"Hey, man." Martins looked up and smiled, his round-lensed glasses looking absurd on his long-nosed face. "Like, what's happenin'? It ain't the time for your regular lessons."

Walker jerked his head at the other two men. They spread out behind him, covering the entrances. I really need this turkey, he told himself. Martins knew his work; he was even a good teacher, and Walker had put himself out to learn the basics over the summer. Knowledge was always valuable, and among other things he now knew how the smith thought.

"Your friends want some lessons too?" Martins said, his voice full of its usual dreamy mildness.

"Actually, John," Walker said, "what I'd like is for you to come along with me. Right now."

The mild brown eyes blinked at him. "Okay, but like, I'm sorry, man, I got some work I have to do. Another time, Okay?"

"I'm afraid it'll have to be now, John," Walker smiled, coming closer. "Really."

"Man, I can't go anywhere now. You know how it is, you're tempering something, it like rilly has to be done in its own time. It's the flow, man."

Barbara was looking up, blinking, an edge of suspicion in her eyes. Something snapped in William's head. He drew the Beretta from its waist holster under his jacket and brought it around.

"Now, you dumb fossil hippie bastard!"

His voice had taken on a crack of command that usually brought results. Martins only blinked again, his mouth setting stubbornly under the walrus mustache.

"Guns," he said. "Oh, I don't like guns. I'm sorry for you, man. Heavy. You're carrying some heavy power trip there, like, authoritarian stuff? No way am I going to, like, reinforce that sort of negative trip." He turned away, lifted the blade out of the oil, and began to wipe it down.

Barbara had given a little scream at the sight of the pistol. Now her eyes flickered to the other two men, the hands resting under their sweatsuit jackets.

"Johnnie," she said breathlessly, "I don't think these guys are kidding. Maybe you'd better go with them."

"Hey, Barbs-you can't let stuff like this divert your energy, you know? It's Will's karma. He has to work it through."

William Walker smiled bleakly and bolstered his pistol. This had not been altogether unanticipated. The tanto he drew from under his left armpit was one of Marlins's own, a heavy-backed thing with a blade six inches long, very slightly curved, with a slanting chisel point. The edge was whetted to just short of razor sharpness. He took four lithe steps and grabbed Barbara by the ear, dragging her to her feet with a squeal of pain.

Martins rounded on him, his hammer going up. "Drop her, man! Drop her now!" His sheeplike face was transformed, forgelight gleaming in his eyes and turning them red. The twenty-pound forging hammer went up as if it weighed no more than a thistle.

Walker smiled and reached around Barbara from behind, letting the tip of his knife rest just under her eye. "Let's put it this way, John. You start cooperating, and I won't cut this stupid cunt here a new set of orifices. You do anything but what I say, and I'll start taking bits off her; she's a big girl, and there are lots of bits. You understand this concept, John? Do you grok it?"

The hammer dropped slowly. "Yeah," he said hollowly. "Careful, man, that's sharp."

Barbara was crying with short, sharp inhalations, tears gleaming in the red-and-white light of the bed of coals in the forge.

"Glad we're communicating at last, John. Here's what you're going to do."

William Walker swung onto the Eagle's deck and turned smartly to salute the flag. "Permission to come aboard, Ms. Hendriksson," he said, turning to the OOD and saluting her in turn.

"Very well, Mr. Walker," she said, returning the courtesy. Less formally: "What's up, Will?"

"Working party, Greta," he said. "A few last things the skipper wanted shifted to the Yare before you take her over tomorrow. Thought I'd get them done tonight so you'd have a clear deck in the morning and no distractions."

"Thanks," Hendriksson said, impressed with his zeal-it was a holiday, after all. "You've been doing a great job working her up."

"De nada," Walker said with an easy smile. He'd cultivated Hendriksson. In a very comradely way; she had a boyfriend ashore now.

He looked around the deck. Not much activity, as you'd expect with the ship at anchor and most of the crew on liberty ashore. The swell was slight, and the ship rode easily under a sky ablaze with stars, a frosted band against the night. Not quite deserted, though. There were still enough people to screw things up completely, if the alarm was given. Speed was the ticket, that and acting as if he had a perfect right to be where he was and doing what he was.

"Sooner done, sooner I can get to sleep," he said. Hendriksson nodded and returned to her post near the wheel, trotting up the gangway from the waist to the poop deck.

Walker fought not to wheeze relief. Sweat trickled down his flanks; it could have been very awkward if she'd stayed closer. A dozen men followed him up the companionway, moving with professional briskness; he'd drilled them in the movements often enough, although in fact only about half of them were Coast Guard.

"This way," he barked, waving them forward with his clipboard.

Lights were dimmed below; he led them down to the second deck, and the locked door that held the Eagle's armory. Full now, since the ship was nearly ready to sail; full with the pick of the island's firearms, what was left after the warehouse fire back in spring. Gray steel door, and a plain gray lock.

"Jimmie," he whispered. Even in a small town like Nantucket you could find appropriate talents, if you looked. A small man eeled his way forward, knelt by the door, and went to work.

Four endless minutes later it clicked open; all he'd had to do was savagely hiss the restless into silence. The door swung back, and Walker shone his flashlight within.

"All right, get the light." A larger battery-powered item went on. "That's the machine gun. Get that and the ammunition first. Rifles next, then the shotguns, then the handguns, then the cleaning oil and parts. Keep it looking normal, no running, but move."

Seconds stretched agonizingly. When two men dropped a box of ammunition they were carrying by the rope-sling handles he had all he could do not to light into them with fists and feet as the deck boomed. Minutes crawled by, and exultation with them. I'm going to do it, by God!

The last boxes went up the stairwells and out on the deck. He never knew exactly what it was that woke Commander Rapczewicz, only that he heard her voice from above, raised in a sharp tone of command:

"You there! Yes, you. Who are you? What are you doing on the Eagle?"

She was the XO. She knew everyone authorized to be on the ship, at least by sight… and the approximations of uniform he'd slowly, painfully accumulated for his recruits were only that, makeshifts. He went up the companionway in four bounding steps and burst onto the deck. Willpower slugged him to a halt, made him walk over calmly with a smile on his face, extending the clipboard.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said. She was hastily dressed-buttons misaligned-and blinking sleep out of her eyes, but narrowly suspicious. "It's right here-"

That brought him within arm's reach. The heel of his right hand rocketed up, punching into the angle of her jaw. Sandy Rapczewicz was a solidly built woman, but his hundred and ninety pounds outweighed her mass by forty. She snapped backward with her heels barely touching the ground and lay in a crumpled heap with blood running from her nose and mouth. Luckily that brought her into the shadows by the bulwark. He looked around. Nobody.

"Get that crate down to the boat," he said, forcing himself out of his crouch. "Now, you fools. Move it." The flat calm of his voice was a better lash than a shriek. They fumbled it up and started down the companionway, feet clattering.