Gale Force

by Owen Laukkanen

  He remembered that. He remembered that McKenna didn’t like him very much; she’d been pissed off with him ever since he boarded the tug in . . . Where?

  Ketchikan.

  Right. So he remembered that much. He remembered being belowdecks on the Lion with McKenna, and then the engine room had been locked and they’d had to retreat, and then . . . ?

  And then nothing. And then now this hospital room, wherever this was.

  Harrington wiggled his fingers. His toes. Felt them move, hands and feet, so that was a plus. Next step, walking. Harrington pushed himself up in his bed, felt dizzy and blinked and closed his eyes until the dizziness went away. He pushed the blankets off his body, pulled the gown down to cover as much as it could, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the diodes on his chest pull as he moved.

  The machines continued to beep. His head continued to hurt. But Harrington figured he needed a damage report.

  He set his feet on the cold floor. Pushed his ass off the bed and stood, gripping the side of the bed to stay upright. Put weight on his legs. Slowly, cautiously, he loosened his grip.

  Then he collapsed to the floor.

  Instantly, there was a nurse beside him.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she asked Harrington, scooping him back up and helping him into bed. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Damage report,” Harrington replied, his mouth dry. “I needed to— What the hell happened to me, anyway?”

  “You had a fall,” the nurse said. “You broke a couple of ribs, and you have a serious concussion, and with it, a fair bit of memory loss. But frankly, Mr. Harrington, it’s a miracle you aren’t paralyzed.”

  Harrington lay back on the bed. “I fell on the Lion?”

  “Is that a ship? Because you fell on a ship.”

  “Yeah, the Pacific Lion. What happened after I fell? Where am I now?”

  “You’re in Dutch Harbor,” the nurse said. “You were airlifted here by the Coast Guard. They’re going to send you on to Anchorage now that you’re awake.”

  “Yeah, but the ship,” Harrington said. “What happened to the ship?”

  The nurse shook her head. “No idea. I just take care of you, Mr. Harrington.”

  Harrington stared up at the ceiling. Couldn’t remember his fall, couldn’t remember anything after he and McKenna had found the engine room locked.

  “I need a telephone,” he told the nurse. “I need to make a phone call, right away.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE PHONE in the wheelhouse was ringing.

  McKenna sat at the chart table with Court Harrington’s laptop, trying to decipher the whiz kid’s models—or, barring that, find a list of genius friends Harrington may have had, classmates, anyone who could help her crack the code. They’d have the Lion anchored down in Inanudak Bay within a few hours, and McKenna wanted to have a salvage plan set by dawn.

  Matt Jonas answered the phone, and McKenna only half listened, focusing her attention on Harrington’s screen. But then Matt was holding the phone out, telling her that the call was for her.

  “Who is it?” McKenna asked. “I’m a little busy, Matt.”

  But Matt was unswayed. “You want to take this, skipper,” he said. “I promise.”

  McKenna looked at him. Matt shrugged. Held out the handset, and, after one more look at Harrington’s models, McKenna sighed and took the phone. “Captain Rhodes,” she said. “This had better be good.”

  “Define ‘good.’”

  A man’s voice. A Carolina drawl. McKenna recognized it, felt the breath sucked from her lungs. “Court?”

  “You gotta get me out of here, skipper,” Harrington said. “They took all my clothes.”

  McKenna didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

  “McKenna?”

  McKenna blinked. Felt tears, and for once in her life, didn’t mind. “Yeah, I’m here,” she said. “It’s good to hear your voice, Court.”

  “Yeah, I know it is. But you gotta fly me back.”

  McKenna stared out the dark wheelhouse and over the Gale Force’s bow. Could see nothing but night, and the odd whitecap on the water ahead. She pictured Harrington in a hospital bed, banged-up and bruised but awake. Alive.

  “Fly you where?” she replied. “Here?”

  “I know you can’t save that ship without me,” Harrington said. “And you know there’s no one else who can do it. The way I see it, you have no choice.”

  “You’re hurt, Court,” McKenna said. “They said you might never walk again.”

  “Yeah, well. They were wrong about that. I broke some ribs and busted an ankle pretty good, got some new brain damage, that’s all. I’m fine, McKenna. I can walk, and if you tell them to wrap up these ribs real tight, I can sure as hell help you rescue that ship.”

  McKenna shook her head. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, Court, but—”

  “Who else are you going to get? Don’t tell me you’re going to try to work through my models yourself.” Harrington paused. “Look, I’m telling you, I’m fine. I want to help. Let’s get this ship right, and then I swear I’ll check back into the hospital, first thing. Just let me do this, please.”

  McKenna closed her eyes. Tried to imagine what her dad would have done. Figured if her dad were Harrington, he’d have fought off the nurse and bought his own ticket back.

  “You swear you’re okay?” she asked the architect.

  “I’m fine, McKenna. It hurts to breathe a little, and I’m going to limp for a while. But I’m still the best architect that you know.”

  Crap.

  Somewhere behind the Gale Force, the Lion wallowed on the end of its tow, waiting for someone to plot a way to save her. McKenna figured she didn’t really have a choice.

