by Peter Tonkin
Miguel-Angel came out of the bridge house and ran down the five steps on to the after deck. At once he found himself wading, almost up to his knees in frothing, writhing water. For a moment he panicked, thinking Pilar must be sinking after all. But then he realized: the rain was coming down so hard that the scuppers and pumps could not get it overboard quickly enough to keep the well of the after deck dry. Especially because, now the net was gone, they had closed the gap in the transom once again. The only thing that stood above the foaming little lake, apart from the main winch which stood beside the five steps down from the wheel house at the forward end of the aft deck, was the top of the main hatch which opened down to the freezers below. Miguel-Angel walked to this and perched on the very edge of it for a moment, watching and waiting for his pulse to slow. He had seen the winch used in long lining before and knew it was designed to pull lines in through the open transom at the rear of the boat, allowing the hooked fish to slide aboard on to the deck area between the side and the raised hatch he was sitting on. He had seen men working there, unhooking the sleek, solid tuna and throwing them into the open hatchway down into the freezers. But he had never seen the equivalent process performed on a net.
Hernan and the others working on the winch at the near end of the little lake of icy rainwater did not seem to be unduly worried by the fact that the surface of rainwater in the low deck area was higher than the tops of their boots. The light Capitan Carlos had grudgingly allowed them – in spite of the fact that it was mid-morning and ought to have been bright enough by now – showed them bent over the winch like so many jaundiced hunchbacks, the yellow brightness gleaming strangely off their yellow oilskins. Miguel-Angel did not have oilskins, though his father’s chandlery on the Malecón had sets of them to spare. And, he thought, pulling himself upright beneath the stunning deluge and wading carefully across towards them, he would not have wasted his time on them in any case. For when he reached Hernan it was clear that the cook was no dryer than Miguel-Angel, in spite of his cumbersome coverings. He had even put on a sou’wester from which the water cascaded like a mask made of golden chains. ‘El capitan wants to know how work on the winch is going,’ he said.
Hernan dragged his hand down over his streaming face and whipped the drops off his finger ends. But no sooner had he done so than rivulets of rain wound down across his forehead once again, pulling locks of thick black hair into his eyes. ‘Tell him it is done,’ he answered. ‘We are just about to put the cover back on. Tell him to thank both San Telmo and San Andreas that it is worked by Pilar’s engine and not by electricity, for nothing electrical would stay alive out here in this. Have you ever seen such rain?’
‘There has never been such rain,’ called one of the crew. ‘If Jesucristo came walking on the water to tell us the world is ending I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘We don’t need Jesucristo,’ called another. ‘We need el arco de Noa!’
Miguel-Angel chose to disregard the blasphemous byplay which would certainly be bringing the worst of bad luck down on Pilar. ‘Very well. I will tell him,’ he said stiffly. ‘What will you do next? El capitan will want to know.’
‘I will get as dry as I can, then I will prepare the last of the food and coffee. Things will become very busy after we find the net, and we will need to have mustered all our strength.’
‘The capitan will want gorditas, I am sure. Egg and fish. And coffee. I will come down for them.’
Hernan looked over his shoulder at the team of labouring crewmen. They represented about three-quarters of those aboard. Pablo the engineer and his little team were down below, nursing the engine along. For the engine was the heart of the vessel – indeed, of the whole enterprise. If it stopped then all was lost. Hernan and the deck hands would never be able to get the nets aboard without the winch. And even if they did so, the freezers in the holds beneath the raised hatchway would not stay cold for long without power. And Pilar, in any case, would just go drifting helplessly and impotently through the storm. But in the meantime all those busy and hardworking men, above deck and below, would be hungry. ‘You had better be quick, then,’ said Hernan, ‘or there will be nothing left – for Capitan Carlos or for you.’
TWENTY-ONE
Liberty had never before had to consider the weight of water. She had considered its fluidity – its habit of forming currents, tides, waves and races. She had considered its depths and shallows, especially as these affected wave-sets and, consequently, sailing speeds. She had also considered its solidity – even before that very characteristic smashed her pitchpoling multihull to pieces. But she had never considered its simple weight. Even when stocking holiday sail boats with supplies as a girl, she had never really thought about the mass of the one-gallon plastic jugs of fresh drinking water she used to haul aboard her grandfather’s yacht in Hyannis Port. She never really considered the heaviness of a kettle or a teapot filled to overflowing. Of a cup or mug of tea or coffee full to the brim.
But now the weight of water was something of immediate concern to Liberty and to the others as well. Because she felt that – even through her sailing gear – she was being bruised by the weight and clout of the rain cascading relentlessly down on to her. Had she not lashed the cut end of her lifeline to Florence’s harness, which was in turn clipped to the safety toggle attached to the inertia reel system in the groove beside the footholds on the sail, she would have been even more worried, for the water not only had weight that was beating down on her with stunning power, it also had force that was trying to wash her off the slick surface.
