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SMOKE WHIRLED ACROSS the Coquina roofs in the grip of a rising storm wind A lamp had been thrown over in a tinderbox shack near the wharfs, and red tendrils of fla sparks spread, rapidly devouring other dwellings, leaping fro in fiery timbers on the bodies that lay beneath

The fires took hold, strengthened by the wind, and began to gnaay at the semicircle of shanties clustered around the harbor The reddish light in the sky grew in intensity, the sea e, broken only by the noise of wood giving way beneath the fires and the thrashing of the ocean against Kiss Bottom Still, there remained the echoes of chaos, the screa that had spilled through s and doorways

Kip roared through the s in tatters around his chest, ashes all over hied scratches on his throat and cheeks His eyebrows had been singed, the flesh around the to avoid the bodies littering High Street as he headed down for the harbor A corpse lay in a doorway franition - and another - a side A body sprawled directly in his path, a mass of torn flesh he had known as James Davis; he wrenched the wheel to one side and whipped past More bodies, led, eyes lifted to the sky; the blood, the head almost torn from the body Windows above the Landfall Tavern had been shattered, and he saw the heavyset wohtless eyes There was a rotting corpse cru even in death; a young girl - yes, the high yellow on her way to Trinidad - now beaten and torn, her beauty ravaged He shuddered, looked aas forced to look back to keep froe just before they attacked in full force; he had fired his rifle at them, struck some of them doith his jeep, shouted until he was hoarse to alert the sleeping islanders But he had known he was too late He heard the screalass and doors There were toowith death He&039;d fought the to pull him from his jeep, and then he had raced to protect his own family

And there he had found his house a sha his eyes, he had rushed inside His wife and daughter were gone There was a smear of blood across a wall, a bullet hole in a door, another in afraht his way out of there, sobbing, not knowing if they were alive or slaughtered

Kip saw figures struggling through the pall of smoke as he neared the harbor He tensed, slammed on his brakes, and reached for the rifle on the seat beside hi fro wildly past hilazed,he could do

Except one thing

He jammed his foot to the floor, blared the horn to avoid a h a doorway into the street The jeep roared along the harbor through the blazing heat A bucket brigade had been started, theWet hined and shrilled; to Kip it sounded like what he i froht sound like

"WHERE ARE YOU!" he shouted, his throat raw "WHERE ARE YOU!" S his mouth But he knehere they were

It ar War, just as it had been in 1942 Time had stood still for the U-boat&039;s crew, and noas frozen for the villagers as well But this was not war It was a massacre, a hideous and inhuman massacre of the innocents But, that was the way it was done, wasn&039;t it? War always took the innocents first, and then the things that had done the killing slipped back into the shadows to wait and plan for another day By all that was holy, he swore he would kill as many as he could with his bare hands if need be He left the burning village behind, sweat and tears e of as to coh the reuiding the wheel and the other gripping his rifle The naval shelter lay before hi it for an instant The dooras open He stopped the jeep, leaped over its side, and ran toward the shelter with the rifle clasped in his ar noise that seemed to make the earth tre, neeat beading up on his face The noise ca the shelter&039;s walls The distant sound of thunder, yes, thunder

"Noooooooo," Kip hissed through clenched teeth, his"NO!" He took a step forward

The noise died away, caround tre bulkhead cruish step at a tiainst the brittle wind, the words flying out to all directions "GODDAMN YOU, I WON&039;T LET YOU GET"

The bulkhead bent outward, a blister ofnoise

And froed

The battered propellors churned oily water; the boat&039;s aft deck slid out, then the conning tower Kip could see fore He raised the rifle and fired, hearing the bullet ricochet off iron The U-boat e froth of it shuddered froines It radually, the iron protesting, toward the reef passage with foaround itself over a skiff, rammed broadside into a small trawler at anchor and cast it away The sea was already filling the trawler&039;s shattered port deck Lightning jabbed the sky, and Kip saw the ironaway froan to e of white-capped breakers Kip ran past the water&039;s edge and on into the sea, bringing the rifle up, firing without aiun jammed; the U-boat was out of the harbor now, the ocean thundering against its hull, and when the next sheet of lightning caht, on a final and terrifying voyage

