Ted Bell - Tsar

Three of Noboru’s crewmen had been killed instantly. Three others who had been wounded had fallen into the water and were taken captive aboard the Russian patrol boat. Later, the Russians claimed the illegal Japanese trawler had rammed their patrol boat and refused to stop despite repeated orders to do so. The Russian ambassador to Japan had taken this case to Tokyo, and there had been a very public trial. Protesters from Greenpeace had hounded the captain mercilessly every day outside the courthouse.

Noboru was lucky just to avoid the loss of his commercial license and even jail.

“Sir!” the radioman shouted above the noise of the wind. “We have an emergency distress beacon. Repeating SOS signal. Very close by, sir.”

Noboru stepped away from the helm and held out his hand for his binoculars.

“How close is the EPIRB?”

“Half a mile off our starboard bow, sir. You may be able to see him shortly.”

The captain stood at the rain-streaked windows and scanned the horizon as much as the shifting waves allowed. The emergency position-indicating radio beacon used a five-watt radio transmitter and GPS to indicate the precise location of a mariner in distress. It was odd, Noboru thought, that he’d heard no radio messages of a vessel in distress prior to the EPIRB broadcast. Whatever boat this raft had come from, she’d gone down in an awful hurry.

A minute later, he saw the life raft sliding down the face of a huge wave. It looked like a small red mushroom bobbing on the storm-tossed sea. By its size, he judged it to be an emergency offshore raft, two-man. Self-righting, with the bright red canopy top providing high visibility and protection from hypothermia. Probably from a small yacht and not a commercial vessel. That might account for the lack of a radio distress call prior to abandoning ship.

Yachtsmen tended to panic in an emergency.

“All back one-third,” the captain said.

The big trawler, already under just enough power to give her steerage in the huge waves, slowed even further as the crew made preparations to take the raft aboard.

THE TWO RUSSIANS sealed inside the enclosed circular life raft were ready to rip each other’s throat out. If they hadn’t both been so violently seasick, it’s possible they might have succeeded. The waves were tossing them around inside like a pair of dice in a cup. It was impossible to remain in any one place for more than a split second.

The stench of commingled vomit was contributing mightily to their extreme irritation with each other. Because of the sloshing puke, it was even harder to keep from sliding around inside, slamming into each other every time the raft crested a wave and started screaming down the other side.

“What is this fucking storm?” Paddy Strelnikov shouted at his companion. “I didn’t volunteer for any fucking typhoon duty!”

“Look, you think I did?” Leonid Kapitsa said. He was ex-merchant marine, a burly Russian émigré, maybe forty. He was probably KGB, secret police, just off the fucking boat, as far as Paddy was concerned. All muscle, no brain. Just the kind of guy you want with you when your life is coming to a speedy conclusion. The guy’s English was pathetic, so they were screaming at each other in Russian. In the old KGB days, field agents were trained in languages. Not anymore, obviously.

“It was flat calm when they launched us. Why didn’t they tell us it was going to get this rough?” Paddy shouted hoarsely.

“The storm came up fast. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t know about it, either.”

“My ass. These big yachts have weather radar and shit. They know what’s going on. They knew we would-”

“They said we’d be floating out here for no more than an hour before the beacon got us picked up. It’s been three hours now. And they didn’t say anything about Hurricane Katrina showing up.”

“You were supposed to turn on that EPIRB thing as soon as the yacht was out of sight.”

“Yeah, well, I was too busy puking my guts out to remember.”

“Look, you’re the merchant marine guy. You’re not supposed to get sick. You’re supposed to know what you’re doing out here. That’s the only reason I agreed to have you along.”

“Wait-I hear something. You hear that?”

Paddy did. Japanese voices, shouting somewhere above them, muffled but very close. The wind was still howling, but suddenly the raft wasn’t bucking and yawing around so much anymore. It felt as if they were being lifted straight up out of the sea. Yeah, he could hear the gears grinding on a winch somewhere.

“Finally,” Paddy said. He tried to wipe his face clean but only smeared stuff in his eyes and made it worse.

“I’m going to be sick again,” Kapitsa said, and suddenly was.

“Ah, fuck,” Paddy said, trying to steer clear of the latest volley of projectile vomit to head his way.

IT WAS WARM and dry in the captain’s cabin just aft of the bridge. Paddy and Kapitsa sat on the only two chairs, wrapped in wool blankets and drinking steaming-hot green tea. At Paddy’s feet was a waterproof sea bag he’d had in the raft, a yellow duffel that contained some equipment and his personal items. Kapitsa had a bag, too, slightly larger.

Now that he’d had a hot shower, Paddy’s teeth had stopped chattering, and he felt halfway human again. The Japanese sailors had given them crew clothes, denims and T-shirts and wool sweaters that almost fit. The Japanese captain, who spoke pretty good English, sat at his desk. He had some papers he was filling out and was asking a lot of questions. Since it would never matter what he said, Paddy was having fun with the guy, making stuff up, whatever popped into his brain.

“You are Russian?” the captain asked.

“He is,” Paddy said, indicating Kapitsa and sipping his hot tea. “I’m a Russian-American. Third generation.”

“Your name?”

“First name? Beef. B like in boy, e-e-f,” Paddy said, carefully enunciating each letter, dead serious.

“What city you from in America, Mr. Beef?” the guy said, writing that down and then holding his pencil ready.

“Me? Orlando,” Paddy said, saying the first town that popped into his head. “You know, Mickey Mouse? Goofy?”

The captain smiled and nodded, getting it all on paper.

“You know why Mickey got so pissed at Minnie, right?”

“Mickey pissed at Minnie? the captain said, writing it down.

“Yeah. He said she was fuckin’ goofy.”

“Ah, yes,” the skipper said, looking now at Leo. “And what about him?”

“Him? Forget about him. He’s from frickin’ Siberia. Just put Siberia, that’ll be good enough. Every Russian postman knows where it is.”

“Last names?”

“Stalin and Lenin.”

“You joking?”

“No, no. Those are two very common names in Russia.”

“What happened to your boat? We did not hear a distress call.”

“Yeah, well, it happened pretty fast.”

“You were only two aboard?”

“Nah. There were some other guys. They didn’t get off in time. Tragic.”

“So. No other survivors?”

“Nope. Just us.”

“What was name of your vessel?”

“Lady Marmalade.”

“How you spell that?” He was actually writing all this shit down. Guy didn’t have a fricking clue.

“L-A-D-Y M-A-R-M-A-L-A-D-E.”

“How big?”

“Maybe a hundred feet. Maybe two hundred. Hard to say. I’m not into boats. And Orlando’s not a real yachty town, you know what I’m saying, Captain? Middle of the state, only a couple of dipshit lakes in the orange groves.”

“What happened to yacht? Fire? Explosion?”

“Beats the shit out of me. I think we just got knocked over by a big-ass wave. She rolled upside down and didn’t come back up for air.”