Megan Richards didn't sound as if it were a shame, but Stacy knew that people dealt with grief in varied ways. Or maybe there had been no more between these women and the dead men than casual sex. Less than that, perhaps, if they had just been "friends." Such things were not unknown.
"And what about your boat?" asked Stacy. "What was it, again?"
"The Salome," Felicia Docherty put in.
"Is that some kind of Arab name, or what?"
"I couldn't tell you," Stacy said. "Did you have anybody else on board?"
"Like who? You mean a chaperon?" Megan was close to laughter, but it sounded more like hysteria in the making than any real vestige of humor.
"No," said Stacy. "I was wondering if you had hired a guide, or anyone to help you with the boat along the way."
Meg and Felicia shook their heads as one, while Robin sat and stared. "Nothing like that," Felicia said. "The guys knew all about that stuff, okay? We didn't have the room, besides, and who wants witnesses?"
To what? Stacy was on the verge of asking, but she checked herself. She knew what the young woman meant, and what she had in mind. A college fling was easily forgotten, but it might come back to haunt you if your parents heard about it. From a stranger, for example, who had watched and listened, maybe asking you for money that would keep him quiet in the days and weeks ahead. Trust no one, if you didn't know them going back to grade school.
But it hadn't saved these three. Not even close. Their young men of the moment had been killed, three more lives wasted in addition to God knew how many that had gone before, and from the evidence before her, Stacy knew these three had suffered in captivity. The faded shirts and baggy, twice-patched pants they wore weren't the clothes they had been captured in; she would have bet her life on that. And from the bruises on their skin, the shadows underneath their eyes, the silence Robin held before her like a shield, Stacy was sure the men who stole their clothes had taken much, much more, as well.
"Do you have any idea where we are?" Felicia asked.
"Not really," Stacy said. "They kept us down below after they took the Melody."
"That's not much better than the Salome," said Megan. "Jeez, where do they get these names for boats?"
"Who's the old man?" Felicia asked before Stacy had time to answer Megan's question.
Stacy wondered how much she should tell these strangers, and decided there was little they could do to help her, even less that they could do to help Chiun.
"He was my husband's friend," she said, preserving the fiction for what it was worth. "They've known each other from when Remo was a boy."
"Remo?" Felicia said. "What kind of name is that?"
"Armenian," Stacy replied, ad-libbing as she went along. "His great-grandparents came from Eastern Europe."
"Oh. Yeah, right."
"What happened? Can I ask you that?"
"They made him, uh, jump overboard," said Stacy. Even as she spoke the words, they had a kind of unreality about them, as if it were more of Remo's cover, something he had taught her to repeat on cue.
"That's rough," Felicia said. "Same thing they did with Jon and Barry. Did they shoot him, too?"
"Felicia, Jesus!" Megan sounded angry.
"I was just asking, for God's sake!"
"There was no shooting," Stacy said.
"Well, who knows?" said Felicia. "Maybe he's okay, then."
Megan glared at her, making Felicia shrug, but Stacy was already thinking, Yes, maybe he is. Maybe he is all right. And wouldn't that be something?
She would have to keep her fingers crossed, to wait and see. If Remo came, he came. If not... well, there was still Chiun, his promise to destroy the pirates on his own, if it should come to that.
With a start she saw the path her thoughts were taking. Crazy thoughts! Stupid dreams. She was losing touch with reality just as surely as poor old Chiun.
Remo was dead. Chiun was living in a fantasy world. He was a hundred years old-he was not going to start kicking pirate ass. If she let herself start believing all this make-believe stuff, she would never be able to think her way out of this situation.
She had to take care of herself.
The thought left her trembling with a sudden graveyard chill.
CAPTAIN THOMAS KIDD had a decision to announce. There were procedures to be followed, certain risks involved, but he had made his mind up on the crucial point, and there would be no turning back. If there were any challenges, then he would have to meet them as he always had before-head-on, with all his might and courage.
It wasn't the easiest decision Kidd had ever made, but he had weighed it carefully, examined all the angles and potential arguments against his choice, before deciding that he should proceed at any cost. The time was right; he wasn't getting any younger, and the notion was entirely logical when viewed from that perspective.
It was time for Captain Kidd to take a wife. A queen, more properly, to help him rule the kingdom he had carved out for himself. In other circumstances, bygone days, there would have been a chance for him to shop around, survey the prospects in the islands-maybe even sail away to Florida and try his luck among the coastal cities-but the modern pirate life had more severe constraints. The captain was required to make do with the stock at hand.
Most times, Kidd would have seen that limitation as an insurmountable impediment to courting, but Fate had a way of sneaking up on him sometimes. He was accustomed to the flow of captive women moving through the camp, few of them lasting long. A year or so had been the maximum for most; they had a tendency to die from tropical diseases, overwork or sheer despondency. A handful killed themselves, and one-the wench Billy Teach had captured aboard the Solon II-had actually managed to escape. Most were attractive in their way, some of them stunning, but they lacked a certain quality of majesty.
Until today.
Granted, she could have used a better name. Stacy was not a monarch's name, granted, but Captain Kidd was willing to ignore such minor flaws. It was the way this woman carried herself, defiance flashing from her bold green eyes, refusing to be cowed by her surroundings, even now.
She hated him, of course. That was a given, and he understood the feeling. What else could a kidnapper expect at first? Kidd knew it would take time for her to come around, but once she recognized her destiny, the transformation process could begin.
And there was no time like the present to proceed. Kidd armed himself and left his quarters, moving purposefully through the compound to a central point, beside the cooking fire. The captive Chinese cook glanced at him in passing, his head jittering from side to side from some sort of disorder of the nervous system, and turned back to his stirring of the large, fire-blackened kettle.
Captain Kidd stopped walking when he reached a kind of minigallows that had been erected near the center of the compound. It stood shoulder high, and where a body might have hung if it had been full-sized, a twisted triangle of rusty metal was suspended from a chain. Above it, on the crossbar of the wooden structure, lay an old screwdriver with a wellworn wooden handle and a twelve-inch blade.
Kidd took the screwdriver in hand and rapped the blade repeatedly against the rusty iron triangle. The clamor echoed through the pirate camp, bringing men from their huts, from their chores, one or two hobbling back from relieving themselves in the bush.
He waited until most of his men were assembled, roughly surrounding him, jostling one another for position. Several called out questions, which Kidd ignored, giving his rowdy brothers time to quiet down. When they were as silent as Kidd could expect, he raised his voice in order to be heard by everyone.
"I'll waste none of your time," he said by way of introduction to his plan. "The time has come for me to take a wife. A queen, in fact. A woman who will give me sons and raise them in the grand tradition of our brotherhood."