He wondered if he was getting paranoid. He had read about solo sailors on long passages having hallucinations and delusions. But he never thought it could happen to him.
On the other hand, suppose somebody was stalking him? And what if he didn’t make it back home? “Damn! Damn! Damn!” he shouted to the wind. He should have told Diane about the notes. What if someone else found them before she did? After a moment’s deliberation, Vincent reached over and switched on the camcorder.
He spoke into the cockpit microphone as the camera turned slowly toward him. “Diane, Honey, this is for you.” He began singing Funny Valentine in a tremulous voice, altering the lyrics to suit his needs.
Just then, the VHF radio began broadcasting loud music. Vincent stopped singing and tried to remember where he had stowed the flare gun. He unclipped his harness tether from the lifeline and climbed below to look for it—just as a precaution.
Vincent was bent over, rooting around in the depths of the quarter berth when the radar alarm screeched out. He straightened up with a start, hit his head on a projecting bulkhead and went reeling out into the main salon. The proximity alarm continued blaring.
Vincent took a moment to blink his vision back into focus, then checked the radar. He couldn’t believe his eyes. A quick look through a starboard porthole confirmed what he saw on the screen. “SHIT!!!”
A large power boat, by now just a mile or so off his starboard beam, pushed a mountain of water in front of it as it sped toward Woodwind—the two boats were on a collision course. He had to change direction quickly.
Vincent leaped to the stairs and scrambled topside. The big boat was almost upon him. He lunged for the autopilot control. But his tether clip got hung up, jerking him backwards off his feet. He smashed his head against the starboard seat and crashed to the cockpit floor.
Vincent lay motionless. Through his shadowy awareness, he heard his brain throbbing to the rhythmic vibrations of a large engine. “Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)/ How fast she nears and nears!”
Then came a jarring impact, followed by a gnashing, grinding, splintering upheaval. Then silence and sleep… delicious sleep … Diane.
μ CHAPTER FIFTEEN μ
Returning from her early morning jog along BRI’s trails, Diane found Maxine waiting for her outside the locker room door.
“Do you have your cell phone with you?” she asked Diane breathlessly.
“It’s in my locker. Why?”
Maxine pushed open the door and stepped back. “You need to get it. The Coast Guard will be calling you.”
“Why would the Coast Guard…?” She didn’t need to finish the question; there could only be one answer. Fighting off a sense of alarm, she hurried to get her phone. But her jogging shoes had turned to lead, then the locker door refused to open.
Maxine came up behind her, gently moved her aside, and asked for her locker combination. She spun the dial and opened the door just as the cell phone struck up Mozart’s Turkish March.
Diane grabbed the phone off the shelf and pressed the button. “This is Diane Rose.”
The voice was young and male. The words were clipped and professional with a little Texas mixed in.
“This is the Coast Guard, Corpus Christi, Texas, Mrs. Rose. The Vera Cruz Race committee has informed us that the sailing vessel Woodwind has not communicated with them for the past twenty-four hours.”
Diane eased herself onto a bench and stared at the tan metal lockers. Maxine sat down beside her and placed her hand on Diane’s arm.
“I need to ask you some questions,” the young man said. Then, without waiting for a response, he started in. “Are you the vessel’s owner?”
“Well… my husband and I own it together.”
“How many people are on board Woodwind, Ma’am?”
“One—my husband—Vincent Rose.”
“Is there a life raft on board?”
“Yes.”
“A life jacket?”
“Yes.”
“Is the vessel equipped with an EPIRB?”
Diane hesitated.
The voice prompted her: “An emergency radio beacon.”
“Of course… Yes.”
The questioning went on. Diane could picture the young man: trim physique, short hair, white uniform; sitting at a gray metal desk, filling out a form. And she was quite anxious to help him get it right; probably a throwback to all her years in school—that special world where correct answers guaranteed good outcomes.
Diane pressed the off button, but didn’t move from the bench. Maxine sat quietly beside her.
Somewhere a wall clock was ticking. It reminded Diane of her third grade nun who told the class to observe a moment of silence contemplating eternity in hell. To help them understand the concept, she told the students the devil had a clock that chanted: “Forever, forever, never, never….” The exercise gave her nightmares for months.
Now, a sense of the dark infinity of her life without Vincent passed through her, propelling her to her feet.
Without looking at Maxine, she said, “The Coast Guard has the last coordinates Vincent reported. They’re going to fly out and look for him. I’m sure it’s just a radio malfunction.”
She turned and walked out of the locker room, forgetting to shower and change clothes.
μ CHAPTER SIXTEEN μ
Enrique Martinez paced in front of the expanse of windows in his Bogotá, Colombia office suite. It had been four weeks since he shredded the threatening letter and set it aflame in the Waterford ashtray on his desk.
To be exact, it had been twenty-eight days, two hours and thirty-seven minutes since he watched the orange and blue flames consume the paper full of deadly truths while his mind cast about wildly for any fragment of information regarding “The Knights of New Granada.” As far as he knew, they were just a very old legend.
As National Election Commissioner, he was accustomed to Colombian politics. But the past couple months had been particularly bad ones.
Eight weeks ago, leftist guerrillas had sent a message that his family would be kidnapped and tortured if he did not support their candidates. A week later, the right-wing paramilitary warned that they could no longer protect him from zealots in their ranks if he did not show favor to their cause. Five weeks ago today, his limousine and chauffeur had met with an incendiary demise outside his favorite cigar store. Subsequently, three different unwashed rebel groups claimed credit for the explosion, threatening further displays of might if their various demands were not met.
All these matters Enrique could handle. The things they demanded were easily dispatched with a quick payoff or a word through channels to a hired gun.
But one month ago came the paralyzing letter of warning with a scarlet sword on its letterhead.
Enrique had immediately recognized the symbol—the Sword of Damocles suspended on a slender horsehair—emblazoned across the top. He knew it meant imminent danger.
But his panic had come, not from the picture of a sword, but from the ultimatums and incriminating facts written beneath it: “You will sever all connections with the drug trade,” it had said. Then it gave an accurate accounting of times and places of secret meetings he had attended and exact balances in his Cayman and Bermuda bank accounts. The letter went on to demand that he divest himself of “the immoral enrichment received for supporting drug crimes against our country.”