Gambit by David Hagberg (fantasy novels to read txt) 📕

plus the weapons and ammunition, had been loaded, and Pete stood holding the bowline. Dressed in short jean cutoffs and a light gauze shirt tied at the waist over her bikini, she seemed eager.

“Are you ready?” McGarvey asked.

“Let’s get it done,” she said.

FORTY-FIVE

Sporty’s Marina was right on the Intracoastal Waterway, a short distance from the inlet that ran out into the Gulf. A dozen Jet Skis for rent were lined up in knee-deep water just off the narrow beach, and business was fairly brisk with a number of boats of all sizes and types under way.

A hundred meters or so south, just across from the inlet, a dozen or more small powerboats, including several Jet Skis, had pulled up at a small island. A small crowd of people had brought everything from barbecue grills, coolers, and beach umbrellas to even a boom box or two ashore and were partying.

“Looks like they’re having fun,” Li said as they parked and went down to the Jet Skis.

“Lanling gongren,” Taio said dismissively.

“We’ve always been blue-collar workers, only now we have money.”

“We have work to do, so keep your mind where it belongs. We’ll play later.”

A young salesman with sun-bleached blond hair, wearing flip-flops, board shorts, and a bright Hawaiian shirt mostly unbuttoned came down to them, a big grin on his face. “You guys want a couple of Doos, or do you want to ride tandem?”

“We’d like to rent two for the half day,” Taio said. “Something fast.”

“Sure thing. You’ve ridden before?”

“First time.”

“Maybe you want to start at the bottom, not the top, if you know what I mean.”

“We drive Augustas back in New York,” Li said. “I think we can handle ourselves.”

The salesman was impressed. “Go for it,” he said. He pointed out a pair of Kawasaki machines at the end of the row. “You want speed, you can take the 310LX. They’re total monsters. But even with three people, they still top out above seventy.”

“Fine,” Taio said.

“Cash or plastic?”

“Do you take American Express?” Taio asked.

“Is the pope Catholic?” the salesman asked.

They went up to the office, where they both had to show their Schilling driver’s licenses and sign the rental contract, which included a waiver of liability for personal injury. The four-hour rental fee was high, plus a $500 damage deposit for each machine.

Li had wandered off, and as Taio’s card was being run, she came back with a couple of bottles of water and two waterproof plastic pouches for their cell phones. “Add these,” she told the salesman.

He grinned. “Included.”

Taio signed the charge slip, and the salesman got a couple of keys attached to wristbands with eighteen inches or so of flexible tubing and walked them back to the machines.

“Actually, pretty basic to run these things,” he said, climbing aboard one of them. He put the key into the ignition, and the machine kicked off with a husky snarl. “If you fall overboard, which can happen, the wristband will pull the key and put the machine in dead slow in a small circle so you can get back to it. Don’t mess with the system. Okay?”

Taio and Li nodded.

“They’re like bikes, except for steering. You don’t have to lean into a turn as hard as you do with a bike, but you have to keep the engine running no matter what. Chop the power and you lose steering.”

He cut the engine, got off the machine, and handed them the keys. “Take it easy at first until you get used to how they handle. But hey, this is Florida—have fun.”

The Whitby, with a five-foot draft, which was a little deep for Florida and Bahamian waters, was a joy to handle even in stiff winds and fifteen-foot seas, which McGarvey had encountered twice on the way across the Gulf Stream from Florida’s east coast to Freeport in the Bahamas.

When he had bought her, his wife was alive, so he’d named the boat Kathleen.

After her death, he’d toyed with the idea of renaming her, but when Pete came into his life, she had insisted that he not do it.

“It’s bad luck,” she’d said.

“It doesn’t bother you?” he’d asked. He was still confused in those days about what he should be doing.

Pete had looked into his eyes and smiled. “Bother me that you named a boat after your wife? Of course not.”

Mac, at the wheel in the center cockpit, got on the VHF radio and called the tender as they slowly approached the Blackburn Point Bridge. “Blackburn Point Bridge, this is the sailing vessel Kathleen approaching from the north for an opening.”

Several other boats were already gathered and some circling on either side of the bridge, waiting for an opening.

Pete, who had sailed aboard only three times before but who was a fast learner, leaned against the coaming above the hatch, studying the small bridge through binoculars. “She’s on the bridge.”

This tender was a pleasant woman, unlike one a few years ago who’d thought that every boat driver who wanted the bridge opened—her bridge—was nothing but a pain in the ass.

The tide was running out, and Mac had to put the boat in reverse to hold his position as the bridge slowly swung open, and because of his size held there to let the smaller boats go first. When it was their turn, he barely nudged the throttle, and they were squirted through the narrow opening and out the other side, where he lined up between the red and green markers, putting him in the middle of the channel.

It was a little more than five miles to the Venice Inlet, which would take them out into the Gulf—which, at the slow speed they were making, would take at least an hour.

The afternoon was lovely, a light breeze from the west, a relatively low humidity, and eighty-four degrees under a perfectly clear sky. On days like this, things didn’t go badly. Or weren’t supposed to, and yet McGarvey had the gut feeling that whatever was going to happen would happen before the