The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed.

Tropical Storm Hermia was moving the waves with diligence and, once Sycorax cleared the INS ship channel, she was moving across waves ten feet high.

"You better give me one of those bags, Thomas. When it gets like this, I'm liable to lose it."

Thomas, wondering the same thing, said, "I'd like to hear a play."

It was dark, though not as dark as their passage under the seawall.

Phosphorescence, generated by the wake of the Sycorax, streamed by the acrylic nose of SubLorraine, outlining Patricia's head. "A play? What play?"

Thomas swallowed convulsively as a higher than average swell caused them to drop suddenly. "Well, a comedy would be good. I've seen enough death lately to not want one of the tragedies. But I'll settle for any one you've con'd complete."

"Complete? Hmmm. I don't know if I've ever tried that."

He swallowed again. "Here, I'll prompt you. Setting, Duke Orsino's palace. Enter Duke Orsino, Curio, and other lords; Musicians attending. Duke Orsino says-"

"If music be the food of love, play on..."

He didn't know whether she missed any of it-he'd only just reread it, but he certainly didn't know it by heart. The parts he could remember, she certainly knew.

She was into act two, where the drunken carousing of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew awaken the person and ire of Malvolio, when the engines of Sycorax revved up and, at this higher rate of speed, her stability increased greatly.

Thomas felt his stomach settle.

Patricia's recitation, overwhelmed by Sycorax's engines, stopped. She leaned forward. "Thanks for the distraction."

He kissed her. "You weren't the only one who needed it. I was enjoying the play, though."

"It's too noisy to continue."

He moved his hand up the front of her shirt and stroked the underside of herbreast. "Well, what else can we do?"

In the tight darkness, moving carefully to avoid banging knees, elbows, and wounds, they found something to do.

Later, Thomas said, "I feel guilty."

"Aren't you supposed to save that for the morning after?"

He held up the luminescent dial of his watch. "It is morning. I feel I'm neglecting my duty."

She laughed and he could feel her moving, her hand searching the floor. "Where did my underwear go? Ah. Duty is a two-edged sword. What about your duty to your novia? You did that duty right well-I may have trouble walking." She reached out and patted his knee. "The woman distracted you. Don't worry, I'm all business, now."

Three hours after they'd left the Strand, they received a coded signal on Thomas's secure radio-two beeps-that indicated the hydrofoil was breaking off.

As arranged, they did not respond.

"In this weather, it might not be pretense," Thomas said.

Ten minutes later, Sycorax changed course and increased speed, heading southeast, for the EEZ.

"Oh, shit!" said Patricia, listening on the passive sonar.

"What is it?"

"My prop blades are cavitating. It's noisy and they might pick it up."

"Ah. How fast are we going?"

"Forty knots."

He whistled. "They'll spring a leak in these seas if they're not careful. What can we do about the cavitation?"

"I don't know. If I'd thought about it, I might have removed the prop and stored it in the lockout chamber. I think it would fit through the hatch. Of course, then we'd be severely hampered if we had to maneuver at short notice."

"If they pick it up, maybe they'll think it's some hull noise of their own."

"Maybe. I hope so."

They followed the position using their GPS data. Thomas wondered what position the Sycorax was reporting in its log data and made careful note of times and locations to compare, later.The waters brightened, a gray diffuse light that lit up the surface waves. After a while, Thomas could make out rain, hard driven, chewing up the troughs. The peaks were wind-torn and foamy.

Just after they'd crossed the EEZ, Patricia said, "I have another vessel, just off our course line. Diesel, two conventional props and hull pounding. It's taking a beating in these waves."

"How far?"

"I don't have a baseline, but with all this surface wash noise it can't be that far."

Almost as if they'd heard her, Sycorax make a five-degree course change. "Now it's dead ahead. Sycorax must have her on radar. What range would that be?"

Thomas crouched forward, carefully, so he could see her readouts. "Um. With the mast on Sycorax, she probably made contact at seventy nautical miles or so, but you think it's closer than that?"

"Much."

"Well, maybe they were both cruising for a particular point, but now it's clear the diesel ship isn't going to make it there and Sycorax just changed course to make directly for her. We're well out of U.S. waters so, unless this is a distress response, which we haven't heard on your VHF, it seems like a prearranged rendezvous. Of course, if it's a U.S. vessel, INS can board them anywhere in the world." Thomas let his hands rest on Patricia's shoulders and kneaded gently. She leaned into the pressure. "I know, though, that Sycorax's operational orders are specifically for interdiction patrol up to but not crossing the EEZ."

