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Thirty years old, wiry and in good physical shape, he stared almost vacantly at the brilliant sea as he rubbed a hand over the stubble of new beard growth. He was blond and blue-eyed and a former Special Forces veteran, hired by the in-house security department of a vast corporate empire about which he knew little and cared even less. His assignments covered the world and occasionally included assassination, but he was paid and paid well. That's all that mattered.
He yawned and changed the discs in his CD player. His taste was eclectic and ran from classical to soft rock. He had just pushed the play button when his eye caught a movement around the outcropping of rock that fell off just beyond his security shack. He swung the binoculars and focused on a bright blue-and-white object that was coming very fast over the water.
It was a yacht, the strangest-looking yacht he had ever seen; not a sailboat but a twin-hulled catamaran power cruiser, and it was cutting through the sun-danced water at what he guessed as close to forty knots. He rubbed his eyes and stared through the big, powerful binoculars again.
The boat was a good seventy feet, he estimated. He couldn't decide if he loved her design or hated it. The more he examined her lines, the more elegant and exotic she appeared. She reminded him of a pair of ice skates cut down and molded together with a circular wheelhouse on the top. On the upper open deck, two people, a man and woman, lounged in a Jacuzzi, drinking out of tall glasses and laughing. All the craft's windows were tinted, and he could not see any suggestion of other crewmembers or passengers.
He turned to the radio, switched on the transmitter and began speaking. "This is Pirate. I have a private yacht approaching from the
northeast."
"The northeast, you say," replied a voice like sandpaper.
"Probably on a cruise from Tahiti to New Zealand."
"Any sign of weapons or armed personnel?"
"None."
"She doesn't look threatening?" asked the rough voice.
"Not unless you consider two naked people in a Jacuzzi threatening."
"Is she making toward the channel?"
The security guard examined the heading of the twin bows as the yacht sped closer. "She looks to be going past."
"Stay on the air and report any suspicious movement. If she turns into the channel, you know what you have to do."
The guard glanced at one of the missile launchers. "A pity to destroy such a handsome boat." He swung in his chair and gazed at the boat through the glasses again, somewhat pleased at seeing it continue on a course past the channel. He watched until it became a tiny speck in the distance. Then he called over the radio again. "This is Pirate. The yacht is gone. It appears as if she dropped anchor in the open lagoon on the south end of Macaulay Island."
"Then she's harmless," said a rough voice.
"It would seem so."
"Watch her lights after dark and make sure she stays put."
"I suspect she settled in for the night. Her passengers and crew are probably going to barbecue steaks on the beach. They just look like yachtsmen on a South Pacific cruise."
"I'll fly a reconnaissance in the helicopter and see if you're right."
Misty and Giordino were not naked in the hot tub. They were wearing swimsuits provided by Cussler. They were, however, sipping rum collinses as the boat cruised under the steep palisades of Raoul Island. Cussler and Pitt were not as lucky. The old man sat at the helm station with a chart in his lap, eyeing the depth sounder and examining the bottom coral reefs that could have sliced the Periwinkle's twin hulls like razor blades through cardboard. Pitt had the worst job of all. He lay sweating under a pile of pillows and towels on the lower lounge deck, videotaping the guardhouse at the top of the cliffs overlooking the channel entrance.
Once the yacht was anchored, they all settled into the main salon and gazed at the monitor while Pitt played the tape on the VCR. The telephoto lens on the camera, combined with the video enhancement, revealed the guard through the windows of the guardhouse in slightly fuzzy detail but clear enough to distinguish him peering at them through a pair of huge binoculars. Added to the video was the soundtrack of the conversation between the guard and the coarse voice of his colleague somewhere in the Raoul Island lagoon, as traced and recorded by Cussler's high-tech communications systems.
"We fooled them," said Misty, unhesitating.
"Lucky we didn't attempt to run up the channel with all flags flying," Giordino said, pressing a bottle of cold beer against his forehead.
"They didn't give the impression they take kindly to strangers," Pitt agreed.
As if to affirm his statement, the thump of rotors and roar of engine exhaust sounded throughout the cabin as a helicopter flew over the yacht.
"The man said he was going to reconnoiter us," said Pitt. "What say we go out and wave to them?"
A red-and-yellow-painted helicopter, with its registration number and ownership lettering on its fuselage hidden under duct tape, hovered no more than a hundred feet in the air and slightly off the stern of the Periwinkle. Two men wearing flowered shirts peered down at the yacht.
Pitt lay sprawled on a couch on the lounge deck while Giordino stood partially under the deck overhang videotaping the aircraft with the camera hidden under his shirt and armpit. Misty and Cussler stood beside the Jacuzzi and waved to the men above. Pitt held up a glass and motioned for the pilots to join them. Seeing a woman and an older man with gray hair and beard must have dismissed their suspicions. The pilot of the helicopter waved back and Banked the aircraft around the yacht and headed back to Raoul Island, satisfied that the tourists were no menace.
