“Like hell they can,” Cabrillo said without looking at her, his rage barely in check. He straightened their course when the lifeboat’s prow was facing the little channel out of the lagoon.

“Juan, we’ll never catch them. Besides, they had machine guns. You’ve only got a pistol.”

Reeds whipped at them like switches as they rocketed down the channel. Juan steered with one eye on the depth gauge and a moment after bursting out of the grass he grunted with savage satisfaction.

“Hold on,” he said and hit a switch hidden under the dash.

The forward part of the lifeboat’s hull began to rise out of the water as hydraulics under the boat activated and extended a series of fins and underwater wings. Sloane was a second late to react. She staggered and would have fallen overboard had Juan not clutched for the front of her jacket and held her tight. The hydrofoils began to generate more lift and raised the hull even higher until just the wings and telescoping propeller shaft were dragging through the water. It took just seconds but their speed more than doubled to forty knots.

Sloane looked at Juan incredulously, unsure what to say or how to react to the plodding lifeboat becoming a streaking high-performance hydrofoil. She finally blurted, “Who in the hell are you?”

He glanced at her. He normally would have come up with a pithy remark but his anger at Papa Heinrick’s murder was all-consuming. “Someone you don’t want to piss off.” His eyes were as hard as agate. “And they just pissed me off.” He pointed ahead. “Do you see how the sea is glowing a little bit?” Sloane nodded. “Their boat’s motion through the water caused bioluminescent organisms to fluoresce. We never would have found them in daylight but at night Mother Nature’s giving us some help. Can you take the helm and keep us on that trail?”

“I’ve never driven a boat like this.”

“Not many people have. It’s just like your father’s charter only faster. Just keep the wheel straight and if you have to turn do it gently. I’ll be back in a second.”