He looked like a man to Valentine, and he didn't see any dogs. The man's eager eyes implored him across the sea of straw hats in the market, and he held out the bottle again. "Have a taste-you'll want more."
Valentine reached for the bottle, and one of the guards rewarded Dog-boy with a crack across the wrist with a baton. It dropped, but Valentine's reflexes saved it from crashing to the cobblestones.
"You don't want his piss, sailor sir."
Valentine sniffed the open mouth of the bottle. His ears picked up the sound of something clinking against the glass within. Dog-boy had disappeared into the crowd.
"Maybe I don't. I've got a drain that needs unclogging on board-I'll use it on that."
Valentine kept the bottle in his hand for the remainder of the session in the market, using it as a pointer. The purser and his men hauled their acquisitions back to the dock, yet another set of round trips were ahead for the motor launch.
Once back on board, past the Grogs hungrily eyeing the supplies coming alongside, he took his bottle down to the cabin and emptied it down the drain. Whatever was within refused to come out, so he smashed the bottle against the steel sink. A wooden tube, lacquered and stoppered, had been stuck inside. He examined it for a moment, then pulled out the cork, and extracted a rolled-up note from the tube:
To officer with black hair and scar-
I will come to your ship tonight after midnight.
I will swim to the anchor chain.
Must keep clear of soldiers in boats.
-Victo
Valentine read the note twice, then got Ahn-Kha and took it up to Carrasca.
"Is he telling us there is danger from soldiers in boats? Or that he has to swim clear of them?" Ahn-Kha asked, after the note had been passed around in the cabin.
"The Oerlikon could sink any number of boats," Carrasca said. "I've looked around the harbor. They have a lot of those canoe fishing boats. I suppose they could put a couple hundred men in the water, but we'd sink them before they got halfway here. But we might want to shift anchorage, farther out."
Valentine shook his head. "He'll have a tough enough swim as it is. Let's wait until he's on board."
There was a rap at the door, and a teenager entered. "Captain, one of those rowboats dropped off a letter," he reported.
"Thank you, Lloyd," Carrasca said, opening it.
"Today is a day for notes," Ahn-Kha observed.
She handed it to Valentine. "An invitation to a dinner and beach party in our honor tomorrow night. However many officers and men as I choose to bring. I smell a rat with a nice mustache."
"We'll make some excuse tomorrow during the day," Valentine said. "A radio message. As long as this Victo is on board, we can take our leave of El Capitaen Boul."
"You think he means to take hostages?" Carrasca asked. "Why didn't he do it today? There must have been ten or twelve men on shore at various times. He could have taken you and your party. That would have given him something to bargain with."
"He could be waiting for orders."
"Huevos. The man's a schemer-I could read his eyes," she said, touching the corner of her own. "He may be playing us false, but it's to his own purposes."
"I'm going to arm Ahn-Kha's Grogs and what's left of my marines. You might want to have the machine guns ready tonight."
"They'll be manned. I want everyone to have a chance at fresh food, though. There's an old tradition at sea to give your men a good feed before action." Her expression softened into that of the woman he'd played mah-jongg with in Jamaica. "Would you care to have dinner with me in the cabin?"
"Far be it from me to break with tradition," Valentine said.
The food tasted better in the cooler night air. Valentine put on a plain white shirt with his best pair of pants fresh from the laundry and went lightly up the stairs to Carrasca's cabin. Askin, her only lieutenant, answered the door. A handsome young Jamaican with hair cropped so short it made Valentine think of peach fuzz, Askin was dressed in a trim black uniform decorated with a heavy silver whistle on a thick chain. A linen covering added a formal note to the table in the wardroom. The Thunderbolt's, best plates and cutlery lay upon it.
"We really should have asked Post, as well," Carrasca said. She wore the same blue uniform Valentine remembered from the dinner at Commodore Jensen's, though now it bore an epaulette on the right shoulder.
"He's only just started walking," Valentine reported.