"We have company," Guzman announced without preamble.
"I see them," said Armand. "What should we do?"
"Take three men in the motor launch," Guzman replied. "Be careful. Use whatever means you must to get aboard."
"And then?" Sifuentes almost chuckled as he asked the question. There could be no doubt about what Guzman had in mind for those aboard the aging cabin cruiser.
"Do what must be done," Guzman replied. "No witnesses."
"My pleasure," said Armand Sifuentes, sounding very much as if he meant exactly that.
Time crept along at a snail's pace while Guzman waited on the Macarena's flying bridge for the Scorpion's motor launch to appear with its cargo of gunmen. After a moment, Guzman realized that he was holding his breath, and he released it with a whistling sigh between clenched teeth.
Should he have checked with Carlos first, before he sent the gunmen off to deal with the intruders? Possibly, but he had judged that there was no time to be wasted in the present situation. Anyone aboard the weather-beaten cabin cruiser could identify the Macarena and the Scorpion from legends painted on their transoms. Granted, they were still miles from their destination, but Guzman had trained himself to think ahead, anticipate such problems and eliminate them in the embryonic stage.
Carlos would almost certainly agree with him, but Guzman would have wasted precious time by then. And if Carlos did not agree ...what then?
Then Carlos would be wrong.
It startled Guzman, thinking in such terms, but he didn't regard it as betrayal of his lifelong friend. The best and wisest men still made mistakes from time to time; it simply proved that they were human, after all. A friend stood ready to prevent such lapses of humanity from turning into fatal errors.
There! The motor launch was setting off from the Scorpion's port side, three gunmen leaning forward on the thwarts, while a fourth manned the outboard engine's throttle. Their weapons were nowhere in sight, but Guzman knew they would be close at hand, ready to open fire at the first indication of a threat from the old cabin cruiser.
In moments, they would draw abreast of the intruder. Moments more, and they would be aboard. A brief delay, while Sifuentes tried to determine if the new arrivals on the scene posed any threat to Ramirez and company, but it would make no difference in the end. Once they had stormed the cabin cruiser, everyone aboard would have to die. They were potential witnesses, and while the boat wasn't worth stealing, in and of itself, it could be scuttled, lost at sea.
Another mystery of the Caribbean, perhaps unsolved forever.
And if Carlos was displeased with the result, well, Guzman knew that he could reason with his old friend, given time. Their business with the loco pirates took priority, and nothing else could be allowed to slow them down.
He leaned against the rail and lit a cigarette, watching.
Waiting for the distant sound of guns.
"STAY COOL," REMO ADVISED the ex-professor.
"I don't recognize these men," said Humphrey, squinting in the late-afternoon sunshine as he watched the power launch approaching.
"Just remember," he warned Humphrey, "when the guns go off, you're standing in the middle."
"I don't recognize these men," the former academic said again. "Who are they?"
"Let's just wait and see."
Remo slid down the ladder and found a hiding place from which he could observe and overhear the new arrivals as they came aboard. The moments ticked away, Humphrey hauling back on the throttle as the strange craft approached. A voice hailed Humphrey from the launch, and Remo frowned. Their spotter didn't seem to recognize the old man, and he had what sounded like a South American accent. That wouldn't rule out a pirate, in itself, and yet...
There was a soft thump as the launch kissed hulls with the Mulligan Stew, and then boarders were scrambling over the rail, boot heels clomping on deck. Humphrey was agitated, calling down to them from his place on the flying bridge.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "What are you doing with those guns? This is-"
A stutter of automatic gunfire rattled overhead. Remo waited, half expecting a squall of pain, perhaps the sound of Humphrey's body sprawling on the deck above him, but instead he heard a scramble of feet as the professor ducked out of sight.
"Stand up, pendejo," one of the boarding party demanded. "There are questions joo must answer."
"This is a flagrant violation of-"
Another burst of gunfire silenced Humphrey, bullets smacking into bulkhead, one round glancing off the tarnished brass rail with a high-pitched whine.
"All right!" the old man shouted. "Please, stop shooting! Tell me what you want!"
"We gonna search joo boat," one of the shooters said. "Joo gonna tell us why joo're here."
"Look anywhere you want," the old man answered, groveling on the deck. "I have nothing to hide."
Remo heard footsteps on the deck, approaching his hideout. This was a nice spot, he decided. Out of sight of any binocular trained on the Mulligan Stew from the boat these losers came from.
He concentrated on the footsteps of the gunman who was closing on him, marking others as they moved off toward the bow.
The man who came around the corner was a twenty-something Latin, carrying an Uzi submachine gun in both hands, across his chest. Dark eyes went wide at the sight of Remo, but he had no chance to use his gun or shout a warning to the others in the split second of life remaining to him.
Remo grabbed the Uzi, grabbed its owner and inserted the former into the latter. The Uzi went pretty far down the gunman's throat, and with a little pushing and twisting it went in a lot farther.
Remo hoisted the gunner's deadweight and sat him in a bench seat in the cabin cruiser's galley. Above him, on the deck, more footsteps. Remo could hear someone shouting at Humphrey, the sound of an open hand striking flesh, a cry of pain and outrage from the ex-professor. Whatever kind of search was under way, it seemed haphazard and disorganized.
Remo emerged from the companionway into sunlight. Most of the noise was coming from his left, the starboard side, so Remo moved to port. He knew there was a gunman above him, grilling Humphrey, and another somewhere to starboard. That left the one making footsteps in Remo's direction.
"Uh-" the gunner said.
"Bye," Remo said, rapping his knuckles on the gunner's rib cage. The gunner's eyes went wild as his heart rhythm revved out of control. Remo held the guy's mouth closed with one hand to keep the screams from escaping, stepped on both the man's feet with his own and pulled the spasming body taut to keep him from making any loud noises. A few seconds later the gunner had stopped making noises forever, and Remo dropped him.
Remo went looking for gunner number three. The Mulligan Stew was a sort of floating sounding board, and Remo could easily track everyone on board by the sound and vibration of their footsteps. That meant the hunt for gunner number three wasn't even a challenge. He just walked up behind the man. The gunner turned to face Remo-his head, that was in Remo's hands, turned to face Remo. His body stayed facing front. The gunner was dead before he had time to figure out why the world had suddenly started turning in circles.
That left the man up top guarding Humphrey. "Wha' joo doin?" the apparent leader of the boarding party called down to his team of thugs, not knowing the gun squad was, each in his own unique manner, very dead. Remo saw a bulky shadow moving toward the port rail of the flying bridge as he came up on it.
The commander of the boarding party was a stocky man, solid muscle underneath a layer of camouflaging fat. He had some kind of submachine gun and he brought it into play when Remo rushed him and struck at his gun arm.
The stocky man was confused as to why his gun was silent. Then he heard an abrupt splash off the side of the boat. He looked over just in time to see his submachine sinking in the turquoise Caribbean water, dragging his arm down with it.
But that couldn't be right because the man who had attacked him didn't have a knife. How could he have cut off a whole arm?
The commander of the gunners decided the question was too difficult and he wilted where he stood as the blood pumped out by the pint.
Remo gave him a side kick that launched the gunner in a long arc and ended with another, bigger splash.
"Are you all right?" Remo asked Ethan Humphrey. The old man was sitting, his hands supporting his upper body as if he was about to collapse.
"All right?" The ex-professor looked confused, as if he didn't understand the language Remo spoke. Remo bent and gripped one of the old man's earlobes, pinching lightly, bringing Humphrey to his feet.