Green Ice by Gerald A Browne Page A

dark suit, stood out. So did the chunky Indian because of his build. They had put their guns away, evidently satisfied to leave him to the sea. No doubt they still intended to keep an eye on him. If he swam up or down the coast, they would be waiting wherever he tried to come ashore.
    Unless they lost sight of him. Perhaps, he thought, he could swim far out, a half mile or so. At that distance, with only his head above water, he wouldn’t be visible from shore. Then he’d swim up the coast a ways and in to land.
    He removed his shoes and all his clothes. That helped.
    Now that the anesthesia of fright was wearing off, his side began to hurt. The salt water was getting to the wound. He floated on his back to get a look, saw it wasn’t serious, little more than a graze. There was a lot of blood, though.
    Sweet Jesus! That was why they were standing so complacently onshore. They knew he was bleeding. They’d let the sharks finish him. Of all the ways he didn’t want to go.…
    He kept his arms and legs moving.
    He thought he felt something woosh by beneath him. And again. Another. He believed he felt the scaley skin of a shark brush him as it went by. He thrashed the water, wasted energy. Don’t panic, he told himself. But he had plenty of reason to panic, out of his element, in the element of those shadowy lethal swimmers he’d observed from the breakwater yesterday. And he was no mealy apple.
    Something broke the surface no more than twenty feet away. A huge black slippery thing, a dripping black monster, came straight up out of the sea. A manta ray. With a wingspan of ten to twelve feet. At the peak of its leap, it spat out one of Wiley’s shoes, then flopped back into the water with a smack.
    Done for now, Wiley thought. He was already exhausted, yet couldn’t float to rest, had to keep in motion. He’d rather face those bastards on the beach. He would come out of the water bare-ass, hands up, so they might not kill him right off. Maybe he’d get the chance to explain, to persuade them to let him live. He started swimming to shore.
    He didn’t hear the Riva speedboat until it was practically on him. It seemed that it meant to run him down. At the last second it swerved, abruptly reversed its engine, so he swam right into the varnished side of it.
    The boat rolled in the swells, loomed and dipped.
    Wiley reached for it.
    A hand grabbed his wrist. A strong sailor hauled him out of the water as though he were a mere catch. Threw him roughly onto the rear passenger seat.
    Next to Lillian, who tossed a towel.

8
    She had a car waiting on one of the old docks of Manzanillo.
    A blue Rolls Royce Corniche convertible with top down. The same seventy-thousand-dollar beauty Wiley had used the day before for an impressive arrival at Las Hadas.
    “Argenti’s?” Wiley asked.
    “No.” She got into the driver’s seat.
    “Who let you borrow it?”
    “No one.”
    “You stole it?”
    “Cover yourself.”
    Dockworkers were snickering and shouting appropriate obscenities, because Wiley had on only a white terry-cloth robe, a full-length lady’s robe with the words Sea Cloud stitched on one of its pockets. It didn’t have a belt, so holding it closed made him appear mincy.
    Wiley didn’t care. He was suffering an adrenergic hangover from having been so high on danger and then so suddenly safe. Emotional bends.
    Lillian started the Rolls and drove slowly down the dock. She activated the electric top, snapped it in place. Evidently she was familiar with the car. Wiley sat favoring his right side, not to bloody the fine leather upholstery. His wound had soaked a large splotch through the robe. There would be a doctor at the hotel.
    “Perfect timing,” he said.
    “When?”
    “Out there off the beach. Too perfect.”
    “You might say thanks.”
    “Thanks, but you didn’t just happen along.”
    “I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
    “Why?”
    “At least I don’t go peeping over garden walls.”
    “Who