Sycorax dropped speed markedly fifteen minutes later, and her velocity-driven stability disappeared.

"Oh, god," Patricia said. "Here we go again." Sycorax's bow plunged into a trough and the stern, with SubLorraine attached, rose and then dropped.

Thomas, still leaning forward, bumped his head against the ventilator fan housing.

He eased back to the hatch and braced himself with his heels against the base of the pilot chair.

"There it is," Patricia said, gesturing to her right.

Thomas craned his neck, but he couldn't see what she was talking about through the overhead hatch. "Describe it, please."

"Well, I can only see the hull, but it's pretty clean, no weed, a bit longer than Sycorax. I'd say it was a freighter. It's not built for speed. They've both turned into the teeth of the storm and are slowing down. I'd say they were about to transfer something."

Thomas felt his gut freeze. "I hope so. Let's hope it's not another Open Lotus."Patricia had set her radio to frequency hop, scanning up and down through all the frequencies. "Still nothing on the VHF. No hail, no directions. Surely they wouldn't do that again?"

"How deep is the water here?"

He saw her shoulders tense up. "Thirteen hundred fathoms. About a mile and a half."

"Hopefully what they're doing is receiving what they bought with the money from the Open Lotus. How fast are we moving? Can we unclamp and get back on?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to get a look at that freighter."

"It depends. If they're just querying them, Sycorax could be gone the minute we unclamp, and we'd never catch them, not with their legs."

He fell silent, considering.

"They're moving closer together," Patricia said. "Risky, in these seas. I think you're right. They're trying some sort of transfer. We're down to four knots. I can do this, fairly stealthily, too, but if they bug out on us, we'll have to wait out the storm below, then take eighteen hours to cruise back to the Strand."

Waiting would just increase the chance that they'd complete the transfer.

"Do it."

She punched the trim-tank valve control and shoved the stick forward.

SubLorraine dove sharply forward running on momentum alone; then they were in the jet wash and being shaken. She kicked in her thrusters and tilted the sub up. The noise of Sycorax's engines faded dramatically, a numbing relief. "It's going to be rough on the surface," Patricia said. "And there's the chance they may spot us."

They broke the surface in a trough, then rose sharply as a swell broke over them, twisting them forty-five degrees on their axis.

The wind was ripping the tops off the waves and throwing them horizontally, and heavy rain pounded off the hull, sounding like hail. The two ships were dark blotches dimmed by the airborne water, but Thomas peered anxiously at the rounded stern of the freighter. The letters were barely legible: Kim Jong, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The freighter had a crane boom extended over the water between the two ships, and there was a cable running to a dark object that dangled over the water. From that, another cable ran to a utility crane forward of the helicopter fantail on the deck of the Sycorax.

Another wave slammed into them, twisting the entire sub violently. "Enough,"

Thomas said.Patricia didn't bother replying, just put the nose down and dove, trying to get out of the turbulence on the surface. She eased down to fifty feet, then eased forward, just slightly faster than Sycorax's four knots.

"At least the visibility was so bad they probably didn't see us. I hope their sonar operator is helping with that cargo transfer," she muttered. "At least they're not actively pinging." She brought the submarine up slowly, trying to match speed, but the entire hull of the Sycorax was moving up and down with the swells.

"Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Is that north or south?"

"North. Arms dealers to the world. They've been doing a booming business with Honduras lately."

They were closer to the starboard side of Sycorax this time and Thomas was watching through the pilot hatch, trying not to visualize what would happen if the hull came down more suddenly than Patricia allowed for. We're a long way from anywhere. He grinned to himself. Well, only a mile and a half from the bottom.

Something splashed into the water forward of them, dropped off the side of the Sycorax, and began sinking slowly.

"What was that?" Thomas said, his view distorted by the extreme angle through the upper hatch.

"A man!" Patricia said. She shoved the stick over and they banked sharply to the right.

It was a man, a good thirty feet below the water, kicking and flailing desperately, his feet and hands oddly together. Patricia moved closer, and Thomas saw a glint of reflected light at the wrists and ankles.

