Page 7

One pickup down, one to go, Treto thought, glancing at his wristwatch.

Should make it in under two hours.

He sighed audibly, then stepped back inside the pilothouse and stuck the carbine in its rack by the helm.

He put the Nuevo Día’s engines in gear, set a due north course, and gradually ramped up her speed to twenty knots.

—

At just shy of four A.M., right at the southern edge of the Gulf Stream, First Mate Raúl Alfonso oversaw the securing of a Bahamian-flagged forty-five-foot cabin cruiser alongside the cargo ship.

The cabin cruiser was far more stable than the Pangas had been, and almost as soon as the boarding ladder was put over the side, someone was quickly coming up it, followed by another and another.

Captain Miguel Treto lit a fat cigar as he again watched the boarding process from the pilothouse door.

The cigar barely had an ash ready to fall as he smiled appreciatively at the last of ten young women stepping aboard. Then two of his crew went quickly down the ladder and reappeared minutes later, each struggling under the weight of an enormous black duffel bag on his back.

Just as we were told to expect, he thought. Will wonders ever cease?

[THREE]

Off Islamorada, Florida

Sunday, November 16, 2 P.M.

It was a Greetings From Paradise! picture-postcard day in the Florida Keys. An occasional puffy white cloud floated in the deep blue sky. The wind and sea were calm, the temperature a comfortable 85 degrees.

Matt Payne stood at the flybridge helm of the sixty-one-foot-long yacht. The tropical sun warmed his face as the Viking Sport Fisherman cruised right at thirty knots, the gleaming white vessel smoothly slicing through the clear blue water.

The twenty-seven-year-old, who was six feet tall and a solidly muscled one hundred seventy-five pounds, had a chiseled face with dark, thoughtful eyes. He kept his thick dark hair clipped short. A homicide sergeant—Philadelphia Police Department Badge Number 471—he was now off duty and on holiday. Accordingly, he was barefoot, wearing only a pair of bright red surfboarding shorts, a Phillies ball cap, and Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses.

He tilted his head back to drain his beer—then casually crunched the can and tossed it into a plastic bucket by his feet. He belched loudly.

Ahhh! he thought, reaching down and setting the autopilot on a compass heading of 220 degrees. I can’t think of a more perfect and relaxing way to spend a day.

He glanced down to where Amanda Law was reclined on deep cushions arranged in the middle of the yacht’s long, sleek nose.

Especially being on the water with my angel goddess.

Sublime . . .

Amanda wore a black bikini and black flip-flops. A broad-brimmed straw hat, white with black piping, shielded her head. A thick, glossy copy of Modern New Mom! magazine was fanned open facedown on her lap.

She was gesturing in an animated manner with her left hand as she spoke on her cell phone, which she held in her right.

Matt smiled as her platinum gold engagement ring—encrusted with tiny diamonds that he’d told her reminded him irreverently of so many very shiny and very expensive barnacles—twinkled in the bright sunshine.

Dr. Amanda Law, the chief physician at Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital Burn Center, had recently turned twenty-nine. She was extremely intelligent, with a bright face and eyes—and an air of complete confidence. She stood five-foot-five, weighed one-ten, and had the lean, toned body of an athlete. Her thick, luxurious blonde hair she’d woven into a pair of heavy braids, each now resting on a shoulder.

As Matt started to turn his attention back to the helm, he saw Amanda putting down her phone. She then reached over to the small control panel between the cushions and turned up the volume of the high-fidelity audio system.

Playing throughout the boat were tunes from Matt’s portable digital music device. He had compiled more than five hours’ worth of tropics-themed tracks in a file he had, with tongue firmly in cheek, labeled “Pirate Playlist.”

The sound of Caribbean steel drums had just faded out on Jimmy Buffett’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” and now began Michael McCloud singing “Just Came Down for the Weekend.”

They could really be singing about me, Matt thought, grinning broadly. A guy flees the frozen North for the warm tropics, embraces island time—and winds up staying a quarter-century.

That’d be just fine with me.