Gale Force

by Owen Laukkanen

  Harrington still said nothing. “You okay?” McKenna asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Just trying to wrap my head around it, is all. I mean, I knew it was a big score, but . . .”

  “It’s crazy,” McKenna agreed. “Like I said, this is the biggest job I ever pulled. Probably top ten for my dad, maybe even top five.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about the money,” he said. “I was going to—” He looked at her. “It just all happened so fast, right? Like, two weeks ago I was at a poker table, never thought I’d see you again. Now it’s like, what, we just go our separate ways?”

  “There will be other jobs. You’re going to need some recovery time, I bet, but I have your number.”

  He made a face. “That’s it? ‘I have your number’?”

  McKenna shrugged again. Didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know how to give it to him. Couldn’t meet his eyes, either.

  Then she had an idea, figured she might as well just run with it. “Wait here,” she said. She ducked downstairs and into her stateroom, dug out a bottle she’d been saving for a while, two glasses. Brought it all back to the wheelhouse.

  “We don’t usually drink on my boat,” she told him as she handed him a glass, “but I bet they pour lots of champagne if you win the World Series of Poker.”

  She popped the cork clumsily and filled his glass, then hers. Hesitated a moment, searching for words.

  “To a job well done,” she said finally, holding her glass aloft, and he laughed at her, shaking his head, and she knew she’d picked the wrong words.

  “That’s what you want to toast to?”

  McKenna looked at him. Then her glass. “What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know,” Harrington said. “The way things were going, I was kind of hoping you were headed somewhere a little less professional.”

  “Damn it.” She frowned. Fumbled. “Okay,” she said at last. “To renewed friendships. Is that better?”

  Harrington smirked. “I guess it’ll have to do.”

  He was close to her now. They touched glasses and drank, and he was still looking at her, and she realized with some alarm that he was about to try to kiss her. She straightened, backed away a little bit.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “I’m sorry. Don’t—you don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  His smile didn’t waver, and McKenna realized she didn’t really know why she was backing away from Harrington, realized there was a part of her that actually kind of wanted him to kiss her, even as the rest of her was screaming, Abort! Abort! Abort!

  As it was, she was saved from a decision. Before she could answer Harrington, one way or another, there was a noise outside the wheelhouse, and McKenna looked past him to see Matsuda climbing the stairs from the afterdeck to the wheelhouse. The shipping executive peered in the window, saw McKenna, knocked lightly.

  Harrington laughed. “Damn it,” he said. “That guy really needs to work on his timing.”

  McKenna laughed, too. Thank god, she was thinking. Saved by the bell.

  87

  “Captain Rhodes.” Matsuda gave McKenna a smile as he let himself into the wheelhouse. Then he noticed Harrington. “Please, forgive my intrusion.”

  McKenna glanced back at the champagne bottle, the empty glasses, felt herself start to blush. Busted, she thought. No way to hide it.

  She cleared her throat. “No problem at all. What can I do for you?”

  “I had another proposal I thought you might be interested in,” Matsuda told her. “No obligation, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “We need to transport the Pacific Lion to Seattle,” Matsuda said. “We will unload the cargo there, and have the vessel inspected by a proper shipyard. Her engine is, of course, out of operation, and in any case, your Coast Guard would not permit us to sail the ship to Seattle ourselves.”

  McKenna got it. “You need a tow.”

  “We do. You’re the closest boat, and we’re confident in your capabilities. Gale Force Marine is my company’s first choice.”

  McKenna thought about it. It was probably a ten-day tow to Seattle, she figured. McKenna had been hoping to get home fast, had imagined she was done with the Lion.

  “We would pay a fair rate,” Matsuda continued. “You, your boat, and your crew, plus all expenses. Essentially, Captain Rhodes, you can write your own contract.”

  The Gale Force did have to get home somehow. It would be a nice little bonus if the ride home wound up paying. Hell, McKenna thought. When did Dad ever turn down a job?

  “I’ll have to check with my crew,” she told the executive. “But this sounds good to me.”

  Beside her, Harrington raised his glass. “Consider one crew member on board already,” he said, and those green eyes sparkled at her again. “When do we leave?”

  * * *

  • • •

  McKENNA THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Kept it in her mind all through dinner, as she pitched the job to her crew, and all through the night and the next day, as the Gale Force worked with the Coast Guard and Matsuda and his colleagues to ready the Pacific Lion for the tow.

  It was a nice thought. A week or so on a boat with Harrington, nothing really to do but sleep and eat and relax, catch up with the architect a little more, see if there really could be a spark there again.

  And McKenna knew if she turned down Harrington’s offer, she would spend the next ten days wondering—and probably more—because she was still attracted to him, kind of, even as cocky and smartass as he might have been. It had been a solid couple years since her last decent relationship, a long time to live without human companionship. Part of her wanted to say, To hell with it, and just dive in to ten days with Harrington, a pleasure cruise on the way home to reality.

