The sound of the surf distracted him. He glanced at his two-hundred-dollar sixty-fathom watch. Nine-fifteen—the races would not start until ten, and he was only fifteen minutes from Prince George Town right now. Across Masthead Sound he could already see the houses by Pretty Sally Bay.

He eased off, bounced through the incoming tide, and within three minutes was paralleling the beach outside the surf line, waiting for the Wave of the Day.

When he found it, it was a grandfather. He caught its curve perfectly, skimmed diagonally down its face, hit thirty knots in the curl, and, just before it broke, swung up to its crest.

The world fell away below him, and he was airborne, flying, the board strapped to his feet, his stomach in his bowels, the Bahamian sun tossing golden droplets from his mast.

He howled in ecstasy, caught another set, and flew again. God, he could do this all day long; it was better than sex, more fun than racing. He had enough cups...

"So, son, did you win at Whiskey Cay?"

"Didn't get there, Pops.... There was this set coming in at Bowsprit Cut...."

No way. Not with twelve hundred dollars of the old man's money invested in the board.

Regretfully he jibed at the end of the surf line and started back. He sped on a starboard tack, staying just ahead of the curl. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of something white through the plastic eye-level window in his sail. It was matching his speed on the outside of the surf.

Triangular, high-aspect ratio, port tack, just like him. And really hauling ass too….

Another Windsurfer come to race? The image through the window smeared with foam. He let go of the boom with one hand and wiped the plastic.

Not a Windsurfer. A sailboat? No, too small.

A fin? A shark fin?

He had been brought to the Bahamas every year since the age of six. He had never heard of a man-eating shark anywhere near here.

But it was a shark, and if that was its fin, only God knew how big its body was.

His knees began to tremble, and he almost capsized. His hands grew slippery on the boom. If he fell off now, he was doomed....

His salvation lay in speed and in his gear: the full-batten sail, the waxed-glass bottom, the tapered skeg, the computer-designed centerboard, the camber inducers. He could make twenty knots in the chute.

He strained for the last knot he had. As long as his equipment did not fail him, he could outdistance any shark with the speeding tunnel of the rushing surf to help him.

"In the chute," he whispered to his board. "Stay in the chute...."

The breeze stiffened. He was tearing through the water now, sail thrumming above, sucking a long, slim wake, he was losing him, if only the surf stayed up...