Liberty was lying face down, as securely spread as the closeness of the other three would allow. The inflated Gill Marine lifejacket kept her face above the water level, for there was a good solid inch of water on the surface of the sail. The back of it mercifully protected the back of her neck. The hood of her Helly Hansen sailing jacket helped to protect the back of her head. But nothing, it seemed, could protect her shoulders, back or ribs, which felt as though she had just survived a lively boxing bout. And for some reason she could not get out of her head the strange idea that her buttocks, thighs and calves were being tenderized for a cannibalistic feast. Or as toothsome morsels for the sharks she was sure were circling in the depths immediately below.
And yet, she did not give up hope. Bad as things were – and every now and then she considered the possibility that they might get even worse – she never really doubted that she and her crew would survive this. Her father was an hour or so behind, she assured herself – maybe two hours given Katapult8’s phenomenal run earlier. But he was coming, alerted as he had to be by the fact that his daughter’s command must have simply vanished off his radar and his satellite monitoring system in the blink of an eye. He had to realize that something cataclysmic had overcome her. So he would come looking – at full speed, even through this fearsome downpour. And he would find her. With Robin Mariner at his shoulder, how could he fail to find her?
Unless, of course, the ghost ship she thought she might have seen in the shadowy distance south east of the bright little beacon found them first. Whichever one got them out of this weather soonest would earn her undying gratitude. In the meantime, thank God for the bacon sandwich and the coffee, the memory of which was all that was keeping her warm. The immediate personal consequences for her and, she suspected, for the others, were covered by the fact that they were all running with so much liquid that a little more would hardly make any difference. Wearily, she pulled her head up for another look round. It hurt and seemed, frankly, pointless. But she found she could only stare at a perfectly black, utterly featureless surface for so long without feeling that her mind – her will, her very soul – was draining relentlessly out through her eyes and into the void. Instead, she found herself looking eagerly beyond the edge of the sail, which at a metre, was just high enough to give her a little elevation, especially now that the steep-sided chop was settling into sets of long rollers washing in from west to east. But there was precious little
to see. Beyond the rounded black edge of the sail there was the surface of the ocean, the smooth green backs of the Pacific rollers boiling with a rash of massive raindrops.
Liberty’s train of thought was abruptly interrupted. Something strange seemed to be happening. The bright orange basketball floats that had been lazily bobbing in a rough open-sided circle round the sail since the nets they supported had destroyed her command, seemed suddenly to be taking on a life of their own. A life filled with sluggish but quickening purpose. As Liberty watched uncomprehendingly, almost mindlessly, the nearest float stirred and began to slide through the water. And the one behind it suddenly sprang to life as well, following in its fellow’s wake – such as it was. And a third …
Had Liberty been less shocked, battered and disoriented, she might have thought this odd. Had she been able to communicate with the others, she might well have called their attention to it. But she was so worn out as to be incapable of much more than childlike observation. And she had given up trying to talk to the others some time ago. So she just held herself above the spitting surface of the sail and watched the floats all come to life. And even when the next few in that long, swirling tail actually gathered round the sail itself and began to pull it gently across the ocean, all she did was lower her head again and lie there, almost comatose, unquestioningly awaiting events.
TWENTY-TWO
‘It’s gone!’ said Nic, his voice rising angrily.
‘What’s gone?’ asked Robin.
‘The signal. It was there, just over five miles ahead, and now it’s gone.’
‘Maybe someone’s picked up whoever was wearing it.’
‘That’s not likely,’ said Captain Toro. ‘If there was a ship out there we’d see it on the radar. But there’s nothing showing.’
The three of them looked at each other. They were all thinking the same thing: sharks. There was not an emergency beacon in the world that would transmit from the belly of a Great White, a Bull or a Tiger. There were mortal dangers here that came from below the surface as well as above it.
‘Looks like we’re too late, then,’ said Nic.
‘Let’s get there, even so,’ said Robin. ‘We know exactly where the signal was coming from. The quicker we’re there the sooner we’ll have a clear idea of what was going on.’
‘Can we go any faster, Captain?’ asked Nic.
‘Si, señor. We just take less care, is all.’
‘Go for it,’ decided Nic. ‘In the meantime, I need a coffee. Robin?’
‘Me too.’
‘I have Blue Mountain high roast Arabica. It’s Richard’s favourite. Captain Toro, shall I send some up?’
‘That would be very kind,’ answered Toro, his voice preoccupied.
‘What?’ asked Robin.
‘Nothing,’ answered Toro, his tone unusually uncertain. ‘I thought I saw something on the radar this instant, just inside the five-mile line. But it’s gone now. It was nothing. A ghost.’ He looked out through the opaque side window. ‘It’s this rain. I think it’s even more intense …’
‘Coffee it is, then,’ said Nic bracingly, taking Robin by the elbow and leading her back towards the lift. ‘Blue Mountain high roast for all.’
As they sat in Maxima’s huge lounge, cocooned at last from the pounding downpour, sipping the fragrant black coffee, Nic said, ‘Maybe we should contact Richard? Update him on what’s going on down here?’
