Part 5 (1/2)

She was mad, all right. For a moment, I thought she was going to take a swing at me. And I had to choke back the grin I felt fighting its way to the surface.

”Fine,” I said. ”My decisions be d.a.m.ned. But now we're going over and have a look at that trawler. There might be someone else aboard.” There was something else I had to say-say to protect my own cover, if nothing else. So I did. ”By the way, where did you learn how to use a handgun like that?”

I watched her closely for a reaction, but there was none.

”All you have to do, Mr. MacMorgan, is run the boat. What I know and what I do is none of your concern. And if you ever do anything this stupid again, I'll . . . I'll . . .”

I couldn't help it then. I felt the silly grin take my face.

”You'll what-shoot me too?”

She had quite a left. Her nostrils flared, her eyes became slits, and she threw a big roundhouse at my chin. It was to be no open-handed slap, either. The pretty brown fingers were clenched into a fist. I leaned away from it, caught her small hand in the palm of my left, and squeezed gently. I saw her teeth clench into a grimace. I lightened my grip and said evenly, ”Woman, you'd be well advised never to try that again.”

I dropped her hand, turned, and climbed back up to the flybridge, hearing her stalk off below.

I nudged Sniper up to the trawler. The stern was almost completely submerged, waves rolling over the transom. But the cleat on the port side of the transom was still above water, so I got a line around it, careful to pa.s.s it through by bow chock before securing it with a temporary slippery hitch. I left Sniper's engines gurgling-in case I wanted to back off quickly.

And just as I was about to step over onto the trawler, the woman came up behind me.

She said, ”Don't you think the person with the gun should go first?”

I looked at her. She was calmer now, some of the anger gone. She held the revolver in her left hand.

”You're right,” I said. ”I'll carry it with me.”

She shook her head. ”No. That's not what I meant. I'll go first.”

”I thought you wanted to get to Mariel Harbor safely.”

It was as close as she had come all day to smiling. ”That's exactly why I don't want you stumbling around with a loaded gun in your hand.”

I stepped back and made a grandiose sweeping gesture with my arm. ”After you, Miss Santarun.”

Using the line for balance, she jumped lithely to the transom of the trawler, then walked knee deep in water toward the wheelhouse. It's eerie boarding any abandoned boat at open sea, but an abandoned boat that is hopelessly sinking adds a touch of the macabre which makes you strain to listen and obligates you to whisper. The ropes creaked in the wash of ocean, and a halyard tap . . . tap-tap-tapped in the light wind.

I expected the dead man's partner to be hidden somewhere in the cabin of the trawler. And I didn't want the woman to face him alone. So by the time she was entering the wheelhouse, I was right behind her, Gerber skinning knife in hand.

Even in the bright May sunlight, it seemed dark inside. Water covered the floor, and cus.h.i.+ons and charts and clothing floated in shallow chaos. The electronic equipment had been ripped out by the dead pirate, and a box of more plunder-Danforth compa.s.s, s.h.i.+p's bell, and a life ring, face down-sat on the booth table, waiting to be loaded onto the Mako.

”Why don't you let me have the handgun and go first?”

Androsa Santarun held up her hand, telling me to be quiet. She stepped into the water of the wheelhouse, the revolver following along with the sweep of her eyes. She pulled open a storage closet, then tried a cabin light-which didn't work.

”It doesn't seem likely he'd be by himself.”

She shook her head, agreeing. ”No,” she said. ”It doesn't.”

On both sides of the wheelhouse were couches, the tops of which opened for storage. She lifted the first, then dropped it back.

Nothing.

I was about to check the other one-but that's when I noticed. A line of bullet holes riveted inward along the port wall.

She saw them, too.

”Automatic weapon,” I said. And then I added quickly in reply to her quizzical look, ”I was in Nam for a year. You learn all about automatic weapons in the Army.”

The holes swept across the bulkhead in a long arc, the smashed windows of the wheelhouse evidence of where they had finally halted.

”The guy in the Mako didn't have a weapon like that. If he had, he'd have used it on me long before you got your shot off.”

”Possibly,” she said. ”But who else would want to shoot at some innocent private boat?”

”Drug runners,” I said. ”It's not all that unusual. Maybe the people running this boat were carrying a load and the compet.i.tion caught up with them. Or maybe they were just out here fis.h.i.+ng and saw something they weren't supposed to see. Like I said-it happens.”

She sighed. ”I guess you'd better notify the Coast Guard-”

She stopped then, listening intently.

”Did you hear that-shush.”

She tilted her head, straining to listen. And then I heard it, too. A soft, rhythmic thunk . . . thunk, coming from the forward berth beyond the door.

”Give me the revolver.”

She looked at me, said nothing, then headed for the door, the .38 poised.

She put her right hand on the doork.n.o.b, hesitated for a moment, then jerked it open.

The water was deeper in the forward cabin. It came out in a black wash, calf-deep, rivering more floating junk-and something else, too.

A man, face up.

He was naked to the waist, his arms thrown out as if caught in some strange slow-motion fall.

His hair was short, blacker than the water, and his hands and face were a ghastly white.

He looked as if he was in his mid-twenties. A gray blotch marked where his wrist.w.a.tch had been. The mustache on his face looked ridiculously neat in comparison to the rest of his drained flesh.

His throat had been cut; cut so deeply that his head bobbed slowly in the water as if it were about to come off. And that's why the water was black-black with his blood.

The woman was stock-still at first. Then she covered her mouth suddenly and stumbled toward me. I locked my arm around her, feeling ribs heave beneath b.r.e.a.s.t.s, holding her close.

”Oh my G.o.d,” she said. ”Oh my G.o.d. . . .”

It was what the reporters would probably call an appalling sight.