"You're being silly again, Grandma." Thea giggled, but she threw back her head and piped at the sky, "Thank you, Grandpa Brody. Thanks a bunch."

She squirmed loose and ran to grab the hand of her friend's mother before the last seat on the banana boat was taken.

Now they were catching up to the parade, towed by a ski boat, and Thea was waving at her. The band at the speaker's stand suddenly thundered forth, and she heard a burst of song:

Columbia, the gem of the ocean,

Home of the brave and the free...

She'd apparently missed the unveiling. Too bad, but Carla understood. She could see the statue looming, glittering darkly in the sun, bare of its cover at last.

Something odd was happening around it. She saw Mike on the platform, yelling into the microphone, and wondered why.

Shrine of each patriot's devotion

A world offers homage to thee...

Then Mike and Carla were racing through the crowds on the beach, and Jake and Louisa were fighting their way to the water, screaming and signaling the boats. In a moment, all those near them were waving at them too.

Puzzled, Ellen swung around to see what they were motioning at. Everything seemed fine; the people on the boats were waving cheerfully back.

And then she saw the fin, chasing the parade and closing fast.

***

Hoagie Newcombe stopped at a phone booth next to the Inn of the Happy Whale's outdoor bar. There he could watch the passing crowd for Lomas, who might try to lose himself in it until he found a way to get off the island.

Scanning the faces of those passing on the sidewalk and the autos crawling up Kingston Street, he made a call to the tumbledown operations shack at Whiskey Cay airstrip.

He asked for the on-duty narcotics control officer. When he got him on the line, he described those of Lomas's aircraft small enough to get into Whiskey Cay: a split-tail Beach, a Cessna Centurian, and a Piper Twin Comanche.

None had landed that morning. Both Lomas's Learjets were too hot to land on the strip.

Unless the narc had been paid off, Lomas must have come by boat.

The coquero leader had two Chrysler-powered Cigarettes, the black one that had tried to shoot him down, and one of green. Hoagie called the harbormaster.

"Trevor, how many Cigarettes came in today?"

"'Bout a half dozen, from Nassau, ay. Couple from Gregory Town. Yah, mon, and one from Tarpum Bay."

"All at the Town Dock?"

"I'se lookin' at 'em out de window now."

"Black one?"

"Nah, mon."

"Green?"

A pause. "Don't see none green."

"None of them left yet?"

"Hoagie, you is messin' up my head wit' questions! I busy, mon! Aquatic Parade still goin' on!" There was a sharp gasp. "Oh, my God A'mighty!"

The telephone clicked off.