Plomo o plata, sí.

  Lead and silver.

  They made the bloody world go around.

  Remo thought the Mulligan Stew would never leave. First Ethan Humphrey spent what seemed like hours in his cabin, unpacking his duffel bag and making up his room with the diligence of the true anal retentive.

  Finally the buccaneers returned from their respective errands and groused with the master of the vessel over whatever it was that he had sent them off to fetch. Then, at last, they cast off.

  Remo watched them go.

  When they were about a hundred yards from shore, he ran after them.

  Running on water wasn’t easy, even for a Master of Sinanju. It involved, simply put, sensing the natural pressure of the water’s surface and not allowing your footsteps to apply pressure in excess of that. Remo didn’t understand it himself, exactly, and found it was better not to think about it too much. Just do it. If you wanted to keep dry, it was better than swimming.

  The calm Caribbean helped. He crossed the open water in a smooth blur of flying feet that touched, but never quite broke the surface, and landed as soundless as a feather on the rear diving platform of the Mulligan Stew. And he wasn’t wet except for some droplets clinging to his shoes.

  Time to take over.

  There was some kind of a racket on the front deck, a sound of spillage, something broken, followed by an angry outburst from one of the pirates. Heavy footsteps came around the back of the deckhouse and turned into the companionway without noticing Remo.

  Remo followed him inside. It was the man with long hair, cursing to himself and reaching for a broom or mop in a closet, and he finally sensed trouble. He turned around fast, but it was too late for him. Remo took him by the scruff of the neck in a two-finger pinch that froze him solid.

  Remo put the fallen mop in the long-hair’s hand, closed his fingers around it and walked him back outside. Long Hair mewled.

  Remo heard the skinhead muttering, while Ethan Humphrey told him to relax, that it was nothing to get excited about. A little glass, was all.

  “Spilt milk,” he heard the ex-professor say, and chuckle to himself.

  It seemed that either Skinhead or Long Hair had dropped a pitcher with some kind of fruit drink in it, and fractured glass and pinkish liquid spread across the planking of the deck.

  Skinhead’s back was to him, Ethan Humphrey facing toward the open hatch as Remo stepped into the light with the silent Long Hair. The old man recognized him at a glance but didn’t speak. His lips were working, but no sound was coming out. The bald man, as it happened, was busy staring and cursing at the mess around his feet, oblivious to Humphrey’s sudden shock.

  And then, the ex-professor found his voice. “My God!” he blurted out. “It’s you!”

  “Huh?” Skinhead grumbled. “What are you talk—?”

  Skinhead stopped when he saw the old man’s face, eyes focused behind him. He glanced across one burly shoulder, blinked at Remo in surprise and pivoted to face the stranger, reaching for something on his hip. A knife.

  Remo moved in slow motion as far as Skinhead or the old man could tell, but the knife wasn’t even out of its leather sheath before Remo took hold of the forearm that was grabbing for it. He bent the forearm, but it wasn’t the wrist that turned at right angles suddenly—it was the forearm itself, and that required a lot of bone breaking to accomplish. Remo didn’t mind putting out the little bit of extra effort.

  Skinhead minded. The bellow that came out of him was extraordinary.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Remo said as he pinched Skinhead behind the neck in a fashion similar to Long Hair; this made the bellow stop. “People will think you’re a foghorn—you want to screw up shipping traffic from here to Key West?”

  “What are you doing here?” Ethan Humphrey demanded.

  “First things first,” Remo said. “Do we or do we not need Dumb and Dumber to make the trip to the pirate island?”

  “Wha-what?” Humphrey asked. “Pirate island?”

  “They know where the pirate island is,” Remo said matter-of-factly. “Don’t you, boys?”

  In torment, Skinhead and Long Hair still managed to produce vigorous nods of assent.

  “If they can get me there, I’ll keep them. Instead of you,” Remo said. “Got the picture?”

  “I get it,” Humphrey said miserably.

