Twenty minutes after they had entered the bay, the three canoes were back out in the channel, heading home to the camp.
In Shoal Bay, four tiny vessels slipped quietly through the night. They approached from the west, hugging the shore, careful to maintain silence and stay out of the sight of any guard who might be sitting out on the point above them. One by one they slid past the rocks, then turned and sped across the open strip of water that stretched between them and the wharf, where they slid between the creosoted timbers to gather again in the heavy black shadow beneath. Silent and motionless, they peered out at the dark lodge at the top of the bay, searching for any sign of life. Above their heads they could see four canisters gleaming dully through gaps in the wood. One appeared to be open.
Two of the men left the group and guided their canoes up onto the shingles at the head of the wharf, using the deep shadow of the timbers overhead to stay hidden. One at a time they climbed out, lifted their small boats up to rest on the rocks, then crept into the open. Keeping their bodies low, they ran up the path and out along the top of the wharf until they reached the canisters. It took only seconds to realize that they were too heavy to pass down to the tiny canoes below, but locked containers were a challenge both men had dealt with many times before. Working silently, they opened each one and passed the contents down, one item at a time. Waiting hands received them, and there was a soft splash that blended with the restless slap of the waves as the men waiting below dropped each one into the water. A few items from each canister were carefully wrapped in a blanket and laid in the bottom of one of the canoes, just as Walker had asked.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was late when Dan woke up, much later than he had planned. The wind had not quit. In fact, he thought it might have strengthened and he could hear the rain drumming on the cabin roof. That and the rocking of the boat were probably what had kept him asleep long past the time he had wanted to be up and gone. It had kept everyone else asleep too. There were no sounds of life that he could hear and he knew he was not the only one who had had an exhausting day yesterday.
He pushed aside the quilt Annie had put over him and rolled off the settee. He had slept in the clothes he had been given, but there was no way he could wear them outside in the dinghy. In this weather, he would be hypothermic within half an hour. He needed to find where she had put his stuff and see if, by any miracle, it was dry. He glanced at his watch as he moved toward the galley. It was after seven o’clock, although the rain and clouds were holding back the daylight.
The galley was empty and the only sound was the occasional tick from the cooling wood stove. He guessed that Old Tom had left sometime in the night, but he wasn’t about to go outside to see if his rowboat was gone. He would find out soon enough. He sat for a minute and looked around. No sign of his clothes, and he wasn’t about to go exploring the boat. If he stumbled into Annie’s stateroom and woke her, she would probably shoot him! So now what?
His eyes lit on the kettle. Coffee would be good—actually, more than good. Even tea would be okay. He stood up and moved across to the stove. There was a box of wood by the door and a cast-iron poker lying on the grate. Dan grinned. There was nothing like killing two birds with one stone, and he could certainly plead innocence if he just happened to make a lot of noise opening the stove door. After all, he had never used this stove before.
It didn’t take long to get the firebox roaring and he really did have to struggle to get the wood in. In fact, it required much use of the long cast-iron poker, which clanged loudly every time it hit the heavy metal of the stove. Annie appeared just as he was closing the damper. Unlike him, she had changed before she went to bed, and it was hard to believe this was the same woman who had greeted him the night before. Gone were the boots and the heavy work pants. Now she wore a long pink flannel nightdress that she had covered with a faded robe, and her feet were pushed into a pair of ancient fleece slippers. With her face softened by sleep and her hair free to fall across her shoulders, she reminded him of a favorite aunt he and his mother used to visit: he could see the woman’s face but couldn’t remember her name, although he was pretty sure it started with an H—Holly, Hilary, Harriet . . .
Annie interrupted his reminiscence by grabbing the poker from his hand and replacing it none too gently on the grate.
“Lot of work to get that stove going.” Her eyes were fixed firmly on his face and he worked hard at looking innocent.
“Yeah. Guess I haven’t done it for quite a while. I’ve got a Dickinson. Runs on diesel.” He looked away from her to glare at the offending wood stove. “Sorry for the noise. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Huh.” She lifted the kettle and took it to the sink to fill.
Dan thought she was going to call his bluff, but instead she changed the subject.
“Guess Old Tom took off.”
Dan glanced at the now-vacant place at the table. “Guess so. He wasn’t here when I came out. Think he’ll be okay?”
Annie shrugged. “Should be. He’s weird, but he seems to make out all right.” She set the kettle on the stove and leaned over to peer out the porthole. “Maybe the rain’ll clean him up a bit. Sure did stink.”
Dan smiled. The sour odor Tom had brought with him still lingered in the cabin and he guessed Annie would be doing some cleaning of her own later on.
“At least he’s going the right way. The wind will be pushing him. Like I said last night, I’m going to have to fight it pretty well all the way.”
Annie’s head snapped around and she stared at him. “You still figuring to go out in this?”
“Don’t have a choice. I’ve got to get back to my boat.”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “Don’t think that’s going to happen till this blows over. Look outside.”
