THE FOLLOWING MORNING, after a good breakfast and a Bloody Mary, Stone broke out the rubber dinghy from its locker and inflated it, then launched it over the stern and fastened the outboard to it.
Viv pleaded freckles, and Dino stayed with her, while Stone and Meg took the dinghy to Loggerhead Key, a mile or so away.
“It looks deserted,” Meg said. “Can I go without a suit here?”
“I’m counting on it,” Stone said. “Tan lines aren’t allowed on Loggerhead.” He pulled the dinghy up onto the beach; they left their swimsuits aboard and swam for a while, then got out and let the wind dry them as they walked up the beach.
* * *
—
DIRTY JOE CROSS and Jungle Jane Jillian approached Fort Jefferson slowly, then saw a couple leave the moored yacht in a rubber dinghy. He took a look through his glasses. “Bingo,” he said. “And they seem to be heading for Loggerhead.”
With Jane at the helm they motored slowly along on a route parallel to the beach, and Joe went below and came back with an AR-15–style assault rifle and shoved a banana clip into it, watching as the couple swam, then walked up the beach.
“Man, she looks good naked,” Joe said.
“Watch out or I’ll kick your ass,” Jane replied.
He knew she would, too. “Okay, okay, just drift for a while. I can’t hit anything if we’re under way.”
Jane did as instructed. “How close in do you want to be?”
“A hundred yards or so, and go at idle speed.”
She slowly closed the gap between them and the beach.
“They haven’t even seen us,” Joe said. “This is going to be a piece of cake.”
“Who’s the guy?” Jane asked.
“Who gives a shit?” Joe came back. “If he gets in the way, he’s dead meat. This is a good distance. Take the engines out of gear, but be ready to leave fast, toward Key West.”
Jane put the engines into neutral, and they idled, adrift.
Joe tried standing, but couldn’t get steady enough. He knelt and braced the rifle against the gunwale of the boat; he checked the wind and distance, adjusted the scope, and checked the view. Looking good.
* * *
—
STONE AND MEG walked along on the wet sand at the water’s edge, then she stopped and pulled him around toward her. He took her in his arms and pressed her against his body, then kissed her.
* * *
—
JOE SIGHTED through the scope and took a good look. A head shot wasn’t going to do it; even a little movement of the boat made that an unlikely hit. The woman’s back was to him, and he placed the crosshairs between her shoulder blades, took a deep breath, let it out, then began to squeeze the trigger. As he fired he felt a breeze on the back of his neck and swore.
Stone felt a breeze, too, at the moment he heard the crack of the rifle. He swept Meg’s legs from under her, and they both hit the sand.
11
Stone looked around for shelter; no trees, not even shrubs for fifty yards, and he didn’t want to get any farther from the dinghy. He looked out at the boat off the beach: it had begun to turn slowly away from them. A man stood up, holding a rifle, and Stone could hear him swearing.
* * *
—
“TURN THE GODDAMNED thing back on course!” the man yelled at a woman who was at the helm. She put the engines into gear and started to turn back toward them.
* * *
—
“QUICK!” Stone said to Meg. He helped her to her feet, grabbed her hand, and they ran away from the beach, toward some dunes, diving behind the nearest one as the rifle could be heard again and flying sand scattered around them. “Keep your belly on the ground,” Stone said to Meg, “and crawl back toward the dinghy. The dune gets higher as we go.” Then he heard automatic fire and hugged the sand beneath him. The guy with the rifle was swearing again, yelling instructions at the woman. Stone looked up, and the boat was again stern to their position. “Okay, let’s go,” he said to Meg, and they began crawling as fast as they could. Shots rang out again, but hit the top of the dune behind them. The shooter had lost their position. “Lie very still, now,” he said.
* * *
—
“WHERE ARE THEY?” Jane asked.
“How the fuck do I know?” Dirty Joe yelled back. “They’re behind that fucking dune. And I need another magazine.” He went below to get one.
* * *
—
THEN STONE heard a clattering sound from some distance away. He risked sticking his head up long enough to find its source. Dino was weighing the anchor they had put out to reinforce their mooring. Stone thanked Hinckley that raising the anchor involved only the pressing of a switch, not physical labor. He ducked back down. “Dino’s on the way,” he said to Meg.
“Does he know how to operate that JetStick thing you’ve been using?” she asked.
“Sort of,” Stone replied. “He’ll get the hang of it.” The automatic fire started again, and the shooter was panning toward them, rounds ripping off the peak of the dune as they hit. “Stay down,” Stone said, as if that were necessary. He heard the engines on the Hinckley start up, but he was afraid to check on Dino’s progress.
* * *
—
“THEIR BOAT is moving!” Jane shouted, and Dirty Joe stopped firing and looked at it as it accelerated. He turned his rifle back toward the beach and got off another burst, then dropped the magazine and shoved in another. “This is my last one,” he said to Jane.
Then there was a single shot from the direction of the blue yacht, and an almost simultaneous whack as the bullet struck the radome on top of his cabin. “Oh, shit, those people are armed. Let’s get the hell out of here! Head for Key West!”
Jane did as ordered and shoved the throttles forward. The boat leaped ahead. “Why Key West? We don’t want to go there.”
“When we’re out of their sight we’ll turn for Islamorada,” Joe replied.
* * *
—
STONE RAISED his head now and saw the boat roar away, its three outboards howling. He looked back at the Hinckley and saw Dino’s head protruding from an open hatch in the cabin roof; he was standing on the skipper’s seat, firing a handgun at the retreating speedboat.
* * *
—
STONE STOOD up now. “The shooter is out of here,” he said to Meg. “Let’s get to our dinghy.” They ran down the dune and back up the beach, to where they had dragged the dinghy ashore. They launched it, climbed in, and Stone started the outboard. A moment later Dino had stopped the Hinckley, and they were pulling up to the stern boarding platform of the yacht, where Viv stood waiting to take their painter.
“Are you two hurt?” Viv asked.
“No, we’re fine,” Stone said, “just a little sandy.” He tied up the dinghy, then got out the stern shower and adjusted the water temperature. He hosed Meg down as she stood on the boarding platform, then did the same for himself.
“How nice to have hot water,” Meg said. “I’ll get us robes.” She went forward toward their cabin.
Stone went to the pilot’s seat and turned the yacht back toward their anchorage.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Dino said, clearing his weapon and laying it on the dashboard. “If we hadn’t had that anchor out, we might have had a real chance of arriving in time to hit them. As it was, I think I got their radome. I didn’t see the boat’s name, did you?”
“No, there were three outboard engines blocking the view of the stern,” Stone said.
“We had no chance of catching up to them,” Dino said. “That thing probably does fifty knots with all that power. They’re headed toward Key West, though. You want to go back?”
“What’s the point?” Stone asked. “By the time we get there, they’ll be tucked into a berth somewhere, and there are thousands of them. Did you recognize what kind of boat it was?”
Dino shook his head. “Nothing I’ve seen before.”
“I never even got to my weapon,” Viv said. “It was all too fast.” Viv, like Dino, went everywhere armed; it was the ex-cop in her.