The Lost Island

21

Gideon lounged in the stern cockpit, having taken the midnight-to-two-AM watch. The wind had picked up and was blowing hard from shore, whipping up whitecaps in the bay. Each gust brought stinging sand with it. The air smelled of smoke, and he could taste salty dust on his tongue. It was very dark, the stars now obscured by blowing dust.

Once in a while he picked up his binoculars and looked across the two hundred yards of water to the Horizonte. It showed no signs of life. All the lights were out, and the launch was safely hoisted in its davits.

He got up and made the rounds of the boat, hopping up on the deck and completing a circuit outside the pilothouse to the foredeck and back around the other side. He wasn’t sleepy and was glad to be on watch instead of tossing and turning in his stuffy stateroom.

The wind gusted again and he closed his eyes, turning away from the biting sand. He thought of the doughty Irish monks sailing this coastline in a tiny curragh or whatever sort of sailboat they had used. It was almost beyond comprehension.

The gust died down and, in the sudden lull, he thought he heard a noise. It was a strange sound, like bubbling, off the left — port — side of the boat. He rose, pulling out his pistol, and moved silently toward it. He waited just out of sight, listening. Another sound of bubbles breaking the water.

A scuba diver.

Moving slowly, pulling an unlit flashlight from his pocket, he leaned over the rail and aimed it at the spot where he could hear bubbles rising. They broke the black surface with a sparkle of phosphorescence. He steadied his gun, switched on the light.

The beam probed the murky water, revealing nothing. How deep was the diver? Was he sabotaging their boat, placing explosives? Was he trying to board? And now, of course, the diver knew he’d been spotted — having seen the light.

Gideon leaned over farther and probed into the murky water with the light. For a brief moment he thought he saw a flash of metal.

It was hopeless to fire into the water. What he had to do was wake Amy and prevent them from being boarded.

Scrambling away from the rail, he climbed onto the foredeck, above the staterooms, giving the deck two hard raps — their prearranged signal — to rouse Amy. Then he climbed onto the hardtop roof of the pilothouse, where he had a view of the entire boat. Keeping his flashlight off — which would just make him a target — he took cover behind the mast and waited.

The wind moaned about the mast, obscuring his ability to hear. His eyes strained into the darkness, looking for the telltale flash of luminescence indicating bubbles breaking the surface. But the water remained dark.

What had Glinn called this assignment? A walk in Central Park. Yeah, right.

Where the heck was Amy? Was it possible she hadn’t heard his signal?

Suddenly there was another flash of phosphorescence to his right, followed by another on his left. Two divers? He felt his heart pounding. It wasn’t a natural phenomenon, not a school of fish. He had seen a flash of metal — he knew he had.

And now he called out. “Amy! Amy!”

“Ella esta aqui,” came a deep voice from the pool of darkness below him.

He turned on his flashlight to see Amy, in her pajamas, the tattooed pirate holding a gun to her head. He was wearing nothing but a scuba tank — not even a bathing suit. In the darkness the tattoos looked like scales.

Another dark figure rose up, from a hidden position on the swim platform astern. It was the captain — Cordray.

“Drop your weapon or she dies,” he said.