Chris Grabenstein - Whack A Mole

“Sorry about that,” I say.

“Yeah, well. Whatever.” Gus turns to Ceepak. “I take it I'm no longer a suspect?”

Ceepak stands near the Ford's rear door.

“Gus. I'm sorry. I truly am. I made a mistake….”

“Yeah, yeah. Isn't that why your pencil has that freaking eraser sticking out its ass?”

For the first time in about an hour, I see Ceepak almost smile.

“Roger that,” he says.

“Yeah, well, don't worry about it,” says Gus, pulling open a passenger door and sliding in. “I would've done the same thing. Hell, Ceepak-I probably would've arrested me. Come on, you two. Enough with the yakking. Let's go nail this nut.”

Gus Davis keeps his boat, Lady Fran, docked at the public pier.

I help him haul in the lines, run the pumps, get the engines going. Ceepak hails from Ohio. They don't have oceans in Ohio. Just that river. Maybe a lake. He's not much help on deck, so he's up in what we sometimes call the “tuna tower”-the canopied cockpit situated atop the main cabin. He's up there in the command and control center, working the ship's radio, checking up on the air and sea assets currently being deployed up and down the Jersey coastline. Off in the distance, over the ocean, I hear a helicopter. I hope it's one of ours.

“When did Cap'n Pete shove off?” Gus yells up to Ceepak as the motors start to thrum under our feet.

Ceepak leans over the bridge's aft safety rail to answer.

“Uncertain. However, we know he abducted the girl on the boardwalk soon after our own encounter with her in the same general vicinity.”

“Okay. So when were you two knuckleheads chasing after this girl?”

“Right before you dropped by the house.”

Ceepak omits the detail about Gus telling us both to go fuck ourselves.

“Jesus,” says Gus. “That was what? Seven? Maybe seven-thirty?”

Ceepak nods. “Giving him a three-hour head start.”

Gus hauls in the last line.

“He could be anywhere. It's a huge freaking ocean. Come on, Danny. Take us out.”

“Right.”

I scale the ladder up to the flying bridge and take the helm. Gus climbs behind me.

“The Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla over in Avalon is sending out their swiftest boat,” says Ceepak. “It can do thirty-five knots.”

“That'll work,” I say, and start manipulating the port and starboard throttles, working the wheel.

“Cap'n Pete can only do about twenty-five knots in the Reel Fun ,” says Gus.

“That's like thirty miles per hour,” I say as we back out of the berth, reverse engines, and make for the channel.

“Given his head start,” says Ceepak, “our search area therefore becomes a one-hundred-mile circle radiating out from this point.”

One hundred miles. He could be far enough out to open a casino. Maybe start up his own country.

We come out of the inlet, parallel to the jetty, and head out of the bay into the ocean. Waves crash against the seawall rocks, the white foam visible in the moonlight. We're in a narrow lane marked by blinking buoys to the right and left. The Lady Fran is in fine shape. I figure this is because Gus spends his days tweaking the engine, lubing and oiling the shafts-having himself a whale of a time.

“You're familiar with Mullen's vessel?” Ceepak asks Gus over the roar of the engines.

“Yeah. We're old fishing buddies.”

“How so?”

“We share information. Good fishing spots. Dead zones. We swap coordinates.”

Gus flicks a switch on a screen mounted atop the control console. The color pixels zip to life, revealing a split image. On one side is a real-time ocean chart showing our current position with a blinking triangle. On the other side is a sonar image detailing ocean floor depth and filling with colorful streaks whenever fish pass under our hull.

“That's the Matrix 97 Fish Finder GPS Combo,” says Gus. “Gave it to myself for Christmas last year.”

“And how fast can we travel?” asks Ceepak.

“If you push her?” Gus affectionately pats the compass globe bumping up on the control panel. “She'll give you thirty knots before she starts rocking and rolling.”

“Should I push her?” I ask.

“Hell yeah, Danny. See if she can do thirty-five. See if she can join the freaking Coast Guard.”

I jam both throttles all the way up. The good lady responds nicely. Sure, there's some shudder, but we're speeding up, bumping across waves, bobbing over swells and moguls, churning up a foamy wake. We're out of the channel. Heading due east.

I look out toward the horizon. The ocean is jet black. So's the sky. It's hard to find the line where one begins and the other ends. Higher up, the night sky is filled with stars and just enough moon to give a sheen to the rippling water, to make it look like an ocean of rolling trash bags, the black ones they use on construction sites.

“You think Pete took Rita with him?” Gus asks Ceepak.

Ceepak stares out at the black ocean.

“It's a possibility,” he says. “Perhaps as a hostage to facilitate his escape.”

And that's the best-case scenario.

I press the heel of my hand against the two throttles, try to nudge the levers a little higher in their slots even though I know it's physically impossible. I glance down at the digital speedometer. Thirty-one knots and climbing. Lady Fran must be reading my mind.

“What heading should I make for?” I ask, figuring it's time we decided in which part of the haystack known as the Atlantic Ocean we're going to go search for our needle named Rita.

“Fire up the radar, Danny,” says Gus. He points to another instrument box. “Gave that gizmo to myself for Chanukah. It displays close-and long-range views. The more metal in a boat, the bigger the ping.”

I push the appropriate buttons. Another split image. I watch the green arm circle around, pick up dots and blots. I feel like I should do the five-day forecast.

“See anything?”

“There's a line of boats heading out to the ridge,” I say.

Gus nods. “Night fishing for blues. The commercial guys go out even farther, off the continental shelf, for the scallops … stay out all night.” He taps the long-range screen. “Most of the captains head out this way.”

“What if he's heading to Bermuda?” Ceepak asks. “Maybe the Caribbean?”

“Jeez. He could be heading up to Canada, too. Nova Scotia. You're gonna need a freaking airplane.”

“We have two,” says Ceepak as he reaches for the ship's radio to check in with the other assets. See if the Coast Guard search planes have spotted anything suspicious.

Then he pauses.

“Gus?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever communicate with Mullen?”

“Whoa. Hold on, hot shot. I'm not going back on your freaking list again, am I? You making me for some kind of accomplice or something?”

Ceepak shakes his head. “Negative. But, as a fellow fisherman, do you ever chat over your radio with Captain Pete?”

“Sure. We all do it. Pass on tips. Hot spots. Plenty of fish out here for everybody. This, of course, was back before I knew Pete was some kind of freaking whack job.”

“But you know how to contact him?”

“Sure. I have his frequency programmed into a preset … hey!”

Ceepak holds out the microphone. Its coiled cord goes taut.

“Let's contact him now.”

This is Lady Fran for Reel Fun. Come in Reel Fun. This is Lady Fran.” Gus lets go of the thumb switch on the radio's microphone.

Shakes his head. Nothing.

Ceepak nods. “Keep heading due east, Danny.”

“You got it.”

I maintain my bearing of 90 degrees. Heading straight across the Atlantic Ocean for Europe. Maybe Spain. Probably Portugal. It's still Tuesday. We might make it to Lisbon by the weekend.