Vadim noticed her staring. He laughed his big bear laugh and grabbed his crotch. “There space here for new tattoo,” he said, as he disappeared behind the wheel house. “One of your face.”

  “Gross,” said Striker.

  “What is gross?” he called.

  She didn’t reply, unsure of whether or not either of them had spoken.

  Their first stop was the alcove housing the communications equipment. Striker felt her heart sink. “Jesus,” she whispered. Vadim put his hand on her shoulder.

  The radio was smashed up and strewn all over the floor, cables and wires like ganglia sprouting from the wall.

  Kevin appeared. “Someone didn’t want our boy calling for help.”

  A crowbar lay in the broken glass. She bent over and picked it—

  << Striker is smashing up the room. The crowbar sails through the air. A jolt fires up her arm each time it breaks something. She is practically dancing. Glass and plastic and destruction clouding the day, metal casings left badly dented. An unfettered glee surges through her body. She is singing at the top of her lungs. Something atonal and heavy, rebellious. She has never felt so >>

  The crowbar clattered on the floor. Striker rubbed her arm, her wrist sore from bashing at instruments designed to survive a hurricane.

  “You all right?” Kevin asked. She nodded. “Okay then. Follow me.”

  He led them to the master berth. It was pretty swank but even in a sixty-footer space was an issue. A thickly padded maroon strip ran horizontally around the room. Striker realized it was for purchase, a bumper to keep you from battering yourself into the walls during rough seas. The queen-sized bed had a padded headboard the same red as everything else.

  She could tell the padding was intended for safety and not kink. Still, there was something else going on in the berth. She couldn’t put her finger on it but chalked it up to money. The room had a stentorian feel to it. Everything fusty, shellacked with a veneer of a turn-of-the-century gentlemen’s club, velvet and brass and big, shiny rivets, what Riley would’ve dubbed robber baron chic. It was an odd combination. A first-rate, modern-day vessel with old-timey décor.

  “Kate like me,” said Vadim, lightly beating his chest. He was standing in front of a mirror screwed into the wall. “Well-built.”

  “Who’s Kate?” said Kevin.

  “This Kate,” repeated Vadim, running a hand over the mirror. Striker could tell by the sound of his finger tapping the surface that it wasn’t real glass. It was a smart move in case you ever made contact with it headfirst in high seas.

  “The boat’s named Kate,” explained Striker. “It’s painted on the back. I couldn’t tell what flag she’s flying.”

  “Antigua,” said Vadim.

  “Someone gets a gold star on the nations’ flags quiz,” said Kevin. “Also I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think that’s bioluminescence out there.”

  “What?” said Vadim distractedly. He was looking over a small stainless steel case about the size of a woman’s evening clutch. “Then what is it?”

  “What if I said you all took a dip in some radioactivity?”

  Vadim laughed. “Big word, little man.”

  “I may not know a lot about radioactivity,” sneered Kevin, “but I’ve seen plenty of bioluminescence. In Fiji. Snorkeling. And I can tell you.” He paused for effect. “That there outside? That. Ain’t. It.”

  “Come again?” said Striker. Shizer. Was she starting to feel itchy?

  “You only see bioluminescence at night,” Kevin explained. “And it’s more like sparkles. Millions and millions of tiny sea creatures glowing up a storm. An entire bay wouldn’t glow like this. This?” He nodded out toward the water. “This is artificial dye number two, like Blue Hawaiian Punch.”

  Vadim shook his head. “I know radioactivity,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate. “If water radioactive, me and her not standing here now.”

  “Then why is the water so warm?” Kevin countered.

  “It’s an extinct volcano,” said Striker. “There’s gotta be under­water vents.”

  Kevin didn’t give up that easy. “Why no animals?” he asked. “No penguins, no birds of prey.”

  “There’s no beach,” said Striker. “Where are they supposed to nest?”

  “Is too hot for birdies,” said Vadim. “Life down here like me. We prefer cold.”

