Warren Murphy - Troubled Waters

"All right, just don't go yelling at me like that anymore, will ya?"

"Velly solly!" Chiun screeched, louder than before.

Chapter 16

"What is it?" Fabian Guzman asked the lookout, eyes narrowed to dark slits as he stared across the sun-dappled water.

"A boat, jefe."

"I can see that, idiot! Give me the glasses!"

He snatched the binoculars and raised them to his eyes, adjusting the focus once he had the boat framed in his viewing field. It was approaching from the west, and while no name was painted on the bow, one glimpse told Guzman that the boat was not official. It wasn't Coast Guard or DEA, not Haitian or Jamaican or Dominican. An older boat, privately owned. Logic dictated that its presence, here and now, had to be coincidence.

And yet...

Suppose that he was wrong-then what? Guzman had been the strong right arm of his amigo, Carlos, for more years than he cared to think about, since they had risen from the mean streets of the barrio in Cartagena to command an empire stretching from Colombia to the United States and Western Europe.

The two of them hadn't survived this long by taking chances, banking on coincidence.

"Shall I fetch Carlos?" the lookout asked, nodding back in the direction of the cabin as he spoke. "You mean Senor Ramirez, eh?"

"Si, jefe." The contrition in the lookout's voice seemed genuine enough. It should have been, considering the penalty that insubordination carried in the family Ramirez and Guzman had built up for themselves.

"Stay here," he told the lookout. "If that vessel should change course or try to overtake us, let me know immediately. Is that understood?"

"Si, jefe! "

Guzman left him standing at the rail and moved back toward the flying bridge with long, determined strides. He climbed the ladder swiftly, ignoring the helmsman as he reached out for the radio, adjusted the frequency and hailed the Scorpion. Another moment, and recognized the voice of the Scorpion's first mate, a stone-cold killer named Armand Sifuentes.

"We have company," Guzman announced without preamble.

"I see them," said Armand. "What should we do?"

"Take three men in the motor launch," Guzman replied. "Be careful. Use whatever means you must to get aboard."

"And then?" Sifuentes almost chuckled as he asked the question. There could be no doubt about what Guzman had in mind for those aboard the aging cabin cruiser.

"Do what must be done," Guzman replied. "No witnesses."

"My pleasure," said Armand Sifuentes, sounding very much as if he meant exactly that.

Time crept along at a snail's pace while Guzman waited on the Macarena's flying bridge for the Scorpion's motor launch to appear with its cargo of gunmen. After a moment, Guzman realized that he was holding his breath, and he released it with a whistling sigh between clenched teeth.

Should he have checked with Carlos first, before he sent the gunmen off to deal with the intruders? Possibly, but he had judged that there was no time to be wasted in the present situation. Anyone aboard the weather-beaten cabin cruiser could identify the Macarena and the Scorpion from legends painted on their transoms. Granted, they were still miles from their destination, but Guzman had trained himself to think ahead, anticipate such problems and eliminate them in the embryonic stage.

Carlos would almost certainly agree with him, but Guzman would have wasted precious time by then. And if Carlos did not agree ...what then?

Then Carlos would be wrong.

It startled Guzman, thinking in such terms, but he didn't regard it as betrayal of his lifelong friend. The best and wisest men still made mistakes from time to time; it simply proved that they were human, after all. A friend stood ready to prevent such lapses of humanity from turning into fatal errors.

There! The motor launch was setting off from the Scorpion's port side, three gunmen leaning forward on the thwarts, while a fourth manned the outboard engine's throttle. Their weapons were nowhere in sight, but Guzman knew they would be close at hand, ready to open fire at the first indication of a threat from the old cabin cruiser.

In moments, they would draw abreast of the intruder. Moments more, and they would be aboard. A brief delay, while Sifuentes tried to determine if the new arrivals on the scene posed any threat to Ramirez and company, but it would make no difference in the end. Once they had stormed the cabin cruiser, everyone aboard would have to die. They were potential witnesses, and while the boat wasn't worth stealing, in and of itself, it could be scuttled, lost at sea.

Another mystery of the Caribbean, perhaps unsolved forever.

And if Carlos was displeased with the result, well, Guzman knew that he could reason with his old friend, given time. Their business with the loco pirates took priority, and nothing else could be allowed to slow them down.

He leaned against the rail and lit a cigarette, watching.

Waiting for the distant sound of guns.

"STAY COOL," REMO ADVISED the ex-professor.

"I don't recognize these men," said Humphrey, squinting in the late-afternoon sunshine as he watched the power launch approaching.

"Just remember," he warned Humphrey, "when the guns go off, you're standing in the middle."

"I don't recognize these men," the former academic said again. "Who are they?"

"Let's just wait and see."

Remo slid down the ladder and found a hiding place from which he could observe and overhear the new arrivals as they came aboard. The moments ticked away, Humphrey hauling back on the throttle as the strange craft approached. A voice hailed Humphrey from the launch, and Remo frowned. Their spotter didn't seem to recognize the old man, and he had what sounded like a South American accent. That wouldn't rule out a pirate, in itself, and yet...

There was a soft thump as the launch kissed hulls with the Mulligan Stew, and then boarders were scrambling over the rail, boot heels clomping on deck. Humphrey was agitated, calling down to them from his place on the flying bridge.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "What are you doing with those guns? This is-"

A stutter of automatic gunfire rattled overhead. Remo waited, half expecting a squall of pain, perhaps the sound of Humphrey's body sprawling on the deck above him, but instead he heard a scramble of feet as the professor ducked out of sight.

"Stand up, pendejo," one of the boarding party demanded. "There are questions joo must answer."

"This is a flagrant violation of-"

Another burst of gunfire silenced Humphrey, bullets smacking into bulkhead, one round glancing off the tarnished brass rail with a high-pitched whine.

"All right!" the old man shouted. "Please, stop shooting! Tell me what you want!"

"We gonna search joo boat," one of the shooters said. "Joo gonna tell us why joo're here."

"Look anywhere you want," the old man answered, groveling on the deck. "I have nothing to hide."

Remo heard footsteps on the deck, approaching his hideout. This was a nice spot, he decided. Out of sight of any binocular trained on the Mulligan Stew from the boat these losers came from.

He concentrated on the footsteps of the gunman who was closing on him, marking others as they moved off toward the bow.

The man who came around the corner was a twenty-something Latin, carrying an Uzi submachine gun in both hands, across his chest. Dark eyes went wide at the sight of Remo, but he had no chance to use his gun or shout a warning to the others in the split second of life remaining to him.

Remo grabbed the Uzi, grabbed its owner and inserted the former into the latter. The Uzi went pretty far down the gunman's throat, and with a little pushing and twisting it went in a lot farther.

Remo hoisted the gunner's deadweight and sat him in a bench seat in the cabin cruiser's galley. Above him, on the deck, more footsteps. Remo could hear someone shouting at Humphrey, the sound of an open hand striking flesh, a cry of pain and outrage from the ex-professor. Whatever kind of search was under way, it seemed haphazard and disorganized.