are over there in the corner.”

“So I see.”

“They’re staring at you.”

“Must be my boyish good looks.”

“Or it could be that scar on your cheek. New, isn’t it?”

“Latest thing from Paris.”

“You ordered it by mail?”

“Won it, actually. Got second place in a knife fight. I’d have done better, but there was only one knife and it wasn’t mine.”

She looked at me strangely. “You know, I can’t tell when you’re kidding and when you’re not.”

“As long as I know, Kath. As long as I know.” I took a pull at the cold beer. “Marina’s off duty?”

“What a question to ask another single lady. And yes, she is. The poor kid was whipped. It’ll take her a while to get in shape for this waitress work. But the girls say she’s willing. And that’s half the battle. By the way, she left special orders to be called no later than ten. Said she’s to meet a friend at the bar. Are you the friend?”

“I try to be friendly with everyone.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“Depends on who you talk to. Right now I’m going to be friendly with those fine fellows from St. Carib.”

She picked up my beer, wiped the counter, and brought me another.

“That tall dark one is the guy to watch. Where he goes, the others follow. Acts like he’s a plantation owner and everyone else is slave material. He about got into it one night with Larry. Rob broke it up. That’s as close as we’ve come to having a fight out here in three years. Everything was friendly and cozy until those guys started showing up. And truthfully, if there had been a fight between those two, I wouldn’t have known who to bet on. Larry is big enough, but that guy is just plain mean.”

“Never bet against the Davis brothers or the Hamiltons. It’s a losing proposition in these parts.”

“That’s true.”

Nonchalantly, I swung around on my bar stool, pretending to watch the bald man pound the piano. He had switched from “As Time Goes By” to “Rum and Coca-Cola.” The tall dark guy Kathy was talking about sat at the head of the table, facing the bar. His black hair was carefully coiffured—the twenty-fourdollar windblown look. He wore a white sports shirt with St. Carib embroidered on the pocket, as did the other four. There was a gold chain around his neck, complete with obligatory unicorn horn. Digital watch and left wrist rested upon the table near his scotch, and left hand tapped two jeweled rings in time to the music. He was heavily corded more than heavily muscled, with broad plates of pectoral muscle visible within the open shirt. His face was of the classic Mediterranean mold: petulant mouth given to scorn, narrow dark eyes, and a very large nose that seemed to dominate whatever cheek and jaw development there may have been. Two others at the table seemed to be equally Mediterranean; both obviously in good shape, but reserved in the animated light of the man at the head of the table. The other two were blond hulks, all chest and forearms and biceps. They kept to themselves, apart from the others even though sitting at the same table. From the bits of conversation I heard, they sounded to be German.

I looked back at Kathy. “What’s the tall guy’s name?”

“Kind of a funny name,” she said softly. “What is it? Yeah, I remember—Matrah. I remember because he got mad at Larry for shortening it to Matt. That’s what the argument was all about.”

“Takes offense easily, huh?”

“Seems to.”

“Like I said, I’ll try to be friendly.”

I caught the tall one’s eye, smiled, waved briefly, and walked across the room to their table, beer in hand. They had been talking and laughing among themselves, but were suddenly silent as I neared. The tall one pretended not to notice me. I stood there for a moment, trying to look smaller than I am, gawky smile on my face, belly pushed out as far as I could get it. Finally, he had to notice.

“Yes?”

“Hey, hope you guys don’t mind my interruptin’, but I couldn’t help noticin’ your shirts—you guys really work there at St. Carib, the fat farm?”

The tall one tensed momentarily. He said, “Sir, I’m the director of St. Carib. These are a few of my employees. And none of us likes to hear St. Carib referred to as a fat farm. Understand?”

With the flavor of accent there was a well-practiced coldness in his voice; the chill you get from headwaiters who notice you’re not wearing a tie.

“What? Oh, hey, I’m sorry—no offense, you know. Just wondering if I could sit with you a minute, and maybe have you tell me a little about your fat—ah, your facility.” I patted myself on the stomach. “You can see I’m gettin’ a little pudgy and all, and I was thinkin’ about signin’ up for a class.”

You could tell the thought of me at his plush resort amused him. He cringed visibly. He said, “I’m afraid you would have to take that up with one of my subordinates. They handle all the enrollment. I suggest you write us a letter—or better yet, contact your local Weight Watchers organization.”

That got a laugh from the table. One of them chortled something in what sounded like Arabic. The tall one, Matrah, answered back, laughing, then turned his attention again to the piano player. The two Germans said nothing and looked glum.

End of interview.

I ambled back to the bar. Kathy was waiting with a fresh beer.

“With that sparkling personality of yours, you just never meet a stranger, do you?”

I held up crossed fingers. “After only a few words, Matrah and I are as close as this.”

“Practically blood brothers, huh?”

“Not quite, but I think if I had called St. Carib a fat farm again, we would have become blood brothers very soon.”

She laughed. “What a charmer you are, Dusky MacMorgan. One in a million. But seriously, is he the guy you’re looking for?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I won’t know for a while.”

“This becomes more and more mysterious.”

“And more and more confidential. Okay?”

She made a playground gesture I hadn’t seen in a long time. She twisted her lips between thumb and forefinger. “I just locked the secret and threw away the key.”

“You can’t ask for better security than that.”

Marina Cole came up the steps and into the bar at about eleven. If she was striking before, she was even more striking now. She had unbraided and washed her blond hair, and it hung down over her shoulders and feathered across her cheeks in translucent shades of wheat and gold. She wore a plain blue blouse and a wraparound skirt with tropical flowers on it in yellow and green. And she had stuck a big red hibiscus flower behind her ear. When she walked in, conversations halted abruptly, men turned, and even the bald piano player stumbled momentarily in “Old Cape Cod.” As if unaccustomed to such sudden attention, she hurried across the wooden floor and slid into the bar seat beside me.

“You do make an entrance, Marina.”

If not for the Gulf Stream tan, I would have guessed she was blushing. “Well, I hadn’t had a shower in days, and I had to wash my hair, and—but why in the hell am I embarrassed? At least I’m wearing clothes. You’re the one who knows how to make an entrance. Remember?”

We both laughed. I said, “Yeah, but I’m not nearly as pretty as you. Have I said yet that you look very lovely indeed tonight?”

She smiled, a woman who knew how to accept a compliment. “Why thank you, MacMorgan. I appreciate that.”

As if on cue, Kathy brought us each a chilled glass of the house white wine. I held up my glass. “Here’s to a happy stay on Cabbage Key. May you enjoy your work, then continue on your journey.”

She grinned, and we clinked glasses. “And may we both stay off sandbars.”

“Right.”

So we sipped at our wine and enjoyed the small talk common to new friends; enjoyed that probing ground of conversation that always includes childhood and old loves and, among sailors anyway, favorite boats and stories of storms.

Marina had done her share of sailing, too. While her stock-exchange father stayed home and read about the sea, she was content only with the bulldog approach: She went out and did it. She had crewed for several of the New England ocean racers, then signed on for a transatlantic race that almost cost her her life.

“We were twelve days out from Boston, and that far out it’s all big ocean,” she told me, the brown eyes glowing, enjoying her own tale. “Our boat was the thirty-eight-foot Steadfast, a lovely thing to look at and a dream to handle—and built for that kind of sail, too. We were seven, including the captain, and I was the only woman aboard. I worked hard to prove straightaway that I was there to sail, and not just to do more than my share of the cooking and cleaning, but you know how men are—”

“I know how some men are, if that’s what you mean.”

She reached over and patted my hand, face showing the proper chagrin. “I guess I should have qualified that.”

“And on the other hand, I might be one of the worst.”

She studied me momentarily, gave my hand a final squeeze, then continued her story. “Anyway, we were twelve days out and we could just feel that we were about to get it. Around midnight, the bottom dropped out of the barometer. It was eerie still; stars and moon all had a greenish cast, and the big starcut spinnaker we were carrying was dead empty. It was my watch and the captain was asleep below, so I told a couple of the guys to drop that spinnaker and get ready to do some quick reefing. They grumbled about my being overcautious, but thank God they finally did do it—because that squall hit about five minutes later. Really, Dusky, ‘squall’ seems like too weak a word for the storm that hit. It came blasting down out of Greenland, gusts to ninety knots. Seas went from five-foot swells to twenty-foot combers in no less than ten minutes.” She hesitated for a moment, reliving that storm in her own mind. “It all happened so quickly. It was so powerful that it actually took my breath away; I was in awe, my hands white on that big stainless wheel, knowing for the first time in my life that sense of having absolutely no control over my own destiny. Every sea washed us; like getting hit by God or something. As I said, it happened so quickly that no one had had a chance to call the captain. And in a storm like that, command has to change hands very quickly. So one of the guys with me in the cockpit unsnapped his lifeline and decided to try to get below. I knew he shouldn’t have tried it; I even yelled and told him not to. Those waves were about washing me away, and I had something to hang onto. But he was the macho type; had to prove himself, and he went anyway. The first crest that hit knocked him flat on his back. And the second washed him overboard. It happened so fast, Dusky, that it seemed like seconds later before I even heard him scream.”

“So you lost him?”

She was quiet for a long time. Then she looked at me, a strange wonderment on her face. “No,” she said softly. “We had been towing one of those patent logs astern during the day—you know those things with an impeller on a long line that measures speed and distance? At night we’d been hauling it in, for fear we’d get it fouled. Well, it was coiled beside me, and when I saw him go I grabbed the log, unsnapped my lifeline, and went over after him.” She rubbed at her forehead absently, as if perplexed by her own actions on that stormy night long ago. “I can’t really describe what I was feeling at that moment, Dusky. There was no fear involved. In that microsecond of decision it seemed that for the first and only time in my life, I was totally free. Free of everything … earthly, I guess. It was so simple. Just unsnap the lifeline and … and go.”

She was quiet then, lost in the depths of her empty wineglass.

“You got him?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I don’t know how. I got a grip on his foul-weather jacket, then he got a hold on the line. By that time, the others realized what had happened, and they helped haul us in.” She looked up quickly, her eyes searching mine. “You know, Dusky, that story’s been told a lot. But never by me. You’re the first person I’ve ever told. It’s such a private thing—that moment, that single moment of total freedom—that it would have seemed like a kind of blasphemy to go telling it around. It happened six years ago, and I guess I’ve spent those years trying to recapture that feeling. I worked briefly in one of the European branches of my father’s office, but I was too restless for that. So I worked at a French sailing school for a while, tried sky diving, got an adolescent interest in politics—my socialist period. Then I decided mountain climbing in Nepal was the thing to do—you know, find the secret of life on the highest peak.” She laughed shortly. “But the only thing I found in Nepal was a case of dysentery that just about did kill me. After that I spent a year experimenting with drugs. All kinds, but hallucinogens mostly. Drugs are such a lovely lie—and as deadly as they are lovely. Luckily, I realized that before it was too late. So then I went back to work for my father’s business, made enough money to buy my own sailboat, and here I am.”

I signaled Kathy, and she brought us more wine. Marina’s hand trembled slightly as she brought the glass to her lips. In the soft light of the little bar, beneath the whirling shadows of the ceiling fan and the clinking grace of the old piano, I thought I had never seen a woman so lovely. I found myself taking her hand in mine.

“Thank you,” I said.

She laughed nervously. “It must have sounded like I was boasting, but I wasn’t… .”

“I know, Marina, I know. That’s why I thanked you. You’re a rare person, and I’m honored that you told me.”

Her eyes searched mine. “And I don’t even know why I told you. We’ve only just met, and I barely know you. But there’s something in your eyes; I don’t understand your … your eyes. But they make me trust you.”

“Enough to answer just one personal question?”

She nodded, suddenly wary. “I guess. Sure.”

“In the entire story, you never mentioned your husband. Why?”

She shrugged. “There’s not much to tell, really. And it’s not a particularly interesting story.”

“I’m interested. More and more.”

For the first time, she looked girlish, almost shy. “Oh. Well… .” She took a deep breath, swirling the wine within her glass. “That fellow I went overboard to save? We were married upon our arrival in London. I really don’t know why I married him, Dusky. I guess because, at the time, he seemed somehow intimately a part of that … that special moment. It didn’t take me long to realize that he had nothing to do with it; it could have been anyone—or anything. That thing I felt—that instant of immunity from fear, life, death, and everything else—had nothing to do with anyone but me. But I realized it too late. My father warned me; he was totally against the marriage, but for different reasons. Called the guy a ‘goddam foreigner,’ and that just made me more determined to go through with it. I was only twenty at the time.”

“So you’re divorced now?”

The wistfulness in my voice wasn’t well disguised. I expected her to laugh, but she didn’t. She shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m still married. We were together only that first year. Even then he didn’t bother to disguise his bouts with other women. A discreet affair or two I could have handled. But not having it thrown in my face, the way he did. And plus I just didn’t love him. But it didn’t take him long to get involved with my father’s investment business. And once he had a foothold in the family fortune, there was just no getting rid of him. He vowed to contest any attempt at divorce. And my father switched sides, of all things. He admired my husband’s ‘business instincts,’ as he put it—foreigner or not. After that, I just said to hell with it, began using my own last name, and took off on my own. A marriage is just paper unless you make it work—or start dividing properties through the courts. So I decided to just ignore it.”

“But I don’t understand,” I said. “Yesterday morning, when I asked if you were going to meet your husband at Cabbage Key, you said—”

“I said stranger things happen. And they do. My husband is involved in a ritzy health resort my father’s corporation runs near here.”

“You mean your husband is over at St. Carib,” I said incredulously.

“Better than that,” she said, a bitter smile on her face. She turned and nodded at Matrah, the tall Mediterranean. He had an odd grin on his face, glaring at me.

“Much, much better than that, Dusky. That’s my beloved husband sitting right over there… .”

7

“Would you like to meet him, Dusky?” Marina asked, the sour smile still on her face. And with the smile I thought I read just the slightest hint of fear.

“Looks like I don’t have much choice in the matter, lady. He’s headed this way.”

Matrah stood up, lurched with drunken imprecision past his staff, and walked evenly across the floor. I got a good look at him for the first time. He was taller than I am—about six three, six four. He had wide gymnast’s shoulders that narrowed quickly at the chest, then piped down into a pair of expensive gray slacks. The pants were tight enough to advertise the bulge of male organ so necessary in the minds of the disco dancers, bar hoppers, and the other machismo freaks. The grin had changed to a leer, and he slid between our two bar stools, his back to me, plundering what the psychologists call our “personal space.”

It was a calculated move at intimidation, and I had no choice but to slide my stool back passively.

And listen.

I couldn’t believe the sudden change that came over Marina Cole. Her voice tightened around the nervous smile, and her right hand came to rest upon her lap like some kind of subconscious guardian.

Matrah said, “Marina, my dear. You told me earlier this afternoon that you were going to bed and couldn’t be bothered tonight. It’s so unlike you to lie.” He put a little something extra into the word “lie,” his tone grandiose but biting.

“Well, Matrah, I had almost an entire year to learn about lying from the best, now didn’t I?”

He let that roll off. I could see they were in for a nasty bout of verbal fencing unless I did something to break the rhythm.

But what?

“Marina,” he said more loudly—playing for the benefit of his table, obviously—“would you like to join us for a drink and a bit of conversation? Or would you rather sit here alone? After all, we are both civilized human beings, and I am your hus—”

“Oh, I’m anything but alone, Matrah,” she said, cutting him off. “And I have no desire to spend the evening being bored. But you haven’t met my friend, have you? Matrah, this is Dusky MacMorgan.”

He gave me a quick glance over his shoulder, his eyes holding about the same degree of interest he would bestow on a stray dog.

“I’ve already had the pleasure,” he said.

There was a brief look of surprise from Marina. Matrah continued, “Your friend was asking me earlier about the facilities at St. Carib—you haven’t seen the place, by the way, have you? Your father was so disappointed when you refused his invitation. Your friend said that he was interested in enrolling; said he needed to lose some of that stomach. I quite agreed—but recommended he contact Weight Watchers. More in his economic stratum, you see.”

The accent was somewhere between Saudi and British, and every word was armed. I forced myself to relax; told myself that this was just one more drunk looking for trouble, and I gave up my love of schoolground fisticuffs long, long ago.

But he didn’t have much farther to push before I allowed myself to regress.

“Marina,” I said, checking my watch, “didn’t you say you were interested in a boat ride? I’ve got to get up early, and if we’re to get out at all …”

She was quick to grab at the exit. “Absolutely,” she said. She turned to the tall Mediterranean. “Matrah,” she said, “if you decide to become reasonable about that matter we discussed, then I’ll be happy to talk with you. If not, please stay out of my way. You just don’t seem to understand that I don’t want to spend my life waiting around to save yours again.”

And with that she brushed past him, headed for the rest room, leaving him the uncontested loser in their verbal battle. She had gone for the jugular and hit it squarely. His face reddened, his dark eyes bulged, and his hands were clenched into fists. Behind him, I heard the two Germans laughing for the first time. Unlike their two darker counterparts, they had enjoyed Matrah’s humiliation.

“Bitch,” he whispered harshly, between clenched teeth. “You surly bitch.”

“Not very nice talk, Matt old buddy,” I said, standing to face him. The gawking smile, the slope of shoulders, were both forced. I wanted to look smaller, slower than I am. I had had just about enough of this character on one level. He was just one more self-important, self-styled aristocrat in a world ass-deep in such creeps. But on another level, there was something more: It was the ancient conflict of one man against another, ready to fight for the favor of a woman.

It’s rarely a good reason to fight; in fact, there’s hardly ever a good reason to go one-on-one with fists and elbows and feet.

But the prospect of taking this guy down a peg or two was a little too attractive to pass up.

He whirled toward me. “You—you keep out of this, fat man!” His thin chin was arrowed down at me, face red, eyes wide, taking every advantage of his height to look big and fearsome.

I heard Kathy’s voice from behind the bar. She had watched the whole scene quietly until now. “Dusky,” she said, “Rob doesn’t stand for this sort of thing—you know that. Not inside, anyway.”

There was a light smile on her face. She didn’t want the fight stopped; just wanted the battleground changed. I shrugged. “I guess we’re both being a little silly, huh?” I held out my hand toward him. “How ‘bout it, Matt ol’ buddy? Let’s shake hands and call it quits.”

He hesitated, then slapped my hand away with a resounding whack. “My name, fat man, is Matrah!” And with that he whirled and stormed out of the bar, through the porch, and outside toward the docks. The other two Mediterranean types hurried off behind him, casting ugly looks at me.

I turned to Kathy. “Mind if I settle my bill in the morning?”

She had a wry look on her face. “Maybe you’d better take care of it now—just in case you’re not around tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She laughed. “There are three of them.”

“So that makes the odds just about right.”

“I’ll get a full report in the morning, then. I hate fights, but I would like to see that guy humbled just a bit.”

“We can only hope,” I said. I nodded toward the women’s rest room on the back porch. “When Marina comes out, have her wait ten or fifteen minutes before she comes down to the boat?”

