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Miami Vice,

one or the other. One who'd been in a fight. But his open arms sent her heart sailing.

Seventy-one degrees, cerulean, nearly cloudless sky, and she was dressed for travel in all-American Gap. Navy polished-cotton trousers, matching blazerlike jacket, and underneath a lucky-red camp shirt, short-sleeved in case it got really hot later. On the job like Mike, she was wearing a Glock on her hip and dark shades. They kissed by the car. Mike's mustache prickled as his tongue nudged into her mouth. She sucked it in deeper, swaying a little in the embrace. Death and hunting: It always made them edgy and hot. She could have kept at the necking for some time, but they had a plane to catch. Reluctantly, she stepped back. Just in time to see her mother's face with its sour expression in the window. Freedom hit her like a drug, and she smiled.

"You're late. Will we make it?" she asked.

"Sure. It's only ten minutes from here." He closed the door gently and paused just long enough to wave gallantly at the Dragon. Then he got in, revved up the noisy car, and peeled out into the quiet street. Fresh spring air blew in from the open windows, bringing the thrill of escape. Mike raced through the back streets of Queens, avoiding the highway. He pulled into the short-term parking lot at La Guardia nine minutes later.

All was quiet there on May sixteenth for the American Eagle seven-fifty A.M. flight to Martha's Vineyard until they arrived—the couple on the job with four guns, one on the hip, one in a shoulder holster, one in the shoulder bag, and one in a cowboy boot. April and Mike had their boarding passes in hand, but before they'd pulled their gold and authorization to fly armed, the new, beefed-up security teams converged on them like birds to bread crumbs.

"Police," Mike announced, quickly producing the paperwork.

A uniformed officer and the four security persons manning the two metal detectors and conveyor belts each checked out Bellaqua's letter before falling away. The other passengers had backed away for the confrontation.

April's heavy shoulder bag with the .38 and extra ammunition never hit the belt. She kept her sunglasses on, trying to act cool when actually she felt as excited as a kid. City cops rarely traveled out of state on the job, and on those occasions it was usually to escort a prisoner or a suspect back. This trip was also a quickie. They were booked on a three o'clock flight back.

"Chico,

ever travel on business before?" April asked as they walked out on the tarmac into a stiffening breeze toward the tiny propeller job that was their conveyance.

He nodded. "Wasn't fun like this, though. I had to go down to South Carolina to pick up a guy who'd hacked up his wife. We had to sedate him pretty heavy to get him on the plane."

April had no comeback for that. "You want the window?" she asked as she ducked her head to climb aboard. Oh, it was small.

"No, you take it." Mike slid in next to her, scrunching into the narrow space with zero legroom. "Isn't this fun?"

"Oh, yeah, this is great." She checked her watch. It was getting late. Nobody came to close the door. The other passengers had been smart enough to bring their coffee and bagels with them. They'd been too cool to think of food.

Mike's cell rang and he reached into his pocket for it. "Yeah? Oh, yeah, hi. Uh-huh, we're there. Yeah, looks like we'll be on time, maybe a minute or two late. Weather's good. Little bit of a breeze. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay" He hung up and gave April's arm a pat. "How ya doin',

querida?"

"Who was that?" April asked, as if she didn't know.

"Bellaqua. Wendy hasn't moved or called anyone since last night. Ditto Louis. Tito's in the hot seat downtown. They'll work on him all day. She wants us to keep in touch and get with her later this afternoon at One PP."

April peered out the little window. Martha's Vineyard was about two hundred and forty miles, not that far, but ahead of her she could see a line of jets assembling for their eight o'clocks to wherever.

Let's go, let's go.

They didn't have all day. Yesterday, she'd taken a chance in the interview room and kept her questioning real general because she hadn't wanted to alert Wendy. Sometimes they talked around and around a subject, never hitting the nail on the head. In this case Wendy was holding out on them big-time. April didn't want her calling her mystery assistant, or getting on the road in the BMW herself. She hoped she knew what she was doing.

She turned to Mike with a little smile, remembering their search of Louis's place. They'd come up with a few fancy sex toys, but nothing of a more sinister nature than that. The detectives who tossed Tito's rented room in a small house found

Soldier of Fortune

magazines, but no guns. He said he liked to look at the pictures.

Let's go. Let's go.

The nineteen seats filled up. Affluent people with a certain look. Expensive khaki clothes, expensive casual carry-on bags. Buff people, Wendy's kind of people, fit and secure. And used to the drill. Only April and Mike were tapping their watches.

"Jesus, look at that. We're never getting out of here." April pointed out the planes lining up on the runway.

"We'll be fine." Mike squeezed her hand, always the optimist.

Finally, the door was closed. The two propeller engines sputtered to life, and the Tinkertoy plane taxied out sounding like something from World War II. Not too many minutes later, the copilot rattled off safety instructions and the little commuter took its place on the runway between jumbo giants off to faraway places.

Taking off, the plane teetered from side to side, fighting rising winds. At a hundred feet it hung there, engines throbbing. April watched the jets ahead of them soar up and away. Then the plane bounced a few times like a jeep off-road, losing altitude before it began to fight its way higher. Her empty stomach lurched. She clutched the arm of her seat and concentrated on the changing views: Rikers Island, the new Manhattan skyline, the George Washington Bridge receding behind them. Long Island and the coast opening out ahead.

Forty-seven

F

or forty-five minutes the little commuter bounced around in bumpy air. Then a patch of green appeared ahead in choppy, whitecapped water and grew larger undl it reached the size of Manhattan. The turbulence increased as they went inland and down. The plane seesawed as it came down and connected hard with the ground twice before finally settling into a jerky taxi toward a toy-sized airport.

"Welcome to Martha's Vineyard, and thanks for flying American Eagle," the pilot announced.

April saw the police cruiser parked on the runway and unhooked her seat belt with a little sigh of relief. The local sheriff was waiting for them as he had promised. As soon as she and Mike broke away from the other disembarking passengers and headed his way, he stuck out a paw. If he felt any surprise by the New York team, he didn't show it.

"You got here right on schedule. Bert Whitmore, at your service." The sheriff was five-ten, heavy build, wearing a khaki uniform with a considerable belly protruding over his belt, bristly gray hair growing out well past the crew-cut stage, sharp blue eyes.

"Lieutenant Sanchez and Sergeant Woo. Thanks for coming out for us," Mike said.

"No trouble at all. We don't get too many requests from Nu Yawk. We have a lot of respect for you folks, what you did last fall. Anything to help." Whitmore smiled at April. "You the one who called me last night?"