The grand gesture. Tomlinson seldom missed an opportunity, although, in this case, nostalgia and his leftist idealism probably played a role.

Ford had made the mistake of asking, “What if Castro’s mistress is dead?”

That mystic journey could not be summarized in a sentence.

Ahead were clouds separated by miles of water, the surface lucent, punctuated by coral heads and banks of white sand until the Earth ruptured into canyons below. There, a line of cobalt marked the color change.

“No bottom” was the old mariner’s term.

Flying is how it felt to Ford when he tapped the throttles up to 4000 rpm and let the boat settle into the slow rise and fall of the Florida Straits. He checked gauges—oil, water, fuel, amps—all good. Looked astern—the simplest of safety precautions that amateurs often failed to do. Went through his list while frigate birds searched the sky for thermals: safety harness with EPIRB where it belonged . . . kill switch attached to belt . . . enough water and MREs for a week stowed with emergency gear; tactical mace, a survival knife, and his old Sig P226, plus the mini Sig Sauer he’d taken, along with an ankle holster, from the cable installer. Two hundred rounds of 9mm were in a waterproof sleeve fitted inside the chemical toilet’s flush tank.

Ingenious, the agency that had designed this boat.

For purposes of deception: fishing rods with gold International reels in plain sight, four radar decoy buoys, a false passport, ten thousand in dollars and euros, a field kit that could only belong to a biologist, and a letter of introduction confirming he was doing important research on sea turtles.

The letter was signed with a flourish and the personal seal of Gen. Juan Simón Rivera, former president of Masagua. Even if Ford caught up with No Más and convinced Tomlinson to turn around, he would need the equipment because he’d made up his mind to continue on to Cuba.

Check. Check. Check. Like the pilot of an airliner, he went through the list, stayed busy until he’d reached the equivalent of cruising altitude.

Flying. To Ford, that’s how it felt to point a good boat at the horizon and leave the world behind.

•   •   •

RADAR SHOWED a gathering of vessels ten miles ahead, close enough that Ford caught glimpses of a Coast Guard cutter’s tower, so he adjusted his course eastward, where clouds descended into the warm Gulf Stream. Rain most likely. Fog was rare this late in the afternoon.

A helicopter appeared, one of the big ones with all the electronics. The best hope of avoiding attention was to steer toward it. He did, maintained course, while the chopper drifted away in a methodical search pattern.

Maybe it was true: a robot ship had hit a smaller vessel and dumped people into the water. It was the sort of diversion he needed, yet his mood took a hit. Poor bastards, he thought. “Good luck.” Said it aloud and meant it. Even on a bright, calm day, the odds of finding a person adrift were not good. In rain or fog? Or if the wind freshened? Forget it. Technology had yet to match the enormity of the open sea.

For no good reason, the image of No Más popped into his head. Earlier, he’d tried to raise Tomlinson on VHF radio. He tried again on the four channels commonly used in Dinkin’s Bay.

No response.

He’d already done the mental arithmetic but reviewed anyway: two boats with different departure times, traveling unequal distances at greatly different speeds, might intersect, give or take a few hours, on a large acreage of Gulf Stream.

In the electronics suite, the GPS chart suggested that No Más should be within radio range—fifteen to twenty miles. On a sailboat, antennas are mounted atop the mast, and Ford’s boat had a communications system unavailable to civilians. No surprise that Tomlinson didn’t answer his cell, but his radio? The man was a VHF whore when it came to local gossip.

Unless . . . he had the damn stereo booming. Yes, that was probably it. The refugee shortstop wouldn’t have been fool enough to climb on a boat to Cuba, so Tomlinson was alone and drowning his solitude with Hendrix or Buffett.

Ford was unconvinced, and remained subdued. Focused less on his destination and more on the water around him. Soon, tendrils of fog swept past the boat at forty knots. He slowed to thirty on the pretense of saving fuel.

Not a chance in hell they’re looking for Tomlinson, he told himself. Even so, he activated the boat’s thermal imaging system. A lens overhead scanned the surface and translated temperature into colors on a screen. Lobster buoys and floating litter were gray. The sea was cool blue. A person adrift would appear as a speck of fiery red. It was the same imaging system used by the helicopter, so what was the point?

He asked himself that and pursued the logical thread. What if you do find wreckage? Or even a survivor? You’ll have to involve the Coast Guard. Then you and Tomlinson are both screwed. So get back to speed and stop this nonsense.

Ford was unaware that he often argued with himself. Part of him believed that emotion was a useless tie to the Stone Age. Not unlike the nub of prehensile tail at the end of his spine. He liked people, though, couldn’t help it, so empathy was his most consistent opponent.

To be adrift out here, alone, in a thousand feet of water, would be hell . . .

That kept going through his mind.

In the distance, he saw what might be a box someone had thrown overboard. Dusky gray on the thermal screen. More objects bobbing nearby—a pod of flotsam that might be wreckage. He backed the throttles, his eyes moving from the water to the electronics suite. A bag of garbage surfaced momentarily, then submerged.

Ford stood—something bothered him about the bag. He dropped the boat off plane and focused on the spot, because plastic bags don’t sink. Didn’t blink until the bag appeared again a boat length away, but this time resembling the back of a turtle. He checked the screen, saw a blob of orange heat, and knew then it wasn’t a bag or a turtle. It was a person, either dead or almost dead, the body losing heat fast. He killed the engines, dumped what he could from his pockets, and went over the side.

A corpse . . . that’s what he found. It was obvious when he snatched a pale wrist, did a reverse thrust with his legs, and exposed what was left of the body. Nothing identifiable. A male, possibly, wearing ragged shorts, no shoe on his only foot, and no right arm to offer tattoos or prints as an ID.

Going through the dead man’s pockets could wait. Ford sculled backwards to create distance.

Sharks had been feeding on the body, which was still warm. Obvious. Just as obvious: sharks from a quarter mile below, and miles around, were not done feeding.

“Dumbass.” Said this to himself aloud, not because he’d rushed to the rescue but because he hadn’t bothered to grab a safety line before jumping overboard. His feet had kicked the boat away. Now instead of a few yards, he had to swim the length of a pool.

He started out with a breaststroke but, looking down into the black maw of the Gulf Stream, invented shadows that cruised beneath him. The elementary backstroke was more distressing: a dorsal fin breached the surface to his right and pirouetted to investigate.

Hammerhead, Ford, the biologist, decided. The damn fin was as tall as his arm.

The shark submerged with a swirl that spun chunks of Styrofoam and other wreckage into a whirlpool while a pair of big remoras cruised past. Bad sign. They were shark suckers in search of a larger, more productive host.

Ford, the biologist, wondered, Why don’t they glom onto me? then stiffened when he realized Because there’s something a hell of a lot bigger nearby.

A few strokes later, his head collided with a chunk of debris—bamboo lashed to plywood. This evoked enough nervous laughter that he was disgusted with himself.