Elizabeth Lowell - Death Echo

Hope he knows what he’s doing, Mac thought as he held up his right hand and made a small circle in the air. Sign language for giving more slack to the cable that held the lifting frame.

The operator dropped the frame six inches at a time until Mac’s hand clenched into a fist.

The cable stopped instantly.

Damn, but it’s sweet to work with professionals, Mac thought as he began positioning the sling on the yacht’s black, salt-streaked hull. The man in the cab might be a miserable son of a bitch who beat his wife and was an officer in the most corrupt labor union on the waterfront, but when he was at the controls of his pet hammerhead crane, he could be as sure and gentle as a mother cradling a newborn.

Mac manhandled a wide strap into position just ahead of the spot on the hull where twin prop housings on Blackbird thrust out like eggbeaters. Lift points were crucial in controlling a vessel that weighed almost thirty tons.

Besides, if anything went wrong, he was going to be splat on ground zero. He’d been there, done that, and vowed never to be there again. He’d been the lucky one who survived.

At least he had been told that he was the lucky one. After a few years, he even believed it. During daylight.

At night, well, night was always there, waiting with the kind of dreams he woke from cold, sweating, biting back howls of fury and betrayal.

Long ago and far away, Mac told himself savagely. Pay attention to what’s happening now.

When he was satisfied with the position of the lifting strap, he signaled the crane operator to pick up cable. The frame went from slack to loaded. The aft strap was in front of the propellers and the forward strap was even with the front windshield. Both straps visibly stretched as the overhead cable tightened.

Just before Blackbird lifted out of its cradle, Mac clenched his fist overhead. Instantly the crane operator stopped bringing in cable.

Mac checked everything again before he scrambled up the ten-foot ladder that stood against the swim step at the stern of the yacht. When he was aboard Blackbird, he gave the crane operator a palm-out hand signal with fingers spread.

Take a break, five minutes.

The operator nodded and reached for a cigarette.

A Lotus deckhand appeared and took the ladder away from the yacht’s swim step.

Mac opened the salon door and went inside. He had been a professional transport skipper for five years. He was regularly dropped on the deck of a boat he had never seen before and was expected to take command of immediately. Since he didn’t plan on going down with any ship, he had developed a mental checklist as rigorous and detailed as an airline captain’s.

He liked the idea that if he died, it was his own screwup, not someone else’s.

The engine hatch was on the main deck, just behind the pilot seat and the galley. He opened the heavy, sound-proofed hatch and secured it.

The engines were at the stern, leaving an open area below waiting to be used for storage of extra equipment, parts, whatever-a real luxury on a forty-one-foot boat. He walked quickly through the anteroom to the engines. He had to duck a bit, but it was a lot easier access to the engines than he was accustomed to.

The first thing on his mental list was the big batteries. He snapped on their switches and checked the output. They had kept enough charge on the ten-day trip from Singapore to start the yacht’s engines and operate its various systems.

Next, he opened the seacocks that supplied saltwater to the cooling systems of the two shiny new diesel engines that drove the boat. Oversized engines, a special order that made for a cramped engine room.

Gotta love those yachties with more money than sense, Mac told himself.

Quickly but thoroughly, he checked the hose clamps on the through-hull fittings to make sure none had vibrated loose at sea. Cooling water was required. Gushers of saltwater in the bilge weren’t.

The through-hull fitting that normally supplied cooling water to the generator had been left open to drain rainwater or ocean spray out of the yacht during the voyage. Mac closed the seacock so the yacht wouldn’t sink minutes after it touched the waters of Elliott Bay.

He checked the through-hull fittings for the septic and water-maker systems, then the fuel lines that fed the two six-cylinder diesel engines. He had been assured there was enough fuel aboard to make Rosario, sixty miles to the north, but he was suspicious by nature.

It had saved his life more than once.

A shipping crew in Singapore, where the yacht had begun its voyage, could make hundreds of dollars by shorting the fuel tanks. Mac didn’t want to come into the Rosario rigging yard at the end of a tow line.

The sight gauges for both fuel tanks showed less than an inch of fuel.

Ah, human nature. All for me and screw you.

The good news was that the diesel fuel in the feed lines from the tanks looked clear. The bad news was that he would be visiting the fuel dock on the Elliott Bay waterfront.

With quick, economical motions he checked both fuel filter housings for water.

All good. At least the greedy sucks put in clean fuel.

What there was of it.

He looked carefully around the engine room. Salt water was as corrosive as acid to metal parts and systems. Even with the best care and maintenance, time and use and the sea would mark the yacht. But right now, she was bright and clean, shining with promise.

Mac loved taking a new boat on its first real cruise. It was like meeting a really interesting woman. Challenging. That was where the reward came-getting the best out of himself and an unknown boat.

No one else at risk, no one else to die, no one else to survive alone and sweat through nightmares the same way.

When Mac had finished his checklist, he climbed the inner steps back up out of the engine compartment into the salon. Plastic wrapped the upholstered furnishings and protected the narrow, varnished teak planks that were technically a deck but were too beautiful to be called anything but a floor. When he closed the hatch, it fit almost seamlessly into the floor in front of the sofa.

Opposite the sofa was another, bigger, L-shaped sofa. Nestled in the angle of the L was a teak dining table, also protected by plastic and cardboard. Polished black granite curved around the galley. It was tucked underneath wrappings. Everything was, except the wheel itself. Varnished teak gleamed with invitation.

Mac opened the teak panel that concealed two ranks of electrical circuit breakers and meters. He noted a scratch on the inside of the door. Cosmetic, not a problem. He checked each carefully labeled meter and breaker, going down the ranks, engaging breakers and energizing the circuits he expected to need.

The last two breakers he threw were marked Port and Starboard Engine start/stop. When he engaged them, two loud buzzers signaled that the diesels in the engine room were ready to go.

With a final check of the batteries, he went back through the salon, into the well, and up the narrow six-step stairway to the flying bridge. He checked the switch settings on bridge controls, then lifted his hand and twirled his fingers in a tight circle.

The overhead crane operator smoothly picked up five feet of cable, lifting the yacht up and out of its cradle. The fresh afternoon breeze off Puget Sound tried to turn Blackbird perpendicular to the container ship, but the operator had anticipated the wind and corrected for it. The overhead crane arm swung the yacht toward the huge ship’s outside rail.

For a second Mac felt like the boat was adrift, flying. This was the part of the job he didn’t like, when he had to trust his life to the crane operator’s skill.