Dangerous Waters, page 25
The wind continued to die. Seven, four, two knots. Just over fourteen miles out south from Brenton Reef, Dark Dancer turned into the wind and I heard her engine start. “Furl your sails,” Nick called. “Then turn on your spreader lights.”
I did what he said. He swung the Dancer up behind me, with a bow line already through the chock and the bitter end looped back onto the pulpit. His lights remained off. Apparently he felt vulnerable throwing the line to me; perhaps he was afraid I’d hit him with the boat hook. I’d already rejected it as a weapon. Although a rigid tip extended two inches beyond the hook, unless I had an opportunity to jam it into his eye, I probably wouldn’t be able to do much damage. The whole thing was hollow, designed to be buoyant and compact: two aluminum tubes fitted into one like a telescope so that it could be extended from five feet in its collapsed state up to twelve.
Better to put a flare into his chest at pointblank range, I figured.
I snagged the line and hauled the Dancer up, keeping crouched low so that Nick couldn’t shoot me without also chewing up the deck.
“Your little friend whispered in my ear that she’d like to join you.” Nick walked Linda up to the bow. She was free from the sail bag, but her hands were tied in front. Nick had the shotgun at her head, and I could not use the flare gun anyway, since she was in the line of fire.
I helped Linda climb aboard. I gave her arm a squeeze, and she lifted her bound hands up, saying, “This is carrying fear of women to an extreme, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re dangerous, you know that.”
Nick turned the shotgun directly on me. “Drop that pole. Where are the flares?”
“What?” I asked, stepping back so Linda would follow, maneuvering us both into the cockpit.
“Get up here,” he snapped.
I held Linda’s arm. She waited. We were easily within his range, and apparently at the end of the line. If he didn’t shoot now, I figured my little theory was correct.
I put my hands out, and let my voice shake, which was easy enough to do. “Calm down. Look, you want the flares, they’re down below as usual. You want me to get them?”
“No. I want you to get up here and lift your sweater. You had enough time on the boat to remember them. Now get up here.”
I shook my head.
He stepped on board quickly and jammed the shotgun against Linda’s chest. “Now or later,” he said. “You want to make the decision for her?”
I threw the flare gun onto the seat cushion.
“Partners for all these years—I knew you’d be resourceful.”
I included the flares, figuring they were useless without the gun, and he would find the knife if he searched me. Then he had me pull the toolbox out of the port cockpit locker and open up the cockpit hatch down to the engine. He knew right where I kept everything, and I took some comfort in his apparent failure to remember the knives. Then again, I hadn’t figured out a way to use them without getting Linda and me shot.
“Take a screwdriver, get down there, and take the hose off the cockpit-drain through-hull valve.” He dug into his pocket and handed me a rusted and broken hose clamp. “Put that around it first, then take the good one off and hand it to me.”
So he intended to sink us. The hose was as thick as my wrist; once I pulled it off the valve, seawater would flood the boat. But he apparently was thinking in terms of the boat passing some sort of police inspection afterward, meaning he did not have his own suicide in mind.
Good.
I crawled down into the tight compartment. The engine smelled strongly of oil, and it was too dark to see the through-hull valve clearly. Looking up at Nick, I noticed the handle of the boat hook just over my head, where I had laid it on the port cockpit seat. “There’s a flashlight in the bin just forward of the galley,” I said dully. “One of you get it and aim it down here for me.”
He looked at me suspiciously, but indeed the angle was wrong for the spreader lights to do any good. “Okay, Linda, I’ve got something for you to do for me, too. While you’re doing it, remember all it would take for me to fill that cabin with shot is to pull the trigger.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out two plastic bags and tossed one to each of us. Coke. “Put those in your pockets.”
“No.” She looked at him defiantly.
He started toward her, and I said curtly, “Linda, remember what you tell your swim class. You can get through this.”
Nick laughed derisively. “You can’t really, but do what I say anyhow.”
I pocketed the dope. She stared at me, but shoved the coke into her jeans. It was awkward for her to do with her bound hands, but nowhere near as awkward as it would be for her to stay afloat. I hoped she understood my message and was prepared. She went below.
“Okay,” Nick said to her. “Push that little red button by the stove. See it? Good.”
Apparently, he planned a propane explosion for us as well.
“Now turn the burners on, but don’t light them.” His voice rose. “Leave the cabin lights off! Okay, now come on up.”
He sat down carefully, opened the stern locker where the propane tanks were stored, and twisted the knob; I could hear the hiss of the escaping gas down in the cabin. I figured it would take a few minutes before the gas made its way past the stairway that closed off the engine compartment from the main cabin.
The flashlight snapped on. Linda was now standing on the cockpit seat on the starboard side, her eyes fixed on me. The light washed over the engine. One of my three batteries—the one mounted a foot and a half up and to the side of the driveshaft—was missing the cover of its plastic case. I remembered I had taken it off when I was working on the engine at the mooring, seemingly months ago.
“What’s keeping you, Riley?”
I yanked the drain hose off.
