The sky, swollen and bleak with impending storm. was as gray as his mood. Quentin Collins looked out upon a restless black sea and wondered if the Java Queen could outrun nature's fury much longer. He doubted it. The clouds, pregnant with rain, were too close, and the wind was already heaving the current at their stern. It would catch up with them soon.

"Afraid your ship may flounder, Captain Collins?" He turned to face Gerard Stiles, who moved with a seaman's steady footing to the rail, grinning at his own jest.

Quentin said simply, "Perhaps."

Neither of then captained the trade ship. The Collins shipping empire owned it, Gerard had supplied its hold full of contraband guns, and Quentin stood to privately profit from the sale of that cargo. Gunrunning, after all, was not a new trade to his family. Joshua Collins' ships had practiced it lucratively seventy years before and, when the market had been better, those same ships had also carried slaves. The peddling of both weapons and flesh had helped to found the Collins fortune.

"You needn't be concerned," Gerard was saying. "It's out of the north-east. As long as your helm maintains its course, she'll cut across our stern and keep on going south."

"You're the seaman. I guess I'll just have to talk you at your word."

Quentin knew what they both were thinking. If the Java Queen were forced to lighten her load, the guns would be the first thing thrown overboard. But neither man was willing to voice this apprehension. Instead, Gerard turned the conversation to amenities.

"And how is young Tad these days?"

"Not as well as I'd hoped. He's in the cabin, still asleep. It hasn't been an easy voyage for him."

"Well, the first one never is. But what of your family? Had you had word from them before we left the Isles? Was there news of your wife?"

Quentin shook his head. His brief acquaintance with this man had somehow, inexplicably prompted him to be more open about his personal life than he had ever been with business associates or drinking companions in the past. Gerard was a personable sort -- an easy man to talk to. And Quentin had needed that. He had needed some one to listen to his woes; of his love for Joanna and of his grief over her suicide when Samantha had refused to grant him the divorce. He might never forgive Samantha for that.

"You would still prefer your freedom, wouldn't you?" Gerard asked abruptly, and the yardarm groaned over their heads as if in answer. "And she would still likely deny it to you."

Quentin looked at him, a little startled at the man's perceptiveness. "You're correct on either count." He had to grab the railing then to avoid being tossed to the deck by a boisterous wave that slapped the Java Queen astern.

Gerard kept his footing without need of support. "You must be aware," he said cautiously, "that there are other ways to rid oneself of an unwanted wife.

Quentin felt a wrenching in his stomach that had nothing to do with the pitching of the ship. "Are you suggesting that I kill her?" It occurred to him that Gerard might in fact have been offering his personal services for just such a purpose. Repelled by the thought in either case, Quentin said tautly, "I could never do that."

Gerard shrugged. "It was simply a suggestion."

"You're talking about the mother of my son!"

Another shrug. "Somehow I didn't think it would appeal to you."

Suddenly unwilling to continue this discussion, Quentin turned away. "I must see to Tad," he muttered and was gone. Gerard looked after him, and a grimly ambitious smile crept onto his face.

The storm was overhead by evening, licking the mast with jagged lightning tongues and drenching the deck with sea spray and rain. The Java Queen bobbed like a toy in spite of her ballast, or more likely because of it, and rode low in the water like a great gray whale.

Nearly two hours after sunset, something struck her.

Quentin felt the explosion. Its impact made the Java Queen shudder as though a vengeful god had pierced her through with lightning. A moment later the shouts of the crew told him that the sound had indeed been more than the savagery of the storm. Something was wrong.

Tad had sensed it too, and tried to sit up in the bunk, his pale face reflecting Quentin's fear. "Do you hear it, father? That noise... and the voices. Something's happened."

"No." Quentin touched his son, wanting as much to reassure himself with the lie as he hoped to comfort Tad. "It was only the storm. Go back to sleep. Tomorrow you'll be able to sleep in your own room again, at Collinwood."

Tad lay back, his eyes raking the ceiling of the cramped wood-paneled cabin. The brass lantern that hung above was swinging to and fro with an erratic rhythm, playing ghostly shadow-dancers on the tilting walls. The room smelled of whale oil and salt.

Creaking wood timbers forewarned of the Queen's distress. From somewhere below, the shouts grew louder and the pounding of hammers echoed through the deck. When Quentin was certain that his son slept again, he left the cabin and began to make his way down the close-walled passageway toward the hatch. He was met halfway by a harried first mate.

"Mr. Dawes He paused, reading both fear and anxiety in the other man's teal blue eyes. "What is it?" he demanded. "What's wrong?"

"I was coming to get you, Sir," Dawes answered through labored breaths. "The Captain requests you await him in his quarters. He'd like to speak with you."

"We hit Something, didn't we? Or Something hit us. I felt the impact."

"We're still afloat, sir. More than that I'm not at liberty to say. If you would wait in Cpt. Seager's cabin..."

Quentin wanted to grab the man, to shake the truth out of him, but restrained the impulse. Above them, the howl of the wind diminished, waning with his anger. He turned his back on Dawes and headed aft toward Seager's quarters.

The only room aboard ship traditionally afforded the luxury of a window, the captain's cabin seemed as Spacious as Collinwood's parlor after the closed-in conditions of the passenger accommodations. Quentin started to help himself to a brandy from Seager's well-stocked liquor cabinet, then thought better of it when the cabin tilted starboard a stomach-wrenching sixty degrees and righted itself only to tip thirty extra degrees back to port. He forced himself into a chair, which, like the massive chart table and everything else in the room, was wisely secured to the deck, and waited, watching the storm hurl its waning fury at the multi-paned window.

It was fully half an hour -- the storm had nearly blown itself out -- before Seager's lean figure came through the cabin door. He had the look of a man who had gone without sleep for far too long.

