The Pacific Lion carried cash, thirty thousand dollars in American currency—petty cash for port fees and pilotage, the occasional bribe to a corrupt harbormaster. The cash was the captain’s to dispense, and the captain’s alone. But Captain Ise was gone now, back to Japan. Okura filled his pockets with three neat stacks of banded hundreds.
It wasn’t the money, though, that had prompted this visit. Behind the cash lay a pistol, a Beretta M9, and a handful of magazines. Captain Ise’s last-ditch protection against piracy or mutiny.
Okura took the pistol and the spare magazines. Left the safe open and climbed back to the chart table, where he studied the gun. It was sleek, matte-black, deadly, and it sent a jolt of satisfaction through Okura just to look at it.
He’d never shot anyone before. He didn’t plan to shoot anyone now. But as another wave caught the Lion and lifted her high, Okura gazed out from the bridge and saw the cutter Munro in the distance, an ever-present white knight, and decided he liked his chances just a little bit better, now that he’d picked up some firepower.
56
The tide ripped through the pass like a raging river, pulling the Gale Force and the Pacific Lion along with it.
McKenna stood in the wheelhouse, knees and body braced against the swell, her eyes moving constantly as she guided the tug forward.
She watched the Gale Force’s progress through the wheelhouse windows and on the GPS screens, keeping the tug in the middle of the pass, away from the dark islands on either shore. She watched the instrument panel, her eye on the engine temperature gauges, the RPMs, the tug’s speed through the water. She looked back through the aft windows at the towlines stretched tight across the tug’s stern, at the big wallowing freighter listing behind the tug, watching to make sure the tide wasn’t running the freighter too close to the Gale Force. She kept her eyes everywhere, forward and back, her whole body a coiled spring. Knew she wouldn’t relax until she’d brought the Lion through to the other side.
Ridley was in the engine room, watching the big diesel engines for any sign of trouble. Al and Jason Parent monitored the towlines. Matt and Stacey Jonas stood by, a couple of extra pairs of eyes on the instrument gauges, the charts, the tow. Even Spike was on duty, perched on the bench beside the skipper’s chair, the master of the ship, his yellow eyes alert as they darted around the wheelhouse.
McKenna had called the crew to the house just before slack tide, laid out their assignments, and set them to work. Then she’d guided the Gale Force into position, pointed her northeast, up the middle of the pass, toward a nameless point of land on the eastern side of Chuginadak Island. The tug had responded beautifully. The Lion followed like an obedient dog. The seas were calmer at slack, not nearly as chaotic as when wind and tide ran opposed to each other. Heck, the ride had almost started to seem pleasant.
Then the tide changed, barely noticeable at first, and then faster and faster. It was ripping north and pulling the Gale Force along with it as McKenna turned the tug and tow north-northeast, dodging Samalga Island at the apex of the crescent pass. She pushed the throttles higher, kept the towlines stretched taut, the mighty tug pulling, her twin propellers gripping and churning the water, her rudders responding to McKenna’s every touch of the wheel.
The Munro on the radio: “Looking good from the stern, Gale Force. Your tow looks stable and the sea anchor is holding. How are you feeling up front?”
“Yeah, Munro, we’re doing fine,” McKenna told the cutter. “This tide is something else, though.”
She put down the handset. Looked back at Matt and Stacey Jonas. “So?” she said, exhaling a long breath. “Are we having fun yet, or what?”
Matt grinned at her. Started to answer. And then an alarm sounded, drowning out his reply.
57
The alarm sounded, loud, shrill and incessant above McKenna’s head. She recognized it immediately: the bilge pumps. Shit.
At the very bottom of the Gale Force, well below the waterline, was a compartment called the bilge, where water that hadn’t drained from the tug was collected. Every ship had a bilge compartment, and the Gale Force, like all ships, possessed pumps to remove the excess water that amassed there. These pumps worked automatically when the water level reached a certain height. The alarm McKenna was hearing meant the pumps weren’t doing their job.
