But there can be such a thing as overfamiliarity with a route, particularly in country where the terrain rolls along with a dulling sameness, one stretch of track bleeding into the next. Anybody who regularly drives to work in a rural area knows this; after taking the same roads day in and day out for several months or years, you begin to ignore the scenery and depend on a general sense of your bearings rather than its specific features, until coming to a sign or stoplight that marks a necessary turn. The building, brook, farmyard, radio tower, or cherry '63 Mustang in someone's driveway that once caught the eye on every trip will be pa.s.sed unnoticed along the way. You feel free to straddle the speed limit, and perhaps even slightly exceed it without risking a traffic stop, knowing the police will in most instances tolerate a person going, say, sixty-eight or seventy in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour speed zone.

Salles had been driving railroad trains for three decades, and made the Sao Paulo-Rio run over five hundred times in the two years since it had been a.s.signed to him. Never in his career had he come close to having a mishap. The night of the derailment, he was watching in antic.i.p.ation of a signal that had ceased to function, and relying on equipment that no one had thought to harden against the sort of destructive black technology with which it was targeted. He was performing his job in compliance with the rules, and his response to the first indications of a problem was rapid. If blame had been apportioned by a judge possessing complete, objective knowledge of the facts, Salles's slice of it would have been truly inappreciable. Moreover, his public and courtroom accounts of the incident were, from his available perspective, a hundred percent candid and faithful to the truth.

This is how he recalled it in deposition: His train was proceeding normally along a series of climbs and dips in the large, undulating hills that are crossed by the Sao-Paulo-to-Rio intercity railway. The forested countryside east of Taubate being exceptionally dark and repet.i.tive in its features, Salles had always relied on his instruments and track signals rather than terrain landmarks as visual aids. On his descent along the slope where the derailment took place, he had approximated that he was about five miles west of a blind curve that required the train to slow to between eight and ten miles per hour, his discretional lat.i.tude based upon factors such as weather conditions or the presence of another train on the opposing track. His usual practice was to begin gradually applying his brakes two two miles west of the curve, where the continuously lighted yellow "slow" signal came into view, and he had been keeping his eyes open for it since starting along the decline. But Salles's estimate of his position was off by three miles. He had already miles west of the curve, where the continuously lighted yellow "slow" signal came into view, and he had been keeping his eyes open for it since starting along the decline. But Salles's estimate of his position was off by three miles. He had already pa.s.sed pa.s.sed the signal without knowing it--and without being able to know it because its light had given out. the signal without knowing it--and without being able to know it because its light had given out.

In the pitch darkness, the curve seemed to come up out of nowhere. Salles had spotted it in the arc of his headlamps from a distance of perhaps thirty yards and immediately glanced at his Doppler indicator for a speed check, but its digital readout was flashing double zeros and an error code. This first sign of a problem with the electronic systems whose reliability Salles would later challenge was accompanied by a peripheral awareness of the lights in his cab brightening as if with a sudden flood of voltage. Forced to guess his speed, Salles decided he was moving at about fifty-five miles per hour, and immediately took emergency measures to decelerate and warn any oncoming train of his approach, sounding the air horn and attempting to initiate his brakes. But the high-tech braking system--which used a network of sensors and microprocessors to emulate the function of conventional pneumatic control valves, and had been retrofitted into the train a year earlier--didn't engage. Like the Doppler speedometer, the flat-screen display of its head-end control unit was flashing an error condition.

Salles was not only racing toward the curve at break-neck speed, but nearing it with his electronic brakes out of commission.

He knew right away that things were going to be very bad. The fail-safe mechanism designed to automatically vent the brake cylinder in the event of a power loss or hardware crash would deprive him of any ability to graduate the release of air pressure and smooth the stop. And at his accelerated rate of motion, descending from the summit of a large and rugged hill on a sharp bend, the hard, shaky jerks that would result from the train coming to a dead stop would make derailment a certainty. It was the worst circ.u.mstance imaginable and he was helpless to avert it. He was at the helm of a runaway train that was about to turn into a slaughterhouse.

