* * *
• • •
OKURA STARED OUT THROUGH A PORTHOLE, envious, as the two salvage men ate their meal on the Lion’s weather deck. Sandwiches, simple, but to Okura’s hungry eyes, a feast: thick pieces of bread, healthy cuts of meat. Tomatoes and lettuce and plenty of cheese, all of it fresh—or fresher, anyway, than the slim choices that remained in the Lion’s stinking, noxious galley.
Okura had been eating canned food for days, cold tins of beans, soup stock, preserved fruit. He’d polished off the ship’s store of chocolate and candy, a case of Coca-Cola for good measure. He wouldn’t starve on this vessel, no matter how long the salvage crew took to do their work. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t long for a nice steak, some fresh fish, a glass of cold beer or a bottle of wine—or even a decent sandwich, for god’s sake.
The crew moved with less urgency, now that they’d brought the ship into the lee. They weren’t quite relaxed, but the worry that had defined them wasn’t etched so firmly on their faces. Okura supposed he should be happy; the crew seemed to believe they could save the Lion. He wished they would hurry up and get started.
Someone was looking at him. Okura scanned the deck, and locked eyes for an instant with one of the men—the younger one, the one who’d been injured—no more than twenty feet away. Okura flinched, and drew back, down into the stateroom, his hair on end, his heart racing. Dropped as stealthily as he could down the skewed stateroom floor, slipped out into the bowels of the ship.
* * *
• • •
ON THE WEATHER DECK, Court Harrington frowned. “Hey, you see that?”
Ridley followed his eyes to the porthole. It belonged to a stateroom that stuck out a few feet onto the weather deck, the window looking aft, down the deck toward them.
“I didn’t see anything,” Ridley replied. “Did you see something?”
Court pushed himself to his feet, limped his way down the deck to the porthole, and peered inside. The glass was filthy, stained, almost useless, and the stateroom beyond was dark. Nothing moved inside.
“Thought I saw something in there,” he told Ridley without lifting his eyes from the porthole. “Someone.”
“Could be Matt or Stacey coming back. The skipper, maybe.” Ridley paused. “Mind you, they did pull a body out of the cargo hold earlier. And I won’t say there haven’t been times on this ship I’ve felt like I’m being watched.”
Harrington pressed his face to the porthole. Tried to replay the image in his mind. Whatever he’d seen, it hadn’t been for long; just a shift of the light, a suggestion of movement, and then stillness again.
Still—for the briefest of moments, he could have sworn he’d seen a face.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Ridley, pushing off from the wall. “I’m probably crazy, but I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t check this out.”
Ridley looked at him. “You’re going in?”
“Sure. McKenna isn’t back yet. We have nothing to do but wait.” He grinned. “Why not go hunt us a ghost?”
63
Okura hunched behind a bulkhead and listened to the voices reverberate down the hallway. Men’s voices, at least two of them, inside the ship.
They had seen him. Not good. Not good at all.
He’d left the briefcase in the stateroom where he spent his nights. It was hidden, tucked under the tilt of a now useless bed, but its absence still made Okura’s mind race.
The salvage men could find it. They would take the money. His money. He couldn’t let it happen.
Okura slipped the pistol from his waistband. Listened to the men’s voices, the sounds of their feet on the deck, on the walls, as they descended farther into the Lion.
* * *
• • •
COURT STRUGGLED AHEAD of Ridley down the narrow hallway and wondered why he suddenly felt so ill at ease.
The freighter’s accommodations deck, after all, wasn’t nearly as foreboding as the very bowels of the ship, the dark corridors beneath the cargo decks, the vast inky abyss of the holds. This hallway was relatively well lit; the air was fresher, and the ocean where it was supposed to be—belowdecks.
But this was a ghost ship. A man had died here. And Harrington was sure he’d just seen a face.
What the hell are you doing here, man?
The men reached the midpoint of the ship, the long central corridor interrupted by watertight bulkhead doors. This corridor was darker, the air still, the sounds from above muted in the stillness.
Court gestured left, toward the stern of the ship. “First stateroom on the left,” he said, whispering now. “That’s where I saw him.”
He let go of his rope and stepped into the central corridor, felt his broken ribs protest, the pain inescapable no matter how tight they had bound his chest. Behind him, Ridley followed, neither man speaking, hardly daring to breathe. Court could feel his heart thudding behind those busted ribs, wondered what he would do if there actually was someone else aboard the freighter.
Wet your pants, probably. And scream like a girl.
Then Court thought about McKenna, decided that wasn’t a very good analogy. The skipper of the Gale Force would probably handle a stowaway—or even a ghost—with a little more aplomb.
The men reached the stateroom door. It opened inward on the wall above their heads, a beam of dusty light falling onto the forward wall. Court reached up, took hold of the doorframe, and tried to pull himself up, couldn’t do it. Not without crying, anyway.
He eased back, wincing, forced a smile at Ridley. “Maybe you’d better.”
Ridley nodded. Pulled himself through the doorframe with a grunt. Court watched the engineer’s feet dangle as he surveyed the room. Waited, tensed, for some confrontation.
