"Yeah," I said. "I'm still interested." I shot Norm a few private darts with my eyes, checked my watch and added, "Get your stuff aboard, ma'am. We can be in Mariel Harbor before midnight if we hurry."

I turned back to my boat and left them both standing there on the dock, feeling-imagining, at least-Lieutenant Androsa Santarun's irritation because I hadn't carried her bags.

It's funny how, when you are leaving for a strange land, even the well-known surroundings you travel seem to take on a quality of that strangeness. I steered from the flybridge, getting as far away from the woman as I could. Behind me, the piles of rock below old Fort Taylor, the green haze of Australian pine on the beach to the east, the squat, dun-colored fort itself, and the checkered water tower-all of which I knew so well-suddenly appeared eerily unfamiliar. It was a rolling, turquoise afternoon at sea when we left. Wind was out of the southeast, seven to ten knots, giving us a fine quartering sea. I picked up the range markers a few miles off, then the nun buoy at East Triangle reef, and headed out Mainship Channel, Cuba-bound.

Cuba-bound.

I sat back on the big pilot's chair, seeing nothing but sea for miles around. The water changed from milky green to clear jade-the spoil area off East Triangle looking shallow, dark, and dangerous. And when we were finally clear of markers, and the water was purple-black with no bottom, I guessed the strength of the Gulf Stream at about four knots, and adjusted my course to 225 degrees, then switched her temporarily to automatic pilot.

I climbed down the ladder and went through the hatch into the salon.

Androsa Santarun was at the little booth, and when I entered she quickly covered up something she had been reading. I knew it wasn't mine. The few things I had that I didn't want anyone to see were hidden in the forward bilge compartment, under the indoor-outdoor carpet.

"You could have knocked," she said tersely.

"Don't see why."

"I might have been dressing!"

"It's okay, ma'am-I have a little sister," I said, already sorry for having indulged myself in that kind of silly remark. Beautiful or not, the fact that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were not large must have, at some point in her life, concerned her. It was a cheap shot, and I knew it, so I just knelt by the little refrigerator, put three beers in a paper sack to keep them cold, then headed back out the door without saying another word.

"I suppose you'll go up there and get drunk now." She had recovered her composure, but her face was still flushed. "Isn't that what fishing guides do?"

"Ma'am, if I wanted to get drunk, I'd carry the refrigerator above and leave this sack of beer below-to cure the hangover."

"Mr. MacMorgan, if we are to get along on this trip, I suggest you curb your wisecracks." Her face was strained, deadly serious.

I took a breath, exhaled, then caught her mahogany eyes with mine. Within them, for the briefest of moments, I saw the gray light of some undecipherable desperation-then nothing else. They turned flat again . . . wooden. It was concession time-and I had the feeling it would be the first of many. For me.

"You're right, Miss Santarun. I'm sorry."

Back above on the flybridge, it felt good to be away from the intensity of her. It was more than just the intensity of a woman compelled to dominate. And it was more than s.e.xuality-although s.e.xuality was like an aura of dark heat which surrounded her. She was one of the ageless ones, anywhere between twenty-eight and thirty-eight; one of the eternal female animals who, in eons past, would have had men in bearskins traveling from miles around to fight for her with clubs and teeth. But the intensity originated from something else. I couldn't put my finger on it.

So I decided not to waste my time.

It was a mission. Nothing more. Nothing less. I would take her to Mariel, and if Castro's goons swiped her, fine. It was a chance that was hers to take. And if they didn't take her, and we ended up hauling back General Halcn-who I a.s.sumed would pose as Santarun's father-then that would be fine too.

I would go into it with my eyes open. But I would follow orders, G.o.ddammit.

Just like in Nam.

It was a good day for the crossing. Just enough sea to lift, roll, then drop the boat back into the turquoise troughs. It was a quartering port breeze that carried Sniper's diesel exhaust fumes on back to Key West, and golden sarga.s.sum weed lay before me in the black iridescence of deep sea.

Cuba-bound.

Sitting on the flybridge, wind in my face, I tried to remember the way it had been on my first trip to Havana.

What had I been? Fourteen? Maybe.

Papa had set it up. Arranged to have me and the Italian trapeze family that had adopted me brought over on the ferry which left Key West from where the Pier House is today. We did one show outside the Hotel Nacional and another at the Tropicana Club, where the girls wore gaudy costumes of imitation satin and fruit-basket hats, and where, outside, the ficus trees draped over and kept the sidewalks so slippery that Papa's only advice to us was, "Take care you don't fall on your a.s.ses going in."

