the perks of his rank. The bow lay in the shadows at his feet, already cocked and loaded with the same bolt they'd yanked out of Johnny Peterson's chest. Extra bolts stuck out of the top of Griffin's suede boots like a feather bouquet.
The other crew members standing around the deck also had their weapons hidden, but within easy reach. Out of the corners of their eyes they watched Rhino, waiting for his signal to use them.
Angel stood next to Rhino, her arms crossed, not bothering to hold on to anything despite the bumpy ride. The sea breeze fluffed and tossed her glossy black hair, but she didn't notice. Her eyes were fixed on their nearing target.
'Any orders, Cap?' Griffin asked.
Rhino clamped his hand on Griffin's shoulder. Despite his huge bulk, he had small delicate hands, so smooth and slender they might have once been used on hand cream commercials. Though the fingers were fragile looking, they commanded all the enormous strength of his two hundred sixty-eight pounds. He squeezed Griffin's shoulder until the shorter man winced with pain, feeling the bones shift slightly, grinding like twigs. It was a childish display of power, Rhino realized, but just the kind that most impressed these oafs. No matter how brilliant his strategies had proven over the past few months, no matter how much profit he had brought them, they still reacted with more awe to a silly demonstration of brute strength and physical cruelty. They suspected anyone with more brains than brawn was basically weak. Only Angel knew better.
Griffin's knees sagged slightly under Rhino's punishing grip. Pound for pound, Griffin was easily the more muscular of the two, a ruthless fighter who had killed men twice his size. A crewman who had once insulted his ponytail disappeared from the ship that very night. A woman crew member had refused his sexual advances; the next morning her corpse was found dragging behind the ship, only the torso and head hadn't yet been eaten by sharks. No one aboard messed with Griffin again.
Except Rhino. Stuffed inside that ageless, shapeless lump of a body was a power and energy that frightened them all.
'Good job, my friend,' Rhino said, releasing Griffin's shoulder and slapping him happily on the back. 'Nothing to do now but wave and smile. Wave and smile.' He grinned, slipping one thick arm around Angel's shoulder and lifting his other in a friendly wave to the ship's passengers.
Griffin tried to raise his left hand, but the shoulder was too numb from Rhino's grip. He lifted his right instead and waved. The rest of the crew also waved.
Angel stood impassive, frowning, wearing Rhino's heavy arm like a Siberian shawl. She did not smile; she did not wave. She watched.
The passengers from the disabled ship waved back, cheered, hugged each other with relief.
Rhino's grin broadened on the good half of his face. He waved animatedly now, like someone's rube uncle in a home movie. 'Come on in.' He chuckled, straightening his jacket over the bulging.38 S amp;W tucked into his waistband. 'The water's just fine.'
They sailed closer. The orange sky reflecting off Rhino's dead scars made his face look on fire. He stepped behind the searchlight, letting the cool shadow quench his face. And hide it from the strangers.
When they were close enough to hear, Rhino cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to the stranded passengers. 'Ahoy there. Someone call for a tow truck.'
'Thank God,' a woman shouted back, tears streaming from her eyes. 'Thank God.'
'Well, get your AAA cards ready, folks. We'll be there in a few minutes. Mastercard and Visa welcomed.'
The passengers laughed happily.
So did Rhino.
'God, look at them. They think he's their savior.' Tracy backed away from the porthole and turned away. 'I don't want to see what happens next.'
Eric was gathering up the girlie magazines from the bunks. 'You want to give me a hand.'
'Christ, Eric. This is no time for sex magazines.'
He was on his knees, dragging his arm under one of the bunks. His hand swept out some dirty underwear, a rolled up sweat sock, a copy of Penthouse that had been torn in half.
'Maybe you're right,' she sighed, collapsing on one of the bunks. She lazily picked at a magazine next to her called Blue Boy. All naked men. 'We could screw during the whole attack,' she said bitterly. 'Then we won't notice what's happening.'
Eric moved quickly around the cabin, stacking the magazines.
Tracy watched him a minute. 'Did you notice?'
'Notice what?'
'Your friend, uh, Angel.'
'Her real name is Phan. Suzette Phan. Her father was a high official in the Diem government, her mother the wife of a French diplomat.'
'Whatever. Did you notice what she was wearing?
'Not much.'
'I mean her jeans. The brand.'
Eric tossed Blue Boy on the pile and looked at Tracy. 'The brand of her jeans?'
'Yeah, they were Lee's. Same as mine.'
'So?'
Tracy shrugged. 'So nothing. Just an observation, that's all. Even in hopeless situations like this you notice the dumbest things. Suddenly I'm fashion conscious. First Goldie Hawn, now Gloria Vanderbilt.' She pounded her fist into the wall with frustration. She wouldn't let him see any tears, never again. 'Shit!'
Eric glanced out the porthole, watched the helpless ship get closer and closer. Above them they heard Rhino bellow out a greeting, joking with the passengers as they hugged each other and thanked him. Within minutes they would be there. Then the carnage.
He looked past the ship now, trying to get a fix on their location. There wasn't much to see out there anymore. The ocean water was splashed with an orange sheen from the Long Beach Halo. A quarter of a mile to the left a dozen tops of buildings stuck out of the water like half-submerged milk cartons. Some of them had as much as five or six stories showing, others just barely one. 'We're in downtown Los Angeles, near Third and Grand.'
'How do you know?'
'That's the Crocker Bank Building. Used to be fifty-four stories tall. Now it's about four.'
She stood up enough to peek through the porthole, then flopped back down again shaking her head. 'Jesus.'
Eric stared out at the important office buildings once occupied by members of the Fortune 500. They looked decapitated, little boxes made of stone and steel and glass, floating on an orange ocean.
'It looks like a toilet bowl out there,' Tracy said.
He smiled, sat next to Tracy on the bunk. 'In 'Nam I knew a man pinned down in a foxhole, laid on the stinking corpses of his buddies for almost thirty-six hours before figuring it was safe enough to crawl away. Later he told me all he thought about the whole time he was lying there, smelling the stench of their rotting bodies, was where he might have torn his high school-letter sweater one night three years before. Kept playing back that whole evening over and over while lying there with his face pressed against the bleeding guts of his sergeant, retracing his steps, mentally searching everyplace he'd been that night for a nail or something that might have ripped his sweater.'
'Spooky. Did he figure it out?'
'Yeah. He remembered a piece of metal trim that was bent back on the door of his girl friend's Buick. Snagged it after a marathon necking session when she dropped him off at home. Pictured the car perfectly. The Gumby doll hanging from the mirror, the empty 7up bottle on the floor, the Cliff Notes for Scarlet Letter wedged in the back seat. Only trouble was, he couldn't remember what sport he'd played to win that letter. Or the name of his school. Not even the name of his girl friend.'
'And the moral is?'
'What moral?'
