41

The sea was flat, there wasn't enough breeze even to raise ripples, so the Mako rose quickly to a plane and cut through the glassy surface at forty miles an hour.

"I wonder who came up with the ten grand," Tall Man shouted over the scream of the outboard motor.

"Some TV producer, probably," Chase answered from the helm.

"Well, they better hope to hell they don't raise that critter."

A single boat was anchored in the deep channel southwest of Block Island; though it was still a quarter of a mile away, Chase recognized it instantly.  "That's Sammy's boat," he said.  "White with a blue stripe... tuna tower... outriggers."

The sun was behind them, lowering in the western sky.  Tall Man shaded his eyes and squinted.  "They got two ass-kicker marlin rigs off the stern," he said.  "Wire lines.  Only a couple guys in the cockpit."

"Is one of them Puckett?"

"Yeah."  Tall Man paused, looking.  "The other's a big dude, big as me.  Looks like he's cradling an AK-47."

"Cradling," Chase said, "not aiming."

"Not yet."

Chase kept a hundred yards from the bigger boat as he passed it.  He saw no other crewmen, no cameras, no sound gear.  "They're not making a movie," he said.  "They're hunting."  He swung the Mako around, took it out of gear and let it drift up alongside the fishing boat.

Puckett leaned over the side and shouted, "Beat it, Chase!  Every time I get a break, you find a way to fuck it up.  A man's got a right to earn a living."

"Not by slaughtering dolphins, he doesn't," Chase said.  "You're looking to spend a lot of years in a little room all by your lonesome."

"You don't know shit."  Puckett reached into his pocket, brought out a paper and waved it.  "These dolphins died of a virus, them and a dozen others.  We bought ‘em from a lab in Mystic."

Chase hesitated.  What Puckett said was possible, it even made sense.  Over the past few years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dolphins of several species had washed up on shores of the eastern seaboard, dead from viruses whose origins remained a mystery.  Pollution was presumed to be the catalyst, but what kind of pollution — sewage, agricultural runoff, oil or chemical waste — no one seemed to know.

"So what're you doing, then, you and Rambo?"  Chase gestured at the huge man holding the assault rifle across his chest.  Before Puckett could answer, Chase felt Tall Man nudge him and look up, and he saw a video camera mounted on the lip of the fishing boat's flying bridge.  It was moving, tracking them as they slid by in the Mako.

"Fishing for great whites, what else?" said Puckett.  "A good white-shark jaw can fetch five grand, easy."

'Don't bullshit me, Rusty, I know what—"

The man with the rifle said, "We have broken no law.  That is all that need concern you."

"No, what concerns me is, I know what you think you're looking for, but you don't have the faintest idea what—"

Suddenly, from a loudspeaker mounted somewhere above the cockpit came a disembodied voice, gravelly, unnatural — almost mechanical sounding — heavily accented and shouting, "Rudi!  Get in here!"

The man passed the rifle to Puckett, turned and entered the cabin.

Chase's Mako had drifted past the anchored boat, and Chase reversed the motor and backed up until the two boats were once again side by side.

Puckett held the rifle at his waist, pointed at them.

"Put the gun away, Rusty," Tall Man said.  "You're up to your eyeballs in shit already."

"Stuff a cork in it, Geronimo," said Puckett.

The man returned from the cabin.  "Throw me a line," he said.  "Come aboard."

"Why?" said Chase.

The loudspeaker boomed, "You!"

Chase looked up at the video camera and pointed to himself.

"Yes, you.  You say you know what we are doing?"

"I'm afraid so," said Chase.

"Come inside... please... you and your friend.  I think we need each other, you and I."