“Everything all right?” asked Remo when his plate was nearly clean and Stacy had begun to eat with visible reluctance.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m just not used to so much health food all at once.”

  “Americans eat garbage,” Chiun declared, his chopsticks moving deftly, cleaning up the last few morsels from his plate. “Red meat and entrails. All things fried in pig’s fat. Too much sugar, chocolate, grease—all poison to the body. No surprise that you are fat.”

  Stacy recoiled, as if Chiun had slapped her face or called her by a filthy name. She wore a low-cut cocktail dress that fit her like a second skin, and Remo noticed with amusement that she sucked in her stomach, perhaps unconsciously, as she replied to Chiun.

  “You think I’m fat?” She sounded horrified.

  “I speak of Americans in general,” Chiun said offhandedly. “White women feel they need huge breasts and buttocks to attract a man. Of course, white men encourage same, with their attraction to obesity.”

  “Obesity?”

  Stacy resembled an incipient stroke victim. Remo knew better than to step in now. He ate his rice.

  “White women are beset by too much leisure time,” Chiun said, continuing his lecture to a redfaced audience of one. “Watch too much television. Eat too many bonbons, cupcakes, dildos.”

  “Dildos?”

  “He means Ding Dongs,” Remo interjected.

  Chiun made a dismissive gesture with his chopsticks. “Ding Dongs, dildos, it is all the same.”

  “That’s not exactly—”

  “Of course, my son is the perfect example of the crude white male.”

  “Your son?” Stacy squinted at Remo. “He’s really your father?”

  “Not biologically,” Remo explained.

  “I’m surprised he is taken with you,” Chiun rambled on. “You’re one of the rare white women whose proportions have not been exaggerated through surgery or gluttony. Usually Remo likes his women to be balloon breasted.”

  “Congratulations, you’ve just been complimented,” Remo said.

  “That was a compliment?”

  “As good as Chiun gives.”

  “Of course, the other extreme is just as repulsive,” Chiun said. “Those emaciated, bloodless females who feel the way to attract a man is to look like a starving mongrel waif. I cannot understand where this attraction comes from. Starvation is not enticing. In fact, the starvation of the villagers of Sinanju—”

  “Little Father?” Remo said.

  “So does this character think I’m fat or not?”

  There was a dead silence. Remo said, “She’s talking about you, Chiun.”

  “I am not a character. I am Chiun. Young woman, you are reasonably proportioned for your race.”

  “Thank you,” Stacy Armitage said, satisfied.

  “But your hips are too narrow,” Chiun added.

  “My hips are just fine!”

  “They will constrict your birth canal.”

  “What?” She almost screeched.

  “I assume you plan to coerce Remo into giving you his seed, but I must warn you that his offspring will give you a difficult birthing.”

  Stacy sputtered. No words would come. She looked at Remo for help, and he became very interested in the bland scraps of steamed fish on his plate.

  “I am out of here!” she blurted finally.

  “One look at Remo’s grotesquely huge skull should be warning aplenty,” Chiun pointed out helpfully. “Would you attempt to pass an offspring with a head proportioned like his?”

  She made a final furious sound and slammed the hand-hewed oak door behind her.

  “Terrific,” Remo muttered. “You couldn’t have saved that for another time?”

  “She clearly was not being too observant, or she would have come to this realization on her own. Your head is quite the monstrosity, my son.”

  “You might consider cutting her some slack, if not me,” Remo said. “I’ll go and try to calm her down. Pablo needs his dinner, while you’re at it.”

  “So, I am a servant’s servant now?”

  Remo knew it was hopeless. Rising from the alcove where he sat, he followed Stacy topside, found her standing at the starboard rail, arms crossed, lips set in a thin, angry slash.

  “You all right?” Remo asked.

  “Obviously not,” she snapped. “I’m lazy and obese from sitting on my ass all day and eating dildos. Not to mention my inadequate birth canal.”

  “Chiun has trouble with the language sometimes,” Remo lied.

  “Is that my problem?” Stacy asked him. “Is there any reason you can think of why I ought to take the heat because he has a thing about white women?”