It was just as Salles was reaching for the public-address switch to warn his pa.s.sengers of the impending derailment that the train reached the curve. The fail-safe penalty stop initiated at that same instant. Before his hand could find the switch there was a sudden, rough jolt that threw him off his seat. He slammed into the window in front of him like a projectile fired from a giant slingshot. His last memory of what happened that night was his painful impact with that window, and the sound of gla.s.s shattering around him.

Upon regaining consciousness some hours afterward, Salles would learn the forward momentum that had propelled him into the window was also what had saved his life, for it had been powerful enough to plunge him through the window and onto the brow of the hill, with relatively minor physical injuries as the result--a concussion, a fractured wrist, a patchwork of bruises and lacerations. These would be easily detected and treated by his doctors.

Not so, however, the psychological wounds that would drive him to suicide two years later.

The rest of the crew and pa.s.sengers were less fortunate than Salles. As their wheels locked up and derailed, the cars in which they were riding smashed into each other in a pileup that turned three of them into compacted wreckage even before they plunged off the tracks to go tumbling end-over-end into the valley hundreds of feet below. One of the coaches broke apart into several sections that were strewn across the slope to intermingle with a grisly litter of human bodies and body parts. Bursting into flame as its fuel lines ruptured and ignited, the locomotive slammed into the dining car to engulf it in an explosion that incinerated every living soul aboard.

Other than Salles, only two of the 194 people who had been riding the train survived the catastrophe--an attendant named Maria Lunes, who suffered a severed spine and was left paralyzed from the neck down, and a ten-year-old girl, Daniella Costas, whose two sisters and nanny perished in the tragedy, and was herself found miraculously unharmed, wrapped in the arms of a young Australian fashion model identified as Alyssa Harding.

According to the child's subsequent testimony, Harding had sprung from her seat two rows in front of the girl moments after the train hurtled from the track, and shielded Daniella from the collapsing roof of their car with her own body as it rolled down the hillside.

It was an act of selfless, spontaneous heroism that had eliminated any chance Harding would have had at survival.

FOURTEEN.

EASTERN MAINE APRIL 22, 2001.

THE OPEN FIBERGLa.s.s SKIFF LEFT THE PIER JUST BEFORE 7:00 A.M., Ricci amidship on the bench, Dex at the stern after having started up the Mercury outboard with a couple of hard pulls. The oxygen tanks and portable compressor were in the well near his feet. 7:00 A.M., Ricci amidship on the bench, Dex at the stern after having started up the Mercury outboard with a couple of hard pulls. The oxygen tanks and portable compressor were in the well near his feet.

"Gonna be a honey of a day, looks like to me," he said, and yawned. His eyes were slightly puffed. "We ought to do all right, don't you think?"

Ricci was gazing out past the bow, his gear bags on the deck in front of him.

"Depends whether we get lucky," he said.

Dex worked the tiller handle, guiding the boat into the channel. A tall, rangy man in his mid-thirties with a full reddish-blond beard, he wore a navy blue watch cap over his shoulder-length hair, a plaid mackinaw, heavy dungarees, and rubber waders. He had a fair complexion that was typical of his French-Canadian bloodstock, and the parts of his face and neck not covered by the beard were chafed from repeated exposure to the biting salt air.

"Don't see what luck's got to do with it," he said. "You told me yourself there were plenty of urchins left down deep after that last haul, and it ain't as if they do anythin' but stick to whatever they're stuck to till somebody comes along and plucks 'em off." He made a chuckling sound. "Regular as you are about where an' when you dive, the b.u.g.g.e.rs should have you figured by now. Plan on movin' to a safer neighborhood, or leastways makin' themselves scarce between seven an' three every other day."

Ricci shrugged. "Can't figure anything unless you've got brains to speak of," he said, glancing over at him. "And they don't."

