The Wrecking Crew

by Taylor Zajonc

  “But they still came,” said Jonah.

  “Yeah, they still came. We had no idea how hungry these men were. How could we? Given my childhood, I thought I was wise to the world. We even laughed about the threat, can you believe that? Colin made jokes about joining them, said it’d make for a better career choice than trying to enter a down economy as a mechanical engineering major.”

  Jonah allowed himself a tiny chuckle. Klea fell silent for a few moments, but Jonah didn’t mind. She’d finish her story at her own pace.

  Finally he spoke up. “You must have gotten along well. The two of you, alone on the ship for all those weeks. Not many couples can do that. Most of the divers I know spend their rotations wishing they were home with their wives and most of the time home with their wives wishing they were out on rotation.”

  “Oh no,” said Klea. “It wasn’t just the two of us. Colin’s best friend came along too. Kyle. He programmed a lot of the electronics. That was his ticket onboard. I think he was really just there for the adventure. He brought his girlfriend, Molly-Anne. She was a nurse; we figured she would be really useful in case any of us got hurt or sick, especially in some of those more remote regions. She was there because Kyle was there. I don’t think she really cared for the ocean or boats or anything. Molly loved Kyle, but I don’t think she trusted him very much by himself in foreign cities. More specifically, she didn’t trust him around foreign girls.”

  “Girls liked him?”

  “Girls loved him,” said Klea, laughing. “Kyle was one of those friendly, handsome guys that thought the world was just a really great place because of how nice everybody was to him. Super trusting. Smart, but not smart enough to realize how uniquely he was treated. The trust fund didn’t hurt either. If Colin would have let him, we probably wouldn’t have needed a single sponsor. Kyle could have personally funded the expedition without breaking a sweat.”

  Jonah smiled and watched as Klea relaxed a little, sinking deeper against the inflated side of the raft.

  “Kyle drove some old muscle car,” mused Klea, almost more to herself than Jonah. “Hadn’t thought about that ridiculous thing in a long time. I adored him and Molly. They had been together for a long time. I think Kyle was under some pressure to get on with it, if you know what I mean. He would have proposed eventually, I’m certain of that. Colin and Kyle would have been the best men at each other’s weddings.

  “The four of us were about as close as friends could be. Molly was so jealous when Colin proposed to me the day we departed. He got down on one knee on the fantail of the Horizon in Bordeaux as the sun set behind us, gave me a ring he’d forged himself in the metallics laboratory.”

  Jonah found himself gulping, trying to square his unconscious attraction to Klea with the specter of her martyred fiancé. He tried to look away but his eyes stayed locked with hers. Then, glancing away in discomfort, he found himself looking for a ring on Klea’s left hand. Klea caught him and waved the ringless hand in his face.

  “It was stolen,” said Klea. “Ripped it right off my finger while others ran their hands through my pockets. Probably on the hand of some … pirate wench.”

  Both Klea and Jonah simultaneously broke out in stifled laughter.

  “A very lucky pirate wench.”

  “The bitch had better appreciate it,” said Klea, still smiling. “So there we are, we’re making good time—not as good as Colin had hoped, but we were still on track to make the record, especially if we gained time during a spate of good weather we had anticipated over the following weeks. We’d already passed the point where we were closest to the Somali coast; we figured we were more or less in the clear. Still pretty stressful, but the worst should have been over. Colin was piloting, Kyle was in his bunk with Molly. I was on the fantail doing the fuel consumption calculations.

  “That’s when I saw this glint in the distance, a single speedboat approaching us. We were out in the middle of nowhere, there should have been nobody and nothing around. I got curious and grabbed my binoculars. When I got a good look, it dawned on me that we were being stalked by a pirate ship. We heard this foreign language over the radio; I realize they’d called in other skiffs. They had a mothership on a scouting expedition in the area and were trying to box us in. We changed course, increased speed to maximum but they gained on us. Soon, there were two other boats chasing us.

  “Everybody was up at this point. Molly was freaking out, Colin was more scared than I’d ever seen him, he and Kyle were yelling at each other while trying to squeeze just a few extra knots out of the engines. I was on the fantail, watching. The pirates started falling back, losing ground. Kyle and Colin got excited, they started whooping and hollering. They were already rehearsing the war stories they’d tell at the Miracle.”

  “The what?”

  “The Miracle of Science,” said Klea. “It’s an MIT bar. Our hangout spot. They’ve got a drink menu that looks like the periodic table of elements.”

  “Ah,” said Jonah.

  “Suddenly, I realized that we were not outrunning the speedboats. They were hanging back, getting into position. Getting ready to take a run at us. Molly stormed out of the cockpit, started yelling at me to come inside. The speedboats came towards us at full speed, firing guns at the Horizon. Molly just stood there, mouth hanging open and got hit twice in the chest. I’d never seen someone get shot before, not even in Kosovo. I was on my stomach, trying to find somewhere to hide. Kyle came running out, trying to drag Molly inside. He got her inside the cockpit but was shot in the back. He made this long, awful sound and dropped to all fours. I saw him crawling away and I never saw him again.

  “I realized the pirates weren’t aiming at me because they thought I was already dead, I was just lying there on the deck doing nothing. They pulled back. What was really frustrating was how arbitrary it all was. They decided everything, when to attack, when to stop. We couldn’t fight back; we were just a bunch of college students. I couldn’t even tell what the pirates were trying to do. Were they trying to disable the ship? If so, why fire at us? Were they just trying to kill us? Then why were they shooting at the ship, too?