  “Damn it, fine,” she told Harrington. “But as soon as we’re done here, I’m taking you back to the hospital myself.”

  60

  There was a Coast Guard petty officer waiting for Court Harrington when the nurse wheeled him out through the lobby of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic in Dutch Harbor. She was a young woman with a short, clipped haircut, who looked him over, skeptical, as he struggled up from the wheelchair.

  “Good morning, Mr. Harrington,” she said, handing him a cup of coffee. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “Pretty sure,” Harrington replied. That might have been a stretch. He ached all over, his head swam, and every breath felt like a stab wound. Walking, too, wasn’t the most fun in the world. But this petty officer probably jumped out of helicopters for a living, Harrington figured. She wasn’t going to sympathize with a couple bumps and scrapes.

  He shook his head. Winced. “I mean, definitely. Once we get going, I’ll be fine.”

  The petty officer didn’t look convinced. Behind Harrington, the nurse grumbled her protest, handed Harrington a couple of forms to sign. He did, and then he was free, and the petty officer was leading him out through the parking lot to a waiting van. She helped him into the passenger seat and closed the door for him, waited until he was settled before driving away from the building.

  It was a ten-minute drive to the airport. Harrington focused on trying to breathe without hurting, on trying to remember the fall. Wondered, briefly, if he was making a mistake, but he knew that the crew of the Gale Force couldn’t do this without him.

  The petty officer pulled into the airport, parked the van at the far end of the runway. Directly ahead was a Coast Guard helicopter, low slung and military-looking, like some kind of robot bug.

  “Jayhawk,” the petty officer said. “You’re riding in style this morning.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE HELICOPTER didn’t do much to help Harrington’s pain threshold. The engines roared and rattled, and the whole machine shook as i
t sped westward, jarring Harrington’s brain inside his skull, the seat belt digging tight into his bandaged midsection, the broken ribs wrapped tight under his brand-new UNALASKA! tourist T-shirt. Outside, the view was nothing but gray clouds; the pilot must have been navigating by computer alone.

  Two technicians joined Harrington in the back of the helicopter, both young, friendly looking guys in orange jumpsuits and helmets. They’d given Harrington a helmet to wear, too, with ear protection but no radio, so he couldn’t hear what the crew members were saying. He sat and looked out the window, found a grab bar to steady himself, hoped he wouldn’t be sick or pass out in front of these tough guys.

  The Jayhawk flew west for an hour or so. Then the pilot said something to the copilot, and one of the flight technicians smiled at Harrington and yelled something he couldn’t make out over the roar of the engine.

  He could feel the helicopter slowing down, though, and beginning its descent, and then clouds were gone and the helicopter was dropping, down toward a cold-looking black sea surrounded by rocky cliffs and featureless, verdant green mountains, and in the middle of the water was the Pacific Lion, lying on her side just as Harrington remembered, the Coast Guard cutter on one side, and the Gale Force, looking impossibly small, on the other.

  The pilot aimed for the tug, and as he descended, Harrington could see the cluster of crew waiting on the deck aft of the wheelhouse, watching the Jayhawk as it dropped to a hover forty feet above.

  The flight technician slid open the side door while his partner readied the basket, and Harrington inched across to the open door and climbed into the basket, felt the sudden blast of wind, the chill air, the basket swaying with every movement, and every movement sending spasms of pain through his chest. Suddenly, the hospital didn’t seem so bad anymore.

  The technicians worked the hoist, winching him down, and as the basket descended, Harrington could pick out the crew, Matt and Stacey, and Al and Jason, and Ridley, who caught the basket and helped Harrington to the deck, led him back to where McKenna stood, watching, looking him over.

  “Welcome back, Court,” she said. “You look like shit.”

  61

  McKenna’s first thought, on seeing Court Harrington struggle out of the basket dangling from the Coast Guard helicopter, was to curse the whiz kid six ways from Sunday, and then start looking for a seventh.

  Just fine, my ass, Court, she thought, watching him limp across toward her, nearly slipping on the seawater-slick deck. You don’t look much better than the last time I saw you.

  Harrington still had that smile, though, that cocky grin, as if he knew a secret that no one else did, and McKenna figured it was a good sign, that his spirit hadn’t been broken, even if his body sure looked like it had been.

  “I can’t believe you came back,” she told him, leading him into the tug and up to the wheelhouse. “I can’t believe I let you come back.”

  “You know I wouldn’t miss this,” Harrington replied. “You guys keep my laptop handy?”

  McKenna found Harrington’s laptop. “Kept all your data intact,” she said. “Just have the engine room and the stern ballast tanks to check.”

  “We’re going to have to do a full check all over again,” Harrington replied. “It’s been a few days, right? Who knows what kind of leaks could have sprung?”

  “Fine. Matt and Stacey can take the forward compartments. I’ll have Jason help me work the engine room.”

  Harrington reached to take the laptop from her. “What about me?”

  “You stay topside,” McKenna said. She held on to the computer. “Better yet, stay here. We’ll take the readings and feed the numbers back to you.”

  Harrington shook his head. “I need to be on board.”

  “Not an option. We can’t risk it. What if you have another accident?”

