From the sea, only a tiny section of the lagoon could be seen through the chasm whose cliffs rose on each side of the channel. It was like peering through a telescope into a distant narrow slit. High atop the west side of the entrance, more than three hundred feet above the surf crashing against the shore, a small shack built of palm fronds perched dangerously close to the edge. The native look was a facade. Beneath the palm fronds were walls built of concrete blocks. The interior was air-conditioned, and the windows were tinted. A security guard sat inside a comfortable little house, studying the vast expanse of ocean with a large pair of binoculars mounted on a stand for any sign of a ship. He sat in a soft executive chair before a computer, radio and a VCR with a monitor. A chain smoker, he had heaped an ashtray with dead butts. Across from him, neatly stacked in a rack against one wall, were four missile launchers and two automatic rifles. With this arsenal, he could have held off a small navy trying to force its way into the lagoon.

Thirty years old, wiry and in good physical shape, he stared almost vacantly at the brilliant sea as he rubbed a hand over the stubble of new beard growth. He was blond and blue-eyed and a former Special Forces veteran, hired by the in-house security department of a vast corporate empire about which he knew little and cared even less. His assignments covered the world and occasionally included assassination, but he was paid and paid well. That's all that mattered.

He yawned and changed the discs in his CD player. His taste was eclectic and ran from classical to soft rock. He had just pushed the play button when his eye caught a movement around the outcropping of rock that fell off just beyond his security shack. He swung the binoculars and focused on a bright blue-and-white object that was coming very fast over the water.

It was a yacht, the strangest-looking yacht he had ever seen; not a sailboat but a twin-hulled catamaran power cruiser, and it was cutting through the sun-danced water at what he guessed as close to forty knots. He rubbed his eyes and stared through the big, powerful binoculars again.

The boat was a good seventy feet, he estimated. He couldn't decide if he loved her design or hated it. The more he examined her lines, the more elegant and exotic she appeared. She reminded him of a pair of ice skates cut down and molded together with a circular wheelhouse on the top. On the upper open deck, two people, a man and woman, lounged in a Jacuzzi, drinking out of tall glasses and laughing. All the craft's windows were tinted, and he could not see any suggestion of other crewmembers or passengers.

He turned to the radio, switched on the transmitter and began speaking. "This is Pirate. I have a private yacht approaching from the northeast."