Masters of Fire

CHAPTER 1 SOMEONE HAD BEEN WATCHING THEM CLOSELY since they left the bay. She was fifty feet from them in a dark gray and navy blue jet boat. She scrutinized them carefully with powerful ultra-bright pocket size marine binoculars. She squinted her slanted gray-blue eyes as she peered through the lenses. In her skin-tight diving suit that matched her boat precisely, she started the engine. It was time. She waited for most of the boats in the area to drift away from the King. It was so crowded today, she thought. It took two hours for most of the vessels to float enough away out of view. Her whole persona was about time, and she lived by it. Precisely two hours of waiting, she said to herself, as she eyed her two waterproof watches on her wrist. She was on a tight schedule, yet patient. Her mission estimated to now be thirty minutes. She then eased on black gloves and directed her boat toward the King. CARL NOTICED HER FIRST. He felt he would have never recognized her except for the fact that she cruised her small jet boat straight toward them. She looked ten years younger than he and maybe Philippine or Korean. Her long straight black hair would have flown all over the place except it was neatly in a firm bun. Carl also recognized her attractive tan round face and likely healthy curved-shaped rump in a skintight full swimming suit. Nice body, Carl thought, not chubby and not skinny either. He waved at her, smiling. She moved closer now, six feet from the King. Carl noticed Larry also waved, observing her. Smiling, she waved back, steering the boat with her right hand to come abreast to their boat. "Ahoy there, how are you?" Carl asked, standing. It was something he'd wished he'd never done, because he was the first to be caught off guard. SHE RESPONDED WITH A WIDER SMILE, now three feet from the King, and shut off her engines. Time was of the essence, a principle she lived by. She understood her target, and it was time to take it out before more boats drifted back this way. She didn't know the other three men and considered them collateral damage. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's that word time again, she said to herself as she smiled. Finding her brown air-pistol that was hidden in a dashboard under the steering wheel, she grabbed it in a tight grip. She took-out the guys who waved at her first. Before the guy standing, waving, could do anything, she shot him in the neck. She was inhumanly fast and fired again at a fat guy sitting, hitting him in the calf. She saw that they realized the pinky-finger size dart she shot them with didn't kill them right away. They moved about, aggravated at the tiny thing in their neck and leg and knocked it out for it to bounce about on the deck. They also moved about just enough for her to get a clear shot at another man sitting next to the fat fellow. She fired again hitting that man in the shoulder, and he cursed. Then she spotted her objective in the galley——Mark Douglas. He looked just like the photo she was given of him and she studied his features, salmon complexion, light brown eyes, and straight neat short cut hair. He wore a white short sleeve Lacoste sports shirt and shorts. Precision was another trait she owned as time and speed. She saw that Mark was confused about the circumstances, and she capitalized on it. They locked eyes for what seemed like the longest split second. She fired again, and he ducked. Got him! She yelled in her head. Although there was a window between them, the dart still made it through. It chipped a round hole in the glass and hit him square in the earlobe. Then he ducked, dropping sandwiches and a open beer that was in his hands. She worked expeditiously as she dropped the pistol in the water and grabbed an air tank she brought with her and scuba diving gear. Now floating two feet from the King she tossed the equipment aboard. Being extremely athletic, another hobby of hers, she leaped for the side of the boat. Catching the steel rail, she flipped aboard, landing next to her supplies. She looked around, still no other boats had drifted near. She glanced at her watches——time gone by so far, three minutes. The strong anti-anxiety drug she shot the three with worked quickly, as did she. The three she hit first lay out on the stern of the boat, moaning. Taking out a hypodermic syringe from a pouch at her side, she hastily stabbed the three men in the same location where the first darts entered. From the syringe she squeezed detoxification drugs into the fat guy’s leg, the other guy in the neck, and the last man in the shoulder. When she walked toward Mark in the galley, he was still stumbling about on his knees mumbling. "What are you trying to . . ." He then for some reason tried to reach out toward her and fainted. When he dropped to the floor, she grabbed a cone cylinder from her pouch. She fit the cylinder in his mouth and picked up the spilled Budweiser he dropped. She poured the rest of the beverage down his throat. Next to a counter she calmly opened a large blue cooler full of ice and all types of beverages. Finding a six-pack of Budweiser, she ripped out four cans. Opening them, she continued to pour the contents into Mark's belly. She crushed some of the empty cans with her hand and threw them across the floor. There, she thought, now it looks like a real man drank those beers. She then neatly put the cylinder back in her pouch. She retrieved the four darts she shot at her victims and also put them in her sack. Moving upstairs to the open helm, she started the engine and directed the King deeper into the Atlantic. Time now, fifteen minutes into her assignment. After estimating she was about forty yards from her jet boat and more away from the yachts in the area, she stopped the King. Moving back downstairs in the galley, she lifted Mark onto her shoulders and carried him to the helm. Laying him on his back on the floor, she dressed in her scuba diving gear. Starting the ships engine again, she drove it at top speed. She then made a sudden left turn against the current of the waves; a left turn that she knew the yacht couldn't handle at fifty knots. The bow lifted straight in the air in an acute angle. With a loud moan of wood and metal, the King top-sided. Humans and supplies dispersed everywhere into the sea. For now she was sure no other vessels saw the King's huge white belly bobble in the middle of the blue ocean. Underwater now with regulator and tank, she watched more supplies empty below the waves. Waving her arms and peddling her feet about six feet under the sea, she watched chairs, buckets, and cans float slowly past her. The sun above shone bright, making the water around her reflect beams of light with flickers of grays and dark blues. She also observed two dark silhouettes of bodies in a dead-man’s float above her; their bodies breaking the beams of sunlight. Her diving gear matching the sea made her virtually vanish below the waves. With powerful kicks and waving arm movements, she swam the forty yards back to her boat. Climbing into her boat, she stripped out of her gear and swimming-suit down to a dark-green and blue bikini, showing her body had black tribal tattoos on her left shoulder, lower back, and left side of her buttocks. Her light caramel complexion made the tattoos define. Time now, thirty-five minutes, she thought, five minutes over schedule. She quickly let her hair out to fall down her back, then started the engine. She drove back to the docks in the bay, still avoiding most of the yachts in the area. She was annoyed with herself. She spent too much time gloating at the beauty of the ocean under water. Or was she merely taking pride in her work by staring at it? Or was it both? It was neither, she thought. Her mission was strictly business. She didn’t care about the ocean and didn’t care about the humans she just dumped