‘Kinda.’
‘See ya.’
Bob Hill waved, returned to the bridge and shoved the throttles, veering out towards the open sea. Hatcher heard a sound behind him and, turning, saw Ginia looking at him over the rail.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
‘Bob Hill. Says somebody’s asking about me in town. You know how islanders are, they get a little overly protective sometimes.’
‘I think that’s nice,’ she said, jumping over the rail from the Jacob’s ladder, grabbing a towel off a chair and wrapping it around her like a sarong. ‘It’s nice to know your friends care that much about you.’
‘Uh-huh. Let’s see that tang.’
She reached back over the railing, retrieved the tube and handed it to him. He held it up close, studying the fish.
‘Big guy,’ he said.
‘Just look at that tail. Do we keep him?’
‘Absolutely.’
He took the tube below to the main salon, where the six other fish they had caught that morning were still circling and exploring the hundred-gallon aquarium. He stood over the tank, turned a knob opening the valve in the tube, and the yellow fish swam out and immediately began staking out his territory amid the coral and sea grass in the floor of the tank.
‘Beautiful,’ she said from behind him. Her arms slithered around his waist. ‘Swimming makes me horny,’ she said, close to his ear.
Without turning he reached behind him and moved his hands under the towel and up the insides of her thighs. She leaned back a trifle, giving his hands more room to move, and slid her hands under the band of his skimpy swimsuit, feeling him rise to her touch. She slipped his trunks over his hips and let them drop to the floor, freeing him.
‘And everything makes you horny,’ she said.
He turned and pulled the towel loose and, sliding his hands gently down her back and over the soft mounds of her cheeks, drew her to him.
‘You got a cold rear end,’ he growled in her ear.
‘But a warm heart.’
She stood on her toes, spreading her legs a little more, and stepped into him, her thick hair surrounding him, and wrapped her lips around one of his nipples and began sucking.
‘Been a while,’ his peculiar whisper-voice answered.
‘Right,’ she chuckled. ‘At least two hours.’
She leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘Put it on automatic pilot,’ then took his hand and drew him back toward the master stateroom.
OLD TIMES
She was a real beauty, sleek and uncommonly low in the water that looked more like a racing craft than a yacht, with her squat cockpit, the long, trim bow jutting fifty feet in front of the windscreen, the four 750 hp fuel-injected engines rumbling in the stern. The long, slender profile concealed a large main salon, a master bedroom with a king-size bed, ample quarters for two other guests and a galley fit for a cordon bleu chef.
Sloan saw only the exterior, but he could not suppress a soft whistle as the boat sliced silently through the water toward him.
The hardest emotions to control, 126 had once warned Hatcher, would be love and hate. Hatcher had loved Harry Sloan as he would have loved his own brother and hated him as he would his deadliest enemy. Now, as he approached the dock and saw Sloan for the first time in seven years, he was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.
The bond between mentor and student is as hard to break as the one between father and son; 126 had told him that, and it was true.
He wanted to get even with Sloan for betraying him, and yet part of him was glad to see the son of a bitch. Rage began to grow in him as the boat neared the dock. Rage at Sloan. Rage at himself for not hating the man more than he did. The hardest thing to forgive was not the three years in Los Boxes — it was that Sloan had betrayed him.
What the hell was he doing here?
He turned to Ginia.
‘See the big guy standing by the slip house?’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s the guy who’s looking for me.’
‘Friend or foe?’ she asked breezily.
‘Jump off as soon as we tie up, okay? We’ve got some talking to do.’
‘The old screw-and-run trick, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you later. Catch the bowline for me.’
‘Sure. Dinner?’
‘Maybe.’
She leaned over and kissed him. hard on the mouth. ‘Remember that, just in case you feel like playing soldier- boy with your pal.’
‘He’s no pal.’
Sloan watched Hatcher ease the big boat into its slip, watched Ginia jump on the dock and hook up the front line, then turn and blow him a kiss, watched her walk up the pier toward the setting sun, which silhouetted her long legs through a thin white cotton skirt. Sloan ambled down the pier and stood below the bridge, looking up at him.
‘Been a while, Hatch,’ Sloan sail around his perpetual smile.
He looks great, Sloan thought. Tanned, filled out, got a lot more hair than I do. Hell, he’s better-looking than he ever was.
Hatcher glared back at him and said nothing.
‘Permission to come aboard, Captain?’ Sloan asked with a laugh. When Hatcher didn’t answer, Sloan clambered on board anyway.
Pushy as ever, Hatcher thought.
Sloan held his hand out toward Hatcher, who ignored it. Instead Hatcher turned abruptly and went below. Sloan stood for a moment, made a fist and New nervously into it, then decided to follow him.
He was surprised at how large the main cabin was and how elegant. The walls were paneled with bronze mirrors and teak, the designer furniture was gray and plush, an Oriental rug covered the floor. A pedestal table large enough to seat eight divided the main cabin from the forward staterooms. Sloan could not suppress another low whistle, which Hatcher ignored as he went to the bar, poured himself a glass of red wine and sat down. He didn’t offer Sloan anything, and the burly man finally sat down facing him.
‘You look great, Chris. Never better,’ he said.
What balls, Hatcher thought, although he still said nothing.
‘You’ve got a lot of funny friends,’ Sloan said. ‘None of them’ll admit they know you.’ He chuckled. Hatcher just stared at him.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ Sloan said, trying to sound sincere.
No answer. Just get on with it, Hatcher said to himself, His face clouded up, but he still didn’t speak. Sloan sighed and watched Hatcher take a sip of ‘wine. His mouth was getting dry. Hell, thought Sloan, I may as well get straight to it.
‘Here I went to all that trouble to spring you down in Madrango and you don’t even show up in Washington to thank me.’
Be grateful I didn’t kill you, Hatcher thought, but he still didn’t speak.
Sloan made a fist and held it in front of his lips, blowing gently into it. Smiling, he said slowly, ‘I’ve got to admit I was a little nervous coming down here. I figured there was as good a chance as not you’d try to put me away. And I can understand that, Hatch, I really can. But, you know, why throw all this away just to get even, right?’
Hatcher said nothing. But the yellow flecks in his green eyes danced like charged ions.
‘You know the boys in intelligence still talk about you,’ Sloan rambled on. ‘I told them you were the best in the business, I mean any job, laddie, any job. Nobody believed me until you vanished at that refueling stop in Miami. Nothing but the clothes on your back. No money, no ID, nothing, and you’re gone. I gotta give it to you, that was beautifully done. Three years in that place, you didn’t lose your edge.’
Hatcher said nothing.
Sloan stood up and wandered around the cabin, looking at things, checking them out, still speaking in that smooth, oily voice of his.
‘Took me sixteen months to get a line on you. I didn’t have the outfit out shaking the bushes or anything like that, y’know, just keeping my eyes and ears open.’
You talk too much, Hatcher thought. You always talked too much.