“Got it, skipper.”

As I went through the bar outside, one of the Germans surprised me by calling me over. He was a huge man with thin blond hair, and pockmarks on his face that suggested a bad case of acne during adolescence. Trying to hide some of the scars, apparently, he had grown a heavy blond mustache and a reddish beard. The beard was full-face, closely cropped. The mustache swooped Fu Manchu-like beneath a grotesquely red nose that had suffered the brunt of the adolescent skin disease. I approached him cautiously. If he was one of Matrah’s friends, he might try to end the fight before it even began. And he was big enough to maybe do just that.

I stopped across the table from the two. They were both still smiling. I said, “You’re not going to come and watch your friend at work?”

The biggest one, the one who had called me over, laughed out loud. And he said in a deep German accent, “I would not call him the friend—correct, Hans?” They both laughed again, far enough into the scotch to find anything funny. He looked up, wiping his eyes. “No, my American friend, I called you over just to give you the bit of advice.” He stood up and wrapped his arm around me, voice whispering in collusion. “Watch for his feet. Do you understand? He arrived at St. Carib only a few weeks ago, but already he has had two such … encounters? And he likes to use his feet to get things finished fastly. Am I being plain? Between the legs, my American friend, between the legs!”

“Plain enough,” I said as the big German sat back down. “But why the advice?”

He made an empty motion with his hands. “He is a little too … pompous? Yes, pompous. I have been with St. Carib since the beginning. Now he arrives and treats us all like stupid goats. I will work for him because I must.” He raised his glass, grinning. “And Hans and I will drink his whiskey—because we want to! But in such business as this, I must find myself on the other side of the … yard?” He slapped his hand on the table good-naturedly. Hans roared at that. The big German jumped quickly to his feet and held out his hand. “I am Heinrich Keppler, ya? And I already have heard that you are Dusky … ?”

“Dusky MacMorgan. And thanks for the advice, Heinrich.”

“Heiny! Heiny—my friends all call me Heiny.”

As I walked outside, Heiny and Hans were still calling out advice and luck, roaring with laughter and ordering more scotch, suddenly having a very good time in the absence of their superior.

Matrah was waiting for me at the base of the mound near the white clapboard dockhouse.

His two friends stood behind him in the shadows.

I took my time getting there; walked a swaying path, trying to use the dock lights to catch a glimmer of a knife or firearm.

I saw none. But I was still cautious. Even in a bar fight, lack of caution can spell death. I unsnapped the holster of my Gerber belt knife, opened the blade, and placed the knife gingerly in the flap pocket of my khaki fishing shorts.

I would use it only if Matrah produced something equally lethal.

He was hunched and ready when I arrived. His two friends pulled in closer now. Matrah was in the typical karate fighting stance, one bladed hand high, the other low.

“Hey, what’s this?” I said innocently. “I thought you guys were going home.” As I spoke I was getting closer and closer, gauging the distance between Matrah and myself, studying the angles between Matrah and his two friends. I knew what I wanted to do; knew what I had to do. If I went after—and disabled—Matrah first, the other two would jump me then. And that was anyone’s ball game. I wanted to do things nice and neat; take them all by surprise.

Counting on Heiny’s advice, I walked bowlegged, trying to give Matrah an obvious target. His friends were only an arm’s length behind him now.

“Look, you fellas, I sure don’t want to fight. Don’t you think we can work this out?”

“Hear the coward now!” Matrah sputtered, still low, still ready.

“Oh, jeez, don’t call me a coward—” I was close enough now, and with his right foot, Matrah sent a blazing kick toward my crotch. I sidestepped it, gave him a solid crack behind the ear with my elbow, and in the same swift motion smacked one of the Mediterraneans with an overhand right, then hit the other flush on the nose with a cross-body left hand. They both went back-pedaling onto their butts, holding their faces.

I turned. Matrah was just getting up. “As I was saying—don’t call me a coward, because it really pisses me off, Matt old buddy.”

“You bastard!” He came lunging at me, arms grabbing me around the waist, knees pounding away at my crotch. One or two of the knees found their mark, and I felt the swift nausea, the beading of sweat on forehead. I cracked down hard with my elbow on the kidney area of his back, and when he recoiled I grabbed him solidly by the throat and backed him up against the bathhouse wall.

“Carry this any farther, Matt old buddy, and you’re going to go whistling around this island like a balloon with a bad valve. Got it?”

Dark eyes bulging, he nodded carefully.

Behind me then I heard the two Germans coming at a heavy run. They had obviously been watching from the top of the mound. Heiny was yelling at me—his theatrics a little too obvious to be believable.

“Let him go, you American pig! Let him go before he squashes you like an ant!”

I felt Heiny’s big hands go gently around my shoulders. I let him pull me away. While Hans helped the two Mediterraneans to their feet, Heiny pulled me farther away from the stunned Matrah, whispering as he did, “We must keep up appearances, my tough American friend.” He giggled drunkenly. “My advice—you listened! But if I allowed you to kill him, I could not enjoy the look of defeat on his face tomorrow.”

He glanced anxiously back at Matrah, then whispered again. “Do you mind if I give you a little shove—for appearance’s sake?”

“For appearance’s sake—but not too hard. I’m feeling a little sick. He got me with one of those knees—damn.”

“Soak them in cold water—that is the best thing.” He gave me a gingerly shove, and I added a bit of theatrics myself, falling to the ground.

“Let that be a teaching to you, American!” Heiny yelled, gathering up Matrah and the other Mediterraneans. “Do not have another encounter such as this, or next time you will not be so fortunate!”

Heiny and Hans were still yelling bogus threats and deadly promises at me when they got into St. Carib’s sleek Excalibur and powered down the channel toward their island home.

I allowed myself a few minutes to recover, trying to get my wind back, waiting for the sweat shakes to dissolve. I had come damn close to killing Matrah; too damn close. I was shaking from that more than anything else. Had I allowed myself to go on, what would have happened to my mission? It’s hard to keep a low profile when you’re in jail on murder charges—however justified.

In fact, I was probably stupid to get involved in a fight at all.

I wasn’t sticking to my game plan. I’d lost touch with my role: that of the fat blundering American, too stupid to be on the search for anything, too weak to do anything about it if I did find something.

When I had finally settled down, I went limping back up the mound to the old inn. Marina and Kathy sat side by side at the now-empty bar. They both looked up when they heard the screen door slam.

Marina looked worried. Kathy was laughing. “You’re still alive and well?”

“Alive, anyway. Matrah was very quiet and polite when he left.”

Marina came to me, hugged me unexpectedly, and slid her hand into mine. “Good,” she said firmly. “He’s had that coming for a long, long time.”

There was an awkward moment between the three of us. And in the silence, I said hurriedly, “Well, I guess I just came up here to say goodnight to you two. It’s been a long day—”

“You’re not going to bed yet,” Marina said evenly. Then she allowed herself a vixen smile. “You promised to take me for a boat ride. Remember?”

“Ah … boat ride. Right.”

She led me out the door, tall with flaxen hair drifting behind her like a veil. And Kathy called behind us, “Just be back by seven, Marina. That’s breakfast, and a waitress’s work is never done around here!”

8

So we got aboard Sniper, and idled her down the midnight channel beneath March stars. Ahead, an intercoastal waterway marker flashed with a red precision that seemed to suggest haven in the darkness. The wind had disappeared with nightfall, as if sucked away in the sudden vacuum of sun, and Pine Island Sound was a reflection of constellations.

Marina handled the lines flawlessly, did everything that needed to be done without being told, then joined me on the open flybridge. She settled into the swivel seat beside me with a sigh.

“Do you mind my forcing you into this, Dusky?”

I reached over and took her hand. “You’ve been nothing but trouble, Miss Marina Cole. I hate being out here alone with a beautiful woman—and a married woman at that. But I would hate it a lot more if you took the wheel while I went below and grabbed us a beer to share.”

She pressed me back into my seat gently. “You take the wheel and I’ll get two beers—then we can both be very unhappy.”

She returned with a brace of icy Tuborgs, and stuck mine already opened in the holder beside the wheel.

“So where do you want to go, lady?”

“Anywhere. I … I don’t know why, but when you get used to living on a boat, it’s always hard to spend that first night under a roof. Maybe I just want to put it off. Claustrophobia or something, I guess.” And then she added lamely, “I guess that sounds silly, huh?”

“Very silly,” I said. “That’s why I live on that stilthouse way out on the water by myself. If it’s silly, we’re both silly.”

We had left the moment of spontaneous touching behind at Cabbage Key: the unexpected hug, the taking of my hand in hers. Two strangers alone, we had entered the clumsy, uncomfortable time of prospective lovers—uncomfortable because we have all seen it rehearsed again and again on a million television screens. You find yourself sliding into the practiced routines of the buxomed starlets and the square-jawed heros, so that even the honest gesture of affection begins to ring untrue.

So I was content to steer Sniper toward a pretty little harbor I knew—a deepwater retreat within the confines of a pine-swept island called Punta Blanco. I did not put my arm around her, nor did she lay her head on my shoulder, but there was still the physical awareness, the deep wanting—yet we were both content to simply ride and enjoy the night.

Marina asked me why I lived alone, and I told her. Recounting the deaths of loved ones is always painful, and I go out of my way not to talk about it. But somehow it seemed easier telling her. She made no obligatory “oohs” and “ahs” of sympathy. She listened carefully, her eyes bespeaking the horror she felt. And when I was done, she was quiet for a long time. Finally she said, “You had that time with them, Dusky.”

And she was right. It was a philosophy eloquent for its simplicity. We had had our time together. There was a Zen-like toughness in the acceptance of that—but a very comforting honesty, too.

We had had our time together. It was not a matter of quantity, but of quality. One year or a hundred years—the mathematics of it made no difference. The essence of human emotion should wear no timepiece, because you can live neither in the past nor the future.

There is only the present.

You live and love and work in the very heart of a moment, because everything else is a memory. Or an illusion.

“You’ve made me feel somehow better about it all, Marina,” I said. “And for some reason, that makes me feel … a little guilty, I guess. Silly, huh?”

She reached over and gently traced the line of my face with her fingertip. “It means you cared for them very, very much.”

“I did.”

“And what happened to the man who murdered them?”

I felt my hands tighten on the steering wheel, remembering.

“Not one man—many men. There was a big drug operation on an island near Key West. The law couldn’t seem to touch them because there was an important politician involved. They are the ones who killed my family—but by mistake. They were trying to kill me.”

“You were involved?”

I shook my head. “Not hardly.” And then I lied intentionally. “They somehow got the idea I was in their way, so they sent a couple of hit men after me. The law couldn’t touch them, but another drug gang could. One night that little island haven of theirs became a battleground. You could see the glow of the fire clear back in Key West. Apparently, the drug gang that attacked ended up big winners. All but one of my family’s murderers were killed—and he’s still running for his life somewhere in South America.”

Marina studied me shrewdly. “You don’t look like a gang of drugrunners to me.”

I tried to look incredulous. “Me? I wish I’d had the nerve to go after those guys.”

“The scars you have—the one on your cheek, and that awful scar on your thigh. You got those playing football or baseball, or something like that, right?”

She was smiling. I said, “You’re awfully nosy, woman.”

“And I have very good instincts. There’s something about you I like very much, MacMorgan. I still can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because you make me feel safe. Not because you’re big and rough-looking, but because there’s a quality of honesty about you. And honest people are very bad liars. Did you know that?”

I said nothing.

“You are a very bad liar, MacMorgan.”

“So that makes me basically honest?”

“No, but you are. I can tell. And I can also tell you’re not one of the sheep. I’ve got this theory—see what you think. You can divide the world’s people into three categories. The Sheep, who do the following and the drone work. The Lions, who do the manipulating and the ruling. And then you have a third group, the Rogues. They live their lives independently, outside the boundaries of conformity. They do not live that way just for the sake of nonconformity, but because some inner instinct demands they live that way. And you, Dusky MacMorgan, are definitely a Rogue. Furthermore, a Rogue warrior. That’s the very rarest breed of Rogue. The few that are around, you find living on mountaintops, or in the depths of the north woods. Or on a house built on stilts two miles out to sea.” She reached over and kissed me warmly on the cheek. “So no, I don’t believe that you would leave your revenge to someone else. I’m not saying that’s good—I’m just saying you wouldn’t.”

“You’re just trying to turn my pretty head, lady.”

“No, I’m just saying I have my instincts. Maybe I got them from my father—he’s a Lion, by the way. Just as Matrah is a Lion. They use their instincts to manipulate and control. Neither of them has any emotional interest in St. Carib, or any of their other businesses, for that matter. They are only interested in the manipulation of their businesses. To them, life is just one giant chessboard, and they use businesses and their workers like pawns. All their instincts are focused in that direction. Maybe the two of them drove me to life as a Rogue.” She shrugged.

“Is this a confession?”

I expected her to laugh, but she didn’t. She looked at me seriously. “No,” she said, “it’s a fact. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been with a man, MacMorgan. And the only kind of man that interests me is another Rogue. I guess that’s why I feel I can be open with you; open and honest. I don’t want to waste a moment with you. You don’t know how tempted I was to stay with you yesterday morning. All the way from Key West to Cabbage Key on that sailboat alone, I thought about you, and swore at myself for wearing this stupid ring. I wear it as protection—it keeps the male Sheep and Lions away.” She stopped, wind mussing her long blond hair beneath starlight, pulled the wedding ring off, and tossed it over her shoulder into the black wake of Sniper. “I’m not making a confession, MacMorgan,” she said softly. “I’m telling you why I want to sleep with you tonight. And every other night that we can.”

I felt the brown eyes lock on mine. I lifted my bottle of Tuborg. “Here’s to two Rogues,” I said.

She touched her bottle to mine. “And to the time we have together,” she said.

I brought Sniper carefully through the shoal waters of Punta Blanco and around to the west side into the empty deepwater harbor. One of the local fishing guides had shown me the place long ago. In back times, there had been a wooden schoolhouse on the island for the fishermen’s kids of Pine Island Sound. The schoolhouse had long ago burned, the fishermen had left their desultory lives of seclusion for the ease of homes in Fort Myers and Sanibel, but the harbor remained.

I backed Sniper while Marina handled the anchor line, snubbing it at my signal. I switched off engines and running lights, leaving us to the feathered silhouettes of Australian pine, the night bird sounds of the deserted island, and the soft exhalations of sea moving upon beach.

Marina came to me, a silver-haired mist in the darkness. Her lips were soft and warm. At first gentle, then searching. We stood clinging together on the aft deck, she upon tiptoes, my arms full around the heat of her.

“Hope you don’t think I’m always this easy,” I said.

She giggled like a teenager. “Your reputation’s already shot. No going back now.”

“And I’ve tried to lead such a clean life.”

“The word’s out, MacMorgan: Tap twice on your head, and your pants come down.”

“Your hands seem to be busy with anything but my head.”

“I’m trying to figure out the combination of this damn belt. There!”

Her wraparound skirt slid down with the tug of a string. She wore narrow bikini panties, and her legs tapered long and tanned and lean beneath the flare of thighs.

“Does this shirt of yours have buttons, or what?”

She said, breathing becoming heavier now, “Don’t … bother me with questions … MacMorgan. I’m … ah … busy.”

She was busy indeed. There were buttons, and neither of us minded when they went skittering across the deck, shirt open, revealing wide small breasts thrust upward, nipples pale and elongated.

So in the March night, beneath sky fresh with the sudden loss of wind, we came together with the ancient fervor of new lovers. On the aft deck we coupled in a frenzy of the love-starved. There was an animal wanting in her, a passion that demanded my full attention. She had told me that it had been a very long time since she had been with a man, and her whole body said it again and again.

And after that first time, I cradled her in my arms, lips buried in her soft hair, nose enjoying the salt and shampoo odor that was the scent of her.

“You’re crying, lady?”

She sniffed. “God, yes. It was like … a dam breaking, or something. My stoicism … I pay for it. It all builds and builds and builds.” She reached up, kissed me with salty lips. “Thank you,” she said. “I feel almost empty now.”

“Almost?”

Her kiss became passionate then; she rolled over on top of me, her body slick with our earlier laboring, and kissed my chest.

“Now it’s my turn,” she said, “to break a dam.”

“It’s been broken once, lady.”

Her voice was husky. “I noticed. But not this way… .”

I pulled into the dock at Cabbage Key just before sunrise. On the island, birds were making bright morning sounds, and a silver haze was lifting over the white house and golf course expanse of Useppa Island to the east. As we walked the docks and up the mound, a few fishermen getting an early start passed us. I had my arm around Marina, her head soft on my shoulder, and she did not pull away.

“I want them to know,” she said, nuzzling me. “I want the whole world to know.”

“The world might be bored by such news, lady.”

“Good. I want to bore the world to death, then.”

“You sound enthusiastic.”

“I am, MacMorgan. I’m going to work hard all day, and then work harder again with you tonight.”

“I’m afraid that’s a maybe.”

She pulled away from me, face showing surprise. It was such a petulant look of childlike disappointment that I had to laugh.

“It’s not what you think, Marina. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me—whether you want to or not. But I really did come up here on business. And I’ve got to take care of it.”

She hesitated, as if about to ask what my business was, then decided not to. “Okay,” she said. “But you’re not really thinking of enrolling at St. Carib as Matrah said last night, are you?”

“I could stand to lose a little weight.”

She hugged herself against me again. “I think I can say objectively that everything about your body is in the very right place. I took a couple of long looks last night, remember?”

“Vaguely.”

“You need a quick reminder, I see,” she said vampishly.

I checked my watch. “And you need to get ready to wait breakfast tables.”

She threw up her hands, laughing. “Okay, okay. But when you’re through with your business, sailor, you’d better look me up.”

“And down?”

“And down.”

While Marina went to her little cottage quarters to grab a shower, I found the key to my room and went into the old house to get my duffel bag. Only the cooks were up, the smell of bacon and potatoes frying filling the inn. I tiptoed down the hallway like a teenager getting in late from a date, found my room, and went inside.

I have an old habit. It came from a time in Vietnam when the wrong people were trying to nose into my business. Before leaving any rented room, I yank a hair from my head and paste it across the duffel zipper, then wad up a small piece of paper and drop it behind the door. Anyone entering the room moves the wad of paper. Anyone tampering with my duffel moves the hair.

It’s very very simple—and most effective.

Because I wasn’t expecting it, it took me a while to notice that my wad of paper was shoved clear against the wall. Someone had swung the door wide open—and it wasn’t me.

I had left the duffel on top of the bed. I switched on the overhead light and studied the zipper.

The hair was gone.

I opened the duffel and went carefully through the contents: Wilkinson razor and extra blades, a change of clothes, a fresh can of Copenhagen, a small notebook with the names and telephone numbers of the locals I knew, and three hundred dollars in cash.

It was all there. I wished I had rigged the notebook in some way to let me know if someone had opened it.

I neatly replaced the contents, switched off the light, and swung the door closed behind me.

