“Remo?” Felicia said. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Armenian,” Stacy replied, ad-libbing as she went along. “His great-grandparents came from Eastern Europe.”

  “Oh. Yeah, right.”

  “What happened? Can I ask you that?”

  “They made him, uh, jump overboard,” said Stacy. Even as she spoke the words, they had a kind of unreality about them, as if it were more of Remo’s cover, something he had taught her to repeat on cue.

  “That’s rough,” Felicia said. “Same thing they did with Jon and Barry. Did they shoot him, too?”

  “Felicia, Jesus!” Megan sounded angry.

  “I was just asking, for God’s sake!”

  “There was no shooting,” Stacy said.

  “Well, who knows?” said Felicia. “Maybe he’s okay, then.”

  Megan glared at her, making Felicia shrug, but Stacy was already thinking, Yes, maybe he is. Maybe he is all right. And wouldn’t that be something?

  She would have to keep her fingers crossed, to wait and see. If Remo came, he came. If not…well, there was still Chiun, his promise to destroy the pirates on his own, if it should come to that.

  With a start she saw the path her thoughts were taking. Crazy thoughts! Stupid dreams. She was losing touch with reality just as surely as poor old Chiun.

  Remo was dead. Chiun was living in a fantasy world. He was a hundred years old—he was not going to start kicking pirate ass. If she let herself start believing all this make-believe stuff, she would never be able to think her way out of this situation.

  She had to take care of herself.

  The thought left her trembling with a sudden graveyard chill.

  Captain Thomas Kidd had a decision to announce. There were procedures to be followed, certain risks involved, but he had made his mind up on the crucial point, and there would be no turning back. If there were any challenges, then he would have to meet them as he always had before—head-on, with all his might and courage.

  It wasn’t the easiest decision Kidd had ever made, but he had weighed it carefully, examined all the angles and potential arguments against his choice, before deciding that he should proceed at any cost. The time was right; he wasn’t getting any younger, and the notion was entirely logical when viewed from that perspective.

  It was time for Captain Kidd to take a wife. A queen, more properly, to help him rule the kingdom he had carved out for himself. In other circumstances, bygone days, there would have been a chance for him to shop around, survey the prospects in the islands—maybe even sail away to Florida and try his luck among the coastal cities—but the modern pirate life had more severe constraints. The captain was required to make do with the stock at hand.

  Most times, Kidd would have seen that limitation as an insurmountable impediment to courting, but Fate had a way of sneaking up on him sometimes. He was accustomed to the flow of captive women moving through the camp, few of them lasting long. A year or so had been the maximum for most; they had a tendency to die from tropical diseases, overwork or sheer despondency. A handful killed themselves, and one—the wench Billy Teach had captured aboard the Solon II—had actually managed to escape. Most were attractive in their way, some of them stunning, but they lacked a certain quality of majesty.

  Until today.

  Granted, she could have used a better name. Stacy was not a monarch’s name, granted, but Captain Kidd was willing to ignore such minor flaws. It was the way this woman carried herself, defiance flashing from her bold green eyes, refusing to be cowed by her surroundings, even now.

  She hated him, of course. That was a given, and he understood the feeling. What else could a kidnapper expect at first? Kidd knew it would take time for her to come around, but once she recognized her destiny, the transformation process could begin.

  And there was no time like the present to proceed.

  Kidd armed himself and left his quarters, moving purposefully through the compound to a central point, beside the cooking fire. The captive Chinese cook glanced at him in passing, his head jittering from side to side from some sort of disorder of the nervous system, and turned back to his stirring of the large, fire-blackened kettle.

  Captain Kidd stopped walking when he reached a kind of minigallows that had been erected near the center of the compound. It stood shoulder high, and where a body might have hung if it had been full-sized, a twisted triangle of rusty metal was suspended from a chain. Above it, on the crossbar of the wooden structure, lay an old screwdriver with a well-worn wooden handle and a twelve-inch blade.

