Plum Island

by Nelson DeMille

  Beth called out over the noise of the storm, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Sure. I took a course once called Suddenly in Command.”

  “About boats?”

  “I think so.” I looked at her, and she looked back at me. I said, “Thanks for coming.”

  She said, “Drive.”

  The Formula was at half throttle, which is how I think you’re supposed to keep control in a storm. I mean, we seemed to be above the water about half the time, flying over the troughs, then slicing right into the oncoming waves where the propellers would whine, then bite into the water and shoot us forward like a surfboard into the oncoming sea again. The one thing I knew I had to do was to keep the bow into the oncoming waves and keep from being broadsided by a big one. The boat would probably not sink, but it could capsize. I’d seen capsized boats in the bay after lesser storms than this.

  Beth called out, “Do you know how to navigate?”

  “Sure. Red right return.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You keep the red marker on your right when returning to harbor.”

  “We’re not returning to the harbor. We’re leaving.”

  “Oh … then look for green markers.”

  “I don’t see any markers,” she informed me.

  “Neither do I.” I added, “I’ll just stay to the right of the double white line. Can’t go wrong doing that.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I tried to get my head into a nautical frame of mine. Boating is not my number one hobby, but I’d been a guest on a lot of boats over the years, and I figured I’d sucked up some facts since I was a kid. And in June, July, and August, I’d been out with the Gordons about a dozen times, and Tom was a nonstop chatterer, and he liked to share his nautical enthusiasm and knowledge with me. I don’t recall paying a lot of attention (being more interested in Judy in her bikini), but I was positive there was a little pigeonhole in my cerebral cortex labeled “Boats.” I just had to locate it. In fact, I was sure I knew more about boats than I realized. I hoped so.

  We were now well into the Peconic Bay, and the boat was slamming very hard into the water—jarring, teeth-rattling thumps, one after the other, like a car driving over railroad ties, and I could feel my stomach getting out of sync with the vertical movement of the boat; when the boat was down, my stomach was still up, and when the boat was tossed into the air, my stomach dropped down. Or so it seemed. I couldn’t see a thing through the windshield, so I stood and looked over the windshield, my butt braced against the seat behind me, my right hand on the steering wheel, my left on a handgrip on the dashboard. I’d swallowed enough saltwater to raise my blood pressure fifty points. Also, the salt was starting to burn my eyes. I glanced at Beth and saw she was wiping her eyes, too.

  To my right, I saw a huge sailboat lying on its side in the water, its keel barely visible and its mast and sail swamped. “Good God….”

  Beth said, “Do they need help?”

  “I don’t see anyone.”

  I got closer to the sailboat, but there was no sign of anyone clinging to the masts or rigging. I found the horn button on the dashboard and gave a few blasts, but I still didn’t see any signs of life. I said to Beth, “They may have taken a life raft to shore.”

  Beth didn’t reply.

  We pressed on. I remembered that I was the guy who didn’t even like the gentle rolling of the ferryboat, and here I was in a thirty-foot open speedboat plowing through a near hurricane.

  I could feel the impacts in my feet, like someone was slapping the soles of my shoes with a club, and the shock traveled up my legs to my knees and hips, which were starting to ache now. In other words, it sucked.

  I was getting nauseous from the salt, the motion, the constant slamming into the waves, and also from my inability to see or separate the horizon from the water. Add to this my precarious post-trauma physical condition…. I recalled Max assuring me this wouldn’t be strenuous. If he were here now, I’d tie him to the bow.

  Through the rain, I could see the shoreline to my left about two hundred yards, and up ahead to my right I could see the dim outline of Shelter Island. I knew we would be a little safer once I got into the protected passage on the leeward side of the island, which I guess is why it’s called Shelter Island. I said to Beth, “I can put you ashore on Shelter Island.”

  “You can steer the damned boat and stop worrying about frail little Beth.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She added, in a nicer tone of voice, “I’ve been on rough water before, John. I know when to panic.”