He turned back toward the front of the boat and stared straight ahead, hands in the pockets of his hooded pullover jacket. Despite the stiff breeze, it was indeed a decent spring morning, with a flood of five or six knots and plenty of sunshine in the mackerel sky. The vapor was thin enough for Ricci to easily read the numbers on the nuns and cans as the channel widened out and Dex goosed the throttle to get them moving faster against the tide.

The light sixteen-footer accelerated with a roar, its props churning up a fine, cold spray. Ricci estimated the water temperature would be about forty degrees, and was wearing a black-and-silver neoprene dry suit and Thinsulate undergarment to retain body heat during his dive.

Soon they were well beyond the channel buoys and red-and-black markers indicating the spot where the shoal at the harbor entrance presented a concealed hazard to low-slung craft, lurking just below the waterline at high tide. All along the surface of the bay Ricci could see patches resembling rippled gla.s.s insets on an otherwise smooth mirror, signs that the gusty, variable wind had stirred up circular eddies where salt water and unsettled bottom sediment had mixed with the lighter freshwater flow. He made a mental note to be careful of them later on. As a rule, the current's westward drift became gentler at the lower fathoms, but the upswellings could exert a strong, sudden pull on a diver, and the phytoplankton that tended to generate in them could severely reduce underwater visibility.

The two men buzzed across the water in their skiff, neither of them speaking above the engine noise for the half hour it took to reach the island where Ricci had found his urchin colony. Not quite an acre in size, it was shaped like a cloven hoof, the split on its northeastern side forming a cove that plunged to a depth of at least a hundred fathoms and was densely forested with eelgra.s.s along its insh.o.r.e ledges.

Dex simultaneously shifted to port and throttled down as they came in close, then steered them around toward the cove. Ricci sat near the starboard gunwale, scanning the cobbled edge of the sh.o.r.e and the parallel band of trees and brush just yards further inland.

Seconds before Dex maneuvered the skiff into the cove, Ricci thought he noticed a twinkle of reflected sunlight in the shrubbery near a large granite outcropping. He momentarily focused his eyes on that spot, saw the starry glint of light again, and committed the features of the little slice of beach to memory. As an added reference, he glanced at his wrist-mounted diving compa.s.s for its coordinates. The reflection could have been from some shards of gla.s.s that had washed ash.o.r.e, or a beer can or bottle discarded by a fisherman who had stopped on the island for a solitary lunch. But just in case it wasn't, the big hunk of rock made as perfect a landmark as he could have wanted.

After lowering anchor, and paying out rope until it was fast and the skiff was head to wind, Dex yawned, stretched, then reached into the well for his thermos.

"Guess the kids must've worn you out," Ricci said. He was staring out across the bow again.

"Huh?" Dex unscrewed the thermos lid. "What do you mean?"

Ricci turned to face him.

"Way you've been trying to catch flies with your mouth all morning," he said. "I figured it was from filling in for your wife after school the other day. Either that or you haven't been getting enough sleep."

Dex looked down, pouring himself some coffee.

"Been sleeping fine," he said, and sipped. "But it's true the brats wouldn't stay off my back for a second."

Ricci watched him.

"Nancy climbed into bed that night feelin' randy as a catamount under a full moon, and it's me was holdin' out the red flag for a change," Dex said. "Don't know if it was the boys got me down, so to speak, or thinkin' about that awful s.h.i.t Phipps an' Cobbs pulled on you while I was playin' nursemaid." He scrubbed a hand down over his beard. "Suppose it was mostly the second. I mean, them tryin' to make off with our catch. Talk about luck, me not bein' there with you was a bad piece, hey?"

"Don't sweat it," Ricci said, still watching him. "They got what they had coming."

"Should've been around to help you give it to 'em, is all I'm sayin'." Dex drank a little more coffee from the thermos lid, then held it out to him. "Want some a' this mud the ol' lady brewed?"

Ricci shook his head.

"Thanks, but no thanks," he said, then shrugged out of his pullover. "I want to get started while the water's still halfway calm."