  Striker could tell they hadn’t convinced him, but every minute she and Vadim remained upright, Kevin’s theory seemed more and more far-fetched.

  “Anyhoo,” he concluded. “While you two were out playing Flipper, I found some things.”

  He dumped a rubber pouch on the bed. ID, money, tickets, a USB stick plus a handful of tiny ziplocks filled with individual portions of what looked like flour. Based on the available evidence, Gordon Baker, a citizen of both the US and Antigua, was living his best life. According to his passport, Gordon Baker was a sixty-four-year-old Libra who had been out at sea for at least five months, having flown from New York to St. John’s back in June. The boat itself was registered to a Marsha Baker of Scottsdale, Arizona, but there was no passport for Marsha among the papers. No Marsha Baker plane ticket, no insurance cards, no photos, no videos, though there were soon plenty of images of Gordon Baker being Gordon Baker.

  Kevin twirled the USB stick in his fingers. He slid the drive into a laptop. It came up under the name Antietam. “If this guy’s still alive, first thing I’d tell him is always password protect.”

  After the first twenty seconds, Striker figured out what was going on with the décor of the captain’s berth. Well this is some bullshit, Riley would’ve said before pouring the contents of a high-end bottle of cologne on the bed and ashing a lit cigarette on it.

  “Yup,” said Kevin. “Dude likes him some serious cosplay.”

  “Cosplay? What is this?” asked Vadim. “Some American thing?”

  Kevin and Striker looked at each other. Striker shook her head. Nuh-uh. Not today. She wasn’t going to touch that one.

  “Cosplay is people dressing up in costumes and then letting their freak flag fly,” Kevin offered. Not bad, Striker thought.

  Vadim nodded. “This freak flag?” he said, pulling a hoop skirt out of a drawer followed by a pair of pantaloons, which he laid down on the bed next to a high-end leather riding crop. Kevin nodded. “But what is costume supposed to be? Russian peasant?”

  Striker felt herself drawn into this terrible conversation against her will.

  “It’s antebellum.”

  “Ante what?”

  “Antebellum,” she said. “Gordon Baker likes him some antebellum shit.” She pointed to what was playing on the laptop. A dark-skinned woman was dressed in rags while a white woman in a ball gown watched as Gordon Baker did his thing. “Antebellum,” Striker said for the last time. “The days before the War of Northern Aggression. And turn that shit off.” Shizer. Even at the ass of the world, there was no escaping history.

  Vadim was still confused.

  “The American Civil War,” Kevin said. “North versus south. It would seem our host likes pretending he’s a slave owner and diddling the merchandise.”

  “Merchandise?” said Striker.

  “I was being facetious.”

  “Well don’t.” Suddenly she felt sick. She was pretty sure it was due to the appearance of the riding crop coupled with Gordon Baker’s shining pate bobbing up and down as the darker woman serviced him and not thanks to her recent dip in the possibly radio­active blue lagoon. “So where do we think the swashbuckling Gordon Baker has disappeared to?”

  The two men stood watching the video, angling their heads when needed to help see better. As a concession, Kevin turned the sound off. Poor beasts. For the millionth time in her life, Striker felt fortunate not to harbor a Y chromosome among her genome.

  “I can’t believe you guys are watching that. What about us getting rescued?”

  “What about it?” said Kevin, distractedly.

  “Does that thing have internet service?”

  “Yes and no,” he said, still on autopilot. Something in the look on his face. Not like Vadim, the Russian with a genuine curiosity to see what kind of ending the threesome would arrive at. No, there was an emptiness lurking in Kevin’s eyes. Guy has nothing left to lose. It was like the floor had dropped out.

  “I opened his search history,” Kevin said. “There’s no more Wi-Fi, but we can see his final searches.” He stopped the video. “You sure you wanna know?”

  “If it involves a Rosa Parks fetish, then no. Everything else? Bring it.”

  Kevin opened a new search window. He angled the screen toward her. Something in his face told her she should drop it. The most beautiful water imaginable was mere feet from where she was standing, the ocean a perfect bath. Nothing was stopping her. Just walk back up the stairs and jump overboard. Live out your remaining days like a mermaid in paradise.

