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Stone scanned the horizon behind them. “Wonderful, except forthat,” he said, nodding at a black dot behind them on the horizon. “Distant thunder.”
“What?” Dino asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t get any bigger,” Stone said. Fifteen minutes later, it was bigger.
“I see it,” Dino said. “How fast do you think he’s going?”
“Faster than we are,” Stone said. “Let’s hope she’s burning fuel as fast as we are, too.”
They watched the dot grow larger, then, an hour later, become, identifiably, a boat.
“Looks like a trawler of some kind,” Dino said, holding up a pair of the yacht’s binoculars.
“Let’s hope so. Trawlers aren’t all that fast,” Stone replied.
The boat grew larger. “Dino,” Stone said, “please go below and get the bomb, and bring it and all its pieces up here.”
“Do you know how to put it together?” Dino asked.
“No, but Vanessa does.”
Vanessa opened an eye. “Did I hear my name mentioned?”
“Yes. Dino has gone to get the bomb. It will be your job to get it in working order, and pretty quick, too. In the meantime, we’ll use you for distraction.”
“Okay. You want me to take my bottoms off, too?”
“Sure,” Stone replied offhandedly, “why not?”
Viv seemed to have dozed off. Dino would be glad.
Dino made the main deck again and tiptoed to the fantail, holding a paper shopping bag by the handles. Viv dozed on.
“I’m going to need a towel and some tools,” Vanessa said. “The tools are in my ready bag.”
“Dino?” Stone said. “Ready bag?” He tossed Vanessa the smallest towel he could find, and she spread it over her lap and shook out the contents of the paper bag onto it.
Dino returned with the ready kit and handed it to her, obviously disappointed with the location of the towel.
“Now, let’s see,” Vanessa said. “How does this go?”
Stone winced. Dino looked horrified.
54
The skipper gotanother knot or two out ofBreeze, and the trawler seemed not to be gaining anymore. Stone reckoned they were a mile or so back. He wondered how running full out was going to affectBreeze’s engines.
Vanessa was using the binoculars. “I see a man.”
“Do you recognize him?” Stone asked.
“He could be Majorov, but I’ve only seen him once before, so I can’t be sure.”
Stone used the binoculars, but the man was now obscured by the wheelhouse of the trawler. The skipper called on the handheld. “How are we doing? Are they gaining on us?”
“We seem to be holding our lead,” Stone replied. “How are our engines doing?”
“We’re running at full revs, and I don’t like doing that, but they’re new enough that they might take it without blowing up.”