Dan shrugged and tried to make light of it. He really didn’t have a choice. “It’s not that bad.”
Annie wasn’t buying it. “Right. Why don’t you step out onto the deck and say that?” She gave a harsh laugh. “And while you’re out there, make sure you look right out into the channel. I’m protected by the point here. It’ll be blowing twice as hard out there. You’d be lucky to get twenty feet.”
Dan leaned over to peer out past the whipping branches of the trees to the waters of the channel, where the tops of the waves were churning with white foam.
“Shit. How long you think it’s going to last? You said last night it would quit by this morning.”
Annie shrugged. “So I was wrong. Up here you can never be certain of anything. Probably blow over by the end of the day. Maybe earlier. It ain’t nothing serious.”
Well, maybe it wasn’t to Annie, but it was to him.
“Think I could use your radio?”
“You’re welcome to try. Not going to get much reception in this. Probably can’t even reach Dawson’s Landing.”
“Jesus. You’re just full of good news this morning.”
She grinned at him. “Can’t control the weather.”
There it was again—the control thing. First Walker, now Annie. Seemed like a theme was developing.
“Who’s trying to control the weather?”
Claire appeared in the doorway of the salon. She was dressed in yesterday’s clothes, her face flushed with sleep and her hair tousled.
“Ask him.” Annie flipped her thumb toward Dan. “Says he’s going to head back to his boat.”
Claire frowned and bent to look through the porthole. “In this?” Her voice was incredulous.
Dan sighed. Never mind a theme. This was a litany. “Hey, gimme a break here. You both know how important it is that I get back to my boat. How else are we going to stop these guys?”
Claire’s face softened as she took in his concern. “This will slow them down too, you know. The crew boat might be able to make a bit of headway, but it would be slow going and a very rough ride.”
Dan inclined his head, acknowledging her logic. “Yeah. I guess it might even be enough to disrupt their
plans.”
That was if Walker and his friends hadn’t already disrupted them. And where was Walker, anyway? When he’d disappeared last night, he had said he would see Dan this morning, but he wouldn’t be able to fight this weather either. Dan could only hope that he and his group had made it back to safety.
As if she had read his thoughts, Claire asked, “Where’s Walker? He didn’t come back with you last night.”
Dan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine—actually, probably a lot better. He took off last night. Said he’d see me today.” He didn’t want to tell her about Walker and his friends going to the black ship. It would be too hard to explain and it would probably upset her. Hell, thinking about it upset him. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. “Hope he’s okay.”
“He probably went back home. He’ll be fine.” She turned away from him and looked out at the slanting lines of rain. “Did you . . . have you . . .” Her voice faltered.
“Robbie is buried back a bit along the shore. We wrapped him up so he’s protected from the weather and we covered him with rocks to protect him from animals. He’s fine there, and once I can get hold of someone—police or coast guard—then they’ll come and get him.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “They’ll look after him properly. Take him back down to Victoria. Contact his family.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
“Walker sang a chant for him.” He wasn’t sure why it was important to tell her that, but somehow he thought it was.
Her eyes welled with tears, and she gave him a tremulous smile. “That was kind. Robbie would have liked that.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Fernandez woke early. He seldom slept more than five hours, and the rising wind had pulled him from his bed earlier than usual. The ship was restless, bucking hard against its anchor, but inside it was quiet and dark, the rest of the men asleep in their berths and the weather blocking out even the faint glimmer starlight might have provided.
He dressed quickly in his normal attire of black trousers and black polo shirt, slid his feet into a pair of canvas deck shoes, and made his way toward the salon. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee caught his attention as he passed the door to the galley and he stopped. Someone else was awake. He checked the gold Rolex that circled his wrist: 3:50 AM. Alex would have gone on watch at 2:00 AM. The man had been with him for four years now and he had complete trust in him. He would not leave the bridge until his watch was over at 6:00 AM, certainly not for coffee. The other men were thugs hand-picked for the job and had spent most of their time over in Shoal Bay. They were unfamiliar with both the Snow Queen’s layout and the onboard equipment and were unlikely to be doing anything in the galley. Gunter did not drink coffee, so that left Harry and his captain, neither of whom Fernandez trusted.
He opened the galley door. Harry was standing at the counter, wrapped in a black silk, monogrammed robe, a carafe of coffee in one hand as he reached for a cup with the other.
“Jesus! You scared the hell out of me. Thought everyone was sound asleep.” Harry lifted the carafe. “Want some coffee? I just made it. Took me twenty minutes to figure out how this thing works and another ten to find the bloody coffee.”
Fernandez shook his head in refusal and watched as Harry rooted through the cupboards, searching for sugar. Harry’s thinly veiled complaints about the absence of his crew were becoming increasingly annoying.
“You are up early.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep. Must be this damn wind.” Harry leaned over and peered blindly out of a porthole. “Need to get back to the city. Should have left days ago. All this time cooped up on the boat is driving me crazy.” He turned back to Fernandez. “We’re leaving today, right?”