  There were no open pages, only a long list of websites. It went on and on. Striker realized she had stopped breathing.

  “Hold arms above head,” commanded Vadim. “Now in through nose.”

  But she couldn’t. “This cannot be happening,” she said. “It just can’t.” She rushed back up on deck. For the second time since boarding, she peeled off all her clothes and dove in headfirst, pylons or rusting shipping containers be damned, even welcomed.

  The walls of the caldera ringing the harbor were unforgiving in their verticality. Still, Striker managed to find the one spot where the sea had worn away a few feet of rock. She crawled out of the weird blue water and lay down. It felt delicious. The black sand retained the heat in a way white sand never would. There had been heated tile in the master bath on Zinnia Trace. In the winters, she and Ama would lie on the floor in their pajamas and giggle in the unexpected warmth. Striker closed her eyes. Here the quiet was deafening. Kevin was right. There was something wrong with this place.

  “Okay for me too?” said a small voice from the water.

  “Go for it,” said Striker. From the somber tone of his voice, she could tell Vadim hadn’t swum up hungry to start any shenanigans. She listened as he settled on the black sand, the back of his head almost touching hers. For a long time, they lay soaking up the sun. “You okay?”

  “I feel big shame,” he said.

  “Well don’t,” she said. “All those searches on the laptop for surviving a nuclear war? It doesn’t mean anything actually happened. And if it did, we don’t know for a fact it was Russia.”

  “Get real. Who else?”

  “Listen,” she said. “Gordon Baker probably had a thing for war. Maybe that’s what turns him on, pretending he’s the last man on earth.”

  “Okay, but why there no Gordon Baker here?”

  What was it about white men and self-destruction? She had seen it on too many movie sets to count. Directors burning every bridge they’d ever built in the span of a single afternoon. Actors blowing up their careers, by the film’s last shot, getting dropped by both their agents and their friends. Some guys couldn’t see the long game, didn’t understand there were lives out there beyond their own. That was why the short little man with the overly Botoxed face in Moscow could be willing to pull the plug on everything.

  “I ask again. Where is Mr. Boat Captain?” said Vadim. “What? Kate says, ‘Enough of sex party,’ sails on ahead without him?”

  Striker tried gaming it out. Mr. Boat Captain probably liked to sail his pride and joy into some unsuspecting port, then ply the internet’s streets for ladies willing to help him put on his show. Maybe this time his ship had sailed into the wrong port and a pair of burly associates of the ladies had decided to put an end to Appomattox. Afterward, these same burly associates had cut Kate loose. Striker knew that scenario wasn’t likely judging from all the rich-guy stuff still onboard. Okay then. How about this?

  “One night he was solo partying too much and lost his balance. Simple as that.”

  Vadim remained quiet. The next time he spoke, his voice was soft.

  “In Ukraine, I saw men decide to die,” he said. “Nobody picks beautiful place full of sunshine. Men are dogs. We crawl off into dark shadows, into bottomless hole. Men pick dying over living when they see no future.”

  Striker didn’t respond. She could tell he was no longer lying on this black sand beach.

  “I spend eight months in prison camp,” he said. “Before Ukrainians capture me, us Russians shoot themselves in feet, in hands. Some trust others to shoot them anywhere unimportant for believableness. Like your Vietnam. Men wanting to go home.” She could feel him trembling. “Ukrainians are our brothers. Why fight them?” He sighed. “I give you secret. Me, big strong Vadim? I am coward. Any gunshot is not for me, on purposeful or not. So I hand my beautiful body over. I give up, I surrender, white flag, hands up. We hear Ukrainians don’t have infrastructure for prisoners. If you surrender, you stay one week, one month, maybe two in camp, then both sides do prisoner swap and you go home. So me and my mate, we raise white flag. We walk to them and say, ‘Comrades, war is bullshit. Please show big Ukrainian mercy.’”

