screamed, grabbing a stanchion at the last second.
“Hang on, darling,” Alex said over the wind. “Hold on to something. Always.”
“One hand for yourself and one for the boat,” Vicky said. “Temporary lapse of nautical memory.”
Kestrel was not big, only about twenty-six feet overall, but she was beautiful, with white topsides, teak decks, and a lovely old mahogany cabin top. A Sitka spruce mast soared overhead flying a snowy white mainsail and a big Genoa jib, now filled with wind.
There was nothing much below save a V-berth forward, a small head, and an alcohol stove. When Alex had the boat in England, he sometimes took short cruises around the Channel Islands, the places where he’d grown up. Then he’d sleep aboard the little boat and do all the cooking on the small stove. Now he kept Kestrel stowed in a sling inside Blackhawke’s massive hangar deck.
“How fast are we going?” Vicky cried, arching her back and letting her long hair trail over the gunwale.
Alex didn’t reply, he was looking aloft at the slight flutter of luff in the mainsail. He hauled in on the mainsheet. Vicky could not tell if he was still angry with her after last night’s conversation. He’d been very charming all morning, and she thought he was probably embarrassed at his outburst.
He’d knocked on her cabin door at eleven, carrying a tray with tomato juice, lemon wedges, aspirin, and Alka-Seltzer. There was a silver vase with three yellow roses. Her favorites.
“Look alive, matey! We shove off at noon sharp,” he’d said after delivering the goods and just before pulling her cabin door closed behind him.
She’d downed all three hangover potions and staggered to the shower, letting the steaming hot water work its wonders. By noon, she was in reasonably good shape. The prospect of a quiet picnic on a desert island lifted her somewhat soggy spirits.
“All right,” Alex now said, “we’re going to come about now and tack for Hog Island. Get ready to duck when I tell you.”
“Ready, Skipper,” Vicky said, nervously eyeing the big wooden boom that would soon come swooping across the decks.
“Ready about?” Alex cried.
“Ready about,” Vicky replied. She uncleated the mainsail sheet, as Alex had taught her on the sail across the bay. After the tack, she would haul in on the sheet and take a few wraps around a winch on the opposite side. She’d done a little sailing with her father on the Potomac, and it was coming back to her. Alex seemed surprised she knew a sheet from a halyard.
“Hard alee!” Alex said, and put the tiller hard over, swinging Kestrel’s bow up into the wind and then over onto a dead run straight for the small island. Alex eased the main and jib sheets and the little sloop surged forward.
Vicky had ducked just as the thick boom came slashing over her head. Pine Cay was now on their starboard side and looked quite beautiful. The entire island seemed to be covered with tall Australian pines. She could almost hear the wind whistling through the swaying trees. It looked enchanting and she found herself wishing it were their destination. “Hog” wasn’t nearly as romantic-sounding as “Pine.”
Hog Island, in fact, was distinctly unlovely. She could make out some scrub palms along the shore and the backbone of an old wooden boat half-sunk in the sand.
“What a pretty little island that is,” she said, pointing at the one called Pine Cay. “Maybe next time we could have our picnic there?”
“Yes, darling,” Alex said. “Next time. Hog Island may not be the prettiest, but it’s the only one inhabited by a blind pig.”
Alex freed both halyards and dropped the mainsail and jib to the deck. Kestrel ghosted up into the little crescent of a lagoon. Nearing shore, the boat slowed and Alex scrambled forward to the bow. He picked up the small Danforth anchor and flung it overboard.
“Sorry, but we’ll have to anchor out here. It’s as close in as I can get with our deep keel. Go ahead and swim ashore. I’ll follow with the picnic basket.”
“That’s a big roger, sailor boy,” Vicky said. She climbed up onto the top of the cabin house, removed the linen top she’d been wearing over her bikini, and gracefully dove over the side into the crystalline blue water. Alex noticed she swam with long powerful strokes. She reached the shore in seconds and ran from the surf, sprinting across the hot sand.
She stretched out on the white sand in the shadow of the half-buried fishing boat and watched Alex wade ashore. He was struggling through the surf, trying to balance the wicker basket he held on his head.
“Come on, MacArthur, you can make it!” she shouted.
Alex emerged grinning from the surf and ran to her. He placed the picnic basket beside her and ran his fingers through his damp black hair.
“Would you mind unpacking everything?” he asked. “I want to go check on something.”
“Looking for Betty?”
“No, Betty will arrive as soon as she smells food. I’ll be right back.”
She opened the basket and pulled out a blue and white beach towel. There was a large H with a small crown above it embroidered on the towel. Spreading it on the sand, she began to unpack the basket. She pulled out a bottle of still-cold Montrachet, a baguette of French bread, and several kinds of cheese. She wasn’t very hungry following her night on the town, but the wine certainly looked good. Where was the corkscrew?
Alex walked along the shoreline until he spotted it. A lone blackened palm standing amidst the charred and scrubby vegetation. He walked inland and soon found the crater the surface-to-air missile had made when it crashed. It was about six feet across and three feet deep. He sifted through the sooty palm fronds and twisted shards of metal until he found what he was looking for.
A jagged piece of the missile with identifying marks. The piece was badly burned, but he could see something stamped into the metal. It wasn’t a Stinger after all. It was a Russian bloc SAM-7. The section in his hands looked as if it might have been one of the fins. With any luck, it might be enough for the “bomb baby-sitter,” as Tate had called the deputy secretary of defense, to help put the pieces of this puzzle together.
“Well, that was certainly mysterious,” Vicky said when he returned. “Marching off down the beach, clearly a man on a mission. What’s that?” she asked, looking at the piece of black metal in his hand.
“Piece of evidence,” he said.
“Really? Of what?”
“Attempted murder,” Alex said, and knelt down on the blanket. “I think he would have got me, too, if Betty hadn’t rattled him.”
“Betty rattled a murderer?”
“This piece of metal is all that’s left of a SAM missile a chap fired at me the other day. Betty knocked him down once, but he still managed to get a shot off.”
“Hold on. Someone actually tried to blow you out of the sky? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Vicky, I sometimes get involved in negotiations for a third party. As frequently happens, one party feels my demands are unreasonable. They’d like me out of the loop.”
“So, they tried to kill you? Alex, does this have anything to do with that briefcase?”
“That possibility is under investigation. Meanwhile, I thought it best we make Blackhawke our address for a week or two.”
“Keep us out of the loop,” Vicky said, looking at him evenly. “You said us.”
“It’s me they’re after. Would they try to get to me through you? I’d be less than honest if I said no.”
After considering this for a few moments, she smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Then she spread some Brie on a piece of the baguette and handed it to him. “Eat up. Wine?”
“Yes, please,” he said, eating the bread and holding out a wineglass.
She filled his glass with the cold white wine. It was wonderful with the bread and cheese. She’d already had two glasses herself. After feeling absolutely horrible all morning, she was now starting to feel pleasantly indolent and relaxed. The sun and salt were beginning to work their way into her. The idea of two weeks like this was beginning to seem perfect.
It was the first time she’d seen Alex in a bathing suit. He looked good, she decided. Especially the legs. His body was hard and maybe too lean but for the bundled force gathered at his upper arms and shoulders. He caught her staring at him and brushed some sand off her cheek with his hand.