  She avoided Harrington as the Coast Guard surveyed the Lion again, searching for flooding and finding none. Thought about the architect as she and Nelson Ridley lashed the freighter’s massive rudder into a fixed position. As they worked to repair the ship’s emergency generator and restore power. As she worked with Ridley in the tug’s engine room to make a proper fix to that portside intake pipe. She was tempted, really tempted. She almost told Harrington yes.

  But she didn’t. She didn’t because she had enough in her life to worry about without getting moony over the crew, Harrington in particular. She was happy with her career, and her life on the tug, and she’d been down this road with Harrington before. The architect was way too smart to wind up with some awkward moody bitch of a tugboat captain anyway.

  Why tease each other? Why start something they knew could never end well?

  So, at the end of the second day, with the Lion cleared for departure and the crew of the Gale Force prepping to cast off in the morning, McKenna sat down with Harrington in the wheelhouse and told him she was sending him home.

  “I told you I’d get you to a hospital,” she said. “You shouldn’t even be here right now, not after that fall.”

  Harrington laughed. “I’m fine,” he said. “We’re talking ten days of rest and relaxation, not another salvage job. I think a cruise would do me good.”

  “And if you reaggravate an injury?” she asked. “You could mess yourself up for life, if you don’t treat this right.” It all sounded so weak when she tried to explain it.

  “So you’re kicking me off,” Harrington said. “That’s what you’re doing?”

  McKenna shrugged. “Come on, Court,” she said. “There’s no point, for either of us. You get back to dry land, back south again, you’ll wonder what the hell you were doing wanting aboard a smelly tug for another ten days.”

  Harrington didn’t say anything. Pursed his lips and looked off through the window, and let the moment stretch out, the gulf widen between them.

  Captain up.

  McKenna stood. “I’ll
book you a flight home,” she said, crossing the wheelhouse to the phone. “No sense dragging this out any longer.”

  McKenna met his eyes, and his eyes were stone hard, but she could see behind them that she’d hurt him. He was hurt.

  But he looked away. “Aye-aye, captain,” he said. “Whatever you say.”

  88

  Ridley drove them to the pier in the Gale Force’s Zodiac, and then he drove them to the airport in the fuel-dock owner’s truck. McKenna and Harrington didn’t say much to each other on the drive.

  It’s better this way, McKenna thought. No chance anybody gets hurt this time around, anyway. No more hurt than we are already.

  She wasn’t sure she believed it, though, and she knew Harrington didn’t.

  Ridley drove across the runway and parked the car outside the terminal building. Waited behind the wheel as McKenna and Harrington climbed out. It was a decent day outside, not too cool, overcast, the fog just starting to drift in over the mountains. Harrington’s plane wouldn’t have any trouble getting out of town, not today.

  She waited as Harrington retrieved his carry-on from the back of the truck, then led him into the terminal building. Through the window, McKenna could see the architect’s plane waiting, a twin turboprop PenAir Saab 340.

  “Kind of a puddle jumper,” she said to make conversation. “Might be bumpy, but you’ll be okay.”

  “I made it to the tug on a Coast Guard rescue helicopter,” Harrington replied. “I think I can handle it.”

  “You’re booked through to Anchorage, then down to Seattle. You can pick up your tickets from Alaska Airlines when you get to Anchorage.”

  “Okay.” He wasn’t looking at her, and she wasn’t really looking at him, either. They were both kind of marking time, and McKenna wondered what more she was supposed to say here.

  “Anyway, thanks for coming out,” she said finally. “You should have the money in a day or two, tops.”

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Thanks,” he said. He hoisted his carry-on bag. Exhaled. “See you around.”

  McKenna watched him walk away, out through the security checkpoint and into the waiting room. Watched him join the line of other passengers, present his ticket to the agent, walk out the other side of the terminal and across to the plane. He climbed the stairs to the cabin, found McKenna through the glass, and waved, once. Then he ducked inside the plane, and only then, when she couldn’t see him any longer, did McKenna walk away.

  * * *

  • • •

  HARRINGTON WATCHED THROUGH THE WINDOW as the little plane rocketed down the runway and lifted off above Dutch Harbor. He could see the airport below, could see Nelson Ridley’s borrowed truck waiting outside the terminal, could almost convince himself he saw McKenna walking out as the plane banked and climbed. In the distance, he could see the Pacific Lion in the harbor, the Gale Force tethered to her bow. He could see it all, briefly, and then the plane was climbing into the clouds, and he could see nothing but gray. He sat back in his seat and tried to forget about McKenna Rhodes, steeled himself for the long flight south.

  * * *

  • • •

  UNNOTICED BY McKENNA, and Court Harrington, too, was the well-dressed young Japanese man who’d arrived at the terminal in a taxi shortly after the three Gale Force salvors, hurried to the PenAir desk with barely a glance at where Harrington and McKenna carried out their awkward goodbyes, purchased a last-minute ticket to Anchorage and, while Harrington hoisted his carry-on bag and turned away from the salvage captain, slipped past and through security to the waiting area.

  When Harrington boarded, the young man was already on the plane, tucked into a window seat near the rear, his nose in his phone, steadfastly ignoring the other passengers.

