The condition of the place could be assessed best at remote islands such as Pearl Key. When the mangroves were spangled with pelicans and egrets, when the sky held ospreys and frigate birds, when the shallows boiled with mullet and snook – that meant plenty of good water was spilling from the 'Glades; enough for a reprieve from the larceny perpetrated upstream.

It was Chub's misfortune to have arrived at Pearl Key after an exceptionally generous rainy season, when the island was lush and teeming. Scarcely two months later the flats would be as murky as chocolate milk, the game fish and wading birds would have fled, and in the water would swim few creatures of serious concern to a glue-sniffing kidnapper, passed out with one hand dangling.

His wounded hand, as it happened; swollen and gray, still adorned with a severed crab claw.

As fishermen know, the scent of bait is diffused swiftly and efficiently in saltwater, attracting scavengers of all sizes. Chub knew this, too, although the information currently was stored beyond his grasp. Not even a doctorate in marine biology would've mitigated the stupefying volume of polyurethane fumes he'd inhaled from the tube of boat glue. He was completely unaware that his wounded mitt hung so tantalizingly in the water, just as he was unaware of the cannibalistic proclivities of Callinectes sapidus,the common blue crab.

In fact, Chub was so blitzed that the sensation of extreme pain – which ordinarily would have reached his brain stem in a nanosecond – instead meandered from one befogged synapse to another. By the time his subconscious registered the feeling, something horrible was well under way.

His screams ruined an otherwise golden morning.

The other three had been awake for hours. Bodean Gazzer was patrolling the woods not far from the campsite. Amber was attempting to revise Shiner's tattoo, using a honed fishhook and a dollop of violet mascara. Before starting she'd numbed his upper arm with ice, but the pricking still stung like hell. Shiner hoped the procedure would be brief, since only two of the three initials required altering. Amber warned him it wasn't an easy job, changing the letters from W.R.B.to W.C.A.

"The Bwon't be bad. I'll just add legs to make it look like a capital A.But the Ris tricky," she said, frowning. "I can't promise it'll ever pass for a C."

Shiner, through clenched teeth: "Do your best, 'K?" He turned away, so he wouldn't see the punctures. Occasionally he'd let out a grunt, which was Amber's cue to apply more ice. Despite the discomfort, Shiner found himself enjoying being the focus of her concentration. He liked the way she'd rolled up the sleeves of the camouflage jumpsuit and pinned her hair in a ponytail; all business. And her touch – clinical as it was – sent a pleasurable tickle all the way to his groin.

"I had a friend," she was saying, "he was paranoid about dying in a plane crash. So he got his initials tattooed on his arms and his legs, his shoulders, the soles of his feet, both cheeks of his butt. See, because he'd read where that's one way they can identify the body parts, if there's tattoos."

Shiner said, "That's pretty smart."

"Yeah, but it didn't help. He was, like, a smuggler."

"Oh."

"His plane went down off the Bahamas. Sharks got him."

"There wasn't nothin' left?"

"One of his Reeboks is all they found," Amber said. "Inside was something that looked like a toe. Of course, it wasn't tattooed."

"Damn."

To Shiner's surprise, Amber began to sing as she went at him with the fishhook:

"Smile like a princess but bite like a snake –

Got ice in her veins and a heart that don't ache.

She a nut-cutting bitch and that's no lie,

'em both off with a gleam in her eye ... "

Shiner said, "You got a nice voice."

"White Rebel Brotherhood," said Amber, "the song I told you about. It's killer." As she worked on the tattoo, her face was so close he could feel the soft breath on his skin.

He said, "Maybe I'll check out the CD."

"They do it more hip-hop."

"Yeah, I figgered."

"Am I hurting you?"

"Naw," Shiner lied. "Matter a fact, I was wonderin' if mebbe you could add somethin' extry. Under the eagle."

"Such as?"

"A swatch ticker," said Shiner.

"A what?"

"You know – a swatch ticker. Like the Nazis had."

Amber glanced up sharply. "Swastika, you mean."

"Yeah!" He practiced the proper pronunciation. "That'd be cool, don'tcha think?"

"I don't know how to draw one. Sorry."

Shiner mulled it over, wincing every so often at the stabs of the fishhook. "I seen some good ones at the colonel's place," he said eventually, "if I can only 'member how they went. Look here ... "

He cleared a place in the sand and, using a forefinger, drew his version of the infamous German cross.

Amber shook her head. "That's not right."

"You sure?"

"You made it look like ... like something from the Chinese alphabet."

"Now hold on," said Shiner, but he was stumped. Just then Bodean Gazzer came stomping out of the mangroves. He sat near the fire and began wiping dew from his rifle. Shiner called him over.

"Colonel, can you do a swatch ticker?"

"No problem." Bode saw an opportunity to impress Amber at the kid's expense. He put down the gun and joined them under the tarp. With a sweep of a hand he erased Shiner's chicken-scratch swastika. In broad, sure strokes he sketched his own.

Amber briefly scrutinized the design before declaring it had "too many thingies." She was referring to the tiny stems that Bode had drawn on the ends of the secondary legs.

"You're wrong, sweetheart," he told her. "That's exactly how the Nasties done it."

Amber didn't argue, but she thought: Any serious white supremacist and Jew-hater would know how to make a swastika. Bode and Shiner's confusion on the topic reaffirmed her suspicions that the White Clarion Aryans were a pretty lame operation.

"OK, you're the expert," she said to Bode, and began reheating the point of the fishhook with a cigaret lighter.

Shiner felt his stomach jump. He had a hunch Amber was right – the colonel's swastika was odd-looking; too many angles, and the lines seemed to point in the wrong directions. The damn thing was either upside down or inside out, Shiner couldn't tell which.

"Where you gone put it?" Bode asked.

"Under the bird." Amber tapped the designated location on Shiner's left biceps.

Bode said, "Perfect."

Shiner didn't know what to do. He didn't want to offend his commanding officer but he sure as hell didn't want another defective tattoo. And a fucked-up swastika would be difficult to fix, Shiner knew; difficult and painful.

Amber pressed a fresh batch of ice cubes against his arm. "Let me know when you can't feel the cold."

Bode Gazzer edged closer. "I wanna watch."

Shiner fixed his gaze on the blackened barb of the fishhook and instantly became dizzy.

"Ready?" asked Amber.

Shiner sucked in a deep breath – he'd made up his mind. He'd do it for the brotherhood.

"Anytime," he said thickly, and locked his eyes shut.

At first he believed the screams he heard were his own. Then, as the animal howling tapered to a stream of profanity, Shiner recognized the timbre of Chub's voice.

Then Amber saying: "Oh my God."

And Bodean Gazzer: "What the hell!"

Shiner looked up to see Chub, nude except for Amber's orange shorts, which he wore upon his head. The shorts were pulled down as snugly as a skullcap, fitted at an angle to hide Chub's eye patch.

But that's not what made the others stare.

It was fastened to the end of Chub's right arm, which hung limp and heavy at his side. Where once there was only a pair of dead crab pincers there was now a complete live crab; one of the largest crabs Amber had ever seen, outside the Seaquarium.