  “Good. Tell me when.”

  “Close,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’m going below to get some life vests and see if I can find something more comfortable to wear.”

  “Good idea.” I added, “Wash the salt out of your eyes and also look for a chart.”

  She disappeared down the companionway between the two seats. The Formula 303 has a good-sized cabin for a speedboat and also has a head, which might come in handy real soon. Basically, it’s a comfortable, seaworthy craft, and I always felt safe when Tom or Judy was at the helm. Also, Tom and Judy, like John Corey, didn’t like rough weather, and at the first sign of a whitecap, we’d be heading back. Yet here I was, confronting one of my A-List fears, looking it right in the eye, so to speak, and it was spitting at me. And crazy as it sounds, I almost enjoyed the ride—the feel of the throttles as I adjusted power, the vibrations of the engines, the helm in my hand. Suddenly in command. I’d been sitting on the back porch too long.

  I stood, one hand on the wheel, one on the top of the windshield to keep my balance. I peered into the driving rain, scanning the heaving sea for a boat, a Chris-Craft to be exact, but I could barely make out the horizon or the shore, let alone another boat.

  Beth came up the stairs and handed me a life vest. “Put this on.” She shouted, “I’ll hold the wheel.” Still standing, she took the wheel as I put on the life vest. I saw that she had a pair of binoculars hung around her neck. She also had a pair of jeans under her yellow slicker and was wearing a pair of boating shoes as well as an orange life vest. I asked, “Are you wearing Fredric’s clothes?”

  “I hope not. I think these belong to Sondra Wells. A little tight.” She added, “I laid a chart out on the table if you want to take a look.”

  I asked her, “Can you read a chart?”

  “A little. How about you?”

  “No problem. Blue is water, brown is land. I’ll look at it later.”

  Beth said, “I looked for a radio down there, but I didn’t see one.”

  “I can sing. Do you like ‘Oklahoma’?”

  “John … please don’t be an idiot. I mean, the ship-to-shore radio. To send distress calls.”

  “Oh … that. Well, there’s no radio here either.”

  She said, “There’s a mobile phone recharger down below, but no phone.”

  “Right. People tend to use mobile phones in small boats. Me, I prefer a two-way radio. In any case, what you’re saying is that we’re out of touch.”

  “That’s right. We can’t even send an SOS.”

  “Well, neither could the people on the Mayflower. Don’t worry about it.”

  She ignored me and said, “I found a signal pistol.” She tapped the big pocket of her slicker.

  I didn’t think anyone could see a signal flare tonight, but I said, “Good. We may need it later.”

  I took the helm again, and Beth sat on the stairs in the companionway beside me. We took a break from shouting above the storm and sat in silence awhile. We were both soaked, our stomachs were churning, and we were scared. Yet some of the terror of riding through the storm had passed, I think, as we realized that every wave was not going to sink us.

  After about ten minutes, Beth stood and moved close to me so she could be heard. She asked, “Do you really think he’s going to Plum Island?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “To recover the
treasure.”

  She said, “There won’t be any of Stevens’ patrol boats or any Coast Guard helicopters around in this storm.”

  “Not a one. And the roads will be impassable, so the truck patrols can’t get around.”

  “True….” She asked, “Why didn’t Tobin wait until he had all the treasure before he killed the Gordons?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe the Gordons surprised him while he was searching their house. I’m sure that all the treasure was supposed to be recovered, but something went wrong.”

  “So he has to recover the treasure himself. Does he know where it is?”

  I replied, “He must, or he wouldn’t be heading there. I found out from Emma that Tobin was on the island once with the survey group from the Peconic Historical Society. At that time, he would have made sure that Tom or Judy showed him the actual site of the treasure, which, of course, was supposed to be one of Tom’s archaeological holes.” I added, “Tobin was not a trusting man, and I have no doubt that the Gordons didn’t particularly like him or trust him either. They were using one another.”

