Jim threw the knife high in the air and watched it spinning, gleaming, blinking in the sun. I am not false, he thought. I know what's right and I know what's wrong. Maybe someone else could do this. But not me.
The knife sliced without a splash into the sea. The compass swung southwest and stayed there, as steady as a rock.
It seemed foolish to waste an anchor.
But Jim couldn't just drop Will's body over the side and let it drift. Birds and sharks would worry it to pieces. So he went below, pulled one of the spinning bikes out of the locker Will had had constructed in the former front cabin, and muscled it up the companionway. Then he tied Will's arms and legs to it. Muttering a rest-in-peace prayer that didn't mean much to him but couldn't hurt, Jim squatted down on the deck, gathered Will and the heavy bike in his arms, and lifted them over the stern rail. He had the strangest feeling that Will's fantasies were dying with him.
He opened his arms.
With a concussive splash, Will and the spinning bike cannonballed a hole in the water.
The hull wave rolled over it. Jim leaned out, pressing his legs against the stem rail, trying to distinguish the spot. But it was fast falling in the wake, and already the sea was the same.
Feeling numb and very empty, Jim went down to the nav station and wrote in the log, "
Will Spark, buried at sea." He noted the time, the date, and Hustle's position on the GPS
and signed his name.
Had Sentinel just gone overboard? Was it really in Will's head—or only in his imagination? Or was it still bits and
pieces of hardware and software in the hands of widely scattered "cavemen"? Will's stories were starting to run together in Jim's head, fading, dissolving. Sentinel, McVays, Nickels—a blur, a sea of words.
It struck him that he knew he was going to have to get used to life without Will's dreams.
Maybe there was a way to keep the boat. . . . Or should he simply go back to being what he had been before they met?
The one thing Jim knew for sure was that the only way to get through the rest of this day was to concentrate on form. He surprised himself with his first bold move, writing in big block letters: COURSE CHANGE—HOME.
If Will's enemies wanted what was in his head they could keep on chasing him. Jim was going home. If the McVays asked him, he would tell them that Will hadn't really died but had faked his own death, and that the last time he saw Will Spark the old man had gone ashore in Uruguay. At home, if they hassled him, he could dial 911.
The wind was still blowing from the west, the anemometer reading a steady fifteen knots. Donning his safety harness, Jim furled the small headsail and hanked on the big genoa jib.
"Start the engine first to hold the boat into the wind when you're changing sail alone,"
Will had cautioned.
"But I've seen you do it without the engine." To which Will would reply with elaborate patience, "When you've been sailing fifty years you can do it, too."
Jim cranked the diesel, powered into the wind, and raised the genny. Then he let her fall off until the wind was pushing from her port side. She flew northeast on a broad reach.
Ocean Passages of the World said that the best way home from latitude thirty-two degrees south, longitude forty-one degrees west was to head north to latitude 4°45' south, longitude 34° 35' west—a waypoint off Cabo Calcanar on the bulge of South America—then steer 3,460 miles northwest to New York.
But Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Routes recom-
mended that northbound sailboats bear farther east until they picked up the trade winds, then cross the equator at longitude thirty west and on to New York, via Bermuda or the Caribbean.
Jim didn't even know if he had enough food and water left to sail straight home. Maybe he should stop at some American island in the Caribbean. Or why not just pull into Rio de Janeiro? He had an open airplane ticket.
No, he wanted to keep the boat. And if in the long term he couldn't keep it, he was at least determined to sail it home. Besides, Rio, Bermuda, and the Caribbean all presented the same obstacle: how to prove to foreign immigration or port customs that he owned the boat.
Where is this "Will Spark" listed on her documents, senor? a customs agent was sure to ask. He's dead. He gave me his boat. Here's his will. . . . How interesting. . . . Buried at sea, you say?
Then Jim started to get really paranoid. What if I arrive home alone—sail all the way to Connecticut and pull into the Larchmont Yacht Club—how do I prove I didn't throw him overboard to keep the boat? An autopsy would confirm how he died. But no body, no autopsy.
