More silence.
“Understand?”
The man actually chuckled. “Yes, I understand. Go on.”
“You come after me again,” Harrington said, “I call my buddies, and they dump that case of yours over the rail, never to be seen again. Get it? And that goes for my parents, too. Whoever you have watching them, call them off now.”
Another pause. Then, before Harrington could prompt him, the man sighed. “We won’t harm you,” he said. “You, or your family.”
“Swear it.”
“I give you my word.” He said it as though Harrington should know his word meant something. Harrington figured that was as good as he was going to get. He tossed the phone back to Tanaka.
“Talk to your boss,” he said.
The hotel phone began to ring again. Harrington nearly shot the thing. Instead, he kept the gun trained on Tanaka. Crossed to the phone, picked it up. “What?”
“Court?”
McKenna. Harrington blew out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “McKenna—Captain Rhodes—you guys all okay over there?”
“We’re fine, Court,” the captain said. “Are you okay?”
Tanaka was ending the call with the big boss. Harrington kept the gun where the hit man could see it.
“I’m fine,” he told McKenna. “All good. Never better. Just in the middle of something here, you know? I’ll call you back in a bit.”
The captain started to protest. Harrington hung up on her. Felt bad about it briefly, but he had other things to worry about. “We square?” he asked Tanaka.
Tanaka frowned.
“Are we okay?” Harrington clarified. “Like, you’re not going to try to kill me again?”
“I will not,” Tanaka said. “Katsuo Nakadate gave you his word.”
“Perfect.” Harrington kept the gun on Tanaka. “Then I’m leaving. Follow me, and I’ll call my friends on the tug and get you in deep shit with your boss, get it?”
Tanaka was smiling again. “Get it,” he said. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Harrington backed to the door. Tanaka hadn’t moved, so Harrington lowered the gun, tucked it under his shirt. Felt around for the door handle and let himself out of the room.
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Katsuo Nakadate stared at his phone and couldn’t help but laugh.
Anything that could possibly go wrong, he thought, will. I will have to do this myself.
He placed another call, to his secretary this time. “Book me a flight,” he told her. “I’m going to America.”
104
Harrington walked quickly down the hall away from his suite. Made the elevators and pressed the call button about fifteen times before the car showed up, rode it down to the lobby and walked straight to the concierge.
“There’s a strange guy on my floor impersonating security,” Harrington told him. “Slim, short guy in a black suit. He’s giving me a really bad vibe.”
The concierge colored. Reached for the phone. “I’m very sorry, sir,” he said. “I’ll have our actual security investigate.”
Harrington thanked the man. Hurried out of the hotel, made a right turn, and started up the hill toward anywhere but where he was. Stopped in an alley a couple blocks away, turned his back to the street, took out the pistol, and fumbled to release the magazine. Figured it out and dropped the pistol in a dumpster. Was walking to the next block, the next dumpster, with the loose magazine, when he stopped.
Whoever the heck Katsuo Nakadate is, he thought, his word ain’t worth spit to me.
He turned on his heel. Walked back to the dumpster, climbed up the side, and nearly fell in trying to retrieve the pistol. But he got it. Slid the magazine back in, a far more satisfying feeling than the opposite. Then he started up the hill again, away from the hotel. Figured he would call his parents, tell them it was high time they took a vacation.
And then, damn it, he was eating a steak.
105
“Well, we have to open it now, don’t we?”
Another storm was brewing. McKenna and the crew of the Gale Force had lingered off the coast of Tofino long enough to reel in the Pacific Lion again and clean up the tow. They waited as more Coast Guard and Canadian military arrived on scene, as the weather picked up, and the ocean swell increased, as the wind began to hum through the Gale Force’s rigging.
By morning, the weather service was predicting a gale. McKenna consulted with the Coast Guard, the Canadian Navy, the crew of the Sea King helicopter that circled above them. The Sea King lowered a man to the tug’s deck to have a look around. He surveyed the pitted steel on the rear of the wheelhouse, took McKenna’s shotgun as evidence, and returned to the afterdeck to winch back up to the helicopter.