  “You take me where I need to go, and you just might survive,” said Remo, “but you don’t have tons of time to think about it. Tick-tock, Dr. Humphrey. Sink or swim.”

  “I’ll take you.” Humphrey hung his head.

  “Good. Sorry, boys.”

  He lifted the pair of cutthroats and brought them together violently, shattering their bones and pulverizing their softer parts. What remained was fused into a mass of flesh and seeping blood. Remo heaved it into the water before it started to drip on the deck.

  Humphrey was staring at Remo, aghast, as he turned back from the rail. “You…you…killed him!” the professor stammered.

  “I didn’t check pulses but, yeah, I’m pretty sure dead is what they are,” Remo asked.

  “I’m to be next, I suppose?”

  “Well, that depends on you.”

  “Excuse me?” Humphrey seemed confused.

  Chapter 15

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re surprised,” the man named Kidd responded. “Certainly, I understand how you must feel.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  They were alone inside the squalid hut that served as Stacy’s prison cell. The other three young women had been sent outside when he arrived demanding privacy. At first Stacy feared she was about to be assaulted, but the truth was even more bizarre, more frightening.

  The pirate captain was proposing marriage.

  No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t asking her to marry him. Rather, he was informing her of his decision, standing back and smiling at her with his yellow teeth, as if she ought to be delighted by the news. He plainly viewed the prospect of their marriage as an honor that should be apparent to the most thickheaded woman on the planet.

  “Married?” She repeated it as if the word were foreign to her, not a part of her vocabulary.

  “That’s the ticket,” Kidd replied, still beaming at her with discolored teeth. “You’re prob’ly wondering about the service.”

  “Well—”

  “I grant you, we don’t have a rightful preacher,” he continued, “but we have our differences with Mother Church.”

  “I can imagine,” Stacy said.

  Kidd chuckled to himself, appreciating her wit, but it was artificial, like stage laughter, there and gone. He still had more to say, and while he hadn’t exactly rehearsed the speech, he still seemed bent on making certain points.

  “The good news,” Kidd continued, “is that I’m the captain of this scurvy lot, and maritime law gives me the authority to pronounce nuptials.”

  “So, you can marry yourself?”

  Kidd blinked at that idea, as if confused, then frowned slightly. “Perform the rights, you mean? Of course. I grant you, it may not be strictly legal on the mainland, but I’ve long since given up on courting the opinion of landlubbers.”

  “This is so sudden,” Stacy said. It was the ultimate cliché, but she could think of nothing else to say. Her mind was racing, jumbled thoughts colliding, jostling one another, but she had a feeling that it would be foolish—maybe even fatal—to show weakness in the presence of this man.

  “You’ll get used to the notion,” Kidd replied, “once we’ve been rightly hitched. You’ll be my queen.”

  The final comment was so serious that Stacy almost laughed out loud. She bit her tongue instead and stood with eyes downcast, considering the best response.

  “What sort of an engagement period were you considering?” she asked at last.

  “Engagement?” Once again Kidd seemed confused. “To hell with that nonsense! Tonight’s the night, my love. Your Chinky friend’s already working on the menu.”

  “He’s Korean,” Stacy said, stalling for time.

  “It’s all the same,” Kidd said. “You rest now. Get yourself shipshape for the big event.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear!” she blurted out, the sheer absurdity of it all twitching the corners of her mouth into a near-hysterical smile that could just as easily have been a rictus of pain.

  “No matter,” Kidd replied. “We’ll fix you up with something for the ceremony. Later on, of course, you won’t need anything to wear.”

  He left her with a wink and leer in parting. Stacy stared after him until she was alone and fairly certain he wouldn’t duck back to add some new announcement. She stiffened at the sound of shuffling footsteps, but it was her fellow captives returning. Megan came forward, while Robin and Felicia hung back, near the curtained entrance to the hut.

  “I hear we’re going to be bridesmaids,” Megan said.

  At that, a dam burst inside Stacy, and she stepped into the younger woman’s arms, dissolving into tears.

