Warren Murphy: Troubled Waters

At some point in the endless afternoon, she slumped against the gunwale, briefly losing consciousness, revived when water slapped her in the face. She roused herself, tongue thick enough to nearly fill the dry cave of her mouth, and reaching for the paddle, found that it was gone. She had to have dropped it overboard when she passed out. With no means of propelling the canoe, she was completely at the ocean's mercy, as she had been in the hands of her abductors.

No, that wasn't right. The sea would kill her, certainly, and it would not be gentle in the process, but at least it wouldn't rape her, make her a slave to filthy strangers who could use her at their will because they had the knives, the guns, the power.

AS SHE DRIFTED ON THE ocean, the woman drifted in and out of consciousness, with frequent detours into stark delirium. The sun went down, replaced by an impressive moon, and she was still alive somehow, although not certain she was sane.

In time, the sun came up and started baking her again, leaching the final, precious moisture from her body, leaving her a blistered shell.

The sharks turned up that afternoon, following the canoe for miles, rubbing their flat snouts and rough hides against the drab metal hull, rocking the woman in her cradle, barely conscious of the changing rhythm. One great fish turned on its side and raked the canoe's flank with its teeth before giving up, deciding there was no food there. Reluctantly, the killers turned away and left her, moving on to more productive hunting grounds.

Too late, the woman rose from her delirium and found the sea around her flat, apparently devoid of life. She would have welcomed dorsal fins at that point, any promise of relief, but as it was, the sea would have to do.

She dragged herself across the gunwale, somehow managed to avoid capsizing the canoe. The water swallowed her, then spit her out again, the buoyancy of her slim body dragging her back to the surface. She was floating on her back, the sun bright in her eyes, and tried rolling over, the better to drown, but the sea had a mind of its own, rejecting her sacrifice, tossing her onto her back and forcing her to breathe again.

She started weeping, tearless, since her body had no moisture left to spare. She didn't see the cabin cruiser coming, barely registered the throbbing of its engine, the churning of its screws in the water. A part of her mind acknowledged the shadow that fell across her face, but she had found the secret weakness of her adversary now, and she was sinking, expelling the breath from her lungs to prevent herself from floating, ready to suck in the water she needed to carry her down.

A sudden pain almost revived her, lancing into the flesh and muscle of her armpit, and she struggled as some unknown force again brought her back to the surface. Her flailing arm met something like a strand of a spiderweb, the contact sending a fresh jolt of pain through her flesh.

Above her, miles away it seemed, she heard a gruff voice whooping. They had found her after all, but she took refuge in the thought that she would surely die before they had a chance to take her back, make her their slave again.

"Hot damn!" the voice above her crowed. "Come look at this, Joe Bob! I done caught me a mermaid!"

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he didn't play well with others. He especially didn't like mixing with amateurs-and to him, everybody was an amateur, except for this one old grumpy guy he knew.

That wasn't strictly fair, of course. The U.S. Navy SEALs were specialists, presumably the world's best at the job they had been trained to do. But they were a long way from the ocean, several hundred miles in fact. The New Mexico desert seemed a world away from the SEALs' normal operating environment.

The decrepit ghost town-once a thriving population center in the days when silver virtually streamed out of the nearby Sacramento Mountains into greedy, waiting hands-had been refurbished somewhat for its modern role, but no one would mistake it for a seaport. Situated in the northeast corner of the Fort Bliss Military Reservation, it was used for special training exercises when a desert setting was required. Away to the northwest, some eighty miles, stood Roswell, Mecca to the tired old UFO believers who were still convinced the truth was out there, hidden by a shifting veil of desert sand and the fluid denials of the Federal Department of Obfuscation.

The SEALs were not, in fact, restricted to naval operations, even though their roots lay in the old UDTs-underwater demolition teams-that had cleared invasion beaches for the Army and Marines in World War II. Today the Navy SEALs were scuba divers, paratroopers, all-around commandos who derived their name from their sea-air-land proficiency in combat.

Hence the desert, which had been selected as a likeness of the Middle East, North Africa-wherever Allah's warriors waged jihad against the West, assassinating diplomats and tourists, snatching hostages. The call could come at any time, and they had to be prepared for anything.

Which still didn't explain how Remo happened to be standing in the dusty foyer of the ghost town's three-story hotel.

Remo blamed it on Dr. Harold W. Smith, director of CURE, the supersecret government intelligence agency. Or maybe the fault actually lay with Mark Howard, CURE's assistant director. One of them had dropped a great big ball, and dropped it right on Remo's head.

While the SEALs were practicing war, Remo Williams, Reigning Master of the world's original mar tial art, Sinanju, and the greatest assassin currently living on the planet, was doing dog-catcher duty. The SEALs didn't know that. They thought he was an observer and behind his back had labeled him a spook. They didn't care as long as he didn't screw up their playtime.

The game was rigged, of course. Both prey and hunters were restricted to a given area, with no real practice in the art of tracking over open ground. The ghost town, for its part, bore no resemblance to a Middle Eastern village, other than the fact that both included man-made structures baked by desert sun and cloaked in gritty dust. It would have been more helpful if the Navy SEALs were training for a trip backward in time-perhaps to face the Clayton gang at the O.K. Corral.

The sun was setting, casting purple shadows in the dusty street, bringing premature twilight to the hotel lobby where Remo stood, waiting and watching. It would take some time for the 115-degree temperature to drop out there, and even in the ancient, shady building it was hot. But at least it was a dry heat. Remo didn't sweat. Partly because he wasn't weighed down by the equipment load the poor SEALs were waddling around with. He was in khaki Chinos and a white T-shirt. His shoes were handstitched leather-he didn't give two hoots about fashion or style, but he did like his shoes to last through the weekend. Remo had proved the quality of the Italians' workmanship by putting their products through field-testing beyond the shoemakers' wildest imaginings.

Remo was bored. He'd already scoured the ghost town and had found what he was looking for. Dog poop. Well, actually, wolf poop. Specifically, poop from a genetically mutated Canis lupus baileyi, or Mexican Gray Wolf.

The wolves themselves were nowhere to be found, and by all reports this pack was nocturnal. So he had to wait for darkness, when the pack might-just might-come sniffing around. Remo wanted to be there if it did.

He had a thing or two to discuss with this particular pack of mutant, nocturnal, man-eating canines. The war games couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. Remo had asked Upstairs to cancel the games so that he could find his wolves, but Upstairs-which had the capability to wield such far-reaching powers in the military-said no.

Upstairs consisted of Dr. Smith the Really Old and Mark Howard the Young and Dopey. That was all there was to the CURE intelligence-gathering apparatus and bureaucracy. The mountains those two could move with a few keystrokes was impressive, but this time they weren't giving in.