Under the flashlight beam, seawater gushed out in a silver fountain. My instinct was to jam something in the hole, to stop the flood, but instead I rested my knee against the base of the battery box and said to Nick, “You’re screwing up.”
“That so?” He had the flare gun in his belt now, and he gave it a pat. “Seems to me you’re the one whose boat is sinking, who tried to make a run with your little chick—”
“—who runs below, gets his flare gun, and what? Trips on the stairway? Just panics and lets the flare go off inside the boat, causing a propane explosion? You figure you can shoot one into the cabin of my boat from the deck of the Dark Dancer, huh? Pretty farfetched, isn’t it? The leak, propane, and flare all going wrong at one time?”
“So what? Murphy’s Law. That’s the way it goes on boats, you know that. The Coast Guard sees examples of it all year long. Besides, they won’t have more than a few pieces and an oil slick to check.”
The water sloshed just under my knee now.
“And if they find our bodies with a residue of cocaine in our pants, you think that’ll be enough. Guilty couple die while sailing away. Justice served.”
“Something like that.” He put the gun directly on Linda. “You first. Get below.”
I could smell the propane now. The water was over my knee. “What about when they find your body? Won’t that throw off your little scenario?”
He grinned. “You threatening?”
I shook my head and pointed to the black water slopping just inches from the top of the battery box. “I told you. You’re screwing up. What do you think is going to happen when the water hits the battery and everything shorts out?”
Even in the bad light, I could see his face go slack. He looked over at the cabin, and the gun barrel moved between me and Linda. I reached over my shoulder, took hold of the boat hook, and swung it in a whistling arc down onto the gun. “Jump!” I cried to Linda.
But he pulled the shotgun away and was bringing it to bear on me when she went for it. He punched her in the chest with the butt, then swung the barrel around to her face as I scrambled up into the cockpit. I shoved the boat hook up over my head, parallel to the cockpit sole. It lifted the barrel just enough; flame brushed Linda’s hair, but the shot went over her head. I looped the hook around and shoved her to the rail myself. She lost her balance, then kicked off, turning her fall into a dive.
Nick pumped the gun fast, and I used the boat hook to shove it back against his chest, then swung the handle into his groin. Nick cried out, and I slapped the pole against his head. But the lightweight aluminum wasn’t enough to put him down, and he butted me in the face.
Grit of kinky hair, hard bone. A cracking noise, horrendous pain. My nose was broken, and I felt my knees buckle.
It was pure luck that I was able to deflect the gun one more time. I jumped overboard. I dove as deep as I could, but the boat hook’s buoyancy brought me back to the surface. I kicked away on the surface, my shoulders hunched, waiting for the shot. But Nick had apparently decided to get clear of the Spindrift. I heard the engine of the Dancer racing, and saw it backing away.
I called out to Linda.
No answer.
The Spindrift blew.
There was a muffled crump, then a huge billow of orange flame ripped the cabin roof and deck right off. A blast of hot air laden with debris swept along the water’s surface, and I ducked below again, hoping for God’s sake Linda was doing the same, and would answer me when I surfaced.
34
But she didn’t. I thrashed about the surface, yelling her name. The flames from the boat made the water come alive; orange light reflected off the swells. Minutes went by as I waited in the cold emptiness, lifting and falling, calling for her at the top of my lungs.
I lost it finally. All of it came up like bile. Cursing rage, beating at the water with my hands, beating at the sea as if my anger would be enough to propel me across the water to kill my former friend. I was alone. So damn alone. His treachery, Ellen’s, my own inability to see what was happening to us. All the people killed around me. And now Linda. She had told me she could survive anything, and under the pressure of Nick’s gun, I had held on to that statement like a talisman and pushed her overboard with her hands bound.
I fell back into the water, exhausted. The sound of Dark Dancer grew louder. The Spindrift’s fire was roaring close to the waterline now. Sometimes I would lose sight and sound of her altogether in the heavier swells.
I was down in one of the troughs when I made the connection: Linda had gone over just a little earlier than me, and even though the wind was dead, the swells were strong enough so that the boat was drifting quickly—and with her bound hands she was surely using the drownproofing technique, so that most of the time she would be underwater, and at least several boat lengths away from me.
The chances of her hearing me were therefore virtually nil, but she could still be alive.
After snagging the boat hook on my belt, I began swimming parallel to the Spindrift. Every ten breaths, I stopped to look in the direction of the flames, using the boat to provide a backdrop of light. The water was cold, and I was fast becoming chilled. Neither of us would last long at this rate. The sixth stop, I saw something. Waited down in the trough, came up, saw nothing. Again. Nothing. Third time up, two swells away, her head lifted out of the water, then she went back down.
The pain in my ribs and from the broken nose just let me know I was still alive as I sprinted a dozen fast strokes over to her. It was too dark to see her expression as she came up, but when I grasped her shoulders, she said, simply, “Hands.”
“Float on your back.” Pulling her arms back over her head, I towed her along, and used the knife I had tucked into my belt to cut the line.