The waves thrashed around his knees, al within the eht Boat, the most terrible of all creatures of the deep "Nooooo," he whispered "I won&039;t let you get away"

Lightning flashed overhead, and the thunder&039;s booe and victorious

Rain began to fall, first in single heavy drops, then in sheets that rippled across the sea Kip stood in the downpour, his eyes fixed on the limitless blackness Very slowly he made his way out of the water and when he reached shore he cruht of the stor the h the curtains of rain They were Caribs, Moore realized, although he didn&039;t recognize any of the into a part of Coquina he didn&039;t know He could see the glihts in the distance The crowded shacks took shape out of the rain, and he saw the outline of thedown to the north harbor Caribville One of the Indians stepped fro back the way they&039;d come, with a rifle across his knees Another took his position a few yards away

The streets were eunshots The roup split in different directions; he motioned with his head for Moore and Jana to follow, and he led them to a shack where an oil lamp burned behind ascreen He opened the door and waved thelow of low-burning lamps, the faint smell of tar and tobacco and food An e in a chair in front of a cast-iron stove Her hair was knotted behind her head; her leathery flesh was stretched tight over her prominent facial bones Another woman, perhaps in her late thirties, stepped away froe room; Moore could see another in the back There were a few chairs, a sun-faded wooden table with a lamp set at its center, cane blinds across the s, a rass on the floor Fraazines hung froun rack, now e a beautifully carved and s on its oiled surface Its triangular teeth were bared, the eyes set in a fierce, warriorlike glare

Moore put his ar her as the man closed and bolted the door behind thery red welt on one cheek

Thedroplets of water froun in the rack At once the younger woe He didn&039;t reply, but waved her back to her place Across the room the old woman rocked back and forth, her hands clenched in her lap, her gaze boring through Moore&039;s skull She hed abruptly

The e hand and stepped toward Moore With the light falling directly upon theed face The eyes were as hard and cold as chunks of new granite

"Who are you?" Moore asked hi woman, who hurried from the room She returned a moment later with a brown blanket and offered it to Moore, but he could see no charity in her face; he took it and wrapped it gently around Jana&039;s shoulders

The Carib held the la his flesh the color of waxed aze and motioned with the lalish, his voice like the ruine "The storm will follow"

"You saved our lives," Moore said "If you hadn&039;t"

"There arenow," the Carib said His speech pattern had a mixture of British and West Indian rhythht be fairly well educated "Your naht the hotel, aren&039;t you?" He stood like a ht"

"What happened to your shoulder?"

"I can&039;t re"

"Broken bone?"

Moore shook his head

The ht across Jana&039;s face Behind hi

"What place is this?" Jana asked

"My village My house" He looked from one to the other "I am Cheyne, Chief Father of the Caribs"

And now Moore made the connection: The man reminded him of that statue in the Square Cheyne, a distant ancestor of the chieftain who&039;d battled pirates?

"Those things" Jana said softly She picked at the dried blood on her lower lip and then raised her face to Moore&039;s "What about Schiller?"

"Dead," he replied, his e of Schiller pinned to the floor He weaved back and forth, the pain now fla under his flesh Cheyne spoke to the woain He clamped a firm hand around Moore&039;s arm and eased him into a chair Cheyne motioned for Jana to sit on theher knees up to her chin and pulling the blanket around her Then Cheyne withdrew a gleaed blade fro stone froan to draw the blade slowly across it; then he walked over to theand stood peering out Moore sat silent with his head in his hands

"The constablethat boat into the harbor" Cheyne said suddenly "A long tiain It&039;s not a , and it has the soul of Hehue, the serpent"