He had entered Will's death in the log, a legal document, and recorded that Will had died from an infection resulting from a knife wound suffered in Nigeria. Prove that! Then he had a brainstorm. He rushed below, printed the e-mails Will and Angela had exchanged, and slipped them into the log. They confirmed Will's infection.
With that score settled, Jim went up on deck.
He had no appetite, nor was he tired. He had only a desire to make the boat go faster, so he worked her through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, tweaking the sails and learning new tricks with the helm. For the first time since he'd fled Africa on the gritty Harmattan wind, he saw the sun go down in spectacular color. Will had told him that would happen when they drew near enough to a continent for land dust to redden the gray-yellow midocean sunsets.
He knew that he should go below to inventory his supplies to see whether he could sail straight through. But he
hated to leave the cockpit. So he kept driving her, through the evening and into the night.
Just at the point where he was blind-tired and thought he absolutely had to go below, he snapped on his harness and made one more round of the decks.
Moonlight suddenly broke through a heap of swift-moving cumulus clouds, which were splashed dark and light as they galloped across the moon, smothering it, uncovering it, and enveloping it again. Will used to call it a "Treasure Island sky." And then, when he least expected it, Jim's eyes grew warm and he began to cry.
Villa Miseria
JIM SLEPT IN the cockpit, waking hourly to shorten sail. At dawn it was blowing thirty knots. The seas were streaked with foam and salt crusted his hair. He was flying a scrap of jib and had taken two reefs in the main and Hustle's knot meter was still jumping between eight and nine. Screaming, Will would call it. A vote of confidence from the weather: go home.
He cooked some breakfast and wrote to Shannon again.
Dear Shannon,
I've been thinking about Will. With all his delusions and illusions, this was probably the right way to go—dying at sea. Out here, he was no con man. When sailing the boat, he was a champion—always sure of himself, always focused, always in "the zone."
I'll write more later. I know we have lots to talk about. I hope to be back in seven or eight weeks. I wanted an adventure and I got one. I love you,
Jim
He sent it by the SSB radio and found two e-mails waiting. One was titled "MAILER-DAEMON: Returned mail, Host unknown." The other was from Shannon: "SEE YOU
SOON!"
The MAILER-DAEMON read, "Name server: FACEPLANTRILEYSPA.COM: host not found." Of all the damned times for a computer screwup. It was the letter he had written right after Will died. He opened "SEE YOU SOON!" wondering what she meant.
A quick glance stopped him cold.
Dear Jim.
People have been asking questions about you—on the phone—and they're insinuating that you're involved in some kind of criminal activity. I'm sure that your friend Will is behind it—he must have tangled your name into one of his scams. Whatever, Daddy is really pissed—really pissed—and he's saying what kind of a guy is this to be joining the business. (If I were talking to him at the moment, which obviously I'm not. I would remind him that just because we've been e-mailing often doesn't mean that we're getting married or that you would even want to work for him if we did.) I would like to kill him.
H
e's actually *ordered* me to stop writing you until you come home and explain yourself. F him and the horse.... Which is why wire not talking. And Mom says that he says he'll fire me if I disobey him. (Do you detect Mom's hand in this? I do.) Fire me?
We'd be out of business in a week.
Jim doubted that. Shannon's mother didn't want to work for RileySpa anymore, but if she had to step back in she was a brilliant manager and RileySpa would forge on without a'
hiccup. At which point Shannon would have to look for work in the real world. With a real-world salary, real-world benefits, and real-world inconvenience.
But when I heard that I was like. It's every woman for herself. So I wrote myself a ten-thousand-dollar check on the company credit card and bought a ticket to Buenos Aires.
"No!"
I'll be waiting for you at the Plaza Hotel on the Plaza San Martin. which sounds really cool—and unbelievably expensive, so I withdrew another five thousand on Daddy's card.
