by Tom Hilpert
“Listen up,” he said to Jones, Felix and me. “We need to do this quietly, which means with the engine off, so we’re only going to have one shot at this. We’ll get ahead of the sailboat, and upwind a little. I’ll try to time it so we can cut the engine and drift across their path. If we can get close enough, Borden will jump. If not, we throw a hook into the rigging, tie him on and it’s up to him. You two need to be ready to push us off – quietly – if I miss the mark.”
“He’s kidding,” said Felix to me. “Navy never misses.”
“I heard that, Felix,” said Iverson.
“Just bolstering your confidence sir,” said Felix without a trace of a smile.
Iverson pushed the accelerator forward, and we roared north into the night.
“C’mere,” said Jones to me. I scooted over to him. He wrapped a rope around my waist and tied a bowline.
“Gotta knife?” Somehow in all the fuss I’d lost the one Stone gave me. It was probably adrift somewhere miles from here, in the abandoned lifeboat. I shook my head.
Jones pulled a clasp knife out of his pocket. It was spring-loaded with a four-inch blade. About an inch and a half of the blade was serrated.
“The other end of this line is a fifteen-pound spider anchor.” He picked it up from the bottom of the boat. It was a cylinder about eighteen inches long. The rope was attached to one end. The other end sprouted eight or ten thin steel spines that curved up and out.
“If this ends up in the water, and you are on the other end of it, you’ll go down. Cut the rope.”
“How about a life vest?” I asked.
“Might help,” said Jones. “I’d still cut the rope.” He dug around under the bow and brought back a life vest. It was stamped with the name of the freighter. I put it on.
After an extremely rough half-hour, Iverson cut the engine to idle again. He looked at me. “GPS,” he said succinctly. I gave it to him. He thumbed through some screens and looked at it for a minute. He looked at the waves and then back at the GPS, and nodded in satisfaction.
“If you were right about their speed, it’ll be about ten minutes.”
We drifted. I looked at Iverson. “Aren’t we going to get into position?”
“If you were right about their speed, we are in position.”
Jones slapped both of my shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he said. “First is the best officer on the Great Lakes. He’ll get you there.”
“He’s not lying,” said Felix.
I glanced at Iverson. He was grinning. “Aw shucks, fellas,” he said, wiping the corners of his eyes with the back of one hand. “You’re making me tear up.”
“If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it,” said Jones grimly.
“Me too,” added Felix.
Iverson’s grin got wider, but he said nothing. He watched the waves and glanced back at the GPS from time to time. He nodded in apparent satisfaction, probably for my benefit.
“Sure we can’t just storm the boat, take ‘em by surprise?” asked Jones.
“We went over this, Jones,” said Iverson, never breaking the rhythm of his eyes, which rested first on the waves and then the GPS, and then back to the waves. “They have hostages and firearms, and they’ve already used them.” For a moment he pulled his eyes out of their rotating vigil and looked at me. “Speaking of that, do you want a gun?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I could really blow it, and if they found it on me before I was ready to use it, I don’t know what they might do.”
He nodded, his eyes back to their flicking rotation. “Good choice. But I thought I ought to ask.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Iverson glanced quickly at the watch on his wrist, and then reached forward and cut off the idling engine. “Any minute now,” he said.
We drifted silent, four pairs of eyes straining through the darkness and spray. The minutes passed, and we saw nothing. Iverson glanced back at the GPS. Time slowed down. Babies grew up and had babies of their own while we waited. It seemed like nothing had ever come before or after the moment we waited in the wet, cold darkness.
Finally, faintly, I thought I heard a splashing and murmuring of water that didn’t quite fit with the random sounds of the storm. Jones and Felix tensed. “There she is,” said Felix in a hoarse whisper. Iverson visibly relaxed, though I wasn’t aware that he had been tense. A few seconds later, I saw it too, the ghostly graceful shape of the Tiny Dancer plowing doggedly through the icy waves.
“A little behind schedule,” muttered Iverson, calmly. “We’re going to pass in front of her. Jones, get that hook ready.”
Jones grabbed the hook and climbed out the cockpit, holding on to the roof with one hand, the hook in the other. Iverson was right, we drifted in front of the Tiny Dancer, about ten yards before she crossed our path. Felix swore in admiration, and Iverson gave a tight grin. As a feat of seamanship, it was like breaking a world record at the Olympic Games not by seconds, but by minutes. To navigate through the storm and dark and time it so that we drifted so close was almost miraculous. The Navy still trained them well, all right.
“Now,” said Iverson in a low voice.
Jones heaved the hook, and then pulled it back quickly. The rope tightened, angling up into the darkness of the Tiny Dancer’s rigging.
“Go!” said Jones.
There was no time to thank them, to express my swelling admiration for their skill and daring and sheer luck. Felix grabbed my life vest and rolled me out of the boat.
CHAPTER 4 6
I had been in the water a few hours ago, but the mind tends to blur the most unpleasant and dangerous experiences. The first shock of the cold stole my breath and never gave it back. I gasped and wheezed. My muscles locked up as they had before, and it was difficult to move. Sometimes, on a hot summer day, you can get used to cold water. But this water was far too cold to become used to. Almost immediately, my feet and hands began to ache.
