The two miles served another purpose. Once he had the loot in his hands, he would need room to disappear into. The two Farallons gave him options. Each had a range of two and a half miles. They could travel five miles an hour underwater. But he had already used up most of the battery on the first one getting into position, hence the need for the backup. It was his intent to run the first Farallon into the ground. Then he would discard it, never mind the three thousand apiece cost. The FBI might find it later but that did not matter. Later, too late, they would figure out how he had fooled them.

It had been a busy week for Matt, and an exciting one. When the lab in San Francisco had confirmed Jimmy was his son, he had been overjoyed. It was odd but at that instant he had felt such love for Amy that he wanted to call and tell her the news.

He barely restrained himself. He wrote her a letter instead—the ransom note. He enjoyed composing it. To him it was like a love letter. He only wanted the money and the diamonds so he could take care of their son.

Well, maybe not. He figured that if he had such wealth—and their son to boot—then she might come back to him. A disturbing thought, to be sure. At times he surprised even himself.

He did not understand his own mind. He had hated her for so long he practically had a dagger dripping with her blood etched in his brain. Yet when he had received the letter from the lab and held Jimmy in his arms for the first time with the knowledge the kid was his own, he could think about nothing but how happy the three of them could be together. He felt what he had thought was dead inside him: hope.

Hope was a two-edged blade, though. Despair brought its own perverse relief. Now that he was excited at the prospect of seeing her again, he was sick with worry. She could turn against him again. Worse, she could put him in jail.

His fantasies were all hypothetical.

He had to get the loot first. He had to stay alive.

He had enjoyed setting up the ransom, however; attending to the many details. He had done the bulk of the work over the phone, and used cash to secure the office suite and the required boats. But the camera in the washing machine suite had not even been wired into the wall. He had not seen David the whole day.

He had taken fanatical precautions when it came to choosing the phone booths he called from. Each time he stepped into one he wore throwaway hospital scrubs. The FBI could trace such calls, and all they needed was a single hair, a crumb of skin, that matched hair or skin found at another booth he had used.