  Chiun was working on a culinary masterpiece. It was to be a wedding feast, as he had been informed, and the ridiculous young men who thought he was their prisoner demanded “something special for the bride and groom.”

  Chiun intended to oblige.

  The one-eyed cretin charged with guarding Chiun lurched to his feet as the Master Emeritus of Sinanju approached. “Need sumpthin’, Chinaman?”

  Chiun considered pulling off the pirate’s arm and using it to rearrange his grubby features. It would be so easy. Once that simple chore was done, he could proceed to take the others as they came, one at a time, or in whatever combinations they preferred. There were no more than sixty-five or seventy in all. It would be child’s play. If not for the prisoners. Surely the rabble would resort to using hostages once it became apparent that they were being picked off by an invisible killer.

  How important, he wondered for the tenth time, were the prisoners, really?

  Important enough to Emperor Smith, Chiun decided. He would be upset. As would Remo—and the bigmouthed boy would never let the subject rest. He would go on and on for weeks. Chiun would be in misery. He sighed mentally. He would have to wait.

  But the waiting wouldn’t be wasted time.

  “Your captain wants a special feast,” Chiun said, making his voice higher and slightly squeaky.

  “Our cap’n?” parroted the goon behind the crusty eye patch.

  “As I said.” Chiun could be obsequious when circumstances called for it, though it would never cease to gall him. “I require some spices.”

  “We got salt,” said the pirate, swinging at the single wooden shelf in the cooking sty. “And we got pepper.”

  “Not enough,” Chiun replied, gesturing toward the forest that surrounded the encampment. “I must go and look for other things.”

  “Like hell,” the pirate snarled. “Nobody tole me nothin’ ’bout you leavin’ camp. Forget about it, Slant-eyes.”

  This time, Chiun imagined reaching deep inside the pirate’s chest and ripping out the withered lump of gristle that sufficed him for a heart. Perhaps, on second thought, it would be more instructive to crack open his skull and examine the tiny husk of his brain.

  Both prospects made Chiun smile, an uncharacteristic expression on his ancient face, but the pirate didn’t know him well enough to realize that death was near.

  “I cannot argue with such evident intelligence,” he said. “No doubt, you will explain to Captain Kidd why his instructions for the wedding feast have been ignored. He will, of course, be sympathetic to your reasoning.”

  “You tellin’ me the cap’n ordered this?”

  “His excellency’s order is for me to fix the ultimate gourmet repast. I have little to work with. Producing a special feast from this miserable larder will demand, at the very least, some distinctive seasonings.”

  The pirate tried to wrap his mind around Chiun’s statement, which had an awful lot of long words in it, then snorted. “Where in hell you think you’re livin’, Chinaman? These ain’t the goddamn spice islands, for Neptune’s sake!”

  “I have some knowledge of these things,” Chiun replied. “There is no doubt the jungle, there, will yield surprises for the palate.”

  Chiun’s watchdog glared at the forest with his one eye, finally turning back to face the Master Emeritus of Sinanju. “I don’t like the jungle,” he declared.

  “By all means, then, stay here,” Chiun offered. “After all, how can I run away?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The pirate sneered. “Get me in trouble with the cap’n, jus’ so you can go off playin’ in the woods. No way you’re gettin’ off that easy, Slant-eyes.”

  “I will be most happy for your company,” Chiun suggested, smiling pleasantly.

  The gruff guard actually found himself amused by the tiny Chink codger, who had to be off his rocker. The old fart’d been prisoner here just a day and here he was happy as a clam.

  The pirate might have thought differently if he saw the picture in Chiun’s head—a vision of the pirate with his head cranked backward on his shoulders.

  “How long’s this supposed to take?”

  “Not long,” Chiun replied. “The sooner I can find what I am looking for, the sooner we come back.”

  “I dunno how you think you’re gonna find a goddamn thing out there,” the pirate groused.

  “Jungles are much the same,” Chiun informed his captor. “I have every confidence.”

  “Le’s get a friggin’ move on, then!” the one-eyed pirate growled. “I wanna get back here and stick to business.”

