"Yes." Clark's tone made it clear he didn't expect his luck to continue long.
"Good. Your next unexpected visitor isn't going to show you that courtesy, if my hunch is correct," Remo said as he removed the shell from the shotgun and tossed
it to Clark. The sailor looked at it as if he'd never seen it before.
"I helped myself to this, too." Remo was holding up a short, thick chunk of cable with heavy screw clamps on either end. Clark knew it looked familiar, but it took him a few seconds to place it.
"That's a battery cable."
"I'll put it back when I'm done," Remo assured him. "Your generator and batteries will be useless without it, and I could stop you before you could rig up a replacement for this. I don't want you calling for help."
Clark laughed sourly. "So what are you up to if you aren't the killer, eh?"
"I'm the killer catcher," Remo explained. "You're my bait, whether you like it or not."
Clark felt his hopes sink as the man in the summer clothes tossed the shotgun over his shoulder, and he had to have tossed it harder than it seemed because it took a long time for the weapon to rise, vanish against the slate-gray sky, then appear again, falling butt first and straight as a spear. It slid into a rising wave.
The frigid water was cresting at twenty-five feet that morning on the Drake Passage. The sky was the same color as the sea, like dirty bathwater.
Lee Clark never felt more helpless.
"You have to call in on the emergency radio if you have a communications breakdown. That's in the rules."
"Yes. That's right," Clark said.
"We'll do it together," Remo said. He accompanied Clark belowdecks, into a cramped helm behind a narrow window.
"Not much room to stretch your legs," Remo commented.
"After eight, nine weeks at sea you get used to it," Clark said.
"Eight weeks? That explains the smell."
Clark raised an eyebrow. "What smell?"
Remo pointed at the emergency radio, in a tiny, water-resistant plastic case mounted near the ceiling. Clark opened it and turned it on. The unit fed off the sailboat's generator power, so the batteries were always fully charged. It didn't take long to get a reply to his hail. Remo had already warned Clark of unspecified consequences if he strayed from the script.
"What's your situation, Lee? We got mighty worried when we saw your data feed go down."
"I'm fine, base. Just a generator problem. One of my cable clamps busted and it just fell right off. I'll have another put on soon enough. Meanwhile, I'll leave the emergency unit on to receive."
"Good to hear it."
Clark signed off and looked expectantly at Remo.
"I told you I am not the killer."
"Where's your boat?"
"I jumped in."
"You parachuted onto a sailboat going eighteen knots
in twenty-five-foot seas? Without me noticing? You expect me to believe that?"
"You ask too many questions."
"And in that getup?" Clark gestured at Remo's attire.
Well, Remo had to admit he wasn't dressed for the climate by most standards, but he had found that, under most circumstances, his uniform did just fine. The Italian, hand-sewn leather shoes were comfortable, pliant and tough enough to stand up to days of abuse before going into the trash. Usually the Chinos and T-shirt were warm enough and gave him freedom of movement. There were times when Remo needed freedom of movement.
"I was wearing a windbreaker when I jumped," he admitted. "It got soaked so I scrapped it."
"Uh-huh. So what now?" Clark demanded.
"Nothing. Go about your business. The next move is the killer's."
"Aren't you cold?" Clark shouted across the windswept deck. He was retying one of his ropes. The GPS on his watch told him he was still on course, but the wicked wind had him using his smallest sails and he was hard-pressed to keep his sailboat, the lovely Traverser, from heading into the rocky mess of Chilean islands that made up the southernmost point on the Americas.
The wicked wind drove the drizzle under your clothing no matter how tightly you tied your sleeves and collar. The wind and the water could suck the life out of you in no time if you weren't careful. Clark's captor— or protector, he wasn't yet sure which—was not being careful. He had refused the spare coat Clark offered him and come outside in just his blue T-shirt. The T-shirt was wet again.
Clark and Remo were inside for less than a half hour, but Remo's shirt and pants were bone dry by then. Clark couldn't help but notice. Now, how had that happened?
At least this Remo was a skilled seaman. He strolled around the heaving deck without apparently noticing the abrupt rises and the sudden plummets. Even Clark didn't get used to oceans like this, and he made dang sure he wore his safety cable when he was on deck. All it would take was one slip. If he lost his footing during one of those big risers and got dumped in the icy waters of the Drake Passage, he was as good as dead. The Traverser would be out of his reach in seconds and there would no hope of rescue.
Remo didn't seem too worried about the danger. Lee Clark almost hoped the man would get dumped in the water.
Hell, killer or not, Clark knew he would go back and rescue the guy. It was just the kind of man Lee Clark was.
Remo was cocking his head again, concentrating.
"Are you trying to hear something, is that what you're doing?" Clark asked.
"Killer's boat," Remo explained.
Clark shook his head. "Son, there could be a Fourth of July parade marching alongside us and we wouldn't hear it in all this weather."
Remo just cocked his head.
"You don't expect somebody to come from one of the other racers to get us, do you?" Clark probed.
"Don't know."
"There's more than fifty boats in this race, right, Remo? Most of 'em are the Class IIs and they're way back. But everybody is way back now. There isn't anybody close enough to ride up from behind and catch this boat, even with a quick dinghy."
"Not necessarily."
"I tell you they'd have to have a quick dinghy. We're going twenty-two miles per hour land speed. How they going to catch up to us without a quick dinghy?"
"If you don't stop saying 'quick dinghy' I might have to kill you after all," Remo growled.
"Remo, are you steamin'?" Clark asked incredulously when they were inside again.
Remo didn't answer, but Clark didn't need an answer. He could see the steam rising off Remo's T-shirt.
"You some sort of a cyborg? You know, you got heating elements under your skin, like them little wires that get all orange in the toaster?"
"Yes," Remo said. "That's it exactly. Mum's the word."
Clark's eyes grew wide. "You a secret agent from the government? How much did you cost? More than six million dollars. Steve Austin cost six million dollars."
"That was the 1970s. Human amplification technology is way more expensive these days," Remo explained. He had recently picked up the term "human amplification" from an airplane magazine article and was pretty pleased to have the chance of actually using it in a sentence. It made him sound downright credible.
"You really are with the government, eh?" Clark mused. "So why you keeping me prisoner like this?"
"I told you, Lee, I need bait. You're it. I couldn't have you doing anything out of the ordinary that might warn off the killers."
Having come to terms with the fact that Remo, last name not clearly enunciated, was not the killer, Clark now had to accept that another party, which was the killer, was likely to be joining them.
"How soon until them murdering sons of bitches make their move?" Clark asked.
"Soon, I hope, before I pass out from the smell," Remo said.
"What smell?"