Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

Okura woke up groggy. He’d spent the first day’s run cooped up in the old tug’s galley, watching Schwarzenegger movies on the tiny TV. Tinny little explosions and staticky one-liners, machine-gun fire everywhere. He’d escape to the back deck for fresh air every now and then, when the swell got too lumpy. Okura was a career sailor, but the Salvation was a lot smaller than the cargo ships he was used to, and it took the waves a little rougher.

He slept poorly. Saw the Lion in his dreams—endless hallways, dark nightmare cargo holds, Ishimaru always in his peripheral vision, gone when he turned to confront him. Ishimaru and that briefcase, fifty million dollars. Okura woke up sweaty, tangled in his bedsheets, didn’t know where he was.

Imagined, for a split second, he was in a Yokohama prison already.

I need that briefcase .

He dressed and splashed cold water on his face, checked the galley and found Magnusson’s men nursing cups of coffee. There were voices upstairs in the wheelhouse and he followed them, climbing the stairs to find Magnusson and Carew deep in conversation.

Magnusson turned to Okura as he entered. “This is where your distress call came in.”

Okura looked out through the boat’s windows. Saw nothing but open ocean, a growing swell, patches of sun through the clouds. There was no sign of the Lion .

“She has drifted,” he said.

“Current’s taking her up toward the Aleutians. We’re going to have to chase her.”

“How much longer?”

“A couple of hours, maybe. Enough time to get a good breakfast, get your gear ready. I’ll give you some notice when we’re closing in.”

Okura looked out the window again, the empty sea. Then he descended the stairs to the galley, poured himself a mug of coffee. Picked out another action movie and tried to get comfortable.

SCHWARZENEGGER HAD JUST ABOUT killed the bad guy when the Salvation ’s horn blew, long and loud. Okura paused the movie, and he and the Commodore men climbed back up to the wheelhouse.

Magnusson and Carew stood by the wheel, Carew’s deckhand, Robbie, beside them. They gazed out through the forward windows. Okura followed their eyes. Gaped.

“Iya,” he said. “What a catastrophe.”

They’d found the Pacific Lion . The ship lay on its side, dead ahead, and Okura could see the white of the ship’s superstructure, the blue of its hull, and the red of its naked keel, laid out almost horizontal to the sea. Along the keel, way back at the stern, Okura could see a couple blades of the ship’s propeller. The angle of the list was unsettling. The Lion looked ready to sink beneath the waves at any moment.

Okura shivered. Realized he hadn’t been prepared to see his ship again. To see the damage he’d done.

The radio crackled.

“Vessel approaching the freighter Pacific Lion , this is the United States Coast Guard Marine Patrol aircraft above you. Please state your business in these waters.”

There was momentary silence in the wheelhouse, and Okura could hear the drone of an aircraft engine above the boat. Carew craned his neck out of the starboard window, searched the sky.

“It’s a Hercules,” he said. “HC-130, probably out of Kodiak.”

Christer Magnusson already had hold of the radio. “Coast Guard patrol aircraft, this is Captain Magnusson on the salvage vessel Salvation . We’re here on behalf of Commodore Towing. We intend to salvage this wreck.”

A pause. “Stand by, Salvation .”

Okura caught Magnusson’s eye. “Do you think they’ll let us operate?”

“They have to,” Carew said. “The Coast Guard isn’t equipped to run an operation this big, not in the middle of nowhere like this. Right now, they’re racking their brains trying to figure out how to keep that ship from wrecking on a rock and spilling oil over every duck, whale, and cuddly sea otter in the North Pacific. They need the Salvation . You wait.”

Okura waited. So did the others. The Hercules droned on overhead, circling the wreck.

Then the radio hummed to life again. “ Salvation , Coast Guard patrol. Captain, we appreciate your initiative. This ship is drifting deeper into American waters, and it’s starting to scare a few people around here. Are you in touch with the ship’s owners?”

“My office is in the process of negotiating a salvage agreement as we speak,” Magnusson replied.

“Copy. Please advise when you’re ready to commence operations. We’ll continue to monitor the situation from up here, and we’ll have the cutter Munro back on-site shortly to assist as necessary.”

The radio operator wished them luck, and signed off. Overhead, the big Hercules waggled its wings. Magnusson hung up the headset. “There,” he said. “The ship is ours.”

The Lion was a mountain up close. Carew guided the Salvation around the Lion ’s keel. There was a swell building, and the underside of the wreck was awash with breaking waves. Okura stood on the Salvation ’s bridge wing and stared up and watched. Apart from the sound of the surf, the ship was eerily quiet.

Carew circled the Salvation around the stern of the freighter, where its massive propeller hung half submerged in the icy water, the flat slab of rudder sitting useless, hard-over to port.

There was an access walkway on the stern of the ship, and an opening just above where the name PACIFIC LION was painted in big white letters against the blue hull. At its lowest point, the walkway was maybe ten feet from the surface of the water, but it angled up so sharply that it might as well have been a wall.

Good thing we have rope, Okura thought. This is going to require some agility.

Carew idled the Salvation around to the portside of the ship, the weather deck at the top of the superstructure now just a few feet from the water. Okura could see the whole of the accommodations house, the plain, low boxes above the white hull that served as home and working space for the crew. The aft lifeboat remained in place, hanging from its stanchions near the giant exhaust funnel at the stern.

So Ishimaru hadn’t stolen away. Not in a boat, anyway.

The bridge appeared empty as well. No sign of life anywhere. If the stowaway was still aboard, he’d had a lonely time at sea.

When the Salvation had completed its circumnavigation of the wreck, Okura turned and walked off of the bridge wing and into the wheelhouse, where Magnusson was on the satellite phone. He hung up as Okura entered.

“The shipowners have faxed an agreement to the Commodore headquarters,” he told the men. “No cure, no pay. If we don’t salvage this ship, we don’t earn a dime.”

He stared out at the Lion , silent. The rest of the men followed his gaze. Finally, Magnusson squared his shoulders. “First things first,” he said, fixing his eyes on Okura. “We’d better get you on board to retrieve your lost item—and our fee.”

MAGNUSSON AND CAREW DECIDED that the best way aboard the Lion was from the portside weather deck, the same way that Okura and his shipmates had evacuated the vessel days earlier.

“ Best best way on board is with a helicopter,” Magnusson told Okura. “We wait until the Munro shows up and they’ll put you down nice and easy at the top of the starboard rail. You can drop in and search how you please.”