  “So I won’t have another accident.” He made a grab for the laptop, an edge to his voice now. “You think your old man never worked hurt?”

  McKenna hesitated. Wondered if she’d made a mistake even flying him out here. If she was setting Harrington up to kill himself trying to save the Lion. Finally, she handed over the computer. Watched Harrington set it down on the chart table, watched his face as the machine booted up.

  He’d looked happy and relaxed a moment ago. Now his jaw was set, and any trace of that smile was gone.

  Fifteen minutes from friendly to fuck off, McKenna thought, watching him. That has to be a record, even for me.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY FLEW BACK to the Lion that afternoon. Dropped down onto the starboard deck, where, despite Harrington’s protests, McKenna left the architect topside with Nelson Ridley and took Jason Parent into the engine room.

  The engine room sat in the middle of the ship, width-wise, surrounded by cars on cargo decks on the port and starboard sides. McKenna led Jason down an aft access stairway into darkness, that same maddening repetitive descent: clip onto a loop, step down, unclip and reclip and step down again. No light but from their headlamps, no sound but their breathing.

  They reached the bottom, deck one on the starboard side, and stopped to rest by a watertight door. McKenna pointed her headlamp in Jason’s direction. “You having fun?”

  Jason was panting. “I went rock climbing once,” he said. “On a first date. It was nothing like this.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Put it this way.” Jason smiled, a little. “There wasn’t a second date.”

  McKenna laughed. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that today,” she said. She turned to the watertight door. “If I have this right, the engine room is right here.”

  She unlatched the door and pushed it open. Beyond was more darkness, but the sensation, impossibly, was of open air and vast space. McKenna peered inside, scanned the room with her headlamp. She’d been correct; they’d reached the base of the ship’s massive power plant, a four-story behemoth surrounded on all sides by catwalks and piping, instrument gauges and ductwork, and the massive propeller crankshaft. Water dripped from somewhere out of sight. The air was colder here. Nothing moved.

  “I guess I was right,” McKenna said. “Let’s get to work.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE WORK WAS SLOW-GOING.

  Jason Parent was a game partner, but this wasn’t his job on the Gale Force, and it showed. He lagged back, cautious, hesitant, eating up time, and McKenna had to remind herself they had no hurry, not now.

  You lose Court, it’s a sad story, she thought. Jason’s a new dad. Let’s make sure his little boy grows up with a father.

  They started on the starboard side of the engine room and worked their way down. The room was huge, six stories tall, at least, and the catwalks and stairways that accessed the power plant’s nooks and crannies hung angled and unsteady, every one of them a death trap.

  McKenna worked quickly, dangling in space to read off from the lubricating-oil tanks, the diesel fuel reserves. Parent went slower, copying the numbers into Harrington’s notebook, trying to keep up.

  “Give me one second,” he called down to McKenna. “You’re throwing up a lot of numbers here, boss.”

  “Take it easy,” she called back, hanging in space near a seawater-intake gauge. “We have nothing but time.”

  They worked their way down the ship, from starboard side to port, high to low. Finally, they’d cleared the room. Just the ballast tanks to go.

  The Lion had two ballast tanks at her stern, one on the portside and one on the starboard. There were also the bilges, the very bottom of the ship, where any wastewater or other leaked fluid would have accumulated. McKenna and Jason crawled and clambered their way to each of the final tanks, and McKenna waited while the deckhand copied the numbers by the light of his headlamp.

  Finally, high on the starboard side again, atop the last ballast tank, Ja
son straightened. “Got it,” he said, peering down at the notebook. “What next?”

  McKenna double-checked her own plans, Harrington’s map of the ship. “That’s everything,” she said. “Back to the surface.”

  Jason exhaled. “Thank god.”

  62

  The wait was maddening.

  Court Harrington rested on the starboard wall of the Pacific Lion’s accommodations house and cursed the bad luck that kept him topside on the wreck while McKenna and the rest of the crew had all the fun down below. Nothing against Nelson Ridley, who leaned against the starboard deck, eating a sandwich, but Harrington wasn’t used to letting other people do the work for him.

  Heck, the way the ship rested, he couldn’t even pace properly. All he could do was stand there and freeze and stare up at the sky, the clouds scudding past overhead, pushed by the gale that still raged on the other side of the island. Stare at the sky, and wait.

  Ridley beckoned to him with a half-eaten sandwich. “So, is it true that you can’t remember what happened, lad?” he asked. “The fall, and all that?”

  “That’s right,” Court replied. “I got nothing from when I was down bottom with McKenna to when I woke up in the hospital. But everyone seems to think it was bad.”

  “It was bad,” Ridley said. “They were saying you might not ever walk again. Hell, they thought you might die.”

  “Well, I didn’t die.” Court maneuvered his way over to the engineer. “And here I am walking, but damned if I don’t still feel useless.”

  “Useless?” Ridley laughed. “Lad, you’re the most important part of this job—after the skipper, of course. You just have to learn patience.”

  He dug out another sandwich. Held it out to Court. “Here, eat up and get comfortable,” he said. “You’ll be back at it soon enough.”