David Dun - The Black Silent

She got on channel 16 and chose the direct approach.

"What do you want?"

"Just to talk," someone said.

That was amazingly stupid of them, she thought.

A new voice came on the line. "This is the United States Coast Guard. Vessels on channel sixteen, this is an emergency and hailing channel only."

"Coast guard, coast guard, this is the vessel Inevitable. I am Rachael Sullivan in Fidalgo Bay, and I am being chased by armed men in a small boat." She idled the throttles and put the shafts in forward and turned on all the lights, including the spot.

"This is coast guard, Bellingham Group, switch and answer twenty-two alpha."

She switched and repeated the message, no doubt to a disbelieving seaman. Still, they would be compelled to send a boat.

According to the line between buoys, as shown on the chart plotter, they were moved over up against the edge of the channel. She stopped. Studying her pursuers' position on the radar chart plotter overlay, they actually appeared to be on the mud. But that wasn't likely. It gave her an idea.

The boat was about two hundred yards distant and she plotted a course to put it right under her bow. She increased speed to fifteen knots. The boat wanted to plane, but she kept it half on the step in the maximum bow-high position. Then she adjusted the trim tabs and brought the bow higher still. She couldn't see over Inevitable's bow now; she had to bring her down so that on the balls of her feet she could see her quarry.

Inevitable, at sixty-five feet, weighed fifty-four thousand pounds and could walk right over the runabout. They would die if she so desired, and she wouldn't receive a scratch.

Bent prop shafts, props, and fiberglass damage were a pain, but they would not kill her.

They were seconds away and dead ahead.

The radio crackled. "Stop, for Christ's sake!"

They fired a flare right at her windshield and it burst bright against the hard plastic.

In seconds she turned off the autopilot, took the wheel, used her eye, and hit the throttle, digging the huge props into the water, sinking the stern and throwing a mammoth wake.

With the precision of a marksman she smacked the small boat a glancing blow. The impact picked the runabout up and tossed it like a chef might flip an omelette. The boat almost ended on its side; her huge wake pushed it high onto the mud; water to the floorboards, no doubt, and grounded.

A thud came against Inevitable's side, followed by a violent lurch. She'd hit the mud.

She veered back to starboard and heaved a sigh of relief as Inevitable continued on up the channel.

The torrent of curses that came over the radio must have astonished the coast guard.

A coast guard helicopter was coming in close, followed by a coast guard motor lifeboat turning the corner into the bay. The jig was up. She killed the power and waited. This was the beginning of what would be a long night with a lot of paperwork. She hoped the coasties would listen. Thank God her pursuers had shot the flare and shattered the windshield. Given that, and her original call for help, they'd be the focus of the investigation.

Her part of the plan had just begun. Now she could only pray that Sam and Haley would escape Frick long enough for her to get some help.

Frick sprinted down the hall to the other end of the second floor, through the breezeway, and into the Oaks Building. His gun was out and adrenaline pumping. He slowed.

Slipping into Ben Anderson's lab with his gun at the ready, he was actually surprised that Robert Chase was nowhere to be seen. He checked the closets and the electron microscope room and other side rooms. Nothing.

Sweat poured off him. Back in Ben Anderson's office he saw a man and drew his gun, then stood down. It was one of the guards, staring openmouthed.

Saying nothing, Frick ran downstairs into the workshop, suddenly feeling sick with worry in his gut.

People made little slips when they did things in a hurry and he had created this particular set piece in a few minutes. When he arrived in the hall at the bottom of the stairs, he could see one regular deputy and one of his men standing in the room with Ranken hanging in the background. So far, so good. It should shock them.

"What happened here?"

"Somebody got in here and Ranken must have found them. They took his gun and his spray."

That shook Frick, but he didn't let on. Could he be that lucky, to have Sam in the building with Ranken's gun?

"It's that Sam-Robert Chase-or whatever he's calling himself at the moment," Frick growled. "He's got to be in the building, and now he's armed. Take a picture. Show all the regular deputies. I want them to see what they're up against. Get Ostrowski down here for the forensics." He turned on his heel and ran back to the Sanker Building and the conference room. Before he went in, he got on the radio and announced Ranken's death and made Chase's guilt a fact as fast as he could. His people would alert the media shortly, as to a new "grisly" killing.

When he entered the conference room, he broke up a conversation between Khan and one of the men.

Khan looked uneasy. That couldn't be good. Frick dismissed the other man.

"They found another body," Khan said, obviously suspicious. "But you look pleased for some reason."

"I'm sure Chase is in the building. This is our chance to get him."

"How do you know?"

"He killed Detective Ranken and took his gun. Or somebody did, and who else would do that?"

"Seriously?" Khan looked unconvinced.

"Absolutely." Frick spoke it like a challenge. "He took Ranken's gun."

"I'll start a search."

"Tell the guys in the boat not to waste any more time hunting bodies."

Khan began calling the security people in the building.

Frick picked up a call from their Vegas man at the Sullivan family dock in Anacortes.

"Rachael Sullivan arrived," the guy said, "or rather she drove up near the dock, then turned around and ran. We had three men in a boat. They went after her and, I guess, they're stuck in the mud."

"Where's the woman?"

"I don't know. Our guys talked to me on the radio and said they screwed up. They say she radioed the coast guard."

Frick thought for a moment. Staying around was riskier than letting her go at this point.

"Just leave, there's nothing to do with her."

'That was smart," Khan said.

"I'm gonna go talk to McStott," Frick said, "see what the greedy little bastard's up to."

Frick found him in a large lab area.

McStott seemed glad to see him.

"I found something weird."

"What?"

"A binder that advocates a recovery method for methane."

Frick sighed. He couldn't help himself; he was impatient.

"Listen," McStott begged. "This is worth a fortune."

The word fortune did it.

"I'm listening," Frick said.

"This stuff about mining methane from microbes is not crazy, like I thought," McStott said. "They may have this stuff nailed."

The egghead was almost squeaking with excitement.

"The global reserves for methane are eighty thousand times the global reserves for natural gas. Available U.S. reserves alone are 5.7 trillion cubic meters, and that's enough to meet this country's needs for the next two thousand years."

Frick let out a long, low whistle despite himself.

"So how are we gonna get rich?" he asked.

"There are problems with methane."

"Like what?" Frick asked.

"There are three, actually, aside from the danger of blowing something up. Methane is in two forms: frozen with water in an icelike substance called a hydrate, and beneath the hydrates as a gas. When the hydrate turns into gas, its volume increases by a factor of one hundred sixty."

"Okay. So?"

"The first problem is that the methane diffuses and is hard to collect. To make a long story short, they've found ways to get around that problem, to some extent. They don't specify how the mining is done. They only say it's not cheap or easy, but it is doable.