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the waist of his sarong. 
    “ Shadow Chaser , Shadow Chaser , this is Shadow Mobile .”
    A few seconds later the radio crackled to life. “ Shadow Mobile , where the hell are you?”
    “Switch?” he said, and the voice acknowledged. They switched to the VHF radio channel they always used. He didn’t want to broadcast his location in case they were listening. Once Cole explained how he had arrived, his first mate grudgingly agreed to pump up the spare dinghy and come ashore to pick him up.
    Twenty minutes later, he heard the oars splashing as his mate struggled to row the tiny boat in through the cove’s small surf. In the deepening dusk, he could make out neither the man’s dark skin nor the black rubber dinghy against the dark water of the bay.
    “Over here,” Cole said, stepping out of the shadows.
    The dinghy ground onto the shore and Theo Spenser stumbled onto the beach, the rope in the bottom of the tiny inflatable dinghy wrapped around one of his long legs. When he managed to disentangle himself and straighten up, he stood almost half a foot taller than Cole.
    “Quite a landing, Theo.”
    “Mon, I hate this boat,” Theo said in his clipped, British-sounding English. “It scares the crap out of me.” He adjusted the wire-rimmed glasses on his face and peered down at Cole. “Is that a skirt you’re wearing?”
    “I’m starting a new fashion craze.”
    “The Scots beat you to it.”
    “That’s me. Always a day late and a dollar short.” Cole bent over the small rubber dinghy and began to adjust the oarlocks.
    “I’ve heard people call you ‘a few cards short of a full deck,’ but the day late one is a new addition to your repertoire.”
    Cole stood up with the dinghy line in his hand. He smiled. “I’m always striving to upgrade.”
    “What did you do with the Whaler, anyway?”
    “It’s a long story.”
    “As usual. And where did you get the radio?” Theo took it from Cole’s hand and held it close to his face to examine it. “It’s a rather nice one,” he said nodding. “Waterproof.” 
    “I’ll tell you the story when we get out to the boat.” Cole put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “And on the way out, I’ll row.”
    Once off the beach, the swells were gentle rollers, so Cole took the opportunity to row facing forward and admire his boat as they approached. Shadow Chaser was sixty-four feet overall, a former shrimper he’d bought in Fernandina and then spent six months converting over to a research and salvage vessel. Her navy blue hull was barely visible against the dark foliage across the bay, but the accommodation lights in the wheelhouse reflected off the water. From her business-like raked bow the lines of her hull swept aft with a slight hollow in her sheer to the lovely rounded transom. God, she was a beauty. She still had her big A-frame crane aft and the outriggers in place, so she looked like the work boat she was, not like some Ivy League asshole’s yacht. But it was Theo who had really done magic with the money they raised. 
    The kid was amazing. Cole had been teaching in the Maritime Studies program at East Carolina when he met him on the docks at Ocracoke. Theo had arrived one morning as a crewman on a gleaming white motoryacht. Cole was down in the launch, trying to clean the carburetor on an old Johnson outboard when this tall, gangly black kid came over and asked if he could have a look. From Cole’s vantage point, squinting up at the young man, he couldn’t make out any features in his face. The sun behind his head made him look like he had a brilliant celestial aura, and he spoke with an Oxford accent that sounded more like it belonged on Masterpiece Theatre than on a greasy, salt-baked dock on the Outer Banks.
    “You know anything about outboards?” Cole asked. “‘Cuz I’m just about ready to give up on this one.”
    When the young man jumped down into the wooden tender, Cole saw his skin and hair were the brownish black of one who’d