The opportunity he had here. All that money. Like a Powerball hit.

Only the kind you could never tell anyone about.

He slowly passed a hand over his scruffy jaw. He looked at the water, turned in every direction. All still dark. Still nobody coming. He looked at the cross of the listing tail section about to sink.

What would the Bahamian government do with it? Gannon thought. Lower the tax rate? Give it to the poor?

Sure they would, he thought as he took a deep breath.

Then he decided.

Was it even a decision at all? he thought as he went and found his gloves again and pulled them on.

Gannon hurried up to the bow and clicked on the electric anchor winch. As the chain began to chatter against the bow roll, he came back and dumped the money out onto the deck and tossed the bag of diamonds on top of it. He wiped down the empty suitcase with a wet towel before he brought it back to the diving platform and filled it with water and made it sink.

He thought about keeping the gun before he closed its lid and wiped its case down and heaved it into the sea from whence it came.

He tossed the diamonds and money into a dirty blanket he used as a pad when doing engine repairs and locked it in the head before he went forward and secured the anchor.

Gannon could feel butterflies in his stomach and his heart pounding crazily in his chest as he came back and climbed the ladder up into the dark flying bridge.

“Caught something after all,” he said to himself with a crazy laugh as he turned off the running lights and slammed the twin diesels to full reverse, keeping his eyes on the dark horizon.

7

Coming on eleven at night, there was an accident on Miami’s Palmetto Expressway that was backing up traffic just west of the I-95 on-ramp.

Pressed up against the left side window of the coast guard C-130 Hercules on approach to Miami Coast Guard Air Station, navy lieutenant Ruby Everett squinted down at the commotion.

In the police blue-and-red bubble light glare, she counted three vehicles involved, a pickup truck and two cars. She craned her neck back as the thunderous aircraft zoomed over the highway. She looked for debris, telltale skid marks. But it was fruitless. They were too far away.

Easy, tiger, she thought as she felt the aircraft’s landing gear hum beneath her toes.

You’ll have more work than you bargained for in about five seconds flat.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” said the pilot in her earphones.

She turned away from the window and came forward in the jump seat. The pilot was leaning out of the cockpit, smiling back at her. There were two other crew members sitting behind her, but they both seemed to be sleeping.

Ruby listened to the roar of the engines behind her in the big cavernous cargo plane as she looked forward at the pilot and the smile on his face. There was something creepy about the guy that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He seemed normal enough. Plain looking. Midthirties. Very neat.