Dex nodded, set down the lid, and went to work. He hoisted the metal dive flag, then reached down into the well for one of the scuba tanks, rose from the c.o.c.kpit, and put the tank overboard on a rope line.

Meanwhile, Ricci bent over one of his gear bags, unzipped it, and began to extract his scuba apparatus and arrange it on the deck in front of him. He put on his diving hood, then slid his arms into his vestlike buoyancy compensator--the double bladders of which would draw their air from his tank--and fastened the quick-release buckles of its c.u.mmerbund around his waist. He had four twelve-pound weights evenly arranged on his nylon-webbing weight belt, and an additional two pounds each on ankle bands to help keep him balanced and relieve tension on his spine. Although the total fifty-two pounds would be excessive under average diving conditions, Ricci had often found that he needed it to remain at the depths inhabited by the urchins in the powerful, spiraling undercurrents.

After donning the belt, Ricci put on his mask, gloves, and fins, then reached into the bag again for his two dive knives and their harnesses. His chisel-tipped urchin knife went into a scabbard secured to his thigh, a pointed t.i.tanium backup blade into a similar rig on his left inner arm. Finally he used an elasticized lanyard to hang an underwater halogen light from his wrist.

Once suited up, he opened his second gear bag and extracted three nylon mesh totes, all of which had been packed in long, neat rolls that were held snug with bungee cords. He clipped their float lines to snaplinks on his buoyancy compensator, then raised himself onto the gunwale and sat with his back to the water.

"Don't forget your spare O2," Dex said. He took from the well an aluminum canister/snorkel a.s.sembly about the size of a bicycle pump, put it into a waterproof satchel, and carried it over to Ricci.

Ricci hung the satchel around his shoulders.

"Okay," he said. "Ready to go."

Dex c.o.c.ked a thumb into the air.

"If you can't send me up some wh.o.r.e's p.u.s.s.y, I'll settle for the eggs she been droppin'," he said, and grinned as if he'd gotten off a sharp witticism.

Ricci went over the side with a backward roll, swam over to his floating tank, slipped it on, and attached the BC's narrow low-pressure inflator tube, which would draw air from the tank through a twist valve within reach of his hand. For backup--and lesser, more incremental adjustments in buoyancy than this method easily allowed--his BC also had over its right shoulder strap an oral-inflation a.s.sembly consisting of a large-diameter air hose much like that of a vacuum cleaner or automobile carburetor, with a mouthpiece that could be actuated at the touch of a simple b.u.t.ton-and-spring mechanism.

The last thing Ricci did before going under was check the submersible instrument console attached to a port atop his scuba tank by yet another rubber hose. On the console were two gauges--a digital readout for measuring depth and temperature, and an a.n.a.log PSI air gauge below it. The air gauge showed the tank to be at its max.r.a.t.e.d 4,000-psi working pressure, with the standard ten-percent safety overfill.

Glancing topside, he saw Dex lean forward over the rail, still grinning and poking his thumb skyward.

Ricci kicked away from the hull of the skiff, dumped air from his BC, and submerged.

Dex's smile lasted only as long as it took for Ricci's outline to disappear underwater. Then it, too, vanished. His eyes narrow, his mouth a thin line of tension, he stood at the gunwale watching the bubbles from Ricci's exhalations reach the surface, the words they'd exchanged earlier that morning suddenly echoing in his mind.

"Regular as you are 'bout where an' when you dive, b.u.g.g.e.rs ought to have you figured by now," he'd said to Ricci, before going on with some nonsense about the urchins moving out of town or some such. Just kind of wanting to break the silence between them. he'd said to Ricci, before going on with some nonsense about the urchins moving out of town or some such. Just kind of wanting to break the silence between them.