  “As you say,” Chiun replied. “Your wish is my command.”

  Carlos Ramirez was a city boy at heart, though he had spent his first half-dozen years in the Colombian back country, where he observed the coca trade firsthand. He felt at home with solid ground beneath his feet, and while he owned two yachts himself, employing them for floating orgies on occasion, he was never perfectly at ease once they left the dock behind.

  Ramirez didn’t get seasick, exactly, but he always felt as if the deep water beneath his keel was in control, somehow, and he despised the feeling, as he hated anything that made him feel inadequate.

  That afternoon, Ramirez had two boats to think about. He was aboard the Macarena, a sixty-foot luxury craft he had legally purchased in Miami two years earlier, allowing his then-mistress to name it. Iliana said it was “my favorite song from when I was a kid!” This from a girl still three months shy of being able to vote legally in her native Florida. But she was certainly grown-up enough to perform her duties as Ramirez’s concubine.

  A role without much job security, as Iliana learned about by the time she celebrated her eighteenth and final birthday. While Iliana was no more, the Macarena served Ramirez well enough. This day he shared the craft with Fabian Guzman, three crewmen and four soldiers. The second vessel was the Scorpion, a forty-foot speed launch with another two dozen shooters aboard.

  “Carlos?”

  Ramirez turned away from the port rail and found Guzman beside him, full lips curved into a frown.

  “Still worrying?” Ramirez asked.

  Guzman rolled his massive shoulders in a lazy shrug. “This business with the pirates,” he replied. “I keep thinking you would be safer back at home.”

  “But for how long?” Ramirez asked. “If there was any doubt in Medellín or Cartagena that I had the capability to deal with locos such as these, how long before I find my enemies attacking me on every side?”

  “If you fear treachery, Carlos—”

  Ramirez leaned in close to Guzman, with their noses almost touching. “I fear nothing, Fabian! Repeat it!”

  “You fear nothing. Sí, I understand, Carlos. Forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive, my friend. A mere slip of the tongue.”

  “As for these soldiers, though…”

  “I want them in reserve, as I’ve explained,” Ramirez said. “There is no reason to believe that Kidd is planning to betray us. Should he entertain such suicidal notions, though, we will have force enough on hand to deal with him.”

  “Three dozen guns, Carlos, if you include the two of us.”

  “Are you not still a soldier, Fabian?” Ramirez enjoyed the darkening of Guzman’s countenance, the way his spine stiffened at the thinly veiled insult.

  “You know I am,” his second in command replied, “but they outnumber us two to one, at least.”

  “They are as children,” said Ramirez. “They are locos, Fabian. You said as much yourself.”

  “Locos who aren’t afraid to kill,” Guzman replied. “They’ve proved that much. I simply do not trust them, Carlos.”

  “A wise decision,” said Ramirez. “Trust is difficult to earn among the best of friends. The best of families have traitors in their ranks, as you know well. Strangers like these…”

  He made a vague, dismissive gesture with one hand and turned back toward the rail. The deck shifted beneath his feet, Ramirez stretching out one hand to grip the rail and keep himself from wobbling where he stood. Behind him, Guzman stood with his feet well apart, arms crossed over his chest.

  A backward glance showed him the Scorpion a hundred yards or so behind the Macarena, keeping pace. Most of the gunners were belowdecks, as he had commanded. The Scorpion wouldn’t be putting into harbor when they reached the pirate stronghold—not unless and until Ramirez felt he needed reinforcements on the scene. If Kidd or one of his subordinates had any questions about the second vessel, Carlos meant to answer that he needed crewmen for the new boat he was buying from the pirates. It was all they had to know, unless Ramirez had some reason to believe that there was treachery afoot. In which case…

  Carlos wished that he could have his soldiers check their guns again, but logic told him that wouldn’t be necessary. They were all professionals and would have seen to their equipment well before they went aboard the yacht. If there was one thing that his soldiers knew about, it was preparing for a fight.