Now’s not the time, McKenna thought, fighting the tug’s wheel and throttles as she struggled to keep ahead of the tide. She glanced back at Matt and Stacey. “One of you want to take the wheel?”
Matt stood and hurried across, replaced McKenna at the controls.
“Keep her in the middle of the channel,” McKenna told him, already reaching for the intraship phone.
She dialed Ridley in the engine room. “You hear that?” she asked the engineer when he answered. “The bilge pumps are failing.”
“Pumps are working fine, skipper,” Ridley replied, not even a hint of panic in his voice. “But they’re overwhelmed. We’re taking on water somewhere.”
Shit.
This was the beginning of the worst-case scenario. If McKenna couldn’t find the source of the water rushing into the bilge, she stood to lose the tug, the tow, and possibly her life. The water would continue to rise, spilling out of the bilge and into the engine room, where it would drown the tug’s engines, rendering her powerless. From there, it was only a matter of time before the tug sank, capsized in the swell, or was driven onto the rocks on either side of the pass. Or it was crushed underfoot by the Lion.
McKenna picked up the hailer. “All hands,” she said. “We’re taking water. I need this whole tug inspected for leaks right away.”
Stacey was already headed down the wheelhouse stairs, and McKenna knew Al and Jason Parent were no doubt already springing to action as well. She hesitated, debated calling the Munro, filling them in. Before she could make up her mind, another alarm began to blare.
* * *
• • •
“ENGINE TEMPERATURE,” Ridley reported over the intraship phone. “Portside engine’s burning up.”
“On my way.” McKenna set down the phone. Picked up the hailer. “Al Parent, meet me in the engine room,” she ordered. Then she hurried to the stairs herself.
McKenna had a suspicion what was happening now, and it was both good and bad news. In order to cool the Gale Force’s twin diesel engines, the tug took in cold water from outside the tug, circulated it through the engine and expelled it back out to the sea. If the engines were overheating while the bilges were flooding, it probably meant a failure in that cooling system somewhere. Water was coming in, but it wasn’t making it to the engines. The trouble was locating the leak.
We can’t deal with this right now, McKenna thought as she raced down through the tug to the engine room. Not here, with this tide. Not in this pass. But she didn’t have a choice.
She met Al and Stacey in the engine room with Ridley. The engineer was covered with grease and sweat, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He shook his head when he saw McKenna.
“We can’t keep the port engine online much longer, skipper,” he said, yelling to be heard over the noise of the diesels and through the industrial-strength ear protection they were all wearing. “We’ll lose her for good unless we shut her down.”
One engine against this tide. The starboard engine, to boot, with its faulty turbocharger. Shit, shit, shit.
“Wait as long as you can,” she told Ridley. “Then cut it. We have to fix that leak.”
* * *
• • •
A GOOD SKIPPER KNOWS her tug inside and out, McKenna. Randall Rhodes had insisted his daughter learn the engine room, every inch of it, even as she’d protested that that was what Ridley was for.
And if Ridley’s unconscious? You have fumes in the engine room and he’s incapacitated, what are you going to do then?
She hadn’t had an answer.
The skipper leads from the front, McKenna. You learn every inch of this boat, every job. And you make sure you can solve every problem.
She’d hated her dad for it, the long extra hours, the harbor days in the engine room instead of in town or on some paradise beach with the rest of the crew. Resented the work, the lack of free time, but hell was she grateful to the old man right now.
She’d never dealt with this problem before, not exactly, but she knew her engine room, all right. And she led Al and Stacey down the diamond-plate decking between the two engines, searching for the portside raw-water-intake pipe, where seawater entered the ship.
The alarms kept sounding. The engines roared. The engine room was a sauna. The tug swayed and bounced. McKenna pictured Matt at the wheel, hoped the diver had it under control. Knew the tug would get sluggish the more water she took on, knew as soon as Ridley cut that port engine, they’d risk handing control of the tug over to the racing tides.
