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Made sense, thought Bell. Even in wind and roiled seas, Marion had covered the sixty miles from Nassau in less than three hours. Zolner would have found this an ideal place to hide Black Bird, too. He could have zipped in and out with the boat.
He shook his head again. “Last time we almost caught the black boat, Zolner blew up his boathouse.”
“Maybe we’re lucky he moved the ship. If he left it, he would blow it up like his boathouse.”
“Going home a hero of the revolution,” said Pauline.
“But first finish Yuri’s job? What job?”
Bell smelled tobacco burning. The dockworkers had hunkered down behind the gasoline barrels to share a smoke.
“Douse that cigarette! You’ll blow my boat to kingdom come!”
The smoker took a last drag, passed it to his friend, who inhaled another. A third man grabbed a quick puff and flicked the butt in the water.
The man Bell was talking to chuckled. “Just like de boss man. Every day he always say, ‘No smoke by ship. Big explosion.’”
Isaac Bell plunged his hand in his pocket and pulled out his bankroll. Twelve tons of pure alcohol would make a very big explosion. “I want that gasoline.”
Tobin said, “We’ve got plenty in the tanks, Mr. Bell. It’ll only weigh us down.”
“We’ll burn it soon enough. It’s twelve hundred miles to New York.”
• • •
THEY HAD STOWED the last barrel they could fit, and Bell had tipped the dockworkers lavishly, when a church bell began to toll. The islanders’ smiles faded at the urgent clamor. Their eyes shot to the government building. The Union Jack was descending the flagpole. A red flag with yellow stripes jumped up in its place.
“What’s that?” asked Bell.
“Red flag with black square say hurricane.”
“I know that. What do those yellow stripes mean?”
“Hurricane come straight here.”
• • •
MARION thundered through South Bar Passage. The tide was strong, the ocean swell steep and destructive in the narrow cut and breaking on the sandbar. Bell aimed at what looked deepest and drove her through in a welter of foam and headed for the open sea.
Beyond the reef, the seas were big but orderly. He set a course north and was glad to see that Marion could maintain forty knots without straining. His crew, he could see, were apprehensive, and he tried to raise their spirit
s.
“Between a cashiered Coastie, a Staten Island pirate, and a yachtsman, we ought to be able to find Cape Hatteras Light. From there, it’ll be an easy run up the coast.”
“How far is Cape Hatteras?” asked Pauline.
Bell shrugged. “Less than eight hundred miles.” He showed her the chart. “We’ll steer a course just west of north.”
Pauline’s brow furrowed as she studied the chart in the murky light that penetrated the windshield and the isinglass side curtains. “It appears we have to get around Abaco, first.”
“We should see Hope Town Light in a couple of hours,” said Bell.
“If we can make forty knots in these seas, we’ll take a full day and night to Cape Hatteras.”
“We’re burning a lot of gas at forty,” said Tobin.
“There’s a hurricane chasing behind,” said Bell. “I want room between it and us.”
