Jon saw what Tommy had and echoed him. "What is that?"
Barry pointed with the neck of his Corona bottle and remarked, "Looks like a flag to me."
Now, that pissed off Tommy. He knew it was a flag, for Christ's sake. The thing that bugged him was what kind of flag.
"It's black," said Jon. "What kind of flag is that? Does anybody know? Is that some kind of quarantine alert?"
"It's not all black," said Tommy, glaring at the sailboat as it drew inexorably closer. He could see some kind of white insignia, dead center on the flapping midnight field, but it was still too far away for him to make it out. "Get the binoculars."
Barry retrieved them, but he didn't offer them to Tommy. Leaning forward as he scanned the sailboat, shoulders hunched, he momentarily reminded Tommy Gilpin of a character in some effete yacht-racing movie, take your pick, dressed to the nines but casual enough to make a stranger think he didn't really care about the way he looked.
As for himself, now, he felt nothing but the most appropriate, well-reasoned confidence in his ability to cope with any situation that arose. Star quarterback in high school and at Princeton, now the second in his class at Harvard Law, with only a pathetic egghead nerd in front of him, he-
"Jesus, it's a skull and watcha-callit!" Barry said. "Those bones, you know?"
"A skull and crossbones?" Jon suggested.
"Right. Now, what the hell-"
"A pirate flag," said Tommy. "Shit! We need to make a run for it."
"You kidding me?" The grin was vintage Barry. "Hell, it has to be some kind of joke!"
"I don't think so," said Megan, sidling close to Barry, waiting for his arm to loop across her naked shoulders.
"Hey, now, babe-"
"You don't think what?" Felicia asked, coming to join them in the wheelhouse, Robin close behind her.
"Someone on that boat just raised a goddamn Jolly Roger," Tommy told them both.
"A what?"
"A pirate flag, okay? You never saw one on TV? I don't have time to lead a seminar in history right now, if that's all right. We need to get the hell away from here, as fast as possible."
"Listen to yourself, would you? A damn Jolly Roger? And you're gonna take it seriously?"
"Yeah, I am," Tommy snapped at Barry, hating him in a heartbeat with an intensity he never would have believed possible. Sure, old Bare was a pain in the ass sometimes-most of the time, in fact-but he was also the life of most parties. This time, however, Tommy Gilpin had a sneaking hunch that his secondbest friend's laid-back attitude just might get them killed.
He brought the wheel around and opened up the throttle, feeling the Salome's big screws biting water, accelerating off the mark. She was supposed to have a cruising speed in the vicinity of twenty knots-around twenty-three miles per hour in plain English-but he hadn't tested her for speed and had no way of knowing if the maximum, assuming she delivered, would be good enough.
Some precious time was wasted as he veered off course, doubly lost now that he was running for his life, abandoning a heading that had been uncertain in the first place. Where the hell was land? How far away? The compass on his console told him they were running eastward now, which should have put the Windward Islands somewhere dead ahead, but would he miss them? Would they even get that far, before the Salome was overtaken?
He looked back, and what he saw told him the Jolly Roger was no joke.
Felicia came to the same realization. "Tommy, God, they're chasing us!" The edge of panic in her voice had the effect of fingernails on slate.
"We're maxed out on the speed," he told his five companions. What should they do? What could they do?
Even Barry finally had a clue. He had stopped smiling. "We'd better find some weapons."
"Right!" Jon's voice was dripping scorn. "Did you pack the grenades, or was that my job?"
"Anything, all right?" snapped Tommy. "Knives, the flare gun, anything at all."
"It could still just be a stupid joke," Robin insisted. "They're just trying to scare us." From the tremor in her voice, she didn't half believe it.
"Then we'll laugh, before we kick somebody's ass," said Tommy at the wheel. "Meanwhile, it stands to reason if they raid a boat out here, they won't want any witnesses, so do like Barry said and find some weapons! Now!"
They scattered to obey, but even Tommy didn't believe they'd have much luck. He had a jackknife with a four-inch blade, and they could use the flare gun, maybe try to set the pirate's sails on fire, some shit like that, but what else did they have? Some kitchen knives, of course. A hammer and some wrenches they could use as makeshift bludgeons, a couple of screwdrivers for stabbing, if they ran out of steak knives. There were no guns aboard: the leasing agent had been adamant on that score, and none of them owned firearms anyway. What were you supposed to shoot at sea, for Christ's sake, on a summer holiday?