It was good advice.

The Cubans loved Papa, for his books had already been translated into Spanish. We were circus stars accompanied by a star of greater magnitude-but no one cared. Least of all me. Because the Cubans treated us better for his sponsorship. And in the '50s, there was no place better to have fun than Havana-even for a kid.

So I wondered about Cuba; wondered how it had changed. I had been back twice since that first trip. Once I went for the fishing off the Isla de Pinos-and it was great. The most recent trip wasn't so terrific. Strictly business. And we were never given opportunity enough to make it anything other than a failure.

So that's what I thought about as I steered Sniper over the green wash of sea, toward the empty horizon. I cracked open the second cold beer, retrieved the circular tin of Copenhagen from my blue saltbleached shirt, and felt the pleasant burn of tobacco against my lip.

The woman could stay below for the entire trip as far as I was concerned.

To h.e.l.l with her. The sea spread out jadelike, swollen and singular beneath May sky, and that was enough. I wasn't going to allow her the high price of concern.

To h.e.l.l with all the narrow, self-obsessed jerks, male and female, who spoil the scenery with their flatulent personalities. I raised the bottle of beer in a half-mast toast-and that's when I noticed it.

A partially submerged cruiser well off to port, locked in place by the conflict of foul wind and foul Stream current.

The reflection of sunlight on gla.s.s had caught my attention. I banked east, opened throttles to three-quarters, and bore down on the boat.

As I drew closer, I could see that it was more trawler than cruiser. And the trawler was not alone. A Mako center-console, twenty to twenty-five feet long, with its sweep of gunwales tapering toward the stern, had rafted up beside it.

From behind me, I heard the woman's voice. She had, apparently, felt the sudden change of course and had come topside to see what was going on.

"I think there's a boat in trouble up there, Miss Santarun. I'm going to have a look."

"But isn't that another boat with it? Aren't they already helping?"

She stood beside me, wind pulling at the pile of black hair as we powered on to thirty knots. I could smell the closeness of her: a frail odor of soap and some kind of body powder.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

"But why else would another boat-"

"It won't take long, ma'am. Besides, it's against the law for me not to offer a.s.sistance."

She hesitated for a moment, then climbed back down the ladder. I wasn't exactly unhappy to see her leave.

I was downwind of them, so I was within fifty yards of the boats before I throttled down. The trawler had listed to starboard, bow high, aft deck partially submerged. It rolled in the weak wave crest like a disabled animal. The trawler was white fibergla.s.s with red trim, and a good bit larger than my own Sniper, which is a little smaller-but a h.e.l.l of a lot faster-than most sportfishermen. The skiff lashed up beside it was a Mako 23 with twin Johnson 200s. The name on the side of the Mako was factory-painted, blue letters two feet high: Talon. I could see only one man aboard the Mako. He seemed preoccupied with something on the deck.

"Do you need any a.s.sistance?"

The man looked up, startled. He was a black man, thin and angular in a loose white shirt. He rode with the roll of waves momentarily, staring at me.

"I said, 'Do you need some a.s.sistance?' "

He shook his head and yelled back at me, "Naw, man. Just called the Coast Guard. Best stay back-this boat here's about to go down!"

There was something about him I didn't like. He seemed nervous, uncommunicative. At open sea the vastness, the loneliness, normally affects people just the opposite-they become talkative, unfailingly polite.

But not this guy.

"I've been listening to VHF all afternoon, and I didn't hear any call-maybe your radio's busted."

It was a lie. I hadn't listened to VHF after the first hour. The steady chain of distress calls, and the endless question from Key West Coast Guard-"Do you have any refugees aboard?"-had caused me to switch it off in minor protest.

But I wanted to test him. I wanted to see his reaction.

He thought for a moment, shrugged.

"I'll call them for you right now!"

He fidgeted now, uneasiness intensifying. And I had him figured.

There was probably another guy with him-belowdeck in the disabled trawler. And they hadn't stopped to give aid.

They were pirates.

That simple.

In three hundred years, nothing has really changed off the Florida Keys. People come and go, but the pirates-generation after generation-stay. The trawler had probably been a victim of the deadly squall. And this guy had come out looking for floaters: boats to strip, unattended vessels to plunder.

And after that storm, there would be plenty to find.

I edged Sniper closer, wishing to h.e.l.l I'd brought a weapon. I could have thrown it overboard before reaching Mariel Harbor. But I hadn't, so I kept my eye on the guy as I approached, never wavering.

"Boat's 'bout to go down, man! Better stay back!"

