lots of ways, now more than ever.'
'For also including a fast boat and an experienced captain?'
'Oh, we can't take credit where it isn't due,' protested the man from the Mafia, enjoying himself. 'This is their equipment, their skipper. There are just some things people do better for themselves, especially if one of them is going into the heavily patrolled waters between the US and Mexico. There's clout and then again there's different clout, if you know what I'm saying.'
Kendrick felt a third presence but, turning in the chair, saw no one else on the deck of the pleasure yacht. Then he raised his eyes to the aft railing of the bridge. A figure stepped back into the shadows but not quickly enough. It was the excessively tall, deeply tanned contributor from Bollinger's library, and from what could be seen of his face, it was contorted in hatred. 'Are all of the Vice President's guests on board?' he asked, seeing that the Mafioso had followed his gaze.
'What guests?'
'You're cute, Luigi.'
'There's a captain and one crew. I've never seen either of them before.'
'Where are we going?'
'On a cruise.'
The boat slowed down as the beam of a powerful searchlight shot out from the bridge. The Mafia soldier unstrapped himself and got up; he walked across the deck and down into the lower cabin. Evan could hear him on an intercom, but with the wind and the slapping waves was unable to make out the words. Moments later the man returned; in his hand was a gun, a standard issue Colt .45 automatic. Suppressing the panic he felt, Kendrick thought of the sharks of Qatar and wondered if another Mahdi across the world was about to carry out the sentence of death pronounced in Bahrain. If it was to be, Evan made the same decision he had made in Bahrain: he would fight. Better a quick, expeditious bullet in the head than the prospect of drowning or being torn apart by man-eaters of the Pacific.
'We're here, Congressman,' said the Mafioso courteously.
'Where is here?'
'Damned if I know. It's some kind of island.'
Kendrick closed his eyes, giving thanks to whoever cared to accept them, and began to breathe without trembling again. The hero of Oman was a fraud, he reflected. He simply did not care to die, and fear aside, there was Khalehla. The love that had eluded him all his life was his, and every additional minute he was permitted to live was a minute of hope. 'From the looks of you I don't think you really need that,' he said, nodding his head at the weapon.
'Not from your press reports,' replied the Secret Service guard positioned by the upper ranks of the underworld. 'I'm going to unbuckle you, but if you make any sudden moves you won't set foot on land, capisce?'
'Motto bene.'
'Don't blame me, I've been given my instructions. When you provide a service, you accept reasonable orders.'
Evan heard the snaps and felt the wide cloth straps loosening around his arms and legs. 'Has it occurred to you that if you carried out those orders you might never get back to San Diego?' he asked.
'Certainly,' answered the Mafioso casually. 'That's why we've got the Viper in a vice. “Viper in a vice.” Acceptable alliteration, wouldn't you say?'
'I wouldn't know. I'm a construction engineer, not a poet.'
'And I've got a gun in my hand, which means I'm not a poet, either. So behave, Congressman.'
'I assume “Viper” is the Vice President.'
'Yes, and he said he'd heard the name and it was an insult. Can you imagine? Those fuckers had the moral turpitude to bug our unit?'
'I'm appalled,' replied Kendrick, rising awkwardly from the metal chair and shaking his arms and legs, restoring circulation.
'Easy!' cried the Secret Service man, leaping back, his .45 levelled at Evan's head.
'You try sitting in that damned thing for as long as I did the way I did and think you're going to walk a straight line!'
