The sea calmed as they moved north, and after a night that seemed like days the wind dropped, too, the waves settling to a more reasonable five feet. That was when Remo became even more alert and went up on deck. The sky was less dreary than the day before, but the sun was still no more than a bright spot in the gloomy cloud cover. The precipitation was gone and the air was scrubbed clean, giving them a view to the horizon.
Clark had bundled up and tromped out after Remo, only to find the expensive bionic CIA operative standing there doing the listening thing again. Clark examined the ear too closely.
"You're violating my personal space, Lee."
"It's a superear like Jamie Sommers, eh? You know, Steve Austin's girlfriend?"
"If I told you I would have to kill you," Remo replied and moved a few paces away from the man who had lived for nearly two months on a sailboat that had no shower.
Remo's sense of hearing was well beyond the range of most humans, but there were no electronics stuck in there. Remo Williams had the highly tuned hearing of one trained in the arts of Sinanju.
There was more to Sinanju than hearing, and in fact all Remo's senses were magnified to an uncanny degree. His sense of balance came not from years at sea but from Sinanju, as well. He controlled his body to a degree far beyond that of everyday men and women. Staying warm in inclement weather and the ability to dry his clothes— these came simply from manipulating his body heat.
But even that was just the beginning of what Sinanju was, and Remo was the Reigning Master of Sinanju. The only other living Master, the Master Emeritus, was back home in Connecticut watching Spanish language soap operas.
Soaps or no soaps, Remo would have preferred the Connecticut duplex to this fume-filled toy boat. When would the killers come?
And how would they come? Not by air. The spy satellites would spot them for sure. After the first mysterious murder many electronic eyes had started monitoring the Around the World All by Yourself sailboat race. Still, another sailor had been murdered, out in the middle of nowhere, and the electronic eyes never saw a thing. Not on radar, not on thermal, not on visual.
A boat? The spy sats knew how to look for the wake of any boat that was fast enough to catch up to a racing sailboat.
So if it wasn't above the water or on the water, it could only be below the water. Remo had spent hours listening for the sound of a surfacing submarine, or any anomalous noise resonating through the Traverser's hull. There was nothing.
"What if the killers don't come, Agent Remo?" Clark asked. "The government gonna send out a boat to pick you up?"
"I think that would not be appreciated by my superiors in the agency," Remo commented. "I'll walk home if I have to."
"'Cause I got to tell you," Clark added, "it don't look like they're coming."
Remo nodded. Then he heard the sound. "Well, look, Lee, here they are now."
Clark spun like a top and looked northeast, where the horizon hid the Chilean shore. He saw nothing at first, then a pinprick resolved against the waves. "Coming fast!" he muttered. "What the hell is it?"
"Not a submarine," Remo said.
"I know, but what?"
"A water wing or a wind-effect craft or whatever they're called."
"A ground-effect craft, you mean?" Clark said. "Well, that explains it."
Yeah, Remo thought. That explained it. He had taken a ride on such a craft before. This was a smaller version of the heavy-lift craft he once rode across the Atlantic. This vehicle had a wingspan no bigger than that of a twin-engine aircraft, with broad, canopied wings that took it only a few feet off the surface of the water. The propellers out front powered it and air pressure built up between the wings and the water's surface to keep her airborne at all but the slowest speeds. Without the drag of the water, the craft could go as fast as a speedboat. This one looked souped up to go much faster.
In under a minute the winged craft had closed in on the bobbing Traverser, and it banked to reduce speed quickly, then landed hard on the water's surface, her speed propelling her directly at the sailboat as if to impale her on its sharp nose.
By then Remo had sent Lee Clark belowdecks. Remo was now in a plastic yellow rain jacket. He felt stupid wearing it with his hand-sewn leather shoes, but he wouldn't wear it long anyway.
The ground-effect craft was black and shiny, polished to help it slip through the air, and there was a sheen of water covering wings. Remo had noticed that the thin steel rods that jutted like fingers from the wings and the nose were configured to penetrate the ocean's surface, even when the craft was airborne, and channel water over the top surface of the wings in a constant trickle. Remo understood that. It was controlling its temperature to hide it from the thermal-imaging satellites looking for hot spots. No wake and a skin color the same as the ocean made it visually undetectable. A perfect way to sneak up on a speeding sailboat. And the thing was fast.
"You guys are in a big hurry, eh?" Remo called down to the men in tight-fitting outfits that jumped out of the side door of the craft just after tossing out their preinflated life raft. The inflatable's electric motor came to life with a high-pitched whine. Only a few yards separated the strange craft from the sailboat, but the raft closed the distance in a flash.
"That's a pretty cool motor you boys got on that little blow-up there, eh? Where's the fire, eh?"
The strangers never even slowed, just grabbed onto the Traverser's deck rails and yanked themselves over, landing on the deck in the same instant.
"Pretty neat moves," Remo said. "You guys ought to be in a water show. You know, a year don't go by that the wife and I don't get out to Wisconsin Dells for the Tommy Bartlett Show. Now, you guy's ain't that good, eh, but—"
"Shut up!" barked one of the men. Their thermal suits included hoods that exposed only their faces.
Remo found he could only tell them apart by nose size. Even their automatic rifles were identical.
"Hey, there, now, Big Nose, we don't allow no guns on board, eh."
"I said shut up! Put your damn hands in the air!"
"Don't appreciate the unfriendly tone of voice," Remo replied.
"He's lost it," said the second man, waving his blackened rifle at Remo Williams. "He was out here too long and he snapped."
"Well, my wife always says I'm crazy," Remo said happily. "She says I'm as loopy as a loon. 'Remo,' she says, 'you're as loopy as a loon!'"
"Remo? I thought your name was Lee," the first gunner said. "Lee Clark."
"Don't tell me we got the wrong boat."
"Right boat, Bigger Nose," Remo said, all the friendliness gone from his voice. "Wrong sailor."
"Shit, they made us!" Big Nose exclaimed.
"Let's kill him and go!" Bigger Nose added.
They agreed on this course of action without further discussion and began firing their weapons.
Their quick, controlled bursts of automatic gunfire should have been sufficient to wipe out a large crew, but for some reason this one sailor went untouched. He was moving, shifting, almost dancing this way and that, even as he was coming at them with slippery speed. Surely he wasn't dodging the bullets?
He got to them before their magazines were used up, snatched the rifles out of their hands with a brisk movement and twisted the barrels together like wire.
They were both trained soldiers, and they both instinctively went for backup weapons sheathed, strapped and holstered about their bodies, but then they froze, paralyzed by pain.
Remo held each of them by the wrist and pushed a thumb into their flesh, in just the right spot.
"Who talks and who dies, eh?" Remo asked.
"He'll kill us!" one of them croaked, his eyeballs craning to the side. He was referring to the ground-effect craft.