Before I could gather my wits, the rope around my waist tightened and I was jerked forward, face down, and towed through the water like a buoyant sack of potatoes. I inhaled water, and panic imparted a strength to my limbs that nothing else could. I flung my arms in front of me and got hold of the rope. Twisting and flailing, I managed to get on my back, and coughed and hacked while I plowed through the water like a giant Great-Lakes Atlantic salmon on the end of a line.
I knew I wouldn’t last long like this. Unless I got out of the water quickly, I would freeze to death on the end of the line. Still on my back, I reached above my head as far as I could and grabbed the rope. I twisted it around my wrist and pulled myself backwards toward the boat, against the rush of water caused by our passage through the waves.
I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, and my thighs were aching with the cold. Holding the loop of rope down by my waist, I reached up and pulled myself toward the boat again. A big wave flung me upwards, and abruptly the upper half of my body was out of the water. Just as quickly I was slammed back down into the trough, and for a moment my entire body was submerged, even my face. This continued to happen periodically.
Slowly, I pulled myself toward the boat. My arms were shaking with the cold and effort. Twice, I looped the rope around my wrists and held on, unable to keep going. But both times I thought about the alternative, and once more reached above my head to pull myself along.
At last, I saw the boat out of the corner of my eye. The rope I was on went up to the hook that was caught in the rigging of the mast cross-tree. That meant that the closer I got, the further to starboard I was swinging. I wasn’t going to be able to scramble up the stern – I would meet the boat on the side, where the starboard rail met the water.
There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I kept hauling myself toward the boat. I couldn’t feel the lower half of my body, and I shook uncontrollably. I no longer reached as far behind me as far as I could, but settled instead for smaller, easier pulls. Finally, I was up against the starboard si
de. The Tiny Dancer was receiving wind from port, so as it met the waves it dipped down to starboard. It rolled right on top of me, pushing me under water, and then releasing me as it climbed the next wave. Just as I recovered, it did the same thing again. I held the rope with my left hand and flailed desperately with my right hand for the starboard rail. I couldn’t reach it. I tried again, timing it as the hull heeled over to bury me again. I vaguely felt my numb fingers contact the steel cable of the lifeline, but I couldn’t clench my hand fast enough. It slipped away, and I realized that in my focus on the rail, I had let go of my rope. I began to slide quickly astern. With my left hand, I tried to grab the rope as far up as I could while I continued to try to grab something along the hull with my right.
I couldn’t find the rope, and my right hand was now slipping off the corner of the stern. In a moment I would have to start the entire exhausting process again. I wasn’t sure I could do it; I had almost no feeling anywhere in my body anymore. In fact, I was beginning to imagine that I was warm, which I knew was a very bad sign. In desperation, I twisted over to my stomach and flung both hands at the stern.
I missed.
Just as I slid away into despair and darkness, a hand locked onto my right wrist. For a moment I blacked out, but then I realized that I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t even back to my starting point at the end of the rope. The first hand was joined by a second, further up my arm. I tried vainly to kick my legs and assist by moving myself forward through the water, but I couldn’t do it. The hands pulled me closer, and then my left hand found the rail and I began to pull too. I’ll never know where I found the strength for the last heave that brought me flopping into the cockpit like a confused lake trout.
I lay there gasping and shivering, black clouds pulsing like blood in front of my vision. At last, when my body calmed down to the point of merely shivering uncontrollably. I sat up.
“Hello, Jonah,” said a voice. “You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you?”
It was Jasmine.
CHAPTER 4 7
I fumbled with the zipper of my soaked coat pocket while Jasmine watched patiently. I dug my hand in and came out with Jones’ knife and flicked it open. Jasmine reached out gently and took it away from my weak and trembling hand.
“You don’t need that for me anyway,” she said. She folded it up and handed it back to me. My numb fingers dropped it to the floor of the cockpit. I picked it up again, looked at her, hesitated, and then put the knife back in my pocket.
“Why didn’t you just cut the rope, or let me freeze?” I asked.
Jasmine regarded me for a long time. “I thought I saw a boat out there,” she said.
“Superior does strange things to you in a storm,” I said.
She bent closer to look at me. Suddenly she snapped on a bright flashlight, causing me to wince. She pulled me forward and looked at the back of my life jacket. She killed the light.
“Where did you get that life-jacket? It says Superior Rose.”
“It was on board,” I said. “They probably have all kinds of old life jackets from who knows where.”
“That’s not your coat,” she observed.
“Says who?”
“What were you doing in the water?”
“I like a midnight swim. It keeps my head clear.”
Jasmine glanced at the GPS next to the wheel and then sat down on one of the benches and drummed her fingers on her knee. I shivered in time with her drumming. I’m musical that way.
“I guess you have this on some kind of autopilot?”
I saw no need to answer the obvious.
“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she said, apparently to herself. She looked at me. “I’m working with the FBI.”
“I know that,” I said. “Most of me is frozen, but my brain still works.”
