NINE

Sun on his face. Warm water on his skin. The smells and sounds of street vendors and musicians coming from the pier next to him—empanadillas and bacalaitos, steel-drum music, the laughter of friends and family . . .

So this is what it feels like to be relaxed, Frank Castle thought. He’d just about forgotten.

“Dad.”

Frank Castle turned. Will bobbed in the water next to him, his skin already the color of dark coffee after only two days in the tropical sun.

“You all set?” Frank asked.

Will nodded.

“All right. Remember what I said. Take a big deep breath—nice, easy, even strokes—and—”

“I know, Dad,” Will said impatiently. “Come on, let’s go already.”

“All right.” He smiled at the boy’s eagerness. Will was right. They’d been prepping for this dive all morning. The boy was either ready or he wasn’t. They’d find out in a minute.

Castle pulled his arm out of the water, looked at his Rolex, and immediately realized he’d forgotten to call Jimmy Weeks again. Damn. He’d been meaning to do that since they landed at San Juan yesterday morning. See if there’d been any further fallout from Ares. Last e-mail he’d gotten from Sandoval had been nebulous, the deputy director had dodged around every question he’d posed, and Jimmy for some reason hadn’t answered his phone for two days, so—

“Earth to Dad. Come in, Dad.”

Castle blinked and looked up at his son.

“Sorry. Here we go.” Putting Weeks out of his mind for the moment, Castle focused on the second hand, sweeping toward the six. “Okay. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . and . . . dive.”

Will sucked in air, and plunged beneath the water’s surface. Good kick, good form. He’d give the boy a five second head start, then go after him.

This would be their last dive of the morning—they’d been at it since right after breakfast, both in and out of gear. Castle still had his equipment on, but Will was diving in trunks only now. There were a lot of amazing places around here to scuba dive—they were a half hour south of the Black Wall, and that was something he wanted Will to experience this trip for sure, six-foot moray eels, black coral reefs, water so clear you felt as if you were swimming in an aquarium—but before he took his son any deeper out into the ocean, he wanted to make sure that Will understood diving equipment was fallible, no matter how many times you tested it, and that the only thing you could count on in the water was yourself, your lung power, your muscle power.

Five seconds. Castle slipped on his mask and regulator, and dove.

The seafloor here sloped gently down from the beach. Right off the pier, where they were now, it reached a depth of perhaps twenty, twenty-five feet, running up against a small reef, dotted here and there with underwater caves.

Will swam—nice, easy, even strokes—toward the entrance to one of those caves, in front of which Castle had left the boy’s tank and regulator.

With a last kick, his son reached the scuba equipment. Will turned to his dad, gave a thumbs-up, and bent down to pick it up.

Frank shook his head and pointed toward the surface. Ascend.

For an instant, he saw confusion on the boy’s face. That, and maybe a trace of panic. Castle had told him the test was to see if he could reach the equipment and put it on—not reach it and then surface again. He could guess at the thoughts running through Will’s head: I need the tank now. I need the oxygen.

Castle met his son’s eyes impassively. It was Will’s call; either way, the boy had done well this morning. It was only his second day of diving. They could come back tomorrow. No shame in not being able to do the dive both ways.

No shame—but no glory, either.

Will dropped the regulator and shot up off the ocean floor then, so quickly that Castle found himself kicking hard just to keep his son in sight.

When he broke the surface, Will was already there. Gasping for breath and smiling. Waving toward his mother, who stood on the beach, hands on hips. Castle couldn’t see the expression on Maria’s face, but from her body language, she was not thrilled. No surprise there—she didn’t think Will was old enough to be scuba diving yet, had, in fact, tried to send the boy snorkeling with his cousins this morning, only to have Will declare that looking at tropical fish in two feet of water was “for babies.”

Behind Maria, a man suddenly stood up and waved back at Will. Frank’s father. Castle would bet money he was smiling, at least.

“Trying to trick me, huh?” Will said, still a little out of breath.

“Nope. Trying to test you. You did good.” Frank mussed his son’s hair. “Come on. Let’s go calm your mother down.”