It took me a while to locate Rob Wells. He was out in the yard pushing his little blond son in a swing that hung on ropes from a limb of a mammoth live oak. When he saw me coming, he patted the boy on the head and told him to go play, and his son went whooping and laughing down toward the water, their liver-colored pointer trotting after him.

“You’re looking sleepy this morning, Dusky.” He grinned.

“Such a pretty evening last night, I couldn’t sleep.”

“And I heard you had some trouble at the bar, too.”

“Not all that much trouble, really.”

He nodded. “Usually I take a very dim view of fighting on the island. Almost never have any trouble that way. But with that character Matrah, I’ll make an exception. Heard you stuck him pretty good.”

“That guy seems to make enemies very very quickly,” I said.

“He does seem to have a talent for it. Took over St. Carib two or three weeks ago. Their first director was no gem, but this guy is even worse. Wears that superior attitude of his like a hat. I think I’m going to bar him from the grounds altogether. It’s either that or lose some of my best help—they flip to see who has to wait on him. The loser gets the job.”

“You know anything about his background—where he came from, what his specialties are?”

Rob shook his head. “I think he’s Egyptian. Or Arab—something like that. And he owns a very big piece of St. Carib, and he and his associates weren’t entirely pleased with the way it was being run, so he came down to take the reins himself. That’s about it, I guess…. Oh, there is one more thing—he likes guns. Kind of a hobby, apparently. You know I occasionally have a turkey shoot out here. For the locals, mostly. But he got wind of the one I had last week, and he came over here with some kind of Belgian over-and-under that was just magnificent. And he knew how to use it. Won the shoot without breaking a sweat. And didn’t even have the courtesy to act pleased. Just acted bored by it all. After that, we got into a short conversation about firearms—not so much because he wanted to talk to me, it was more like … like he wanted to show me and everyone else that he knew a lot more than we did. Know what I mean?”

“I do indeed.”

I hesitated, trying to find a delicate way to ask my next question. Finally I decided there was no delicate way. I said, “Rob, I wasn’t in my room last night. But I think someone else was.”

There was a real look of concern on his face. “You mean someone stole something? That’s never happened—”

“No, no—nothing missing. But I could just tell someone had been in there looking around.”

“No chance of its being the help,” he said quickly. “But who in the heck could it have been?”

“It’s not important. In fact, it could have just been my imagination. I thought maybe someone had gone in to check the fireplace, or change the sheets, or—”

“No chance,” he said. “I wasn’t here last night, but I know that for sure.”

He walked me down the mound, asking when I would be back, and if I could stay longer next time. I told him I had every hope. As he helped me with Sniper‘s lines, I asked him the final question, trying to make it seem offhand, unimportant.

“I think there’s a friend of mine staying around here someplace. He’s a big good-looking guy—dark hair, the kind of face you see in the Rockwell paintings. His name is Fizer. Norm Fizer. He would have been here in one of the Boca Grande rental boats.”

Rob thought for a moment. “I think there was a guy around here a couple of days ago who looked like that. I remember because he put the waitresses in a flutter—real good-looking guy, right? They thought maybe he was one of the movie stars from St. Carib. But he didn’t say much. Kind of sat in a corner talking with somebody.”

“Do you remember who he was talking to?”

Rob’s eyes looked skyward, scanning his memory. He said, “Yeah, I do, now that you ask. That’s why the waitresses thought he was from St. Carib. The guy he was talking to—it was Matrah… .”

9

Aboard Sniper, I cruised reluctantly past the palm trees and white houses of St. Carib.

I had heard all too much about the place, far too quickly. I had a gut feeling that whatever went wrong would go wrong there. There was the stink of international money behind it: Matrah, Marina’s father, and probably a number of other unknown interests.

But I had a job to do, and that job demanded I check out all the possibilities.

So I made my way up the intercoastal waterway, past St. Carib and Mandango, and entered the rough cross-chop of Boca Grande Pass, taking care to stay well away from the rocks on Cayo Costa where the old quarantine station once stood.

Finally, it was a day that seemed summerlike: pale wind drifting in the fresh heat of morning, and beaches an iridescent white beneath a potent sun.

After some consideration, I decided to pull into the docks at the Pink Elephant—a public house that, like most of Boca Grande, had retained the old Southern grandeur of Florida. There were a few other boats there, and I went inside the bar for a quick lunch and a beer.

The place was almost empty, cool and dark with ceiling fans, and it took my eyes a while to adjust. I paused momentarily to look at the mounted fish in their glass case, then went on inside and took a seat.

And I was midway through my cheeseburger and chilled potato salad when the tall, good-looking waitress suddenly returned to my table.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “Great.”

She took something out of her apron. “A guy sitting over there in the corner asked me to give you this.” She handed me a note, carefully folded.

I waited until she had gone to read it.

It said: “Meet me at the bench in front of the old train depot in twenty-five minutes.”

There was no signature.

I took my time, yawned, and glanced around nonchalantly. He sat at a table with three burly-looking men in bleak, ill-fitting suits. They ate full lunches. He drank tea in a tall iced glass. The face and the shaved head were unmistakable: It was D. Harold Westervelt.

I checked my Rolex and marked the meeting time in my mind. D. Harold looked up, eyes sweeping past me without recognition. He nodded curtly.

So I finished my lunch, left a five for the pretty waitress, and went outside into the bright sunlight.

The village of Boca Grande has all the quiet class of a small New England town. You can walk down the middle of the main street at noon and not worry about getting hit by a car. The small white churches seem to glow with a celestial light, and broad oaks and banyan trees shadow the side streets. It is a rare place among the tacky postcard and trailer-park grotesqueries that most other Florida towns have become. True, the profit-hungry developers are converting the north end of the island into a catacomb of condominiums. But the downtown area remains quiet and quaint with its drugstore and the filling station, and the deserted train depot with its 1920 streetlights.

And the town has stayed that way not because of some lofty concern from its county commission or planning board—anything but. If it was left to them, they would sit by blinking like stray cats while one of the big money developers coated the entire west coast with asphalt.

No, it has stayed that way because the people who live there have bigger money. And in Florida, money is the only voice the politicians really listen to. Boca Grande is peopled by the unlikely mixing of true Florida crackers with America’s old-money families, family names we all recognize because we buy the products their conglomerates manufacture, or see their names in the jet-set social registers. The crackers who live there don’t want the village to change, and the wealthy, who treasure their beachside lives of seclusion, have enough money to stop outsiders from trying.

So I walked on down to the docks at Knight’s marina, traded jokes with a couple of Captiva fishing guides, Mike Fuery and Doug Fisher, who just happened to be there, then walked back to the deserted train depot at the appointed hour.

I was a little early—as usual.

And D. Harold Westervelt was right on time—as usual.

He sat at the far end of the park bench, as far away from me as he could get. Without looking at me, he said, “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to arrive on Boca Grande, captain.”

“I stopped at Cabbage Key. I may be on to something.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Good,” he said. “Excellent.”

“Do you want a report now?”

Without shaking his head, he said, “In a minute. This meeting must be very brief—for obvious reasons. You’re probably surprised to see me up here. Frankly, I wasn’t anxious to come. I’ve a great deal of work to do back in Key West, and this has thrown my schedule completely off.”

“Any word on Fizer?”

“Still missing. His wife took it very hard—but was brave all the same. She’s still holding some hope. I recommended she be prepared for the worst. I’m afraid I know all too well how FEAT works. Unless there’s a ransom involved, they don’t deal with prisoners.”

“But they’ve never had to deal with Norm Fizer before.”

D. Harold actually allowed himself a smile. “That’s true. Captain Fizer would be a very hard man to kill—like yourself.” Then he added meaningfully, “Hard to kill. But not impossible.”

He straightened the sunglasses he was wearing and pulled the broad-rimmed straw hat down lower on his head. The combination of the two made him look like some tourist from Ohio—no doubt the desired effect.

“But I didn’t call you here to talk about Captain Fizer,” he said. “There’s been a change of plans—and it should simplify things for you. Those men I was having lunch with—all KGB high command. They know who I am and what I do, and I am very aware of their work, so there was no need for deception—not on this level, anyway. Actually, one is an old friend. Worked for the British SIS during the Second World War. He was one of the head men in the British double-cross network that specialized in catching German agents and converting them. Devastated the Nazis. He was so successful at that, no one ever suspected that he was a Russian double agent. But he was. The Russians have a way of getting good people. Now he pretty much runs the show over there. Top-flight group, the KGB. This is the first time since the war I’ve had a chance to work with them.”

“They’re on to FEAT?”

Colonel Westervelt chuckled. “After being so badly embarrassed by that cobalt business, the Russians made a special point to learn all they could about it. Yes, Captain MacMorgan, they know about FEAT—and probably a good deal more than we do. We traded a few scraps of information over lunch, both of us careful not to help the other. But you know how that goes. Later, we might get down to exchanging some real information. But the important thing is, they’ve learned about the possibility of their Kiev Evenki’s being assassinated. And I must say, they weren’t too pleased at the prospect of using one of their top people like a sacrificial lamb.”

“Can’t say as I blame them.”

“Oh, it has nothing to do with any humanitarian feelings. If they could join this hunt for FEAT’s assassin and make the kill themselves, they’d be all for it. Even said that if our man—which is you—used their SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, they might go along with it. That way their Pravda and Radio Moscow could make a show of claiming responsibility for the score.”

“That sounds pretty cold-blooded—and premature. I have a few ideas who FEAT’s man might be, but strictly speculation.”

Westervelt eyed me sharply. “Very briefly, tell me who it might be. And why you think so.”

So I told him about Matrah; about his investment background, his Mediterranean heritage, and his being seen talking with Fizer before his disappearance.

“Interesting,” he said. “Quite interesting. I’ve heard this fellow Matrah’s name before. It took me a moment to realize where.” He turned and glanced at me for the first time. “I said that I would have your acquaintance Marina Cole checked out. His name was mentioned there—her husband, correct?”

“That didn’t take long.”

“It was a very brief, very superficial report. The information we have came from the obvious places: schools, county records, police reports.”

“Police reports!”

“Seems Miss Cole had some trouble in Casablanca several years ago. She was arrested for the possession of drugs.”

“She told me about that,” I said, lying only partially. She had told me about her early experimentation with drugs.

Westervelt shrugged. “It was only a minor thing. Her father’s wallet spared her the embarrassment of a light prison sentence. Other than that, she seems to be a pretty benign figure. Of course, she does have connections—through her husband and father—with the international money market that might make her a suspect… .”

“She wasn’t in the area when Fizer disappeared,” I reminded him.

“Oh, I doubt seriously if she has anything to do with this business. I’m just trying to remind you that FEAT’s people come from all walks of life—male and female, American or foreigner.” He made a dismissing motion with his hands. “But now I must tell you about the Russian, Kiev Evenki. He arrived this morning, but will be leaving almost immediately. His own KGB people have him more than adequately protected. And so that leaves us with the Israeli, Samuel Yabrud. He will be arriving at St. Carib this afternoon.”

“But what if FEAT’s target was the Russian? Maybe they’ll call the hunt off all together.”

“Maybe,” Westervelt said. “But of course we can’t take the chance. Our agents will stay with him as much as they can while Yabrud goes through the St. Carib course. But there will be some times, apparently, when the course demands that he be alone. St. Carib uses one of those ‘experiential education’ programs that are so popular now in wildlife schools. You know the sort of thing: People are sent off on an island alone for a day or two to eat roots and berries. The very rich people who enroll there love it. The island staff yells at them and orders them about. Very strict, very military. But these rich folks are so worn by the responsibilities they have in real life, apparently, that they delight in being ordered about like children.”

“So if FEAT does decide to hit Samuel Yabrud, you figure it will be at one of those times when he is off alone?”

Colonel D. Harold Westervelt stood up, adjusted his hat carefully. “If you were FEAT’s assassin, isn’t that what you would do, captain?”

And with that, he walked away from me, down the quiet streets of Boca Grande.

Now my fight with Matrah seemed like a bigger mistake than ever. And I swore at myself softly as I powered Sniper away from the docks of the Pink Elephant. I had stayed in town after my short meeting with Westervelt only long enough to stop at the little marina where they rented powerboats.

I was lucky. The shrunken old lady who was behind the counter remembered Norm Fizer.

“Oh yes, that poor, poor man,” she said when I asked about him. “It’s the first boat we’ve ever lost here—and we rent them every day,” she said.

“Was that the first time he ever rented one of your boats?”

She shook her head. “No, he came in two days before he … he disappeared. Paid for three days in advance. Used cash—cash for the deposit and everything. I remember because it was very unusual. Almost everyone nowadays uses credit cards. Plastic money for this, plastic money for that. It’s no wonder this country is having such a terrible economic problem—”

“Did he mention where he might be going in your boat?”

She thought for a moment. “No. Just said he was going to do some fishing. But it’s like I told the police—he never bought no bait nor lures or nothing. Had a rod of his own, of course, but I never did see no tackle box. Thought it was kind of strange.”

“Do you remember what he was wearing.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I might be an old woman, but I still have an eye for a good-looking man. And my, but he was good-looking. Thought he might be a movie star or something. Let’s see now—he was wearing a dark-blue sports shirt. Cotton probably. And those expensive khaki fishing pants with the button-down pockets—kind of like yours, only his weren’t shorts. They was long slacks.”

I offered her a ten for her help, but she refused. “Are you from the police?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m a reporter. Doing a big special for my wire service of water-sport accidents.”

“Well, if you use my name, make sure you get the spelling right. I’ve talked to reporters before, and they almost always get it wrong. You’d think they’d learn better in college or something… .”

So I rode the flybridge down the intercoastal waterway deep in thought, wondering just what in the hell my next move should be.

One thing was for sure—I had to get close to Samuel Yabrud. Because if he was FEAT’s mark, his assassin was sure to be nearby. I considered using Cabbage Key as a base. Maybe get Rob Wells to help me pose as the new fishing guide there, and somehow ingratiate myself with the Israeli.

No, there were far too many holes in that plan; too many times when Yabrud would be out of my sight—and maybe in the sights of FEAT’s assassin. Besides, I had ulterior motives for wanting to stay at Cabbage Key. And as strong as my attraction was for Marina Cole, it wasn’t strong enough to make me blow my whole mission.

I had only one sensible trail of action. I had to enroll at St. Carib. I had to go through the workouts and the diet and, apparently, the harassment right along with the rich and chubby.

The big question was: Would Matrah allow me on the island? I wasn’t exactly a treasured friend after our fight the night before. And Matrah didn’t seem the type to forgive and forget. But all I could do was try.

The sign at the channel way to the exclusive fat farm read:

ST. CARIB ISLAND

PRIVATE RESORT FACILITY

ENTER WITH PERMISSION ONLY

I brought Sniper around, dropping her down to idle speed. Before me, the island spread out in the afternoon sun, lush and green with palms and gumbo-limbo. There was a white sweep of beach where a line of men and women jogged in formation. The geometries of graceful old buildings—tin roofs, vertical white board-and-batten, long screened porches—could be seen through the heavy foliage.

The docks were new: built with heavy plank and green treated pilings. And there was plenty of room for my Sniper—the reason obvious. No doubt St. Carib ferried its clients out on the giant sportfisherman tethered to the dock. The only other boats there were a couple of low-horsepower skiffs, and the sleek Excalibur that Matrah and his friends had used the night before. It hung on davits beside the dock, long and gleaming, projectilelike in the bright sun.

There was a committee of dock hands waiting when I pulled up: broad, muscled types. And they all looked surly.

Obviously, unexpected guests weren’t welcome on St. Carib.

I smiled from the flybridge, waved. They didn’t wave back. One of them, the spokesman for the group, stepped forward.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid we can’t allow you to dock here. This is a private island,” he said.

I yelled back, still smiling, “I know. I came to sign up. I talked with some of your people last night at Cabbage Key. They said I should talk to your enrollment personnel.”

They conferred for a moment, then the spokesman asked, “Who did you talk to?”

“Heinrich Keppler. Is Heiny around? He’ll tell you.”

One of them went running off and returned shortly with the big German. He came lumbering down the dockway, planks creaking beneath his weight. His blond mustache and short red beard were contorted into a broad grin.

He waved and yelled at me, “You big American cow! You have come to lose the fat? It is true?”

“It’s true—but I’d like to tie up my boat and come ashore first, if that’s okay with you.”

He waved me in, caught the lines I tossed him, and snubbed off the lines on the brass cleats. I took his hand when I stepped out onto the dock: big dry handshake, but not the aggressive kind—the kind that tries to crush the fingers and suggests imminent domination.

“Ah, to see Matrah’s face when he learns that you have enrolled. That will be a happy something, ya!”

“If he lets me enroll. I’ve been planning my whole vacation around staying here. I’d hate to see it ruined because of that little squabble we had last night.”

“Hah! Some little squabble, you speak. He did not eat the breakfast this morning. A bruise around his throat this big.” He held his hands apart as if describing a fish. “No, we must get you signed up before he sees you. That will be a laugh!”

He talked on in clumsy English as he walked me across the well-manicured expanse of St. Carib. The walkways were made of red brick, curving beneath the shade of broad oaks and banyan trees. Like most of the inhabited islands in Pine Island Sound, the houses were all built on the tops of a long line of prehistoric Indian shell mounds that made up the bulk of the island. At a small wooden building, he stopped me. A sign at the door proclaimed it the business/ enrollment office.

“My chubby American friend, do you know that it costs much money to stay here?” he asked in a worried tone.

I smiled. “Heiny, money has never been a problem with me. Right now, my only worry is this stomach I’m beginning to grow.” I grabbed the small band of fat around my waist. “If you people can get this off me, it’d be worth any amount.”

He nodded his head and grinned happily. “Good, good. You are in no difficulty, my American friend. These other rich piggies you see around here—they are the ones who make us work. Food, food—all the time it is the food, trying to steal it from the kitchen. We must watch them constantly. Like little children, these little piggies! But you—you my friend, I will train like a fighter. Yes!”

He held his finger to his lips, the symbol of a secret. “Do not forget—Matrah must not know that I helped you. If he discovered, he would fire me and then I would be forced to twist his physical body to knots. A nasty Arab, that one!”

Heiny went lumbering down the walkway chuckling, leaving me at the door of the business office.

Inside the ceilings were high and cool. There were paintings on the wall of seascapes, and a giant aerial photograph of St. Carib in color covered one full wall. The island was amoeba-shaped, well over a hundred acres, the north and south ends of it bordered by mangrove swamp. In the middle of the island was the wooden water tower. It overlooked the blue rectangle of swimming pool, tennis courts, and the long sheltered row of guest cottages. On the south point of the Indian mound were the two largest houses, old and multistoried, with roofs of shingle rather than tin.

A rather pretty woman in her early forties sat behind the lone desk. She looked up when I came in. She had short brown hair and wore bifocals around her neck on a cord. I told her I wanted to enroll, and she fluttered about, concerned that I hadn’t made arrangements beforehand. She took some literature from a drawer and watched me closely while I read the price sheet. The courses were a week long. Three carefully monitored meals a day were provided. No tobacco, alcohol, or “outside” foods were allowed on the island. And it was unbelievably expensive.