  She said, “There’s always a falling out among thieves.” I wanted to say that Tom and Judy were not thieves, yet they were. And when they crossed that line from honest citizens to conspirators, their fate was basically sealed. I’m no moralist, but in my job, I see this every day.

  Our throats were raw from shouting and from the salt, and we lapsed back into silence.

  I was approaching the passage between the south coastline of the North Fork and Shelter Island, but the sea seemed to be worse at the mouth of the strait. A huge wave came up out of nowhere and hung for a second over the right side of the boat. Beth saw it and screamed. The wave broke right over the boat, and it felt as if we’d run into a waterfall.

  I found myself on the deck, then a torrent of water washed me down the stairs, and I landed on the lower deck on top of Beth. We both scrambled to our feet and I clawed my way up the stairs. The boat was out of control, and the wheel was spinning all over the place. I grabbed the wheel and held it steady as I got myself into the seat, just in time to turn the bow into another monster wave. This one took us up on its rising slope, and I had the weird experience of being about ten feet in the air with both shorelines appearing lower than I was.

  The wave crested and left us in midair for a second before we dropped into the next trough. I fought the wheel and got us headed east again trying to make it into the strait, which had to be better than this.

  I looked to my left for Beth, but didn’t see her on the companionway stairs. I called out, “Beth!”

  She shouted from the cabin, “I’m here! Coming!”

  She came up the stairs on her hands and knees, and I saw that her forehead was bleeding. I asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes … just got knocked around a little. My butt is sore.” She tried to laugh, but it almost sounded like a sob. She said, “This is crazy.”

  “Go below. Make yourself a martini—stirred, not shaken.”

  She said, “Your idiotic sense of humor seems to fit the situation.” She added, “The cabin is starting to take on water, and I hear the bilge pumps going. Can you come up with a joke for that?”

  “Well … let’s see … that’s not the bilge pump you hear, it’s Sondra Wells’ electric vibrator underwater. How’s that?”

  “I may jump.” She asked me, “Can the pumps keep up with the water we’re taking on?”

  “I guess. Depends on how many waves break on board.” In fact, I’d noticed the response to the helm was sluggish, the result of the weight of the water now in the bilge and cabin.

  Neither of us spoke for the next ten minutes. Between gusts of wind-driven rain, I could see about fifty yards ahead for a few seconds, but I didn’t see Tobin’s cabin cruiser, or any boat for that matter, except two small craft, capsized and tossed like driftwood by the storm.

  I noticed a new phenomenon, or perhaps I should say a new horror—it was something that the Gordons called a following sea, which I had experienced with them in the Gut that day. What was happening was that the sea behind the boat was overtaking it, smashing into the Formula’s stern and whipping the boat almost out of control in a violent side-to-side motion, called yawing. So now, along with rolling and pitching, I had to contend with yawing. About the only two things that were going right were that we were still heading east and we were still afloat, though I don’t know why.

  I tilted my head back so that the rain could wash some of the salt from my face and my eyes. And since I was looking up at the sky anyway, I said to myself, I went to church Sunday morning, God. Did you see me there? The Methodist place in Cutchogue. Left side, middle pew. Emma? Tell Him. Hey, Tom, Judy, Murphys—I’m doing this for you guys. You can thank me in person in about thirty or forty years.

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “What are you looking at up there?”

  “Nothing. Getting some freshwater.”

  “I’ll get you some water from below.”

  “Not yet. Just stay here awhile.” I added, “I’ll give you the wheel later, and I’ll take a break.”

  “Good idea.” She stayed silent a minute, then asked me, “Are you … worried?”

  “No. I’m scared.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Panic time?”

  “Not yet.”

