Douglas Preston - Impact

"Abbey," came her father's distorted voice. "Stay away. Just get the hell into port and go straight to the police--"

Another heavy blow, a grunt.

" Stop it, you bastard !"

The killer's voice came back on. "Get back on sixteen and call off the Coast Guard. Now. Or he's fish food."

With a sob, Abbey dialed back to channel 16 and told the Coast Guard that it was a false alarm. The dispatcher began to advise her to head to port immediately because of the storm. She signed off and dialed back to channel 72. She glanced over at Jackie but she was staring back in shock. The boat shuddered through a comber and the wheel jerked around, the boat yawing.

Jackie suddenly gripped the wheel, giving the throttle some fuel, and the boat yawed back around and just barely met the next wave on the starboard quarter. "I'll take the helm. You deal with him."

Abbey nodded dumbly. The wind was picking up by the second, lashing the ocean's heaving surface into honeycombs of foam.

Back on channel 72 the killer gave a low laugh and then said, "Hello? Anybody home?"

"Please don't hurt--"

Another smack, a groan. "What's your position?"

"Penobscot Bay."

"Listen carefully, here's the plan. Give me your GPS coordinates. I'm coming to you and I'll give you your father back."

"What do you want?"

"Just a promise that you'll forget all about this. Okay?"

"Abbey!" came a faint cry, "don't listen--"

Another thud.

"No, please ! Don't hurt him!"

"Abbey," came the calm voice of the killer. "Keep in mind we're on an open channel. Understand? I'm coming to you. There won't be any problems if you follow my instructions."

Abbey tried to breathe through an involuntary spasm in her throat. After a moment she said, "I understand."

"Good. Now your GPS coordinates?"

Jackie reached over and grabbed the mike, turning off the transmit button so they couldn't be heard. "Abbey, you know he's lying. He's going to kill us."

"I know that," Abbey said ferociously. "Just let me think ."

Even as they had been speaking, the swell was rising fast. The Marea II , engine grinding away, was being shoved sideways by each wave.

"Abbey? Are you there?"

Abbey took the mike back. "I'm figuring it out!" She turned to Jackie. "What do we do?"

"I . . . I don't know."

"Hello? Maybe Dad needs another beating to help you figure?"

"I'm just southwest of Devil's Limb," Abbey said.

"Devil's Limb? What the hell are you doing way out there?"

"We were heading for Rockland," she said, madly thinking.

"Bullshit! If you're out there, gimme the coordinates!"

Abbey punched the keys of the chartplotter, fixed a waypoint next to Devil's Limb, and read him back the false coordinates.

"Jesus Christ," said the killer after a moment. "I'm not going out there. You come back here."

Abbey sobbed. "We can't! We're almost out of fuel!"

"Lying bitch! Get back here now or Dad goes chumming!"

"No, please," Abbey sobbed. "All your shooting cut a fuel line. We're almost out of fuel!"

"I don't believe it!"

"We just now clamped it. It's the truth!"

Smack. "You hear that? That's for lying again!"

Abbey swallowed. She had to take the risk. "Please believe me!" she said, controlling her voice. "Why do you think I was calling the Coast Guard?"

"Fuck that, I'm not crossing open water in this sea."

A gust carrying a wallop of rain lashed the boat, water spraying in the broken windows. Another swell shoved the boat sideways and Abbey had to seize the ceiling grips to keep from falling.

"He's going to kill us!" Jackie hissed. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm . . . pretending to surrender."

"And then what?"

"I don't know."

"You hear me?" came the voice. "Get your ass back here or he's chum."

She pressed transmit. "Look, please, I don't know how to make you believe me, but I swear I'm telling the truth. You blew the shit out of this boat and a bullet nicked a fuel line. I barely got enough left to maneuver. Just bring me my father and I'll do whatever you want. You win. We surrender. Please believe me. "

"I'm not going out there!" the man screamed.

"You have to come this way to get to Rockland Harbor."

"Why the fuck would I want to go to Rockland?"

"You'll never make it anywhere else in this storm! Don't be an idiot, I know this ocean! If you think you're going to Owls Head, you'll be wrecked on the Nubble."

She heard a string of profanities. "This better not be bullshit because your father's handcuffed to the rail. My boat sinks, he's going down."

"I promise I'm not lying, just please get here and bring me my father."

"Keep channel seventy-two open and listen for my instructions, over." The transmission clicked off with a burst of static.

"What're we doing?" Jackie cried. "You have a plan after we surrender or what?"

"Take us to Devil's Limb."

"In a storm like this? It's way the fuck out there!"

"Exactly."

"Do you have a plan?"

"I will when we get there."

Jackie shook her head, gunned the engine, and sent the boat surging through the moiling sea on a course for Devil's Limb. "You better think fast."

77

Rising from takeoff at the Portland Jetport, the plane broke through the storm clouds and was suddenly bathed in the eerie light of the full Moon. Wyman Ford peered out the window, freshly awed by the spectacle. It was no longer the familiar orb of memory and romance but a changeling Moon, new and frightening, casting a greenish light over the mountains and canyons of cloud below the plane. The plume of debris from the strike had gone into orbit, spinning into an arc. An excited murmur of voices rose in the cabin as passengers peered out the windows. After gazing at it for a while, Ford, disturbed by the sight, slid the window shade shut and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, and concentrating on the meeting to come.

An hour and a half later, as the plane approached Dulles, Ford roused himself and, despite his vow not to, lifted the shade to look at the Moon again. The arc of debris was still stealing around the disc of the Moon, growing into a ring. The city of Washington lay spread out below, bathed in an eerie green-blue glow that was neither day nor night.

He was not all that surprised to be met at the gate by federal agents, who escorted him through the deserted concourse, the television screens in waiting areas blaring identical news, showing pictures of the Moon intercut with various talking heads and reports from the reactions around the world. Panic, it seemed, was taking hold--particularly in the Middle East and Africa. There were rumors of the testing of nefarious and top-secret weapons by the U.S. or Israel, panic about radiation, hysterical people being rushed to emergency rooms.

The agents walked on either side of him, stone-faced, saying nothing. The streets of Washington were virtually deserted. People in the capital were, perhaps instinctually, staying inside.

Walking through baggage claim, the agents helped him into a police-issue Crown Victoria, placing him between them in the backseat. The car blazed through the deserted streets, light bar going, until they arrived at the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Seventeenth Street, pulling up to the ugly redbrick building where Lockwood and his staff worked.

As he expected, all the lights in the building were ablaze.

78

Using the GPS, Harry Burr fixed a waypoint on his chart and set a course for the reef labeled "Devil's Limb."

He glanced back at the father; he lay slumped in the stern, still shackled to the taffrail, semiconscious, the pouring rain and sea spray drenching him. Burr might have hit him a little too hard that last time. Fuck it, he'd revive enough to play his part for the final act.