Laurence Shames - Florida straits

There was movement on the deck of the salvage craft and in an instant it was clear to everyone what had happened.

"Shit. Balls. Fuck," said Charlie Ponte. "Get after those bastards."

The driver accelerated and the blue boat started cutting a lunatic slalom course through the coral. The twin props clattered and complained as they bit through the shallow, viscous water, the cockpit leaned steep as a butte as it banked left, cut right, and zig-zagged back again. Immaculate cobalt fiberglass scratched here and there against the lacerating reef; the sound was like giant cat claws ripping at silk.

And on the gray salvage boat, Clem Sanders and crew looked up from their triumph and realized they were under siege.

The diver with the emeralds bolted for home as though a shark was nosing his flippers. The engines were started, they belched wet black smoke through their rusty stacks. The windlass creaked, yanking up the anchor with Clem Sanders already on the fly. Joey tried to peer through the sun-shocked windows of the pilothouse, to see if the treasure hunter had yet managed to get on the radio to his promised allies.

The cigarette boat pivoted and splashed, its freight of dark suits and gunmetal bouncing like loose boxes in the back of a truck. The salvage boat, as if in mockery, had turned its wide gray ass on them and was heading out to sea. Charlie Ponte's silver jacket was soaking through with sweat. He believed in going in straight lines toward what he wanted, knocking over whatever was in the way. It pushed him toward utter madness to have to zig and zag, shuck and jive, dodge like some melanzane halfback while his quarry receded in plain view. "Come on, come on," he screamed at the driver. The voice was not quite human, and the driver ignored him. He wrenched the wheel and scudded past a coral head that poked up like a murderous cauliflower, he skated through a school of indifferent parrotfish. Joey and Sandra huddled on the settee, their ears assaulted by the screams and rumbles of the tormented motors.

The salvage boat was escaping, but it was not escaping fast. It furrowed through the deepening water as if it were planting corn, its ancient diesels laboring like a tractor in soft dirt. It was maybe half a mile off by the time the cigarette had danced and capered to the far fringe of the reef. The boatload of gangsters did a final series of dips and curls, endured a last set of scrapes and clings, then finally broke free of the killing shallows. The driver jerked the throttle, the cigarette took off like a goosed horse, and Charlie Ponte's thugs were pressed backward like astronauts on takeoff.

The white sun shone fiercely on the torn-up water, and every instant the gap between the two boats narrowed. Sandra and Joey had their elbows locked like kids on a roller coaster. Off the wide transom of the salvage craft fanned a peacock's tail of flattened wake, and the cigarette homed in like a missile on that swath. Ponte was grinning now. He held up his dainty gun and yelped. His goons smiled. Victory was on the horizon and the horizon was scudding toward them. They were so close that they could see the rust bubbles in the salvage craft's gray paint, could see the lumps in the old boat's imperfect welds. They were almost ready to start shooting. The engines of the blue boat sounded full of steely joy.

There was no way, above that potent motor noise and the glad hissing of the water, that the thugs could hear the coast guard helicopter approaching from behind, coming at them low and hard, its rotor blades pitched frantically forward, a machine gun poking out of its bulletproof belly at a jaunty angle like the dick of a dog.

Nor did they yet see the two marine patrol cutters closing in from seaward in a neat V.

They saw only the lumbering craft ahead of them.

There was something pathetic in its attempt to outrun them, pathetic like a hobbled cow trying to escape a lion. Through the glare of the pilothouse windows, they could see the silhouettes of Clem Sanders and his crew. Either they would surrender the emeralds or they would die.

Then the driver of the cigarette noticed the circle of dented water where it was beaten down by the force of the chopper's blades. He looked over his shoulder, the others followed his eyes. There the helicopter was, not more than fifty feet above the water, not more than a hundred yards behind them and closing fast.

"Ditch the guns," the driver screamed. "Drop 'em low over the side, right now."

He said it in such a knowing panic that no one hesitated a second. Five firearms of assorted make and caliber were jettisoned, adding to the untold number of weapons scuttled in the Florida Straits. In another fifteen seconds the aircraft was directly over them, hovering in the hot sky like an apocalyptic bug, and a stern voice bizarrely amplified was ordering them to halt their vessel and stop their engines. The driver throttled back and looked at Charlie Ponte. Ponte stood numbly by, sweat-soaked and bewildered. The salvage craft slowed and began to circle, came back as if to gloat. From over the horizon came the twin wakes of the converging cutters, completing the elegant geometry of a capture at sea.

Joey squeezed Sandra's knee. Then, as the chopper was descending, bringing its pontoons close to the water, he got up and walked over to Ponte. The Boss was so boggled that Joey had to tap him on the shoulder. "Mr. Ponte," he shouted above the whooshing clatter, "we're fucked heah. Attempted piracy. You know that, right?"

Ponte didn't answer. He looked straight ahead; his goons milled stupidly around the cockpit.

"Well, lissena me," Joey continued. "I can take care of it."

The little mobster glared at the kid, his glance emerging from under one eyebrow. The chopper had set down, its slowing rotors still churning the water like a blender.

"I can't fight you, Mr. Ponte. I can't run away. I know that. You wanna kill me, kill my brother, sooner or later you will. But inna meantime I can get us outta this. Now here's the deal."

Ponte's lip pulled back as if to protest. Who was this fucking nobody to tell him what the deal was? But he looked down at his dainty feet and let Joey continue.

"You lemme handle this. I get us off, you gimme ten minutes to explain things. That's all I'm asking. After that, you do what you want."

Ponte said nothing. Joey pressed. "Gimme your hand on it." Grudgingly, the little gangster held out a damp and slippery mitt. But the eyes were unyielding, they promised revenge.

Three guardsmen were standing on the pontoons of the chopper. They had repeating rifles. The cutters had closed in. Clem Sanders was edging his slow boat nearer. And it was hot as hell in the merciless sun.

"What the hayle-" said Clem Sanders, leaning on the railing of his old gray salvage boat. His bleached blue eyes were narrowed against the glare and he was trying to act like he hadn't almost wet his jumpsuit while the cigarette was pursuing him.

The salvage craft was tied up to one of the patrol cutters. Ponte's blue boat was tied up to the other. The helicopter sat between them like a dragonfly on a swimming pool.

"Hi, Clem," Joey said. "Sorry for all the, like, commotion."

The coast guard guys from the chopper hadn't lowered their rifles. One of the men from the marine patrol, a beefy guy with a crew cut and Ray-Bans, said in a surprisingly squeaky voice, "You wanna tell us what this is all about?"

"Just wanted to see how the search was going," Joey said. "My brother's one a the investors."

The marine patrolman looked dubiously at the boatload of thugs, sizing them up while they fried in the sun. Charlie Ponte with his soaked silver jacket and hair spiked around his bald spot like a crown. Tony with his evil lip, his toupee blown cockeyed; Bruno with the blank dumb gaze of the enforcer; the two from Miami dressed in blue suits and shiny black shoes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. " 'Zat so, Clem?" he asked.