The wave crested and left us in midair for a second before we dropped into the next trough. I fought the wheel and got us headed east again trying to make it into the strait, which had to be better than this.

I looked to my left for Beth, but didn't see her on the companion-way stairs. I called out, "Beth!"

She shouted from the cabin, "I'm here! Coming!"

She came up the stairs on her hands and knees, and I saw that her forehead was bleeding. I asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yes… just got knocked around a little. My butt is sore." She tried to laugh, but it almost sounded like a sob. She said, "This is crazy."

"Go below. Make yourself a martini-stirred, not shaken."

She said, "Your idiotic sense of humor seems to fit the situation." She added, "The cabin is starting to take on water, and I hear the bilge pumps going. Can you come up with a joke for that?"

"Well… let's see… that's not the bilge pump you hear, it's Sondra Wells' electric vibrator underwater. How's that?"

"I may jump." She asked me, "Can the pumps keep up with the water we're taking on?"

"I guess. Depends on how many waves break on board." In fact, I'd noticed the response to the helm was sluggish, the result of the weight of the water now in the bilge and cabin.

Neither of us spoke for the next ten minutes. Between gusts of wind-driven rain, I could see about fifty yards ahead for a few seconds, but I didn't see Tobin's cabin cruiser, or any boat for that matter, except two small craft, capsized and tossed like driftwood by the storm.

I noticed a new phenomenon, or perhaps I should say a new horror-it was something that the Gordons called a following sea, which I had experienced with them in the Gut that day. What was happening was that the sea behind the boat was overtaking it, smashing into the Formula's stern and whipping the boat almost out of control in a violent side-to-side motion, called yawing. So now, along with rolling and pitching, I had to contend with yawing. About the only two things that were going right were that we were still heading east and we were still afloat, though I don't know why.

I tilted my head back so that the rain could wash some of the salt from my face and my eyes. And since I was looking up at the sky anyway, I said to myself, I went to church Sunday morning, God. Did you see me there? The Methodist place in Cutchogue. Left side, middle pew. Emma? Tell Him. Hey, Tom, Judy, Murphys-I'm doing this for you guys. You can thank me in person in about thirty or forty years.

"John?"

"What?"

'What are you looking at up there?"

"Nothing. Getting some freshwater."

"I'll get you some water from below."

"Not yet. Just stay here awhile." I added, "I'll give you the wheel later, and I'll take a break."

"Good idea." She stayed silent a minute, then asked me, "Are you… worried?"

"No. I'm scared."

"Me, too."

"Panic time?"

"Not yet."

I scanned the dashboard and noticed the fuel gauge for the first time. It read about an eighth full, which meant about ten gallons left, which, considering the rate of fuel burn of these huge MerCruisers at half throttle fighting a storm, meant we didn't have much time or distance left. I wondered if we could make it to Plum Island. Running out of gas in a car is not the end of the world. Running out of gas in an airplane is the end of the world. Running out of gas in a boat during a storm is probably the end of the world. I reminded myself to keep an eye on the gas gauge. I said to Beth, "Is it a hurricane yet?"

"I don't know, John, and I don't give a damn."

"I'm with you."

She said, "I had the impression you were not fond of the sea."

"I like the sea just fine. I just don't like to be on it or in it."

"There are a few marinas and coves along here on Shelter Island. Do you want to put in?"

"Do you?"

"Yes, but no."

"I'm with you," I said.

Finally, we got into the passage between the North Fork and Shelter Island. The mouth of the strait was about half a mile wide, and Shelter Island to the south had enough elevation and mass to block at least some of the wind. There was less howling and splashing, so we could talk easier, and the seas were just a bit calmer.

Beth stood and steadied herself by holding on to the grab handle mounted on the dashboard above the compamonway. She asked me, "What do you think happened that day? The day of the murders?"

I replied, "We know the Gordons left the harbor at Plum Island about noon. They went far enough offshore so that the Plum Island patrol boat couldn't identify them. The Gordons waited and watched with binoculars and saw the patrol boat pass. They then opened the throttles and raced toward the beach. They had forty to sixty minutes before the boat came around again. We established this fact on Plum Island. Correct?"

"Yes, but I thought we were talking about terrorists, or unauthorized persons. Are you telling me you were thinking about the Gordons even then?"

"Sort of. I didn't know why, or what they were up to, but I wanted to see how they could pull something off. A theft. Whatever."

She nodded. "Go on."

"Okay, they make a high-speed dash and get close to the shore. If a patrol vehicle or a helicopter spots their boat anchored, it's not a major problem because by now everyone knows who they are and recognizes their distinctive boat. Yet according to Stevens, no one did see their boat that day. Correct?"

"So far."

"Okay, it's a nice, calm summer day. The Gordons take their rubber raft onto the beach and drag it into the bush. On the raft the aluminum chest."

"And shovels."

"No, they've already uncovered this treasure and hidden it where they could get at it easily. But first, they had to do a lot of groundwork, like archival and archaeological work, buying the Wiley land, and so forth."

Beth thought a moment, then asked, "Do you think the Gordons were holding out on Tobin?"

"I don't think so. The Gordons would be satisfied with half the treasure, minus half of that to the government. Their needs weren't anywhere near what Tobin's were. And also, the Gordons wanted the publicity and the acclaim of being the finders of Captain Kidd's treasure." I added, "Tobin's needs, however, were different and his agenda was different. He had no scruples about killing his partners, taking the whole treasure, fencing most of it, and then discovering a small portion of it on his own land and holding an auction at Sotheby's, complete with media and the IRS guy in the back."

Beth reached under her slicker and retrieved the four gold coins. She held them out toward me, and I took one and examined it while I steered the boat. The coin was about the size of an American quarter, but it was heavy-the weight of gold always surprised me. The gold was amazingly bright, and I could see a guy's profile on it and some writing that looked Spanish. "This could be what's called a doubloon." I handed it back to her.

She said, "Keep it for luck."

"Luck? I don't need the kind of luck this brought to anyone."

Beth nodded, looked awhile at the three coins in her hand, then threw them over the side. I did the same.

This was an idiotic gesture, of course, but it made us feel better. I could understand the universal sailors' superstition about throwing something valuable-or someone-over the side to appease the sea and make it stop doing whatever the hell it was doing that was scaring the crap out of everybody.

So we felt better after we threw the gold overboard and sure enough the wind dropped a little as we made our way along the Shelter Island coast, and the waves had diminished in height and frequency as if the gift to the sea had worked.

The land masses around me looked black, totally devoid of color like piles of coal, while the sea and sky were an eerie gray luminescence. Normally at this hour, you could see lights along the coast, evidence of human habitation, but apparently the power was out all over and the coasts had slipped back a century or two.