"H.P., can you hear me?" Keegan said, leaning over him.

Dryman's eyes fluttered. "Huh?" he asked dreamily.

"It's me, Keegan. Can you hear me?"

"Why? R'you in China?"

Keegan laughed. "No," he said. "We're in Darien, Georgia."

"Darien, huh . . . how far?"

"About fifteen miles from Brunswick. I've got a ride down there. You're going to be okay, pal. Just take it easy. I'll be back when I finish the job."

Dryman's eyes roved crazily in their sockets as he tried to focus.

"Feel great, Kee."

"Yeah, the doctor gave you a little boost."

"H'bout th' plane? We lose th' plane?"

"You did great. The plane didn't make it."

He grimaced. "Aw, shit . . . poor ol' Loop . . ."

"Don't worry about the plane, okay? We'll get him a new plane. You just take it easy."

Dryman closed one eye and tried to focus with the other.

"Wha'sa matter w'me?" he asked, his speech getting more slurred with each sentence.

"Broken leg, couple cracked ribs. You'll be fine, H.P. I'll be back before you wake up."

"Won't groun' me wi'they?"

"Over my dead body."

Dryman smiled and focused groggily on Keegan. "Do'n say that . . ."

They both laughed.

"I gotta go now, pal," Keegan said. "Take a nap. I'll be here when you wake up."

"Kee . . ."

"Yeah?"

". . . careful, 'kay? Watch y'back door . . ."

"You bet."

"Sorry . . ."

And he dozed off.

Rain began to pelt Smoot's two-door Chevy as they reached the outskirts of Brunswick. The only light came from the headlights reflecting off the macadam pavement. Keegan checked the time. It was quarter to seven.

"The only man I know crazy enough to go over to Jekyll on a night like this is Tully Moyes," Smoot said. "He's a shrimper, lives out on the marsh. But the road may be underwater."

"Get me as close as you can to his place and point me," Keegan said. He reached in his pocket and took out a roll of bills, peeled off three hundred-dollar bills and folded them into the palm of his hand. In the blue light of the lightning, Keegan saw a vast marsh spread before them. A two-story house seemed to be brooding at the edge of the bay off to their right. Beyond it, across the sound, Jekyll Island crouched in the dark. The tide was up and the narrow dirt road leading to the house was beginning to flood. The Chevy began to fishtail.

"Let me out here, Tommy. I can walk the rest of the way. You don't want to be stuck out here in the marsh with a new baby waiting for you. I can't thank you enough."

"Southern hospitality, Frank. God was good to me tonight, I'm just passing it on."

They shook hands and Keegan pressed the bills into Smoot's fist. The young man looked down at them and began to shake his head.

"Tommy, believe me, you've done a lot of people a great service tonight. The baby's on me. Thanks."

He slammed the door and sloughed up the muddy road toward Tully Moyes's house. It was a rambling shed at the edge of the bay with a wooden walkway from the end of the road to a balcony that surrounded the first floor. Crab traps, fishing nets and loops of heavy ropes hung from the banister. Keegan knocked on the door and it was opened almost immediately by a tall, slender, weather-hardened man with a gray beard and thinning hair. He stared out at Keegan, a drowned rat huddled against the rain.

"Mr. Moyes?" Keegan said. "My name's Frank Keegan. I'm with the U.S. Intelligence Service. Can I talk to you?"

Moyes looked him up and down.

"You're one hell of a mess, Mr. Keegan," Moyes said. "Step in. You got some identification?"

"Mr. Moyes, all I've got's the craziest story you ever heard and one hell of a favor to ask."

FIFTY-TWO.

Laughing heartily, Moyes brought a bottle of brandy into the living room, put two water tumblers on the table and filled them both.

"So you waded all the way out here in this storm to tell me that cock-and-bull story?" he said, still laughing. He held his glass in a toast. "Here's to audacity, sir, which you certainly got your share of."

The living room was a clutter of old photographs, fishing gear, mismatched furniture and bric-a-brac. There were several pictures of a boy in various stages of growing up, the last one showing him in cap and gown at what was obviously a high school graduation. There were also several photos of a hardy-looking woman. But the room gave no indication that either of them occupied the house.

Outside the windows, the bay was churning up as the storm descended on them again. Rain clattered against windows and walls.

"Mr. Moyes . . ."

"Tully."

"Tully, I know my story sounds outrageous but believe me, it's true. I came out here because Tom Smoot said you're just crazy enough to take me over to Jekyll Island."

"In this storm?"

"Right now."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life. If you won't do it, can you call somebody who can?"

"Nope," the lean man said, scratching his beard.

"Why not?"

"Phones are out. Been out for a couple hours now. Couldn't call anybody if I wanted to. Besides, if I was to call anybody it'd be the Coast Guard. They wouldn't believe you, but at least they wouldn't laugh at me. No sir, we can't call anybody and you can't walk back to town. It's over two miles and by now the water's up to your knees out there."

"Tully, I'm going over to that island if I have to swim over."

"Look, Mr. Keegan, I'm eatin' my Thanksgiving dinner. Me and Chelsea . . ."

He pointed to a black lab curled before the fireplace. It stared soulfully up at both of them, snorted and went back to sleep.

"Tully, you get me on the island over there and I'll take you to New York and buy you the best turkey dinner you ever ate."

"I'm eatin' king mackerel, Mister . . . what'd you say your name was again . . . ?"

"Frank. Frank Keegan."

". . . Frank. I don't eat anything that has feathers on it and flies through the air."

"Well, whatever you want. Christ, I'll buy you a year's supply of king mackerel. Here, look . . ."

He took out his money clip and counted out ten hundred-dollar bills and slapped them on the coffee table.

"Is that serious enough for you?"

Moyes perused the bills, separated them with a forefinger.

"That's a thousand dollars!"

"You're right."

"You offering me a thousand dollars to take you right over there?" He jabbed his thumb toward Jekyll Island.

Keegan nodded.

"Government must pay you boys pretty well." He took another swig of brandy, then got up and threw a log on the fire.

"Y'know, my son died on a night like this. Playing tug-of-war out in the sound. Kids'd get arguing over whose shrimp boat was toughest, tie two of 'em back to back and then see which one would tow the other. Kind of like playin' chicken in cars."

He walked to the window, leaned over and peered through a brass telescope. He aimed it at Jekyll and waited for lightning to light up the bay.

"Be almost four years ago. Night they graduated from high school, him and his buddy Jimmy Wertz, they had a couple of beers, got challenging each other. So they went at it."

He kept staring through the glass. Seas were running two feet, he estimated. Not bad. Wind was probably twenty-five knots.

"Seas were running about two feet just like they are out there now. Jimmy pulled Ray's stern under. She flooded from the stern and tipped over. Ray was trapped in the cabin. He floated up on King's Way Beach two days later. The boat's still down there. Ninety feet down on the bottom of the channel."

He walked back to the table and washed down the rest of his brandy.

"My wife died last year. She never got over that night. Wouldn't eat worth a damn. Just kind of wasted away. I think she really died of a broken heart. We were married twenty-six years."

"I'm sorry," Keegan said. "I know what it is to lose someone you love. My fiancee was put in a concentration camp by the Nazis. She died there."

Moyes did not respond but his face clouded up. He stared across the table at Keegan.

"I found out about this Nazi agent, Twenty-seven, from her brother. He's head of the resistance movement in Germany. At first nobody'd believe me. Thought I was nuts, just like you did. But I knew he wouldn't bullshit me."

He explained how they had turned up Fred Dempsey and later Trexler in Colorado and described the scene in the murdered family's home.

"Look at it this way, Mr. Moyes. If I am telling the truth, what better time to kidnap these people than now? It's a holiday. Everything's closed. It couldn't be any darker. And this guy has been on that island since Saturday or Sunday . . ."

"Monday morning. Saw 'em go over . . ."

"Okay, since Monday morning. Point is, he's not going to wait all winter to take these people. He's going to do it quick . . . and he's already been over there four days."

He finished his drink. Moyes stared at him for a long time without speaking, then poured him another stout brandy.

"Thanks, I've had enough," Keegan said.

"Drink it, you'll need it. It's less than a mile over there but it's gonna be a tough, wet ride."

"You mean we have a deal?"

"You know anything about runnin' a boat?"

"Not that kind."

"You know port from starboard?"

"That I do know."

"Well . . ." He scooped up the ten bills. "It wasn't gonna be much of a Thanksgiving dinner anyway. Besides, this'll be a lot easier than shrimpin' and a helluva lot more lucrative."

In the dining room of the spired clubhouse, the women arrived in their formal dresses, the men in tuxedos and tails. It was going to be a gala feast and the mood was cheerful, despite the raging storm.

"Part of island life," Grant Peabody joked as they scurried through the rain and sought the refuge of the wide piazza that surrounded the clubhouse.

Twenty-seven watched them from a dark cluster of trees. At his feet lay one of the guards, his heart pierced by 27's SS dagger. Another guard was floating face-down in the inlet, his throat cut. The third guard was making his rounds. Huddled against the storm, he trotted from one cottage to the next, cursing the foul weather. He was hungry and looking forward to dinner. The guards would be fed after the others were finished. He finally found a moment's shelter in the radio shack.