They said
anyone can tell you how to get there—ifs right in the middle of the city. (Ifs a Marriott.
so I'm sure they speak some English.) I reserved my plane ticket with my own card so Daddy can't find me. Ditto the hotel. If only I had time to sell his house out from under him!!! And his big fat SUV. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. You must be pretty close to Buenos Aires by now, so with any luck I will see you in just a few days. So until then, ol e—or whatever they say in Argentina. And by the way, don't tell Will. God knows what he's gotten you into, or the kind of people he'll know in Buenos Aires. So just lump ship"
and meet me at the Plaza Hotel.
PS: I closed both my e-mail accounts in case my mother pulls a full-court-press snoop in the computer.
I hope you're not mad I'm coming. At first, I thought we would wait until you gat home to sort things out. but the situation is different now. thanks to Will. I feel I got you into this mess and I want to help get you out.
Jim pushed from his mind an image of Shannon struggling down a mile-long airport corridor. They'd have wheelchairs. And she was very resourceful. And people liked her, so they would help her. Still, he had trouble breathing. Who the hell was asking questions?
Was it someone investigating one of Will's scams? Or the McVays? Nickels? Shannon might be right, but if she wasn't . . . And if they were asking questions at the club, then they already knew about Shannon and him. What would happen when she left Westport?
Would they follow her?
The broad reach on which Jim had been sailing home—booming along on a strong breeze from behind—become a close-hauled battle when he turned the boat around.
Hustle seemed to go faster, with the wind whipping over the deck and salt spray in his face, but she wasn't. Worse, he had to tack, approaching Rio de la Plata obliquely, angling to the south, then to the north, and back again and again and again—angle, angle, angle, with his bow never pointed directly at Buenos Aires.
A GUY IN a baseball jacket and backward cap was following her. She had first noticed his beat-up Toyota when she left her mother and father's the night before. The Toyota stood out like a sore thumb in their neighborhood. It might have been driven by somebody's maid, but not by a guy in a baseball jacket and backward cap.
This morning, he and the old car fit right in across the street from her low-rent condo, and she wouldn't have paid him much mind if she hadn't seen him the night before—and if she wasn't a little jumpy about getting to the airport without her parents' finding out until she was safely off the plane in Buenos Aires.
So now she was letting this guy think she didn't know he was following her. A private detective, she guessed, working for one of Will Spark's victims. Maybe an undercover cop looking for Will. Whatever, there was no way she would let him follow her to Kennedy Airport. She decided to make him bored. Then make him nervous. Then make him crazy.
She headed toward the club. The regular route would lull him, make him feel as if he knew where she was going. It was early, but traffic was getting heavy on 1-95. It would be hard to see her low-slung 740 among the big trucks and the boxy SUVs. She sped up and swung into the passing lane. That would make him nervous. The Toyota followed, pulling up close to keep her in sight. Shannon shifted to the middle lane, passed a Lincoln Navigator in the passing lane, and tucked in front of the bulky SUV, leaving no room for the Toyota. The guy actually pulled alongside of her, pretending not to glance over. When he did, she gave him a little wave. That would make him very nervous. She smiled. Let him think she was just waving because she thought he was cute. Ahead was a median crossover. The guy locked his eyes on it.
That made her a little uncomfortable.
He'd been following her for weeks, she realized. You saw me pull that one-eighty with Daddy in the car. He was bracing to shove between her and the Navigator. Okaaaay. She passed the crossover and the guy practically smiled with relief.
She squeezed the brake lever with her left hand. The Navigator's tires screamed and it would have hit her if she hadn't swung onto the shoulder and across forty feet of grass.
She hit the southbound passing lane right in front of a Lexus and swiveled her twist-grip accelerator as hard as she could. Horns shrilled. People screamed at their windshields.
Like anybody could hear them at seventy miles an hour.
Buenos Aires, here I come. Except first, when she got to the airport, she had to find a parking space close enough to drag herself and her bags to the shuttle bus. It would get better, once she checked in. They'd have wheelchairs.
" 'She's not going anywhere,' " Val McVay mimicked Andy Nickels.