The rich are uncomfortable talking about money—small amounts of money, anyway. And to a very rich person, this would seem like a small amount.

I slid the literature back on the desk. “This is fine,” I said. There was a pad and pen on the desk, and I took it without asking. “Please call my bank—I’m writing the number here—and have them draft a check. Also tell them to include a twenty percent gratuity for my trainer and for whoever else might be working with me here.”

She nodded quickly. “Very well, Mr. MacMorgan.”

The number was real and the bank was real. I have never cared much about money, but the year before I had stumbled onto a very great sum of it in the shape of Spanish gold. The money was nowhere near worth the amount of lives it cost, but now that I had it, I kept it banked safely away in government bonds—complete with a CPA to do the worrying for me. It allowed me no real freedom—that’s an individual accomplishment, and it has nothing to do with wealth. What it did allow me was a few mild extravagances, like the very best equipment and maintenance for my boat, shoes and clothes that didn’t fall apart after a year’s wear, and the chance to help some friends financially.

Those few things—and a week’s stay on the exclusive St. Carib Island.

The woman typed out an application for me, asked a few questions about my general health and the amount of weight I wanted to lose, then shoved some papers in front of me to sign.

“There!” she said, finally. “Now all you have to do is take this sheet to the infirmary for your physical.”

“Physical?”

She nodded. “I’m afraid it’s necessary, Mr. MacMorgan—insurance purposes, you know. But most of the enrollees arrived this morning and have already had theirs, so you won’t have to wait long.”

“Good,” I said. “I hate lines.”

She laughed brightly. “Oh, there will be no line—that I guarantee.”

The infirmary was a long low building built of white board-and-batten with a red cross above the door. I let the screen door slam behind me when I went in. It smelled of alcohol and medicine. A stocky nurse told me to have a seat; the doctor was busy with someone else right now.

I wasn’t alone in the waiting room. A woman in her early thirties sat in one of the plush chairs, face buried in a magazine. And when she looked up briefly, it didn’t take me long to recognize the face. There are only a handful of actresses recognized around the world: Bergman, Bacall, Loren, Garbo, and a few others. And she was one of the few—very, very few—others. I don’t see many movies, but this woman had a face no man could ever forget. There were the wide dark peasant eyes, the perfect curvature of nose and Slavic cheeks, breasts heavy beneath silk blouse, famous legs long and dark, disappearing into her skirt.

She looked at me, returned to her magazine, then looked at me again. You would expect some of the sexual impact of the woman to be missing once removed from the magnification of the giant screen.

But it was all there: a sensuous, tumid aura of sexuality. Very, very few people—male or female—have it, or have it in that quantity at least.

I nodded and smiled.

Her smile in return was unexpected. My wife had been in films before our marriage, so I had made the rounds at enough of the Hollywood-type parties to know most actors and actresses as the insecure, chipon-the-shoulder burrow creatures they really are.

But hers wasn’t the bright frozen smile of the celebrity favoring a fan. Looking over the magazine, she eyed me with what seemed to be feline interest.

She said, “Was it you I saw climbing out of that lovely blue boat a short time ago?” The accent was Italian; a humid alto voice.

“That’s right.”

She waited for me to say something else, and when I didn’t, she folded the magazine, stood up, and walked across the room toward me, hips rotating on perfect hinges. She held out her hand, and I took it.

“My name is Sonya Casimur.”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already know.”

She gave me her screen look of sudden vulnerability. “Ah, you’ve seen some of my work. I hope you weren’t too disappointed?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a request for a compliment. But I had no compliment to offer. She was a beautiful woman, a beauty in the classic sense—certainly one of the most beautiful women in the world. But, in filling that role, it also seemed to imply that she was a property of the world—much as a great painting is thought to be a property of the world. And because of that, I found myself strangely uninterested in her. While her sensuality was very real—an almost tangible thing—the quality of her face, her voice, her being, seemed to be the inventions of a filmmaker. Or a dreamer. Maybe I was being unfair. But you can’t argue with your emotions.

“I don’t know a thing about films,” I said. “Or acting.”

“Oh?” she said, surprised. And then she laughed. “But it was you on the boat?”

“You seem very interested in boats.”

She gave me a vixen look, probing my eyes with hers. At that moment the bulky nurse came out. She said, “Miss Casimur, the doctor will see you now.”

Sonya held my eyes momentarily before sweeping away. She said, “Perhaps it is the boat I am interested in.”

“Perhaps?”

There was the peasant smile beneath sensuous dark eyes. “The boat and perhaps something else. Perhaps …”

10

Sonya Casimur, the actress, arrived at my cottage unexpectedly about an hour later.

I had taken the prescribed physical from a knobby little doctor with a smoker’s cough, took a minute to get my gear from aboard and batten down Sniper, then rambled up to my cabin to grab a shower before the afternoon classes began.

A couple of months before, I had had a carpenter friend of mine build me a solid little hiding place for the tools of my new trade. Mounted flush into the fighting deck is a six-foot fish box. It is insulated, has dual drainage plugs, and possesses enough room to store a thousand pounds of fish and ice.

He said it would take him a day. It took him almost a week. He cut out the fish box and set it aside temporarily. Using teak planking and endless yards of good rubber molding, he built a waterproof storage compartment beneath the fish box that even an expert would be hard-pressed to find. Open the fish box and you see absolutely nothing. But lift at the drainage holes, and the bottom slides away, revealing what looks like nothing more than teak deck. Pull at the brass hinges, and the deck swings up, exposing more space than I hope I ever need for my weaponry.

So I wasn’t worried about leaving the things D. Harold Westervelt had given me aboard.

My cottage was a neat little two-room board-and-batten antique that smelled of old wood and damp sand. There were about fifteen such cottages built in a row on the top of the mound by the shady walk. They all had names painted on signs: Mandango, Conch, Sanibel; names borrowed from the local islands and animal life. My cottage was Frigate. There was a sitting room with wicker furniture and seashells on the windowsills. The air conditioner clattered and wheezed like an old machine gun, and I switched it off in favor of the ceiling fan. I stowed my duffel bag beneath the brass bed, then stripped off my clothes.

The bathroom smelled of soap and rank mineral deposits from the island water. But they kept the water good and hot, and I spent twenty soapy minutes sluicing the day away, finishing with a cold shower that burned the genitals and tightened the skin.

And I had just wrapped a towel around me, walking toward the little bedroom, when I saw someone standing at the screen door.

“Yeah?”

“I guess you didn’t hear me knock—but I see that I am interrupting your bath.”

It was Sonya Casimur. She made no motion to leave.

“So come on in.”

“You’re only in a towel.”

“And you’re only wearing a bathing suit. I can take it if you can.”

She swung open the screen door, laughing. “So blunt, you Americans. So refreshing.” She wore a black one-piece suit cut so low in the back that the narrow valley of buttocks could be seen. The suit was tight, with a competitive quality to it, the kind you see on the female Olympic swimmers. It was taut over heavy breasts, showing the topographic outline of areola and nipple, and veed up sharply at the soft convexity of inner thigh. She had a towel wrapped around her neck, and her short black hair was mussed. “I stopped to see if you wanted to go for a swim.”

“I thought this afternoon was when the drill instructors got ahold of us.”

She grimaced and sank into one of the wicker chairs. “My God, don’t remind me. This is my second stay on St. Carib. After the first I vowed never to return.” She reached down meaningfully and gathered a thin wall of fat on her thighs between thumb and index finger. “But on film, even this much extra weight makes you look bloated. And I just don’t have the willpower to do it on my own.”

She eyed me up and down, starting involuntarily at the shark-attack scar on my waist. “My God,” she said, “that’s awful.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot. I didn’t mention your chubby thighs—why should you mention my ugly scar?”

Her eyes described wonderment. She couldn’t tell if I was joking or not.

“My thighs—you think they really are fat!”

“You’re a real porker, Sonya.”

My grin keyed hers. It was a nice smile; some of theatrics gone from it. “You don’t like me, no? But why?”

“I don’t even know you. But I am kind of curious about this come-on of yours. No, don’t give me that innocent look. I’m a bad audience. Why the unsolicited interest in me, Sonya?”

She hesitated, wondering if she should stick with the film-vixen role. Finally, she decided better and dropped it altogether. It cut her Italian accent in half. She stood up and talked with her hands animatedly. “It’s this goddam spartan routine here! Jesus, I just don’t know if I can take another seven days and nights of it. The staff treats you like a bad soldier, and the fat men who are in the classes look at me like I’m something good to eat. Their mouths—they practically water. It gives me the—how do you say?—the goose bumps!”

“But it was your decision to return. Why did you?”

She practically exploded. “My decision? Hah! It’s that goddam agent of mine! He treats me like a naughty child when I gain a few pounds! He told me that if I weighed over fifty kilos before we started filming in Greece, he would send me here!”

“You thought he was lying?”

“Yes! That bastard doesn’t even know how to bluff—and he is fat himself!”

I couldn’t help laughing. It came rolling out of me in long swells. She stood before me, every man’s vision of sexuality, every director’s dream, pouting like a child.

“So how did you think I could help all that, Sonya?”

A light came into her wide Italian eyes. “The boat is yours, no?”

“The boat is mine, yes.”

“You have food on the boat? Maybe some cigarettes and liquor?”

“I have food and beer. No cigarettes.”

“But that is something!” The charm came back into her voice; the theatrics returned to her smile. “If you would share those things with me, would it not be easier on both of us?” And when I didn’t react, she continued, “And maybe I could find a nice small part for you in my next film?”

“I have no interest in being an actor, Sonya. And I’ve been looking forward to this little vacation for too long to take a chance of getting kicked out for breaking the rules.”

The shock registered on her face. And then came the outrage. She practically sputtered. “You would deny me!”

“I’m giving it my best shot.”

“Why, you … you bastard.” For a moment I thought she was going to try to slug me. Instead, she whirled on bare feet and stomped out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “And that scar of yours! It is ver-r-ry ugly!”

I got my first look at Samuel Yabrud that afternoon.

It was at the first “general” workout. Later, they told us, we would be separated into coed groups based on the type of training we required. They had issued us all blue running shorts, high-quality running shoes, and expensive blue sweatsuits with St. Carib embroidered on the pocket. There were about forty of us, not counting the dozen or so instructors who strutted around barking orders. Most of the enrollees were middle-aged, more men than women. All wore the careful hairstyles of the successful executive, and they ranged from slightly overweight to very fat indeed.

There was a boys’ camp atmosphere about the place. St. Carib’s wealthy pupils clapped their hands like cheerleaders, grinned and beamed, and jumped to every order. Seeing them, I could understand D. Harold’s theory about the place. These were the people Marina Cole would describe as Lions—some of the most successful Lions in the world, probably. And after bearing the weight of the Lion’s crown for a lifetime, they seemed more than happy to abdicate for a week. They had paid big money to be bossed and prodded and ordered about—and that’s damn well what they wanted.

And got.

It made them smile like children. For a week, they didn’t have a care in the world. They didn’t have to make a single decision or follow a financial trend, or worry about headlines in the Journal.

And Samuel Yabrud was grinning and clapping his hands right along with the rest of them.

He was an immensely fat man given to sweating. He was balding, black curly hair forming a wreath around his head, and the Semitic nose angled hawklike beneath heavy eyebrows. His weight made him look shorter than he was—maybe five eight—and his warmup covered him like a tent.

We stood in lines of ten during the preliminary stretching exercises. I got as close to Yabrud as I could. On either side of him were younger, wellmuscled men wearing the same group uniforms. Their faces, hair, everything right down to their stoic expressions were right out of the CIA mold.

There was no doubt in my mind who they were. And from the swift knowing looks they cast at me, there was no doubt in their minds who I was.

They were Yabrud’s bodyguards, his personal shields lent him by the U.S. government in the event that FEAT’s assassin did take a shot.

They were the defense.

And I was the offense.

One of them studied me for a moment, then gave me the slightest of nods. I nodded back. And I knew that unless one of us needed help very badly, a word would never be exchanged between us. They would stay in the background as much as possible, giving me latitude to work. But beyond that, they couldn’t offer much help. It was a thin line they had to walk. Assassinating an assassin—however necessary—fell under the heading of illegal activity. And the CIA was officially out of the illegal-activity business.

And that’s why D. Harold Westervelt’s top-secret organization had had to be formed.

So the St. Carib staff stretched us and bullied us, demanded enthusiasm with our calisthenics and supreme effort with our brief rope climb. Everyone else but the CIA duo huffed and puffed and labored. But I barely broke into a sweat. As far out of shape as I was, this was child’s play.

It was during our slow lap around the island that Heiny came rumbling up beside me. I had taken care to stay behind Yabrud, so I was well toward the end of the pack. Even Sonya Casimur had loped past me, running deerlike—but not so fast she didn’t have time to contort her mouth and make a face at me.

“Slowpoke!” she had yelled.

And I had yelled back, laughing, “Some of that fat on your thighs must be muscle!”

Heiny was grinning. He seemed happy to see me. He filled out the white staff warmup suit as if he were built of tapered cement.

“My American friend, you run so slowly!”

“Just saving my energy, Heiny.”

“You got the bad leg?”

“I’ve got two bad legs. And too much damn weight to carry.”

“Hah! You kid old Heiny now. See!” He pointed ahead to where Samuel Yabrud chugged along. “Even that fat piggy is ahead of you. Could be you are running so slow that we will put you in Miss Casimur’s group?”

“Now why would you think that?” I gave him a lockerroom grin, hoping he would think just that.

“She is no fat piggy, yes? Very beautiful, that actress.” He made a cupping motion, hands to chest. “And nice bazooms, huh!”

“She is certainly very pretty.”

“Hey, Matrah knows that you are on the island,” he said suddenly.

I looked at him. “Yeah?”

“He allowed me a message to give you. Thinks that I hate you after last night. That is some laugh, huh?” He chuckled and actually slapped at his thigh. “Matrah wants to see you in his office before dinner.”

“You think he’s going to kick me off the island?”

“Kick you off? Hah! No, you have already paid the money. And he loves the money more than he hates you. But I do not know why he wants to see you. I talk to you later, my American friend. I arrange for you and Miss Casimur to be in the same group. Heiny can arrange the whole thing.” He trotted off toward the head of the pack, waving.

St. Carib’s “experiential education” program was a lot like a plush boot camp for the wealthy and overweight. They prodded at the fears of the individual, then allowed the group to overcome them. They made us fall backward off a tower into the arms of four team members. They had us swing across a shallow ravine on a rope held only by the chubby hands of our group. Samuel Yabrud balked at that; said in perfect English that the physics of it was impossible. He said that he weighed too much and his team members weighed too little. That’s when the St. Carib staffers really got nasty. One of the slim Mediterraneans marched up to him and, nose to nose, dressed him down like a drill instructor. “Fat bastard” was the kindest thing he called him. I expected Yabrud, supposedly a master of international negotiation, to at least argue back. Instead, he cast his eye earthward like a bad child, walked dejectedly toward the rope, and made the swing after a long hesitation. And when he made it—successfully—the change that came over him and his group was amazing. They all held their fists high in the air like conquerors, hooting and slapping each other on the back.

Only Sonya Casimur looked upset. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or start swinging at the St. Carib staffers.

One thing was for sure: She wasn’t at St. Carib because she liked it. And she was right about the men drooling over her. She never had a minute to herself. There was always some overweight group member lolling around her, flirting like a teenage boy. Someone once said that a truly beautiful woman sees all of life’s ugliness by the time she is eighteen.

Sonya Casimur had seen it all, and she was tired of it.

Before dinner, they gave us one more task: an open-water swim from St. Carib to a nearby island and back. To me it was a very short swim—no more than a quarter mile, round trip. But you could tell by the horror in the eyes of some that it was a terrifying distance.

Sonya was among them, the worry plain on her perfect face.

After stripping down to my running shorts, I walked up beside her.

“It’s not going to be that bad, Sonya.”

She looked up, surprised, too unnerved to still be angry at me. “My God, I can hardly swim at all. When did I ever have time to learn? There was always a stunt woman for this sort of thing… .”

“So tell them you can’t make it.”

She shoved her hands on her hips. “What, and have those nasty bastards yell at me the way they yelled at the fat Jewish man?”

“They’ll be following us in rowboats. They can pick you up if you get into trouble.”

“Hah! I would go to the bottom and drown first!”

I had to smile at her. She was as stubborn as she was beautiful.

“Then stick with me,” I said. “When you get tired, just grab onto my shorts. Make a swimming motion with your other hand, though—that way they won’t be able to tell that I’m pulling you.”

She actually smiled. “You can really do that? You can still swim pulling my weight?”

“Swimming is one of my very, very few talents. I’m a regular water taxi.”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s very nice … nice of you.” She paused and gave me the slightest of winks. “But I am still mad at you.”

“Just not as mad?”

“Yes,” she said. “Not as mad as before. So I will allow you to pull me through the water.”

“You’re too kind, Miss Casimur.”

“I know.”

Sonya was wrong when she said she didn’t swim well. The truth was, she could hardly swim a stroke. Fifty yards off St. Carib, she grabbed me by the elastic waistband of my shorts and held on with white knuckles for the rest of the trip.

“I’m not too heavy?” she kept asking, terrified.

“Like an anchor. But I think I can make it.”

“The sharks … musn’t we worry about the sharks?”

“With you in the water, Sonya, that’s probably the least of our worries.”

Dinner was held at the main house on the top of the mound. They gave us a steak the size of a silver dollar and a scoop of cottage cheese that was more parsley than anything else. I could see why the clients of St. Carib tended to get mean after a few days. After the plates had been swept away by a staff of waitresses dressed like traditional English servants, Matrah addressed us in glowing words about how the St. Carib experience would enrich our lives. Earlier, I had gone to see him at his office ready for the worst. But he was unexpectedly cordial; apologized for our fight, said that we had both probably drunk too much, and that we must now try to get along for the sake of everyone.

But the apology was a little too smooth. And he couldn’t disguise the glimmer of contempt in his dark eyes as we shook hands.

I would try to get along—but I was going to keep a damn tight eye on him.

You could bet the bank on that.

During the speech, he outlined the rest of the course and described the importance of the day and night each of us would spend on an island alone— called it our “Solitary.” And to the backdrop of much cheering and applauding, he also divided us into groups, reading our names one at a time.

Sonya, Yabrud, another hugely fat man, and I were all in the same group. The very slowest group, apparently. Heiny turned to me and winked knowingly when our names were read, as if he had arranged it all.

And maybe he had.

After dinner, everyone filed off stiffly toward cottage and bed. The strain was already getting to them. Sonya came up behind me as I walked through the growing March darkness toward Frigate house.

“Dusky?”

Her face looked tired. She still wore the blue warmup pants, and the jacket was tied around her shoulders like a cape.

“Sonya! I’m so full after that dinner I can barely walk. How about you?”

