“First,” she said, “you disappear off my boat leaving me to try to explain to the French Immigration authorities what happened to the American man I claimed I had brought into the country.” The shark oven mitt bit her second finger. “Then, I find you gave me a fake name. After that, of course, the French authorities accused me of trafficking in illegal aliens and took away my passport. And let’s not forget that you stole my only handheld VHF radio.” The tea kettle started whistling, but she ignored it as she continued advancing on him. “Then you have the nerve to come back and break into my boat and go rummaging through my things. And every damned time you come on my boat you seem to forget your clothes.” She was standing just in front of him by now, the shark oven mitt scrunched up into a fist.

“Please, lady,” he said, widening his eyes and holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t hit me with that fish.”

She looked down at her half-cocked arm, then she seemed to hear the squealing kettle. For just a second, a look of disappointment flashed across her face before she stepped to the galley and turned off the gas. Damn, he thought. She really was going to hit me.

As she poured the steaming water over the tea bags, he could hear her breathing, trying to get herself under control. He took the moment to scan the books behind the settee opposite him. He didn’t see it there. He wondered if he had just missed it in the chart table because of the dark.

When he glanced back at her she was stuffing the shark oven mitt into a cabinet. “That true?” he asked. “They took your passport?”

She nodded while she continued to work.

He watched her face with fascination. He knew that getting caught aboard her boat should be a major setback for him. It was all about the coin, decoding the journals, the submarine, but he had to admit it — he was glad to have another chance to watch her lips move when she talked to herself or how she used one finger to tuck a short strand of hair behind her ear.

The silence stretched out as she collected spoons and a sugar bowl and placed it all on the table. She sat at the end of the dinette table and looked at him through the steam as she blew across the top of her mug.

“I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble,” he said.

She took a slow sip of the hot tea before she answered.  “You should be.”

Man, he thought, she had this tough guy act down pat. He wondered how long she had been using this routine to keep the world at arm’s length. He watched her ramrod-straight posture, lips pressed together in a tight line, the graceful way she held her arms when she lifted her cup. He suspected if any man could get past the Marine sentry, she could be one hell of a woman.

“Would it help if I told you I had my reasons for doing the things I’ve done?”

“Probably not.”

“Listen, Magee, things aren’t always what they seem. Please, just hear me out on this. We think we know what reality is. We think we understand the world and know right and wrong, black and white. Then we learn something that changes everything. You know, people once thought the world was flat and then ol’ Chris Columbus came along.”

“So you’re going to tell me that’s your name now? Chris Columbus?”

“No,” he said. “But Columbus did have to break a few rules to do what he did. Like me.” He took a deep breath, then tried again. “Is there anything I can do now to make you forgive me?”

“Could start with your name. Your real name.”

He stood up and with an exaggerated flourish bent over in a deep bow from the waist, his arms bent across his body fore and aft. When he stood up again, his head throbbed anew where she’d hit him, but seeing the faint crinkle of laugh lines around her eyes made it worth it. “Let me introduce myself, Captain Maggie Riley. My name is Cole Thatcher.” He held out his hand.

Before she could take his hand, the Bonefish heeled over and began to rock and roll so violently, Cole almost landed in her lap. She was too quick, though, and before he regained his balance, she was up the ladder and out into the cockpit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Îles des Saintes

March 26, 2008

7:45 p.m.

Spyder watched as the old island fishing boat plowed through the anchorage throwing up a three-foot wake. Starting at the outer anchorage and continuing right up to the sailing dinghies just off the wharf, he heard the sound of hatches slamming open, swearing in all different languages, and rigging creaking and clanking as the waves spread out and spars swung in crazy arcs through the sky. He had to give this Thor dude credit, man. Fucker could make an entrance.

The face behind the glass at the fishing boat’s inside steering station was lit up as the old guy at the wheel neared the yellow phospho lights on the wharf. Guy looked like one of the rummies you saw hanging out around the fish market and the main town waterfront back in the capital. Dude’s boat looked worse than he did: peeling paint, weed and moss all along the waterline, and the smoking exhaust had stained the entire back half of the hull almost black. And the fish stink was stronger than the stench of diesel. Spyder smiled at the thought of the tight ass Thor dude having to spend several hours on that old tub.

Standing by ready to take a line, Spyder soon realized that Thor was the only passenger and the old rummie captain seemed to want him off his boat ASAP. The captain spun the boat around so he wouldn’t have to bother with tying up. He put his aft quarter up against the dock and Thor stood on the bulwark, his small duffel tucked under his arm and the strap of a computer case across his chest. He tossed the duffel at Spyder, then jumped onto the wharf. A black cloud of exhaust rose as the water roiled at the stern. The rummy goosed the throttle and the fishing boat took off into the night.

Spyder thought about tossing the dude his duffel bag right back. He wasn’t this guy’s boat nigger. He had a bad feeling about this dude — was beginning to wonder if it had been such a great idea for him and Pinky to get mixed up with these freaks Thor and Caliban. He didn’t want nothing to mess up this chance to score.

It had started back home in Buxton out on the Outer Banks. Pinky was working as a busboy at Teach’s down at the marina in Hatteras and one Sunday afternoon when he was filling the bar bins with ice, he heard these two guys talking ‘bout a wreck. Pinky’s ears pricked up when the drunk one whispered the word gold. Pinky went back to the kitchen and called Spyder on the phone inside the manager’s office, told him to get his butt over here and sit next to the tall, skinny nigger at the bar and listen to everything he and the drunk dude said. Spyder’d been working as a deckhand on a sportsfish right there in the marina, but they didn’t have no charter that day so he was there in five minutes. He slid onto the empty stool next to them, nodded and asked about the weather. Then, he bought them a round of rum, followed by another.

Soon Spyder learned that the drunk one was named Dr. Thatcher, but he wasn’t the kind of doctor that give out pills and such. The tall, skinny black dude was the deckhand on his boat, but it seemed to Spyder that Doc was treating him pretty decent for a deckhand. In all Spyder’s years of working boats on the Outer Banks, he’d never once had the owner buying him drinks in the bar.

The Doc couldn’t hold his liquor. The deckhand was an uptight island dude, and he kept trying to get his boss to leave, but Spyder kept the rum flowing and soon, the Doc was on a roll. He started shooting his mouth off about this famous submarine that got sunk in the World War with a ton of gold down in the Caribbean, and ‘bout how they was fixin’ to go on down there and get it. He never said so, but Spyder just knew he had a map or something that was gonna show him to the gold. Finally, the island dude just about dragged him oughta’ there, but Spyder had heard enough. He knew he was gonna stick to this guy like mud on a pig.