Chief Riley took the prisoners aft. Wegener watched the bosun fairly throw them into the Zodiac. Five minutes later it was hoisted aboard. The yacht headed northwest, and the cutter turned away to continue her patrol. The first man from the boarding party to reach the bridge was the seaman who'd worked the Polaroid. He handed over half a dozen of the color frames.
"The chief collected some stuff for you to look at, Cap'n. It's worse'n it looks here. Wait till you see the TV tape. It's already set up for copying."
Wegener handed the photos back. "Okay – it all goes into the evidence locker. You join up with the others. Have Myers set up a new tape in the VCR, and I want you all to tell the camera what you saw. You know how it goes. Let's make sure we get it all right."
"Yes, sir!"
Riley appeared a minute later. Robert Timothy Riley was a man in the traditional pattern of the chief boatswain's mate. Six-two and over two hundred pounds, he had the hairy arms of a gorilla, the gut of a man who knew his way around a beer can, and the rumbling voice to outscream a winter gale. His oversized right hand grasped a couple of plastic food bags. His face showed that anger was now replacing the shock.
"It's a fuckin' slaughterhouse, sir. Like somebody exploded a couple cans of brown paint – 'cept it ain't paint. Jesus." One bag came up. "The little one was cleaning up when we pulled 'em over. There's a trash can in the saloon with maybe a half dozen cartridge cases. I pulled these two off the rug – just like they taught us, Cap'n. Picked 'em up with my ball-point and shuffled 'em into the baggie. Two guns I left aboard. I bagged them, too. That ain't the worst of it."
The next baggie contained a small, framed photograph. It had to be the yacht's owner and his family. The baggie after that contained a…
"Found it under a table. Rape, too. She must've been havin' her period, but they didn't let that stop 'em. Maybe just the wife. Maybe the little girl, too. In the galley there's some butcher knives, all bloodied up. I figure they carved the bodies up and tossed 'em over the side. These four people are shark-shit now."
"Drugs?"
"Twenty or so keys of white powder stowed in the crew's quarters. Some marijuana, too, but that just looks like a personal stash." Riley shrugged. "I didn't even bother using the test kit, sir. Don't matter. This is straight piracy and murder. I saw one bullet hole in the deck, a through-and-through. Red, I ain't seen nothing like this in my whole life. Like something in a movie, but worse." He let out a long breath. "You have to have been there, sir."
"What do we know about the prisoners?"
"Nothing. They ain't done nothing more'n grunt, leastways not when I was around. No ID on them, and I didn't want to go messing around things looking for passports an' stuff. Figured I'd leave that for the real cops. The wheelhouse is clean. So's one of the heads. Mr. Wilcox won't have much trouble taking her back, and I heard him tell Obrecki and Brown not to touch anything. Plenty of fuel aboard, he can run her at full speed. He'll have her in Mobile 'fore midnight if the weather holds off. Nice boat." Another shrug.
"Bring 'em up here," Wegener said after a moment.
"Aye aye." Riley went aft.
Wegener filled his pipe, then had to remember where he'd left his matches. The world had changed while he'd been off doing other things, and Wegener didn't like it. It was dangerous enough out here. Wind and wave were as deadly an enemy as man needed. The sea was always waiting for her chance. It didn't matter how good you thought you were; you only had to forget once, just once, that you could never trust her. Wegener was a man who never forgot, and devoted his life to protecting those who had. Remembering that one hazard, and protecting those who forgot, had given him a full and satisfying life. He liked being the guardian angel in the snow-white boat. You were never lost if Red Wegener was around. You always had a chance, a good chance, that he could reach into the wet, stormy grave and pull you out with his bare hands… but sharks were feasting on four people now. Wegener loved the sea for all her moods, but sharks were something to loathe, and the thought that they were now eating people that he might have saved… four people who'd forgotten that not all sharks live in the sea, Wegener told himself. That's what had changed. Piracy. He shook his head. That's what you called it on the water. Piracy. Something that Errol Flynn had made movies about in Wegener's boyhood. Something that had ended two centuries earlier. Piracy and murder, the part that the movies had usually left out. Piracy and murder and rape, each of them a capital offense in the old days…
"Stand up straight!" Riley snarled. He had both by the arm. Both were still cuffed, and Riley's hands kept them from straying. Chief Oreza had come along to keep an eye on things.
Both were in their mid-twenties, both were thin. One was tall, about six feet, and arrogant, which struck the captain as odd. He had to know the trouble he was in, didn't he? His dark eyes burned at Wegener, who regarded the younger man dispassionately from behind his pipe. There was something odd about his eyes, but Wegener didn't know what it was.
"What's your name?" the captain asked. There was no reply. "You have to tell me your name," Wegener pointed out quietly.
Then something very unusual happened. The tall one spat on Wegener's shirt. There was a strangely long fragment of time in which the captain refused to believe what had happened, his face not even showing surprise. Riley was the first to react to the blasphemy.
"You son of a bitch!" The bosun lifted the prisoner up like a rag doll, spinning him in the air and smashing him down on the bridge rail. The young man landed on his belt, and for a second it seemed that he'd break in half. The air whooshed out of his mouth, and his legs kicked, trying to find the deck before he dropped into the water.
"Christ, Bob!" Wegener managed to say as Riley picked him back up. The bosun spun him around, his left hand clamped on the man's throat as he lifted him clear of the deck with one arm. "Put him down, Riley!"
If nothing else, Riley had broken through the arrogance. For a moment there was genuine fear in those eyes as the prisoner fought for breath. Oreza had the other one on the deck already. Riley dropped his man beside him. The pirate – Wegener was already thinking of him in those terms – pitched forward until his forehead touched the deck. He gagged and struggled for breath while Chief Riley, just as pale, rediscovered his self-control.
"Sorry, Captain. Guess I just lost it for a second." The bosun made it clear that he was apologizing only for embarrassing his commanding officer.
"Brig," Wegener said. Riley led both aft.
"Damn." Oreza observed quietly. The quartermaster fished out his handkerchief and wiped his captain's shirt. "Jesus, Red, what's the world comin' to?"
"I don't know, Portagee. I think we're both too old to answer that one." Wegener finally found his matches and managed to light his pipe. He stared out at the sea for several seconds before finding the right words. "When I joined up I got broke in by an old chief who told stories about Prohibition. Nothing nasty like this – he made it all sound like a great big game."
"Maybe people were more civilized back then," Oreza thought.
"More likely you couldn't carry a million bucks' worth of booze on a motorboat. Didn't you ever watch 'The Untouchables'? The gang wars they had back then were as nasty as the ones we read about now. Maybe worse. Hell, I don't know. I didn't join up to be a cop, Chief."