  “Welcome to my world. He dislikes whites in general,” said Remo. “In fact, he dislikes virtually all races, creeds and nationalities.”

  “Except Koreans?”

  “He pretty much despises Koreans, too, although less than everybody else.”

  “Does he even like his own villagers?”

  “Not so much.”

  Stacy turned to face him, leaning on the rail provocatively. “So, as one persecuted honky to another, do you think I’m obese?”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Remo suspiciously.

  She frowned, a pouty look that had a feel of having been rehearsed about it. “Hey, we’re man and wife, remember? Even if it’s just for little Pablo’s sake. A husband ought to show some interest, don’t you think?”

  She glanced up toward the flying bridge, then back at Remo.

  “Strictly for the mission?” Remo asked her.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, in that case…” Remo leaned in close enough that he could smell a hint of peppermint on Stacy’s breath and wondered where it came from. “Why don’t you go on ahead,” he urged. “I want to have a word with Pablo.”

  “Don’t be long.”

  He watched her go and had a fair idea what he was passing up. Already having second thoughts, he didn’t intend to complicate the situation by engaging in a shipboard romance or even just a lusty romp.

  He went aft, climbed the ladder to the flying bridge and met their pilot with a smile. “My turn,” he said. “You’ve earned a good night’s sleep.”

  “If you are sure?”

  “I’m sure,” said Remo. “See you in the morning.”

  Was there something devious behind the young man’s smile as he made way for Remo at the console, or was that simply imagination working overtime? Remo could not be sure, but he was positive about one thing: if there were pirates waiting for them in the darkness, up ahead, he didn’t want the new man at the helm.

  Besides, he had schemes of his own to carry out. Carefully, so as not to touch any of the helm electronics, he lifted the satellite phone and dialed home. Dialing home consisted of leaning on the 1 key until somebody answered.

  “Basique Boutique.”

  Remo honestly couldn’t tell if it was a male voice or a female voice. It sure did lilt a lot. He said, “Give me Smith.”

  “We have a Judith working tomorrow.” Remo realized that he was, in fact, talking to a computer. “Also a Maximillian.”

  “I want Smith.”

  “Well, actually, there’s a new stylist starting tomorrow. Not sure of his name. You realize we’re closed now, don’t you?”

  “If I don’t get Smith, Harold W., in the next five seconds I’ll call up Armitage, Senator Chester, and let him handle this problem.”

  “Remo, it’s me,” Smith said, coming on the line abruptly.

  “Hey, Smitty, I don’t appreciate having my chain jerked by your fruity little mainframes.”

  “It’s a new system, Remo. Just be a little patient. It’s not always easy to get a positive voice ID, especially on the poor audio signal a telephone provides.”

  “Is this screening really necessary?”

  “My old methods of screening out bad calls just aren’t as effective as they used to be,” Smith explained curtly. “If I could convince you to learn a few basic code numbers—”

  “Forget it,” Remo sniped. “Where’s the ferry?”

  “On its way. Let’s see. ETA twenty minutes.”

  “Who’s handling the pickup?” Remo asked.

  “DEA.”

  “They know the plan?”

  “Yes, they were fully briefed.”

  “I’d rather not go swimming this evening if they screw it up.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Remo said.

  “Make it nineteen,” Smith answered tartly.

  Remo didn’t wear a watch. He didn’t need to. He had a clock in his head and it kept perfect time. He went belowdecks, moving silently. Not a floorboard creaked. He paused outside the economy berth belonging to Pablo Altamira and listened to the breathing of the man inside. Pablo was asleep. Then he went to the luxury stateroom where Stacy Armitage waited. She was in her vast, circular bed wearing only the ivory satin topsheet and a perky smile.

  “I thought you wouldn’t come,” she said. He could read the arousal in the pattern of her breathing, in the dilation of her pupils.

  He sat on the bed alongside her. She dropped the sheet. Remo nodded sadly and said, “Unfortunately, I won’t.”