But nothing happened. “Nothing in here,” Ridley called down, and then he dropped back onto the corridor’s portside wall, kept his balance. “Just another empty stateroom.”
“Huh,” Court said. “Guess I was wrong.”
He looked farther down the corridor, unwilling to believe that his eyes had deceived him. About ten feet down, on the portside of the ship, another door hung open. Harrington maneuvered down the corridor, leaning on the skewed deck and walls to support himself. Stopped above the open doorway and bent over, best as he could, to peer inside.
“Ridley,” he said, his heart racing even faster. “Come have a look at this.”
The stateroom looked lived in. As in, after the wreck. There was a pile of bedding in the corner, a stack of empty Coke cans, some candy bar wrappers.
“This is a nest,” Court told Ridley. “Someone’s been in here.”
“Could have been that dead guy,” Ridley replied. “Or Christer Magnusson’s crew.”
Court considered this. His whole body was tired, his mind, too. His chest ached, his head was kind of swimming, and all he really wanted was to crawl into his bunk.
But still.
“Maybe,” he said. “But then, who’d I see staring out at me just now?” He struggled to stand. “Come on. McKenna’s not back yet. We can keep looking.”
* * *
• • •
THEY WERE COMING CLOSER.
The men had discovered his sleeping space. Now their curiosity was inflamed. They would know they’d seen a man in that stateroom, and they would want to find him.
They would send him back to Japan. The yakuza would likely kill him. And the salvage crew would find the stolen bonds, earn a nice bonus on top of the salvage award.
Fifty million dollars. Your money.
Okura backed down the corridor, his mind working supersonic. If he were forced to shoot the men, the noise would alert their friends. The Coast Guard would be called. They would bring guns of their own.
Damn it.
But he didn’t have a choice. If the men found him, he would have to sh
oot them, and hope the noise of the shots died in the still air within the ship. Then he would retrieve the briefcase, and . . .
And what?
Okura couldn’t afford to waste time on that question, not now. The men were still approaching. He thumbed off the pistol’s safety. Retreated from the bulkhead, searching the darkness for any sign of the men.
64
The galley stank.
Something was rotting. Scratch that: everything was rotting. The Pacific Lion had been adrift for weeks now, and just about everything in the kitchen had spoiled. Court pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth, tried not to breathe as he limped into the mess, their headlamps cutting swaths through the dim.
“If there’s somebody on board this ship, lad,” the engineer said, coughing, “I really doubt he’s hanging around here.”
Court glanced back at him. “I mean, the guy’s gotta eat, right?” he said. “Unless he really is a ghost.”
They’d peered into every stateroom off the main corridor, looking for more signs of a stowaway. Found nothing. But Court remained unconvinced.
“Come on,” he told Ridley. “Better than freezing our asses off on that deck up there, anyway.”
Ridley looked like he’d beg to differ, if he hadn’t been focused on trying not to throw up. The wreck of the Lion had wreaked havoc on the galley; there was food spilled everywhere, pots and pans on the floor, unidentifiable liquids pooled at the confluence of deck and wall. The scene was of chaos at an impossible angle. The smell only compounded the disorientation.
Court poked through a pile of empty cans, a half-eaten chocolate cake that had smeared on the floor and congealed into something else entirely. Made his way to the dry-goods locker and peered inside.
“Not much in here at all,” he called back to Ridley. “I guess they were due for a shopping trip when they reached America.”
There was something wrong here. Court was sure he was missing something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Guess he’s not here, whoever he is,” Ridley said.
Court started to agree. Then he noticed the freezer, a walk-in, sliding door open a couple of inches. “Unless . . .”
“Oh no,” Ridley groaned. “Lad, nobody in their right mind would be hiding in there.”
“Only take a second to check,” Court replied, climbing across the galley toward the freezer. “Set our minds at ease, right? Why not?”
* * *
• • •
HIROKI OKURA waited in the back of the freezer, wedged between a wall of spoiled ice cream and a couple of slabs of beef gone very, very ripe. The smell was appalling, unbearable, and Okura felt he might die if he didn’t breathe fresh air soon.
But he had more pressing concerns than air quality. He could hear the men outside in the galley, hear the clatter as they pushed through the debris toward the freezer door. They were coming.
They would find him.
He wedged himself against the ice cream. Raised the pistol and aimed it at the freezer door. Wondered how it would feel to shoot someone, wondered how he’d allowed himself to get to this place.
He waited.
* * *
• • •
COURT HAD JUST REACHED the freezer door when something moved in the corridor outside. Both men stiffened, spun to the doorway, expecting to see the stowaway or, barring that, the ghost.
Instead, they saw Stacey Jonas, braced against the portside wall and looking in at them, quizzical.
“What the heck are you guys doing?” she asked. “The Coast Guard chopper’s topside. Everyone’s waiting on you two.”
Ridley shrugged, turned to Court, who’d paused, his hand on the freezer door.
“We thought we saw something in one of the staterooms,” Court told her. “Thought we should investigate.”