"Can't figure anything unless you have brains to speak of, " Ricci had answered. " Ricci had answered. "And they don't. "And they don't. " "

Well, Dex thought, maybe the urchins didn't have brains bigger than tiny specks of sand in their heads, didn't even have heads heads that Dex could see, but he had smarts enough to do some figurin' of his own. Not that G.o.d had made him a genius; if that was the case he wouldn't have to be tendin' boat every winter season, when the bitter mornin' cold was like to shrivel your b.a.l.l.s up into your stomach an' turn the drip from your nose to icicles. But he knew for sure that Ricci would be thinkin' about what happened with Cobbs an' Phipps, and gettin' to wonder about him bein' in on the shake-down too. Was maybe even holdin' onto some suspicions about that already, to guess from how he'd been quieter than usual this mornin'-not that he was any kind of chatterbox in what you might call his sunniest moods. that Dex could see, but he had smarts enough to do some figurin' of his own. Not that G.o.d had made him a genius; if that was the case he wouldn't have to be tendin' boat every winter season, when the bitter mornin' cold was like to shrivel your b.a.l.l.s up into your stomach an' turn the drip from your nose to icicles. But he knew for sure that Ricci would be thinkin' about what happened with Cobbs an' Phipps, and gettin' to wonder about him bein' in on the shake-down too. Was maybe even holdin' onto some suspicions about that already, to guess from how he'd been quieter than usual this mornin'-not that he was any kind of chatterbox in what you might call his sunniest moods.

Still, Dex couldn't afford to wait for Ricci to go the distance from bein' suspicious of him to reachin' any right conclusions, short a hop as that was. Maybe he didn't run off at the mouth about himself like so many flatlanders did, telling you everythin' about their lives from A through Z within five minutes of makin' your acquaintance, but once in a while Ricci would mention something about when he was a police detective down in Beantown, an' furthermore, Dex's buddy Hugh Temple, whose girlfriend's sister Alice worked at the real estate office in town, said she'd heard from her boy-friend worked at the Key Bank that Ricci used to be in some hots.h.i.t military outfit like the Rangers or Navy SEALs or maybe the Boy Commandos--whatever the f.u.c.k--before his cops-and-robbers days. That particular bit a' scuttleb.u.t.t hadn't surprised Dex, 'cause there was times when all you had to do was look in his eyes to see that he could be one dangerous son of a b.i.t.c.h to anybody who got on his wrong side.

Dex shook a cigarette from the pack in the breast pocket of his mackinaw, shoved it between his lips, and cupped a hand over its tip as he fired up his Bic lighter. He stood there smoking at the gunwale, his eyes following Ricci's stream of bubbles. Truth was, he'd got on okay with Ricci, who always gave him an even shake as far as business went, and never treated anybody as if he was their better, the way a lot of folks from out of town did as a matter of course, especially the summer people with their kayaks, canoes, an' mountain bikes on the roof racks of their whale-sized, showroom-new 4 x 4 wagons.

Those people, they'd stand around the middle of town in bunches of five, six, an' more, wearin' white shorts an' sneakers that matched their perfect white teeth, never movin' aside to let you pa.s.s, talkin' so loud you'd think every one of 'em was deaf as a board. Cloggin' the sidewalk as if they owned it, an' couldn't d.a.m.n well see themselves sharin' the street with anybody, like they was on some kinda movie set that was laid out just for them on Memorial Day, an' got packed away into storage after they headed south come September, gatherin' dust an' cobwebs until the next summer of fun rolled round.

No, Dex hadn't held any ill feelings for Ricci, not the other day when he'd taken off on him with that bulls.h.i.t story about havin' to mind the kids, not even now, after havin' done his bit of tinkerin' with Ricci's air gauge last night, an' preparin' to leave him for a goner. But what choice did he have? Way he felt, it was kinda like goin' to war an' bein' forced to shoot somebody you bore no personal grudge against, somebody you might even think was an okay fella if you got to know him over a frosty gla.s.s of suds, all because of circ.u.mstances that you could no more control than the turnin' of the world. Havin' been a soldier, Ricci would prob'ly understand that.

