A Billion Ways to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

know.”
    In the months we’d spent on the boat, concentrating on thick books, hearty food and obsessive exercise, our bodies had become lean and fit, our minds fresh and bright and our anxieties thoroughly repressed. Though not obliterated, at least not for me. Somewhere locked in a bitter chamber of existential fear, part of me was waiting for a reckoning. Maybe not the final test, but proof that idylls were the stuff of other people’s dreams.
    So when those nightmare mercs descended on our blissful refuge, I was aghast, but not surprised.
    “Where are we going?” Natsumi asked.
    “Back to Saint Thomas, but I want to discuss.”
    “We need to get Omni.”
    “And bring her where?”
    “Wherever we go next.”
    “What if it’s London? Put her on a jet in cargo? Then quarantined?”
    She was quiet for a moment.
    “You’re saying she’s safe and secure with Ellsworth on Saint Thomas,” she said. “Leave her there till we sort this out.”
    “We have to assume everything on Detour is compromised. The computers, smartphones, nav equipment, documents, the works. And since they know Detour , they know the marina in Red Hook. That’s two identities blown.”
    “If they let us go, why do we care?”
    I knew she already had her own theories, and the question was mostly rhetorical.
    “Did they really let us go?” I said. “I don’t know.”
    “But here we are. Back on our boat.”
    “I know. Doesn’t make sense.”
    “So we shouldn’t go back to Red Hook.”
    “No. Saint John. Right next door.”
    We had just enough time before nightfall to reach the mooring field off Caneel Bay, a short dinghy ride from Cruz Bay on Saint John’s west coast, about five miles by water from Red Hook. Since we’d checked out of customs in the United States before entering BVI waters, we were supposed to check back in. Instead, we pulled together all the cash we could find—about eight hundred dollars—got in the dinghy and motored into town, leaving everything else on board, including the ID we’d used in the BVI.
    At the first tourist joint, I gave the bartender twenty bucks to let me use the house phone to call Ellsworth Brinks, the owner of our home marina in Red Hook, Saint Thomas.
    “Hey, folks, how’s the cruisin’?” he asked.
    “Truncated. How’s the pup?”
    “Enthusiastic. What’s up?”
    “We need to get back home in a hurry. We’ve got a lift to the airport. Can you come get the boat and hold on to Omni for a bit more?”
    “Sure, man. Hope it’s not trouble.”
    “No trouble. Just a thing we have to do.”
    “You’re paid six months out, so no trouble for me.”
    I told him where to find Detour . He’d send one of his men over in the morning. We traded the types of banalities sailors usually trade, then I got off the phone. From there we went into the shopping district and bought all new clothes and soft bags in which to carry them.
    We threw the old clothes in a dumpster behind the store and moved on to a very different kind of joint, a bit out of town and set like a bird’s nest on a pile of rocks thrust into a neighboring bay. The light was crepuscular, the music declarative and the drinks dispensed and consumed with abandon. The patrons were uniformly weather-beaten and wiry, regardless of age, with swaggers in various states of compromise.
    A wooden mast, complete with boom and a doused sail wrapped in its rigging, ran the length of the bar. Model sailboats on individual shelves covered the parts of the walls not laden with nets, portholes, framed charts, wooden ship wheels, barometers and other nautical totems.
    Most importantly for us, on a wall between the men’s and women’s rooms was a white board where you could list the name of your vessel, its length, beam and sail plan, departure date, destination and the type of crew you hoped to recruit. Likewise, loose crew could post their credentials and preferred commissions, though most checked the box “Will consider