Damn it.
McKenna knelt at the hull of the Gale Force, behind the portside engine. Lifted a piece of diamond plating and found the intake pipe, traced it away from the hull and toward the engine, until she found the problem.
A burst pipe, below the deck plating, spewing seawater everywhere at a dizzying volume. McKenna hurried back to the hull, found the seacock valve that closed and opened the pipe, turned it closed.
“Tell Ridley to cut the engine,” she told Al. “And bring me another length of pipe.”
While Al disappeared forward, McKenna led Stacey aft to Ridley’s workshop. As with the rest of the engine room, the engineer kept his shop tidy and organized, and McKenna muttered a silent prayer of gratitude as she searched through Ridley’s tools for the equipment she needed.
By the time she’d found her supplies, Al was back at the burst pipe, a length of replacement in his hands, the portside engine offline behind him. The engine room was marginally quieter, the motion of the tug in the current more pronounced. Now it was a race against time, against the tide, a desperate hope that Matt could keep the Gale Force in control of the Lion until McKenna could get both engines back online.
And if that damn starboard turbocharger goes, we’re all screwed.
She took the fresh pipe from Al’s hands. Knelt down and pulled up more of the diamond plate beneath them, slipped on a pair of safety glasses, and reached back to Stacey for Nelson Ridley’s reciprocating saw.
As her crew looked on, McKenna cut out the damaged piece of pipe. Measured the gap, and cut the replacement pipe to fit. Then she swapped in the replacement pipe, fastened it at both ends, and screwed the fasteners tight—she’d have preferred to weld it, but that would have to wait—and motioned to Al to open the seacock again, and to Ridley to fire up the intake pump.
Then all four of them held their breath and waited as the pump spooled up and sent cold water back through the replacement length of pipe, watching for any sign of a leak, a poor fastening, anything. But the replacement held, and McKenna stood, swapped a quick grin with Stacey, and then hurried back to the stairs with Nelson Ridley behind her.
“Best to leave that engine to cool for a while, skipper,” Ridley told her. “If we can afford it.”
“Stand by on that,” McKenna replied. Then she turned and hurried upstairs through the tug toward the wheelhouse, her heart pounding, her adrenaline through the roof.
Holy cow, she thought. I sure owe you for that one, Dad.
58
The alarms had stopped sounding by the time McKenna made it up to the wheelhouse. As she hurried to where Matt stood at the controls, she scanned through the forward windows, looking for any indication of trouble.
“We still winning this thing?” she asked.
Matt didn’t look back at her, kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle. He’d kept the Gale Force mostly on course, McKenna saw from the GPS, and behind the tug, the Lion still followed.
“We’re winning,” he told her, his jaw set, “but barely. That starboard engine is busting its ass for us right now.”
He still had control. Still had enough water moving over the tug’s rudders to keep her responsive to his commands. But there was still plenty of ocean to cover before they cleared the pass, and McKenna could only pray that Ridley’s fix on that faulty turbo would hold.
If the turbo blew up again, the starboard engine was shot, and they’d have to fire up that portside diesel and hope it could limp them somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere to anchor up.
There was nothing to do but hope, though. Fight the tide, and keep moving, and trust the tug would see them through.
The radio crackled. “Munro here. Gale Force, we notice you’ve wandered offline a little bit. Everything all right over there?”
McKenna picked up the handset. “Just fine, Munro. We had a little issue with our engine coolant system, but we have it licked now.”
A pause. McKenna figured Tom Geoffries was probably having a panic attack in his captain’s chair at the moment, picturing the Gale Force broken down, the Pacific Lion on the rocks.
You and me both, Tom.
“Okay, Gale Force,” the Munro replied, the radio operator sounding dubious. “Keep us advised as to the situation over there, please.”