What Ricci could never never understand, though, comin' from away, was the kind of pressure he, Dex, had been under to cut a separate deal with Cobbs. How could he have refused that p.r.i.c.k without jammin' himself up big-time? Cobbs was in so tight with the sheriff an' town managers, he'd see to it that Dex got cited for some kinda safety violation whenever he turned on the heat in his double-wide, an' was pulled over, breathalyzed, an' tossed in the drunk tank every time he drove his pickup home after havin' put down one or two at the bar. understand, though, comin' from away, was the kind of pressure he, Dex, had been under to cut a separate deal with Cobbs. How could he have refused that p.r.i.c.k without jammin' himself up big-time? Cobbs was in so tight with the sheriff an' town managers, he'd see to it that Dex got cited for some kinda safety violation whenever he turned on the heat in his double-wide, an' was pulled over, breathalyzed, an' tossed in the drunk tank every time he drove his pickup home after havin' put down one or two at the bar.

Ricci, on the other hand, didn't have any such worries. He'd arrived in town with money enough to buy that nice house on the water, an' likely had himself a hefty pension from the police force, not to mention military benefits that covered his meds an' checkups at the V.A. hospital in Togas, plus Lord knows what other cookies the government might've tossed him. Ricci was a loner with no wife or kids, an' it was a sure thing that sooner or later he'd be on his way to greener pastures.

Dex frowned, his brow creased in thought. What the f.u.c.k was he supposed to do? He had to make a livin' here, year in, year out, or see his family starve from hunger. Had to be able to walk down the street without lookin' over his shoulder for Phipps or some other a.s.shole deputy followin' behind in a sheriff-mobile, ready to bust b.a.l.l.s for any lame excuse could be concocted on the spur of the moment.

He took a drag of his cigarette and puffed a swirl of smoke and steam from his breath into the brisk salt air, his comments to Ricci as they'd left the wharf once again recurring to him.

"Regular as you are 'bout where an' when you dive, b.u.g.g.e.rs ought to have you figured...."

An' regular as clockwork he was. Lining his gear up on the deck the same exact way every mornin' they went out, puttin' it all on in the same order every time, an' then divin' to his normal spots, takin' no longer'n half an hour to fill his first couple totes with what he found on the underwater ledges at the head of the cove. Soon as their markers came to the surface, Dex would haul the bags aboard, knowin' Ricci was on his way down into the thickest part of the eelgra.s.s forest, where he'd drift with the current 'stead of against against it like divers usually did, so they'd be swept back toward the boat rather than away from it if they lost their bearin's. Drift divin', as it was called, was risky business, but by lettin' the current carry him along, Ricci could cover the most amount a' bottom area in the least amount a' time--and it was at the bottom where he'd find the best, plumpest urchins. it like divers usually did, so they'd be swept back toward the boat rather than away from it if they lost their bearin's. Drift divin', as it was called, was risky business, but by lettin' the current carry him along, Ricci could cover the most amount a' bottom area in the least amount a' time--and it was at the bottom where he'd find the best, plumpest urchins.

Dex, meanwhile, was supposed to lift anchor, throw the outboard into reverse, an' keep his eyes peeled for Ricci's bubbles while backin' up slow an' easy to tag along behind him. Some divers clipped a float line to themselves so the tender could stay on the lookout for the bright-colored marker rather'n have to keep his eyes peeled for bubbles, which were a h.e.l.luva lot harder to spot. But in these waters there was so d.a.m.n much eelgra.s.s that the line would just get tangled up in it.

Dex glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. Just a few minutes to go 'fore Ricci was down maybe five, six fathoms. Too far to make it back up without air, an' right when his air supply supply would run out. Dex would wait a little while longer, then throttle up the engine in forward, haulin' a.s.s away from there as fast as he could, knowin' his partner was drownin' to death somewhere below, his lungs swellin' in his chest till they burst like balloons got stuck with a pin. would run out. Dex would wait a little while longer, then throttle up the engine in forward, haulin' a.s.s away from there as fast as he could, knowin' his partner was drownin' to death somewhere below, his lungs swellin' in his chest till they burst like balloons got stuck with a pin.

Yeah, Dex thought, he'd sold Ricci out, no puttin' it any different. Sold him out, and now good as killed him. But what was there to say?

