When he missed the stern, she panicked for an instant, and then her father's words came back: "If you have to toss a buoy, throw it twice as far as you think you ought to. Secure its line. And don't forget to rig a boarding ladder."

But there was no time to rig a boarding ladder with the monster circling so close. The parachutist—paramedic, policeman, or Bahamas Defense Force officer—was thrashing wildly for the orange life ring in the water.

Ten yards to go, then five...

The fin broke the surface a hundred yards beyond.

"Hurry!" she cried. "Hurry, please!"

Three yards, two... he had it! She began to haul on the line. Now she could hear his cries of fear: "Socorro, socorro! Faster, señora, please!"

Spanish, then, or Mexican?

All at once she knew. Señor Lomas! The owner of the club! A sky diver! Hoagie had detested him. "Every time his macho needs a polishing, it's two hundred more in the boss's till." But now he was risking his life for her. Her throat tightened.

He was fifty feet from the boat, forty, kicking with all his strength. The fibers of the rope were tearing at her palms. She ignored the pain and pulled faster.

Thirty feet, twenty...

Behind her, on the starboard side of the boat, she heard the plane approaching, then heard the engine cut. She could not spare the time to look.

The fin was slicing faster through the water. She could hear the heartbeat from the deckhouse: Boom... boom... boom...

Lomas was fifteen feet away. He looked up at her. His eyes were wide with terror. "Señora!" he bleated. "Help—"

Boom, boom... boom, boom... boom, boom...

The fin had disappeared. She saw a gray shape in the water behind him and screamed a warning. All at once the swimmer was jerked from below. Then he began to rise, faster and faster. Suddenly he was hurled into the air. The shark grew from the depths, jaws gaping, and snatched him as he fell.

Impaled on the shark's lower jaw, he kicked, writhed, and shrieked. The orange buoy, red with blood, fell away.

The last she heard was a long, shrill wail as the massive jaws closed slowly. The shark sank without a bubble, and the reddened waters closed.

To starboard she heard a Klaxon sounding.

She whirled.

The Stearman was gliding in close to the ketch. Its nose was up, resisting fate; its prop ticked slowly in the golden sunlight; she could hear the stall-warning horn honking from the cabin. Its wheels were only inches from the wave tops.

Like a gull landing, legs outstretched, it groped for the water, crested a swell, and settled with a crash in a sheet of spray.