The designer had thoughtfully fitted grab handles so I grabbed and held on. Negrini was right. The boat pitched alarmingly and if I hadn’t been gripping tightly I’d have been thrown across the cabin and into Leotta’s lap – which wouldn’t have been a bad breakfall. I grinned at her and then noticed she was turning a delicate shade of dirty green, which clashed badly with the ice-blue of her trouser suit. ‘Hold on,’ I shouted. ‘This won’t last long.’ I hoped I was right.

We pounded on for another fifteen minutes and then the note of the engines changed as Negrini slackened speed. His head appeared as he stooped to look into the cabin. ‘They’ve given up,’ he said. ‘They’re four miles back and turning around. I’ll keep on this heading for a while – going no place – and then we’ll swing around and head for El Cerco as soon as we’re out of radar range. Okay?’

I nodded. ‘Leotta isn’t feeling too good.’

‘Another quarter-hour and you can both come up,’ he said.

Now that the motion of the boat was easier, Leotta wasn’t getting any worse – though I wouldn’t say she was getting any better. In twenty minutes Negrini told us it was all right to go into the cockpit, and Leotta made a dash for it. When I got up there she was being violently sick over the side. Negrini grinned at me genially. ‘You want to shoot the cat, too?’

‘It’s not all that funny,’ I said. I had been seasick at times and I knew how she felt.

‘I guess not,’ said Negrini, ‘Sorry, Leotta.’

She flopped back on the stern cushions. ‘I’m a lousy sailor.’ But her colour was better.

I looked outboard and saw land to starboard about five miles away. We were leaving it at an angle. I said, ‘I didn’t expect you to go this way. I thought you’d go roundabout the other way.’

‘It’s not the easiest way to El Cerco,’ agreed Negrini. ‘But when you’ve had someone on your tail it’s the best. I don’t think those guys back there think we’re going to El Cerco.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘Maybe six hours. Make yourselves comfortable.’

In spite of Negrini’s advice it was definitely not a comfortable journey. High-speed craft tend to be bouncy, which might be all right in the short run but not for six hours. Negrini held away from the land until it was lost in the heat haze and then he came around in a wide sweep to the north.