He'd had no choice, he thought. No choice at all.

Things were as they were, an' there was really nothin' more to say about it than that.

Ricci had been at his bottom depth for nearly half an hour when he hit the jackpot.

Having filled two of his three totes with smallish urchins from the upper levels of the slope, he'd sent their floatlines to the surface, left them for Dex to recover, and then descended below the eelgra.s.s canopy. The going proved rough much of the way down. As he had noticed leaving the harbor channel, the changeable winds had produced fairly strong turbidity currents, forcing him to waste a lot of energy fighting the drag, and stirring up so much sand and detritus that he'd been unable to see further than five or six feet in any direction at some points during the dive. Although conditions improved once he neared the floor of the cove and began to go with the drift, his outer field of vision had remained limited to about a dozen yards, making him wonder if he'd have to cut his dive short without bagging any first-rate specimens.

Then the recess had revealed itself to him through pure chance. Hidden from above by a wide ledge of rock, its entrance sheeted over with eelgra.s.s, it would have gone unnoticed had the current not disturbed the fronds just as he'd been swimming past.

He glided closer to investigate, sweeping the area with his flashlight, using his free hand to part the long, serpentine strands of kelp ribboning up to the surface. Schools of silvery herring and other tiny fish Ricci couldn't name bulleted in and out of the light as he shone it into the opening.

The penetrating high-intensity beam revealed the hollow to be quite small, cutting no more than twelve or fifteen feet into the slope of the ridge, its entrance barely wide enough to admit Ricci in his scuba outfit and tank--a tight squeeze. Still, he felt a surge of excitement over his find. The interior of the cavity was filled with mature, whoppingly big urchins. Urchins galore, clinging three and four deep to every vertical and horizontal surface. The incredible concentration would allow him to stuff his goodie bag to the top just by gathering those nearest the entrance, leaving the rest of the spiny creatures to do whatever they did when they weren't intruded upon by foraging predators, human or otherwise.

He reached down to his thigh and pulled his urchining knife from its scabbard.

Before getting started, Ricci checked his watch and gauge console, then did some quick mental computations based on the scuba instruction he'd received in the Navy. Though his psi dial showed an ample reserve of air, he was already edging beyond a no-decompression profile and would need to make a decompression stop on ascent. Not atypical for him, but very definitely something to remember.

He swam into the recess, his legs scissoring behind him, taking pains not to sc.r.a.pe his air tanks on the ceiling. Given his imminent plans to kiss his urchin-hunting career good-bye, he found his excitement over the score puzzling, and maybe even a little bit funny. Me in a nutsh.e.l.l, Me in a nutsh.e.l.l, he thought. Never a natural at anything, but bent on giving the job his dogged best to the end. It was the old blue-collar ethic Ricci guessed he'd inherited from his steelworker father, and often wished he could wring from himself once and for all, having learned the hard way that a job well done could just as soon bring on problems as any sort of credit or reward--and worse, that you occasionally wound up getting screwed for your diligence. he thought. Never a natural at anything, but bent on giving the job his dogged best to the end. It was the old blue-collar ethic Ricci guessed he'd inherited from his steelworker father, and often wished he could wring from himself once and for all, having learned the hard way that a job well done could just as soon bring on problems as any sort of credit or reward--and worse, that you occasionally wound up getting screwed for your diligence.

Ricci went at his newfound bounty, the tote in his left hand, the knife in his right. The urchins crawling slowly over the backs of those on the rocks were easy pickings, and so plentiful that it took him just a few minutes to fill the mesh bag to a third of its capacity. Pleased with his rapid progress, he got down to collecting the others, sliding the flattened tip of the knife under the suction discs at the tips of their tubular feet, then carefully working them loose from the surfaces to which they were anch.o.r.ed. A slower task than the first, it needed to be performed with some delicacy if he was to avoid cracking their sh.e.l.ls--which would be an unfortunate waste, since they were worth zilch to him unless brought up alive.

