and trust as much as I had, and when he took her away, he would protect her as I wanted so much to do. But I had failed, There would be no young men for Lindsey nor pretty young women for her older brother, Nate, whose trust in my ability to protect him from all the world's harms had been equally as strong as his sister's.
They'd invested me with that unbounded love and trust right up to the moment they died.
Make a memory, Camilla had said. Damn the memories! Those precious heartrending, frightening, wonderful, awful neuronal circuits whose actual workings eluded the best efforts of philosophers and of scientists like me.
We feel these memories in solitude and share them badly in the flat, sloppy medium of words and gestures that do little to re-create the fleeting snapshots of reality in our heads.
Then we die.
Where do the memories go? Were they attached to a soul? Or just cheap synaptic Kodak moments stored in a fragile biological medium destined for decay? I wiped at the moisture in my eyes and checked my watch. Vanessa's daughter would be arriving at the airport in less than two hours. I focused on this to take my mind off the memories.
I turned the ignition key for the Jambalaya's auxiliary diesel and counted to myself. At ten, I pressed the starter and the diesel fired up on the first crank. Next I flipped on the white light at the top of the mast, signaling my transition from sailboat to power vessel, eased the transmission lever forward, and steered gently into the wind to help me drop the sails. Then I set course to avoid colliding with the great clueless hordes at the harbor entrance.
With my portable air horn and emergency flare gun with extra rounds within reach, I steered a wide counterclockwise circle toward the south entrance, hoping to find a gap in the incoming traffic. Only in L.A., I thought, could boating be so damn much like jockeying for position on a freeway on-ramp.
With my attention riveted ahead, the bullet-fast approach of a dark inflatable with no lights and a well- muffled outboard motor startled me when it appeared on my stern. I stopped my gradual circle and held a steady course, expecting it to notice my lights and speed by. Other than for my wonder at the scarcity of brain cells that would set someone off at great speed at night with no lights, the inflatable did not concern me. Even if it hit the Jambalaya at speed, the small, soft craft could do little serious damage to a thirty-fivefoot sailboat.
I was right about the boat, wrong about the people inside.
Instead of shooting past me, the inflatable slowed and closed in on the Jambalaya's port side. I grabbed my handheld halogen spotlight. The half-million-candlepower light revealed three men, all dressed in black clothing and balaclavas, all holding elegantly misshapen weapons that, to my experienced eyes, were clearly Heckler amp; Koch MPSSD submachine guns with their long, tubular suppressors.
The men cursed at my light. The helmsman jammed the tiller to the right and spun his craft into a sharp counterclockwise spin. I tracked the craft with my light long enough to spot one of the men raise his weapon and aim it at me. I fell to the deck and turned off the light as a long burst of full-auto weapons fire punctuated the darkness with muzzle flashes.
CHAPTER 15
One slug slammed into the Jambalaya's mast, ringing like the peal of a dull bell. An angry shout followed: 'Stop it! We want him alive.'
Then the snick-click of a fresh magazine being seated.
I got to my knees and peered into the darkness as the outboard motor grew louder again. The beams of their flashlights cast shadows on the Jambalaya's deck and rigging.
I grabbed the flare pistol and popped up long enough to fire a round straight at the inflatable, As I hit the deck again, I broke the pistol down, pulled out the spent. 12-gauge cartridge, reloaded, and fired a round straight up. In an instant, the illuminating parachute flare hung above, painting the scene with its flat blue-white magnesium glowlight. 'Get him! Get him now!'
Why? Why me? A drug gang raiding what they thought was a rival's shipment? But the expensive H amp;Ks they carried weren't the usual drug-gang firearm. I knew it, instead, as the choice of professionals ranging from urban SWAT teams to military Special Forces in close-quarter situations.
The flare-lit seascape, urgent shouts, and the lingering smell of cordite pulled the rip cord on a pack of long- buried memories that arced through my head, activating old reflexes that had often saved my life. I unsnapped the carabiner attaching my lifeline to the harness, reloaded the flare pistol, and fired. New illumination brightened the sky as I sensed my assailants' inflatable boat thumping against the port stern quarter. From my crouched position in the cockpit, I shoved the Jambalaya's throttle full forward, steered the Jambalaya straight into oncoming traffic, then set the autopilot to hold the course.
I was reaching for the VHF to radio in a Mayday when the first man came over the gunwale. I focused on his shadow, coiled myself tight, and waited. The man had a single tipsy moment as he stepped on deck. I lunged for him then in one long, taut step, focusing all the strength in my legs and torso and arms and shoulders into the single forearm of my right elbow, which I slammed into the side of the man's head right behind his ear. His head snapped unnaturally to the left accompanied by a dull snap of cracked vertebrae. Sweat flew from his face and arced like tiny glowing beads through the stark flarelight. Experience taught me that the higher the vertebrae in his neck, the faster he'd die.
The man crumpled into the cockpit like a sack of melons. He looked at me as his uncontrolled bladder and bowels darkened his pants. Regret passed through me like a quick shadow as I watched the recognition and panic ricochet in his eyes before the lids fluttered shut.
Scrambling to the cabin below, I flicked the VHF to Channel 16.
'Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the vessel Jambalaya and am being attacked by armed assailants. Request immediate assistance.' I read off my coordinates from the GPS screen on the panel next to the VHF.
I was still radioing my Mayday as I dialed 911 on my cell phone and got the inevitable recording.
'Hell,' I muttered. I had barely finished stuffing the phone back in my Windbreaker's cargo pocket when the Jambalaya rocked gently, letting me know someone had stepped on deck. With the Jambalaya's diesel laboring away at full rpms, I rushed forward to the head, threw open the door, and yanked out a strategic piece of teak paneling to reveal a small void between the hull and the interior lining. From it, I pulled out a heavy waterproof bag containing an old friend-a Colt. 45 Model 1911 semiautomatic pistol- and three magazines.
I slid a magazine in the handle of the Colt, worked the slide to chamber a round, and made sure the safety was off. As I stepped from the head into the cabin, I spotted a man descending the steps from the cockpit, silhouetted by the trapezoidal opening of the companionway and the dimming flarelight beyond. I shot him.
The slug spun him around with his finger on the trigger of his weapon. I dived away from the long-full-auto burst that hosed the Jambalaya's interior. Before the last shot faded, I sprang toward him and nailed his head to the deck with a second shot. Never shoot once. Good training never died.
I was facing the stem when I heard the door to the bow stateroom slam open behind me, followed by the voice of command.
'Don't move, Dr. Stone. Don't even twitch or I'll blow your kidneys right out the front of your belly.'
CHAPTER 16
I stood with the Jambalaya's galley on my right as I faced the stern. My hip touched the corner of the counter that jutted about three feet toward the centerline of the cabin creating a small alcove, but it was little cover. The fixtures had deliberately been designed as light as possible to avoid flotation and balance issues. The H amp;K's slugs could readily parse the flimsy paneling I was using for cover and dissect me with ease.
'Toss your weapon outside,' the voice commanded me. I set the safety and sent it flying into the cockpit.
In the moment of ensuing silence, my ears took in the loud hammering from the Jambalaya's diesel and, just barely detectable through the noise, frantic shouts, voices, air horns. The VHF squawked a verbal collage of sudden
