Victor had driven the white tender back to Acklins Island and Rebel Yell. I lay in the bottom wedged between the console and the side tube, a life jacket for my pillow, trying not to disturb the new blood clots in my bandaged and strapped arm. Once we reached my schooner, Victor called Harry Allan on the single sideband and arranged the pickup. Harry’s four-seater Cessna 180 met Senator Sanchez, Cori and Brooke on the packed-sand road by Atwood Harbour. I wasn’t there, but Victor reported that the handoff went smoothly. I’m sure their arrival in Florida was handled with the complete discretion befitting the senator’s station. As far as anyone was concerned, none of them had ever left Florida.
Cori was appropriately tearful and grateful to me before she left, but her hugs and kisses were sisterly, not those of a lover. As the song says, nothing ever lasts forever. Though both girls were all right physically, I had no doubt their mental scars would remain long after their hair grew back. Maybe they’d get over it, maybe they wouldn’t. But at least they were alive and relatively unharmed. It could have been worse.
Brooke returned to Miami with just a scraped face and a chopped haircut to show for her weekend adventure. Any favors the grateful senator bestowed upon her, I didn’t hear about, but I knew Sanchez wanted both Brooke and Cori to be very happy. And quiet. The United States might have been broke, but even so it was nice having a senator in your debt. I hadn’t personally tested the limits of his gratitude yet, but that day was surely coming.
Nick, Kelly and Tran remained on Castigo Cay for a few hours after we left. They didn’t find any gold coins or bullion on Topaz, just a little more jewelry and plenty of exotic artwork, but they didn’t spend a long time searching. When they were finished, Nick and Kelly got her under way from the little salt-pond harbor. Nick laughingly described to me how he’d done at least a million dollars in hull damage driving her out through that rocky channel, even at slack tide. It turned out that Topaz had twin jet drives instead of conventional propellers, so he was able to bang her over, around and off the coralheads until they were in deep water.
They scuttled Topaz while Tran circled on the Avon. Nick used an engine room emergency fire ax to chop through some rubber hose sections on the engines’ seawater intakes, and down she went just a few miles from Castigo Cay. She’s resting on the bottom under more than two miles of ocean, if you want to go look for her. Over two thousand fathoms down according to the paper chart, but they didn’t mark her final position. It hurt to sink such a fine piece of machinery—especially after only a quick search for hidden valuables—but its continued existence without its owner and crew would raise questions that could never be answered.
Even so, we came out of the salvage decently well. The white tender and its 150-horsepower Yamaha outboard had already paid for the marine railway haulout. Two coats of red anti-fouling bottom paint, a new coat of glossy black for her topsides, and fresh off-white decks. Rebel Yell looked pretty darn good, considering her advanced age and her mileage.
The other items liberated from Topaz would take a while to dispose of. The masthead FLIR unit alone would be worth a small fortune, even at a fence’s cutthroat price. There were a few other high-value items such as the gyro-gimbaled ComSat dome, some other electronics, and the artwork. But what couldn’t be stripped from Topaz in a few hours went down to the bottom with her. Maybe there were thousands of Krugerrands or Maple Leafs hidden inside. If so, they’re still down there. I might have spent a while longer searching the megayacht, but I wasn’t there.
Topaz’s electronics and rare artifacts were valuable, but we were too close to the Bahamas to try fencing them. Especially not while a well-known corporate CEO was still missing under mysterious circumstances. Victor had shown me some news stories he’d copied onto his laptop at a cyber cafe. There was a rumor afloat in the business pages that Richard Prechter had absconded aboard his yacht after embezzling millions in government funds. That sure sounded plausible to me. Pete Sanchez’s aides and bodyguards must have wondered about their boss’s mysterious activities that night, but I don’t imagine there is much a United States senator can’t smooth over.
Nick was more than happy with his end of the recovery. There was some loose cash, about a half-million American dollars, he said, and I let him take most of it. He and Kelly left Acklins Island a few days later on my Pantera. They delivered the twenty-four-foot speedboat back to Yance Mabry’s place on West End, where it’s stowed on a trailer beneath his house once again. When his son finally gets sprung from federal prison, he can have it back with my compliments. Until then I like the idea of it being there, in case I need to visit my homeland again.
Off the books, of course.
