Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

“Why not?” Harrington said. “I don’t know, I’ve always had a thing for ships. My dad used to take me walking down by the water when I was a kid, used to tell me all about the cargo ships we saw anchored out in the harbor. I think he secretly wanted to run away on one, you know?” He shrugged. “Anyway, I grew up thinking I would design ships for a living, but it turns out there isn’t much work for shipbuilders in the United States anymore. And anyway, this is more fun.” He laughed. “And more lucrative, if you do it right.”

“That’s a big if .”

“Still better than an office job.” Harrington turned around again. They’d reached another watertight door. “The engine room,” he told McKenna. “Just a couple more ballast tanks, and a few random fluid levels, and we’re set to pump.”

McKenna was ready to breathe fresh air again. “Perfect.”

Harrington tried the door. Jiggled it. The door wouldn’t move. “Only one problem,” he said. “We’re locked out.”

“There’s another door on the starboard side,” Harrington said. “We’ll just climb back up and go that way.”

They ventured back through the ship, retracing their steps down the same dark, damp corridors. Passed the stairway where they’d climbed down from deck four, and continued to the engine room doorway. This door was unlocked. But it was blocked from within, and by something heavy.

“I don’t think we can move this,” McKenna said after they’d shoved and heaved against the door for a while. “Must have tipped over when the wreck happened.”

“Yeah, well, we need to get in there,” Harrington replied. “We have to get those fluid levels before we even think about beginning the operation.”

“There has to be another way in.”

“Of course. There are access doors through the accommodations deck, and farther astern. We just have to go all the way back topside.”

McKenna checked her watch. Almost noon. The trek through the bottom of the Pacific Lion had taken more than five hours, and the weather was only getting worse out there. It would take another hour to reach the engine room, she figured, and a couple of hours to check the rest of the fluid levels. Then Harrington would have to devise his plan of attack, and the crew would have to move the pumps into position, and then the pumping itself—

It was a long day ahead. And that assumed nothing went wrong.

“To the stern, then,” she said, starting back toward the access stairway. “But let’s hustle, okay?”

THE BATTERING EFFECT of the waves had been muted, seventy feet below the ocean surface, but in the starboard access hatchway, McKenna could feel the full force of the swell again. The rope swung, wild and unpredictable, launching McKenna against the wall of the stairway, and then into the steps themselves. She hit hard, bounced off, hit again, came back clutching her ribs with her free hand.

“Cripes,” Harrington called up from below. “You okay up there?”

“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” McKenna replied, catching her breath. “I’ll be fine.”

“We can’t do this job without you, either, so be careful.”

“Roger.” McKenna continued to climb. Three decks, nearly thirty feet in this claustrophobic madhouse. The waves hammered the ship. The rope swayed. McKenna clipped herself in, climbed a couple of loops, unclipped herself and clipped in again. Above her, the watertight hatchway was a swatch in the darkness, only slightly better lit than the access stairs themselves. McKenna focused on the climb. Steadied her breathing. Step by step, she reached the top.

Matt Jonas was waiting when McKenna poked her head through the hatchway. “Stacey’s just checking on the pump,” he reported, “but I think we’ve pretty much got it beat. You guys have any luck down there?”

“A little bit.” McKenna pulled herself through the hatch, steadied herself as another wave hit. “Just have to check on a few figures in the engine room. Then we’re ready for action.”

“Right on.” Matt gave her a sheepish smile. “Starting to get a little seasick down here.”

“It’s nautical out there, that’s for sure.” McKenna peered down the access hatch. “You alive down there, Court?”

The architect pushed out a deep breath. Unclipped himself, clipped back in. “I’m okay,” he said. “This swell is kicking my ass, though.”

“Couple more loops, then you got it made.”

“Yeah.” Court laughed. “Then we just have to climb up nine more decks and back down again.”

He climbed to the next loop. Unclipped himself. Pulled the carabiner up and fumbled with it, couldn’t clip in. Dropped it. It dangled from his harness. “Crap.”

McKenna reached through the hatch. “Forget it. I’ll pull you up.”

But Harrington was still fumbling with the carabiner. He picked it up, snapped it open. Then the wave hit.

It must have been another monster. It jarred the Lion sideways, so hard that McKenna thought for an instant that the ship must have been sinking. The steel shuddered and groaned. The cars shifted on their mounts in the cargo hold. McKenna steadied herself, caught her balance, just in time to see Harrington lose his grip on the rope.

The architect’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth but didn’t scream, locking his gaze on McKenna as he fell, dropping fifteen feet and then pinwheeling off a wall or a staircase or something, hurtling down out of sight, his headlamp like a strobe against the steel walls. A moment later, McKenna heard the thud as the architect hit bottom.

“Court!” McKenna was on the rope in an instant. Hollered up at Matt to call the Coast Guard as she dropped through the hatch and down toward Harrington, moving too fast to bother clipping herself in. She hollered Court’s name as she dropped, was vaguely aware of Matt scrambling up the other rope to the surface, nearly lost her grip as another wave hit—not as hard but hard enough—held on tight and kept going, down, down, into the darkness.

Harrington lay on his back at the base of the stairs, his body bent at an impossible angle. McKenna dropped off the rope next to him, her heart pounding. “Court,” she said, kneeling beside the architect. “Come on, Court. Talk to me.”

Harrington stared up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused.

“ Court . Where are you, buddy?”

Harrington blinked slowly. “Randall?” he said. “Shit… that hurt.”

Then he was out, unconscious. McKenna felt for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak, and Harrington sure wasn’t talking.

“Get me some help,” she called up through the ship. “Damn it, I need some help down here, now!”

The Coast Guard’s Dolphin arrived on scene after twenty long minutes. The AST took another twenty minutes to make his way down the access stairway to where McKenna waited with Harrington.

The architect hadn’t opened his eyes. McKenna checked his pulse again; it was weak, but it was there. The way Court’s vision swam as he’d looked at her, though, McKenna figured it was decent odds he had a head injury. Broken bones, definitely. Figured it was a coin flip whether he ever walked again .

The AST touched down beside McKenna. “Guess you guys got the same wave we did. Had to be thirty feet, easy.”

McKenna said nothing. The AST looked Harrington over. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Sit tight. I’m going to get the medevac board down here.”

It was another twenty minutes before the board arrived. One hour since the fall now. McKenna could feel the minutes slipping away, just as fast as they’d passed with her dad in the water.