“Shut up.”

“Aw, come on, Cap’n.” Theo stood up, put his hands under his shirt and poked his fingers out to make imaginary breasts. He waggled his eyebrows up and down. “Was she hot?”

“I don’t know.” Cole rubbed his hands across the chart, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles in the paper. “I was more worried about the guys who’d been trying to kill me an hour earlier.”

“Yeah, right,” Theo said, sitting back down looking dejected. He took a long drink of his coffee. “So somebody’s after you. Again.”

Cole held up an index finger and pointed at Theo. “One of these days, my friend, you are going to have to eat those doubting words.”

Theo leaned forward, his close-cropped head hovering over the chart. “So, who do you think they were this time?”

“The Brewster brothers.”

“No, mon.” Theo leaned back, screwed his eyes closed for a second and made a face like a man who had just sucked on a lemon. “Not again. Not those two trogs?”

Cole wasn’t thrilled about it either. The Brewsters were half brothers, a couple of Outer Banks lowlifes who had once told Cole they were “from the same crackhead mama, different white daddies.”

“How’d they find us?” Theo asked. “I thought we left them back in the Carolinas.”

Cole shrugged. “Word gets around. Especially that word — gold. And Shadow Chaser’s not exactly inconspicuous. Even a moron could track down a boat that looks like her in the Caribbean.”

“I wouldn’t give Spyder that much credit.” Theo sipped from his coffee mug.

“Spyder, no. His brother, yes. Besides, I’m pretty sure I spotted them as the woman was bringing us into Pointe-à-Pitre.”

“What? Tell me they didn’t see you.”

“No, I went below to use the head.  They’ve got a Bertram sportfish now, named Fish n’ Chicks.”

Theo chuckled. “Probably stole it and renamed it. That sounds like Spyder.”

Cole nodded. “I’m almost certain they were the ones after me this morning. With those wet suit hoods, I didn’t really see their faces, but later I was looking out the port when this boat passed us. It sure looked like Pinky out on deck.”

“Him, I’d recognize anywhere.”

“You’ve got that right,” Cole said. There was a time he’d felt sorry for Pinky who suffered from a condition called vitiligo. Most of his skin was the light brown color of walnut shells, but vitiligo had caused odd patches to lose all pigmentation. The result was he sported a white Afro and his skin looked like somebody had splashed him with a bucket of bleach.

Theo walked to the galley sink and rinsed out his mug. “So, what about the Whaler?”

“Let’s head down there and look for it tonight. I can’t afford a new one. And there was all my dive gear in it, too. If we’re lucky, they left it there. Decided they’d rather leave it for us so we can find the wreck – which they intend to steal from us, later.”

“What I don’t get is, if they followed us here, why show themselves now? Why chase you? What were they after?”

“They must know, somehow, that we’re getting close.”

“But how? Do you think they know about the journals?”

“God, I hope not.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Pointe-à-Pitre

March 25, 2008

5:25 p.m.

Diggory Priest leaned back in his café chair, took a sip of the decent Bordeaux they’d served him, and surveyed the large concrete square aglow in the tawny light of the late afternoon sun.

“They’ll get the job done. It’s just a matter of time.”

Diggory turned to look at the older man who had just spoken. He knew the man only as Caliban. One elbow rested on the back of the man’s chair at their outdoor table at the Cafe Caraïbe, while the fingers of his other hand were tapping on the glass table top. He had a full head of thick silver hair and a tan that spoke of hours either on the deck of a yacht or a golf course. Clearly, the man came from old money. He reeked of it. But there was no surprise in that. Not in this business. Diggory looked at the man’s profile. He was almost twice Dig’s age, yet the way women looked at them was nearly identical. Dig wondered if he would age as well as Caliban.

Diggory had known he was good looking even before he hit puberty, had known the power of his smile.  As a kid, after school, he’d always gone straight to the diner where his mother worked, and the other waitresses fawned over him, calling him pet names and touching him, always touching him.

He swallowed to suppress the shudder. Diggory had learned early on how much women wanted him, and how easy it was to manipulate them. Caliban clearly enjoyed the same knowledge. To the rest of the world, both men shared a similar casual arrogance, but Diggory knew that while he worked at it, Caliban was born to it.

“They’d better get it done,” Diggory said.

“This business was a mistake, clearly. You need to make sure they understand that. I didn’t order them to go after it. The coin matters, but at this point, it will only confirm what we already know. Those two did this on their own initiative. That’s the problem. Right now they should be in observation mode. If they wait, he’ll lead the way.”

Diggory watched a couple of young girls in mini-skirts teetering on high heels as they crossed the uneven pavement in the street. “I hate counting on them. Sounds like they’re not merely barbarians, they’re Neanderthals. Shallow end of the gene pool.”

“I understand that, but we don’t want our fingerprints on this.” From his shirt pocket, Caliban removed a pack of Dunhill cigarettes and lit one with a silver Zippo lighter. He blew a stream of smoke toward the umbrella hanging over their table. “These fellows don’t have a clue. That’s what makes them perfect for the job. We risk nothing.”

It wasn’t how he would have done it, but they were bringing him in now to clean up their mess. He had to tread lightly here. Politics and all.

Diggory took another sip of the wine, swished it around in his mouth, and swallowed. Yeah, he thought, we risk nothing but more wasted time if these idiots screw up again. The wine had a supple, earthy taste. Not bad for a no name label.

Caliban continued. “Don’t know how the devil old man Thatcher got on to this. It was more than sixty years ago, for God’s sake. There’ve been all sorts of rumors about what happened during the war, but nobody ever got it right. We had one of ours on board the submarine, but he went down with the rest of the poor bastards. Only a handful of people ever knew the truth, and they’re all ours.”

“What about Thatcher’s son?” Diggory said. “If he gets there before us –”

“If that happens, I’m confident you’ll deal with it, Thor.”

Diggory had no doubt the man knew both his real name and his reputation. There was a reason they had called him in on this one. They needed him.

“And you’ll do a better job of it than what happened with the father.”

Dig felt the corner of his mouth begin to turn up. He shouldn’t laugh, but really. They went a bit overboard with that one. Sexual strangulation and in a get-up like that? Amateurs. Most of those he worked with were old-school professionals with years of service in intelligence work, but some of the new generation had read too many books, watched too many movies. Whomever they’d used on that job in England had had more imagination than experience.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what it is on this sub that’s got everyone’s panties in a wad.”

Caliban dragged on his cigarette, looking at Dig through squinted eyes. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. “No,” he said.

Asshole, Dig thought. He’s enjoying this. It’s all a power play to him. Then again, it’s possible even he doesn’t know. “Just so I’m straight on this — if Thatcher does find the damn boat and it follows our worst case scenario — in other words, if the goods are retrievable, what do they want me to do? Salvage or destroy?”