“Too rough to do the investigation out here,” he told McKenna. “We’ll escort you into the Strait, get you to Seattle. Send our guys to take a look at the freighter once you’re in calmer waters.”
“Sounds good to me,” McKenna replied. “I’d like to get some ground covered before this weather kicks up.”
“Happy sailing,” the Navy airman said, and he gave the thumbs-up to his winch man and ascended back to the Sea King.
* * *
• • •
NOW McKENNA AND NELSON RIDLEY stood with Jason and Al Parent in the wheelhouse, studying the briefcase on the chart table in front of them, trying to figure out what to do.
Outside, the Sea King was gone, headed back to Victoria to refuel, replaced by a bright yellow Royal Canadian Air Force Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopter, which had followed the Gale Force and her tow down the coast of Vancouver Island and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Nanaimo picked up the escort.
The Nanaimo was a short, kind of stubby vessel. Painted a flat naval gray, she lingered off of the Lion’s portside quarter, blending in with the dull sky and slate ocean. Apart from a perfunctory introduction by her radio operator, the Nanaimo stayed quiet, a constant, silent presence, always visible through the aft windows of the Gale Force’s wheelhouse.
McKenna didn’t mind. She was still rattled. Thirty-plus years around the water and she’d never been fired on before, didn’t think her dad had been, either. The rest of the crew felt it, too, she could tell; they lingered in the wheelhouse, Nelson and Jason and Al, eating snacks and not saying much, everyone jumpy, everyone wired. Jason had called home, Nelson, too, and McKenna listened as both men assured their wives they were okay, nothing serious, that the news reports they’d been watching were way overblown.
“Just Hollywood stuff,” Nelson told Carly. “These American news guys always have to make it sensational, you know?”
But he didn’t sound quite nearly as unflappable as normal, and he listened more than he talked, reassured Carly he’d be home soon, safe and sound. When he’d ended the call, he’d mopped sweat from his brow.
Even the ship’s cat could tell something was up. Spike had climbed into McKenna’s lap in the skipper’s chair, purred once, turned around twice, then sat and quickly fell asleep. McKenna knew she should have been flattered by the cat’s attention, but instead she was worried. If the cat was willing to forgive such a well-established grudge, well, something must really be wrong. And it gnawed at her, as the Gale Force beat eastward, between the remote Vancouver Island shore and the high peaks of the Olympic Peninsula. She wondered what would be waiting for her crew when the tug arrived in Seattle.
And then Ridley had shifted his weight as the Gale Force plowed a wave, caught McKenna’s eye. “Well,” he’d said. “We have to open it now, don’t we?”
And now, here they were, the briefcase before them, Ridley armed with every tool and drill he could carry up from his workshop. Al and Jason weren’t saying much, weren’t showing their hands, but McKenna could see how they looked at the case. They were intrigued, too.
She wasn’
t sure, though. She’d been thinking about ditching the thing, chucking it off the boat and being done with it.
“Aren’t you curious?” Ridley asked her. “I mean, those assholes were ready to kill us all. Gotta be something important, right? They’ll probably send more guys to try and take it from us.”
McKenna nodded. “Probably.”
“So? You going to let me do this, or what?”
She looked at Al and Jason again. Jason avoided her eyes, kept stealing glances at the briefcase. Al shrugged. “Would be kind of interested to know,” he said.
This isn’t a democracy, girl. You’re the captain here.
But McKenna realized she wanted to know, too. Figured she deserved to know; she’d sure been shot at enough.
So she lifted her hands, let them fall. “Go for it,” she told Ridley. “You want to take a look, be my guest.”
* * *
• • •
TEN MINUTES AND NEARLY thirty new swear words later, Ridley stepped back, wiped his brow. “But damn it,” he said. “That was some kind of lock.”
