Wild Card

accompany you lovebirds, I’ll be up here keepin’ lookout if there should be any problems.”

They waited until he was finished talking, got up, and flapped toward the stern in their fins.

Crouching beside Annie on the dive platform, Nimec glanced back over his shoulder at Blake.

“Forgot to ask,” he said. “There sharks in these waters?”

Blake grinned from where he stood on the deck.

“Just of the laid-back variety, mate!” he said.

And before Nimec could manage a frown, Annie grabbed his wrist, let out a yip of frisky delight, and rolled into the water, pulling him in with a splash.

* * *

Steering his regular course to the yellowfin tuna grounds about thirty kilometers out from his dock at Los Rayos, Greger Fisk, the captain of the sportfisherman charter Norwegian Wind, had scarcely taken notice of the helicopters overhead. The least well-off passengers on his luxurious Netherlands-built Heesen were millionaires, and they were looked upon with near scorn by the truly prosperous aboard, who were in turn thought of as a bare step up from crude bourgeoisie by the wealthiest of the resort’s guests — sheiks, royals, and business tycoons of celestial power and financial means who would sail their own motor yachts or none at all, in search of prized finned specimens.

In the air for purposes of security, the helicopters were constants in these parts and, like hovering gulls and clouds, had come within range of the captain’s awareness only as familiar aspects of the scenery. To be sure, Fisk was used to them. But he had sometimes found it a comfort to see them in his first months captaining a ship based on the island, given that he’d known he must navigate his important and valuable patrons — prize specimens in their separate right — through a dangerous world of terrorists, hijackers, and modern pirates.

The coastal patrol boat with a Los Rayos Security emblem on its prow, however, caught his attention even before it came speeding up on his port side to hail him on its public address system. And unbeknownst to Captain Fisk, his newbie spotter on the radar-equipped tuna-and-marlin tower had reacted to the sudden, deafening alert with a startlement that nearly sent him tumbling down from his high platform to the bridge.

“You are entering a temporarily restricted zone, Norwegian Wind,” the voice blared over the cutter’s loudspeaker. “Inform us at once of your destination over intership channel twenty-two B — that is two-two-Bertha — and we will reroute. Over.”

Fisk reached for the radio handset on his helm console, identified himself, gave the coordinates of the tuna grounds, and then listened to the specifics of the detour with chagrin… It would cost him an hour, or even longer. Then he thought about the level of ire it would bring about in his fanatical anglers and almost shuddered. A year or so back, his ship had been just ten miles short of a teeming pod of fish when a British prime minister’s vacation yacht had crossed its path, the attendant patrol boat escort forcing him into a circuitous, lengthy, and in Fisk’s opinion unnecessary course change that had left his infuriated passengers with limp lines, empty hooks, and many, many vocal complaints.

He pressed his handset’s talk button, mindful of past experience. Perhaps today he might succeed in a compromise.

“Captain Fisk, again, coastal patrol. I roger your alternate coordinates,” he said. And then took his stab. “Request permission to stand by and wait if that would be shorter, over.”

“Negative, Captain. Our action will take a while.”

“I’m going to have some very unhappy passengers,” Fisk pressed.

“We apologize, Captain. This area’s off limits and must be cleared of traffic.”

Fisk felt the wind go out of him.

“Can you help me with explanations for when they chew my head off?”

“We’ve received a Mayday distress call and are taking appropriate action. That’s all I can tell you, Captain. Out.”

Fisk expelled a long, defeated breath and set the handset into its clip, wondering how serious the Mayday might be. With so many amateur boaters in the water panicking if they so much as got splashed by a wave, one never knew. Nine times out of ten it was something minor.

Captain Greger Fisk sighed again, girding for his announcement over the ship’s intercom, thinking he might as well throw himself overboard afterward and give the patrols a real problem to worry about.

* * *

Nimec and Annie swam a few feet from the boat in the warm, placid green water, then floated facedown on the surface and immediately saw the great reef below them.

It was, Nimec thought, spectacular. What he might have described as a sort of forest masquerading as crusted, irregular shelves of rock. The growth of new living coral flared off it in shoots, spurs, and willowy masses of different shapes, all of them covered in seaweed that ribboned out and out in long, drifting strands.

They kept looking down through their face masks a bit, pulling regular breaths into their snorkels. Then they filled their lungs and dove.

Nimec had expected to catch a glimpse of some underwater life, but the reef was teeming with creatures everywhere. It was, he thought, almost too much to take in all at once. Schools of tiny silvery-blue fish darting between coral branches that swayed and undulated in the gentle current; some spidery, leggy thing that fled through a nook in the formation in a scattery cloud of sand; a great bugeyed fish with iridescent red scales, blotchy blue spots on its massive head, and what seemed to be dozens of fins spraying from its sides. It at first moved slowly past them, and then put on a sudden, explosive burst of speed to plow away through a dense clump of plant growth.

Then Nimec felt Annie tap his shoulder, looked over at her, nodded.

They went up for air.

* * *

The racing boat moved at idle speed like a restrained thoroughbred, its twin 225hp outboards humming in low gear.

Beside his pilot in the forward bow seat, Eckers checked the time with his digital wristwatch, fingered on its compass display for a moment, and then shifted his glance to the GPS marine chart on his handheld. The latter device would have sufficed to give him all the information he wanted, but he was a cautious man, and a comparison check could only back up and refine his situational awareness.

He brought his binoculars up to his eyes, spotted the target at rest in the clear distance ahead, turned the zoom knob with his thumb, studied it more closely, and nodded to himself.

“Kick it, Harrison,” he said at last, glancing over at the pilot. “They’re ours.”

* * *

Nimec had plunged down for his fourth or fifth dive to the reef when he heard the distinctive thrum of an engine somewhere above. It made him curious. He turned to Annie, who was beside him exploring a huge knob of coral that was plastered with starfish and other tentacled, suctiony things. He pointed to his ear, then pointed toward the surface, and up they went to investigate.

* * *

On his deck enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, Blake was a touch perplexed when he noticed the yellow racer planing across the water toward him. This was not because crafts of that sort were rare sights in themselves, but because they usually came in pairs or threesomes… hard for a crew to stage a race if they didn’t have any competition. Course, he thought, these blokes might be on a solo practice run. Made good sense, since they were traveling at a moderate speed, and the environmentalists looked upon contests near the reef formations with sneering disapproval. Did all sorts of bad, said they in their cries for legal restrictions — damaged the coral heads, tore apart the seaweed growth, disturbed and injured the sea life. And who with a right brain and working eyes could dispute it?

Blake watched the racer continue to approach from starboard, the sound of its engines growing louder by the second. Then he thought about his lovebirds and glanced to the left, making sure they were still safely on the opposite side of his boat, where he’d last seen them… and there he found them surfacing for air within the approximate twenty-foot boundary he’d laid out. Fine couple, they were. And took instruction with no flapping of the lips, which made them all the finer.

He saw Pete wave to him, waved back, noticed him stay on top looking his way, and made the OK sign to let him know everything was all right, betting he’d heard the hum of the racer’s outboards and gotten curious. It was