Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

It would have been impossible not to feel Randall Rhodes’s presence in the wheelhouse. The man had molded the command center in his image, from the carpet on the wheelhouse floor to the leather on the captain’s chair. The wheel, salvaged from an old steam tug in Prince William Sound. The pewter picture frame beside the depth sounder, a Christmas gift from McKenna from aeons ago. It had held a picture of McKenna for as long as Randall Rhodes ran the boat, the same picture, Little League, age eight. Braces and a ponytail and a wide, awkward smile. She’d always been embarrassed when she caught a glimpse of that photo. Wondered how her dad could expect the crew to take her seriously.

But they had taken her seriously, or they hadn’t lasted long. Randall Rhodes had seen to that—not that he’d cut her any slack, either, not while they worked. The girl in the picture might as well have been someone else’s daughter when they were out on a job; the old man worked every member of his crew just as hard as he worked himself, no quarter given, no excuses. She’d found it unfair at first. Hated her father. Thought about quitting, packed her bags plenty, stalked off in a huff every time the Gale Force made land.

Somehow, though, she was always aboard when they cast off again. And now that old pewter frame held a picture of her father, faded flannel shirt, beard going to gray, a stained Baitmasters hat. And a smile for the camera that still caught McKenna off guard when she’d see it, even now.

NELSON RIDLEY CAME UP into the wheelhouse as the Gale Force approached Dungeness Spit, the top end of Puget Sound, some five hours after setting out from the Seattle docks. He handed McKenna a cup of coffee and stood beside her at the wheel. “How’s she looking, lass?”

“So far, so good,” McKenna replied. “Forecast is just fine, and we’re making steady time. Should clear Cape Flattery right on schedule.”

Ridley looked out through the forward windows. Up ahead, the Strait of Juan de Fuca stretched ninety-five miles to the open Pacific, the snowcapped mountains of the Olympic Peninsula to port, Vancouver Island and Canada to starboard, as far as the eye could see.

“How are the mains doing?” McKenna asked her engineer.

“That turbo’s humming like a champ,” Ridley replied. “All good so far.”

So far, McKenna thought, then admonished herself. No sense jinxing the operation any more than normal. Seafarers were a superstitious lot; you didn’t leave port on a Friday (it was Tuesday, thankfully), you didn’t dry your coffee mugs upside down (invited capsizing), and on some boats, you didn’t bring bananas on board—or women. McKenna was no fan of bananas, but she’d be damned if she was staying on shore, so maybe she wasn’t superstitious. Still, she wouldn’t be trimming her nails or running any laundry until the job was over, lest she anger the sea gods, or whatever.

Ridley let her stand in silence for a minute or two. “You getting anywhere with the architect situation, skipper? Any news from Court?”

“Not yet,” McKenna said, avoiding his eyes. “I’ve been calling around, other contacts, don’t have any leads yet. But I will.”

“Not many people can do what the whiz can.”

“Yeah, well, the whiz isn’t coming.” It came out rougher than she’d planned. “He’s busy, Nelson, and that’s all there is to it. We’ll make do.”

Ridley didn’t say anything for a moment, and McKenna could practically read his doubt.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, we’ll make do. We always do, right?”

“We have a long run up to Dutch, anyway,” McKenna said. “I’ll have a replacement by the time we make the wreck. I promise.”

The Commodore headquarters had found Christer Magnusson the only working salvage boat in Dutch Harbor. It wasn’t much to look at.

Magnusson had flown up from Los Angeles with a couple of crew, Foss and Ogilvy—young men, strong, more or less interchangeable. They’d caught a connection in Anchorage, a little PenAir turboprop, spent two and a half hours shuddering and bouncing through ragged clouds and harsh turbulence before the plane made its final, merciful descent.

They’d filed off the plane with about a dozen other passengers, walked through the tiny airport, and found a dirty minivan waiting, a decal on the side reading UNALASKA TAXI.

Magnusson dug in his coat for the name Mueller had given him. He leaned in through the cab’s open window.

“Bering Marine,” he’d told the driver. “Do you know it?”

Now Magnusson stood on the Bering Marine dock, surveying a tug called Salvation . She was about a hundred and twenty feet long—a modest white wheelhouse above raised blue bulwarks at the bow, a heavy-duty A-frame crane directly behind it, and then a long expanse of deck. The hull was blue in some places and grimy black in others; not the prettiest boat in the world by a mile, but the owner swore to Magnusson that she ran like a champion.

“Built for the war,” the man said. His name was Carew. “The Second World War, that is. Navy ship. She’s been repowered a couple times, but her bones are the same. There’s nowhere in the Pacific this ship can’t take you.”

Magnusson looked the ship over. The boat’s Caterpillar engines growled somewhere beneath its filthy hull; a greasy plume of exhaust smoke belched from the stake. Beside him, Foss and Ogilvy exchanged glances. Foss raised an eyebrow, an expression that meant I’m not sure about this hulk .

Neither was Magnusson. The Salvation was ancient, underpowered, and ill-equipped for a deep-sea salvage job. But Bering Marine was the only outfit in town, and Magnusson wasn’t ready to give up an eight-figure charter so soon.

“When can you be ready?” he asked Carew.

The captain shrugged. “Take me a day or two, get the gear your boss requested. We weren’t exactly prepared for this kind of operation, you know?”

“One day,” Magnusson said. “We don’t have time to screw around.”

Carew rubbed his chin. Mulled it over.

“One day, fine,” he said finally. Then he grinned. “Listen, when we save that ship, you make sure they know it was the Salvation that done it, all right?”

There was nothing to do but wait.

Okura had eaten until he was sure he would never feel hungry again. He’d smiled and attempted to make conversation with the well-meaning Americans who’d brought food to the little town’s community center. Now all but a few of the Americans were gone, and Okura stood alone in the corner of the center’s gymnasium, waiting for the customs official to return and tell them their plane had arrived.

Outside, it was no longer sunny. A thick layer of fog was settling on the mountains above the town. Okura watched it drift down. It did nothing to help his mood.

He’d given his life to the shipping company. No woman would marry a man who was away at sea for nine months of the year. He’d missed the death of his mother and the marriage of his younger sister. There was nothing else in his life but the work. Work, and the gambling parlors.

When he climbed aboard that plane, he would no longer have a job. That was a certainty. He might even face criminal charges for his role in the Lion ’s disaster—especially if Tomio Ishimaru ever surfaced. And even, if by some miracle, Okura managed to escape with his professional life intact, he would still owe debts he was incapable of paying, huge debts, to men who regularly called on the yakuza to help them collect.

Put plain, he was finished. There was simply no hope.