Dana Stabenow - Blindfold Game

He brooded for a moment, and then raised his voice. “What’s it doing out there in the way of weather?”

“Barometer still dropping, sir,” Tommy said. “Temperature in the low twenties. Rain, snow, freezing spray. Winds out of the southeast at forty-five knots. Seas eighteen to twenty feet. Forecast is for fifty-five knots before midnight.”

The captain looked at Sara. “We’ll never be able to launch a small boat in this.”

“No, sir.”

“Are we still on an intercept course for the Agafia?” he asked Tommy.

“Of course, sir,” Tommy said, a little hurt.

“How long?”

“We’re closing to half a mile now, sir. I don’t think she’s making much headway in the storm.”

“Probably ran into it on purpose, trying to hide,” he said.

The deck rolled and Sara took a quick step to regain her balance. Hugh lost his balance and crashed into the bulkhead. PO Barnette, on the conn, stood rooted to the deck, hands clasped in the small of his back, staring straight ahead.

The captain made up his mind. “Let’s make the storm work for us for a change. Bosun, pipe the aviators to my cabin. XO, Mr. Rincon, with me. Chief, you have the conn.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“WITH ALL DUE RESPECT,sir,” Lieutenant Sams said, and halted, at a loss for words. He didn’t say, “You gotta be kidding me,” but the words were on his face for anyone to read.

Captain Lowe was not unsympathetic. “I know it’s a lot to ask. Can you do it?”

Sams’s eyes were red-rimmed. He ran his fingers up into his thinning hairline and scrubbed vigorously at his scalp. “There’s a question of fatigue here, Captain. We were in the air for-” He stopped, obviously trying to add up the hours.

“A long time,” Laird said.

Sams nodded. “A long time.”

“The question is, can you do it,” Lowe said.

“The question is, can I even get off the ship,” Sams said. “I’m sorry, sir. I beg your pardon for raising my voice. It’s been a long day.” He glared at Hugh, who looked back without apology.

There was a knock at the door. “Come,” Lowe said.

It was Ops. “Still no response from the Agafia, Captain. Either their radio’s down or they’re ignoring us. And e-mail is still down.”

“Just as well,” the captain said with a hard look at Hugh. “District isn’t going to believe this anyway.”

“Look, Captain,” Sams said, “we’re coming up hard on her stern, right? We’re going to be close enough that we don’t have to put the bird in the air. We can just put a boat in the water.”

“I don’t believe this,” Sara said. “An aviator thinking up reasons not to fly. A thing unheard of in memory of man.”

They all smiled, except for Hugh. It lightened the tension, just a little, maybe just enough.

“Ah hell,” Sams said, shaking his head, “this’ll be one for round the bar.”

“Yeah,” said Laird, “and I never said I wanted to live forever anyway. Let’s take a look at the pitch and roll.”

They went back up to the bridge. They were close enough now to be able to see the Agafia ‘s lights, diffused through the blowing snow and fog into an enormous halo off their port bow. There was a smaller glow illuminating the fog and snow to starboard, indicating the position of the Sunrise Warrior. The lights were bobbing up and down with the motion of the sea, no more so than the cutter. Sara took two quick steps to grab hold of a pipe to steady her footing.

Ops got on the VHF again. “Fishing vessel Agafia, fishing vessel Agafia, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth, please respond, I say again, please respond.”

The result was a weighty silence. Ops repeated the hail. Same response. Ops looked at Lowe and raised one shoulder. Lowe climbed up into his chair. “XO.”

Sara presented herself. “Sir.”

He nodded at Hugh, standing silently to one side. When Lowe spoke, he was at his most formal, which could be extremely intimidating and which immediately straightened the spines of everyone within hearing. “Regardless of the reliability of the intel provided by Mr. Rincon of the CIA”-his voice was even and pleasant but no one on the bridge was left in any doubt as to the captain’s opinion of Hugh’s employer-“the Agafia has already crossed the Maritime Boundary Line, trespassing multiple times on the territorial waters of the United States. We have in hand a letter of no objection from District. We can board and seize her at our discretion.”

“Agreed, sir.”

“However. We are looking down the maw of a nine-sixty-millibar low, heavy seas, and freezing spray. These are not ideal conditions for a boarding.” A wintry smile broke through. “I’m not even going to ask for a GAR assessment on launching the helo.”

This actually raised a chuckle around the bridge, which did nothing to lessen the level of tense expectation. “We’re good to go, Captain,” Sams said, and next to him, Laird echoed his assent.

“No, you’re not,” the captain said, “but if Mr. Rincon’s information is correct, we don’t have a lot of choice here. Therefore, I-”

“Captain?” Tommy said, her puzzled expression reflected in the green back lighting of the radar screen.

“Tommy-”

“Captain, the Agafia. She’s come about.”

“What?” Lowe pulled upright. “Come about? You mean she’s coming at us? Why would she-”

They all looked up to see lights bearing down on them out of the fog. The next thing Sara knew she had been hit by a couple of hundred pounds of hurtling male that knocked her across the deck from next to the captain’s chair to up against the starboard hatch, which fortunately was closed or they would both have tumbled out onto the starboard wing of the bridge.

She lay there, stunned into immobility, staring up at Hugh. She opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing and at that moment four of the forward bridge windows blew in with a sound like a thunderbolt, only ten times as loud. There were loud thumps and crashes as high-velocity metal projectiles stitched a line across the bridge five feet high.

Glass broke, metal housing splintered, flesh was shredded, and the bridge was filled with screams, curses, the angry howl of the wind and the bitter force of the blowing snow.

ON BOARD THE USCG CUTTER SOJOURNER TRUTH

SARA HAULED HERSELF TOher feet with numb hands reaching for anything left intact. “Captain,” she said, groping her way forward, trying to find some footing in the debris on the deck, fighting the roll of the ship’s hull. The sleet driving through the shattered windows seemed to penetrate every pore.

She heard a moan. Someone swore. This time she yelled. “Captain!”

Her outstretched hand touched an arm. It was dangling down the side of the captain’s chair. The ship jerked, off course because the helmsman was no longer at his post, and the motion caused the body attached to the arm to fall to the floor. She had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

She got her eyes open against the wind enough to see that Captain Lowe was dead, his torso severed almost in two by a large gaping wound, a bloody mass of torn tissue and splintered bones. The motion of the ship caused his body to roll onto his back. His eyes stared in surprise at the ceiling.

Sara looked around and slowly the rest of the bridge came into focus.

Tommy was clutching a shoulder, a dark liquid seeping from between her fingers, her other hand clutching the radar console to pull herself erect. The helmsman, Razo, had been thrown from his chair and lay facedown on the floor, unmoving. His head looked misshapen. Ops was bleeding from his right temple and Sara could hear him swearing. “Ops?”