Distant Thunder

49

They finished their breakfast. “Lance?” Stone said.

Lance dabbed at his chin with the linen napkin. “Yes?”

“Do you think we could lose the Coast Guard cutter?”

“It’s very good protection,” Lance said, “and they went to a good deal of trouble to get in here.”

“No more trouble than we went to,” Stone pointed out. “Also, it’s as though the cutter were waving a big banner reading very important person aboard the adjacent yacht. Part of the trouble we went to getting here was remaining unnoticed.”

Lance sighed. “The cutter was in the neighborhood,” he said.

“Funny, our crew didn’t spot it until we found it present on our arrival.”

Lance made a phone call. “Captain? Lance Cabot. We are feeling secure, now, and no longer require your assistance. Yes, and thank you so much!” He hung up. “There,” he said.

Immediately the noise of the cutter’s anchor coming up was heard, and shortly it passed out of the lagoon and away from the fort.

“Where’s it going?” Stone asked.

“Wherever it likes,” Lance replied. “It’s a big ocean.”

“I sort of liked having it here,” Viv said. “It was comforting, somehow.”

“I thought we all agreed that it would attract too much attention,” Stone said.

“Well, yes, but...”

“It’s gone, Viv,” Stone said. “Get over it.”

“I’ll try.”

“What’ll we do until lunch?” Dino asked.

“Board games, yesterday’s Times, or jumping into the water and flapping your arms to attract sharks,” Stone suggested.

“Can we hit some golf balls?” Dino asked.

“Not unless we want to cover the lagoon bottom with old golf balls, many of them with my name stamped on them.”

“You don’t mind that at golf courses,” Dino pointed out.

“There they have men with Aqua-Lungs who swim around the bottom, retrieving them and selling them back to me.”

“How about shooting skeet?”

“Too noisy.”

“How about shooting Dino?” Viv asked. “Only the first round will be noisy.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “boredom is a self-inflicted wound. Heal thyself.”

Dino got up, went below, and returned in a swimsuit. He vaulted over the rail and made a big splash.

“Great,” Viv said, “now all I need is a speargun.”

She went below, changed, and came back looking very good in a small bikini. She jumped in with Dino.

Stone began to miss Vanessa all over again.

Stone finished the crossword and lay back on the afterdeck cushions for a nap. After what seemed only a moment, he heard distant thunder. He jerked awake and sat up, looking around.

“It’s only the tourist seaplane from Key West to Fort Jefferson,” Lance said. “Relax.”

Stone got out his iPhone and turned on some Oscar Peterson.

“That beats an aircraft engine every time,” Lance said.

Stone, who was unaccustomed to hearing Lance express such an opinion, sat up and looked around. “It stopped,” he said.

“It’s at the dock, disgorging passengers for a thirty-minute walk around the fort.” Lance put down the book he had been reading. “I think I’ll return to Key West with them.”

“As you wish,” Stone said, buzzing the skipper and asking for a dinghy and crew for the short ride in. Stone napped again, then a few minutes later, he awoke to the sound of the seaplane lifting off and flying away.

Lance was gone. The plastique bomb was lying on the coffee table.