“Oh, Dusky,” she said wearily, “do not make with the jokes. I am so tired.” She reached over and put her arm through mine, more for support than anything else. “This place depresses me so.”

“I don’t suppose a couple of cold beers would make you feel any better?”

Her eyes lighted. “Oh, would you! That would be so nice; I knew you wouldn’t deny me such a small thing. And maybe a sandwich, too. A nice thick—”

“And I thought you were here to lose weight.”

She jerked her arm away. “You! You are so mean!”

“And you are a very fine actress. But you’ll take the beer, won’t you?”

She pouted for a moment, then slipped her arm back into mine. “Yes. Two beers?”

“I’ll make it three. You’ve had a tough day. Go on up to your cottage. I’ll bring them.”

I went down to the docks and opened Sniper. All my little snoop alarms were in place. I got a sackful of beer out of the locker, then went to the fish box and got the few things I needed. I stopped first at my cottage and dropped off the hardware, then went on up the walk to Sonya’s place. St. Carib was quiet in the ten p.m. darkness. A few early chuck-will’s-widows called whip-poor-will-like in the gloom, and out on the water, a Belcher barge went chugging down the intercoastal, orange bow light flashing. Far across Pine Island Sound I could see the soft lights of Cabbage Key. I wondered what Marina was doing at that moment. Cleaning up after the supper rush, probably. She would be tired and, perhaps, wondering what I was doing. For a moment I considered climbing back aboard Sniper to pay her a visit.

But I couldn’t.

I had too much work to do.

Sonya had just finished her shower when I got to her cottage. The curtains were drawn, and the old air conditioner labored, condensation dripping down the rust lines on the wall. She wore a bright-green football jersey, number 12 white and satinlike on front and back. The swell of breasts and dark softness of thighs beneath keyed the old stirring within my abdomen.

I opened a beer for each of us. She took half the bottle in the first long swallow, then wiped her lush mouth daintily.

“God, this is so good,” she said.

“Nothing like that first taste of beer.” I still stood in the doorway. She crossed the room and took a seat on the bamboo couch, looking wary for the first time. There was no mistaking that look. She realized that I might expect something in exchange for the beer.

“It was very nice of you to bring this, Dusky.”

“As I said, after the day you had, you deserve it.”

Some of the theatrics returned to her face, and she offered a long yawn. “Did you know they make us awaken at six a.m. at this awful place?”

I smiled. “Sonya, you don’t have to worry about me sticking around.”

Her face showed brief surprise. “But why would you say such a silly—”

“Because I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m going to make a move on you. You’re thinking that I’m going to try and hustle that nifty Italian body of yours into bed.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “No.” She waited for me to say something else. Instead, I reached into my pocket and took out the little tin of Copenhagen. She watched me take a pinch, depositing it between cheek and gum.

“What’s that?” she brooded.

“Tobacco.”

“You said you had no cigarettes!”

“I don’t. Just this.”

“Let me smell it.”

I closed the tin and tossed it onto the couch beside her. “You can keep it,” I said. “But if you decide to try it, be careful. It can make you sick.”

“Hah! Only you and this place makes me sick.”

I grinned, heading out the door. “Enjoy the beer, princess.”

She stood, surprised that I was leaving so soon. “You can stay for a few minutes longer, can’t you? We could talk. I always have the trouble sleeping here… .”

“Can’t,” I said. “Too tired.”

As I went down the steps, I could hear her throwing things inside.

11

I was tired.

But I couldn’t allow myself to sleep.

Not yet anyway. I had too much work to do.

I went back to my cabin and got my duffel bag from beneath the bed. I stripped off the St. Carib clothes and slid into the old and well-loved British commando knickers and black watch sweater, and pulled the black Navy watch hat down low over my blond hair.

I gave it a half hour before I finally switched off the lights as if going to bed—just in case someone was watching. In the darkness, I gathered the Persid seismic alarm system, the Star-Tron night-vision scope, and the Remington 700 sniper rifle. Then I went to the bed and built the rough image of a man sleeping beneath the covers.

Outside, even the lights of the main house were off now. Green glow of Rolex told me it was almost midnight. I moved through the island quiet, sticking to the cover of trees and foliage, well away from the walk.

I didn’t want to take a chance of meeting someone unexpectedly.

Not with the gear I was carrying.

I had located Samuel Yabrud’s cottage earlier. It was Osprey, only two doors down from Sonya’s place. They all had their air conditioners on, even though the night was March cool. Some people get so used to a controlled climate that they can’t sleep without the whir of an engine and the comforting generator punch of an air conditioner.

I buried the first geophone at the base of a gray eucalyptus tree not far from Yabrud’s cottage. After I had covered it with sand and leaves, I swept all signs of digging away, then moved on through the darkness.

Matrah stayed in the main house at the peak of the mound on the south end of the island. The house was three stories high, with gables and rectangle windows. It appeared ghostly in the starlight. I planted the second geophone beneath the porch there. For a moment I thought I heard voices coming from inside. I lay there beneath the porch for a long time before moving.

It took me a while to decide where to plant the final geophone. Finally I settled on the docks. If anyone suspected me, they would want to check out Sniper. And with the geophone, I could hear a man’s footsteps within a hundred meters of the dock. I didn’t know how the little disk listening device would react to salt water, so I carefully gauged the high-tide line before burying it beneath the sand on the narrow strip of beach. Sniper floated calmly on her lines in the darkness. The wash of tide and the muted crack of pistol shrimp from their tunicate hideaways were the only sounds that came from the dock. I took my time, stayed low. Silhouettes stand out all too well when backdropped by open water.

By one a.m. I was ready to get some sleep.

But I wouldn’t be sleeping in my cottage.

Not this night—or any night that I stayed on St. Carib.

I moved along the rise of mound through the darkness toward the water tower. It looked pale and fragile rising sixty feet above the island on wooden beams and a network of cross ties.

The steps sagged beneath my weight as I climbed. The water tower creaked like an old house in the wind.

From the platform at the top of the tower, all of Pine Island Sound spread out soft and silver in the darkness. Channel markers pulsed north toward Boca Grande, and south toward Sanibel. A sudden flare of distant deck light told me there was a bait shrimper working the shallow flats off Pineland.

I settled in the shadows of the water tower. I placed the Remington sniper rifle on the narrow deck and opened the seismic alarm system’s carrying case. I switched on the set and pulled on the earphones. A row of silver toggle switches activated any or all of the little buried geophones. A noise near any of the geophones would key a soft electronic gong and one of four red flashing lights. I adjusted three of the four set levels, balanced volume and sensitivity, then picked up the Star-Tron night scope.

Some great invention, the Star-Tron.

I had used it more than once back in Nam. It works on the principal of light intensification. The lens gathers all available starlight, amplifies it more than fifty thousand times, then gives you a sharp clear image through the binocular eyepiece. Even on the darkest night, watching someone through the Star-Tron is like watching a man through a red filter at high noon.

I mounted the scope carefully on the sniper rifle. Then I braced the rifle on the railing and swept the sights around the island, looking through the scope. I could see coons foraging along the beach, and birds roosting. Even the inscription on my boat’s stern stood out in soft red highlights:

SNIPER

KEY WEST, FLORIDA

Finally, I brought the scope to bear on the door of Samuel Yabrud’s cottage. The 135 mm lens made it seem as if I were standing only a few yards away instead of the two hundred yards that separated the water tower from his room.

Satisfied with my position, I turned up the volume of the Persid-4A, adjusted the earphones until they were comfortable, and, with the Remington cradled in my arms, settled back to get some sleep.

The alarm system awoke me about an hour later.

At first, the soft electronic gong-gong-gong slipped into my dreams; a benign sound, like a doorbell chime.

But then I was sitting bolt upright, rifle in hand, mechanically switching the safety to off.

Red lights on the alarm board blinked softly.

Not just one light. Two.

Through the earphones, I could hear the steady pad of shoes on sidewalk.

More than one person was up, walking near the seismic geophones.

Smoothly, I went to the edge of the water tower and braced the Remington 700 on the guardrail. The geophones by Yabrud’s cottage and by the main house where Matrah lived had both been activated.

I settled the scope first on Yabrud’s doorway, then panned along the walk.

Midway between his cottage and the main house I saw the man: short fat man in a checkered dressing gown. He walked along the sidewalk looking this way and that, like a kid skipping school.

It was not FEAT’s assassin. Couldn’t be—because it was Samuel Yabrud himself. He held the dressing gown tightly around him as if cold.

But why? Why would he be up and out at this time of night? Maybe the assassin had conned him into some kind of two a.m. rendezvous.

I moved the scope along the sidewalk, hoping I would discover who set off the other alarm.

And that’s when I saw the woman, her back to me, heading in the same direction as Yabrud.

It was Sonya Casimur. She had covered herself in a sheer nightdress, and I could see the naked outline of hips and heavy outline of breasts beneath it.

Soon Yabrud caught up with her. I watched them through the Star-Tron scope, carefully keeping my index finger outside the trigger guard of the rifle.

They seemed surprised to see each other. Through the earphones I heard them make embarrassed introductions. They made small talk about insomnia, and how they were out for a walk, but finally there was this:

“The truth is, my dear Miss Casimur, I was hoping I might find a way of getting into the kitchen and … appropriating some food.” Yabrud had an oily voice with a phlegmy chuckle.

With Sonya, it was all theatrics. “Food? You mean steal some food, Signor Yabrud? Why, what a novel idea! How adventurous!”

“Would you care to join me?”

“Oh, I couldn’t—but then, it just might be fun. I’ve never played a thief before. It would be so exciting!”

Together they walked on toward the meeting house, which was just beyond the main house. Soon they were far enough away from the geophone that I could not hear their conversation. I remembered something Heiny had told me, something about the “piggies” always trying to break into the kitchen. Apparently it wasn’t all that uncommon.

Still, Yabrud was awake. And alone, except for Sonya.

And I didn’t want him to be out of my sight for long. So I had just about decided to climb down the tower and join them unexpectedly at the kitchen when I heard something else through the earphones: the slam of a screen door.

It was Matrah. He wore pants but no shirt. He stood on the porch of the main house, hands on hips. He seemed to be waiting for someone, looking from the meeting house where the kitchen was, then back down the walk.

Finally, two men came lumbering up the walk at a heavy trot. It was Heiny and his German friend. I could hear them clearly through the earphones.

“Heinrich, I heard some of our clients out here a moment ago. They were headed for the kitchen.”

“Ah, the little piggies are after the food again!” Heiny laughed.

“I thought I told you to keep a watch on the kitchen.”

Heiny shrugged. “A man has to get the sleep sometime, ya?”

“Well, I don’t want to have to call you again. Understand? I’m tired of these bastards waking me up in the middle of the night when they go on their food hunts!”

Matrah turned and went back into the house. Through the Star-Tron, I followed Heiny. He returned in a minute with Sonya and Samuel Yabrud. The two of them looked sheepish, and there was a forced hilarity in their conversation.

One of the world’s great actresses and one of Israel’s top diplomats had been caught trying to steal food.

But Heiny himself was something of a diplomat. He never mentioned the kitchen. Instead he chose to pretend that they were just out for a walk.

“The snakes,” he warned them. “Do not walk at night, for that is when the snakes are awake. You see? They are in the bushes, waiting to strike!”

That solicited nervous laughter, and promises never to walk at night again.

After seeing Yabrud and then Sonya back to their cottages, I followed Heiny and his German companion through the Star-Tron. Their cabin was well away from the guest cottages, at the other end of the island. They disappeared inside and switched off the lights.

I was not awakened again that night. And when the birds started making their predawn noises, I packed my gear—all but the geophones—climbed down the water tower, and carried it from shadow to shadow back toward Sniper.

The geophone by the docks was the only one that had not been activated.

That’s why I was shocked to find the note.

It was lying in plain sight on the booth table inside the cabin.

And the cabin had been locked.

I picked up the note and read it in the coming light of the new day. As I hid my gear away beneath the fish box, I forced myself to stay calm. Mechanically, I made myself consider when someone might have had the chance to come aboard Sniper, pick the lock, and leave the note.

That’s when I realized that it could have happened at any time the day before. Or even during my all-night vigil—if they had come by water and taken pains to be damn quiet.

Did the time frame eliminate or single out anyone?

No. Absolutely no one.

Before locking Sniper, I picked up the note and read it again. It was written in heavy block letters with a felt pen. You couldn’t tell if the writer was left-or right-handed, male or female. It was plain scrap paper, and it bore no odor.

It read:

THERE IS NO PLACE SAFER THAN IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNTER. AND NO PLACE MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE SHADOW OF THE QUARRY.

YOU ARE IN THE SHADOW.

12

On the fourth night after dinner, Sonya Casimur came to my bed.

I wasn’t totally surprised.

She had come more and more to depend on me. Like most great actresses, her film life blended evenly into her real life. She was a woman made for the bedroom: wide dark eyes, a face that suggested some inexorable wanting, a body that, in days of old, kings would have fought and killed for. But with all that, she possessed a potent force of character, one that guarded her sensuality like a junkyard dog. All truly beautiful women have it—and if they don’t they are soon destroyed by the thousands of faceless drooling men who seek to satisfy themselves with that beauty.

But her guard was down now.

She had left it behind in her cottage with the panties she did not wear, and the bra she never wore.

She covered herself with only a brief silk nightdress. It tied behind her neck in a tempting bow. Her dark legs angled soft and long beneath the skirt, and the full breasts were visible beneath the thin material.

She stood in the little living area of my cottage. She had pulled the wooden door closed behind her. Her hair was carefully mussed, and her brown eyes seemed to hold mine with a piercing heat.

“Again you brought the beer but did not stay. Why is it you do not like me?” The mouth pouted. But the eyes challenged.

“I like you fine, Sonya.”

“Then why do you never stay? To talk?”

I stretched and yawned. “The workouts here tire me out.”

That was a lie. The second day had gone much as the first. And the third day had gone like the second. They assembled us at seven a.m. for a slow half-mile jog before breakfast. After breakfast (a sparse mixing of fruit and cold cereal) we separated into our groups. There were only four to a group. In ours it was Sonya, myself, Yabrud, and a hugely fat Texan who talked long and loud about his oil and cattle. He had a nasty smoker’s cough, and he liked to slap people on the back. Because, on the second day, Sonya had met their leers with a frozen stare, Yabrud and the Texan had found kinship in the things they held in common: money, and the great actress’ contempt.

And that left Sonya and me together, even in that small group.

While she had every talent necessary to be a film star, she seemed to have zero athletic ability.

Every day we would swim, and every day I would drag her along behind me. It was the same on our cross-country runs. She would fall or collapse from exhaustion, and I would pull her to her feet, then half-prod and half-carry her the rest of the way. Our instructor was always either Heiny or his German counterpart. Neither of them seemed to mind. In fact, Heiny appeared to take some pleasure in playing Cupid: putting the two of us in impossible circumstances, then leaving us alone. But he never left without first giving me a private wink and grin.

And I have to admit that Sonya Casimur was one very desirable creature. When left to her own devices, all the staged smiles fell away along with the well-practiced theatrics, and she became the unexpected: raucous, profane, and much given to helpless laughter. With all the stage trappings cut away, she became a peasant girl again without an ounce of affectation.

So, on one level, the days at St. Carib went smoothly. With Yabrud in my group, he was never out of my sight during the day. And during the brief private hours before and after dinner, his brace of CIA bodyguards hung on him like glue. And there was the beautiful Sonya for company while I sweated the fat away, working my way back into shape.

But on another level, things weren’t going smoothly at all.

For the first time in my civilian life, I felt as if I were the one being hunted. FEAT’s assassin knew who I was, where I was, and what my daily routine would be.

And I knew nothing about him.

The morning after finding the note, I had managed to slip away long enough to search the beach area near the docks. There had been a high tide that night, so I thought someone approaching Sniper by sea might have unknowingly left some track revealed by the falling water.

But there was none.

I even went carefully through the cabin, looking for anything that might offer a clue: a bit of hair, a scuff mark on the carpet.

But there was only the note.

Again and again I went over that note, trying to press every drop of information from it.

It was written on a four-by-six scrap of paper. A chunk of gumming in the upper left-hand corner told me it had been torn from right to left off a common note pad. It meant that the author was probably right-handed.

The words themselves were meticulously drawn—the starkest of block letters. It suggested the assassin knew that plain block letters are the only way to disguise handwriting. The reason for wanting to disguise the handwriting was obvious. Once he had killed Yabrud and me, he didn’t want to be traced. But maybe there was a deeper reason for careful forming of the letters. Perhaps he knew that any hint of his own penmanship would provide a glaring clue to his or her identity. And nothing is easier to spot than someone writing in a language not native to him.

So—the assassin was probably right-handed. And, perhaps, a foreigner.

Not exactly earth-shaking deductions.

But the most important clue was the note itself. Why did he even bother leaving it? Certainly it wasn’t a warning. A hunter doesn’t warn a lion before he is about to shoot.

No, the note was a challenge.

It implied a love of the hunt.

And this assassin wanted to make the hunt interesting.

He had dropped the gauntlet. And I had no choice but to pick it up, accept the challenge.

The assassin had everything going for him. The only thing I had on my side was that he was not the cold methodical killer I had expected. He was an assassin. And if D. Harold Westervelt was any judge of FEAT, that terrorist organization hired nothing but the best. But this, at least, was a killer who loved sport.

If not, I would have been dead long before; dead like Stormin’ Norman Fizer, my old lost friend.

So, when they throw you into an arena filled with lions, you grab for any weapon you can.

And, for now, the only weapon I had was my game plan.

So I stuck with it.

The second night on St. Carib was a replay of the first. I took beer to Sonya Casimur’s cabin, returned to my own for a suitable length of time, then made my midnight climb to the water tower, where I sat wearing seismic earphones, Remington 700 sniper rifle in hand, the cylindrical silencer making the weapon look even more lethal.

Only this time it was harder to sleep.

A hell of a lot harder.

Did the assassin know I was on the tower? And if so, why didn’t he just shoot and bring his hunt to an end?

Finally, I did drift off to sleep. But I awoke with a jolt, fleeing my own dreams.

A nightmare, not a dream.

In gauzy slow motion, I had finally brought the assassin into my sights. I could see his face clearly through the infrared scope.

He was smiling; smiling because I had been in his sights for some time. He trained an SVA Dragunov sniper rifle on me, his cheek resting on that weapon’s strange skeleton stock, his right eye huge and red and dragonlike as he brought the cross hairs of his own night scope to bear on my forehead.

He was smiling, and for some reason I could not pull the trigger.

I could not manufacture the effort it took to make that simple gesture of death.

And then I saw the flare and brief recoil of his own rifle, and I knew that I was dead, dead, dead….

So I really was tired when Sonya Casimur arrived alone on that fourth night.

But not from St. Carib’s workouts.

I was tired from the three near-sleepless all-night vigils. And, the toughest of all to admit, I was worn by the strain of, for once, being the hunted instead of the hunter. I was tired by the fear.

All this while Samuel Yabrud labored through the fat-farm drills, blissfully unaware that we were both marked for death.

