Djibouti

"CIO."

"Congress of Industrial Opportunists, the higher-ups, living off the sweat of their fellow man, probably never worked a shift in their life."

The suits in shirtsleeves talked among themselves. A voice said, "You're all air force?"

Still in their beach chairs they nodded, said yeah, the 449th, watched the flashlights sweep away to follow the suits leaving.

For a few seconds Jama caught sight of a man wearing a baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt hanging out of his jeans. Saw him in a beam of light before he turned away. Jama got up and went to the edge of the thatch overhang. He didn't see him now, the beach full of navy people. He hadn't recognized the guy. It wasn't he was familiar, but looked out of place among the gang of investigators.

He thought of Buster in the mangrove. He'd better move if he wanted to get rid of her. JAMA FOLLOWED THE BEACH south ducking patrol boats sweeping their spotlights over the coral with no idea-Jama believed-what they were looking for. He cut across the bend in the island to the south shore of the beach, quiet here, no boats messing up the dark, and came to the cove where he'd left Buster. In the wheelhouse when he saw Dara go by in the speedboat. Heard the boat circle back and saw her again. He was in water to his chest by the time he reached Buster, threw his flight bag in the wheelhouse and got to work untangling her from the mangrove. Once she was in the channel Jama pulled himself aboard.

The man in the baseball cap was waiting at the mouth of the cove, up on the bank holding a nickel-plate revolver on him. Some kind of tropical white flowers decorating the hem of his Hawaiian shirt, black flowers on the top part, black on black you could hardly make out.

Jama said, "That's a good-looking shirt you got on. How much it set you back?"

Buck Bethards said, "You don't remember me? I'm the guy you shot the other day at Marshal Foch Square."

Jama grinning at him now, slipped his hand inside the flight bag sitting on the wheelhouse table.

"That was you?"

"Gonna take you in this time," Buck said. "The hell you doing out here?"

"I blew up that tanker."

"You did, huh."

"Dialed a phone number and set it off."

"You're a real terror, aren't you?"

"I'm giving it up," Jama said, his hand on the Walther's grip. "You a cop or what?"

"I was military, now I'm on my own."

"You gonna shoot me?"

"I'm taking you to Djib on those homicides. Or I can check, see if there're warrants for a James Russell in the States."

"Russell," Jama said. "How much you want?"

"What I want is to see your hand come out of that bag."

"I'm getting a cigarette."

"Shame on you."

"Want one?"

"I quit. Listen, I want you to take your hand out of the bag before I count to five. Give you time to make up your mind. You don't, I tell my client you passed away on Gilligan's Island. Last seen taking a stroll."

Jama said, "Lemme tell you again. I blew up that ship with a phone call. I'm the same as you, man. They pay me to do a job, I do it." Jama said, "You mind if I bring out my cigarettes? Man, I have to see can I talk you out of this."

"I'll count to five," Buck said. "One…"

Jama let him get to three. He took the bag in his left hand and half-turned to sidearm it at Buck, Jama's right hand coming out with the Walther and shot Buck in the gut to relax him, cause him to sag, and shot him in the chest to kill him, from less than twenty feet. There was life in him for a few moments, his eyes open, looking at something he couldn't believe.

Shit, then had to go in the water again to get under Buck and dump him on the deck, the nickel-plate gone. Once Jama was aboard he started the engine and steered Buster deep into the cove and shut her down. Be for the next hour or so. He heard patrol boats out there and saw lights playing through the mangrove; the boats had too much beam to come in the channel. While he was waiting Jama dug Buck's passport and wallet out of his back pocket and dropped them in his bag. Look at them when he had some light. For now he kept the boat pitch-dark and sat there waving at mosquitoes. Finally asked himself, You going or not? Started the engine and putt-putted out of the cove.

It was too late to send Buster out to catch fire, Aphrodite looking almost burned out. What he did was start his own fire below-decks, sloshed a can of gasoline around and dropped a match down the ladder, heard it go wooosh and Buster was on fire, her bow aimed at the hulk burning a few miles off. Jama put on his life jacket and hung his bag of personals against his chest to hold on to it. About a hundred yards out he set Buster on autopilot and slipped over the side.