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CHAPTER TEN: THE SEA WOLF Cassidy swore. Lisa grabbed my arm—or did I grab hers? The Sea Wolf moved slowly against the low stars. How did they know we were here? The smoke from our fire! They must have seen it from miles away. Luckily the fire had long been drowned by the tide, and our kayaks were drawn up into the forest, hidden from the sea. We held still. Silent. The boat rose and fell with the swells and motored slowly down the beach. I was about to relax when it turned around, just beyond the surf, and the spotlight slid across the sand again. But even if they wanted to, how could they land their fishing boat in this surf? The answer soon came. They dropped anchor— maybe two soccer fields away down the beach and about half that far out—and lowered a dinghy from their stern deck. Three men climbed into it, and one manned the oars and pointed the small boat toward shore. It bobbed through the surf, and for a moment I thought it would capsize. But whoever handled it knew what he was doing. When they were close enough, in the backwash of the rollers, all three men managed to scramble out and splash ashore. Above them, a bone-white moon floated toward the west. I gasped. Each man held a weapon at the ready: one a rifle, the other two spearguns. Moonlight glinted off the metal. Proof! I thought. Proof of what I had thought all along: these were bad guys. Smugglers. My whole body clenched up. How do you breathe when it feels like life as you know it is about to end? When life, period, is about to end? The three men stopped halfway up the beach, then split up. One of the speargun men headed down the beach; the other two came toward us. The two men with spearguns flicked on flashlights at the same time, walking in opposite directions. The leader gripped his rifle, sweeping it side-to-side, sighting through an ultraviolet scope, which would make his targets glow in the dark. Cassidy swore again, crouched down beside me. Lisa said nothing, but I could hear her grinding her teeth. I thought of the Swiss Army knife in my pants pocket. I thought of Lisa’s pepper spray. And I thought about how they would do against two spearguns and a rifle. My heart raced, but time stood still.