So Sonya Casimur stood before me dressed in her brief silk nightshirt, breasts held in warm relief against the thin material, the promise of naked buttocks beneath the short skirt.

“Why is it you do not like me?” she repeated. The dark eyes held mine, searching, offering, challenging.

“Sonya, I told you: I like you fine.”

“Is it that you are not really a man?”

“Are you asking me if I’m a homosexual? Bingo—that’s it. I’m too tired and, besides, I only like other men.”

She came toward me, reached out, and touched my bare chest with her hand. It seemed as if there were electricity in her fingers. When I had heard her knock at the screen door, I had hastily shoved my commando pants and watch sweater back under the bed, then pulled on the first thing I could find—the thin St. Carib-issue running shorts.

At her touch, I felt the old yearning deep within my abdomen, and I wished I had pulled on something other than those loose shorts.

Her tongue traced the edge of her full lips. “You are not the gay man. You are not the homosexual.”

“And how can you be so sure?”

“A woman knows. A woman can always tell.”

I took her firmly by the arms, walked her backward, and sat her down on the couch. She closed her eyes and held her face up toward me, expecting me to kiss her. And when I didn’t, the eyes flared open.

“Why are you so mean to me?”

“Maybe it’s my suspicious nature. Maybe I become a little wary when a woman who could have any man in the world starts coming on to me like a nun who wakes up to find herself in an NFL dressing room.”

“I am not chasing you!”

“Well, this is certainly not your cottage. I didn’t come to your door still wet after a shower, smelling of shampoo and perfume.”

She smiled slightly. “You are jealous of my other men, no?” She held up three fingers. “I have only been married this many times. And two of them were very fat and very rich, and the other was a handsome gay boy.” Again her hands traced the lines of my chest. “But you are not the gay boy.” Her hands stopped at the elastic of my shorts. She looked down meaningfully, the smile broadening. “That tells me you are not the gay boy. That tells me you are very much the man.”

I took her stray hand in mine. She moved her fingers, stroking my palm. I said, “Sonya, you already know that you are very beautiful. And you already know that you are very sensual—and if you don’t stop rubbing your leg against mine, I may lose control of myself and prove it to you. But there are some things I can tell you that you don’t know. When you drop that sex-kitten actress routine of yours, you really are fun to be with. I’ve enjoyed the last couple of days. I think that behind that greasepaint facade is a pretty decent human being.”

She nuzzled herself against me, the tension sagging out of her, legs parting slightly as she rested her face on my shoulder. When she spoke again, the voice had changed, her accent fading with the staged seduction. She said, “You see through me, Dusky. That is why I … feel comfortable with you. I get so tired, so damn tired of being the famous actress. Sometimes I don’t know if that is the real me on the screen, or if this”—she tugged at her own flesh—“if this is really me.” She looked up at me, the dark eyes piercing. “But you know which is the real Sonya Casimur, Dusky. And now I want you to make me feel like the woman I really am.”

I felt my face close on hers; felt my mouth join her wet lips, felt my hand stray up the curvature of ribs, and heard her whimper softly as I cupped nipple and breast in my right hand.

She was soft and wanting, and the light perfume she wore seemed stronger with the growing heat of her body.

But I couldn’t stay with her. As much as my body wanted her, I couldn’t spare the hours that a joining with such a woman deserved.

There was the little problem of a mission. And what would I say to D. Harold Westervelt if Samuel Yabrud died bloody while I slept in a beautiful woman’s arms?

And beyond that, there was another lady whom I had professed to love.

I had made no promises to Marina Cole. Nor had she made any to me. But that was just a verbal loophole that far, far too many people use to jump from bed to bed; a makeshift rationalization that can explain away any infidelity.

Had I come to the point where the bedding of a woman meant nothing more than the brief hipwrithing climax; the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am philosophy that has become the demigod of a million lonely suburban hipsters?

It was the chic creed that has always offended me: the creed that has turned love into nothing more than a penis handshake.

At any rate, Marina Cole deserved more.

And so did Sonya Casimur.

But the mission took precedence over everything. So, thankfully, it left me with no decision to make.

I pulled myself away from the tangle of arms and legs. Sonya lay back on the couch, breathing heavily. She made a motion as if to pull the silk dress up over her head. I got a brief look at perfect thighs and soft brown curl of pubic hair before I stopped her.

“No, Sonya. I can’t.”

I expected her to be mad.

But she wasn’t.

For the first time, she was hurt. I read it in her eyes, her face.

And there was no playacting involved.

“Dusky, but why? Why …”

Saying it, the excuse sounded pretty damn weak. “There’s another woman I’m pretty much committed to.”

“You’re married?”

I shook my head. “No, Sonya. I’m not married. But it makes no difference.”

She stood up, straightening her dress, her hair. “You like her better than you like me?” There was no inflection of surprise in the voice. It was an honest question filled with hurt.

“That’s not fair to ask, Sonya.”

She stepped back, studying me. “Yes,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes—the love for someone else. Is that the woman you would leave me for?”

“Yes,” I said. But I wasn’t sure. Was it Marina that she saw? Or someone else from long, long ago in another lifetime?

It didn’t matter. As long as she believed it.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She reached up and brushed my face with her lips. I held her hand and kissed it lightly. She said, “Someday, if I am lucky, perhaps I will find a man who cares as much for me.”

“And if you’re luckier, he won’t be the bastard I normally am. And he won’t have any ugly scars.”

She shook her head, caught in private thought. As she left, she said over her shoulder. “Your scar’s not really that ugly, Dusky. In fact, I was just beginning to like it… .”

13

So I played the fourth night like the rest.

But I knew the calm couldn’t go on much longer. FEAT’s assassin had to strike.

And he had to strike soon.

The whole physical-fitness routine on St. Carib was aimed at the culminating “Solitary”—the two days and one night alone on an island.

Every day we had met for a class on very basic survival. They showed us the edible plants—seawort and prickly pear and others; demonstrated how to dig clams and coquinas; explained how to spear fish at night using a torch.

It was really just a sophisticated form of Boy Scouts. They dramatized the Solitary; emphasized its importance. They made it sound as if two days on a secluded beach without food was the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest.

And the “rich piggies,” as Heiny called them, ate it up. They were all survivors—but only in the jungle of business. This kind of survival was a purge for them, a way to rid themselves of pressure by immersing themselves in a Swiss Family Robinson fantasy.

But not a single one of them knew how deadly that fantasy could become.

Not Samuel Yabrud, certainly.

Even in a group as small as ours, I made it a point not to talk much with the Israeli. For one thing, I didn’t want to draw any more outside suspicion that I was there to keep an eye on him.

For another, I didn’t want him to know. He no doubt realized the roll of his two CIA bodyguards. But suspicion that he had a third guardian might cause him to question just exactly what in the hell was going on. Why all the protection? No, he was the bait. And I didn’t want my bait giving off the scent of fear.

It would make the hunter all too wary.

So, when Sonya was safely back in her cabin, I slipped into commando pants and watch sweater, strapped the fine Randall attack-survival knife to my side, and went again to my surveillance station, the water tower.

If the assassin was going to make a move on St. Carib, he would have to make it tonight.

Because tomorrow afternoon, they would haul us all out to the islands for the beginning of our Solitary.

Matrah had briefed us on it that evening at dinner. He was a different man in front of his wealthy clients. He substituted a patronizing smile for his attitude of superiority. Everyone seemed to like him. And he pretended to like everybody. Except me.

He assigned an island to every group. Ours was Cayo Costa, a six-mile strip of barrier island that fronted the Gulf not far from St. Carib. Like the other groups, we would be dropped off alone a mile or so apart, each of us to carry only five gallons of water, some matches and mosquito netting, and a flare kit.

“There is positively no fraternization between guests allowed during Solitary,” Matrah warned us in his oily Mediterranean accent. “It would defeat the whole purpose of your stay on St. Carib.”

Everyone had laughed at that.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t laugh because I saw the way that his eyes swept the audience, then suddenly held me with a glare.

That look of bare hatred tempted me. It made me want to wait for the first opportunity, get him alone, then finish the job on his throat that I had started on Cabbage Key.

But I couldn’t take the chance.

Maybe he was FEAT’s assassin. I certainly had plenty of circumstantial evidence. He had ties to the world money market. He had arrived on St. Carib not long before the planned vacations of Kiev Evenki and Samuel Yabrud began. He had been seen talking to my friend Norm Fizer before Fizer disappeared. And Rob Wells had told me about his fascination for firearms.

There were a lot of marks against him.

Maybe too many marks.

But I had to wait and see. If it was Matrah, he would pay the price. I would follow Colonel Westervelt’s orders to the letter.

The assassin’s death would look like no accident.

If he didn’t get me first.

So, in the darkness on that fourth night, I made the rounds of the island, slipping from shadow to shadow. There was still a light on in the main house. That was unusual. Through a third-story window I could see the dark outline of Matrah. There were voices, but I couldn’t catch the words—only the thin peal of occasional laughter.

I wondered whom he was entertaining.

Not Yabrud—that was certain. I had watched the Israeli go to his cabin and switch out the light before I had gone to get the beer for Sonya.

I paused by the porch of the main house, straining to listen. And when I was sure that there was nothing to be heard, I checked once again to make sure the little geophone was still in place, then headed off through the darkness toward the water tower.

I took my time. Every now and then I’d stop, pull the Star-Tron scope to my eye, and scan the island.

I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being followed.

Tree rats scrambled in the high palms. A few mosquitoes vectored in on me, whining in my ears. Out on Pine Island Sound I could hear the small diesel putter of a commercial fisherman.

It was a calm night, soft and quiet.

It was a night filled with stars and a warm south wind. It was a night for fishing the passes, or for anchoring out with a cold beer. It was a fine night for walking. Or for love. But not for dying.

Yet I almost did.

I stepped into the assassin’s trap at almost the same time I heard St. Carib’s stiletto-shaped Excalibur roar to life.

I was three quarters of the way up the water-tower ladder when the boat’s engines started. I turned to look, the Remington 700 slung over one shoulder, the seismic alarm case over the other.

In the thin starlight, I could see the glisten of boat and wake.

And the dark shapes of men—but I couldn’t tell who they were or how many.

It wasn’t that unusual, really. The night before, Matrah and his Mediterranean friends, along with Heiny and the other German, had taken the Excalibur to Cabbage Key for an evening of scotch. I had even kidded Heiny about his hangover that morning. And he had banged me playfully on the shoulder—then slipped me a note from Marina Cole. It said that she was anxious to see me, and that I should save some energy for her after my stay at St. Carib.

So the leaving of the Excalibur wasn’t all that surprising—only they were leaving later than usual.

Much later.

Just after midnight, in fact.

So I wanted to get a look at them through the Star-Tron scope. I wanted to see who was going and where they were going.

And that’s when I stepped into the trap.

It could have killed me.

It should have killed me.

But it didn’t.

Someone had loosened the nails at the top of the ladder. The tower was about sixty feet high. Wooden steps zigzagged up the first forty feet to a small platform. The ladder began there. Someone falling from the top of the ladder would hit back first on the railing of the small platform, then catch the next railing along the wooden steps, then crash, finally, onto the old shell-and-cement base on which the tower was built.

It was one long back-breaking fall.

When I saw the Excalibur leaving, I tried to hurry up the ladder. My right hand grabbed the first loose rung just as my left hand reached above it for the final rung.

When the first gave away, I grabbed at the second frantically.

And I caught it, bending in toward the ladder, looking desperately for any kind of foot-or handhold.

But then that rung gave way with a sickening creak of nails pulling away from wood.

Anyone else it probably would have killed.

But I had spent my childhood working the high trapeze, learning how to maneuver my body in midflight.

I had only one option.

And I took it.

Instead of resigning myself to the fall, I gave a frantic outward spring with my legs. A wooden framework supported the tower. The braces were old two-by-fours crossed between the main pilings. They were more than a body length away from the ladder, and I barely caught the highest network of cross brace with my right hand.

My body swung under it with tremendous impact, and I felt the old wood bow beneath my weight. And just when I thought I had it made, there was a loud ker-wack as the two-by-four snapped.

But luckily the second brace, the one I had grabbed with my left hand, didn’t.

I hung there by one hand for what seemed like a long time. The wood was old, possibly rotten. I couldn’t take the chance of making any sudden moves. Slowly, I got my right hand up on the brace. Then, hand over hand, I pulled myself along to one of the four main vertical supports. After that, it was easy enough to lower myself from brace to brace, back to the ground.

An unexpected fall, like an unexpected noise, kicks all the caveman senses into gear.

The adrenaline goes roaring through the veins, and the heart pounds high in the ears. Every muscle tenses involuntarily, ready for danger.

So, back on the ground, I had to force myself to take some deep breaths; had to command body and brain to relax. The black dragon had almost caught me this time. As the philosopher promises: “Death thou comest when least expected… .”

And I sure as hell hadn’t expected that kind of trap.

So when I had calmed and was back in control, I made my brain scan the options, seeking my next move.

Doesn’t the hunter usually like to watch his quarry fall?

Usually.

But it had taken me so much time to climb down the tower that he would probably be long gone by now—if he was around at all.

But why make my death look accidental? It didn’t take me long to settle on the obvious: I was an American. Apparently, FEAT had nothing to gain from the death of an agent of the United States—not this time, anyway. My murder would only cloud the issue of Samuel Yabrud’s assassination—and he was marked for assassination. I was convinced of that now.

Because if he wasn’t, the assassin sure as hell wouldn’t be playing a cat-and-mouse game with me.

No, this organization—an assemblage involved in terrorism strictly for profit—had a reason for wanting Yabrud dead. And they didn’t want me in the way, alive or otherwise.

But in that moment of terror, hanging one-handed from a rotten brace, I had made up my mind to disappoint them.

They had tried to kill me—and failed.

Now I was hell-bent on living to see them regret it.

I picked up the seismic alarm case. I had dropped it when the first rung gave away. The aluminum covering was bashed like a bad melon. It rattled when I shook it. But the sniper rifle with the night scope still hung on its sling over my shoulder.

It took me a while, but I finally found them: the two rungs that had given way. As I expected, the heads of the rusted nails were shiny with prying.

It had been no accident.

I set the rifle aside and, with the two wooden rungs in hand, climbed back up the ladder. I used the butt of the Randall knife to pound them back into their proper place on the ladder.

In the event the assassin hadn’t been watching, I didn’t want him to know that his trap had been sprung.

That done, I collected my gear and headed back through the shadows toward the water. I gave it a full ten minutes before I stepped into the clearing by the dock. I wanted to make sure no one was watching. I returned the seismic alarm to the fish-box compartment, hesitated, then put the Remington 700 in too.

I was tired of the weight of it.

And it hadn’t been bringing me the best of luck.

Instead I took up the Cobra crossbow, pieced it together, slid the shaft holder onto the back of my belt, and inserted a half-dozen aluminum shafts, complete with triangular killing points.

I was tired of playing the assassin’s game of hideand-seek.

It was time for me to force someone’s hand. And after almost being splattered by my fall, I was in just the proper mood to do some forcing.

I had allowed myself to be hunted for too long. It was time to turn the tables, to regain the initiative.

It was time for me to become the hunter.

I checked my Rolex. It was two forty-five a.m. Cabbage Key had closed long ago. And still the Excalibur was not back. At the base of the mound by the path that led to the dock was a big gumbo-limbo tree. I climbed the tree, found a suitable Y of branch, and made myself comfortable. It was time to wait. And think.

I didn’t like the reading I was getting on this island, St. Carib. All along my instincts had been telling me there was something wrong. Something bad wrong. But I had chosen to follow D. Harold Westervelt’s route of cold logic and cool reason—waiting, always waiting for just the right time.

But that just wasn’t my style. And I had been paying for it all along.

In the business of war, you learn not to ignore the little cerebral warning bells. And my private alarms had been going off since I had set foot on the island.

Sitting high in the branches of the gumbo-limbo, I sat and thought and waited. It was nearly three a.m. before the Excalibur made the turn into the St. Carib channel. It ran without running lights. Something had happened only a short time before that had me deep in thought—so deep in thought that I didn’t hear them coming until they were almost to the docks.

While I was waiting, the ground had trembled suddenly, unexpectedly. Then I had heard a muted whoof in the distance and seen a brief corona of flame illuminate the far village of Boca Grande.

What in the hell could explode on Boca Grande at three a.m.?

I felt my stomach roll, and the hair stand on the back of my neck. I didn’t like the obvious possibility: Maybe Kiev Evenki had decided to stay on after all.

And maybe FEAT’s assassin had caught up with him.

The Excalibur came burrbling up to the dock. They didn’t bother hauling it out with the davits. Four men got out of the boat. I wished I had brought the Star-Tron scope with me. I couldn’t see their faces in the darkness.

The one shape was unmistakable. It was the lanky, angular form of Matrah.

They came quickly up the dock, as if running away from something.

As they got closer I recognized Matrah’s two Arab sidekicks.

But the fourth man remained a mystery—until I heard the voice. It was cold and professional, native American.

“How long do you think it will take for them to piece the body together?” Matrah was asking.

“If they let the KGB help, a day. If they try it by themselves, a week.”

“You are sure he was in the room?”

“Evenki? I saw him myself, Matrah. Don’t worry.”

It was like meeting your best friend unexpectedly in some distant corner of the earth, and it took me a while to place the voice.

And then I didn’t have to, because I could see the face: the square-jawed, Rockwell dream of the all-American male.

It was my dead friend.

The fourth man was Stormin’ Norman Fizer… .

14

They passed beneath my station in the tree.

I could see the tops of their heads as they hurried along the walk toward the main house.

I was tempted to end it for all four of them; tempted to bring the Cobra crossbow to bear on the temple of a man whom I had come to admire and trust.

Norm Fizer had been there in Cambodia when I needed him.

And he had come to my aid in Key West when I wanted to take revenge on the drug runners who had killed my family.

I had always thought that Fizer was one of the good ones, one of the government’s dependable few.

So now I was in shock. Complete shock, as I watched him walk with the Mediterraneans, talking calmly about how he had set the bomb that had killed the Russian diplomat. My breath came soft and shallow, and my throat was dry. My hands were white on the alloy lightness of crossbow. Brain tissue began casting back and forth for an explanation, nerve centers blinking like a switchboard lighting up.

Fizer liked to joke about his small government salary—but there was always an edge to the joking. It bothered him.

He had a wife and kids. Two of the kids were in high school, college-bound.

And you don’t send two kids to college on a civil servant’s salary.

For his entire professional life he had plowed onward against the never-ending red tape and bureaucracy. In government work, he had seen how often a man’s life is used as a pawn in the giant political chess game.

So maybe he had finally snapped; said to hell with it. Maybe he had finally decided that if he was going to be a pawn, he might as well be a highly paid pawn.

The four of them disappeared into the darkness at the top of the mound. The lights of the main house blinked on.

