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difficult—seemingly clear but actually not.
    Yet Stan Amanar had insisted that Blackbird be in Rosario tonight, even if it meant running after dark.
    Mac didn’t like it. Deadheads—logs that had been soaking in the saltwater so long they floated straight up and down, exposing only a few inches of themselves above the water—were a constant danger. More than one twin-prop boat had met a deadhead and limped into the nearest port on one prop. Unlucky single-prop boats were towed or came in very slowly on a small kicker engine.
    Some of the boats sank.
    Never underestimate the sea.
    Or a woman.
    Mac smiled slightly. He was looking forward to seeing Emma Cross sometime soon. It would be interesting to find out what her game was. Or to get her out of her clothes, depending.
    He didn’t get naked with crooks.
    He picked up a channel marker a half-mile ahead and checked the paper chart spread out on the helm station in front of him. He would turn to port when the marker was abeam on his starboard side. Then it was a straight shot in two miles of deep water to the lights that marked the channel into Rosario.
    Mac set aside the joystick controller and returned to the throttles, nudging them forward. Speed had its risks. So did going too slow and feeling his way in the dark. Without radar or an electronic chart plotter, he was cutting things close. Sight navigation in full darkness was a good way to be surprised to death.
    Mac made his turn at the markers and brought the speed up more. The diesels purred and the wake boiled out behind the transom, a pearl fan spreading over the black water. He headed for town at what he estimated was the most efficient rate for both speed and fuel use—about fourteen knots. Engines like the ones in Blackbird ’s belly could push the hull at more than twice that speed.
    Two hundred yards outside the breakwater, he cut the throttles back to reduce his own wake. The marker at the outside end of the alley was flashing red against night-black water.
    He picked up the hand-held VHF he had brought aboard. Blackbird wouldn’t have any proper electronics until after she was commissioned.
    â€œBlue Water Marine, Blue Water Marine, Blue Water Marine, this is Blackbird outside the breakwater.”
    The response was immediate.
    â€œ Blackbird, this is Blue Water Marine, switch and answer on six-eight.”
    He twisted the channel selector and punched the transmit button. “Blue Water, this is Blackbird . You have somebody down there to catch a line?”
    The man-made marina looked calm in the deceptive light, but tidal currents could be a bitch.
    â€œWith those pod drives, you won’t need help,” Bob Lovich said, “but we’re coming down to watch.”
    Whatever, Mac thought impatiently, and punched the send button instead of answering. The worst part of this job is owners who don’t know as much as they think they do.
    No matter what the spec sheet said, Blackbird was an untried boat. It took a lot of arrogance, plus a full helping of stupidity, to assume that the spec sheets were the same as the actual boat in the water.
    He pulled the engines out of gear, flipped off the engine synchronizer, and stepped out onto the main deck. Quickly he coiled bow and stern lines and placed them on the gunwale where someone on the dock could reach them. Because he was cautious, he put most of the weight of the lines on the inside half of the gunwale. If something went wrong, the lines would slide to the deck, rather than into the sea, where they could tangle with the props and cripple the boat.
    Caution was also why he tied fenders on the dock side of the boat. He didn’t want sudden wind or current to push him against the dock and mar Blackbird ’s hull. Salt washed off. Scrapes didn’t.
    As he stepped back into the cabin, he heard the radio’s impatient crackle.
    â€œStop wasting our time playing with fenders, Mac,” Lovich said.