It was all over in thirty seconds.
They worked very quickly, searching the boat. It took less than half an hour to find their prize. They
transferred the three small, heavy bags to the sailboat, threw the captain and his mate into the sea,
doused the trawler with gasoline, and set it afire.
The shirtless man cranked up the engine of the sailboat and guided it away from the trawler; then,
setting the wheel, he joined the shooter and they checked out the prize.
“What d?ya think?” the shirtless man said, leaning over and staring into one of the bags.
“Beautiful,” the shooter said. He moved behind his partner, took a .357 Magnum from his belt, and
stepped closer.
“Sorry,” he said. He held the gun an inch or so from the back of the shirtless man?s head and
squeezed the trigger. The gun roared and the bullet smacked into the back of the man?s head,
knocking him forward against the railing.
The shooter reached out for the body but it fell sideways, was caught for an instant in the line of the
foresail, and then rolled over it and plunged face forward into the sea.
“Shit!” cried the shooter and made a frantic last grab, but it was gone. The body bobbed to the
surface like a cork on a fishing line, then went under.
The shooter ran back to the tiller, shoved the throttle on full, and turned the boat sharply around. He
searched for ten minutes, hoping to get a glimpse of his victim, but he finally gave up.
He was a mile or so away when the gasoline on the trawler exploded, spewing up a broiling ball of
fire that for a moment or two rivaled the rising sun.
He watched the trailing smoke grow smaller and smaller until he could see it no longer.
1
ACE, DEUCE, TREY
Going back to Dunetown was worse than going to Vietnam. I didn?t know what was in store for me in
Nam; I knew what was waiting in Dunetown.
As the plane veered into its final approach, memories began to ambush me, memories that pulled me
back to a place I had tried to forget for a lot of years, and to a time that was, in my mind, the last
green summer of my life. After that, everything seemed to be tinted by the colors of autumn, colors of
