Lorne and Catherine sat staring at the screen in silence for a long while. Finally, he spoke, "Your email? Any link to you? To here?"

"We set them up a couple of years ago when Nathan was being harassed by a restaurant owner. Had a security consultant do them." She took her eyes off the screen to look at him. "He said we were untraceable."

"Your business card, the one you gave Molly's. What's on it?"

"Name, well my logo K ate." She glanced around. "Here in my computer sheath." She pulled a card out and gave it to him.

"I've always loved that, your logo. Simple, to the point. So no name on it. The email address, your blog url and the Courier and VanEats logos."

"Same security consultant."

"Your blog profile. Anything there?"

She clicked to her blog, and they read through her About Me paragraph: I'm Vancouver born, and I grew up on West Coast cuisine and Eat Local thinking. I love the ethnic mix which has added magic to our tables, and I want to celebrate the finest of these with you. K

"Squeaky clean. No clues." He smiled at her. "This place is safer than the boat. Guess our loft is too."

"Loft?"

"Across the bridge, the Exchange, the old telephone building."

"You're in there? We had... Nathan had a friend with a place across the street. Yours is a listed Heritage Site, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's the oldest in the area, built in 1914 as the telephone exchange. I'm on the top floor with the original massive ceiling beams and the old brick walls. Funny, thinking about it now, that's where we were headed from La Luce before we diverted to the boat. Seems so long ago." He took a bite from a pizza wedge.

"You realise, don't you, we're still on our first date?"

He sat silent for several seconds, staring at her. "I've just counted. Not even a week yet. Six days. Six very full days."

"Yeah, and getting fuller." She pointed to her computer. "What do we do about Bottom Line?"

"Stay off Tastevin. I switched off her AIS transmitter when we arrived at Royal Van. It's still off." He ran his fingers through his hair. "They think she's there."

"So she's safe here, then."

"Until they want to do something. Stake-out the boat to watch for me... For us. They'll see we've foiled their tracking plan. That'll piss them further. They'll search."

"But there are so many marinas to search, so many boats."

"How many burgundy-hulled twenty-metre sailboats like her are around? She's easy to spot." He laughed. "The name on her hull also helps."

"Yeah, a day or two. So what do we do?"

"Stay away from Tastevin. Also away from here. Once they find her, they'll stake the area. We should think of moving to the loft tomorrow."

"Then what?" She stared at the samosa in her hand.

"Call the Mounties."

"I like that. Will they listen?"

"Took me several months to convince them to. Now I've a number and a code that take me straight to Ottawa."

"You've been doing this a long while, haven't you? Dodging the Georges and the Bottom Lines."

"Too long. You know the British game, Whack-a-Mole?"

"Yeah, I had the Mexican version of it, Guacamole. I loved playing with it, but impossible to beat."

"I've been doing the real one."

"Fuck! How long?"

"Since the end of my amnesia — 1999, when I started digging."

"So that led to the trial?"

"The trials." He picked up the pizza wedge again.

"How many?"

"I've stopped counting. I don't have to appear anymore, simply present my research to the Mounties."

"Surely you've whacked most of them now."

"You know Hydra?" He looked at the pizza and put it down.

"Yeah, the..." She sat up, wide-eyed. "Fuck, no!"

"Yeah, unfortunately. Big sympathetic brotherhood among these people. Big support. Take one down, a few more appear seeking revenge."

"Fuck!" She reached for his hand. "Come, cuddle time."

They held each other in a tight hug, gently rocking, then they lay back against the cushions in a cuddle as he started talking again. "The Mounties had me bait them, reposting Connolly's photos of me and leading them in. Child porn is the easiest conviction. It's tough to prove torture and causing bodily harm unless there are videos or photo sequences of them doing it with their face clearly showing, like Geor —"

There was a loud, sharp crack followed by a muffled explosion. They sat up, startled, then they stood to see what it was, but saw nothing except others on the balconies and on the walkway also looking around.

"Too loud for a car backfire. I don't know if cars even do that anymore." He looked at her and shrugged. They sat again on the patio couch, and Catherine opened her computer to check the hits on her blog.

"Wow, look at this. It's now —"

She was interrupted by Lorne jumping to his feet and rushing to the rail as he muttered, "Fuck! The bastards."

She looked up and saw the billow of black smoke rising from the marina. "No! Oh, fuck!" She rushed to join him at the rail as black smoke poured out through Tastevin's ventilation cowls, followed soon by flames.

She grabbed his arm. "We should go down to —"

"Last thing we should do. They want us to." He hugged her, and they watched. He pulled out his phone and punched 9-1-1. "Swamped already with this, I'm sure."

Catherine's iPhone pinged. She looked across at it, then back at Lorne when he said, "Check it. Could be them."

She opened her computer, logged in, opened the new email and sat staring at it with a hand to her mouth.

"Them?" He disconnected the 9-1-1 and sat beside her.

She nodded as she turned the screen to him.

In case you weren't aboard for the big bang... That was our Boat-no-Boat demonstration. Next, it's Penis-no-Penis. Delete your post or we delete yours.

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