  Harrington might have seen him, might not have, but he didn’t notice, in any case. The man was just another passenger on a half-full flight, another refugee from the edge of the world.

  89

  From his hiding place at the water’s edge, Daishin Sato felt his phone vibrate. He removed it from his pocket. A new text message.

  The American has flown to Anchorage. I am following him.

  Sato waited.

  As he’d expected, the phone buzzed again.

  He was not carrying a briefcase.

  Sato replaced his phone. “We proceed as planned,” he told his colleagues, who waited in the shadows. “The American does not have the briefcase.”

  For all Sato knew, the young American man had transferred the stolen bonds into his luggage. He might have discarded the briefcase, and taken the contents back with him to the mainland. If that were the case, Masao would find out soon enough. In the meantime, Sato and the other two men would operate under the assumption that the bonds were still aboard the freighter.

  He and his colleagues had spent the last night and day waiting for the Coast Guard to release the ship, once again, to the salvage crew’s custody. Waiting for the salvage crew to pronounce the ship ready to tow. Ready for the darkness, for their own opportunity.

  Waiting, and preparing.

  They had liberated a small rowboat from the government docks near the town. Such was the size of Dutch Harbor that the boat was simply tied to a piling, no locks or alarms. It had simply been a matter of untying the rope, climbing aboard, and rowing the little dinghy around the point and out of sight. There, they had stocked it with food and provisions for the next stage of the task.

  The Dutch Harbor citizens’ relaxed attitude toward security extended, Sato had discovered, to their firearms. This was a frontier town, full of hunters and fishers and men and women of the wild, and nearly all of them owned guns. Sato and his colleagues had drifted from house to house, trying back doors and finding them largely unlocked.

  They’d searched the empty houses, found what they needed quickly. Amassed two pistols and three rifles, sufficient ammunition. Sato would take no chances with this stage of the operation. There was a good probability that success would demand violence.

  Sato tucked the phone into his trousers. He and his men had dressed in black: pants, sweaters, watch caps. They would blend in with the dark water after night fell. Nobody would see them as they crossed the bay.

  “As soon as there’s darkness,” he told his colleagues, “we row for the Lion.”

  90

  Early the next morning, McKenna Rhodes stood at her tug’s wheel, plotting a course through the Aleutian Islands as the Gale Force’s mighty engines pulled the Pacific Lion away from her moorings in Unalaska Bay.

  Dutch Harbor lay behind the big freighter, fading into the fog. The airport was closed again. Even if McKenna had wanted Harrington back, she couldn’t have him. She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision sending him away.

  Working at sea was a lonely business. For the most part, McKenna could handle the loneliness when she was working, when there was a job and a rhythm and a simplicity to life: the tug, and the tow, and the ocean beyond. It was harder on dry land, when the grocery stores and streets and sidewalks were filled with happy couples, romantic movies, love songs. It was easier to take refuge out on the water, easiest to just shut yourself off from romance completely.

  She’d had a long, sleepless night to think about the architect, to remember the strength in his arms as he’d held her, the wry humor behind those eyes. Now, in the morning, she was tired of feeling heartsick. Tired of longing for a man who’d already kicked her aside once, for a life she damn well knew was impossible. She had a job to do, a ten-day tow worth another half a million dollars, easy—and it would be easy, compared to the challenge of saving the Lion in the first place.

  Behind the Lion, the Coast Guard cutter Munro idled away from her dock. The cutter would tail the Gale Force up and out of Unalaska Bay, and back down through busy Unimak Pass, between Unimak and Akun Islands, just east of Unalaska. The pass saw more than three thousand f
reighters a year traversing the Great Circle Route between Asia and the Pacific Coast of North America. Things weren’t liable to get near as hairy as in Samalga Pass, but Captain Geoffries on the Munro wanted to see the Pacific Lion safely across to the North Pacific before he let McKenna on her way.

  McKenna didn’t mind. If she were honest, she appreciated the support. The waters around the Aleutian Islands were tricky and treacherous, and given the Lion’s history, it couldn’t hurt to have someone around who knew the local currents.

  The crew was mostly down below. Jason Parent cooked breakfast. Al Parent was asleep, resting for his wheel watch. Ridley was in the engine room, and Matt and Stacey Jonas had returned to the Lion, camping out on board the freighter to keep an eye out for flooding or any other mishap. Everyone was where they should have been. The Gale Force was operational, solvent, triumphant. And McKenna still felt the same gnawing loneliness she’d felt since she’d watched Court Harrington board his plane. She figured she would be happy if the feeling was gone by the time she reached Seattle.

  Beside her, Spike jumped onto the bench beside the skipper’s chair. From there, he leaped onto the dash and picked his way around the instrument panels, surveying the wheelhouse. He looked at McKenna with his big yellow eyes, and meowed, mournful.

  “I know, buddy,” McKenna told the cat. She settled into her skipper’s chair, tried to get comfortable for the long journey home. “I kind of miss him, too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  SATO COULD FEEL THE SHIP MOVING, feel the steady, rhythmic motion as the Lion and her escort sailed out of the bay and into the open ocean.