Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

TWO WOMEN WORKED at the front of the gymnasium, clearing empty dishes from the table. They talked, and their voices carried in the silent space.

“That was Robbie who just called,” the first woman said. “Some bigwigs just came down to the dock, want to charter Bill’s boat and head out to the wreck.”

Her friend cocked her head. “What, the big wreck? What for?”

“See if they can save it, I guess,” the first woman said. “I didn’t really get the whole story. Anyway, they’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Probably gone for a week, ten days, Robbie said. So you know what that means.”

The second woman smiled. “Girls’ night.”

“Girls’ week . If the guy’s going to leave, I’m having a party.”

The women walked out of the gym, laughing. Okura watched them go. So someone was going out to the Lion . Probably, they would find Tomio Ishimaru, and his briefcase. Maybe they would even take a cut of his profits.

Good luck to them . May they live long and happy lives. I will think of them often, from prison.

He dwelled on this unhappy thought for a while. Then the customs officer came into the room, and everyone straightened and shifted and looked at him. The man wasn’t smiling.

“There’s a delay,” he told the crew. “It’s too foggy to land your jet. They’re going to fly on to Kodiak and try again tomorrow.”

The Gale Force chugged north up the west coast of Canada, skirting the wild western edge of Vancouver Island, dodging freighters and log tows, fishing boats with their trolling lines, and pleasure craft under sail and power.

In the Queen Charlotte Sound, between the north end of the island and the southern end of the Haida Gwaii archipelago, a pod of Dall’s porpoises appeared alongside the tug. It was morning, and McKenna was brushing her teeth on the afterdeck when the porpoises appeared, speed demons, racing alongside the tug and frolicking in the waves.

Some of the creatures were so close that McKenna imagined she could reach over the gunnels and touch them. They were so fast and carefree that she couldn’t help but smile as she watched.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Stacey Jonas said. She’d come out of the wheelhouse with her own toothbrush and a mug of water. “So fast and sleek.”

“They sure look like they’re having fun out there,” McKenna said, making room at the rail so Stacey could join her.

“Sure do.” Stacey grinned. “I love watching them. Any sea creatures, really. Sometimes I think I like animals more than I like human beings—present company excluded, of course.”

“Of course. And Matt, too, I hope.”

“Matt, too,” Stacey said. “And he’s the same way. I never love him more than when we’re both underwater, guiding a bunch of folks around some coral reef. We can’t talk to each other, but I still feel him there with me, and that’s more than enough for both of us. I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t feel the same way.”

You’d get divorced, McKenna thought. Like my parents did. Randall Rhodes had tried to get his wife aboard the Gale Force , when he first bought the tug. Come along for an adventure, he’d told her. You won’t even have to cook. But Justine Rhodes loved the city, loved her home, the proximity of the grocery store and the coffee shop and the park. Try as her father might, McKenna’s mom had never budged. And there was surely no way Randall Rhodes was coming in from the sea, so the marriage had wilted, fallen apart, leaving bitterness, hurt feelings, and a lonely, landlocked daughter, passing time in Spokane and dreaming about the ocean. Some romantic idea of what being a salvage master looked like.

It looks like this, McKenna thought. A beautiful sunny morning, a fresh wind off the water, a pod of porpoises leaping and splashing off the starboard rail. And a thousand gnawing worries. A lonely life lived in suspense, waiting for the moment the whole operation falls apart.

Stacey picked up on the look on her face. Wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Smile, kiddo,” she said. “You’re living the dream. People pay big money for this view.”

McKenna laughed. “I’m paying big money, too,” she said. “Didn’t Ridley tell you the tricks I had to pull at the bank just to get us out of Seattle? I don’t know what I’m going to do if we don’t—”

“We will,” Stacey said. “ You will. You think hubby and I would fly all the way up here if we didn’t think you had the chops? It isn’t cheap buying fuel for Matt’s little plane, you know.”

McKenna said nothing. Stared out over the water, the blue sky. The low, purple mountains on the horizon. Wished she shared Stacey’s confidence.

The diver punched her on the shoulder. “Your dad raised a tug captain, girl. We’re going to kick this thing’s ass.”

“Hell,” McKenna said, turning back to the wheelhouse as the porpoises fell astern. “Just find me a decent architect and I’ll feel a lot better.”

At that moment, the rear wheelhouse door swung open above them, and Jason Parent poked his head out on deck. “Phone call for you, skipper,” he called down. “Sounds like Court.”

Stacey raised an eyebrow. “Good things to those who ask?”

“Apparently,” McKenna replied, starting up toward the wheelhouse. “Whatever you did just there? Keep that around. We’re going to need more when we get to the wreck.”

“SOME OLD BOY CRACKED MY ACES, ” Harrington told McKenna. “I’m out.”

McKenna frowned at the handset. The satellite phone’s connection was a little spotty; she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“Out,” she said. “Like, for good?”

“Didn’t even make my buy-in back.” Harrington sighed. “I swear, two days ago I was doing great. I just ran like crap yesterday, is all. And then today, with the aces.”

“Bad beat, huh?” McKenna hoped he couldn’t hear her grin. Wondered if grinning made her a bad person.

“Anyway,” Harrington continued, “my loss is your gain, if you still have that job open. I can catch a cab to the airport in a couple of days, meet you by the time you get up to the wreck.”

“How about you catch that cab now?” McKenna replied. “Meet us in Ketchikan tomorrow morning.”

“What, and ride the boat all the way up there? I was thinking I’d just take some time here in Vegas, you know, regroup and relax.”

Typical Court, McKenna thought. “You want the job, I need you up here,” she told him. “You wait around in Vegas, you might find another game. And where does that leave me and my crew?”

“ Our crew,” Harrington said. “I know the score, McKenna. You don’t have to treat me like—”

“Ketchikan,” she said. “Tomorrow morning.”

Harrington went quiet. “Geez,” he said finally. “Okay, McKenna. I’m in.”

McKenna hung up the phone and crossed back to the wheel. Couldn’t hide the fresh bounce in her step. With Harrington on board, the Gale Force had a weapon that no other salvage outfit could top, not even the big guys. The whiz kid and his computer models could raise ships from the depths of the ocean. McKenna was certain he could figure out a way to save the Pacific Lion .

The radio squawked to life; the Coast Guard coming through with the latest long-range forecast. McKenna listened, but she was only half interested. The forecast was clear across the gulf to Dutch Harbor, and it was too early to think beyond that. Anyway, Harrington was en route, and McKenna was in no mood to worry right now.