Ricci had been absorbed in his task for about twenty minutes when his thoughts wandered back to the twinkle of brightness he'd noticed from the skiff. Might have been from something left behind by an ecologically challenged sailor, or a bit of shiny flotsam tossed up onto the island by the surf. Might have. But he couldn't shake the idea that it also could have been the sun glancing off the lens of a pair of binoculars--or a telescopic gun-sight. Maybe his long years of soldiering and police work had lent undue weight to what ought to have seemed an overly imaginative notion, but why discount it offhand?

And it wasn't just his experience that had to be considered. Pete Nimec, after all, had nailed Cobbs's personality type right on the head. Ricci had humiliated him, shaken up his confined little world as if it were one of those snow globes people bought at souvenir shops, and Cobbs would be stewing in his own juices until he regained some of his pride. Word spread fast in a small town, and he'd want to be sure he got even with Ricci before the tale of his a.s.s-kicking found its way into local folklore. It might be that he'd take some time to plot out his reprisal, but Cobbs was a hothead, and sort of crazy. The far greater likelihood was that he'd act while he was still worked up--and try something as extreme as it would be rash.

Ricci dropped an urchin into the tote, pried at another with his knife. Okay, he and Pete had Cobbs's number, but what exactly did that have to do with the sparkle of light on the beach? If he a.s.sumed Cobbs was out to take him down, that one was obvious. As sh.e.l.lfish warden, Cobbs was authorized to carry firearms, and had access to a speedboat for patrolling the bay compliments of Hanc.o.c.k County. He also knew where Ricci did his diving. He could pull the boat aground or moor it on the far side of the island, then conceal himself in the brush until he was ready for whatever move he intended to make.

In the water, Ricci was a highly vulnerable target. Cobbs could wait until he was surfacing, then zoom up in his motorboat and clip him like a duck in a shooting gallery. Or if he were good enough with a rifle and had a high-powered scope, he might be able to do it from sh.o.r.e, without ever having to break cover. And Ricci would simply disappear into the vast waters of the Pen.o.bscot. Urchin diving was filled with inherent hazards that had claimed several lives in recent years, with the diver's body having gone unrecovered in two or three of those instances. Between the circulating currents, profuse eelgra.s.s, and marine scavengers, it was a rough environment in which to dredge for a corpse.

After four days and nights of mulling all this over, Ricci had grown convinced Cobbs would be looking to come at him when he was out on a dive. If not this time, then certainly the next. Which had left him to determine where Dex might fit into the picture. Ricci could see how his partner might have gotten drawn into an attempt to scam him out of his percentage of the catch money, and, in fact, had been left with no doubts about Dex's guilt on that score when the subject of his supposed baby-sitting was raised on the boat. It had been evident in all of his mannerisms--the way he'd nervously rattled on about how lousy he felt because of what happened to Ricci in his absence, expressing a bit too much regret and dismay, fidgeting around and tugging at his beard while never looking him in the eye.

These were textbook signs of deception Ricci had recognized from the countless suspect interrogations he'd conducted during his years as a detective. But there were betrayals, and then again there were betrayals. Ricci didn't believe Dex had it in him to take an active hand in helping Cobbs settle his grudge. Unless, of course, he didn't know Cobbs had anything too drastic in mind. Or felt pressed into it. Dex led a difficult, hand-to-mouth existence, and Cobbs and his buddies in badly soiled blue could make it even more difficult for him if they wanted to. Whether suckered or squeezed, Dex could be persuaded to stay mum about anything he witnessed.

At last, Ricci had seen only two options--he could either back away from the situation, or hang tough and go back to his usual routine, keeping his eyes as wide open as possible. He had opted for the latter, and was still confident he'd made the right decision. If it proved absolutely conclusive that Dex had turned on him, was perhaps even willing to let Cobbs get away with killing him, his motivations were ultimately of little consequence. Ricci's ingrained sense of accountability demanded that there would have to be a reckoning for his breach of trust. And as for Cobbs ...