Nick and Kelly flew from West End back to George Town on Harry’s Cessna. As of last week they were cruising the Exumas on Nick’s Hunter 33. Nick got through to Rebel Yell on single-sideband from somebody else’s yacht, his own boat still without long-range comms. Their joy came through the flat radio tones and static loud and clear.
Kelly said she was going to go back to school in the fall, probably. But at least until then, she was having the time of her life learning to sail and shoot. They had even snorkeled in Thunderball Cave near Staniel Cay, and I felt sure that she was hooked. How could college compete with that? I was happy for both of them.
****
By common law, the tidal area of the Dutch island was not private property. This included where the iron rails disappeared into the calm, clear water of the bay. So nobody at the boatyard bothered about the little troop of young European tourists joking and grab-assing their way over the rocks and along the beach. They were harmless, and the local economy depended on the money they spent. They seemed more-or-less college age, split evenly between boys and girls. The marine railway with the big black schooner hauled up onto the land must have seemed photogenic, because several of them produced cameras and began taking pictures. The boatyard gave the endless vistas of Caribbean blue some stark industrial contrast, with a sailing theme.
One of the girls snapping photos had blond braids dangling from each side of a light-blue ball cap. She was wearing a white bikini top, white gym shorts and sandals. By the island’s standards she was fully dressed for a stroll; most of the European girls sunbathed topless on the beaches.
The blond girl snapped a few side shots of Rebel Yell and then walked down the cement by the iron rails to line up a shot of her stern. I stood up and walked down the slipway toward her. Her group was bored with the boatyard doings and was moving further along the beach toward the next rocky point.
From a few yards away I announced, “Hello? Hi—I really wish you wouldn’t.”
I didn’t want a close-up shot taken of Rebel Yell’s transom. I remembered what Frank Bloomfield told me back at the Fontainebleau: digital photographs are forever. That picture could be emailed anywhere in the world in seconds flat. Who knew what sophisticated data-mining programs Bloomfield’s agency used for scooping pictures out of the ether and cross-searching them. I did know that letters, words and names could be snatched by their supercomputers right off of photographs in transmission. Block letters could be, at least.
But if the words were painted in cursive script, with freeform loops and swirls? I didn’t know if Big Brother’s computers were quite there yet, but I didn’t want to chance it. I didn’t want an unexpected visitor from Miami, Washington or anywhere else asking me to do odd jobs for Uncle Sam. Or for anybody else.
My sudden approach startled the girl a little, so I gave her a gentle smile to compensate for my rough start. Her pale blue ball cap had an embroidered green-and-dark-blue world on the front, with a black arrow pointing to the Caribbean. In English it was captioned, “You are here.”
Oh, yes, we were.
She turned and said, “Who are you?” She was more cute than pretty, with new sunburn on her cheeks and nose. Not as tall as Cori, but taller than Kelly Urbanzik. Maybe five-seven. Her nose was slightly uptilted, and I decided she was pretty after all.
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br /> “Who? I’m the owner of this boat.”
“You’re an American?” she lowered her camera. “Do you live in Panama?” Below the vessel’s name Panama City was given as the home port but no flag flew from the stern.
I answered both questions with “I’ve spent time there.”
“I’m from Holland, the Netherlands.”
That certainly explained her blond braids and sea-green eyes. I remembered reading that the Dutch were the tallest nationality, so her height of about five-seven must have put her on the shorter side of the home-team lineup. I supposed she was nothing too special back there, just another slim, attractive fair-haired girl. In the States, girls like her often grew up with a serious ice-princess complex.
I said, “You know what? We have something in common. My boat is Dutch like you. She was built in Holland, and she’s been all the way around the world. Not me—just the boat. That voyage happened before she was mine.”
“Around the world? Oh, that’s a fantastic story. How big is it?”
“She’s twenty meters long.” Counting the bowsprit, but why mention details?
“That’s a very big boat for a man so young as you.” She tilted her head and regarded me skeptically, or perhaps she was just being playful. “Are you truly the owner? You’re not telling me a story and the true owner is some dreadful old fat man in New York, who calls you on the telephone and tells you where to sail his boat?”
I laughed. “No, there’s no fat man in New York calling me on the telephone. I’m truly the owner, and this is truly my boat.”
