Early morning aboard the Semper Fi: Coffee. Reflection. Danishes. Smoove. Fiona.
“I noticed Milo staring into the water quite a bit,” Smoove said. “Something’s not right with this voyage. I speak the name The Brothers Jetstream, I should hear action music. I don’t hear no action music. I hear dark cholic.”
“Go kiss your wife, ease that tune.” Fiona’s pale blue eyes sparkled intensely all the time due to the concentration and effort it took to hold to the moment. Smoove was constantly checking her for cancer or cardiac stress.
“Aye,” he said, and prepared to do just that, signaling Desiree on the Ann that he was about to row over. He idly thought of parting Carel with the joke if the boat’s a-rockin…but rocking’s all there is on water.
Desiree angled the Ann out a hair for every stroke he took, making him work just a little harder. Luscious Smoove enjoyed the use of his body and ignored using the motor. The angle widened and he strengthened his stroke, determined to transfer the grin on his face to his wife’s cheek. One of his dreads kept tapping him on the forehead. Pausing to tuck it behind an ear, he pulled an oar out of the water.
When he returned the oar to the water, something quite definitely yanked.
Smoove let it go as though burned and hit the motor, backing the skiff into a tight arc that whipped into a figure eight so fast the Ann barely had time to complete its port swing before he had his weapon drawn and trained on the settling water around him.
“Something’s curious under there, baby!” he shouted, knowing Quicho would be above with her rifle drawn.
The Fi came about and cut engines. The ships bobbed innocuously a moment.
“Milo?” Smoove inquired.
“Nothing yet.”
“Carel?”
Smoove didn’t need to look to know she shook her head; if she wasn’t shooting she didn’t see anything.
“Feel big?” Milo said.
“Felt definite.” The oar floated out between them.
Milo whipped out his communicator. “Ram?”
“Nothing on screens.”
“Fast sumbitch,” Milo observed.
Smoove magnetized the skiff when it drifted close enough to the Ann. He jumped the ladder. He climbed quickly.
Nothing was that fast. And if it wasn’t...
“Circle on decks,” ordered Milo.
With Ramses on deck there were three sets of eyes triangulating. Whatever had latched on quietly splashed into the water on the port side of the Ann before Ramses could get a good look at it.
“Damn good swimmer,” said Milo.
“All right, you got our attention,” said Smoove. “Now what’s the message?”
The message, insofar as the messenger was concerned, was quite clear: I have the advantage over you. The follow-up to this message was equally clear: and I will press this advantage when I see fit.
“I’ll be staying over here awhile, brothers,” Smoove called out. “Sail tighter with us.” One look at his wife recalled intrinsically why he was there in the first place. “But not too close.”