  He tells her everything. The beatings, the tasers, the military phones they would use if they didn’t have a taser lying around to shock them with. Each night the sound of new prisoners screaming as they were grilled for intel about the latest battlefield strategies. Nobody complained. Sometimes they were allowed to watch TV, make a little pocket money working for local businesses. They all knew on the other side of the line, the Ukrainians had it worse. The ones imprisoned in Donbas were likely having jagged things shoved into their bodies, car batteries hooked up to their balls. The Ukrainians hurt men like him when you first entered the camp and maybe a few times after that, but their hearts weren’t really in it. Not like the Russians. He knew the Russians were limitless in the bad things they were doing. On the battlefield he had seen Ukrainian teen­agers being led away into the night, girls and boys. He told himself it was the decades—no, the generations—of powerlessness, of living like serfs while the West moved on to brighter, shinier things. Some men thrilled at the chance to finally be omnipotent, even if that power came from terrorizing children. Most men weren’t built like that. But the ones who were?

  War made them kings.

  “You gave yourself those tattoos in the prison camp.”

  “Da,” he said. “I write poems on myself.” She could tell from the tone of his voice he was smiling. “Anna Akhmatova, best poet of Russia. Osip Mandelstam, a Jew. You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Their truths cannot be translated.” She was about to ask him to read her something, give her one tiny taste, but then he was far away again.

  “That rich old lady from Akademik Yegorov? She lies,” he insisted. “I never hurt woman or child.” Striker could tell he needed forgiveness, needed her to say yes yes, I understand, but the longer she stayed quiet, the more he crumbled. “In Vovchansk, what I could do?” he implored. “Night after night Ukrainian screaming begins. I never know where it is coming from. Then screaming stops.” Striker held her hand out in case he wanted to squeeze it. But he didn’t.

  “Each night when screaming starts, ‘What?’ says my commander, ‘you never hear wind howling?’” Vadim’s imitation of his superior sounded strangely American. “Little Veronique,” he said. “You won’t believe but silence is worst, worser than anything. Worser than knife, worser than rope, gun. In silence, you become nothing. Knowing you did nothing. Just lay on god’s cold earth and tried to sleep.” He rolled toward her. “What Ukrainians did to me in prison camp was small peanuts compared to terrible silence I hear nights among my brother Russians.”

  I’ve known silences like that, she almost said.

  His finger landed on her back. He began tracing a path on her skin. She could feel his heart beating through his fingertip. He came to the last dot in her tattoo.

  “Is North Star,” he said, tapping it with his finger. “Every sailor’s friend.”

  “When lost, it’ll lead you home,” she explained.

  “What is this?”

  At the base of her neck, she felt his hand gently brush aside her twists.

  A shot of electricity needled up her spine. She knew the pattern his finger would make even before he finished tracing it.

  “A and V,” she said. “Ama and Veronique. My sister and I used to use a ruler to draw it on all of our stuff.”

  “Ah, was some kind of game.”

  “No, to prove it was ours.”

  “Why it needs proving?”

  She gave a small laugh. “Because we lived in a place where the locals didn’t expect people like us to have anything.”

  “Having things is overrated,” said Vadim. He patted her shoulder and rolled away. She could hear the shift in his gaze again, his eyes somewhere in the past. “Having things means protecting things.”

  The only thing she’d ever had worth protecting was Ama, and at that, she had failed spectacularly. Later, swimming back to the boat, she realized in all the most important ways, Vadim was miles ahead of her even though he was trailing a few blue feet behind in her blue wake.

  Back onboard, Kevin had heaped a stack of supplies by the yacht’s zodiac. Gordon Baker might be truant, but the tender was still sitting on the back deck. Even Striker knew most sailboats the size of Kate would have some kind of secondary craft. On a big boat, the tender was meant to shuttle passengers into port from a mooring out on the water. If Kate’s zodiac was still onboard, it meant her owner had disembarked in one of two ways. Either the guy had boarded someone else’s tender, or he’d abandoned ship by going over the side.