David Dun - The Black Silent

With the Geisha's portable VHF radio in hand, Sam met Haley, and she drove them in Gibbons's car to the university compound immediately to the east of the Sanker Foundation, where there were various university dormitories and dwellings. Traveling to the marine lab would require only a brief inland deviation from a straight line.

Once in the university compound, Sam felt safer. Haley seemed to as well. It was dark, there were few lights, and the main administration building had been shut down for the holiday. When he climbed out of the car, he thought hard about taking the bolt cutters.

They were large and awkward, but would cut through a fence in seconds. The alternative would be a pair of needle-nosed pliers that might make a simple job excruciating. He used some loose twine in the trunk to tie the bolt cutters to his belt.

Venturing into dark woodland, thev slowly felt their way along under the fir and madrona down through the undergrowth alongside of the main building until they reached the beach.

For just a moment Sam thought about their chances of dying and it made him turn to her. As if she'd been thinking the same thing, Haley quickly kissed him on the lips. Once started, the kiss became deeper, stirring the repressed desire in each of them. It wasn't quite what Sam intended, but there was a sincerity to it that made it something to receive rather than reject. Or so he told himself. Too suddenly she stopped. It wasn't a normal ending to a good kiss.

Next came an awkward moment and then they hugged and pulled each other close.

Neither spoke. Neither wanted to try to define the moment.

"If you die, I'm going to be really pissed and you'll never hear the end of it," Haley said.

"And if I die because you die, I'll be twice as pissed."

"We need to discuss exactly how you are going to get Rachael to her uncle's dock on Orcas."

"Okay."

"My thought would be to take the way to Crane Island through the rock pile, going off the ferry route. Just like the smugglers used to do. You should go as fast as you can and survive."

"I'll go fifty at least."

"Turn off your running lights before you're even with the outer marker; then when you're almost past Crane Island, turn hard right back, double back through Poll Pass, stop at the dock before they can see you. Come on back by Crane Island, this time on the safe side, and lead them on a chase. Then do it just like we discussed."

"You're thinking this crazy-ass route will stop them, confuse them?"

"Would you follow somebody into those rocks at night? Or would you wait and see what the hell they're doing?"

"Effectively, I'm making a circle around Crane Island." "Yes. I realize I'm suggesting that you run fifty knots at night through the narrowest navigable passage in the world."

She looked at Sam without blinking. "I can do it," she said simply.

"At night you can't run this like you're in a race," Sam cautioned.

"I guess we'll find out, won't we? I am in a race for our lives. Don't kid yourself."

Sam didn't have a quick answer to that one. As a practiced sailor, he knew that when these boats operated at one hundred miles per hour plus, absolute attention had to be paid to the throttle. If the boat went airborne and the props came out of the water, the engines would overrev and burn themselves to a crisp. The antidote was to back off the throttle as the propellers left the water. But if the throttle was off too long and the props were resubmerged without power, they would be ripped off the boat with the entire drive assembly. There were plenty of race boat drivers who had learned the hard way not to push the speed in chop and lose control of the throttle.

Together they crossed to a thin rivulet of a creek that came down to the beach. It reflected a bit of the light from the lab parking area and some from the lights of Friday Harbor across the bay. Except for that dark mirror on the sand, the beach was indistinct, like the bottom of a freshly used coal bin. Moving slowly down the beach, they were careful to keep the crunch of the gravel to a minimum. With so much life at the boundary between the land and sea, things were constantly dying and their decay left an odor that mixed with the salt air in a kind of olfactory stew unique to beaches. Soon the beach turned to steep, slick, solid rock. This portion was very slow going with Sam's bad knee.

Frick's boat, the Opus Magnum, was completely tarped down. It was a customized 46

Rider XP with twin 1050-horsepower MerCruiser engines and ostentatious for its speed.

Sam knew the engines weren't winterized because he'd seen Frick use it on sunny days to travel around the islands and over to Anacortes and Bellingham. On calm days he sometimes went to lunch at one hundred miles per hour over to Lopez. There was too much wood in waters surrounding these islands to sustain those speeds without great care. Even then it was a death wish to travel at high speeds for sustained periods because of so called dead heads-logs nearly full with absorbed water that float one end up with the top end barely visible or just under the surface. If it rained, Frick took a more conventional foundation boat, and if it was particularly choppy, he did not exceed about sixty. The boat was the talk of the island, and it was no secret that it really belonged to old man Sanker.

Getting to the moorage dock would be a trick. It was gated and the ramp leading to it was high above the steep rock cliffs that substituted for a beach. The tide was close to high. Unless he wanted to swim in fifty-something-degree water, and he didn't, their only option was either to climb over the six-foot barbed-wire-topped gate at the head of the ramp, or climb up underneath the ramp on various cables and braces and then scale the cage along the side of the ramp and over the top of it. Add to all that the significant risk that someone watching might see them.

Their best bet was making the climb near the head of the ramp, where they would be visible from fewer angles. There still wasn't a lot of activity around the Foundation, but if Sam was right about Sanker's intentions, then that condition would not last. He scrambled over the rocks as best he could, frustrated with his bad knee. Haley had an easier time, half-walking, half-crawling.

When they reached the ramp to the floating docks, Haley stayed on the beach while he climbed vertical supports and the cross members to reach a thick cable. Stabilizing himself with his hands on the underside of the walkway, he was able to walk the cable, and as he did so, his body gained elevation until he reached the attachment point of the cable to the walkway and began climbing the sidewall fence.

The entire ramp was lit and he knew he presented a clear silhouette, so a shooter with a high-powered rifle could kill him with ease. He was happy he had put Haley in body armor. Using the bolt cutters, he made a hole in the bottom of the fence. The metal gave way like noodles. In less than sixty seconds he had two sides of a square hole cut. Then the door near the gate at the top of the ramp swung open.

Somebody was coming. He froze like a spider caught in a gust. A man in overalls stood in the doorway staring out into the night. Any second Sam expected the fellow to call out and he readied himself to flee back down the cables. With his bad leg and no gun he knew his chances of surviving were slim. Frick would kill him this time. The man yawned and took out a smoke. Now, at least, he knew why the fellow had opened the door. Cupping his hands, he lit up. Sam was amazed that the man hadn't seen him exposed as he was beside the fence. He figured he dare not move or the man's eyes would seize on the motion. In the squat by the fence things got tough in the legs and lower back, and he remembered the days when he'd have felt no pain. "Jack," someone called out.