He hoped they could outrun the sailboat, prayed the wind would fail, but damn near every craft that he had ever seen or heard of had an engine in reserve these days. It might not be a powerhouse, but just enough to help the wind along and give their pursuer the kick in the ass he required to overtake them, bring himself within hailing range.
Or within shooting range.
Tommy Gilpin reasoned that if these guys had unfriendly intentions, they'd have no shortage of guns. While he hated giving up without a fight, he didn't relish the thought of going down with the ship that much, either.
At the moment, he was only worried that he might not have a choice.
THE SAILBOAT WAS LOSING headway as her prey-the name of Salome was painted on the transom in electric blue-poured on the diesel, churning up a wake that smelled in equal parts of salt and burning fuel. At this pace there was a chance they could lose her still, and Billy Teach wasn't about to let that happen.
"Crank up the engine," he commanded, and his first mate nodded, then turned a key protruding from the console. For a moment, Teach imagined that the engine down below would fail him, that it would be out of fuel or suffering from shoddy maintenance, but then it rumbled to life, the sailboat shuddering before it caught a swift kick in the ass and started surging forward, gaining speed beyond the simple power of the wind.
A couple of the crewmen whooped and cheered, but they didn't allow the moment to distract them from their duties. While the Ravager was under sail, they still had work to do, lines to attend, and a mistake could slow them, cost them the race, although it would not stop them altogether once the engine was engaged. Teach didn't have to warn them of the consequences for the man who made that happen, not while he was pacing up and down the foredeck with a shotgun at his side.
"We're closing!" bawled the lookout, but Teach didn't need a blow-by-blow report to tell him that. The gap between the Ravager and the Salome had already been cut by half, and it was shrinking by the moment. In another ten or fifteen minutes, if the wind held, they would close the distance to effective hailing range.
His worry, at the moment, was the radio on the Salome. Unless the yachters were a bunch of total idiots, they had to have a Mayday signal on the air by now, reporting their location and the nature of their jeopardy. His first concern was that some other passing vessel might respond to the alarm-perhaps a government patrol boat, or a tough commercial fisherman with able hands and guns on board. In either case, it could mean trying to outrun the hounds, at best, and giving up their prize ...or fighting to the death, at worst.
Whatever happened, Teach wouldn't surrender the Ravager. His crew would never dip their colors to the enemy, as long as he was still alive and in command. Far better to go down with all guns blazing, on the open sea, than to be hanged or wind up in a cage for life.
But, then again, perhaps no one would hear the Mayday call. Or when they heard the call the authorities might laugh it off. Pirates were a real danger on the seas, to this very day, but a sailing vessel? Flying the skull and crossbones? It was difficult to take seriously-although Teach took himself very seriously indeed.
Even if rescuers did come, it was unlikely they would arrive in time at the Salome's coordinates. For what Teach had in mind, he wouldn't need all afternoon.
They were no more than thirty fathoms distant from the stern of the Salome when Teach called for the bullhorn they had taken from a shrimper off Grenada. It was red and white, but someone from his crew had scratched a clumsy skull and crossbones on the side. He pointed it toward the Salome and squeezed the trigger, spoke into the mouthpiece and heard nothing but his own voice, speaking in a normal tone.
Teach double-checked the on-off switch and tried again, without result. The batteries were dead. Disgusted with another failure of technology, he turned and flung the bullhorn toward the sailboat's stern, no longer watching as it skipped across the deck and fetched up short against the taffrail.
"Close it up!" he shouted at the first mate behind the wheel. "We've got no bloody time to waste!" He knew the engine had to be laboring, and yet it found another ounce of speed at his command-or maybe he was favored by the wind, old Neptune pitching in to bless their hunt. Five minutes more, and the Ravager had pulled abreast of the Salome, matching her speed, the frightened-looking passengers aboard the yacht regarding Billy Teach's crew with something close to abject terror.
Maybe, he decided, they weren't as stupid as he thought.
Teach leaned against the starboard rail, with the Benelli muzzle-down against his leg, his second mate and the machine gun well behind him, hidden from the anxious eyes on the Salome. He raised one hand, not fool enough to let the shotgun go, and strained to make the tourists hear him over throbbing engine sounds, the rush of sea and wind.
"Switch off your engines," he instructed them. "We need to come aboard."