“Catching up on sleep, sir, before the long night watches I reckoned were ahead. They came for me and dragged me out of my berth. Kewpie didn’t even let me put my shoes on.”

“No injuries, then?”

“No, sir.”

Woolsey was about to say something more but his words were cut off.

“No thanks to you.”

Woolsey heard the challenge in McKay’s voice, and he didn’t know what to do about it. His only hope of leading a man like Sean McKay was through military authority, and it appeared the French were doing their best to break that down.

He tried to ignore the big man. “Walter, did you hear them say anything? Any idea what their plans are?”

McKay wouldn’t let the young signalman speak. “All we heard was you out there begging with them Frenchies, then crying in here.” McKay imitated Woolsey with a high falsetto voice. “‘Let me off. I got orders. Let me outa’ here.’ Couldn’t help but notice you didn’t say we had orders. Planning on leaving us on board, were you, Lieutenant?”

“Whatever you think you heard, that was nonsense. I was only trying to talk my way out of this. Mullins, you understand that, right?”

“Sir? I’m not sure what I heard, sir.”

“I was making up a story. Trying to get them to take me to the captain.”

“Bollocks,” McKay said. “You was savin’ your own skin, Lieutenant.”

 In the dark, Woolsey heard the shhh of cloth moving.

When McKay spoke again, his voice was much closer. “Sounded to me like you knew exactly where to lay your hands on those orders. A little bloke like you wouldn’t try to take on a guy like Gohin. Too scary-lookin’ for the likes of you.”

Woolsey began to crab his way backwards across the deck.

“Lieutenant La-ti-da had those orders, didn’t you,” McKay said. “You was leaving us.”

“For Christ sake, man, it was a bluff.” Woolsey was now scrambling, crawling as fast as he could – away from that deep voice.  “I was just saying whatever came into my head. It was nothing.”

With a dull thud, his head hit the steel bulkhead behind him. At the same time, a ham-sized hand closed around his ankle and dragged him away from the wall.

“Sean McKay, I am your superior officer. You lay your hands on me and –”

“Shut-up you friggin’ arsehole.”

Woolsey felt the man’s fingers close around his throat. In a choked and raspy voice he said, “McKay, I’ll get us out of here. Figure out something.”

“You couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery.” The big man’s hands began to tighten, closing off his air supply so Woolsey couldn’t make another sound. “Why wait for the Frenchies to throw us to the sharks? I’m doing you a favor, Mate. I’m giving you a quick way out.” McKay started to laugh.

Even over the ever-present rumble of the engines, they heard the grinding noise followed by a clunk as the wheel turned on the outside door, then light flooded the compartment, blinding them all. Woolsey squeezed his eyes shut against the glare then gasped for air when McKay released his throat. The big man scrambled back into the shadowy recesses of the hold. Woolsey, still closest to the door, curled up on the floor and tried to cover his head with his arms, protecting himself both from the light and the likelihood that the French soon would rain blows to his body. He waited, but no one touched him. Several different voices were shouting in French, then Woolsey heard a thud as a body hit the floor not far from him, and the hatch door slammed shut.

He understood now why no one had spoken when he was thrown inside. It was bloody quiet after all that row stopped when the hatch closed and they were plunged back into darkness. The advantage would go to the one who had the most knowledge, and he didn’t want to speak to give away his location. His breathing sounded so loud, he did his best to hold his breath.

The quiet seemed to stretch on for hours, though it was in fact only a minute or two. The silence was finally broken when the recent arrival groaned. Woolsey heard the man’s clothes rustle as he got to his feet, then footfalls as he walked to the far side of the compartment, confident as though he could see. Then came the sound of wood cases sliding on the floor and the clink of metal tapping on glass. The man was digging through the cases of wine. What the devil could he be doing?

Then a voice exclaimed, “Ahh! Voilà,” and there was a click and the thin beam of a torch lit the compartment as well as the man who now held it.

“I thought you three would be here,” Captain Lamoreaux said, his face smeared with blood.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Pointe-à-Pitre

March 25, 2008

6:15 p.m.

Riley pushed open the door to the Customs House and charged down the steps to the street, leaving the door to slam behind her. How had this day that started out so great turned into such a complete mess? Under her arm, she carried her portfolio that normally contained her ship’s papers, passport and money. Clutched in her hand was the sheaf of papers marked up with various official stamps, one of which was a receipt for her confiscated passport, and another demanding her presence at a hearing the following week.

The sun was gone and the sky over the outer harbor had turned a dark, iridescent blue. To the east, a cluster of ash-colored clouds was rimmed with molten red. She hadn’t realized they’d kept her inside the office that long, but the French desk jockeys in there couldn’t get it through their heads you don’t smuggle illegal aliens into a country one at a time. It had probably been so long since they’d had any sort of real international crime on this island they just couldn’t wait to charge her with something. The Gendarme had looked at her over the top of his half glasses as if he was inspecting bad meat when Beaulieu had called him in and asked him to write up the paperwork.

That was when she’d told the Gendarme she wanted to report that this Bob had stolen her handheld radio, and he’d smirked at her. Smirked! What? Did they think she was making the whole thing up?

When they were kids, her older brother Michael was the only one who could ever get away with teasing her or laughing at her. Anyone else usually wound up with a bloody nose. Michael knew how teasing infuriated her, but he counted on the fact that she could never get mad at him — and he used that, the little bugger.

Being back in the Caribbean reminded her of the Barbados years. St. Winifred’s was the name of the school. She must have been eight years old and Michael nearly ten. She was a skinny kid but already taller than her older brother and growing so fast her mother had bought her school uniform a size too large. Two boys followed them from school to where they were to catch their bus. They started calling Mikey names like Midget, Fathead and Fish Face. She was going to ignore them until they called her Faggy Maggy in the Baggy Pants.

She knew even back then to go for the leader. She turned around and walked up calm as could be. She asked the bigger boy his name. He preened and looked to his friends for encouragement, but before he could answer, she slugged him right in the nose. He staggered and fell, but got right back up and charged her, going for a head butt. She dodged him, and he tripped over the leg she extended. Then her brother grabbed her hand and the two of them ran down the street and onto the bus. They hurried to the back seat and looked out through the exhaust at the red-faced boy on the ground wiping at his bloodied nose.

“Remember that day?” she whipered. She saw Mikey’s face in her mind, the glasses sitting crooked on his big ears, the watery blue eyes behind the thick lenses, the thin blond hair spreading out from his crown making him look like the barber had used a bowl to cut his hair. She always pictured him as she had seen him that last time, standing ramrod straight at his full five-foot four in the doorway of their apartment in Paris, the strap of his laptop case crossing his narrow chest bandoleer-style, and that lopsided grin trying to reassure her he would be fine. She grew older, but Mikey was eternally eighteen just as he had been that fall when he left home for Yale.