“No,” she said. “I mean I’m still working with the FBI. Angela thinks I’ve turned dirty, but I haven’t. You and I are on the same side. So tell me what you were up to.”
“Midnight swim,” I said. “Extraordinarily refreshing.”
“Jonah,” said Jasmine. “I mean it.”
“How happy for you,” I replied.
“I saved you just now,” she said. “You said it yourself – I could have just let you drown or freeze. Doesn’t that show that I’m on your side?”
“If I had frozen, then you wouldn’t have a chance to know what I was up to.” I paused for a moment. “I may yet freeze, come to think of it.”
“I gave you your knife back.”
“After we found out I’m in no condition to use it anyway.”
“I’m asking you to trust me.”
“And giving me no plausible reason.”
“Okay,” said Jasmine. “I have some coffee here.”
“Now that would be a start,” I said eagerly.
“I’m going to give you some. Do you think you can stay warm enough while I tell you some things?”
“I’ll try not to expire.”
“I’ll talk quickly,” she said, pouring coffee from a thermos into a mug. “In a minute, Angela is going to check on us anyway. She sent me up here to see how you were doing, and to make sure you weren’t trying any funny business. When I talk to Angela, I will say that a wave washed you overboard and I found you clinging to the rail. I won’t say anything about the rope. And I’ll try to get it down once you go below. How’s that for building trust?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“The problem is, this is our best time to talk. We can’t communicate freely in front of Angela and Phil.”
“So talk,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “Angela and Phil and their gang operated in northern Washington for a few years, which you already know because your mother sent you some of your father’s old case files. They had already got our attention because of the havoc they were wreaking on the small towns there, and because of the shootings. They were also operating close to the Canadian border, and finally Homeland Security stepped in, because no one else really had jurisdiction. They brought us in – sort of seconded the case to the FBI – but we’re still working under their auspices. We have more expertise with bank robbers, even if they are only robbing the customers in the lobbies.”
I sipped some coffee and felt the warmth begin to spread. Maybe that was why Jensen and Lund had been getting pushback when they tried to investigate the Charles Holland angle. Homeland Security was big and powerful enough to cut out other law enforcement agencies.
“Anyway,” said Jasmine, “after your father killed Charles Holland, they went to ground for a while. We began doing some undercover work, and because we learned the identity of Holland after he died, we started getting leads. We began to suspect Holland’s older sister. We noticed also that she was using the robberies as an excuse to shoot people – usually men in uniform, or men in some kind of obvious authority position.
“It appears that their plan in Washington was to take the money on a sailing trip up Puget Sound to some remote spot on the Canadian coast. Holland had rented a yacht just a few days before he died, and we were lucky enough to get to it shortly after he was ID’d. So, their plan for leaving the country was a bust. Border crossings into Canada aren’t really a big deal, but still, it was a pretty big chance to take, just driving across. Once they started hitting banks, Homeland Security put out a border watch. The gang must have figured that would happen.”
The coffee was helping, but not enough. I was still shivering.
“So the gang decided to try basically the same thing, only here on Lake Superior,” continued Jasmine. “They added a nice refinement, inspired by you, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well they were going to rent a sailboat and go to some remote spot in Ontario. But Red Holland and Angela – the two siblings of Charles Holland – wanted revenge on your father. Only, he died inconveniently before they could do it, so they decided to take their revenge out on you. That’s where th
ey started getting elaborate, which made them a little sloppy. Still, the plan is brilliant.”
“And what is it?”
“They are meeting Red Holland out here somewhere. They’re going to sink the Tiny Dancer with you, Leyla and Tony in it. Everyone else will think that all hands perished on this trip, and so the authorities will stop looking for them. They go to Canada in a different boat, that Red has already rented or purchased, and start new lives.”
This was pretty much what I had already figured out, with a few extra details thrown in about Homeland Security and the FBI. But the fact that Jasmine was telling me outright meant something. I assumed that Angela and Phil didn’t want us to know the plan, because if we did, we wouldn’t cooperate by sailing the boat, and we would be desperate, knowing we were doomed anyway. So if Jasmine was telling me this, it meant she didn’t care if I was desperate, or if I cooperated with Angela.
“All right,” I said. “You’ve taken the first step in earning my trust. But I’ve got some questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“You guys – the FBI – were closing in on them. Obviously, you knew who they were. Why didn’t you just arrest them?”
Jasmine shook her head in the darkness. “Sadly, we didn’t have any hard evidence on them until they pulled guns on us yesterday afternoon. We didn’t even have enough for a search warrant. It was all circumstantial connection to Charles Holland, and no one in the gang even has the name of Holland – probably fake IDs, or in Angela’s case, she’s married, so her name is different.”
“OK,” I said, trying to make my numb brain work faster. “How did they think you were dirty, and why didn’t you just stop them after they pulled guns?”
“I approached Angela directly. Our profiler thought that she had serious unresolved issues with men, so I told her I hated the male-dominated culture of the FBI, plus that I was looking for money. I don’t think the greed alone would have convinced her, but she is so immersed in her view of an evil male-dominated world that she was very ready to believe I felt the same way. It’s a kind of sister-hood, woman-power thing.”
