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Azahan and Ruipender marched to the end of a rickety dock and to a small motor launch tied to a piling.
    Rubbing his bruised neck, Azahan turned to face them. “You have our guns.”
    Kavanaugh nodded. “That’s right.”
    “We would like to have them back. Captain Hellstrom told us he would make us pay for new ones if we lost them.”
    “Technically,” said Crowe, “you didn’t lose them. Just tell him you know exactly where they are.”
    Azahan gathered a little courage and squared his shoulders. “Hellstrom will be very angry when we report what happened tonight. He will be even angrier when we tell him how you stole company property.”
    “Yeah,” taunted Mouzi. “But he’ll be a lot angrier at you. ”
    “He will take it out on you people, the protection of Madame White Snake notwithstanding. He does not like Tombstone Jack.”
    “Not many do,” drawled Kavanaugh. “So?”
    Azahan held out a hand. “Our guns. Please.”
    Kavanaugh stared at the two men and shook his head in disbelief. He popped the magazines out of the pistols, put them in his pocket and tossed the empty Guardians to Azahan and Ruipender, who caught his left-handed. “There’re your guns. Now get back to your ship.”
    Azahan didn’t move. “If you could leave the ammunition on the dock so I could come back for it later—”
    Kavanaugh drew his Bren Ten and shouted angrily, “Get the hell out of here!”
    The two men swiftly scuttled across the dock and jumped aboard the boat. When the engine started and the mooring line was cast off, Kavanaugh turned toward Mouzi and Crowe. “Un-fucking-believable.”
    “Think that’ll be the last we hear from them?” Mouzi asked.
    “We can hope that Chinnah didn’t have any influential family or friends.”
    Mouzi nodded, and then smiled almost shyly. “Thanks for covering for me, Captain K.”
    “It’s my job,” he replied gruffly. “You’re part of the Horizons Unlimited crew.”
    Crowe snorted. “She’s the only Horizons Unlimited crew. That reminds me—I’ll need you tomorrow when I tear apart the Krakatoa ’s bilge pump. It’ll be a good excuse not to take Flitcroft out fishing.”
    The Krakatoa was a thirty-six foot converted trimaran motorized sailboat, built by Denmark’s Quorning Company. It had served as Crowe’s home for the last couple of years. They could see the boat in her customized berth, lovely and clean-lined. The scrubbed deck was as white as her furled canvas, the teak railings polished to the color of old honey.
    Mouzi put an index finger to her nose and snapped it away in a short salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
    Gaze fixed on the EAC launch cutting a foaming wake toward the distant bulk of Mindanao’s Folly, Kavanaugh remarked absently, “Two captains but with a single crewman between them.”
    “Crew-woman,” Mouzi corrected testily. “If you can’t tell the difference by now, you’ve been here way too long.”
    Kavanaugh favored her with a slit-eyed glare. “You’re about half right.”
    Crowe finally managed to strike a match into flame. As he applied it to the end of his cigar, he said, “Not much like the old days, is it?”
    Kavanaugh nodded gloomily. “Nothing is. See you tomorrow. I’m sure Howie will expect a breakfast meeting.”
    Crowe regarded him, blowing twin streams of gray smoke through his nostrils. “He’s not the boss of me.”
    “Not anymore,” Kavanaugh replied turning away. “He’s just one of our landlords…and we owe ‘em all big-time back rent.”
    Sunset made a pale rose haze against the dark humid sky, dimly lighting the footpath Kavanaugh followed to his stilt house. A bamboo handrail and six steps extended up to a small porch. Behind the house was a concrete landing pad with a tall stone wall protecting the area from the storm surges that occasionally boiled in from the bay.
    Secured to the pad by a webwork of steel guy-wires and eyebolts was a six passenger ASTAR B2 helicopter. A peeling red and yellow