Sloane would have given up on their search if those men hadn’t come after her the previous night. Their actions convinced her she was on the right track to find the HMS Rove. Why else try to scare her off? She hadn’t told Tony about the attack, but first thing this morning she’d phoned her boss and laid out the whole story. While concerned for her safety, he gave her permission to extend their stay another day so they could investigate the section of sea where Papa Heinrick had seen his giant metal snakes.

She knew she was being reckless. Any sane person would have heeded the warning and left the country on the first plane out, but that wasn’t in her nature. In all her life she had never left a task unfinished. No matter how bad a book was, she’d read it to the last word. No matter how difficult a crossword, she’d work it to the last clue. No matter how difficult the job, she would see it through to the end. It was this dogged tenacity that probably kept her in doomed relationships long after she should have ended them, but it also gave her the strength to face whoever was trying to prevent her from finding her ship.

Sloane had been cautious when hiring the charter, making sure the captain wasn’t one they had spoken to when she and Tony were putting together their map. Leaving their hotel, they had blended in with a large group of tourists who were headed to the waterfront for a charter fishing trip of their own and on the bus she made certain that no one was following them. Had she seen anything suspicious she would have called off the whole thing, but no one paid their vehicle any attention.

It was only when they were several miles from shore that Sloane told the captain where she really wanted to go. He’d told her that the section of the sea where she wanted to fish was devoid of any marine life but since she was paying he hadn’t put up much of an argument.

That had been six uneventful hours earlier, and every mile they put behind them without incident allowed Sloane to relax that little bit more. The men who had chased her must have assumed she had taken their warning to heart and given up.

The seas were building slightly with a wind out of the south. The beamy boat rode them well, rolling to starboard with each swell and returning to an even keel smartly. The captain returned from below and stood a little behind Sloane, letting her maintain the helm. He reached for a pair of binoculars from under a bench seat and scanned the horizon. He handed them to her and pointed a bit south of due west.