  I scanned the dashboard and noticed the fuel gauge for the first time. It read about an eighth full, which meant about ten gallons left, which, considering the rate of fuel burn of these huge MerCruisers at half throttle fighting a storm, meant we didn’t have much time or distance left. I wondered if we could make it to Plum Island. Running out of gas in a car is not the end of the world. Running out of gas in an airplane is the end of the world. Running out of gas in a boat during a storm is probably the end of the world. I reminded myself to keep an eye on the gas gauge. I said to Beth, “Is it a hurricane yet?”

  “I don’t know, John, and I don’t give a damn.”

  “I’m with you.”

  She said, “I had the impression you were not fond of the sea.”

  “I like the sea just fine. I just don’t like to be on it or init.”

  “There are a few marinas and coves along here on Shelter Island. Do you want to put in?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, but no.”

  “I’m with you,” I said.

  Finally, we got into the passage between the North Fork and Shelter Island. The mouth of the strait was about half a mile wide, and Shelter Island to the south had enough elevation and mass to block at least some of the wind. There was less howling and splashing, so we could talk easier, and the seas were just a bit calmer.

  Beth stood and steadied herself by holding on to the grab handle mounted on the dashboard above the companionway. She asked me, “What do you think happened that day? The day of the murders?”

  I replied, “We know the Gordons left the harbor at Plum Island about noon. They went far enough offshore so that the Plum Island patrol boat couldn’t identify them. The Gordons waited and watched with binoculars and saw the patrol boat pass. They then opened the throttles and raced toward the beach. They had forty to sixty minutes before the boat came around again. We established this fact on Plum Island. Correct?”

  “Yes, but I thought we were talking about terrorists, or unauthorized persons. Are you telling me you were thinking about the Gordons even then?”

  “Sort of. I didn’t know why, or what they were up to, but I wanted to see how they could pull something off. A theft. Whatever.”

  She nodded. “Go on.”

  “Okay, they make a high-speed dash and get close to the shore. If a patrol vehicle or a helicopter spots their boat anchored, it’s not a major problem because by now everyone knows who they are and recognizes their distinctive boat. Yet according to Stevens, no one did see their boat that day. Correct?”

  “So far.”

  “Okay, it’s a nice, calm summe
r day. The Gordons take their rubber raft onto the beach and drag it into the bush. On the raft the aluminum chest.”

  “And shovels.”

  “No, they’ve already uncovered this treasure and hidden it where they could get at it easily. But first, they had to do a lot of groundwork, like archival and archaeological work, buying the Wiley land, and so forth.”

  Beth thought a moment, then asked, “Do you think the Gordons were holding out on Tobin?”

  “I don’t think so. The Gordons would be satisfied with half the treasure, minus half of that to the government. Their needs weren’t anywhere near what Tobin’s were. And also, the Gordons wanted the publicity and the acclaim of being the finders of Captain Kidd’s treasure.” I added, “Tobin’s needs, however, were different and his agenda was different. He had no scruples about killing his partners, taking the whole treasure, fencing most of it, and then discovering a small portion of it on his own land and holding an auction at Sotheby’s, complete with media and the IRS guy in the back.”

  Beth reached under her slicker and retrieved the four gold coins. She held them out toward me, and I took one and examined it while I steered the boat. The coin was about the size of an American quarter, but it was heavy—the weight of gold always surprised me. The gold was amazingly bright, and I could see a guy’s profile on it and some writing that looked Spanish. “This could be what’s called a doubloon.” I handed it back to her.

  She said, “Keep it for luck.”

  “Luck? I don’t need the kind of luck this brought to anyone.”

  Beth nodded, looked awhile at the three coins in her hand, then threw them over the side. I did the same.

  This was an idiotic gesture, of course, but it made us feel better. I could understand the universal sailors’ superstition about throwing something valuable—or someone—over the side to appease the sea and make it stop doing whatever the hell it was doing that was scaring the crap out of everybody.

  So we felt better after we threw the gold overboard and sure enough the wind dropped a little as we made our way along the Shelter Island coast, and the waves had diminished in height and frequency as if the gift to the sea had worked.