Troubled Waters by Warren Murphy

Author:Warren Murphy [Murphy, Warren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781035999767
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter 11

“She don’t look all that rich to me,” the first mate said.

“Nobody asked you, Wink,” Billy Teach replied.

“No, sir.”

The first mate’s given name was Lester Suff, but that would never do among the rowdy boys. They called him Wink because he had a nervous tic that made his left eye twitch an average of twice a minute, giving him the aspect of a chronic winker. It wasn’t a bad nickname, as pirate handles went: less fearsome than a few, less embarrassing than most.

Wink didn’t know what he was talking about, either. The cabin cruiser looked tame enough, but Teach could read the signs of her subtle luxury. He saw hand-hewed teak rails on the inner decks, and enough antennas for a small television studio. She wasn’t flashy, but the Melody was worth big, big bucks.

It had better be, Teach thought. Better be worth the risk.

The word had come from port, their man in Puerta Plata, and it had been Teach’s task to take the trawler out to sea. Most of his crew were concealed belowdecks, sweating in the hold and clutching weapons as they struck an intercepting course.

With this crew of merciless rabble, taking the floating puss parlor named the Melody would be a piece of cake—unlike the deadly and unexpected encounter of the night before.

They had run into the small, utilitarian craft almost by accident. Teach had been planning to leave it alone, but the men on the small boat had other plans. They had approached Teach’s ship. To flee would have invited suspicion—and it turned out, these were very suspicious boaters.

They weren’t suspicious anymore.

They were closing on the Melody now, their Jolly Roger flapping in the breeze, and Teach’s men were lined up on the deck just like a proper firing squad, prepared to spray the yacht with bullets if their man on board couldn’t control the passengers.

If anyone had asked for his opinion, Billy Teach would have informed them that he didn’t care so much for planting men aboard the boats they meant to raid. His reasons were twofold. First, you couldn’t really trust another pirate much beyond your line of sight, and he was always worried that the men they sent ashore to work as plants would turn somehow, betray them to the law, or else go into business for themselves. It hadn’t happened so far, but there was a first time for everything, and it made Billy nervous. The second reason was that he preferred the old ways, coming at your target in a rush, catching him unawares if possible, or else compelling him by brute force to submit. It felt wrong, somehow, when the work was more than half done by a single man on board the target vessel, and the raiders hadn’t even stepped aboard yet. Where was the adventure, then? The risk? The rush of spilling blood in combat?

He recognized the need for bloody action as a failing of his own. God knew, Kidd had reminded him of that time and

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