"Christ! He's shackled at the feet and hands!"

He was sinking rapidly, slowed only by his efforts. Thomas, already shocked, swore as he saw a length of heavy chain threaded through the handcuffs on the man's ankles.

Patricia said, "I'm only going to get one shot at this! Get in the lockout chamber and prepare to equalize it. It's the red handle." She was rapidly closing on the wiggling, sinking figure, but the depth gauge now read fifty feet.

Thomas moved, throwing as many of the provisions as he could from the lockout chamber forward. He glanced up just as SubLorraine seemed about to dive under the sinking man; then Patricia rolled the submarine ninety degrees and Thomas fell heavily against the bulkhead. There was a sudden clanking sound on the hull; then Patricia righted the sub and shouted, "Did I get him? Did I get him?"

Thomas looked up through the pilot hatch and saw a silhouetted figure folded over the Sucker support."Yes!"

"Use my mask and fins and the pony bottle. Shut this hatch, unlatch the exterior hatch, and equalize the chamber. It's the red valve. The hatch will open when you've equalized." The sub tilted back as she headed back for the surface.

Thomas slammed the door and latched it, then unlatched the exterior hatch. He threw the red valve and pulled on the face mask. Air shrieked in and his ears popped hard; then he was awash in water as the hatch dropped open while the sub still rose.

He grabbed the pony bottle and twisted the valve, then put the regulator in his mouth. He threw his shoes off and ducked out, not bothering with the fins.

Patricia had stopped the prop, but there was still some forward momentum.

Dammit, I should've worn the fins. He clung to the hatch, then climbed, pulling himself from the hatch hinges to the vertical skeg before it. Then, as SubLorraine slowed even more, he was able to kick his way up to, the man.

It was Fraser, the air survivalman.

He'd stopped struggling and his eyes were closed. He was folded around the support at his waist and, considering the speed SubLorraine had been going when they hit, the support probably had driven the rest of his air out of his lungs.

Thomas tried to get him to take a breath, putting the regulator in his mouth and hitting the manual exhaust button, but he was unresponsive. The air blew past slack lips. Thomas took him by the chain between his handcuffs and pulled him around, working his way down the length of the sub. Then, with the heavy chain at the man's ankles pulling his body down the port side of the sub, Thomas went down the starboard side, pulling Fraser's wrists. He reached the hatch as the chain pulled across the top of SubLorraine and dropped, but Thomas was halfway in the hatch by the time the chain started dragging Fraser down.

The chamber was half flooded, and Thomas twisted the red valve again as he pulled Fraser up to the air pocket. The shrieking noise of the air was brutal, but he ignored it, tilting Fraser's head back, verifying that the tongue was clear, then starting mouth-to-mouth as soon as both their heads were above water. He tasted blood and hoped Fraser didn't have internal injuries. Or any bloodborne disease. I'd much rather be doing this with Patricia.

He was vaguely aware that Fraser's body was dropping as the water was forced back out the hatch by the air pressure. He guided him down to the floor, still breathing.

He felt for a pulse at the neck without stopping and couldn't tell if there was one.

I could use some help in here! But he knew Patricia couldn't leave the pilot's section until the pressure between the two chambers was equalized and, when Thomas looked through the acrylic hatch between the two compartments, she seemed to have her hands full.Fraser convulsed, and water and bile spewed from his mouth. Thomas barely turned his head in time, and the liquid splashed onto Thomas's cheek. He pushed Fraser over to one side while the man first vomited and then went into a paroxysm of coughing.

Thomas looked at the vomited fluid. It was mostly clear-no blood. Good. He looked around. The chain and Fraser's feet still hung in the water, out the hatch.

Thomas pulled both inside, then snaked the hatch up and latched it. The chamber wasn't big enough for Fraser to stretch out, so Thomas bent Fraser's knees and rested the man's shackled feet on the large tank labeled Salvage Foam clipped to the aft end of the chamber. Better for him. Elevated feet for shock.

He looked through the acrylic hatch. Patricia was twisted in her seat looking back at him. She didn't tell me how to pump the air back to surface pressure.

An intercom box mounted over the hatch squawked. "Thomas? The hatch telltale shows closed. Correct?"

He pushed the transmit button. His voice sounded strange to himself-too calm, given the circumstances. "Affirmative. Closed and latched."

"Is that him coughing?"