Sure.

Had he really believed the trawler was about to sink, he'd have dumped the line to which the Mako was connected.

And as I got closer, I could see what had preoccupied him. On the deck of the skiff was a mound of ship's stores and supplies, only partially covered by a red tarp. He saw my look, the contempt on my face.

It was a stupid move on my part. No doubt about it. You can end up very dead when you let emotion reign over good sense. I should have backed off then and there and radioed the Coast Guard. But when you work around boats you come to despise those who leech their living from the misfortunes of others. Maybe the people who had been on the trawler were struggling in a life raft close by. But you could bet that b.a.s.t.a.r.d hadn't-and wouldn't-notify anybody about finding a disabled vessel.

So I moved on in.

"Did you have to kill anybody to get that c.r.a.p-or did you just find 'em dead and throw them overboard?"

"Now, wait a minute there, man-"

"I don't feel like waiting a minute, buddy. Just answer me. Was there anybody aboard when you got here?"

He gave me a strange smile, then. A strange lethal smile-the kind you sometimes see on cats hidden beside a bird feeder. It didn't look like he was armed. But I was wrong. The back of his pants had been covered by the tail of the loose shirt. And that's exactly where he began to move his hand. I knew what he had in mind. Kill me, toss me into the depths of the Stream, then plunder my boat, too.

By the time he was bringing the little snubnosed revolver up out of his back-mounted holster, I knew exactly what I had to try to do. The bowrail of Sniper threw its shadow across the stern of the Mako-that's how close I had gotten. His back was against the low gunwale of the stern quarter, and before him was the red tarp and the mound of stolen ship's supplies. Chances were good that even at that close range he would have missed me with the snubnose.

But I had taken enough chances.

As his right hand lifted the revolver, his left hand came down like a clamp to steady his right wrist, taking aim. And as he did, I turned the wheel full to starboard, punched the port engine full-bore, and jumped to plane in an explosion of diesel exhaust and water. It was a long, tricky moment as I swung immediately back to port-making sure I didn't nail the Mako with my stern. And when I looked back, ducking, to check the clearance, I saw the unexpected. I had hoped the black guy with the gun would go toppling overboard backward with the force of my wake. Instead, he lay on his side on the deck of the skiff, clawing in dreadful slow motion at a strange reddish ember which had suddenly appeared on his cheek, just below his left eye.

And then the ember began to spurt blood.

He crawled shakily to his knees, touching his cheek with a hand.

He had a look of puzzlement on his face. He looked at the blood on his hand, c.o.c.ked his head wryly and looked at me.

And then he fell dead on the mound of plunder in front of him, his blood darker than the scarlet of the tarp.

Sniper was back to dead idle now. I paused for a thoughtful moment trying to figure out just what in h.e.l.l had happened.

And then I knew.

I looked back toward the fighting deck, and there was the woman, Androsa Santarun. She had used the angle of the VHF antenna and teak gunwale as a brace-the lithe shape of her hidden by the extension of the salon wall. The .38 she held in her left hand was still poised, ready.

6.

The only emotion she showed as she punched the empty cartridge overboard into the depthless sea was anger.

Anger at me.

There was no remorse, no feminine hysterics at what she had just done. The Mako still rolled in the dissipating wake of Sniper, and the dead man's head weaved back and forth in the wash and draw of it. I clunked my engines into reverse, backing off a way so we would not drift down into the trawler, then started to climb down to the fighting deck.

"And just what do you think you're doing, Mr. MacMorgan?"

She was mad, all right. She bit the words off, the low alto of her voice a pitch higher.

Truthfully, I didn't know why I was climbing down to her. I had the vague idea she might faint or burst into tears . . . or something. When I hit the deck, I turned to her. Oddly, she seemed somehow smaller with a gun in her hand; a whole head shorter than me, more than a hundred pounds lighter. I stood looking down into her perfect face and realized exactly what had made her seem taller, fuller: the impact of her; the intensity of beauty, s.e.xuality, and those mahogany eyes. Now, mad as she was-and even holding the gun-she looked almost frail.

But not vulnerable.

No way. Not the way she handled a weapon.

"Maybe I wanted to thank you for saving my life," I said.

"Mr. MacMorgan, I truthfully don't give a d.a.m.n about your life. All I wanted to save was my . . . my trip. I told you not to come over here. But you insisted . . ."

Her anger added flavor to her faint Spanish accent, softening the A's, blurring her R's.

"Not a matter of insisting. It was my decision."

"d.a.m.n your decisions!"