As I had admitted to Chief Hoss Shackett, when I was suffering from amnesia and unable to remember that I wasn't Matt Damon, I am a guy with a good imagination, which now kicked into overdrive. I envisioned the newcomer, in a gas mask, preparing to pull the release pin on a canister of poisonous chemicals, to kill me as if I were a c.o.c.kroach.

Before I could elaborate this simple scenario into an opera, the door opened again, and I heard someone say, "What the h.e.l.l happened to you?"

The reply came in the distinctive bearish voice of Utgard Rolf: "I fell down."

"Fell down what?"

"Some stairs," Rolf said.

"Stairs? How many stairs?"

"I didn't count them, idiot."

"Man, that's gotta hurt."

Utgard closed the door behind him. "Been a change of plans. We've got to cut some throats."

THIRTY-FOUR.

ON THE FARTHER SIDE OF THE ENGINE ROOM, which was nearer than I would have liked, Utgard Rolf said, "Listen, Joey, once we have the packages aboard, we won't return to the harbor."

"What? Why not?"

"There's a guy, he's onto the operation."

"What guy?" Joey asked.

"A government sonofab.i.t.c.h."

"Oh, man."

"Don't freak."

"But we kept this so tight tight."

"We're gonna find him. He's as good as dead."

With sharp anxiety, Joey said, "He's here in Magic Beach?"

"What do you think, I fell down some stairs in Washington?"

"This guy was the stairs?"

"Don't worry about it."

"How big is is the guy, he could do this to you?" the guy, he could do this to you?"

"He looks worse than I do."

I resisted the urge to stand up and disprove that boast.

"If we don't go back to the harbor," Joey wondered, "where we gonna go?"

"You know the abandoned boatyard south of Rooster Point?"

"That'll work," Joey said.

"d.a.m.n right it will. The facilities there, the privacy, it'll be an easier off-load than we'd have in the harbor."

"The trucks know the new meet?"

"They know. But here's the thing."

"I see what's comin'," Joey said.

"We need five of us to take delivery at sea, but the way things are at the boatyard, three can handle the off-load."

When boarding the tug, I'd had two main concerns, one of which was how I would be able to determine the number of crewmen I might be up against. Now I knew: five.

Joey said, "We were gonna drop those two, anyway. So we drop them sooner than later."

Perhaps a falling-out among thieves had not occurred, as I had thought when I'd found Sam Whittle drilled five times in his bathtub. The initial entrepreneurs who set up this operation might always have intended, toward the closing of the business, to issue pink slips to those lesser partners whom they considered mere employees. A few bullets were a prudent alternative to generous severance payments.

"After the transfer," Utgard said, "Buddy will pop Jackie. I'll drop Ha.s.san."

The name Ha.s.san was something of a surprise and a disappointment to me. Thus far Jackie, Joey, and Buddy had led me to believe that Utgard's crew might be composed of retired Las Vegas comedians and that the final member could be named Shecky.

On the other hand, I was somewhat relieved that my second main concern had been partly addressed. I had wondered how I would be able to deal with the entire crew; now I would be required to deal with only sixty percent of it.

Joey said, "But don't cut their throats."

"What?"

"It's too up-close. Dangerous. Shoot them in the head."

"Of course," Utgard agreed. "Pop them, drop them. That's what I said."

"Well, first you said you had to cut some throats."

"That was just a way of saying it."

"You said it, I thought you meant it."

"We'll shoot them in the head," Utgard said.

"The back back of the head." of the head."

"How else? What the h.e.l.l, Joey."

"It's the only smart way."

"We're on the same page now."

"So they don't see it comin'."

"I understand," Utgard said impatiently.

I have only a few times been in a position to overhear bad men conspiring to commit evil deeds, and on every occasion, they had been pretty much like Joey and Utgard. Those who choose to live criminal lives are not the brightest among us.

This truth inspires a question: If evil geniuses are so rare, why do so many bad people get away with so many crimes against their fellow citizens and, when they become leaders of nations, against humanity?

Edmund Burke provided the answer in 1795: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

I would only add this: It is also essential that good men and women not be educated and propagandized into believing that real evil is a myth and that all malevolent behavior is merely the result of a broken family's or a failed society's shortcomings, amenable to cure by counseling and by the application of new economic theory.

Beyond my sight but not beyond my hearing, Utgard said, "From when we leave the dock till we're to Rooster Point, you man the radio room."

"Like we planned."

"You got to p.i.s.s, get it done now."

"I'll be at the radio."

"We can't pull the transponder, that'll just make the Coast Guard sit up and take notice."

"I know what to say to them."

"They get a GPS report we're at sea this time of night, they'll want to know why."

Joey's turn for impatience had come: "I know. Don't I know?"

"Just don't get cute with them. Play it like we planned."

Joey recited the story to prove himself: "A guest aboard Junie's Moonbeam Junie's Moonbeam ate some sh.e.l.lfish, had a real bad allergic reaction, needs a hospital urgent. The yacht's too big, a hundred eighty feet, draws too deep for the bay. So they called us, and so we're just bringin' the sick b.i.t.c.h ash.o.r.e." ate some sh.e.l.lfish, had a real bad allergic reaction, needs a hospital urgent. The yacht's too big, a hundred eighty feet, draws too deep for the bay. So they called us, and so we're just bringin' the sick b.i.t.c.h ash.o.r.e."

"What're you doing?" Utgard demanded.

"Relax. I'm not gonna call her a sick b.i.t.c.h to the Coast Guard," Joey a.s.sured him.

"Sometimes I wonder about you."

"Sick b.i.t.c.h? Would I do that? Man, I'm just havin' some fun with you."

"I'm not in the mood for fun."

"I guess fallin' down a bunch of stairs will do that to you."

"Don't try to dress up the story," Utgard advised. "Keep it simple."

"Okay, okay. But what kind of name is Junie's Moonbeam Junie's Moonbeam for a major yacht, anyway?" for a major yacht, anyway?"

"What do I know? Why do you care? None of our business."

Joey said, "Junie's Moonbeam sounds like some half-a.s.sed put-put kind of boat." sounds like some half-a.s.sed put-put kind of boat."

So it is these days that men plotting the nuclear devastation of major cities and the murder of millions of innocents can be no more interesting than those most vapid of your relatives whom you wish you did not have to invite to this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

"Just park yourself at the radio," Utgard said.

"All right."

"We're out of here in three minutes."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

The door opened but didn't close.

I heard Utgard stomping along the pa.s.sageway.

Joey waited. Then he switched off the light.

The door closed.

Apparently, unlike Utgard, Joey did not have a body ma.s.s equal to that of Big Foot, and I could not hear him walking away.

Because life has taught me to be suspicious, I waited motionless in the dark, not convinced that I was alone.

THIRTY-FIVE.

WHEN THE ENGINES TURNED OVER AND MY COZY compartment filled with the drumming of the four-stroke diesels, with the throb of the pumps, with the rotational rata-plan of driveshafts, and with myriad other rhythms, and when we began to move, the boat yawing slightly as it had not done in its berth, I knew that I was alone, because Joey had committed to being in the radio room when we got under way.

Though I breathed more easily, I didn't relax. I knew that what was coming would be terrible, that even if I were not shot or cut, I would come through this night with wounds that would never heal.