All at once he was back off the Falklands, making runs on an Argentine sub. He went straight for the fin, felt a jolt as he struck it, and buzzed the engine wildly as he passed.

The shark swerved, circled, and seemed to hunt for the source of the sound. By George, they had it, if only he could keep it up!

He climbed again, banking to starboard, and at a thousand feet he lost sight of the fin. "You see it, Mike?" he yelled. "Jake? Can you see the bloody thing?"

Jake craned past Lomas, looking. It was a fatal mistake. The traficante struck like a snake, with a sharp right cross to the jaw.

The big Wembley revolver crashed to the cabin floor. Mike twisted over his seat back, cursing, trying to scoop it up. Jake, stunned and too big for the space, took a mighty swing at Lomas, missed, and put his fist through the cabin's upholstered skin. Lomas, with a karate chop, knocked Mike's hand away and scrambled for the gun.

He was bringing it up in his hand when Jake braced his back against the left of the cabin, planted a size twelve shoe in his gut, and shoved.

The traficante fired once as he flew out the door. The slug whistled past within inches of Hoagie's head and slammed through his side window.

But Lomas was gone with a long, shrill scream; so was the gun. Hoagie horsed back on the yoke, dipped his left wing, and peered back. The figure flailed wildly through the air, a pilot 'chute popped, and after it, the main 'chute bloomed in blue and white and red.

He saw the traficante slide the gun into his belt, grab his left steering line, and rotate toward the ketch. He was kicking in the air and trying desperately to land aboard.

But he passed over the stern. He unsnapped his leg straps, freed his chest strap, and plunged into the water from twenty feet. In an instant he was striking madly for the boat.

Shark bait, thought Hoagie grimly. There was a God in heaven, after all.

Then he saw Ellen dashing aft. "Oh, no," Hoagie said with a groan. "Good God, no!"

She yanked at a life ring, secured its line to the stern anchor cleat, and hurled it as far as she could.

It fell within two feet of Lomas, who grabbed it. She began to haul him in.

"Cinch up your shoulder straps!" he yelled. "We're going in!"

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ellen had recognized Hoagie's airplane instantly, from the letters on its fuselage. To her the parachutist he dropped was an angel from on high—but a suicidal one. Hadn't he seen the shark?