Douglas Preston - Impact

"Man, look at that," said Jackie, gazing eastward at the full Moon. "Looks like you could almost touch it."

Abbey eased the throttle forward, turning the wheel, and set the Marea II toward the Muscle Ridge Islands, a line of black humps on the horizon, four miles distant. It all looked so peaceful, so perfect, so timeless . . . It seemed surreal that somewhere up there, on a distant moonlet, there might be a weapon taking aim, right now, at the Earth. And that in a split second, all of this could be gone.

67

Burr tossed the cigarette into the wake and looked around once more with the binoculars. The sun had set and most of the fishing boats had disappeared, but here and there he could still see the odd boat, loaded with traps, churning along toward some home port or other. From time to time he'd spied a lone motor yacht or sailboat cruising along--but no Marea II . He hadn't realized just how big the coast was and how many damn islands there were. And it seemed likely that they had gone to ground anyway or were doing whatever the hell it was they were doing, far from prying eyes. For the first time, he began to worry that he might not complete the assignment.

He lit up another cigarette, his eighth. Usually he paced himself, smoking no more than seven a day, but this was a bad day.

He strolled into the open pilothouse and stared at the chartplotter.

"Where are we now?"

"We're just leaving the north end of Muscongus Bay."

"Where to?"

"Penobscot Bay opens up on the far end of the channel."

Burr grunted, inhaled. "It's almost dark. I think we should find a place to hove to for the night."

"We're not going to hove to. We're going to keep looking. We got radar, we got GPS. We can cruise these islands all night, looking for boats in out-of-the-way places."

Burr grunted. "How are you going to see it in the dark?"

"Full Moon tonight. On the water under a full Moon it's almost like day."

He glanced up. "What about this storm?"

"We'll deal with it when it comes. This is a fine, seaworthy boat."

"Good enough."

He went to the gunwale and finished up the cigarette. It was getting dark and there was no sign of the approaching storm. He tossed the butt overboard. In the distance he could see the dim outline of another lobster boat, crossing the far end of the channel--appearing from behind a large island and heading out instead of in. He quickly raised the binoculars. It was just light enough to make out the name painted on the stern.

Marea II.

Making an effort to control his excitement, he examined the boat more carefully. He could barely make out what looked like two figures in the pilothouse. Ford and the girl. This was an amazing stroke of luck. The boat was heading for a cluster of islands east of the channel.

Burr had already worked out in his head what he would do when he found his quarry. He reached into his holster and pulled out the Desert Eagle. No need for the noise suppressor, which was damned awkward, they were at least a mile offshore. He walked up behind Straw, who had just lifted the binoculars to look at the boat. A quick intake of breath.

"See that boat?" he cried. "It's the Marea II ! They're heading for the Muscle Ridge Islands." He swung around. "All right. We did it. Your plan worked. Now we call in the cavalry and get that son of a bitch." He reached up for the VHF.

Burr gently placed the muzzle of the gun against the back of his head. "Do exactly what I say, Straw, or I'll kill you."

68

As the Marea II slipped into the cluster of islands, Abbey throttled back to four knots. Little Green lay almost in the center of the grouping and it had only two approaches, one from the northwest and another from the east. Both were tight, with sunken rocks and reefs all around, and the approach took a high degree of caution. Twilight had descended and the first stars were appearing in the night sky.

The islands passed by, dark and silent. With her eye fixed on the chartplotter, Abbey maneuvered the boat through the winding channels until Little Green came into view, a long island forested in spruce, with a half-moon cove in the middle and a meadow above, at the far end of which stood the old fishing shack.

She carefully brought the boat into the cove and Jackie dropped anchor. It splashed into the water and the chain rattled out of the locker. As soon as the anchor was set, Abbey killed the engine.

In the ensuing silence she noticed the distant sound of another boat, somewhere among the islands to the west of them.

They got into the dinghy and rowed to shore. Inside the shack, Jackie turned on lights while Abbey put kindling in the small stove.

"Hamburgers?" Jackie asked, rummaging in the cooler.

"Sounds good to me."

Abbey lit a fire in the woodstove and adjusted the dampers. The kindling crackled to life. She went to the door and breathed in the night air, which was heavy and still. There was the smell of damp grass, wood smoke from the stove, and the sea. A faint hiss of gentle waves lapped the strand--and, off in the distance, the persistent throbbing of a boat engine. It seemed to be coming from behind the adjacent island, moving very slowly.

Abbey turned in the door and spoke calmly to Jackie, so as not to alarm her. "I think I'll go out for a walk."

"Don't be long, these burgers are almost done."

Instead of walking along the shore, Abbey slipped into the moonlight-flecked woods and headed toward the western end of the island, toward the sound of the boat. At the tip of the island she paused at the edge of the trees, remaining in shadow, and looking out over the water in the direction of the sound. The air was humid. The tide had turned and was flowing back in, the currents curling and gurgling past the island. A mackerel sky was advancing from the northeast but it hadn't yet reached the Moon, which glowed almost painfully bright in the night sky.

The sound seemed to be coming from behind an adjacent island. It was probably just a yacht looking for an anchorage--recreational cruising of the coast was popular in the summer. She chided herself for being paranoid.

A dark shape of a boat, about four hundred yards distant, passed across a gap between two islands. She felt a sudden chill: the boat had doused its running lights. It vanished behind the next island and after a moment the sound of the engine stopped.

Abbey listened intently, but the wind was starting to come up and the sighing in the trees covered any faint sounds. She crouched in the darkness, waiting. She tried to calm herself down; she was spooked because Ford was gone. The killer could not possibly have followed them to Maine, let alone traced them to Little Green Island. It was probably some yachtsman who had had one martini too many and forgot to turn on his running lights. Or maybe they were drug smugglers. Marijuana smugglers often used this wild stretch of coast to bring boatloads of weed down from Canada.

She waited, and watched.

And then she saw, emerging from shadow into moonlight, the dark shape of a rowboat moving steadily across the narrow channel separating the other island from Little Green. As she stared, it resolved itself into a dinghy being rowed with care by a tall man, and it was heading right for their island, angling toward her end of the island in such a way that it wouldn't be visible from the fishing shack. The boat moved swiftly with the incoming tidal current. It would be landing in minutes on a beach just below the bluff at the island's tip.

Abbey backed into the woods and crept to a point where she could observe the probable landing point. The man pulled steadily, the faint splash of his oars reaching her across the water. He remained a dark silhouette, hunched over as he rowed. In a minute the boat grounded with a crunch. He hopped out, pulled the boat up the strand, and then stood quietly, looking around, his face still in shadow.