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then
Ryan would probably be dead. Or badly wounded. If it missed, he had a second
or so to dive beneath the dark, impenetrable water and try to swim as far as
possible from him before breaking surface again.
"Which way?" Ryan said to the waves that rolled inexorably around him.
The man could easily have a second knife, could be coming straight at Ryan,
under the mirrored surface of the Lantic.
Just for a handful of heartbeats, Ryan felt the fluttering approach of panic.
Once he had visited, twenty years ago now, a frontier gaudy that had both
electric power and a working antique vid player. There'd been a scratched copy
of some predark film about a great white shark that came up and swallowed a
naked girl, swimming in the sea at dead of night.
It had always impressed Ryan, touching some primitive and atavistic terror.
Mildred had recently said that ninety percent of all shark attacks took place
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in less than five feet of water. Ryan didn't know if it was true or not, but
he knew that he felt as exposed as a dog turd on a wedding dress.
The one place he guessed the Seminole wouldn't be trying for was back to the
beach. He'd be too visible too soon if he swam that way.
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Moving a little faster than he really intended, Ryan stumbled on the shifting
shingle as he ran for the land, battling against water that seemed to have a
thousand hands, all tugging at him to stop his reaching safety.
Panting, he finally made it to the dry sand, holding the panga out in front of
him like a religious icon, shaking his wet hair from his face.
But the Indian seemed to have totally disappeared into the night.
Ryan waited and watched.
Unless he'd drowned, the man was going to have to come up for air in the next
ten or fifteen seconds, thirty seconds at the very outside.
Ryan bit his lip, cursing his decision to walk out without wearing a blaster
on his hip. If he'd been carrying his trusty 9 mm SIG-Sauer, there was enough
moonlight for him to be certain of picking off the escaping Indian. At that
range he could have put a single round through either eye.
"There."
A dark head cautiously broke the surface, fifty or sixty yards off, turning
toward the beach. The Indian saw Ryan standing and watching him, helpless to
do anything to stop him from swimming away to safety.
It crossed Ryan's mind to follow the Seminole along the shoreline, forcing him
to stay out in the Lantic. But if the man was strong enough in the water he
could lure
Ryan so far away from the relative security of the institute that he could
find himself blundering into an ambush.
The Indian yelled something to Ryan, the words vanishing into the night. But
his gesture, with a middle finger raised, was unmistakable.
There was no profit in entering into a slanging match of insults with someone
beyond the power of harming, so Ryan spun on his heel and began to walk toward
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the distant light of the buildings.
Then he heard a strange sound, the clicking of dolphins, clear in the
stillness, followed by a yell of shock and pain from the swimmer.
There were a half dozen of the creatures, circling the Seminole, as though
they were a pack of wolves driving a recalcitrant buffalo. The sea was whipped
up by their tails as they closed in on the helpless man, butting him and
pushing him toward the shoreline.
Ryan blinked. He'd sheathed the panga, but now he drew it once more in a
whisper of sound.
"I'll be& "
It was done with unbelievable speed and efficiency, almost as if the graceful
mammals had been specifically trained to perform the capture.
"Hey, help me!"
"Fuck you!"
"Please. They're goin' to drown me."
"I don't think so."
"Help!"
"I don't reckon to help a piss-yellow bastard who was going to stab me in the
back."
Now he was barely waist deep, spinning around and around to try to push off
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the dolphins as they nudged him farther into the shallows. He might as well
have tried to harness a war wag with a length of wet string.
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Ryan waited patiently, glancing behind to make sure they were still alone.
Now they were less than ten yards apart.
"Let me go, mister."
"Why?"
"I haven't seen you before. You mebbe outlander? Not from white-coat place?"
"What difference does that make?"
The dolphins were now lying in a patient semicircle a few feet from their
captive, closing off any hope of escape toward the open sea. Their whistling
and clicking had ceased, and they were quite silent.
The Seminole shook his head wearily. "You right. Don't make no difference."
Ryan was taken by surprise when the man suddenly came splashing out of the
water toward him, fingers clawing in an attack of hopeless fury.
It was so hopeless that it nearly worked.
The panga wasn't a weapon designed for close-quarter subtle fighting. It was a
long, broad hacking blade, for swinging rather than thrusting.
But the point was sharp enough as Ryan jabbed it out to check the attacker,
feeling it slice in at the side of the ribs, drawing a fountain of warm blood.
The Indian staggered, but still tried to twist away and run up the sloping
beach toward the possible safety of the line of brush and palm trees.
Ryan was after him, not intending to allow a second chance of escape.
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