Ed held up the unit and pressed the button. The plastique exploded. Unfortunately, it didn’t explode on the boat. The boom came from the southwest, across the island. Everybody turned and looked in that direction.

A fireball lit up the sky. During those few seconds, the Hinckley in the cove revved its three engines and tore out of there, toward the open bay.

Ed jumped out of the boat onto the dock. “Let’s get over there and greet them when they get home!”

Everybody took their weapons and ran toward the house. Primmy saw them coming and opened the door. “What was that noise?” she asked.

“Something exploding on the other side of the island!” Stone shouted. “We’re going over there and find out what. You stay here.”

“Why do you get to have all the fun?” she yelled at his back as they ran through the living room and out the front door.

They took Ed’s Range Rover, and he did the driving. They tore through the sleeping village and saw Billy Hotchkiss on the front porch of his store in an ankle-length nightshirt. “Hey!” he yelled as they drove past.

“Hey, yourself!” Dino called back.

Ed used his remote from a quarter mile away to open both his gates, and they roared down his driveway. They got out of the car and looked toward the twins’ house. A chunk of one upstairs corner was missing, and there were little tongues of flame here and there.

“Shit, I wish I’d made it more incendiary!” Ed shouted. “Let’s get down to the dock and give them a warm welcome!”

They ran down to the dock, where Ed’s boat lay. “Hop in,” Ed said. “This is a Hinckley, too, and it held up the last time they shot at it.”

They leapt into the boat and looked at the next dock down. “Shit!” Ed yelled. “They beat us back!” He snapped off a couple of rounds at two figures running across the newly laid parking area then up the front steps. “Those bastards must have been doing sixty knots in the dark to get back here that fast.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get to kill them tonight,” Dino said.

“I guess not,” Ed said. “You guys want some ice cream? We got bourbon praline.”

“Sure,” Stone said.

—

They sat in the dark, eating ice cream and looking out the living room window at the twins running around, putting out fires.

“That’s amusing,” Dino said.

“Not as amusing as shooting them,” Ed said, “but amusing.”

The last of the flames at the house disappeared, finally. “Let’s see if they still got any fight in them,” Ed said. “If they do, they’ll be over here in a minute.”

“Interesting to speculate what it would have done to them if they’d been in their bed when that thing blew.”

“You think they didn’t find the bomb?”