Forlorn, Smith and Pedrito trudged along a flat, sandy beach on the bomb-battered Pirate Key. The bright sunshine, lapping waves, fresh air—and above all the peaceful silence, now that the two attacking warships had been sunk—made the small island into a Caribbean paradise. Both redheads negligently carried a rifle by the breech at hip level.
Ahead, they spotted a rubber inflatable boat drawn halfway up onto the beach. “Maybe we could take that raft and escape,” Pedrito suggested.
“Even if we got out of here, there’s no place to hide,” Smith said. “We’ve got to face it, the US is against us.”
“Yeah,” Pedrito said, “and Cuba and Russia are against us.”
“And we’re certainly not welcome back in Colodor … in fact, probably not anywhere in South America.”
Pedrito stopped as inspiration str
