"So why"—Lomas smiled—"would you deal in coca paste? Why not pure cocaine?"

"Why pay the price? I process it on Whiskey Cay. We fly pure coke to Savannah once a week."

Lomas stared at him. "You have a cocaine refinery on Whiskey Cay?"

Newcombe smiled. "Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed."

Lomas peered into the bright blue eyes. The Englishman was lying, of course. Even on Spanish Galleon Cay, which was virtually the family's own, he had never dared set up a refinery. The British West Indies were too close to the United States, the investment was too great, and what if the Nassau government changed and invited in the gringo Drug Enforcement Agency?

El Viejo would not have condoned it, either. Traditionally cocaine was made and refined safely in the sheds of the llanos, near San Juan de Gracia, where fifty-kilo bales of coca leaves were dried on racks.

There, on the family's home grounds, in the hot, dry sun of the southern plains, the leaves were soaked in kerosene, tossed into plastic-lined pits, then stamped into coca paste by barefoot campesinos. The paste was mixed with sulfuric acid, lime, and potassium permanganate, which turned it into coca paste.

It only needed to be soaked in ether and acetone, filtered through cloth, and dried in the sun to become pure cocaine.

The problem was that last month, in a surprise move that el Viejo suspected was orchestrated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Leopard and SANU agents had dropped from the sky to the llanos plain.

Helicopters had descended on the family's refinery. Three agents and two coqueros had died in a hail of automatic fire, and el Viejo's biggest refinery was destroyed.

What if his grandson found a replacement? With no investment necessary, because they would inherit it from Newcombe, who would be rotting at the bottom of the sea? As they'd inherited the Loma Bella Club from the mafioso don?

And what if Lomas took the next Bolivian freighter that came to rendezvous with the Englishman, and its cargo of coca paste too?

Then men would forget the shark very quickly, perhaps before el Viejo heard of it at the ranch.

If the Englishman was not lying. Lomas drummed his fingers on the desk. "How do I know this is true?"

"Come and see."

"I never leave Nassau, except for Spanish Galleon Cay." With a glow of pride he added, "I am on the DEA's most-wanted list, señor."

"I've heard." El Inglés shrugged. "Well, you had the cojones to sky-dive; I thought you'd have the guts for Whiskey Cay."

"Don't worry about my guts, señor. Worry about spilling your own." His eyes narrowed. "Why is it you tell me all this?"

Newcombe looked into his face. "Because you finally scared me."

Lomas sat back, smiling. "Good. Now we understand each other. I been thinking you were crazy."

"Well, I didn't survive the bloody Falklands to get my brains blown out up here."