McKenna agreed. Hung up the handset, and relieved Matt Jonas at the controls. Tried to calm her racing heart and focus on getting the tug through the pass.
* * *
• • •
SHE GUIDED THE GALE FORCE onward. North, past the top of big Chuginadak Island, its volcanic peak glowering down through the fog, then up along the smaller islands, Kagami and Ulaga to the portside, and, to starboard, tiny, rocky Adugak Island, so small it looked like a pimple jutting out from beneath the waves, a few miles offshore from Umnak.
The tide carried them forward as the pass widened, doubled in width, as the currents dissipated and the Bering Sea opened up before them. The starboard engine didn’t fail. The turbocharger didn’t blow. The towlines stayed strong, and the Lion didn’t capsize behind them. The ocean floor dropped down to six hundred fathoms, and the wind died a little in the lee of the islands. The Lion didn’t wallow so much behind the tug anymore. The waves didn’t crash and batter near as violently.
They’d made it.
The Munro on the radio again. Captain Geoffries. “Congratulations, Captain Rhodes. Now, do you have any idea where you want to park this thing?”
McKenna turned to her GPS screen, searched the charts for somewhere to hide the Lion. Found what she was looking for almost instantly.
“Inanudak Bay,” she told Geoffries. It was an uninhabited inlet on the north side of the island, ten miles wide, like someone took a bite out of the rock between Umnak’s three volcanoes. It looked sheltered enough to give the crew of the Gale Force a calm place to work, while wide enough for maneuverability if something went wrong.
“Good thinking,” Geoffries replied. “Should be flat as a mill pond in there.”
McKenna plotted a course. “It’s four thirty now,” she said. “We’ll run up there tonight and make sure it’s a good spot. Drop the anchors and see if we can’t all get a good night’s sleep, for a change.”
“Roger that. Let us know if you need a hand, Captain. Our resources are yours for the asking.”
McKenna thanked the captain. Wished him a good afternoon and signed off. Stood at the wheel, looked out at the calmer seas, the easing wind. Heck, even Spike was back asleep.
Through the pass on one engine, she thought. She crossed to the depth sounder, the picture of her dad in that old pewter frame. Studied it, the smile on his face, in his eyes, felt his presence around her, even though the wheelhouse was empty.
Couldn’t have done it without you, she thought, and as she went to set the picture down, the light caught the glass on the frame and showed McKenna her own reflection. It shocked her a little, caugh
t her off guard.
She was filthy, she realized. A grease stain on her forehead and a smudge under her eye. Blood smeared across her cheek, though coming from where, she couldn’t be sure. Her knuckles, maybe; she’d scraped them raw. She looked tired, beaten-up, ragged—but she was smiling, the same smile as Randall Rhodes in the picture, worn-out but content.
Through the pass on one engine, she thought again, setting the picture down. Girl, you’re a bona fide towboater now.
59
Court Harrington awoke suddenly, confused and disoriented. Heard the beep of machines beside him, someone calling on a PA system, and for a minute he figured he was on the Gale Force, in his bunk, waiting on Randall Rhodes to call him back to work.
But his bed wasn’t rocking with the motion of any waves. And the room was more spacious than his berth on the tug. And—geez—he wasn’t wearing any clothes, just a thin cotton gown beneath the bedsheets.
Also, his head hurt like a mother. It hurt to breathe, too. Heck, every part of him hurt. And his body was stiff and unresponsive when he tried to move. There were wires leading out to those beeping machines from underneath his gown, an IV in his arm.
He was in a hospital, he realized. He’d been here a while, he knew. But just why, he couldn’t remember.
Harrington tried to think. It can’t be that serious if you can’t remember, he thought. That’s how it works, right?
He’d been on the Gale Force—on the wreck, the Pacific Lion—he remembered that much. He’d been exploring the ship with McKenna Rhodes—because Randall was dead, long dead—and McKenna was giving him grief about the models he was running to right the ship.
Gale Force Page 18