"We're four degrees off our course," he said without prelude. "But the storm's left us behind."

During the long wait, Quentin's patience had worn thin "You can spare me the amenities," he snapped. "I can tell the difference between the sound of thunder and a collision. What hit us?"

Seager gave a weary facial shrug. "A reef, I suspect. We're close enough to land for it, and off course enough to have lost track of charted hazards - not that we could have avoided hitting the damned rock if we had known it was there. She took some damage to the lower hull." "How much damage?"

The shadow of suspicion crossed Seager's thin face. "Are you more concerned with the safety of the passengers and crew, Mr. Collins, or with the condition of your cargo?"

Cold anger laced the reply. "If the ship sinks before we reach port, it won't make one hell of a lot of difference, will it?"

The captain sat down in the opposing chair, folding his limbs into it like a marionette. "We took on extra water in the bilges, but the leak's shorn up now. Whatever hit us dealt a glancing blow. Enough to weaken the timbers, but not penetrate the hull. If it had done that, we'd all be keeping company with sharks just now."

Quentin rose and moved to the window, somehow reluctant to make his relief at this report too apparent "How certain are you that the shoring will hold?"

Seager smiled grimly. "Never certain enough. Thank your stars we were blown four degrees southwest instead of east. We'll make the port due west of us tomorrow and put in for repairs. We can sail for Collinsport again the next tide, unless you'd prefer to hire transportation overland. All told, your 'delivery' should only be some four days late."

"Damn the delivery. I'd have thrown the crates overboard myself if I'd thought..." He stopped in mid-sentence, realizing for the first time that throughout this ordeal, the usually omnipresent Gerard Stiles had been nowhere in evidence.

Seager seemed to read his thought. "There is the matter of your Mr. Stiles..."

"He must still be in his cabin."

Seager shook his head. "I make it a point to check on all the passengers after a storm, Mr. Collins. Your son is resting comfortably in your cabin, and you are here with me. But Mr. Stiles is not aboard this ship."

On his way back down the narrow corridor, Quentin stopped to open the door of Gerard's quarters. The lamp still burned overhead, wafting fetid smoke into the room, and certain articles of clothing and other personal belongings were strewn about, tossed by the motion of the ship. He moved inside the cabin and stood for a moment, surveying the mute collection of objects as though some answer to the nagging question in his mind might be found there.

Cpt. Seager was assuming that Stiles had been washed overboard. But Seager hadn't known Gerard as he had, A man so well familiar with the sea would not be lost to it so easily. No. There was some other answer to this riddle. Quentin sighed, acutely aware of his own exhaustion and of the fact that he had no alternative explanation of Gerard's disappearance to offer the captain.

Wearily he returned to the corridor, closed the shuttered door and made for his own cabin. With the sea now calm and the Java Queen secure once more, he would at last find time to sleep.

Tomorrow -- or in four tomorrows -- he would deal with his delivery and after that, with Collinwood, Samantha, and the mystery of Gerard Stiles.

* * *

An hour before, a part of that mystery had unfolded on the deck of the Java Queen.

Gerard Stiles, oblivious to the moderate gale, made his way back onto the deck and starboard to the rowboats, where he paused to gaze into the darkness of the northern sea, searching the hazy water as though to find something there. It was some time before he saw it -- a single yellow light tracing erratic patterns in the distance. As quickly as it had appeared, the signal was extinguished In a moment, he could make out the shadowed outline of the other ship, riding higher in the water than the laden Java Queen and offering no running lights to announce its quiet presence.

Oddly as though it were somehow responding to some unspoken command, the wind slackened, calming the sea somewhat. Thankful for that, Gerard unleashed a rowboat, swung its hoist over the side, and lowered it until he heard it slap the water below. It bumped against the Java Queen's hull with a resounding hollow thud, making him apprehensive that someone on board might hear the sound, but he dismissed the thought. The noises of the storm would be blamed. He went over the side and descended rapidly. When he had gained firm seating in the boat he released the hoist and cast away, striking out for the other ship, straining the oars against the churning of the sea.

He had to pause twice to bail water from the tiny craft. Had the storm been any worse, he reflected, his plans would have had to be scuttled. He would have been trapped aboard the Queen, and there would have been no chance for postponement. She would make port tomorrow.

When at last he came alongside the dark ship, several moments passed before someone cast lines down to him and he climbed accepting the swarthy hand that came out of the darkness to help him over and onto the deck.

"Welcome aboard the Drago, Cpt. Miller."

"Thank you, Marcos. It's good to be back."

Marcos grinned, becoming a set of white teeth in the gloom. "She's going to be a prize catch, this one. Tell me, what bounty does she carry, other than our 1200 guns?"

"Unfortunately, nothing that is of any worth to us." It was a lie, but Marcos would never know it. "We're not going to take her."

Marcos' disappointment was made apparent in his voice. "Not take her? But that was your plan..."

"My plan has been foiled by an overanxious ship's owner who doesn't trust fate. Collins altered the shipping orders before we left port. The hold is full of nothing but the damned guns, and I can tell you those are not worth our trouble. No. We're not going to take her. We're going to sink her."

The wind had begun to howl again, making the Java Queen's lights dance in the distance. Gerard, known to the crew of the Drago as Ivan Miller, wondered what Samantha Collins looked like and whether, in time, she would permit a charming stranger to share her bed and bank account...

As for the Java Queen, she must appear to have floundered in the storm. A well-placed shot struck low into her hull should be sufficient to send her to the bottom.

"Marcos," he ordered over the wind, "ready the port cannon."

Gerard Stiles smiled into the darkness. The heirs to the Collins fortune were about to be lost at sea.
 

- End -