"She pulled a cute one."
" 'She's a cripple.' "
"We'll find her."
"She's handicapped. Our best link to Will Spark cannot walk and you let her disappear."
"She's a great driver."
"I can't believe you've done this."
"Nor can I," said Lloyd McVay.
"This is a temporary setback," Andy replied coolly.
"Damage control is in gear. I've got people fanning out over Buenos Aires—Will Spark's destination—"
"Assumed:' Val McVay reminded him. "Assumed destination."
"A city of twelve million people, for the love of God," said her father.
"They are on course for the River Plate?'
"Assumed:' Val repeated. "The fact is, Dr. Angela Hein-man Ruiz was last seen in Rio de Janeiro."
"We're watching her apartment in Buenos Aires." "We do not know that Will Spark is headed there." "He and the doctor exchanged long e-mails."
Val went on as if Andy had not spoken. "As we have not been able to decipher what Will Spark has written to Dr. Ruiz. For all we know, he's arranging to alter his features with plastic surgery so he'll be even harder to find. She is a plastic surgeon."
"She's also a micrasurgeon. Which is exactly the kind of doctor that Spark would go to to get those goddamned things out of his head."
"Look at the data, for goodness' sake. She published her last paper on microsurgery ten years ago. As for Shannon, we know only that Shannon canceled her 'public' RileySpa email account, but we don't know whether she and Jim Leighton are communicating under other screen names. Do we?"
Nickels turned to Lloyd McVay and played his trump card. "I put the ex-resident on the payroll."
Lloyd McVay banged a big hand on his bony knee. "Well done, Andy! A-plus!"
"The 'ex-resident'?" demanded Val. She felt the ground suddenly slipping out from under her. "What does that mean?"
Nickels explained that the former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Buenos Aires—for many years the United States' chief spy in Latin America—had been hired to enlist the city's famously corruptible policia federal to watch the airports and tourist hotels for an American girl in a wheelchair.
"But by now—if she even went there—she has already passed through the airport."
"She has to sleep somewhere. Plus, we've put the word out on the streets."
/> "What word?"
"We've put a bounty on them."
"Alive!" warned Lloyd.
"Of course, sir."
Val McVay was not impressed. "If they're there, they're not on the streets. They're on a boat. BA is a sailing town. There are a hundred marinas on the Rio de la Plata, fifty yacht clubs, and thousands of private moorings."
"The second they make contact with the girl, we've got them."
Val typed in a macro that locked her computer tighter than Will Spark's onetime code and stood up. "I'm going down there."
"That is not necessary," said Andy.
"Oh, really?"
Andy turned to her father. "Mr. McVay. This is not a scene for the generals. This is down and dirty. BA is one tough town. I'm dealing with scum. The bosses should stay home."
Lloyd McVay shook his head no emphatically. "You're forgetting your Shakespeare, Andy. We'll be pulling many strings in Buenos Aires, calling in a lot of favors.
"The presence of a king engenders love Among his subjects and his loyal friends."
"But sir, either she'll screw things up for me—" "Something you've managed quite well on your own," said Val.
"—or she'll get hurt?'
Lloyd McVay's face hardened. "The bard also wrote,
"I see no reason why a king of years Should be protected like a child."
"Go! Both of you. Retrieve Sentinel from that thieving son of a bitch!"
THE RIO DE La Plata sluiced the muddy runoff of half a continent into the South Atlantic Ocean, and when Jim saw the blue water under Hustle's speeding hull turn gray-green, he was still 120 miles from Buenos Aires. It was the closest he had been to Shannon in three months and he practically wanted to climb the mast for an early look at her.
Concerned that the McVays were the ones who'd been asking questions, and terrified that they might have followed her, he wished she were safely home in Connecticut. But he was deeply touched that she would come all this way to help him out of "this mess."
Touched, and hopeful. Had she changed her mind? Was she reconsidering marrying him?
Or was it just her sense of duty? And what, he wondered, would she make of him?
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