She tread water, her face white in the moonlight as she took a few deep breaths. “I knew you’d find me. I just took that one breath at a time, telling myself it didn’t matter if you came on that one or the next, or a hundred later—you’d come. Thought I heard you, and called out once or twice, but mainly I just breathed.” She kissed me, then murmured, “Don’t worry, I won’t panic,” as we slipped a few feet underwater. I hugged her, finding a core of warmth through the touch of our cold skin that denied being fourteen miles from land, with no boat, and Nick only minutes away. We floated slowly back to the surface and tasted air, then turned to face Dark Dancer.
She was between us and the Spindrift now. A powerful flashlight swept back and forth in an arc from the bow. The beam flowed past once, then snapped back, finding us. The flashlight beam jerked as Nick moved back to the stern to take the wheel. The Dancer changed course slightly, bearing down right on us.
“We can’t hide,” Linda said, her teeth chattering audibly now. “He’s going to just power up and shoot us. Even if we managed to, we’d die out here … what, within an hour or so?”
“He’s going to run us down, not use the gun.” I loosened the boat hook, telescoping the sections out until the whole twelve-foot length was floating along the surface. I told her that if we could use it to fend off, I might be able to cut his dinghy free. Linda took the butt end, and I held on to it about midway.
Two boat lengths away, Dancer was pushing up a white bow wave, probably making just under seven knots. Whenever my head dipped below the surface, I could hear the prop whine.
“Push the pole down slightly,” I said. “If he sees it, he might cut it right down the middle.”
One length away.
I was treading water fast, my breath rushing. The Dancer blotted the Spindrift from view.
“Riley—”
“Steady. Stay right there. Just be sure to hold it the way I told you, and face away from the boat once I plant it, and get ready to kick.”
“Oh God.”
I put the knife in my teeth.
Dark Dancer was upon us.
Keeping the pole horizontal, I placed it on the starboard-bow quarter. The force of the boat shoved the pole through our hands, but we held on well enough so that it pushed us away from the bow, and then we were rolling alongside the rushing black hull. Then the flashlight was just over my head, and I heard Nick curse as I turned and swam with all my strength parallel to the stern. The warm oil-smelling exhaust water hit me in the face, and for a panicky second I felt the pull of the prop undertow. I flipped up over onto my back and caught the running white line in my hands. Burning. My hand was burning, but I squeezed tight anyhow. Suddenly I was being dragged through the water so fast my arm felt as if it would be pulled from its socket. I tried to wrap my wrist in the line, but it was too tight to gain any slack. My clothes filled with water. The drag was terrific; I kept sliding farther back on the line, so when I reached up with the knife, the few strands I managed to cut were not in the same place.
“You bastard!” Nick cried. White light illuminated the inflatable dinghy, and the shotgun spoke. Reflexively, I cringed and loosened my grip. A pattern of white froth appeared far to my left, and I realized he had missed intentionally, presumably firing just to scare me. It worked. The dinghy slammed me in the face. Before I could take a good breath, I slid under it, grasping the line with both hands. My arms burned with the stress. I tried to angle the knife back to cut the line and instantly lost my grip. I tucked into a ball and rolled along the dinghy bottom, cradling my head in my arms.
The lower unit of the dinghy’s outboard caught me in the side.
The blow to my damaged ribs made me scream, made me open my mouth to the water and begin to drown. I choked, and struggled for the surface, and swallowed more huge gulps of water. It was as if I suddenly became weighted by ten pounds of lead. My head and heart were pounding.
So this is it, a remote part of me thought.
I sensed something above me, and thought briefly that the dinghy was still there, and then my hair was tugged. Linda was behind me, grasping my chin and kicking, pulling me up to the surface, pulling me up to breathe.
I coughed up water, trying to get a clear lungful of air, as the pop of the diesel grew closer.
“He’s turned. He’s coming back, Riley. For God’s sake, we’ve got to get ready to do it again.”
I felt about my body. The knife was gone.
Dark Dancer was right behind me now.
I drew in a long shuddering breath, coughed once more. “Give me the pole,” I croaked.
Dancer was bearing down less than a length away.
Shoving the butt end down into the water until the whole buoyant length was submerged, I said, “You’ve got to fend us off.”
She nodded fast, and looked over her shoulder. The flashlight was shining from just over the rail inside the cockpit. He surely was holding it, but from my angle the glare made him invisible. The bow settled right on us—he apparently had a hand on the wheel as well. Linda was hyperventilating, the longer to hold her breath. She put her hands on my waist and started kicking for all she was worth, shoving me just to the starboard of the fast-approaching boat. I kicked as well, but mainly kept myself erect in the water, fighting the buoyancy of the pole and keeping it angled back along my side. One swell away, Dancer slid down, then bounded up the side, the bow rising, a huge black shape poised above us.
But Linda had measured it right. Dancer’s bow landed less than three feet away, and Linda kicked out, her sneakers making a squeak against the polished hull as she shoved both of us out of the way. As the Dancer went rushing past, I fought to swing the pole back into position. The flashlight was far outboard of the boat now, and I could see Nick’s silhouette as he leaned, apparently expecting to see our two broken bodies float up from his bow wave.
“Put your head down,” I whispered to Linda.