“Do we have to?”

“We do. It’s time for lunch, anyway.”

“What about the tank? My regulator.”

“We leave it for now. We’ll be back.”

They swam to shore. Maria was there to wrap a towel around Will. Frank Sr. clapped his grandson on the back.

“He did it?” the elder Castle asked.

Frank nodded.

“Free ascent on the first try. I’ve seen Navy SEALs do worse.”

“That’s what we like to hear.”

Maria shook her head.

“This is supposed to be vacation, not basic training.”

Frank opened his mouth to respond, but Will beat him to it.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll take it easy on him.” Everyone—except Maria—laughed.

Frank put an arm around his wife and drew her close.

“He did great. And I was there the whole time, honey. Nothing to worry about.”

“Hmmmpphhh.”

Castle kissed his wife. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“Anyone hungry?”

Frank turned. His mother—Betty Castle—was on a blanket behind them, an open picnic hamper next to her. “We’ve got sandwiches, empanadillas . . .”

Will knelt in the sand next to the hamper and pulled out a sandwich. “Tuna. Yeah,” he said, and took half in a single bite.

“William Francis Castle.” Frank’s mother shook her head. “Where did you learn your manners?”

“From Grandpa,” Will said, nodding toward Frank Sr., who had just taken a sandwich of his own and swallowed it almost entire.

Betty glared at her husband.

“Frank? Who is that?” Castle turned. Maria was pointing out at the dock, where an old man was refueling a beat-up dugout outrigger.

Frank and his father exchanged a smile.

“Manuel Candelaria,” the elder Castle said. “The locals claim he’s a witch doctor.”

“Wow. A real witch doctor?” Will stood up. “Can we go talk to him? Maybe he can teach us some spells.”

“Not likely. He lives on an island, around the point. Only one person’s ever had the guts to swim out to it.”

Maria looked at Frank. “Gee. Let me guess.”

“Cool!” Will said. “Let’s go diving there!”

“No. Absolutely not.” Maria shook her head. “Not until you’re certified.”

“Or tomorrow morning,” Frank said. “Whichever comes first.”

“Yes!” Will gave him a high five. Maria gave him a glare.

“Frank . . .”

Castle shrugged. “I’ll be right there with him, honey. Nothing to worry about.”

Frank Sr. stepped up behind his son and grandson then, and threw one arm around each of their shoulders. “We’ll both be there. Already rented the boat to take us out, in fact.”

His father gestured toward the dock then, and Frank saw, moored next to Candelaria’s boat, a small launch, outboard motor pulled up and out of the water.

“Nothing fancy,” Frank Sr. said. “But it’ll do the trick.”

“Just how long have you all been planning this little expedition?” Maria asked.

Frank shrugged. So did his father.

Betty leaned forward and spoke to Maria.

“Nothing you can do about it, honey. You married a Castle.”

Maria shook her head. But Castle saw that smile was back.

He smiled, too.

“Who wants ice cream?” Frank Sr. asked. “My treat.”

“I’m in,” Will said. “Dad?”

“You know it.”

“Boys.” Betty Castle looked up at her husband, son, and grandson. “Don’t stuff yourselves. Remember the dinner tonight.”

Right. Frank had almost forgotten. The big dinner—the centerpiece of the entire week’s reunion, taking place in less than . . . five hours, he realized, looking at his watch.

And seeing the Rolex, he thought of Jimmy Weeks again, and he wished his friend could be there, too. Weeks and his family had come to the last reunion in Puerto Rico, five years ago. They’d had a helluva time, the two of them. Even without Gwen, Jimmy ought to be here. Frank had to call him, see if he couldn’t convince the man to take a day or two off, come down here and relax. It would do Weeks good to get out of the pressure cooker for a while.

After all, all work and no play . . .

“Dad!”

Frank turned and saw his son, already halfway to the pier and the ice-cream stand on it, motioning to him to hurry.

“Come on. Let’s go!”

Smiling, Frank Castle hurried to catch up to his boy.