Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

BUT ISHIMARU WASN’T IN his hiding space.

The storage locker where Okura had left him was empty, its door hanging open, Ishimaru’s bedding a tangle, and detritus strewn everywhere.

“Tomio!” Okura called. He heard nothing but the accountant’s name reverberating through the ship’s empty halls. The locker was dark. From the portside door below came the sound of water crashing against the hull. The ship might flood. The cargo doors might fail. The Lion might sink, taking Okura with it.

Okura searched the locker for the briefcase. Couldn’t imagine Ishimaru leaving without it, but he looked anyway. Tried to imagine how the accountant had reacted when the alarm sounded, what he’d done, where he’d gone.

He would have been terrified. Survival would have been his first instinct. He would have grabbed the briefcase and made for the weather deck outside. He would have been panicked, but he’d know to go up.

The Lion ’s crew had launched a lifeboat from the portside, nearest the water. Could Ishimaru be waiting on the starboard deck, wondering where everybody had gone?

Only one way to find out.

Okura abandoned the locker. Gripped the railings in the hall and began pulling himself skyward. He would check the starboard deck for his old classmate. That was the likeliest place he could be.

HIGH ABOVE THE DARK OCEAN and the Pacific Lion ’s tiny lifeboat, United States Coast Guard pilot Sean McCloud glanced across the cockpit of his Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk rescue helicopter. “Another man,” he repeated. “So where is he?”

In the copilot’s seat, Jim Bute shrugged. “Captain has no idea. According to his third officer, the guy watched his buddies all pile into the lifeboat, then turned tail on them. They thought the ship was sinking, so they cut loose and left him there.”

It was 0345 hours. Ninety minutes prior, the Jayhawk and its Kodiak-based flight crew had scrambled into the air from its forward deployment station in Dutch Harbor. McCloud and Bute had easily located the Pacific Lion ’s lifeboat, dropped flares in the water, and conferred with the freighter’s captain over the radio, telling him that they didn’t have room in the chopper for all twenty-five men, but the cutter Munro was en route and would be on the scene in approximately four hours. Fine, the captain had replied. No injuries on board, plenty of food and water. And then he’d dropped the bomb.

One man missing. Somewhere on the ship.

Now McCloud looked out through his windshield at the night beyond. “Dang.”

“That lifeboat has GPS and a distress beacon,” Bute said. “We’re not going to lose them.”

“And meanwhile, this crazy SOB is somewhere else entirely.” McCloud squared his shoulders. “Guess we’ve gotta go look for him.”

He radioed back to the two crew members in the flight bay. “Drop a couple more flares by that lifeboat. Apparently, these guys forgot someone.”

In the back of the Jayhawk, flight technician David Denman slid open the helicopter’s side door while aviation survival tech Tyson Jones readied a couple more flares. The chance that the chopper would lose the life raft on GPS was minimal, but McCloud didn’t want to take any chances. There was no sense trading twenty-six lives just to take a shot at saving one more.

When Jones and Denman had dropped the flares, McCloud pulled up on the Jayhawk’s collective, lifting the helicopter up and away from the sea.

“Find me that ship’s last reported position,” he told Bute. “Let’s see if there’s anything left.”

RESCUE SWIMMER TYSON JONES clipped his harness to the winch above the Jayhawk’s rear door. Flashed David Denman a thumbs-up, and stepped out of the cabin and into thin air.

The wind was moderate outside the helicopter as Jones descended to the Pacific Lion ’s starboard weather deck, looking for a decent place to land. The ship hadn’t sunk, not yet. It sat low in the water, listing heavily to port and rocking in the swell, but it was still floating, and its three remaining lifeboats remained on board and intact—the survivor hadn’t launched his own boat.

Doesn’t look so bad down there, Jones thought. Hundred bucks says we find this maniac in the galley, eating all the cake.

Denman and McCloud put him down aft of the bridge, high above the water. The ship was listing so much that Jones landed on the side of the accommodations superstructure, the wall more like a deck now. He braced himself as he touched down, keeping hold of the safety wire, as if his sudden added weight could be the final push that sent the ship over.

The ship swayed beneath his feet—a sluggish roll, heavy. The ship was partially filled with water, Jones realized, and there was probably more water flooding in. He unclipped his safety wire and muttered a prayer. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Then, carefully, he inched his way down the wall of the house to the bridge.

Through a doorway, Jones studied the bridge. Long and dark, no movement anywhere. No sign of the missing sailor.

“Entering the ship,” he radioed up to the Jayhawk. “I’ll let you know when I find this guy.”

“Copy,” McCloud replied. “No hero business, Tyson.”

“Who, me?” Jones stepped through the doorway, found a railing on the wall, gripped it tight, and began to edge his way deeper into the ship. “Hello?” he called. “ Konnichiwa , man. I’m here to take you home.”

He unclipped a flashlight from his shoulder strap and surveyed the bridge. The whole place was a mess—paper everywhere, spilled coffee, ruined electronics. No maniac sailor. No one at all.

“No dice,” he told McCloud over the radio. “Guess this guy’s somewhere else.”

He reclipped his flashlight. Looked around the bridge again, saw a bulkhead at the rear—a door to the rest of the ship.

“Going to check out the crew quarters,” he radioed.

“If he’s not on the bridge, he’s probably overboard,” McCloud replied. “We’re getting low on fuel and that ship is unstable in those seas. Come on back.”

“Two minutes.” Jones dropped himself down the slanting deck, using chart tables and the wall for support. He made the bulkhead and pulled open the door. Flipping his light on again, he found himself staring down a long hallway, the spine of the ship. Nobody there. Nothing moving. No sounds.

“Jones.” McCloud on the radio. “Topside. Now .”

“Dang it.” Jones closed the bulkhead door. Climbed his way up to the starboard side of the bridge, and stepped back out onto the wall of the accommodations superstructure. Looked up into the night sky, the lights of the Jayhawk, motioned to Denman to send the safety wire down. Steadied himself on the deck, ready to receive the wire, and that’s when he saw the guy, climbing out of a starboard doorway a hundred feet down, this Japanese sailor half-drenched with sweat, staring back at Jones with a look on his face like the kid who got caught breaking curfew.

Got him . Jones waved to the guy. “Hey, man,” he said. “Come on over here a minute.”

The sailor stared at him. Looked up at the helicopter. Looked ready to run.

“Don’t you do it,” Jones said, wishing he spoke Japanese. “The game’s over. It’s time to go home.”

The sailor still didn’t move. He looked down through the doorway. Then he sighed, and Jones took it as a good sign, a gesture of surrender. The sailor straightened up. He didn’t move for a beat.