‘I’d leave well alone for the time being,’ she said. ‘If I know Richard, he’ll be up to his elbows in something: getting those National Guard containers off Sulu Queen, arranging for the rest of the cargo to be unloaded – whatever. It’ll depend on what the weather up in Long Beach is doing.’
‘Well, at least we can find that out easily enough,’ said Nic, and he pointed a handset at the massive TV on the wall, which was currently in mirror mode. At once, the screen sprang to life. Biddy’s film of the aerial approach to Dahlia Blanca suddenly filled the screen – wave after wave of steep-sided green mountains rising step by step from the white-sand beach on Los Muertos to the ten-thousand-foot peaks of the Sierra Madre ten miles or so inland.
‘That’s not what I want,’ said Nic. ‘Where’s Channel Five? It was preset in Long Beach and we should still be able to pick it up.’ He pushed buttons on the handset. The pictures of Puerto Banderas were replaced by the logo of the Los Angeles local TV channel, KTLA5. They had obviously tuned in partway through a news broadcast. Footage of the Los Angeles River in flood filled the screen an instant later. Disturbingly, the sound on the footage matched the sounds from outside exactly. ‘Several more areas have been evacuated,’ the announcer was saying, ‘including the notoriously flood-prone neighbourhood of Lytle Creek in San Bernadino. There has been a storm surge reported, which has put some sections of the Long Beach dock facility at risk of flooding. Work in the docks has been suspended until the area is declared safe.’
‘Richard won’t like that,’ observed Robin.
‘You think?’ agreed Nic wryly.
‘He’ll up sticks and move out at the drop of a hat if they’re not careful,’ she said. ‘Looks like the National Guard and their containers won’t be required in Los Angeles after all.’
Nic just grunted by way of reply, focusing on the news report once more.
‘Officers in the San Gabriel Valley foothill community of Glendora have also reported a serious mudflow at North Ben Lomond Avenue and Hicrest Road, just below a hillside that caught fire in January, burning off all the vegetation, including the tree cover, leaving the topsoil unprotected. Mud flowed down from Yucca Ridge to Hicrest, a city engineer said. More than one hundred homes that were fortunate to survive the fire have now been destroyed, though there are no reports of any lives being lost.
‘Nearly six inches of rain fell in the area over a twenty-four-hour period that ended at midday yesterday. But the governor’s office has informed KTLA5 that the worst of the weather is over. NOAA scientists have confirmed that, according to the latest data from their satellites, the ARkStorm may in fact move south. The governors of the districts along the Pacific coast of Mexico from Sonora to Jalisco, including Baja California Norte and Sud, are all preparing to declare states of emergency, and our President has promised the presidente of Mexico all the assistance at our disposal should the need arise.’
‘Looks like Richard called it right,’ said Nic. ‘I think that guy is psychic.’
Before Robin could come up with a suitable riposte, she was distracted by the continuing new briefing. The footage of the Los Angeles River was replaced by a serious-faced blonde newsreader. ‘The scientists from the United States Geological Survey confirmed within the last hour that the storm they predicted would deposit millions of tons of water on California will certainly now do the same along the west coast of Mexico.’
‘It’s currently doing so on top of us,’ said Robin. ‘In spades! In fact, now I come to think of it …’
Nic never found out what Robin thought because the ship’s tannoy interrupted her. ‘This is the captain. Would Señor Greenbaum come to the bridge at once, please?’
Nic grunted as he rose. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Me neither,’ said Robin, standing at his shoulder with a worried frown.
TWENTY-THREE
Pilar was a long liner. The paperwork in her log book was quite specific as to what she was licensed to do as well as where and when she was allowed to do it – far to the south and west of here. Long lining was what she was designed and fitted to do, so it was going to require all of her desperate crew’s ingenuity to deal with the better part of a kilometre of fish-laden net which she had never handled before and which she was in no way designed to control. Miguel-Angel had never been on a trawler, never seen a drift net like the illegal net they had put out come aboard. He was at once, therefore, completely ignorant about what ought to be happening and only imperfectly aware of what was actually happening. But he found the whole adventure absolutely fascinati
ng. To begin with, at least.
As Capitan Carlos brought Pilar gingerly up to the flashing red of the beacon, Hernan advised and guided him on the one portable two-way that the battered old boat had aboard. And the instant they were close enough to that light for Hernan to use the long boathook to snag it, he told his captain to stop engines before the propellers became enmeshed in the nets floating all too close behind them. Before he did anything else, however, as Pilar idled with her stern to that one lone dot of red brightness in the huge, shadowy storm-bound noon, he and one of the others went to the low transom at the back, loosened a series of safety clips and lifted the removable section free once more. The open section comprised about a third of the boat’s rear wall, immediately aft of the main winch on the starboard side and the length of the after deck away from it. Much of the knee-deep water trapped in the well of the deck immediately began to cascade out through the opening, so that even Hernan, who was big and very powerful, had a problem standing beside it as he wielded the three-metre boathook with its strong wooden shaft. It took several tries before he snagged the beacon and dragged it aboard. This was not too difficult to do because it was attached to a long section of the float line, and he did not have to deal with the weight of the net itself to begin with.