So this is the true test, MacMorgan. You were offered a mission that demanded an assassin—a cold-blooded killer. And you grabbed at it with all the reluctance of a barracuda hitting baitfish. But now you learn that the mission requires you to kill one of your best friends. No longer is the quarry an enigma or a symbol of evil—or any of those other hackneyed cubbyholes you depend upon to cloak your own inhumanity. This is a flesh-and-bone man. This is a person you have laughed with and drunk beer with and suffered with and trusted. So why not just pack your gear, grab the pretty lady on Cabbage Key, and head on back to your hermitage built upon the water? After all, it is just politics—D. Harold Westervelt said as much. And Fizer’s death—or your own death—would be nothing more than the briefest ripple on the broadest sea.

I thought about it.

I really did. Various brain segments wrestled and struggled and battled to a conclusion.

Finally, I took a deep breath; exhaled.

I swung down from the tree, landing heavily on the shell path.

Then I mounted an aluminum shaft in the crossbow, arming it with the self-cocking device. And I noticed for the first time that my hands were shaking….

Three of them sat in the living room of the main house.

I peered in through the corner of the window. There was a stone fireplace with old tarpon rods crossed over the mantelpiece. On the walls hung stuffed fish and one massive alligator skin.

It looked like the setting of a 1940 English mystery movie.

Fizer sat in a leather chair near the fireplace with a whiskey tumbler in his hand. Matrah sat across from him, and one of the Mediterraneans stood by his side.

I wondered what had happened to the third.

Fizer had his business smile on. He was talking. He wore clothes different from those described by the woman who had rented him the boat: black sweater and black pants. It was exactly the sort of thing I would have worn if I had gone to assassinate a Russian diplomat.

Or an American agent, for that matter.

The windows were closed in favor of the air conditioner. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. None of them seemed to be carrying weapons. Fizer and Matrah were doing the talking.

Still the third Mediterranean did not arrive.

I gave it five more minutes. In that five minutes I must have checked my watch twenty times.

I was anxious to get it over with.

And I was tired of waiting.

I slid along the side of the house and up onto the expanse of porch. The door seemed to be built of heavy oak on brass hinges. No way to kick it in.

Ever so slowly, I turned the knob. It would go only halfway.

It was locked.

There were two massive windows fronting the porch. They began about thigh high. I took a moment, going over in my mind exactly what I was going to do once inside.

I didn’t want to have to waste time thinking.

Quietly, I backed away from the door and positioned myself in front of the first window. There’s a way to do it without getting cut—cut badly, at least. You throw yourself headlong toward the middle of the pane, where the glass is weakest, then at the last moment you tuck your head down, arms drawn in tight, and roll through it.

I hit the window with two quick sprinter’s steps, crashed through it, landed on neck and shoulders, then sprang to my feet, crossbow leveled midway between Matrah and Fizer, ready if either of them made a move.

There was a brief slow-motion instant when the expressions on their faces registered on my brain: a mixture of surprise and horror. Fizer dropped his tumbler of whiskey. Matrah crouched as if about to duck—or draw a weapon.

I never got a chance to see what he did.

There was one blind spot in the room—a corner I could not see from any window. There was a liquor sideboard there. And that was where the missing Mediterranean stood.

It took him a moment to react.

But it took a longer moment for me to realize that he was there.

He hit me from the right side, making a lunging grab for the crossbow. I elbowed him solidly twice in the stomach, and still he did not let go. I forced him backward, then used his resistance to throw him forward, coming down hard on his neck with my knee. He clutched his throat, croaking.

From somewhere, a stub-nosed stainless .38 had materialized in the hand of the other Mediterranean. I felt the sudden vacuum of air near my ear at the same moment I heard the explosion.

He had missed.

And I wasn’t about to give him a chance to miss again.

I dove toward a chair, came up rolling, and felt the pinging recoil of the crossbow as I fired.

The aluminum shaft took him cleanly through the breastbone.

He dropped the .38 and touched the shaft in his chest as if puzzled.

Then he fell dead upon the varnished floor.

Matrah made a movement as if about to retrieve the revolver. I had the Randall knife out of its sheath, ready.

“Try it, asshole. Touch the revolver and you’re as good as dead.”

It stopped him. He stood looking at me, still in the crouch as if frozen.

Fizer spoke for the first time. He still sat in the leather chair. He looked oddly calm. There was a light smile on his face. He said, “He’s pretty much right, Matrah. He’s better with a knife than he is with a pistol. You learned how to throw knives in the circus, didn’t you, Dusky? Isn’t that what you told me back in Cambodia?”

I relaxed a bit, still holding the knife. “You’ve got a good memory, Stormin’ Norman. Maybe you can remember exactly when you decided to become one of the bad guys. Tell me all about it before I turn you two over to the authorities. It’ll be something to tell your wife and kids.”

He still wore the smile. He looked like an NFL quarterback at a party thrown by college cheerleaders. “What, you’re not going to kill me?”

“It crossed my mind. But luckily, I caught myself before they turned me into a machine—like they turned you into a machine. I’m disappointed in you, Fizer. I mean that. This whole intrigue business—what a crock of shit. The politicians sit back and yawn while we forfeit lives on the big board. But they got you hook, line, and sinker. It wasn’t even a matter of playing the game—it was a matter of playing the game for the biggest bucks.”

He stood up and wiped his face with a big right hand. “You’re right, Dusky. About one thing: I’m still playing the game. But you’re wrong about the other—I haven’t switched sides.”

I noticed a look of surprise on Matrah’s face, quickly hidden.

“Pretty weak story, Stormin’ Norman.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Would you?”

He chuckled softly. “No, I guess I wouldn’t. But it doesn’t matter. It’ll all come out later.”

“How so?”

For the first time, Fizer looked serious. It was a look I remembered well—and once trusted. “I had them, Dusky. I had the whole damn FEAT organization in the palm of my hand. But you just blew it. You think I just came blundering over here and stupidly got myself captured? You know me better than that, MacMorgan. I smelled a rat. And you know the rat.” He jerked a thumb at Matrah. “It’s the Arab prince over here.”

“You bastard,” Matrah said between clenched teeth.

“He had too many connections not to be involved. But why settle for one small fish when you can get the whole school? I let him know that I might be interested in joining up if the price was right.”

“And he fell for it, just like that,” I said skeptically.

“You know better. That’s why I couldn’t get in touch with Westervelt. I disappeared, and I had to let you guys go on thinking that. They kept me locked up downstairs in a storm cellar for four, maybe five days. They kept questioning me, and I kept giving them information. But all the wrong information. I took the chance that I would be far more valuable to them alive than dead. And it had paid off. Until now. Tonight was my big test. They hadn’t planned on killing Kiev Evenki, the Russian. Just Yabrud, the Israeli. The murder of a Jewish diplomat would cause a military buildup in Israel. Repercussions of the buildup would be felt all over the Middle East—especially in Egypt.” He looked at the Mediterranean. “Isn’t that the way you explained it to me, Matrah? Your organization—the one we call FEAT—had been steadily investing large sums of money in Egyptian armament corporations over the past three months? You said the sudden surge in military spending would give you, what—a clean twenty to twenty-five percent profit?” Fizer smiled at me. “Shrewd bastards, huh, Dusky?”

“So why did you kill the Russian, Stormin’ Norman? That’s a little bit above and beyond the call of duty, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Had to make them believe me, Dusky.” I watched his eyes closely as he added, “Besides, the Russian wasn’t there. They pulled him out a couple of days ago.”

“How could you know that?”

“For one thing, I checked his room while Matrah and his goon squad waited for me to set the explosives. I talked to Evenki’s stand-in. You know him pretty well, MacMorgan. A guy by the name of Westervelt. Told him to clear the area just before the fireworks.”

“That’s pretty easy to check out, Norm.”

He nodded. “I’m planning on it.” He grinned slightly. “Two things in this world I don’t want hot on my trail, MacMorgan. And one of them’s the KGB.”

“What’s the second?”

“You.”

“So what would you have done if they wanted you to kill Yabrud? Or me, Stormin’ Norman?”

“I knew they had someone else for those jobs.”

“Who?”

“That’s what I was about to find out when you came busting in.”

Matrah had held his frozen pose, caught, it seemed, in a combination of shock and seething. I nodded toward him. “It’s not him or one of the other Mediterraneans?”

“No. They’ve got another connection here on the island.”

“We can persuade him to tell us.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. One thing’s for sure—the moment their assassin smells something wrong, he’ll be long gone.” Norm brushed at his neatly styled brown hair. “Face it, Dusky, we threw the net and came up with some of the fish. But not all of them. Our government just wanted to give FEAT a message: Don’t practice your terrorism in the United States. Maybe this will be message enough.”

“And maybe not. You might be done with your job. But I’m not done with mine.”

“Dammit, MacMorgan, this is no time to be stubborn!”

“Let’s just say I have a personal interest in all this, Fizer. A sporting interest. Their assassin wants to play tag. Almost killed me tonight. Now it’s his turn to be the rabbit.”

“Dusky, when Matrah here doesn’t show up tomorrow, their man will take it on the run. And one thing they’re not short of is connections. Important connections. They’ll have him out of the country an hour after he makes it to the mainland.”

“But what if Matrah has a legitimate excuse for not showing up?”

“And how do you plan to work that?”

I crossed the room, keeping a tight eye on the Mediterranean. I had made my decision about Stormin’ Norman Fizer. Every point of his story was plausible. It was just the sort of thing Fizer would do—walk solo into the lion’s den. Besides, I had instinctive feelings about Fizer. He was one of the few you could trust. That’s why I had been so shocked when I saw him get out of the Excalibur with the others. I could have waited until the next day, gone to Boca Grande and rounded up Westervelt to check out the story. But that would have blown my plan for evening the score.

And this was the last chance I would have.

I bent over the corpse of the dead Mediterranean. Blood had pooled beneath him on the varnished floor. It smelled of heated metal, and with that was the stench of human feces. There is an odor to fresh death, an odor fouler than the carrion we will all become. It is the fume of despair, and it never fails to hit me broadside. This man at my feet had once been a child, lived and loved as we all do. He had laughed and cried and sought approval in his own way—until his way had crossed my path.

The look of puzzlement was still on his face. Behind me, the other Mediterranean was kneeling, still fighting for air. He, at least, would live.

I picked up the stainless .38, hesitated, then handed it to Fizer.

“There! Shoot him! Shoot him, dammit!”

Matrah made a lunge as if to take the revolver. Fizer caught him with a short left to the jaw that sent him wheeling backward, crashing into a chair. It didn’t knock him out. But it turned the dark eyes glassy.

“Just like old times, eh, Dusky?” Fizer said, licking the skinned knuckles.

“Yeah, except I’m feeling older. And meaner.”

“God forbid.”

“You bastard!” Matrah yelled, spitting blood. “You lied to me. You’ll pay for lying to me!”

“I’d go to hell just to be with my friends, if for no other reason.” Fizer turned to me. “So now what?”

“Now I’m going to type a note for Matrah to sign. He’s been called away suddenly. And the Solitary is to go on as planned. There’s an older woman who works in his business office. We’ll leave the note on her desk. Then you’re going to cart Matrah and his two friends back to Boca Grande in the Excalibur and get in touch with Colonel Westervelt—and then call your wife. She’s heartsick, you know.”

“I never told her it would be easy being married to me. But what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to enjoy the Solitary, of course. I’ve still got some weight to lose. But first I’m going to write some notes of my own. Don’t worry, if worse comes to worse, Yabrud’s CIA bodyguards will be somewhere on the island—you can bet on that.”

“Does all this mean you know who the assassin is?”

“Let’s just say that with Matrah and his goons out of the picture, it narrows it down. Way down …”

15

Fizer had been right. There was no way to force Matrah to cooperate with us—and that included signing the farewell note. Finally, I rummaged through some papers in his desk and forged his signature as best I could.

He was not pleased. We tied and gagged him, and forced him down the mound through the darkness to the stiletto-shaped racing boat. His Mediterranean friend came along meekly enough. It would be another few days before he could even speak—let alone yell for help.

The third Mediterranean was deposited aboard wrapped in green tarp.

“You’ll clean up the blood up there?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I don’t understand why you still have to go to Cabbage Key before daylight.”

“Because when this is all over, I’m going to take an immediate vacation. There’s a very pretty lady over there who knows how to sail. She’ll be going with me.”

“I should have known. What are those papers in your hand?”

“Notes.”

“What do they say?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re being pretty damn secretive, MacMorgan.”

“The assassin will understand. That’s all that matters.”

“I’m going to be in the landing party that arrives on Cayo Costa at midnight. You’d better have Yabrud there in perfect health and your business over by then.”

“Promise. On both counts. And like I said, Stormin’ Norman, call your wife.”

He was grinning as he pulled out in the Excalibur, headed for Boca Grande.

I checked my watch. I had only a couple of hours before daylight.

And there was no time to waste.

I made my way back up the mound and stopped outside Sonya Casimur’s cottage. I slid the note under the door after deciding not to chance going inside. I did the same at the fat Texan’s cottage, and at Heinrich Keppler’s quarters.

When I had told Norm Fizer I had it narrowed down, I wasn’t lying. The note the assassin had left finally told me: There is no place safer than in the tracks of the hunter….

The assassin was someone close.

The assassin was someone who had taken pains to stay right in my tracks.

For an instant, I considered taking Sniper to Cabbage Key. But that would have been the stupidest of moves. Instead, I went aboard, got the Remington 700 sniper rifle from the fish-box compartment, grabbed an old styrofoam cooler and some extra clothes, then slid through the shadows to one of the little wooden skiffs moored in the shallows.

I rowed well away from St. Carib Island before starting the engine.

Marina Cole was alone in the little board-and-batten house at the foot of the mound. Her sailboat was moored to the dock just outside. In the darkness, with the sails down, it seemed to slumber like the rest of Cabbage Key.

I puttered up in the little skiff, paused outside as I tied up, then went up the wooden walkway to the cottage. Plants hung inside the screened-in porch. I banged my head on one, then stopped its swaying before it fell.

“Who’s there? Is someone out there?” Her voice was soft, deep with sleep.

“Just your friendly guardian angel.”

“Dusky!”

I heard the sound of a light switch, then I heard her swear softly when the light did not come on. The island generator was off. Finally, there was the striking of a match, brief explosion of sulfur, then the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp.

She wore an extra-large T-shirt with the Cabbage Key seal on it: soaring osprey backdropped by the water tower. In the soft light you could see the elongation of nipples and the weight of breasts beneath material, and the T-shirt ended abruptly just above the widening of hips and flaxen curl at the intersection of thighs. She was smiling.

“Just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“Well, it’s about time, MacMorgan!”

She brushed feathering blond hair from her face and fell into my arms, still holding the lamp.

“Hmmm, you smell nice, lady.”

“And you feel nice, MacMorgan. God, it seems like a month.”

“Or two.”

“Or a year. Can you stay? You can stay, can’t you? Jesus, what time is it? I feel like I’m dreaming. A very nice dream …”

I held her tightly, my mouth against hers, hips pressing, hands searching, body wanting her more than ever.

“Hold it, lady.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. This damn belt …”

“Whoa—not that.” I held her away from me. “I can’t stay. Let’s not start anything we can’t finish.”

“We already have,” she said huskily, pressing herself against me.

“Will you just give me a minute to talk, Marina?”

The tone of my voice stopped her. She put the lamp on the table, suddenly serious. “What’s wrong, Dusky?”

“How well do you like working here—waiting tables at Cabbage Key?”

“What? Well, I love it, I guess. The people are great, and—”

“You wouldn’t be interested in going away with me tomorrow night?”

“Dusky, I’d love to go anywhere with you, anytime, but why tomorrow night? That’s a day before that stupid St. Carib course you’re taking is over, and …” Her eyes grew suddenly worried. “What’s going on, MacMorgan? I don’t like the readings I’m getting on all this.”

“What do you mean, Marina?” I watched her face closely. She paused for a moment, then sat down in a wicker chair beside the kerosene lamp.

“First of all, I don’t believe you went to St. Carib to lose weight. You don’t need to lose weight.”

“So?”

“Dammit, Dusky, why are you playing these games with me? It has something to do with Matrah … Matrah and my father, doesn’t it? You’re investigating them or something.”

“Would it upset you if I was?”

“Yes! I mean, no!” She jammed her hands against her face. “Dusky, they’re an … unfeeling people. I know that. As much as I love my father, I have to admit that to myself. I hate everything they stand for. That’s why I really stopped here—to ask Matrah one last time for a divorce. I wanted to be done with them now and forever. That’s why I don’t want to see you get involved, Dusky. You don’t know the extent of their power. Their business: It’s not brutal … but it is merciless. Nothing stands in their way, Dusky. Do you understand what I’m saying? A private business, a piece of property, a human life—it’s all the same when it goes through their computers. Dusky, please … I don’t want to see you hurt… .’ ‘

She buried her face in her hands. The tears in the lamplight were real.

“Hey, I’m a Rogue, remember?”

She nodded silently.

“Rogues don’t get involved with organizations—you told me that.”

She sniffed, then half cried, half laughed. “You’re already involved, MacMorgan—with me.”

“Does that mean you’ll leave with me? Tomorrow night?”

“You know I will.”

“Okay,” I said. “Listen carefully. Just before midnight, anchor off the Captiva Pass end of Cayo Costa. As close as you can get. Watch out for the shoal waters of Pejuan Point. You’ll see them on the chart.” I took her hands in mine and forced her to look at me. “This is the most important thing, Marina. Whatever you do, don’t come ashore. Understand? Under no circumstances leave your boat. I’ll have a flashlight. I’ll signal three times from shore, then swim out. We’ll pick up Sniper, then cruise anywhere you want, and for as long as you like. Got it?”

She nodded, stood up. I took her in my arms. Her face tasted of salt, and her hair smelled of shampoo.

“Why not tonight, Dusky? Why don’t we just leave now?”

Her lips were full and soft against mine. Her breasts pressed tight against my chest, and I could feel the quickened thumping of her heart.

“No, Marina.”

“I could have my things ready in five minutes. In an hour we could be far away from all of this … whatever it is you’re involved in.”

“I can’t.”

She took my face roughly in her hands. “Dusky, I want to be with you. I want to be with you now and for a long, long time to come… .”

I pulled away, kissing her on the forehead. “Tomorrow night, beautiful lady. Tomorrow night.”

She walked me down to the dock, shivering in the cool March night. She held me with one arm around the waist like high school lovers on a walk through the park.

We kissed briefly, deeply. “Sleep tight, Marina.”

“And you sleep safe, MacMorgan.”

There was an odd forlorn expression on her face as I pulled away from the dock.

And she did not return my farewell wave….

I had a final preparation to make before I was ready.

I cut the little skiff around the back side of Cabbage Key, zigging and zagging along the dark mangrove points. I knew that the only place the St. Carib cruiser could get in to drop our group off on Cayo Costa was the public dock on the bay side of the north end of the island, where there were a few neat cabins.

But how would they decide who would go in which direction?

It really didn’t matter.

I beached the skiff well away from the dock and headed through island back country. Australian pines leaned in the predawn breeze. Coons rustled in dunes and clumps of sea oats.