The briefcase had given a good fight. But Ridley, assisted by an assortment of power tools, and a helping of brute force, had finally cracked it. And now the crew crowded around what remained, eager for a look inside.
By rights, Matt and Stacey would be here, too. Seeing how they nearly died for this thing just like the rest of us.
But the Jonases were on the Pacific Lion, and McKenna was reluctant to do any more broadcasting over the radio, given the Royal Canadian Navy presence nearby. No sense arousing any suspicion—and you never could be totally sure who was listening in.
Ridley caught her eye. Gestured to the briefcase. “I think the honor is yours, Captain Rhodes.”
“Better not be a bomb,” McKenna replied. She stepped to the table. Took hold of the briefcase, counted to three in her head. Then she lifted it open. And saw—
Paper.
“What is it?” Jason Parent asked, craning for a look.
McKenna leaned closer. She’d been expecting money, maybe, stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Diamonds, perhaps. Or some kind of cutting-edge technological advancement, the likes of which would make the bearer wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Instead, paper?
But as she looked closer, she could see that inside the briefcase wasn’t just any paper. They looked like certificates.
“Bonds,” Ridley breathed out, beside her. “Thundering Jonas.”
He was right. They were certificates, all right, stock certificates, each carrying a value of five hundred thousand—what, she thought, squinting, reading. Euros?
Each piece of paper was supposed to be worth half a million euros. And there were stacks of them.
“Ho-lee,” Al said, leaning closer. “Are these—these are good as cash, right? As long as we hold them, they’re ours?”
McKenna snapped the lid closed. “If you can find someone to buy them,” she said. “And judging by the character of those guys who just tried to kill us back there, I’d say these belong to someone we really don’t want to mess with.”
She looked at Al Parent. “You know what happens if we try to sell these? Some more men with guns track us down, take them from us, probably kill us for good measure.” She shook her head. “No way, boys. These are bad freaking news.”
Ridley had a look on his face like he’d just found the mother lode. “Okay, skipper, you’re probably right. but just in case, don’t you think we should at least figure out how many of those bonds we’re dealing with here?”
No, McKenna thought, but she knew she was outvoted. She sighed, and opened the case. “Soon as we hit Seattle, we’re turning these in to the authorities, understand?”
“Sure,” Ridley said. “Of course. Let’s just count them first.”
So they counted. McKenna opened the briefcase, and they each took a stack of bonds, and by the time they were through, they’d piled ninety of the certificates on the wheelhouse table.
“Ninety times five hundred thousand,” Jason Parent said. “Shoot, that’s like . . .”
“Forty-five million euros,” his father finished.
“Right. And how much is a euro worth again?”
Ridley was typing something on his phone. “A euro is equal to approximately a dollar and a nickel. So that puts us—”
“Close to fifty million dollars,” McKenna said. “My god.”
“That’s more than we made for the Lion,” Jason said. “Holy shit.”
Holy shit is right. McKenna was glad suddenly that she knew these men, that her father had hired good crew, that even fifty million dollars piled on her wheelhouse table did nothing to diminish her trust in them.
Still, though, this was a heck of a lot of money.
Ridley was the first to step back from the table. “That’s a hell of a score, lads,” he said, “but it’s the skipper’s call.” He turned to McKenna. “Whatever you decide, this crew will follow, McKenna. You have my word.”
“Thank you.” McKenna knew he wasn’t lying. Still, she could see the conflict on her men’s faces, knew she would hurt a few feelings if she just gave the money away.
Ridley gathered up the bonds. Tucked them back into the briefcase. Rummaged in a locker and came out with a roll of duct tape, taped the briefcase closed. Then he handed it to McKenna.
“All yours,” he told her. “Go with your gut.”
The briefcase felt heavier now, impossibly so, now that McKenna knew the contents within. The weight seemed almost too much to lift.
“We’ve still got a long run to Seattle,” she told the men. “Let me think on this.”
106
Fifty million dollars.