Stacey raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“And, I guess,” Court said, “I guess we found a nest?”
“What, like a bird?”
“A person,” Ridley said. “A bundle of bedding wedged against the wall. Someone was sleeping there, after the wreck.”
“Probably that sailor who came back with Magnusson,” Stacey said, shrugging. “He was on here for a few days, remember?”
“Right,” Court said. “But then he died.”
Stacey waited for the punch line.
“I swear, I saw a face in that stateroom,” Court continued. “Just now, while we were waiting. And then we find that nest? Can’t be a coincidence.”
Stacey shifted her weight. “It’s probably your mind playing tricks on you, Court,” she said. “You had a concussion, for Pete’s sake.”
“Stacey—”
“Anyway, the Coast Guard’s burning fuel waiting on you two,” Stacey said. “And the skipper is already pissed.”
“Roger,” Court said, turning back to the freezer. “Just let me check—”
“Court.” Stacey’s voice was sharp, and it stopped Court cold. “Did you hear me? I said McKenna is pissed. It’s time to go.”
Court paused, torn. Hand on the door.
“If there’s anything in that locker, it’s long dead by now,” Stacey said. “Just like your ass will be, if you don’t bring it topside.”
Court sighed. “Damn it,” he said, sighing. “I know what I saw.”
But he let go of the freezer door. Turned away. And struggled to follow Stacey and Ridley back down through the galley toward the door.
65
Okura waited until he could no longer hear the voices of the men outside. Then he waited longer, until he couldn’t breathe the rank air in the locker for one minute longer. He crawled to the door, listened a moment, and slid the door open to the galley beyond.
Relief. Even the stale galley air was fresh, compared to what he’d been breathing. And nothing moved amid the mess of spilled food and kitchen equipment. The galley was dark. The men were gone.
Okura loosened his grip on his pistol. His fingers ached, he’d been holding the weapon so tight.
He navigated the hazards that littered the galley. Made the bulkhead door and pulled himself up to the long central corridor. Crept down to the stateroom where he’d made his nest. Dropped in, and felt under the bed for the briefcase.
It was there. The men hadn’t taken his money.
The crew was gone. They hadn’t discovered him, and they’d left the briefcase. But Okura knew he would have to be careful while he waited for the salvage team to finish their job. They would be wary now.
66
“You disobeyed a direct order,” McKenna said, pacing the wheelhouse. “You did exactly what I told you not to do, Court, and you put yourself, and this job, back in jeopardy.”
Six hours since the Coast Guard’s Dolphin helicopter had returned her and the crew of the Gale Force to the tug, and McKenna was still steaming mad. Could hardly look at Harrington, who sat at the chart table, his laptop in front of him and the ship’s cat on his lap.
The rest of the crew was downstairs, in the galley. Jason Parent had cooked up a delicious salmon steak dinner with roast potatoes and a passable, if slightly limp salad, and McKenna had eaten with the rest of the crew, though she’d barely tasted a bite.
“I know what I saw, McKenna,” Harrington said. He wouldn’t look at her. “Someone made a nest on that ship.”
“I don’t give a damn if you saw my dad himself in that stateroom, Court,” McKenna replied. “I told you to stay topside and keep out of trouble. And you went exploring instead.”
Court said nothing. Stared down at Spike like he was hoping the cat would bail him out of this jam. But the cat only purred, apparently unbothered by the fight.
Traitor, McKenna thought.
“You’re confined to the tug,” she told the architect. “I can’t trust you on that ship anymore. You can radio your i
nstructions from here, but you’re not setting foot on that wreck again. Are we clear?”
Harrington didn’t answer right away. He looked up slowly, looked straight at McKenna. And then he laughed.
The bastard laughed at her.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “McKenna—”
“Captain Rhodes,” she replied.
“Captain Rhodes,” Harrington said. “Whatever. You need me on that ship if you want me to save it. You can’t just confine me somewhere.”
“I can and I will,” McKenna replied. “In case you forgot, this is my goddamn tug.” She glared at him. “And you’re going to respect that, or I’ll ship your ass back to Dutch Harbor.”
“And do what? Sink that ship over there just to prove a point?”
She wanted to strangle him. “If I have to, I will,” she said slowly. “I’m not going to fight you, Court. This is my boat. You work for me. You’re going to remember that, or you’re not going to last.”
Harrington said nothing. He looked at her, and he wasn’t smiling anymore, and for a long moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Harrington shifted. “This is about your dad, isn’t it?” he said. “This is you trying to make up for what you think you did.” He blew out a breath. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You—”
McKenna shook her head, cut him off. “This conversation is over,” she said, starting for the wheelhouse stairs. “You have your numbers. Make me a model. I want to start pumping tomorrow.”
She hurried out of the wheelhouse before he could reply. Fairly ran to her stateroom, closed the door tight, leaned against it, and felt her eyes brim with tears, and freaking hated herself for it.
That cocky bastard, she thought. I never should have hired him on for this job.
Gale Force Page 20