  She was confused for just a moment, then he touched her neck. She slumped over, unconscious, breathing peacefully. It took him minutes to stuff her limp limbs back into sweatpants, sandals and an oversize T-shirt from a Puerta Plata souvenir shop. It featured a large toucan lounging on a beach towel and drinking a tropical drink from a pineapple. It was emblazoned with the message, “I changed my attitude in Puerta Plata!”

  “Not really, you didn’t,” Remo said to the sleeping daughter of a U.S. senator, who simply didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

  He draped her over one shoulder and toted her onto the deck. He heard Pablo still sleeping, but knew he had someone waiting for him outside.

  “Oh, Remo, are these the tactics to which you are reduced to procure female companionship?” Chiun asked, shaking his head sadly.

  “I wish. I’ll have you know she was ready for a hay roll. Instead I put her to sleep and got her dressed without any hanky-panky.”

  “Because?”

  “She was responding to the pheromones or whatever, just like all the others. No, thanks.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t your Sinanju essence. Maybe she was attracted to you, Remo Williams.” Chiun followed him down the length of the Melody.

  “Come off it, Chiun.”

  “Unlikely, I know, but still possible. Stranger things have happened. I have seen the most hideous and deformed human beings with mates, so why not you, my son?”

  “What, with this big head?”

  “It is a comically oversized brainpan, yes, but there must be a woman somewhere who can overlook this trait. Perhaps the trollop sprung from the senator’s loins was the one.”

  “I don’t think so,” Remo said as he yanked out a life raft and pulled the plug, hoisting it off the aft end of the Melody as it expanded from a tight rubber wad into an eight-person raft. He handed Chiun the line that held it and leaped down to the raft. He laid the unconscious woman inside it.

  “Of course, there are also the ears, which are genuinely repulsive,” Chiun mentioned. “And then there are your flabby, slobbering lips. They disgust me, but perhaps a woman in desperate straits would see past them.”

  “I doubt it,” Remo said, half listening to Chiun as he peered into the wake of the Melody. The nineteen and a half minutes were up when he saw the strobing light, so distant as to be nothing more than a glimmer on the horizon.

  “Let her go,” Remo said.

  Chiun shrugged and released the line.

  Stacy Armitage, sleeping quietly, floated off into the blackness of the Caribbean night.

  Remo watched the raft until even his sharp eyes could no longer make out the black shape on the black ocean.

  “Wow, is she gonna be pissed,” he observed.

  “Yes,” Chiun agreed. Remo could hear the amusement in his voice.

  He returned to the helm and phoned Rye, New York, and found himself talking to Jude, the nightshift manager of Pets? You Bet! Pet Supply Warehouse, “where all rawhide chew toys are on sale for two weeks only!” Of course it was the new CURE call-filtering system. In order to provide the system with a sufficient audio signal from which to make a positive voice print ID, Remo began an in-depth description of what use she should make of her discounted rawhide bones.

  “Does your mother hen know that kind of talk comes out of your mouth?” interrupted a familiar voice—but it was not Harold W. Smith’s.

  “That’s nothing compared to some of the creative Korean stuff he says when the TV reception goes bad,” Remo answered. “What’s the status on our pickup, Junior?”

  “Dr. Smith is in contact with the DEA agents, but it hasn’t happened yet,” reported Mark Howard, CURE’s assistant director.

  “Is there a problem? There better not be a problem.”

  “No. They’ve spotted her. They’re just letting her float in. It’ll be a few minutes.”

  “I’ll hold.”

  Five minutes later Howard reported, “They’ve got her. Safe and sound and sleeping like a baby.”

  “My advice is that they stay clear when she wakes up,” Remo said. “The fish are gonna fly.”

  The morning was peaceful. Remo enjoyed the quiet. Pablo was at the helm and hadn’t blinked an eye when told Mrs. Rubble was feeling sick and was staying in her cabin. He’d have to think of a better excuse later if he needed to.

  But Pablo started getting agitated later in the morning. He shifted his feet frequently. Remo saw Pablo scanning the horizon too intently, using the helm binoculars too often.