The HMCS Nanaimo shadowed the Gale Force through the day and into the night. At Port Angeles, across the water from the very bottom of Vancouver Island, McKenna and her crew towed the Pacific Lion back into American waters, and the Nanaimo ducked away, replaced by a bigger—and heavily armed—Coast Guard cutter.
By morning, the Gale Force and her entourage were sailing south down Puget Sound, back into the tugboat’s home waters. There was something calming about the familiar scenery, the blue sea and green forest, the white, double-ended Washington State ferries trundling across the Sound. McKenna supervised the crew as they shortened the towline, increasing maneuverability in the Sound’s tight confines, and she knew she should feel relaxed now, money in the bank, and the boat almost home.
But there was the briefcase to deal with. Fifty million dollars, or thereabouts. And McKenna knew she should just hand it over to the police, the Coast Guard, the Canadian Navy, whoever. But she was still a Rhodes, wasn’t she? Still Riptide’s daughter, descended from gamblers and thrill-seekers. The smart thing would be to surrender the briefcase to the authorities, she knew. But nobody in McKenna’s family had ever been accused of being smart.
Wait until we tie up in Seattle. Then give it to the cops, and forget about it.
Yeah, she thought. Maybe.
* * *
• • •
BY MIDMORNING, the Gale Force and her tow had Seattle in sight. the crew gathered in the wheelhouse to watch the Space Needle appear, the city skyline, busy Elliott Bay with its ferries and fishing boats and massive container ships.
Four harbor tugs waited to dock the Pacific Lion, powerful little bulldogs, and McKenna slowed the Gale Force and supervised the handover, retrieved Matt and Stacey Jonas from a gangway down the side of the big freighter. Soon, the Lion was out of her hands—for good, this time—nudging into a berth in the vast harbor facility south of downtown, across the raised Alaskan Way viaduct from the sports stadiums where the Mariners and the Seahawks played.
McKenna let the tug linger near the Pacific Lion, looking from the ship to the city skyline, feeling at home and adrift at the same time. That damned ship had been her responsibility�
��her life—for nearly a month, and now that she’d finished the job, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Life on dry land was infinitely more complex than life on the water, and part of McKenna wished she could stay at sea forever.
She doubted her crew felt the same, though, and she turned the tug north again, toward the West Point light and, beyond, the Ballard Locks. The Gale Force felt light, almost weightless now, freed from the burden of the heavy tow.
McKenna called Matsuda as she guided the tug through the locks. Let the shipping executive know that the tow was complete, the Lion arrived safe in Seattle. She didn’t mention the incident off the Canadian coast, and Matsuda didn’t ask. He thanked her, and promised to wire her payment. The conversation was a short one.
Al and Jason Parent took their positions at the bow and stern as the Gale Force approached her berth in Lake Union, and McKenna looked up at the city beyond, and felt that same sensation of aimlessness return. Her crew had worked hard. They’d saved the Lion. Now what?
Now we deal with the briefcase. She tried to steel herself for the phone call she knew she had to make. The Coast Guard, probably. Maybe the FBI. Someone would know what to do.
Then she heard voices outside the wheelhouse, happy shouts from on deck, and she looked out the window at the approaching pier and saw a figure there, waiting. It was Harrington.
The architect looked stronger than he had the last time she’d seen him, stood straighter, moved easier. He looked tanned and happy, smiling that cocky smile and jawing at Al Parent across the tug’s bow. McKenna smiled, despite herself, but as she brought the tug closer, she could see the fatigue behind Harrington’s eyes. Judging by his face, he’d aged five years since he’d boarded the flight in Dutch Harbor.
With the bow and stern thrusters going, McKenna guided the Gale Force to her berth. Nudged her in gently, and watched Jason and Al Parent scramble to secure the lines, forward and aft, Matt and Stacey assisting on the spring lines amidships. McKenna waited in the wheelhouse until the tug was secure, hurried through her shutdown ritual, and ducked out of the wheelhouse and across the deck to the dock, where Court Harrington was already exchanging hellos with the rest of the crew.
Gale Force Page 30
