Trouble in Paradise

"Stay here," Macklin said.

For a moment, the false jollity was gone. It wasn't an invitation.

It was an order. Which was how they understood it. Macklin raised his glass.

"Success," he said.

The two women raised theirs and drank. Marcy was grateful for the thrust of the wine. Even one sip made almost immediate contact with the electrical charge of her fear, and she felt it pulse through her. She took another quick drink. Macklin noticed. The bastard seemed to notice everything.

"Hits the spot," Macklin said.

"Happy hour," Crow said.

"Feel free to join us," Macklin said.

Crow shook his head.

"I think I'll go check the perimeter," he said.

"Nobody's go

"Hell, we got a hundred more back in town, we use these up."

"Nice to have bench strength," Crow said.

Macklin looked at his watch.

"Getting on," he said.

"Crow, I think it's time for you to go out and see JD and Fran."

"There's a lot of stuff to be carried to the boat," Crow said.

"Maybe better to wait."

Macklin smiled.

"These ladies will help us," he said.

"Go ahead."

Crow nodded and went.

SIXTY-ONE.

Jesse went into the water wearing a black neoprene wet suit and trailing a buoyant equipment bag. There was a Browning 9-mm in the bag and a.38 Smith & Wesson Chief's Special and a sunbelt. There was also a towel, a police radio, a four battery Maglite, and a change of clothes.

He was a hundred yards offshore on the harbor side of the island, opposite the point on the ocean side where Macklin was holding the hostages. The water was cold, but the wet suit made it tolerable. The shore ahead of him was only a thicker darkness outlined against a paler sky. Above the dark silence of the powerless island, a crescent moon hung faint against the not yet fully gathered darkness. Doc had cut the engines and coasted in as close as he dared. Now he was letting the boat drift away before starting up the engines.

The rising tide made it easy to swim toward shore. Jesse looked back. He couldn't see the boat. The water was rougher as he got closer to shore, and the waves began to toss him among the rocks.

He maneuvered through them by pushing himself away from them. The rocks were slick with seaweed and rough with barnacles.

He couldn't touch bottom yet. A clump of seaweed brushed his leg, and he felt the panic he'd always felt when he was over his head. It wasn't drowning. He was terrified of sharks or, even more namelessly, of whatever might be lurking down there in the unfathomable space below, rising slowly toward his disembodied legs dangling against the surface of the water like bait. He felt the frantic impulse for a moment to climb up onto one of the rocks and cling there in useless safety. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. In, he said to himself as he breathed, out. Be a nice headline.

POLICE CHIEF HIDES ON ROCK AS BANDITS LOOT ISLAND. He kept moving, breathing deeply, talking to himself, repelling gently from rock to rock, trying not to bang hard against one. If there's something down there, it won't know I'm a cop. There hasn't been a shark fatality in Massachusetts since 1938. Then he felt bottom and in another moment was able to stand. Still under pressure from the waves, he moved among the rock scatter closer to shore until he reached a sort of V-shaped gully in the rocks, where the seawater churned into a creamy foam. He scrambled up the gully and out of the ocean. At the top of the gully was some scrub pine, and he used it to climb the final few feet onto level ground. He was in a grove of white pine maybe a half mile farther out on the island from the yacht club. He knew where he was. He and Doc had pla

He stripped off the wet suit, toweled himself dry, shivering. It was too late in September to be standing naked at the edge of the water at night. He put on sneakers and jeans and a dark blue tee shirt. He strapped his gun belt on, with the Browning behind his right hip, and the.38 butt forward in front of his left. He clipped on the radio. There were two extra magazines for the Browning on the belt and a metal loop for the flashlight. He put on a blue windbreaker with gray Polartec lining and turned up the collar. The warmth was heartening. He clipped the radio mike to the collar. He took out of the flotation bag a zipper sandwich bag full of.38 special ammunition, stuck it in the side pocket of the windbreaker, and zipped the pocket. He rolled up the wet suit and the flotation bag and tossed them down into the surf at the foot of the rock gully.

Then he turned and shrugged his shoulders to loosen them and shook his wrists and breathed deeply like a method actor before a scene.

Jesse looked at the roadway, thirty yards from the pine grove.

There were no street lights. There was no electricity on the island since the bridge blew. The bank had its own generator, so that no one could get trapped in the vault by a power failure. But he wasn't anywhere near the bank, and he was pretty sure that light wasn't his friend anyway. If he followed that road for maybe two miles he would reach the restaurant on the other side where the chopper had taken fire. He breathed deep again. In. Out. In. Out.

He thought about Marcy. He worked on his breathing. In. Out. In.

Out. There was no movement on the roadway. No sound in the pine grove except the sound his heart made pumping too fast. The crescent moon had gone a little higher above the horizon. The sky was a little darker.

Okay, he thought, here we go.

SIXTY-TWO.

Suitcase Simpson thought it looked like there was a festival at the Paradise end of the ruine'd bridge. Five television trucks were jammed in as close as the police would let them, their fu

And the surf rolling up on the bare rocks was loud.