  Kidd took the screwdriver in hand and rapped the blade repeatedly against the rusty iron triangle. The clamor echoed through the pirate camp, bringing men from their huts, from their chores, one or two hobbling back from relieving themselves in the bush.

  He waited until most of his men were assembled, roughly surrounding him, jostling one another for position. Several called out questions, which Kidd ignored, giving his rowdy brothers time to quiet down. When they were as silent as Kidd could expect, he raised his voice in order to be heard by everyone.

  “I’ll waste none of your time,” he said by way of introduction to his plan. “The time has come for me to take a wife. A queen, in fact. A woman who will give me sons and raise them in the grand tradition of our brotherhood.”

  That brought a murmur from the crowd, more than a few of them regarding Kidd with curiosity or frank suspicion. They were skeptical of change, and with good reason, since most alterations in the daily lives of outlaws brought them to a jail cell or a rope. A few of them were also wondering which woman he had chosen for himself, Kidd knew, and calculating how his choice would slash the list of wenches otherwise available to the community at large.

  “The woman I’ve selected is the captive known as Stacy,” Kidd announced. “We’ll marry in accordance with the laws of our community, and life will go on as before, except with prospects for an heir.”

  No one among Kidd’s audience suggested that the woman might have anything to say about the union; that wasn’t an issue in such cases, when a pirate chose himself a mate. Still, some of them were muttering, and Kidd paused, biding his time, waiting to discover if a man with courage would reveal himself among the crew.

  “What’s that leave for the rest of us?” a harsh voice challenged Kidd from somewhere in the ranks. He didn’t see the man who spoke but thought he recognized the voice.

  “Who asks me this?” Kidd scanned the rows of faces, waiting for the one outspoken buccaneer to show himself.

  A tall man shouldered through the press to take a stand in front of Kidd, perhaps ten feet away. As Kidd had thought, it was scar-faced Rodrigo, standing with his feet apart, hands fisted on his hips. Kidd knew without having to check that Rodrigo was wearing a dagger sheathed on his belt, behind his right hip, where he could reach it swiftly as the need arose. He was no mean hand with the weapon, either, if memory served.

  “I ask it,” said Rodrigo. “And I wager that I’m not the only one who’s thinkin’ it.”

  Rodrigo glanced around to see if anyone would second him, and while a number of the others stared at Kidd, as if expecting the performance of a special drama for their entertainment, none was forward enough to support him in words.

  The shortage of support didn’t appear to cow Rodrigo. If anything, he seemed emboldened as he turned once more to face his captain, fists still planted firmly on his hips. Had the pirate’s right fist edged closer to his knife?

  “It is a captain’s right to choose his mate,” Kidd told Rodrigo and the rest. “Who would dispute this time-honored law?”

  “I would,” Rodrigo said without a moment’s hesitation, “if it means a shortage for the rest of us, where nookie is concerned. I, for one, have been going without long enough.”

  “You’ve not been idle with the other hostages from what I hear,” said Kidd.

  Rodrigo frowned and cleared his throat. “That’s neither here nor there,” he blustered. “Whether these curs will ’fess up to it or not, I’m speaking for the lot of them. We want the redhead shared out with the rest. When we have wenches enough to go around, then it’ll be time enough to think about your wedding plans.”

  Kidd smiled and clasped his hands loosely behind his back. “And is there aught else on your mind?” he asked.

  Rodrigo hesitated for a moment, glancing back to left and right once more, then nodded to himself. “There is, indeed,” he said. “This business of an heir is something some of us don’t hold with absolutely, either. Any pirate’s law I ever heard of called for captains to be chosen from the brotherhood, by challenge. When did we start breedin’ ’em?”

  “A question worthy of reply,” Kidd said.

  Behind his back, the fingers of his right hand curled around the grip of a .38-caliber revolver, which he wore tucked into the back of his stout leather belt. In one smooth motion, Kidd drew the side arm, thumbing back the hammer, and thrust it out in front of him. The three-inch barrel was on target before Rodrigo knew what was happening, and Kidd squeezed the .38’s trigger a heartbeat later.

