I

(One)

Key West, Florida

1430 Hours, 28 November 1961

Tom Ellis had never been on a yacht before, nor had he ever been farther at sea than up to his waist in the waters lapping a Cuban beach. He was a fair-skinned young man, slightly built with light brown hair, who looked to be about seventeen. He was in fact twenty. He was the sort of pleasant-faced young man whom older people were prone to call son. They seldom did so twice. Tom Ellis did not like to be called son, nor to be thought of as a pleasant young boy, and when that happened, ice came into his eyes, enough to chill whomever he was looking at.

He wasn’t sure that Over Draught II was technically a yacht. That word called to his mind the President and Jackie on his sailboat, or that rich Greek and his opera singer on his private ocean liner. Maybe there was a word that he didn’t know that properly described a boat like this one. He didn’t think it was motorboat. In the end he decided that Over Draught II was indeed a yacht. Yachts were luxurious boats designed for pleasure, not work, and the interior of Over Draught II was as luxurious as anything he had ever seen outside of the movies. The floors were carpeted, and there was a king-size double bed in the teak-paneled master stateroom. To his eyes the main cabin seemed a floating version of a penthouse living room. Set discreetly in a corner was a bar with its own little sink and refrigerator. There were softly upholstered chairs, nice paintings, a twenty-four-inch television, and a stereo.

On the back of the boat, chromo-plated lettering, like the Plymouth FURY or CADILLAC Sedan De Ville things you saw on cars, identified the boat as first a Bertram and then as Sport Fisherman 42, which he decided made reference to the length of the boat.

The owner was aboard, a middle-aged, silver-haired man in expensive clothing who looked the sort of guy who would own something like this. The captain had a friend with him who was also middle-aged and tanned. The captain, a good-looking guy of about thirty with blond hair, dressed very casually in washed soft khaki pants and a polo shirt, had introduced him to the owner and to the other member of the crew, who looked like a younger version of the captain. They could have been brothers, Ellis decided. The young blond guy was the mate and Tom Ellis was sailing aboard Over Draught II as the deckhand.

I hope you know how little I know about boats, Ellis told the mate when he was showing Ellis where to put his stuff in the little cabin up front.

No big deal, the mate told him. We’re fueled and stocked, and all we have to do is untie her and take her out.

What if I get seasick?

He was embarrassed to ask the question, but he had long ago learned that it was less embarrassing in the long run to ask embarrassing questions up front than it was to make an ass of yourself later.

It’s like a mirror out there today, the mate said. I wouldn’t worry about that. But just to be sure, if you start feeling funny, take a couple of these.

He handed Ellis a small plastic vial. The label said it was Dramamine.

This stuff work?

Ninety percent of the time, the mate said. There are some people who seem determined to get sea sick. It doesn’t work on them.

The boat shuddered as the engines were started, one at a time. Ellis looked at the mate with a question in his eyes.

Now we’ll untie her, the mate said with a smile, and motioned Ellis ahead of him out of the little cabin.

When they were on the back of the boat, on what Ellis—for lack of a better word—thought of as the veranda, the mate pointed to the half-inch woven nylon rope tying the boat to the pier.

You handle that, he said. I’ll go forward. When Captain Bligh gives the order, you just untie it, bring it aboard, and stow it in the locker.

He pointed to a compartment built in the low wall that surrounded the veranda.

Got it, Ellis said.

If they had told him about this job earlier than they had, Ellis thought, he would have found out something about boats, learned the right words. There were certainly books that he could have looked up in the library. He watched as the mate made his way to the front, nimbly half running along a narrow walkway.

Let loose the lines, fore and aft, the captain called down from the roof of the cabin. Ellis had noticed that the boat had two sets of controls, one up on top and one in the cabin. For when it rained, he thought. Or for when there was a storm.

With his luck in this sort of thing, half a mile out in the ocean there would be a hurricane.

The mate signaled to him to untie the ropes. He had to jump up on the wharf to do it. When he was done he quickly jumped back onto the veranda.

The sound of the diesel engines changed, and the nose of the boat moved away from the wharf.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, Ellis told himself. He took the vial of Dramamine pills from his pocket and popped two of them in his mouth.

Over Draught II moved into the wide part of the harbor, then started out of it, moving between two lines of things bobbing around in the water.

Buoys, Ellis said aloud, pleased that he knew what they were. Like the soap, which should really be pronounced "Life boo-wee rather than Life Boy."

When they hit the first swell of the deep water and the whole damned boat went up and down, Tom Ellis was glad that he’d taken the Dramamine. Soon the dull murmur of the diesels changed to a dull roar, and the boat began to pick up speed through the water.

Thirty minutes later he was reasonably sure that he was not going to get seasick and make an ass of himself. It was actually pretty nice in the back of the boat, sitting in one of the cushioned chairs bolted to the floor and watching the water boil up alongside the boat and fan out in back.

The mate came back and smiled at him.

You doing all right? he asked.

Fine, Ellis said. How fast are we going?

Oh, the mate said, and looked over the side, I guess eighteen, twenty knots.

Ellis did the arithmetic.

About three hours?

About that, the mate said. There’s chow if you’re hungry.

Food? Ellis said incredulously. Thank you, no.

You’ll change your mind, the mate said. You work up an appetite on a small boat.

Ellis doubted that but said nothing.

There’s a couple of six-packs too, the mate said.

Maybe later, Ellis said.

Two hours later Ellis made himself a ham-on-rye sandwich and washed it down with a Seven-Up. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He reminded himself of the philosophical wisdom that things were seldom as bad as you thought they were going to be.

When he finished his sandwich, he climbed the ladder up to where the captain was driving the boat.

Is it all right if I come up here? he asked.

Sure, the captain said. Glad to have the company.

How much farther?

Thirty minutes, maybe forty-five, the captain said. I suppose you’re all set.

Yes, sir, Ellis said.

Thirty minutes later there was a blip on the radar screen. The captain pointed it out to Ellis.

That’s probably them, he said.

How can you tell?

"You ever read a dirty book called Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller?"

Yeah, when I was in high school.

We’re within a few seconds of the Tropic of Cancer, the captain said. And that’s where we’re supposed to meet them.

Two minutes later Ellis began to make out the faint outline of a boat on the horizon and just a little left of straight ahead.

That’s probably them, the captain said. She’s not moving.

As they approached the other boat Ellis could see it more clearly. It was about as big as Over Draught II but narrower and rode lower in the water. The hull was gray and the superstructure a garish blue.

The captain slowed the Over Draught II as they approached, and then slowed it further when they were closer. When they were fifty yards away from the gray and blue boat, he threw the Over Draught II into reverse momentarily. They stopped dead in the water, and the boat began to roll slightly with the swells. Ellis felt a pressure in his temples. He was also a little dizzy and felt a clammy sweat.

Jesus Christ, God! he prayed silently. Not now, please!

There was a small boat tied to the back of the other boat. Three men in khakis—Cubans—climbed off the gray boat and into the smaller one, and there was the sound of an outboard motor starting.

Ellis went inside the Over Draught II and returned with a plastic attaché case. He handed it to the mate.

It’s not locked, he said.

The mate nodded.

When the small boat came to the rear of the Over Draught II, one of the men in it threw a line to the mate. He caught it and tied it to a brass stanchion. Ellis looked down into the boat. There was a black-plastic—wrapped object in the boat, around which rope had been wound and formed into a sling. When one of the Cubans in the boat saw Ellis, he tossed the loose end of the rope to Ellis, who failed to catch it. He caught it on the second try.

The Cuban in the boat stepped from it to the teak dive platform on the back of the Over Draught II, then climbed up a built-in ladder.