Fernandez watched him, but did not speak. His silence made Harry nervous, and that made him more talkative.
“Been here too long, man. I’ve got stuff I need to be doing, people I need to see. We should have been back already. People will start wondering where I am.” He paused as another thought came to mind. “This weather isn’t going to be a problem, is it? The guys are going to be able to get down there all right? There isn’t much time to spare with this thing.”
That question finally provoked a response, and Fernandez pushed past Harry to peer out the same porthole the little man had just vacated. Even in the darkness, the white foam that surged along the wave crests was visible as it caught the faint glow from the masthead lights. His mouth tightened, and he turned and walked out the door without saying a word, leaving Harry staring after him. Halfway down the hall, Harry’s voice caught up to him.
“Arrogant bastard.”
The words registered, but Fernandez barely noticed them. Harry meant nothing to him. He had been a means to an end, useful for a while but now no longer needed. Once this was over, he would have to be dealt with.
Moving swiftly back through the boat, Fernandez knocked on the door to the bridge. It opened almost immediately and Alex stood back to let him in, clicking on the safety of the big Zamorana 9mm handgun he always carried as he returned it to the holster that rode under his arm.
“Any trouble?” Fernandez took in the faint glow from the array of instruments stretching right across the navigation station. No blips showed on either of the two radar screens as they painted the contours of the bay with an eerie green brush. No alarms were sounding on the GPS and no hazards or anomalies showed on the depth sounder.
Alex shook his head. “Quiet as a church. Ain’t anyone around. Even if there was, they wouldn’t be out in this shit.”
“How bad is it? Will it be a problem?”
“What, the wind?” Alex knew exactly what he was talking about, and he reached over and pressed some keys on the computer, then waited till a new screen appeared. “Wind’s northwest. Might be a bit rough going over to the lodge, but it’ll be behind them when they head down south.” He shrugged. “Should be okay for loading. That wharf gives a bit of protection and it’s in behind the point.”
He reached up and switched on the weather station. “The last update was an hour ago. Said it should ease up by late morning, early afternoon.” The two men stood quietly and listened as the bored voice of a weather forecaster confirmed Alex’s report.
When it was finished, Fernandez clapped him on the shoulder. “Bueno,” he said and left the bridge as abruptly as he had arrived. He would wake the men early. They were going to need to gain time in any way they could, and from the sound of it, leaving early was going to be about the only way they could do it. He didn’t return to the salon. He had no wish to run into Harry again and he preferred the solitude of his own cabin anyway.
At 5:00 Fernandez once again opened his cabin door and moved down the passageway. This time his destination was Gunter’s cabin, just two down from his own. The door was opened so quickly in answer to his knock that he knew the German had already been awake.
“Buenos dias.” Gunter’s accent lent a harsh, guttural quality to the Spanish greeting, making it almost unrecognizable.
Fernandez acknowledged it with a slight inclination of his head. He had no time for pleasantries. “Wake the men early. This weather will slow them down. Wake Carlos now and the rest in half an hour. Tell Carlos to pack up some food. They can eat when they get over there.”
Gunter nodded an acknowledgment.
The men gathered in the salon. There was no chatter. One look outside had told them that the hard day ahead had become harder, but their goal was in sight. They would do what they had been trained to do, what they had been preparing for, what they were paid for. Gunter joined them, followed by Carlos and Alex, who had just come off watch. All of them would be on board the crew boat for this trip.
Gunter did a brief head count. All were accounted for. Satisfied, he gave a quick nod and watched as Carlos led them outside, where the wind and rain caught them with a hissing, malevolent fury, shocking them out of their morning comfort and driving them across the heaving deck. The transfer to the crew boat slow
ed them down as the men staggered to the railing and waited with hands clenched and muscles tensed, poised to leap the gap between the two rolling hulls whenever they came close enough together to make bridging the distance possible. The rain made the metal decking of the crew boat slick, and more than one man slid heavily into the side of the deckhouse as he landed, adding his curses to the howl of the weather.
Back in his cabin, Fernandez listened to the muted sounds of the struggle taking place outside and mentally rehearsed the plan yet again, searching for any weakness and finding none. Nasiri was in place, his credentials ensuring he had the ability to move freely through the city. The target was already in Vancouver, his arrival confirmed by an informer who worked in a hangar at the south terminal of the airport. Another informer had confirmed that both American and Canadian security forces had checked the venue and had given it their approval. The same forces had tested the emergency evacuation plan and a trial run had been conducted. This too had been confirmed by the informant and was exactly as expected. The men who had just left were trained and would be well equipped, and Fernandez had no doubts regarding either their ability to perform their tasks or their dedication; they had been specifically chosen because of those exact traits. It was unfortunate that they would be sacrificed in this operation, but it was for a good cause, and in any case, they were expendable and easy to replace.
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