  The bullet struck Rodrigo squarely in the middle of his forehead, flattening on impact and toppling him over backward in the dust. Before the echo of the shot had died away, Kidd had another challenge for his men.

  “Who else disputes my right to choose a mate?” he asked in his most reasonable tone.

  When there was no reply, Kidd slowly lowered his revolver, turning back in the direction of his quarters. Offering his back to any coward who would take the chance, hoping that he would not be called upon to kill another of his men this afternoon.

  Behind him, as he walked away, he heard the ancient Oriental’s high-pitched voice. “Clear trash away!” he said. “Wash filthy hands and come to eat!”

  The only one who dared speak was a senile old man—that brought a chuckle to the lips of Captain Kidd.

  Carlos Ramirez tapped the ash from his cigar into an ashtray fashioned from a jaguar’s skull. It was illegal to hunt jaguars, since they had been registered as an endangered species, but such laws meant little to a multibillionaire who earned his living from cocaine.

  “Another boat,” Ramirez said. “Our friends are having busy days.”

  “They take too many risks,” Fabian Guzman said.

  “Life is a risk,” Ramirez said.

  “These locos thrive on danger,” Guzman argued. “They are not normal businessmen.”

  “What’s normal?” asked Ramirez. “The Jamaicans? The Italians? The Chinese? We have enough trouble with enemies, amigo. Do not borrow more by picking quarrels with our friends.”

  “Suppose they are discovered?” Fabian went on, insistent. “Do you think that they would hesitate to tell the Coast Guard or the DEA who buys the boats they steal?”

  “I doubt that they would let themselves be taken,” said the cocaine lord of Cartagena. “They are loco, as you say, and hate the law more than you do. Also, they seem to lead charmed lives. A padre told me once that God takes care of fools and children.”

  “They leave witnesses,” Guzman replied.

  “You mean the women? What is that to us? These locos need some entertainment on their little island, no? Is that so terrible? The women are not yours, amigo.”

  “I am told they let one get away.”

  Ramirez took a long pull on his prime Havana cigar, savoring the taste of it, slowly expelling twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. He had heard the story, too, about a Yankee woman who was fished out of the ocean, telling tales of pirates and the foul indignities she suffered at their hands, but nothing had been done about it so far. With no positive response from the authorities, Ramirez thought there must be one of two solutions to the riddle. First, the story might be false, one of those rumors that came up from time to time, without apparent origin, and got some people overheated while they sought in vain to track it down. The other possibility was that a woman had escaped the pirates, but that she could give no useful information to the law. She could be dead by now, perhaps deranged from her experience, or simply ignorant of where she had been held.

  In any case, Ramirez told himself, no problem.

  Unless…

  Carlos Ramirez had survived this long in a treacherous business, while others fell around him, because he left nothing to chance. His dealings with the pirates led by Thomas Kidd had amply benefited both sides, and he had no wish to sever the connection if there was a means of keeping it alive. Security came first, however, and he wouldn’t sacrifice himself, the empire he had built from his estate outside of Cartagena, in the interest of some loco pirates who weren’t even from Colombia.

  “What are you thinking?” he inquired of his lieutenant.

  “Simply that we must be cautious in our dealings with these people, Carlos. They are not part of our family—they never will be. When I talk to them and look into their eyes, it is like talking to—” Guzman dropped his voice to a whisper, though they were alone “—like talking to Jorge.”

  Ramirez looked at his lieutenant sharply, surprised at the breach in etiquette. Jorge’s name was not to be mentioned.

  “I say this,” Guzman stated carefully and seriously, “so that you will know what I am thinking. If I am right, then we need to do something about it.”

  The brief flare of anger subsided, and Ramirez nodded in understanding. Guzman’s point was well taken. Jorge, the unmentionable cousin, was a crazy boy, kept in seclusion in a comfortable but hidden and remote private asylum in the jungle. Just him and a few dozen overpaid caretakers. Ramirez and Guzman visited him regularly—every Christmas Eve without fail.

