But, look—the men in the Dorado didn’t see anything of the schooner at all?”

“No. They watched with binoculars until it got dark, but they didn’t really search the area. She might have been in over the Bank somewhere. Maybe anchored.”

“Not for long, unless they were gluttons for punishment,” he said. “Except in a dead calm, it’d be like riding a roller-coaster. With fifty to seventy-five miles of open water to windward—”

“But it’s all real shallow—or is shoal the word you use? Less than four fathoms, according to the chart.”

“It can still kick up a nasty chop, in any breeze at all. Not to mention the surge running in from the Santaren Channel. It’s more likely they were in trouble of some kind.”

“Then she might be still there. Will you help me find her?”

“How?” he asked.

“How would I know?” she asked, rattling the ice in the glass. “That’s why I’m asking you. Maybe we could charter a boat?”

He shook his head. “You’d just be wasting money.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you realize what you’re up against. In the first place, that position you’ve got marked is where they think they were when they picked up the dinghy. Big-game fishing guides aren’t the world’s greatest navigators, as a rule. That far at sea, on dead reckoning, they could have been as much as twenty miles out. Add another thirty for the possible drift of the dinghy in the currents and tides along the edge of the Bank, and you’re in real trouble. You have any idea of the area of a circle with a radius of fifty miles?”

“God no, you figure it out.”

“Around eight thousand square miles. That’s not somebody’s front yard.”

“But—”

“Furthermore, that Bank is nothing to fool with—especially at night or in poor light conditions. It’s several thousand square miles of shoals, reefs, coral heads, and sand bars, and it’s poorly charted, especially down there where you want to go. But disregarding all that for the moment, what good would it do if you did get lucky and find her? Assuming, I mean, that the people who stole her are still aboard? There’s no way you can regain possession or have ‘em arrested until she goes into port somewhere; out on the open sea’s a poor place to try to call a cop.”

“Well, you’re sure not much help, are you?” she asked. “Or maybe you just don’t want the job? Can’t you use the money?”

He stifled the slow burn of anger. “I’m trying to keep you from throwing yours away. I’m just as interested in finding the Dragoon as you are, but you’ll never do it that way.”

“Well, what about a plane?”

“You’d have a better chance of finding her, if she’s still in that area. But you couldn’t get aboard, if you did.”

“At least I’d know where she is—and whether she’s in trouble. What kind of plane would it take?”

“An expensive one.”

“That doesn’t matter. Where can we get one?”

“Why do you keep saying we?” he asked. “If you charter a plane, what do you need me for?”

“As I said, for several reasons. You’re an experienced yachtsman. You’ve been sailing boats all your life. So you’d be able to tell if she was in trouble of some kind.