“And you sail wherever you like, free like the birds? That is a perfect life!” As she looked high up the schooner’s two masts, her face was alight with some personal eureka moment, which then clouded slightly.
I asked her, “Are you here on holiday?”
“Yes, my parents said I could visit the Caribbean, but only if I came with a group and came to a Dutch island.” I could tell that her English teachers had been from Great Britain, not America. Her accent was a charming mixture of dialects and expressions. She was not Euro-trash, but was definitely from the higher end.
“So, you’re going back to school soon?” She seemed that age, and it was nearly August.
The blond girl frowned. “I am supposed to go back to the university, but I don’t want to. This is my first time to visit the Caribbean, and I adore it. Since I was four years age I have attended school without a stop. Sixteen years of school without one year for holiday is enough, don’t you think?”
“I think sixteen years is enough. You can go back to the university next year.”
One semester of college had finished higher education for me. An old military bumper sticker flashed into my mind:
Everything I need to know
I learned at sniper school.
I didn’t think this pretty Dutch girl with the bright green eyes would understand the humor, so I just smiled and let the thought float away.
“Are they almost finished the work on your boat?”
“Almost. One more coat of bottom paint this afternoon. We’ll go back in the water tomorrow morning.”
“I’m staying at the Caribe Azul until next Saturday…”
“That’s a nice place. I like the bar there. And the pool.”
She brightened. “I thought I saw you there. Will you go again tonight?”
We were standing only a yard apart, near the lapping water. I had by degrees circled around to stand lower than her on the slipway, to bring her face up closer to mine. We were doing a subconscious minuet, our eyes rarely off one another.
“Maybe. And will you?”
“I think so,” she replied with a coy smile.
I extended my right hand. “My name is Dan. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Birgitta.” She took my grasp, smiled broadly enough to dimple her cheeks, and we held eye contact. Her grip was soft but firm. “So, Dan, when your sailing boat is in the water again, perhaps you can show me a tour? After all, it’s a Dutch boat, so I’m sure it’s a good one, and I’m sure I will like it.”
“Why not? I can pick you up on the beach by your hotel. You’ll know when my boat is back at anchor.” Only a few other foreign sailboats were moored in the bay, and nothing over forty feet. When we dropped our hook, we’d become the biggest mansion on the block. At least until something larger showed up.
“And my friends may come also?” A note of caution, expected. It was the old safety-in-numbers approach. She need not have worried about her safety, but I didn’t mind if she brought her entire posse along. There was plenty of room on a sixty-foot schooner for all of them for a day sail.
“Of course. As many as can fit into my dinghy.” I pointed to my gray Avon, pulled up on the beach just beyond the railway. Its engine was tipped up; its bow line was tied to a palm tree. Another perfect Caribbean postcard.
“Oh, I should love to visit your boat! And so also my friends, I’m sure in that.”
I knew they would enjoy their brief experience of visiting my schooner. Schooner was even a Dutch word. They had invented and named that sailing rig centuries ago.
“Let’s do it, then. We can anchor over a coral reef and go snorkeling.”
She walked closer to the stern of Rebel Yell, below the transom, studying the underwater hull and rudder. “Dan, your sailing boat looks very strong. But I can’t decide: is it a pleasure boat or a working boat?”
Admittedly, the almost square pilothouse planted behind the mainmast didn’t give my schooner a graceful yacht profile. Neither did her bluff transom, nor the steel-pipe bowsprit welded to her stem at the pointy end.
“I would say sometimes work, and sometimes pleasure. But I always try for less work and more pleasure.”
I looked into her bright eyes while I said that, and she looked into mine. It was that magical instant of the awareness of awareness. After a long moment she broke her gaze and turned her attention back to my boat’s stern, which had been the subject of her camera’s lens.
“What does ‘Rebel Yell’ mean? I know that rebel means revolution, but I don’t know the other word.”
“Yell means to scream, or shout. But rebel doesn’t mean revolution. Not exactly.”
“No? What is the difference?”
“To make a revolution, to be a revolutionary, you have to believe in something. Some new master plan for everybody to obey. But to be a rebel, you don’t have to believe in anything. You’re just a rebel, and you only want to be free.”
Matthew Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and graduated from the University of Virginia and UDT/SEAL Training in 1979. He is married with two children and lives in Florida. Matt is currently working on a new Dan Kilmer novel.
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