  Jorge had insane eyes, and now that Ramirez considered it, he had maybe seen a touch of that in the eyes of the pirates. Just a little, but it was there, masked behind their animal cruelty.

  Of course, you had to be crazy to live like they did. Kidd had insisted that they were like the American Amish people, who lived their lives by codes of conduct that the rest of the world forgot centuries ago. They just didn’t happen to have the religious rationale that made the Amish look “normal.”

  There sure was nothing moral or ethical in the pirates’ code. They were savage, even by the standards of the Colombian drug trade.

  Bloodthirsty and at least slightly unbalanced. Not a good combination. Not the kind of people you necessarily should be putting your trust in.

  Yes, he told himself. The loco label said it all.

  Still, they were useful in their way. They had supplied Ramirez with an average of ten to fifteen boats per year since he had first begun to deal with Captain Kidd. A handful of the craft were still in use on smuggling runs—repainted now, of course, with brand-new serial numbers guaranteed to pass at least a cursory inspection. The rest were either seized or sunk, some of them auctioned off by U.S. Customs or the DEA under provisions of the federal assets seizure program. It was a point of special, ironic pride to Ramirez that some of those very boats would be repurchased at a discount by his own jobbers, returned yet again to the smuggling trade…and that they would no doubt be seized again at some time in the future.

  The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

  Ramirez had trusted Thomas Kidd. Should he continue to trust the man—within the limits of his own ability to trust?

  They would never be the best of friends, that much was preordained, but Carlos didn’t think the pirate would betray him, either.

  Not unless Kidd found a way to profit greatly from the treachery.

  In the devious world of Carlos Ramirez, there were only two ways to insure loyalty—fear and favor. Colombians even had a phrase in Spanish that expressed the concept: plata o plomo. Silver or lead. If you didn’t accept the silver that was offered willingly, you got the lead when you were least expecting it. Sometimes the other members of your family got the lead, as well.

  Ramirez wasn’t prepared for a war with the pirates of the Windward Islands. They had served him well, so far, without a hitch. It might be useful, even so, if he could find a way to reinforce their loyalty now, before some outside stress or stimulus should put it to the test.

  “When are we picking up the latest boat?” Ramirez asked.

  “Tomorrow or the next day,” Guzman said.

  “Make it tomorrow. Send the word.”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  Guzman didn’t like the order, but he would obey it all the same. It was his nature to be second in command, a follower. That was why Ramirez trusted his lieutenant more than any other living man. He knew that even if poor Fabian should find the courage to rebel against his master, it wouldn’t occur to him. He would no sooner try to run the family by himself than he would sprout wings and fly up to Panama City for carnival season.

  “When we go, this time,” Ramirez added in an offhand tone, “I’m going with you.”

  “Carlos! Why, for Christ’s sake? It could be—”

  The cocaine lord raised his hand for silence, and Guzman’s mouth snapped shut like a mousetrap. Angry color darkened Guzman’s cheeks, but he had nothing more to say without permission from his commander.

  “It has been some time since I sat down with Kidd and talked about our common interests,” Ramirez said. “It can do no harm to show our partners that we value their participation. I may even feel disposed to pay a bit more for the next few boats, if it seems feasible.”

  “Carlos—”

  “I must look into those eyes again, Fabian.” Ramirez took another pull on his cigar, let the smoke leak slowly from between his teeth. “I must see if I see—what you see, then decide what to do.”

  Guzman understood. He said as much with new determination in his brief nod.

  “Go send the word,” Ramirez said. “And while you’re at it, get the troops together. I want twenty men for this excursion, well armed.”

  “Sí, jefe. As you say.”

  Guzman went off to carry out his orders, while Ramirez sat alone and thought about the day to come. A nice excursion to the islands, sun and sea, a bit of an adventure with the pirates waiting for him at the other end. And if his meeting with the pirate leader gave him any cause to think Kidd might betray them, well…