Nelson DeMille - Plum Island

"I want him, now, with fresh blood on his hands."

"No." She was really squeezing my arm now. "John, you don't even know where he went."

"There's only one place he would go on a night like this in a boat."

"Where is that?"

"You know where — Plum Island."

"But why?"

"I think the treasure is still there."

"How do you know that?"

"Just a guess. Ciao." Before she could get in my way again, I left.

I headed across the lawn toward the boat. The wind was really howling, and a huge branch fell not far from me. There was almost no daylight left, which was fine because I didn't want to see what the water looked like.

I made my way along the dock, holding on to the pilings, then sprinting to the next one so as not to get blown off into the water. Finally, I reached the boathouse, which was creaking and groaning. In the dim light, I saw that the Formula 303 was still there, but I noticed that the Whaler was gone, and I wondered if it had broken loose and been washed away, or if Tobin was towing it behind the Chris-Craft, either as a lifeboat or as a way to get onto the beach at Plum Island.

I stared at the Formula rising and falling on the swells and thumping against the rubber bumpers on the floating dock. I hesitated a moment, trying to get into a rational frame of mind, telling myself that it wasn't necessary for me to take a boat into a storm. Tobin was finished, one way or another. Well… maybe not. Maybe I had to finish him before he got himself lawyered up and alibied and outraged at my violations of his civil rights. Dead men can't sue.

I kept staring at the Formula, and in the dim light, I thought I saw Tom and Judy on board, smiling and motioning for me to join them. Then, an image of Emma flashed in my mind, and I saw her again, swimming in the bay smiling at me. And then I saw Tobin's face at his party as he was speaking to her, knowing he was going to kill her…

Beyond the legal necessities, I realized that the only way I could bring closure to this case for me personally was to capture Fredric Tobin myself, and having captured him, to… well, I'd think about that later.

The next thing I knew, I was jumping from the dock into the speedboat.

I caught my balance on the pitching deck and made my way to the right-hand seat, the captain's seat.

I experienced my first problem, which was finding the ignition. I finally found it near the throttle. I tried to recall what I'd seen the Gordons do and remembered that they'd once handed me a printed plastic card titled "Suddenly in Command," and told me to read it. I had read it and decided I didn't want to be suddenly in command. But now I was. I wished I still had the card.

Anyway, I remembered to put both gear selectors in neutral, put the key in the ignition, move it to on… then… what…? Nothing was happening. I saw two buttons marked "start" and pushed the right one. The starboard engine turned over and fired. Then I pressed the second button and the port engine started. I felt them running a little rough, and I pushed both throttles slightly forward and gave them more gas. I remembered I had to let the engines warm a few minutes. I didn't want to stall out in that sea. While they were warming, I found a knife in the open glove compartment in the dashboard and cut the spring line, then both mooring lines, and the Formula immediately rolled with a wave and smashed into the side of the boathouse about five feet from the dock.

I shifted into forward gear and gripped the dual throttles. The bow was pointed to the bay, so all I had to do was push forward on the throttles, and I would be out into the storm.

Just as I was about to do this, I heard something behind me and looked over my shoulder. It was Beth, calling my name over the noise of the wind, water, and motors.

" JOHN !"

"What?"

"Wait! I'm coming!"

"Then come on!" I shifted the boat into reverse, grabbed the wheel, and managed to back the boat closer to the dock. "Jump!"

She jumped and landed on the rolling deck behind me, then fell.

"Are you okay?"

She stood, then a swell pitched the boat, and she fell again, then stood again. "I'm okay!" She made her way to the left-hand seat and said, "Let's go."

"Are you sure?"

"Go!"

I pushed the throttles forward, and we cleared the boathouse into the driving rain. A second later, I saw a huge wave coming at us from the right, and it was going to hit us broadside. I cut the wheel right and got the bow into the wave. The boat rode up, hung on to the crest as if it were in midair, then the wave broke behind me, leaving the boat literally in midair. The boat came down, bow first, digging into the swelling sea. Then the bow rose and the stern hit the water. The propellers caught, and we were off, but in the wrong direction. In the trough between waves, I swung the boat around 180 degrees and headed east. As we passed the boathouse, I heard a sharp crack and the entire structure leaned to the right, then collapsed onto the boiling sea. "Jeez!"

Beth called out over the noise of the storm, "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Sure. I took a course once called Suddenly in Command."

"About boats?"

"I think so." I looked at her, and she looked back at me. I said, "Thanks for coming."

She said, "Drive."

The Formula was at half throttle, which is how I think you're supposed to keep control in a storm. I mean, we seemed to be above the water about half the time, flying over the troughs, then slicing right into the oncoming waves where the propellers would whine, then bite into the water and shoot us forward like a surfboard into the oncoming sea again. The one thing I knew I had to do was to keep the bow into the oncoming waves and keep from being broadsided by a big one. The boat would probably not sink, but it could capsize. I'd seen capsized boats in the bay after lesser storms than this.

Beth called out, "Do you know how to navigate?"

"Sure. Red right return."

"What does that mean?"

"You keep the red marker on your right when returning to harbor."

"We're not returning to the harbor. We're leaving."

"Oh… then look for green markers."

"I don't see any markers," she informed me.

"Neither do I." I added, "I'll just stay to the right of the double white line. Can't go wrong doing that."

She didn't reply.

I tried to get my head into a nautical frame of mine. Boating is not my number one hobby, but I'd been a guest on a lot of boats over the years, and I figured I'd sucked up some facts since I was a kid. And in June, July, and August, I'd been out with the Gordons about a dozen times, and Tom was a nonstop chatterer, and he liked to share his nautical enthusiasm and knowledge with me. I don't recall paying a lot of attention (being more interested in Judy in her bikini), but I was positive there was a little pigeonhole in my cerebral cortex labeled "Boats." I just had to locate it. In fact, I was sure I knew more about boats than I realized. I hoped so.

We were now well into the Peconic Bay, and the boat was slamming very hard into the water — jarring, teeth-rattling thumps, one after the other, like a car driving over railroad ties, and I could feel my stomach getting out of sync with the vertical movement of the boat; when the boat was down, my stomach was still up, and when the boat was tossed into the air, my stomach dropped down. Or so it seemed. I couldn't see a thing through the windshield, so I stood and looked over the windshield, my butt braced against the seat behind me, my right hand on the steering wheel, my left on a handgrip on the dashboard. I'd swallowed enough saltwater to raise my blood pressure fifty points. Also, the salt was starting to burn my eyes. I glanced at Beth and saw she was wiping her eyes, too.

To my right, I saw a huge sailboat lying on its side in the water, its keel barely visible and its mast and sail swamped. "Good God…"