“I’d like as much of the fruit as you can spare,” said Katya. “You can keep the fish.”
“Why certainly, darling,” Michael said. He was tall, slender, and clean-shaven, with hard blue eyes that glittered happily. “How much fruit would you say we can spare, mate?” he asked his shorter friend.
“Quite a bit,” said the other.
“I think we might be able to part with all the rest, don’t you think?” said Michael, not actually paying much attention to the older man.
“Certainly.”
“Thank you,” said Katya. “May I take the basket too?”
“I think that might be arranged,” said Michael.
“Fine,” said Katya, abruptly lifting the straw basket of fruit and striding back toward the boarding ladder. “Let’s go, Lisa.”
Michael grabbed her arm in mid-stride, and as Katya spun sideways, a few oranges spilled forward onto the cockpit floor. Katya remained in a half-crouch, holding the basket clutched to her chest and staring at the fallen oranges, Michael still holding her arm.
“Payment, darling,” Michael said quietly. “The matter of payment, don’t you know?”
Katya slowly lowered the basket to the floor and then straightened up. She looked slowly over at Lisa. Now the sounds of the woman’s gasping screams, whether of pain or pleasure—Lisa, frightened, couldn’t tell—came sharply from the forward cabin. In the silence of the confrontation between Katya and Michael the screams seemed horrendously loud and obscene.
“You got to pay them,” the sullen black girl said.
“It’s only fair,” said the other black girl drowsily.
“Besides, darling,” the man named Michael said, seeming to ease his grip on Katya slightly. “These are the last days, remember? Nothing matters. Take joy in all you do.”
“That’s right,” said the sullen black girl gloomily.
“Of course,” said Katya, shaking her head as if clearing it. “I’m new here and just didn’t know.” She smiled at the man, whose big hand still held her arm. And then she added in a voice so soft and husky and sexy it startled and frightened Lisa, “How do you like it, Michael? You name it, I’m good at it.”
Lisa thought that even Michael looked surprised at the sudden sexual power Katya seemed to be turning on him.
“Don’t forget me,” the older man said nervously.
Katya turned to the other man. “I’ll take care of you too,” she said huskily.
The noises from the cabin had ceased.
“But what about these other girls?” she added, still in her new husky voice. “Don’t they get some food too?”
“Certainly,” said Michael. “Help yourselves, girls. Take the dinghy ashore with your food. It’s been lovely seeing you again.”
“Oh, no,” said the man in the baseball cap. “I’ve got a little girl here who wants to pay too, right, honey?”
“Go, Lisa,” said Katya sharply.
The older man grabbed Lisa firmly by the arm.
“And miss the fun?” he said, smiling.
With a swiftness that caught everyone by surprise, Katya pulled a short mahogany boathook from its staple near the control panel shelf and whacked the older man a vicious blow on the side of his head, forcing him to release Lisa and stagger away.
“Swim!” shouted Katya, turning to swing at Michael who was approaching her in a crouch.
Lisa took two steps toward the yacht’s combing and glanced back to see Michael duck under the boathook, tackle Katya, and send her sprawling while the third man was coming at her with a pistol. Then Lisa hopped over the combing and into the water. As she surfaced and began swimming for shore she heard a man shout, then Katya scream.
Lisa slipped once as she staggered out of the water and, seeing two men getting into the dinghy to pursue her, broke into a run toward the shrubs. Even as she darted down the trail across the peninsula she wondered if she should turn back to try to help Katya. It was getting dark, and she decided to get off the main trail and find a place to hide. She tripped once and fell, immediately springing up to run forward. Seeing a small fire and a shack ahead of her, she ran for help.
When she appeared in the firelight, an old black man who had been sitting beside the fire leapt up.
“Git away!” he shouted. “Go!”
Lisa stood frozen, trembling, almost unable to speak. “I… I need help,” she finally blurted. “Some men—”
“Go ’way!” the old man shouted, then turned to look at the shack ten feet away.
A young white man and woman were crawling out of the entrance, their eyes red and watery.
“Water,” the man called feebly. “Please help us. Water…”
“Get back in there!” the old black man shouted and brandished a heavy stick at the two feeble specters. “Back! Back!”
Lisa gasped as she suddenly realized that the two were sick, feverish. Glancing back in terror for a sight of her pursuers, she ran on. She hadn’t gone more than forty feet when she came upon the burnt-out remains of another shack, the white bones of three skeletons gleaming in the dim light of dusk.
Whimpering, she ran on, no longer aware of exactly what she was fleeing, only needing to run, to escape the horrors that seemed to explode into her life in an unending series.
At dawn the next morning Jim reported to Neil that Katya and Lisa were missing. Earlier, after he and Oscar had finished reanchoring Scorpio, they had begun looking for the three women, but found only Janice. They traced Katya and Lisa to the beach where the barter boat had been moored and then… nothing. A black girl on the beach told Jim that the men on Mollycoddle had motored off with “de sexy white girl” but that she thought the younger white girl must have escaped. Although Janice and Oscar had abandoned the search when it got dark and returned to Scorpio, Jim had kept looking another four hours, finally stealing a bicycle to ride the ten miles back to Charlotte Amalie, and then had swum out to Vagabond.
For Neil and Frank and Jeanne it was clear that now they had to raid Mollycoddle and probably the estate too. Katya—if she were still alive—was probably either on the boat or out at the pirates’ estate. Lisa had either shared Katya’s fate or had escaped and was already back on Scorpio or making her way to Vagabond. Neil suspected that Lisa would have tried to find Jim if anything untoward had happened, and thus would have tried to make her way back to Scorpio. Through binoculars they soon determined that Mollycoddle was moored at her berth at the docks, but that Scorpio hadn’t returned yet. They guessed that Oscar was too timid and inexperienced a sailor to try to sail the ten miles back to Charlotte Amalie harbor in the dark.
Neil ordered Jim and Tony to go back to Salt Point and contact Scorpio, hopefully to find Lisa there. In any case they were to help sail Scorpio back to join Vagabond in Charlotte Amalie. After Katya and Lisa were both safe—God willing—and additional food and weapons had been garnered from the raid, the two boats would set sail together for southern waters.
Jeanne’s concern over the disappearance of Lisa was mostly assuaged by Jim and Tony’s departure to search for her, and Neil next signaled the Wellingtons with the air horn to begin final plans for trying to save Katya and Lisa and, once again, themselves.
Eight hours later Jeanne walked slowly along the dock, holding a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head with one hand to prevent its being blown off by the wind. Ahead of her and to the left was Mollycoddle, tossing in the rough seas that were rolled in by the storm, its stern facing her, the wind blowing it a few feet off the dock, its mooring lines taut. She was wearing a black bikini top and a blue denim skirt, the skirt necessary to hide the small automatic strapped to the inside of her right thigh: the brief bikini top was to guarantee a friendly reception by Mollycoddle’s guardians. Neil’s last stern-faced words to her after he’d helped her strap the gun to her thigh were, “Don’t let anyone feel you up.”