"I think that's reverse harassment," Clay said to Nate.

"I may be having hallucinations," said Nate.

"No, she really said that," Clay said.

* * *

After Quinn had left, Amy climbed into the Always Confused and began untying the stern line. She glanced over her shoulder to look at the forty-foot cabin cruiser where Captain Tarwater posed on the bow looking like an advertisement for a particularly rigid laundry detergent — Bumstick Go-Be-Bright, perhaps.

"Clay, you ever heard of a uniformed naval officer accompanying a researcher into the field before?"

Clay looked up from doing a battery check on the GPS. "Not unless the researcher was working from a navy vessel. Once I was along on a destroyer for a study on the effects of high explosives on resident populations of southern sea lions in the Falkland Islands. They wanted to see what would happen if you set off a ten-thousand-pound charge in proximity to a sea lion colony. There was a uniformed officer in charge of that."

Amy cast the line back to the dock and turned to face Clay. "What was the effect?"

"Well, it blew them the fuck up, didn't it? I mean, that's a lot of explosives."

"They let you film that for National Science?"

"Just stills," Clay said. "I don't think they anticipated it going the way it did. I got some great shots of it raining seal meat." Clay started the engine.

"Yuck." Amy untied the bumpers and pulled them into the boat. "But you've never seen a uniformed officer working here? Before now, I mean."

"Nowhere else," Clay said. He pulled down the gear lever. There was a thump, and the boat began to creep forward.

Amy pushed them away from the surrounding boats with a padded boat hook. "What do you think they're doing?"

"I was trying to find out this morning when you guys came in. They loaded an awfully big case before you got here. I asked what it was, and Tarwater got all sketchy. Cliff said it was some acoustics stuff."