  It was coming soon.

  He wasn’t surprised when he spotted the speck on the ocean.

  Minutes later the speck was much bigger and he turned to Pablo Altamira, back on station at the helm, raising his voice to be heard above the sounds of the sea and their engine. He pointed out the other watercraft. “Can you make out what that is?” he called.

  “Not yet,” the young Dominican replied. “Too far.”

  Remo went belowdecks and found Chiun in front of the TV, sending hate rays from his eyes at a TV that alternated a snowstorm of static with a scene of two weeping and impeccably manicured women speaking Spanish.

  “We may have company,” Remo announced.

  “I heard you bellowing. Are they pirates?”

  “I don’t know yet. You want to have a look?”

  “Later,” said Chiun.

  “Fine,” Remo muttered. “This is the worst three-hour tour I’ve ever been on.” As he strolled back on deck he felt a minute shifting in the Melody’s course. He glanced at Pablo in the helm seat, thought of saying something to the young Dominican and then decided it was better to keep still. Let the plan play out.

  The speck, still better than a mile away, now appeared to be some kind of trawler, neither new nor very well maintained. He spotted one man at the helm, another at the stern, though Remo couldn’t tell what he was doing. Neither man was obviously armed, but both had faces turned toward the Melody. He waved.

  The trawler’s helmsman turned, said something to his crewman in the stern, and Remo watched the second man move forward, pausing at the cockpit long enough to reach inside a cabinet and take out something. Remo couldn’t have said exactly what it was, but the package resembled a square of folded cloth, partly red and partly black.

  The crewman moved toward the stern, where the trawler’s stubby flagpole was mounted. Now he separated one part of the bundle in his hands from another, shaking the first one open before he clipped it to the flagpole’s halyard, briskly running it aloft. A crimson pennant caught the wind, unfurled and started flapping in the breeze.

  Above and behind him, Remo heard Pablo call out, “They show a red flag. We must help if we can.”

  “Right!” he replied to their pilot. “Let’s go, then.”

  The Melody was changing course, swiftly and smoothly, with Pablo’s sure hands on the wheel. Remo saw the older, smaller boat turning to meet them now, assuming what was nearly a collision course. Her pilot and the crewman in the stern were still the only humans visible on board. Remo reached out over the water, trying to listen past the thrum of the engines and the distortion of the sea.

  The distance between the two boats had halved, when the trawler’s crewman turned back to the flagpole, swiftly lowered the red distress pennant and raised a square flag in its place. This one was black, except for the grinning skull and crossbones in the center of its field.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” said Remo to nobody, then turned to get Chiun.

  “Stay where you are!”

  Pablo Altamira’s voice was no real shock to Remo. Neither was the pistol in his hand, its muzzle held rock steady at Remo’s chest.

  “Can we talk about this?” Remo asked the slim Dominican.

  “Indeed we can—and will,” said Pablo, grinning brightly now. “My friends will be most happy to discuss the situation with you. In the meantime, though, while we are waiting for them, please do nothing stupid that will make me kill you. ¿Por favor?”

  Chapter 11

  “She don’t look all that rich to me,” the first mate said.

  “Nobody asked you, Wink,” Billy Teach replied.

  “No, sir.”

  The first mate’s given name was Lester Suff, but that would never do among the rowdy boys. They called him Wink because he had a nervous tic that made his left eye twitch an average of twice a minute, giving him the aspect of a chronic winker. It wasn’t a bad nickname, as pirate handles went: less fearsome than a few, less embarrassing than most.

  Wink didn’t know what he was talking about, either. The cabin cruiser looked tame enough, but Teach could read the signs of her subtle luxury. He saw hand-hewed teak rails on the inner decks, and enough antennas for a small television studio. She wasn’t flashy, but the Melody was worth big, big bucks.

  It had better be, Teach thought. Better be worth the risk.

  The word had come from port, their man in Puerta Plata, and it had been Teach’s task to take the trawler out to sea. Most of his crew were concealed belowdecks, sweating in the hold and clutching weapons as they struck an intercepting course.