"You make it sound too easy by half." She leaned against him, wishing she could fully share his confidence. "But if we do manage to take the fort, what about Villa de la Vega?"
"The town'll have to surrender, sooner or later. They'll have no harbor. And this island can't survive without one."
She sighed and glanced back toward the shore. In the moonlight the blue mountains of Jamaica towered silently above the bay. Would those mountains some day stand for freedom in the Caribbean, the way Tortuga once did . . . ?
She sensed Winston's body tense and glanced up. He was gazing across the bay toward the shore, where a dim light had suddenly appeared. Then another, and another.
"Katy, I've waited a long, long time for this. Thinking about it, planning it. All along I always figured I'd be doing it alone. But your being here . . ." He seemed to lose the words as he held her against him. "Tonight we're about to do something, together, that'll change the Americas forever."
The oars bit into the swell and the dark waters of the bay slapped against the bark-covered prow, an ancient cadence he remembered from that long voyage north, ten years past. Where had all the years gone?
Behind him was a line of dugouts, a deadly procession of armed, grim-faced seamen. All men of Tortuga, not one among them still welcome in any English, French, or Dutch settlement.
Was it possible to start over with men like these? A new nation?
"Mira," Vargas whispered over the rhythm of the oars. His dark eyes were glistening as he pointed toward the entry to the harbor, a wide strait that lay between the Point of the Cayo de Carena and the mainland. Around them the light surf sparkled in the moonlight. "Is not this puerto the finest in all the Caribbean?" He smiled back at Winston, showing a row of tobacco-stained teeth. "No storm reaches here. The smallest craft can anchor safely, even in a huracan. "
"It's just like I figured. So the spot to situate our cannon really is right there on the Point. Do that and nobody could ever get into the bay."