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.No way.So what if it was telling them they were in the Arctic Circle? Tommy could navigate them the old-fashioned way.Or so he'd claimed.Christ, Fitzgivens thought, he didn't even have his mobile phone.He had accidentally on purpose left it behind.He didn't need his damn mother checking up on him every damn night.But it had a GPS in it and at least he would have known where they were.So they were lost at sea, and everybody knew it, although Tommy Gilpin had yet to admit that anything was wrong.He seemed to think determination was enough to see them through, and Jon Fitzgivens prayed to nameless gods that he was right.Because if they were lost, and they had to be rescued, and his mother found out about it-death would be better than the years of harassment that would result."The sun's great, isn't it?"Reclining near Felicia on the foredeck, Robin Chatsworth flashed a dazzling smile at Jon, then puckered up and offered him a cute long-distance kiss.It warmed him in a way entirely different from the tropic sunshine, thinking what those lips could do when they were given half a chance, and he was glad that Robin had agreed to come along on this vacation cruise.If they were going to be lost at sea, perhaps cast up on some deserted isle like Gilligan and the rest, at least Jon knew that he wouldn't be bored.If they were stranded long enough, in fact, that they ran out of pills and condoms, Robin could console him with that special talent he had taught her in the front seat of his BMW, directing her and coaching her with tender loving care until she got it just exactly right.God bless slow learners, Jon Fitzgivens thought.He had begun to stiffen, threatening to make an exhibition in his own tight swimming trunks, and started looking for another topic to distract him.Something grim, like being lost at sea.Oh, yeah.That did the trick just fine.It was the fourth day of a cruise that was supposed to last two weeks, courtesy of their respective wealthy parents, but now Jon caught himself wondering if they would all be around when the sea voyage came to an end.He pictured the Salome adrift, crewless, like one of the ghost ships you heard so much about in these waters.Goddamn Bermuda Triangle, for Christ's sake! It had titillated Jon when he was ten or twelve years old, reading sensational paperbacks and watching old reruns of Leonard Nimoy In Search Of the answer, but age, experience and advancing cynicism had taught him that most disasters-the "mysterious"included-could be traced to human frailty: negligence, malfeasance, some deliberate act or oversight.Why else was he investing all this time and sweat at Harvard Law, if no one was responsible for anything? Whom would he sue, on Page 22ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbehalf of wealthy clients, if the world was run by Fate or some such drivel, guiding fingers from beyond the stars?No, thank you very much.If there was any order in the world, if he had any kind of choice at all, Jon would prefer to sue the bastards.Litigation made the world go around."Is that another boat?"The question came from Megan, standing to the port side of the wheelhouse, one knee raised invitingly to brace her foot against the railing, buttocks taut and round beneath the pastel fabric of her swimsuit bottom.Jon was wishing she had worn a thong to match Felicia's, feeling his tumescence coming back, when he glanced forward, following her index finger, and picked out a speck on the horizon."Where?" asked Tommy, still not seeing it."At one o'clock," Jon told him, also pointing now."I don't-oh, right.Looks like a boat.""I'd say it was a safe bet," Barry added from the sidelines."Or perhaps we've found a sea serpent." Megan glanced back at him and winked, suggesting that he had the only serpent that intrigued her for the moment, anyway.They had been dating, off and on, for something like a year, but in the "off" times, she was not adverse to sampling other men-including Tommy Gilpin, if the campus scuttlebutt was accurate."It is a boat!" said Robin."Maybe they can tell us where we are."Their captain glared at her for that, but Robin missed it, and Felicia cast a look at Tommy that reminded him he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth-at least not if he expected to come within hailing distance of any bodily orifice not his own for the remainder of the cruise."We'll check it out," he muttered, barely audible, and cranked the wheel enough to turn the Salome head-on toward that alluring speck."I HAVE A VESSEL EAST, sou'east," the lookout called back from the bow pulpit of the sailboat Ravager.The vessel's name had once been something else, but that was long ago, and cunning hands had helped her true name to emerge across the stern, in crimson letters.Billy Teach left his first mate to man the cockpit, moving forward to the lookout's side."Show me," he said.The lookout pointed, handing him the glass and guiding it until a sleek yacht filled the eyepiece.There were two half-naked women lying on the foredeck-lookers, both of them-and three or four more bodies clustered aft.Teach wasn't sure exactly, and he knew there might be more below, but he wasn't concerned about the numbers.Cunning, skill, determination, firepower.He had it all."Looks sweet," the lookout said, his unsolicited opinion grating briefly on the captain's nerves, but Billy let it go.The man was right, in any case."Good work," he said.And then, to no one in particular, "Let's take 'em!"With a ragged cheer, his men scrambled nimbly to their assigned positions, trimming the sails and tacking the Ravager toward their new target, still barely a flyspeck in the distance for those without spyglasses."Remember how we do it, lads!" Teach bellowed at them from the rail, no fear his voice would carry to the target vessel yet."We can't lose this plum, when she's so rich and ripe for plucking!"Several of his men were grinning broadly, laughing as they grappled with the lines, but none would miss the dark side of his warning [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]