“You should either take a seat or get down on the deck,” Rawls said.
Meg walked up behind Stone, startling him. “What’s going on?”
Stone got down on one knee and pulled her down beside him. “There’s another boat out there, nearby.”
“I can’t see a thing,” Meg said.
“Be quiet and listen,” Stone whispered.
There was nothing for a full minute, then the engine noise came up again and, gradually, seemed to fade a little. “Is he leaving?” Stone asked Rawls.
“He is. I think he must have heard our response,” Rawls said.
The departing engines made more power, and the boat seemed to be moving away.
“I expect he’s got radar that allows him to move around in this fog,” Rawls said. “That, or he’s just nuts. I expect there are other boats anchored out there.”
“Not in that direction,” Stone said, “from what I saw on our radar.”
Bret joined them at the fantail, and Stone and Meg got to their feet.
“He’s left us,” Bret said.
“How close did he get on the radar?” Stone asked.
“Thirty meters.”
Rawls unscrewed the silencer and returned the rifle to its scabbard. “That’s close enough,” he said. “The fog was on our side.”
“Are you expecting an assault?” Bret asked.
“It’s a possibility,” Stone replied. “We came up here to get rid of somebody who took a shot at us a few days ago, in Florida.”
“All we’ve got aboard is two shotguns for skeet, but I do have some buckshot, if it’s needed,” Bret said. “And I’ve got a nine-millimeter handgun in my cabin, but I think Mr. Rawls is better armed for the occasion.”
“It would seem so,” Stone said. “Anybody hungry?”
“Everybody, I expect,” Rawls said.
“The cook’s at work on breakfast,” Bret replied. “I think we’d better serve it at anchor, and wait for the sun to get a bit higher and burn off some of this fog before we weigh anchor.”
“Agreed,” Stone said.
* * *
—
A MILE or so away, Joe cut the engines to idle and set the Jetstick to “Hover.” “There, that will keep us pretty much in the same spot,” he said.
“What about current?”
“The GPS will communicate that to the boat’s computer and it will be taken into account.”
“How close did we get to them?”
“Fifty, sixty yards, maybe. If the fog had been a little less thick, we might have gotten a shot off.”
“She’s probably still in her bunk,” Jane said.
“I heard a couple of male voices, once, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I heard somebody ram a magazine home, though, so I can’t say they weren’t expecting us.”
“That’s bad news,” Jane said. “What do you want to do?”
“They’re just on the edge of my radar screen,” Joe said. “We’ll wait here for them to make a move, then we’ll follow very, very discreetly.”
“If we can see them on radar, then they can see us,” Jane pointed out.
“Yeah, but when the fog lifts they’ll be easy to find, given their size, which is something over a hundred feet. We’ll be harder to pick out among the pleasure boats and lobstermen. How many days’ food do we have aboard?”
“Three, unless you want to go on a diet.”
“If they go a lot farther afield, we’d be better off to reprovision somewhere, then just pick up a mooring at Dark Harbor and wait for them to come back.”
“Agreed,” she said.
* * *
—
AFTER BREAKFAST STONE sat down to read the Times online and wait for the fog to clear. Meg came and sat down beside him.
“What’s our plan?” she asked.
“Wait for the fog to lift, then continue our cruise,” Stone replied.
“Won’t they follow us?”
“Maybe, but they know we’re armed now, so they’ll be cautious. They might even drop the chase.”
“I hope so,” Meg said.
“We can hope.”
25
By lunchtime the fog had been reduced to a haze, and they had, maybe, a mile of visibility. Rawls resumed his position on the fantail and unsheathed his weapon again, this time affixing a small tripod under its barrel.
A steward brought him a Bloody Mary, but he declined it. “I love ’em, but they don’t improve my accuracy,” he said.
“Do you shoot a lot?” Stone asked.
“I’ve built an indoor range in what used to be a swimming pool on my property, which is good for handguns, and I bulldozed myself a big berm in the woods that gives me up to two hundred yards of clear shooting with the rifle. With the silencer, I don’t disturb the neighbors. I’ve shot a few moving targets, deer that have wandered onto my range, and I’ve distributed the meat to my neighbors, and that helps keep them calm. As I recall, you have a handgun range in your basement in New York.”
“True, but I haven’t fired a rifle for a long time, and I’m not sure what I could hit with it.”
“Firing a rifle accurately is pretty much having the time and patience to sight properly—and especially with a telescopic sight, it’s easier than a handgun.”
“What is this firearm you’ve got here?” Stone asked.
“A few dozen were made for the Agency a while back, and I managed to ‘lose’ this one on an operation. It’s sort of a combination sniper/assault weapon. A guy named Teddy Fay, who worked in Tech Support, designed it and built the prototype. As I recall, you knew him.”
“A little,” Stone said.
“The combination of extreme accuracy and the ability to go full automatic make it possible for a man to hold off an assault by, say, a platoon, if he has enough ammo. It has a nice feature I hadn’t seen before—you can set it to fire two rounds with one trigger pull. I think it increases the chances of getting a hit on a target, especially one that’s moving.”
“I’ll go check the radar,” Stone said. He went forward to the bridge and found Captain Bret making 12 knots again. Stone checked the radar. “Any sign of our pursuer?”
“He seems to be in and out of the picture, or it could just be more than one boat back there. It’s hard to know if we’re being followed. Stone, I hope it doesn’t get to be necessary to kill somebody. The state cops would be all over us for a week, and your cruise would be over.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that, Bret, but we’re not going to set ourselves up as targets. And having spent a lot of years as a cop, I know how to deal with them.”
“I’ll leave it to your judgment, then,” Bret said.
They dropped the hook off a small island for lunch, then Captain Bret came to ask where they wanted to go next.
“I think we’ll go home,” Stone said. “There’s no point in continuing if we’ve got somebody in our wake, ready to take a shot at us. The situation doesn’t lend any pleasure to cruising.”
“Right,” Bret said, “and I take your point. We’ll have you back on your dock by, say, six o’clock this evening.”
“That sounds good,” Stone said.
* * *
—
JOE TOOK another look through his binoculars at Breeze. “They’ve weighed anchor and are headed back in the general direction of Islesboro,” he said to Jane.
“Then why don’t we use our speed advantage to get back there and be waiting for them?” Jane asked.
“I think that’s the thing to do. They obviously know we’re trailing them, and they know we’re armed. As you say, just one clear shot is all we need.” He turned the boat and shoved the throttles forward. Soon they were making 32 knots.
* * *
—
STONE AND MEG went below for a nap after lunch but didn’t get much sleeping done.
“I don’t remember the last time I made love in the afternoon,” Meg said.
“Well, if we can keep you from working too hard, we can do more of this.”
She pulled him on top of her. “Let’s start now,” she said.
* * *
—
BY HALF PAST FIVE they were approaching Dark Harbor, and they dropped anchor on one side of the approach to get the tender in the water. Stone gave their bags to a crewman and went up on deck. To his surprise, Ed Rawls was still on the fantail, his weapon at the ready.