Ann begged to be taken to the American consulate but was outvoted by the NUMA men, who had already negotiated a supplemental fuel purchase from the taxi driver. As the cab zipped across Tijuana, the exhaustion of the chase caught up with them and the conversation fell silent. Pitt had plenty of questions for Ann, but now was not the time to ask.

She had kept her emotions bottled up since leaving the ship, refusing to allow her fears to overcome her. Now that she was free from Pablo’s death threats and safe in the company of Pitt and Giordino, the fright seeped out. She shivered in the warm night air and fought back her emotions. Pitt gently tucked an arm around her and gave her a light squeeze, which seemed to purge her stressful feelings. Within a few minutes, she had drifted off to sleep.

The drive to the coast took over an hour at legal speeds, pushing the clock to almost ten when they arrived at the small sandy beach. Pitt was relieved to spot the barge’s inflatable sitting where they had left it. He dragged it down to the surf and helped Ann climb aboard. Giordino retrieved the inflatable’s fuel can and passed it to the cabby, who siphoned a few gallons of gas from his car with an old hose he kept in the trunk.

“Gracias, amigo,” Giordino said as he parted with the balance of his poker winnings. Then he hauled the fuel can down to the beach.

Counting his cash windfall, the cabby beamed and shouted, “¡Buen viaje!”

Pitt attached the engine’s fuel line to the gas can and then with Giordino’s assistance shoved the inflatable past the surf line and climbed aboard. The outboard fired up with little trouble, and they were soon racing past the rocky breakwater.

“You sure you can find the Drake?” Ann asked, scanning the black horizon. Her eyes were again alert but tinged with apprehension.

Pitt nodded. “I think Rudi will leave the lights on for us.”

Once clear of the jetty, he turned the inflatable north and followed the coast. After a mile or so, he veered out to sea to retrace their original course. Gazing over his shoulder, he found a bearing, the lights of a lone house high on a hill that lined up vertically with a pale yellow streetlamp near the shoreline. Steering to keep the two lights in alignment, he guided the inflatable offshore until the beacons vanished. They motored on for several minutes in complete darkness, Ann fighting her fears that they would become lost at sea. Just as the waters around them became blackest, a faint glow appeared a few points off the bow. A single white light emerged from the distant sea, gradually morphing into several lights. As they bore closer, they could see they belonged to three vessels grouped together.