Stuart Woods: Choke

“If you don’t know exactly where the wreck is, how could Clare?” Tommy asked.

“GPS. Global Positioning System.” He pointed at the instrument above the steering wheel. “It’s giving us a constant readout of latitude and longitude, to the nearest tenth of a minute.”

“Satellite navigation?”

“Right. These days, you can buy a little box for a thousand dollars that would put you right on top of the wreck, give or take ten yards. If Clare has the coordinates it won’t take any talent to fetch up there.”

“But why would she go back to the wreck?”

Chuck shrugged. “Who knows? I guess it has the advantage of being an isolated point where she could meet somebody. I can’t think of any other reason.”

Tommy looked out over the water. “She’s gone,” he said.

Chuck grabbed the binoculars and swept the horizon. “Shit! And it’s going to be dark in half an hour.”

“Her running lights will make it easier to see her,” Daryl said.

“She won’t turn on any lights,” Tommy replied, “not if she’s smart, and she’s pretty goddamned smart.”

“We’ll just have to hold this heading and hope she doesn’t change hers,” Chuck said. “Chances are she won’t. The reef is unpassable now, with no light to speak of, so she can’t turn north, and if she turns south there’s only Cuba.”

“I’d give a lot right now to know what she’s doing,” Tommy said.

The sun dropped into the sea, and darkness came quickly.

“No lights,” Tommy said. “If we come up on her, I don’t want her to see us first.”

Meg made sandwiches and passed out soft drinks, and they ate quietly while the boat chugged on, now making only eight knots.

“Tommy,” Chuck said softly, “what are we going to do if we catch up to her? Arrest her?”

“I don’t have a charge,” Tommy said, “but I could take her in for questioning, I guess.”

“We’re well outside the twelve-mile limit; you don’t have jurisdiction, do you?”

“We’ll call it a hot pursuit,” Tommy replied.

Chuck pulled the engines back to idle and switched off the ignition.

“What?” Tommy asked.

Chuck pointed ahead at the light. “It just came on,” he said.

“How far?”

“Hard to judge distance at night, but the horizon’s only two, three miles away, so she’s closer than that; maybe only a mile, mile and a half.”

“Why did you cut your engines?”

“There’s no wind, and sound carries great distances over water.” Chuck put the binoculars to his eyes. “Can’t make out a shape, what with no moon. There’s just the light.”

“Listen,” Tommy said. “Do you hear it?”

Chuck stuck his head outside the windshield. “Music.”

“Latin,” Daryl said.

“Maybe they’re dancing,” Tommy replied. “Would a boat the size of Clare’s have music?”

“Sure,” Chuck said. “She could have a car radio and some speakers, that’s all you need.”

“What do we do now?” Daryl asked. “We’re dead in the water, and we can’t sneak up on them; they’ll hear the engines.”

Chuck looked up at the GPS, glowing in the dark. “We’re doing eight-tenths of a knot over the bottom,” he said. “We’ve got a little current under us, and we’re headed in the general direction of the light. If she’s anchored, and she appears to be, we’ll drift down on her.”

“How do we know it’s Clare?” Daryl asked.

“We don’t,” Tommy replied, “but right now, the light is all we’ve got. Let’s find out who it is.”

Slowly, inexorably, Choke drifted downstream toward the light. Chuck raised the binoculars every ten or fifteen seconds, trying to make out the shape of the vessel.

“Listen,” Tommy whispered. “They’re talking.”

Chuck listened, and he heard laughter. “Sounds like a woman and a man.”

“Keep your voices down,” Tommy whispered to everybody. “No unnecessary talking; if we can hear them, they can hear us.”

Chuck stood on the pilot’s seat, his head above the windshield, and pressed the binoculars to his eyes, then climbed down. “It’s bigger than Clare’s boat,” he said. “Certainly forty feet, maybe bigger.”

“Any sign of the little cruiser?” Tommy asked.

“No.”

“I think we’ve wasted a hell of a lot of time with all this drifting.”

“Maybe not,” Chuck said. “She’s lying across the current, beam on to us; the little boat could be tied up to her other side.”

Tommy climbed up on the seat and took the binoculars, then got down again. “I think there are at least two people in there-it’s hard to tell, because the windows are fogged up-and I think it’s bigger than forty feet.”

Chuck nodded. “Could be. What’s the plan, Tommy? We’re going to be on top of them in a few minutes.”

Tommy motioned everybody to gather around him, then he whispered, “All right, first of all, nobody makes any noise of any kind. It looks like we’re going to drift down on this other boat, and when we do, Daryl and I are going to board her, as quietly as we can. Chuck, I want you to stay here with Meg and be ready to start the engines at a moment’s notice. Who knows, we may have to get out of here in a hurry.”

Then they heard the sound of an engine.

“Have they started up?” Tommy asked.

“Sounds like a generator to me,” Chuck replied. “Not low enough for the main engines.”

“Good, that’ll help cover any noise we make.”

They were a hundred yards out from the big boat now, and Chuck tried to see through her windows, but they were misty. He could only see shapes moving inside and hear the music.

“Look,” Tommy said, “there’s a boarding ladder on her quarter, see it?”

“Yes,” Chuck replied. “We’re drifting sideways, so let’s all four man the port side and fend off, make sure we don’t make a big bump when we’re alongside. Then we can hand the boat in position for you and Daryl to use the ladder. Move very slowly, because a man’s weight can noticeably rock a boat even as big as this one.” He slapped his forehead. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What?”

Chuck went to an aft locker and retrieved a bucket with a thirty-foot line tied to the handle. “I’ll try and cushion the blow,” he said. He went to the starboard side of Choke and slowly lowered the bucket into the water, allowing it to fill, then played out the line. “Okay, we’ve got brakes of a sort now,” he whispered. “You three get ready to fend off.”

They were forty feet from the big motor yacht, then thirty. Chuck began to slowly haul in the bucket, which was now acting as a sea anchor. Just as he had his hand on the handle, three pairs of outstretched hands made contact with the white hull of the motor yacht, and Choke came to rest alongside her starboard bow without a sound. Chuck joined them, and gently they handed their boat along the bigger yacht’s topsides, making sure the two hulls did not touch. When Choke’s stern was next to the ladder they stopped.

The music was quite loud now, but there were no longer any voices to be heard. Tommy stepped lightly back into Choke ’s cockpit, retrieved Chuck’s shotgun, and went back to the ladder. Silently he laid the shotgun on the deck of the larger yacht, put a foot on the bottom rung of the boarding ladder, and started up, followed by Daryl.

Tommy got a leg over the side and hauled himself into the cockpit. He could see two figures in the saloon through the misted glass doors. Daryl came on board and brought the shotgun into the cockpit with him. Tommy leaned close to him and whispered, “I don’t think you’ll need the shotgun; there are only two of them.”