“You’d better believe it, doll.”
“Then why...”
“I said it was a nice speech.”
The way she folded herself into his arms was so natural he could hardly believe it. Women were something he had never needed. They were always there, but he had never felt the desire to keep one around very long. On occasions they were very useful, but generally speaking, there was very little they could do that he couldn’t do better and faster, without having to be perpetually obligated.
The smell of her hair was fresh, salt-air fresh, and there was the smell of flowers from some distant place, soft and pleasant, that made him think of being off the Florida Keys on a warm spring night, going someplace, yet no place special, just enjoying the long, soft moments.
“What are you thinking of, Mako?”
“The Clamdip,” he replied.
She tilted her head up to look at him.
Mako said, “You were there, doll.”
“What were you doing?”
“Just what I am now.”
His hands could feel the warmth of her body and under his fingers a tiny pulse was racing much faster than he would’ve expected.
“Mako...”
“What?”
“This is all Billy’s fault, you know. He’s been telling me about you ever since you moved to the island.”
Mako blew some strands of dark hair away from her ear and nodded. “I got the same treatment.”
“Were you interested?” she asked him.
“No. Were you?”
“No. I had enough society types running after my money.”
“What about now?”
Judy rubbed her head against his chin, then turned her head to look up at him. “I’m just crazy about your boat.”
“And about its captain?”
“Ummmm.”
The dance music on the deck suddenly changed tempo. Ravel’s Bolero came in with its sensuous beat and nobody dared put movement to it. Instead they all headed toward the bar or their tables.
But Judy moved. In his arms her torso did things that were hardly noticeable, but Mako felt every one. Muscles in her stomach rippled against his hands, saying quiet things that he could hardly believe. She wouldn’t stop, swaying exquisitely in tempo with the driving throb. Very subtly, Mako turned so his back was to the dance floor; she gave him a hungry smile as her spine arched and she pulled him to her as the wild song pounded to its wild climax.
When he kissed her it was a warm touch that began to blaze and when he pulled his mouth away he could say nothing at all for a full minute. He could still taste her and her eyes were watching him, waiting for him to speak.
“Think we could make it, Judy?”
“Uh-huh.” It was spoken very softly.
“Would your dad have approved?”
“He would have been delighted.”
“You can take your money and shove it, you know,” he said.
“Why? It’s only money.”
“I got enough for us, pretty girl.”
“And we have everything we want right now.” She smiled at him again, an inquisitive, questioning kind of smile that only women in love know how to do.
But Hooker was an old pro in the game too. He had seen life and death, been part of situations that blew up like a time bomb, and he was in one right now. He knew it, he could feel it, the way the cold wind blows in ahead of a violent storm.
“Soon, doll. When this is over and we’re still here, I’ll say what you want me to say.”
“Mako...”
He shook his head, his eyes emphasizing his decision. “There are some pretty big things going on, Judy. There are only a few of us against one hell of a lot of power and money. The chances are that they’ll win, but when you play that game the nasties always make mistakes and they can never quite cover them up. Some might get away with it, but sooner or later the ax comes down.”
“And you’re the ax?”
“I’d like one more shot at it,” he said simply.
“Think you can do it?”
“Until now, I always have, kiddo. I’m not a new boy in the game.”
This time she kissed him, a light, wet kiss that told him to go to it, but hurry.
From the opposite side of the deck, in his white shorts and Hooker’s Hawaiian shirt, Billy Bright was grinning more broadly than he ever had before. He heard some voices shouting from the deck below and peered over the side. Three big lights were playing over the surface of the water, and in the middle one the huge, sleek form of the mako shark emerged, his dorsal fin cutting the ocean, the tail slicing neatly eight feet in back. Billy saw the familiar nicks on the tail before the shark submerged.
It was Hooker’s brother. He was still waiting.
Chapter Fourteen
The cruise ship was on no definite schedule. It stayed in safe waters and went where the passengers chose to go. They all wanted excitement, but quiet excitement that they could stand. They weren’t interested in warring nations or poverty-stricken countries, but places where they could play and enjoy themselves out of harm’s way. When the dive team from the navy arrived to blow the submerged mines, one of the ship’s passengers, a former senator, made arrangements for the action to be shown on live television. There was no difficulty with the production. It would be a valuable promotional piece for the party in power, and his was arranging it.
Everyone had comfortable chairs, waiters passed among them handing out drinks, others balancing canapé trays, and a young sailor was delegated to give a running account of what was happening.
Marcus Grey watched them closely, saw his charges happily enjoying themselves, excited, but not too excited. They oohed and aahed at the shots of fish gliding past the lens of the camera, making distraught noises when a squid appeared or a heavily toothed mouth seemed to jump out of the blue-green darkness to swallow up another smaller predator, leaving parts of it and making the water murky with blood.
On the wreck the divers worked slowly, chipping away the coral, then cutting the chains that had held the old mines on the sunken deck. Only two began to rise of their own volition and divers guided them to the surface. The divers attached a small box to the top of each one, then swam to the dive boat and took off their gear. Down below, the other divers had done their work, come up as a team and climbed into the boat.
On the cruise ship, the sailor doing the commentary told the audience that they wouldn’t actually see much, but these old World War II mines posed a threat to shipping and had to be destroyed. Only the two that they could see some way off had enough positive buoyancy to float and these were the dangerous ones. The others most likely had rusted through and seawater destroyed their potency. At any rate, they would see for themselves.
They had all pulled the chairs up and had their eyes glued to the TV. On the navy launch the diver in the bow held up his hand. The sailor at the TV saw it and began counting down, all the voices chiming in with him after three. When he reached ten the diver touched the button in his hand and the first mine blew, just a little eruption from the box on top of it, then the whole shell exploded into pieces and dust particles. The area had hardly cleared when the next and the next disintegrated from the explosive charge. Then one, a maverick, gave off a mighty blast that sent a column of water thirty feet above the surface, and blew another one next to it that gave off a smaller but unexpected blast that left the TV screen a dark, blurry square that gradually lightened as the current cleared away the debris.
The sailor spoke into his microphone and said, “You have just seen explosives that have been underwater eighty-two years go off with enough impact to sink a ship.” He pointed out at the open water where the two floating mines had been dragged. This time when he lifted his arm, the sailor on the launch saw it and did the same. The countdown began again. At “ten” the diver on the launch triggered the blast and the pair of mines tore a hole in the water and sent pieces of coral-encrusted metal into the sky; when the nearest landed a few hundred yards from the cruise ship, the passengers had all the excitement they could stand. The crowd headed back to the bar.