I needed a place I could find easily the next day.

It wouldn’t do to hide my weapon and the other equipment someplace where even I couldn’t find them.

Halfway across the island I found the perfect spot. Like the other barrier islands in Pine Island Sound, Cayo Costa had been inhabited by fishermen at the turn of the century. The only thing remaining of that brief civilization was a graveyard. The graves were barren—as if weeds refused to grow there. A few had stone markers. Most were just outlined with old horse conch and whelk shells.

Near one grave was a loblolly pine. The ground was covered with needles. I buried the rifle, the baggy clothes, and the Styrofoam cooler beneath the needles near the grave, then covered my tracks as best I could.

That done, I headed back to my skiff. There was an eeriness in the island quiet. Like for an athlete who visits the stadium the night before the game, the silence seemed to echo with screams soon to come.

The screams and the gunshots …

16

Our group met by the dock at noon. The other forty or so people clustered around the yard by the water, all divided into their little four-man societies.

Say what you want about St. Carib, but its program seemed to work.

They looked like different people from the rich male and female fatties who had assembled there that first day. They had good tans, their eyes shone, and they had all lost a bunch of weight.

The St. Carib staff hustled back and forth, clipboards in their hands. And more than once I heard them curse Matrah for leaving them alone with the final preparations for Solitary.

I expected Sonya Casimur to treat me coolly after our little parting scene. Instead, she gravitated toward me as always. She wore the standard warmup suit—as we all did—and she had her duffel bag slung over her shoulder like a sailor.

“Ready to do some surviving?” she asked. The dark hair was neatly styled, as if she were going to a dinner party instead of two days alone on the beach. I didn’t know if it really was an odd question to ask, or if it just sounded odd because I hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. I studied the brown peasant eyes. They seemed to hold nothing but wry humor—and maybe just a touch of affection.

“More than ready. And you?”

She sighed. She had completely dropped the actress routine by now. The Italian accent was light. “I guess. God, anything to get away from all these drooling men.”

“They’ve been bothering you? I thought they all got the message by the second or third day.”

She reached over and patted my hand. “Do not worry about it. It is nothing important. But last night someone left me a very strange note. Men think they know other men. They don’t. Only a woman can truly know men.”

“Hey, what’s that? One of y’all got a note—is that what I heard?” The fat Texan had been standing within earshot, talking to Samuel Yabrud. The two of them came strolling over. Like most at St. Carib, Yabrud looked much better than before. It seemed as if his skin had tightened over the elephantine body, and there was a smile on his face. Only the Texan seemed worn by it all. Folds of skin sagged beneath the pale, piggish eyes, as if he was very tired.

“I got me one of them weird notes myself, little lady. Just what did yours say?”

I felt Sonya move closer to me, as if to use me as a shield against the Texan’s loud voice. “It was nothing,” she said, unconcerned. “It’s not worth talking about.”

“Well, little lady, if it was anything like the gibberish in mine, you’re absolutely goddam right about it bein’ unimportant.” He turned to Yabrud. “Sam, I’m tellin’ ya, you think you Jews got trouble with the Arabs—why, it ain’t nothin’ to the shit that’s goin’ on here in America. People gettin’ crazier and crazier all the time. I’ll damn sure be glad to get back to Texas, mister man, and you can bet your firstborn on that. Imagine payin’ two grand to come to this island so they can starve us and berate us, and leave us weird-ass notes in the middle of the goddam night… .”

Yabrud gave me a private, tolerant wink, and led the fat Texan away. It was a strange pairing, those two. And I knew that if Yabrud could put up with the Texan, he richly deserved his reputation as a diplomat.

St. Carib’s sportfisherman was sixty feet of luxury, an oceangoing fishing machine that seemed humbled by its mundane life as a ferry for the fat and wealthy.

Our group was the last to board. I had seen Heinrich Keppler several times that morning, but he had always been too busy to stop and talk. Now he came lumbering up to the dock, a clipboard and a walkietalkie in hand. He smiled and wiped imaginary sweat from his brow.

“Whew!” he said. “Some busy morning, eh, my big American friend?”

“Looks like everyone’s all set to go, Heiny.”

“Ya! Finally, it is prepared!” His face described sudden rage. “That Matrah bastard goes hunting the girl tail, and leaves all the work to us, hah! My money pay is not big enough to cover such work. Me, I am just the trainer—but no, that is not enough. Now I must sign the papers. Answer the questions. Tell the cook if he must wipe his ass while we are gone only two days!” He threw up his hands. “I tell you, Heiny is looking forward to the rest. Me, I am going to lay in the beach on the sun and read the dirty magazines, ya!”

He grinned at me and slapped me on the shoulder as we went down the dock and joined the others aboard.

The few friends Sonya had made on St. Carib were fat women outside our group. She was forward in the main cabin with them, talking animatedly about their coming adventure.

I stood on the broad fighting deck with Heiny, making idle conversation.

In one way, I hoped he’d bring it up. He was a likable guy with his broken English and his big grin. Besides, he’d helped me out on Cabbage Key with Matrah.

But in another way, I hoped he would never mention it.

Because that would leave only one other alternative.

And it wasn’t a pleasant alternative at all.

Finally, tired of waiting, weary with no sleep and the continual suspense, I brought it up.

“I found some kind of weird note under my door this morning, Heiny.”

He didn’t look surprised. Just puzzled. “Ya? The strange note?”

“Read like gibberish, really. Sonya got one. And so did the fat Texan.”

He touched his lips with his index finger. “What did this strange note say, my American friend?”

I told him.

“Ya?”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I am surprised, yes. I am surprised because I got such a note. Though my English is highly good, I sometimes do not understand the American humor. I thought it was to be a joke.”

“It didn’t seem very funny to me.”

He made a circling motion with index finger against temple. “The little piggies on our island. Perhaps the hunger makes one of them looney-tuney.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I guess.”

They began dropping off the four-person groups on islands. All were told to spread out on the beaches, at least a mile apart. They were told that these two days alone were a very important part of the St. Carib philosophy, and that they should not violate the privacy of others.

The message was simple: Get the hell off by yourself, lose even more weight by fasting, and then stay there until we come to pick you up.

We made stops at several unnamed sand-spit islands, then at both ends of Punta Blanco, where Marina Cole and I had stayed that first night together, at Johnson Shoals, and, finally, at Cayo Costa.

Much of the hooting and laughter had disappeared in the knowledge that they would be staying on the islands alone.

It sobered them: the fat Texan, Yabrud, and Sonya, too.

The last time any of them had been truly alone was in the executive washrooms of their corporations or film studios.

I walked Sonya partway down the beach. She had insisted on carrying her own duffel. Heiny, the Texan, and then Yabrud had peeled off miles back up the island.

“It will be very lonely out here, no?”

I laughed. “No.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. She still had that electric touch. “Does that mean you will not come to visit?”

“What, and break the St. Carib creed?”

“Damn their rules.” She slipped her arm through mine, holding my elbow against the heat of her breast. “Even as a friend you would not come to see me?”

“Maybe,” I said. “As a friend, Sonya.”

After an appropriate spacing, I said goodbye to the actress, then headed on down the beach. I wanted to get as far away from all of them as I could. I stopped a half mile short of Captiva Pass. The beach was an expanse of white sand backdropped abruptly by cabbage palms. The Gulf of Mexico was winter-clean. I could see the magnified darkness of rock beneath translucent swells. The first instinct of anyone camping alone is to build a shelter. I was counting on Samuel Yabrud to do the same. Using the Randall knife, I hacked limbs off a dead casuarina tree, made a frame on the beach, then covered the frame with palmetto fans. I had positioned the hut so that the back of it was hidden by sea oats and a series of dunes. Just in case someone was watching, I surveyed the hut as if satisfied, yawned like an actor in a silent movie, then crawled inside.

I gave it ten minutes, then slid out the back in the cover of the high sea oats.

Walking the back country of Cayo Costa is not easy. There is cactus, mangrove, and sand spurs. Fish crows cawed in the trees, and I hoped the assassin was not hunter enough to know the significance of that.

Behind Sonya Casimur’s camp, I played voyeur for longer than I should have.

I couldn’t help it.

With clothes on, she was beautiful.

Naked, she was magnificent.

She worked nude on the beach, oiled in the bright sunlight. She built her lean-to of palmettos, whistling while she worked. Despite her age, hers was the body of a twenty-year-old goddess. She seemed without a care, alone and female and perfect against the swollen turquoise of sea. The vision of her yanked at the heart and clamped the breathing.

Finally, I pulled myself away and headed up the island. The fat Texan, Samuel Yabrud, and even Heiny worked at their shelters. Yabrud was building his in a clearing of casuarinas, and for that I was glad.

I located the graveyard, felt strangely compelled to pause in respect, then recovered my gear from beneath the loblolly pine. That done, I headed back for my camp.

I hadn’t slept in far too long.

And with darkness only a few hours away, I didn’t have much time.

After a lifetime of assorted deadlines, we all have brain clocks. Mine awoke me at six p.m., just before dark.

A sun as red as Venus balanced on the lip of sea horizon, then dissolved into a windy dusk.

Pelicans drifted on the wind in the formation of Canada geese, and sea birds came roosting landward.

I crawled out the backside of my shelter, gear in hand. I hacked, spit, and urinated when I was safely hidden by the jungle growth of island.

Sandflies were out for their sundown feast, and they were like specks of acid on bare skin. Mosquitoes vectored.

The nervousness was low in my stomach. Would it work? Yes, it had to work.

I was no longer the hunted.

I was the hunter.

But the question was: Could I bring myself to kill the quarry?

I slipped through the back country. In the coolness, Sonya had pulled on her warmup pants and jacket. She had built a fire. Against the dusk sky and flickering light, she was a lovely silhouette.

After making sure that the fat Texan and Heiny were still at their camps, I made my way to Samuel Yabrud’s lean-to. He was having trouble getting his fire going—and for good reason. He was trying to burn red mangrove. He talked to it in Yiddish, as if swearing.

It scared the hell out of him when I tapped him on the shoulder. And when he saw the rifle I was carrying, his eyes grew round with terror.

“What is it? Why … why do you …”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m on your side. The CIA gave you those two bodyguards for a reason. Someone wants to kill you.”

“But why!”

“Damned if I know. But we don’t have time to talk about it. Just do as I say, and you won’t get hurt. At midnight, a couple of Navy helicopters are going to land at the southern end of the island. They’ll fly you out of here.”

He shook his head, resigned. “This is all such a crazy business.”

“I’m just beginning to realize that.”

I pulled him along behind me through the back country. He had lost weight, but he was still no athlete. I had to stop twice for him to rest. When we were well away from all the camps, I picked out a narrow point of beach.

“You’ll stay right here until you hear the choppers coming, got it? Don’t stray out on the beach—that’s important. If you hear someone coming, just get low. No one could possibly know you’re here. They’ll expect you to be at your camp.”

“But what will they do when they see I’m not there?”

“They won’t get a chance to do anything.”

“You will kill them?”

“It seems like the thing to do… .”

17

The assassin came an hour before midnight.

A few minutes earlier, I had heard the dull kerwhump of a small explosion. The flare of light on the distant beach told me that it had been my lean-to exploding.

A hand grenade?

Probably not. They would want it to appear—superficially, at least—like an accident.

Maybe a can of gas thrown into the campfire.

It didn’t matter. By now the assassin would know there was no scream from within; no body to find. The assassin would be hunting me.

I sat hidden in the gnarled limbs of a buttonwood tree. Yabrud’s camp was at the narrowest part of the island. Through the Star-Tron scope of the sniper rifle, I had a clear view of the beach on the Gulf side, and an almost equally good view of the bay side. I could see the lighted water tower of Cabbage Key. Beyond that, I could see the window glow of Useppa, and then the darkness of St. Carib.

After depositing Yabrud, I had made my way back to his camp. Quickly, before darkness brought the assassin, I had thrown the red mangrove away and got a good fire going near his lean-to.

I piled on the big driftwood so that it would burn a long time. Salt deposits added color to the flames: green and orange and blue.

Then I had built my dummy between the fire and the lean-to. I made arms and body of branches, then covered it with the baggy shirt I had brought. I broke apart the Styrofoam cooler and carved a head from it, giving special attention to copying Yabrud’s round face and hawkish nose. I skewered the Styrofoam head onto the body, then covered the head with the mosquito netting.

From a distance, in the darkness, the silhouette was convincing.

Even through the Star-Tron scope it looked lifelike enough.

So then I had climbed the tree to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

When the urge to leave the tree and hunt the assassin on foot was upon me, I would comfort myself with a pinch of snuff, spitting silently in the darkness.

And always there was the question in my mind: What if it is her, MacMorgan? What if she was the one who challenged you to the hunt, and then tried to kill you by loosening the boards from the water tower? Will you be able to bring the cross hairs to bear? And will you be able to squeeze the trigger?

I prayed I would not get the chance to find out.

Through the Star-Tron scope, I kept watching for Marina Cole’s sailboat to leave Cabbage Key, then bank southward for Cayo Costa.

But aside from the normal small-boat traffic on the intercoastal waterway, there was no sign of her Sleek.

The sound of my lean-to exploding surprised me. It happened at ten-fifty by the green luminescence of the Rolex.

I fought off the urge to bail out of the tree and go after the assassin on a run.

But I didn’t have to. The killer came soon enough.

I never did hear the crack of footfall, any snapping of branches.

She was good. Very damn good. She wore dark-blue pants and jersey that blended into the night. Behind me, on the Gulf side, I could hear only the wash and draw of waves, and the unexpected splash of fish feeding in the dark sea.

She had stayed to the middle of the island, coming through the jungle to my camp. She carried a rifle in her right arm, slung comfortably, like a hunter after pheasant.

At the path that led from the bay side of the island to Yabrud’s lean-to, she hesitated. I could see her weapon clearly through the Star-Tron scope. She rested her perfect face against the brutal skeleton stock of her SVD Dragunov sniper rifle. On the rifle was mounted the complex Soviet infrared night sight and spotlight.

She was squinting through the sight.

She saw me just as I brought the crosshairs to bear on her forehead.

In a flash of movement, everything seemed to revolve in slow motion.

There was a pitiful look of shock on her face; then the look became horror, as if she saw something else through her infrared scope.

There was the explosion of a high-caliber rifle firing, but it was not her rifle.

Behind me, the Styrofoam head of Samuel Yabrud shattered like an ice sculpture.

I tried to force myself to shoot as she brought her rifle up, but I could not, thinking: If I am to die, let it be her; someone I have come to love in a way.

I felt no fear as she leveled her rifle, noticing, oddly, that it was aimed near me—but not at me.

There was a burst of flame. The recoil contorted her face.

Behind me, there was the increased thrashing of fish feeding in the wash of Gulf.

And then I realized the thrashing was not fish at all.

“Dusky! Dusky, don’t shoot—please!”

Marina Cole came running toward me. Her face looked strangely saintly in the weak light. “It wasn’t me you’re after—it was him.”

I swung down out of the tree. She came crashing into my arms.

“What in the hell are you doing out here?”

She took a deep breath, lifted her rifle, and flicked on the mounted spotlight. “That’s what I’m doing out here, Dusky. The same thing you’re doing.”

In the stark-white blaze of light, I could see a body awash on the beach.

It was a man. He wore a black wet suit. He clutched a rifle similar to Marina’s in his right hand. I walked evenly across the beach and rolled the corpse over with my foot.

It was Heinrich Keppler.

Blood seeped from a hole in the wet suit. Blond hair washed down over his face. The eyes were open, and the last bit of life focused on me. He reached out with a big arm as if to take me by the throat. He died as the note fell from his hand. I knew what it said: The quarry and the shadow flee at midnight.

Marina stood looking at the body, her breath coming soft and shallow. There was a strange look of peace on her face. She said, “You would have killed him if I hadn’t, Dusky. You had everything planned perfectly.”

I felt myself suddenly overcome with rage. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Why? Why you?”

She did not attempt to pull away from me. “Because I had to, Dusky.”

“That means a hell of a lot!”

“Dusky, he would have killed the Israeli—you know that. What you don’t know is that, working for FEAT, he’s already assassinated seven other people. One of them was the nine-year-old daughter of a Saudi millionaire. Life meant nothing to him—just as life means nothing to Matrah, or to my father. They disassociate themselves from it. A Pope, a President, or a Jewish diplomat—it wouldn’t matter. They will do anything to shift the world financial flow in their direction. Don’t you see? To them, it’s just a game. One big goddam game!”

I still had her by the shoulders. Suddenly, things were becoming clear: This was the thrill seeker who had climbed mountains, jumped out of airplanes, experimented with drugs and political ideologies, trying to recapture that single moment of freedom she had felt one stormy night long, long ago.

She looked at me and touched my face tenderly. “I would have left with you yesterday, Dusky. I want you to believe that. I love you … I do love you.”

“But now it’s too late, right?”

“A boat is waiting for me. I can’t even tell you where. I’ll be in Cuba tomorrow. They wanted the kill very badly, Dusky. They had been in touch with me earlier. Remember when I told you about my bout with communism? It wasn’t a bout. It lasted. They figured I had the inside track on my own father’s organization. And they were right. As I said, I hate everything my father’s organization stands for.”

“Was killing a man as good as saving a man’s life, Marina?”

She looked at me and did not answer. She didn’t have to. The sudden forlorn look on her face was answer enough.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “They’ll be waiting.”

“The KGB?”

“Yes, Dusky,” she said. “The KGB.” She turned and walked away into the darkness, stopping only to throw her own rifle far out into the night sea… .

Epilogue

On a bright April afternoon I found myself reading and rereading a perfumed letter that bore the postmark of a country I had never really wanted to visit before.

The fact is, I hate to travel.

And I hate airports.

And I especially hate Miami. It has become America’s plastic vacation face, and Florida’s chamber of commerce people just don’t have the guts—or the character—to admit that the only people who really enjoy Miami are the murderers and the thieves and the rapists.

So I was not exactly enthralled with my seat at Gate 81, waiting to board the glistening 747 outside.

When the booming voice of the airport PA politely suggested that the plane for Greece was now ready for flight, and that we’d all better get our butts in gear if we didn’t want to be left behind, I grabbed my canvas satchel and smiled at the pretty stewardess as she checked my ticket.

The truth is, I had been smiling all the while: Even though I was in an airport. In Miami. Getting ready to make the longest flight I had made since coming back from Vietnam.

At the wastebasket by the boarding tunnel, I almost threw the letter away. I didn’t need it anymore—I had already memorized it:

Dusky,

The filming over here is going fine, and the food is wonderful, and my leading man is a gay boy who doesn’t chase me about drooling, so why is it I feel so bad?

Please take the next flight for Athens or I will never let you call my thighs fat again.

Love,

Sonya

I hesitated at the wastebasket, then jammed the letter into the back pocket of my khaki fishing pants.

It was going to be a long flight.

And, for some reason, the more I read the letter, the better I felt….

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue