Infernal

1

Jack stood on the dock and stared at Tom's boat. Most of the surrounding slips in this marina in Nowhere, North Carolina, were empty. But even if they'd been crammed, Tom's forty-footer, with its flag-blue hull, white superstructure, and varnished teak trim, would have stood out.

"What's wrong?" Tom said as he carried his backpack and one of the food coolers past Jack.

"I didn't know judges made this sort of money."

"We don't."

Jack watched him step onto a rubber footplate on the gunwale and hop onto the rear deck.

"Then how…?"

"It's not really mine. But the owner owes me a few favors, so I get to use it pretty much whenever I want."

Jack shook his head in wonder.

It had been one long, strange car ride. Four-hundred-plus miles covered in eight-plus hours to these private docks on Wanchese harbor. Most of the time—when Tom wasn't pumping him for details about his lifestyle—they'd played blues. Tom had asked him if he was the Jack mentioned in Bighead's "R-J Blues." Jack had told him he'd have to ask the singer.

"No kidding? This thing's got to be worth a million or more."

Tom shrugged. "Maybe. It's a Hinkley T-forty but it's got some years on it."

"Who's the owner?"

"Someone you never heard of."

"Try me."

"Okay. Name's Chiram Abijah."

"You're right. Never heard of him. What's he do?"

"This and that."

Jack watched his brother's expression as he asked, "Just what kind of favors did you do for What's-his-name?"

"The kind that have me sneaking off to Bermuda."

"Such as?"

"I helped get him off the hook a few times. But he's now under federal indictment for money laundering. Can't help him with that. The good thing is the feds don't know about the boat, otherwise they would've RICO'd it along with his other stuff."

Jack hung back on the dock, still holding the other cooler and staring at the craft.

Tom spread his arms. "Kevlar hull, teak deck, and wait till you see the pilot house—everything teak, cherry, and tulipwood."

Jack backed up a step and squinted in the fading light at the large, gold-leaf script across the transom.

"Sahbon . . . what's that mean?"

"Means 'soap' in Hebrew. Get it? He used the boat to launder money, so he named it Soap. Pretty funny."

"A riot. He'll be the Robin Williams of Leavenworth."

Jack stepped aboard and put his cooler in the cockpit near the helm. He stared at all the dials and screens and readouts.

"Looks like a 747 cockpit. Not that I've ever been in one, but…"

"State of the art," Tom said. He looked like such a proud papa, Jack wondered if the boat might really be his. "Every telltale and navigation device you can imagine, and each backed up with another just like it. The previous owner is a very careful man."

But not quite careful enough, Jack thought. Otherwise he wouldn't be facing a vacation in a federal pen.

Jack nodded appreciatively. "Lots of navigation gizmos. Good. I like that. Wouldn't want to miss Bermuda and wind up in Africa."

Tom laughed. "This is the age of GPS, my boy. In case you don't know, that stands for Global Positioning—"

"—System. I know. So this stuff works like one of those car navigators?"

"Even better. Soon as we clear the inlet, we plug in the latitude and longitude of Bermuda's Great Sound and then we just sit back, crack a few beers, and relax."

"Just how far is Bermuda?"

"About six hundred fifty miles due east."

The figure jolted Jack.

"Six hundred—Jesus! How many miles a gallon does this thing get?"

"Maybe one."

"One? That means we need—"

"Lots of gallons. Seven hundred to be safe."

Jack looked around. "But where…?"

"Don't worry. We've got plenty. Good old Chiram more than doubled Sahbons range by sticking extra tanks everywhere—under the bunks, under the dinette, in every available open space, all with a state-of-the-art manifold system to feed it to the engines. We'll be riding low and slow at first, but we'll do better as the tanks empty."

"What about storms?"

"We're past hurricane season and the seven-day forecast is clear and calm all the way."

"And you say you've done this before?"

"Loads of times. Piece of cake. With this kind of equipment the boat literally drives itself."

"Awful long way to go in a little boat."

Tom bristled. "First off, it's not 'little.' And second, if you think Bermuda's far for the Sahbon, consider this: Every year people race to Bermuda in sailboats from places like Halifax and Newport."

Another shock. "Sailboats?"

"Sailboats."

"Why?"

"Because."

Jack shrugged. "Good a reason as any, I guess." He locked his gaze on his brother. "You're sure you know what you're doing?"

"Of course. Why do you keep asking me?"

"Because I'm leaving there"—he double-jerked his thumb over his shoulder at land—"and heading there"—he pointed to the water—"so I'd like to be—"

Tom snapped his fingers. "Yul Brynner, The Magnificent Seven. Right?"

Jack experienced a few seconds of disorientation, then realized what Tom was talking about. One of the few neutral topics of discussion on the drive down had been movies. Tom seemed to love them as much as Jack.

"Yeah, right," he said. "Talking to the traveling salesman. Good pickup."

Jack was impressed. Might have been more impressed if he weren't facing the prospect of six-hundred-plus miles across open sea on a ship belonging to an indicted money launderer.

I'll soon be in the middle of the goddamn Atlantic Ocean, in the dark, heading for the Bermuda Triangle, with Tom as my skipper. Now there was a comforting thought. At least the boat wasn't named The Minnow.