  “At this point, I was too scared to move. Colin stepped over Molly to get to me, almost tripped over her body. He was trying to get me to move, to come inside. I wouldn’t do it. And then I saw his shirt, he’d been shot twice through the abdomen. He was white as a sheet, losing blood. He got woozy, went down to his knees. Then he was out, eyes rolling back into his head, breathing fast and shallow. I tried to remember what Molly told me to do, find the entrance and exit wounds, stop the bleeding. I stripped off part of his shirt but couldn’t make sense of anything. The Horizon was bouncing off waves, going way too fast, the engines were howling, there was blood everywhere, and I couldn’t even find out where it was coming from.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Then I took out my cell phone,” said Klea. “I still have no idea why I did this. Maybe the idea of leaving no record was unbearable. I was certain Colin was dead. Molly definitely was and Kyle had crawled off somewhere to die.”

  “But you were alive.”

  Klea pulled her shirt up to reveal one long, ugly scar against the left side of her toned abdomen.

  “I didn’t even notice it,” she said. “Worst scar I have, and I don’t even know how it happened. So I had my cell phone. I recorded this ridiculous message on video. No memory whatsoever of what I actually said. I ran below decks. I didn’t see Kyle, but I saw a long blood trail where he’d dragged himself away. I found an empty mayo jar. I popped the cell phone in the jar and chucked it overboard. By the time I made it back up on the fantail, the pirates had boarded.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They did what pirates have done for centuries. Went through my pockets, beat me, stripped away my clothes. I started screaming out every prayer I knew from childhood, screaming in Arabic as loud as I could. They stopped beating me, stopped ripping my clothes. After that, they really didn’t know what to do
with me. There wasn’t much of a plan. They gave me a veil and stuck me in a shipping container for a few weeks, then moved me back on the Horizon in the middle of their harbor.”

  “You’ve been out here a long time,” said Jonah.

  “But it didn’t end there,” she said. “I spent years living in Colin’s mausoleum. It was like being buried in his grave, him dead next to me and me clawing at the lid of the coffin. Every morning I would wake up in the bed we once shared. Every day, I would walk past the chair where he’d piloted the Horizon. I would sit for hours in the same spot he took his last breath. I saw Colin everywhere. You ever love someone like that?”

  “No,” he lied.

  Klea turned away, refusing to allow Jonah to see her cry. And for just a moment, the briefest of moments, Jonah wished he’d told her the truth.

  “What happens next?” she asked. “How long can we hold out?”

  “I’ll spare you the list of potential sufferings,” said Jonah. “At least we have water for a few days, maybe longer if we ration it wisely.”

  “Food?”

  “Don’t worry about food,” said Jonah. “Given our shared histories, I think we’re well-suited for some temporary starvation.”

  “Not much to eat in a pirate compound. I suppose the same rings true for a Moroccan prison.”

  “Yeah. There’s going to come a time—maybe soon—when we don’t want to carry on the struggle. When that time comes …”

  Jonah trailed off. He drew the pistol from his belt with one hand, the two remaining bullets with the other. The implication was clear. There was no need to unnecessarily prolong their ordeal.

  Angry, Klea tried to snatch the weapon away from him.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “I’m throwing it overboard,” she said. “I’m not finished yet.”

  “I’m not goddamn finished either,” said Jonah. “But there’s no sense in limiting our options. If we’re out here for too long, there will come a time when you want the merry-go-round to stop.”

  “Fine,” said Klea. She watched angrily as Jonah replaced the weapon and bullets into his wetsuit.

  For a few moments, they simply stared at each other until Jonah felt uncomfortable and looked away.

  “You got any tattoos from prison?” asked Klea.

  “Muslim country,” said Jonah. “Not big on prison ink.”

  “Any scars?”

  “Sure. Got a good one pretty recently. Still sewn up.”

  “Lemme see,” she said.

  He shrugged, and then decided to oblige. He reached back behind his back and pulled at the zipper cord, then stripped down to his waist. Jonah looked down at the knife wound in his abdomen from where the Rabat gangster had stabbed him. The ugly wound was still held together with Dr. Nassiri’s perfectly spaced stiches.

  They’ll be ready to come out soon, he thought. He always healed fast, ever since he was a kid.

  When he looked up, Klea was already halfway across the small raft, steadying herself on all fours as she made her way to him. She wasn’t looking at the wound; she was looking at him, staring intently into his eyes.

  Oh, thought Jonah. This was unexpected. Klea crawled on top of him, straddling him, pressing her body into his. She pushed her face towards his, kissing him deeply, biting his lower lip.

  “Why?” he whispered as she ran her fingers through his salt-encrusted hair.

  “Because I’m not finished yet,” she whispered back.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dr. Nassiri stood on the fantail of the Horizon and stared off into the distance. It wouldn’t be long now; the experimental yacht had already begun to break apart in the gentle swell. One of the pontoons was nearly separated from the body of the ship and the flooding in the main cabin increased with every wave. She’d soon be on the bottom of the ocean, joining the Fool’s Errand and centuries of ill-fated ships. He released the mooring line, separating the Horizon and the Scorpion. The physical exertion felt good, especially in the fresh sea air and the still-cool early morning.

  Fatima stepped up beside him, love and pride welling up into a powerful mixture of emotions she was not well-equipped to demonstrate. Her son had risked everything to save her—no, not her; he thought she was dead—but her legacy. He had willingly set his life aside to finish what she had started. How does one thank a son for that?

  She looked up at him. Dark, unruly hair ruffled in the wind as he squinted into the vast emptiness, searching for any sign Jonah and Klea had survived the explosion. He was as handsome as his father had been. No wonder the American girl watched his every move. The girl tried to hide it, of course, but a mother could always sense a woman’s interest in her son. But a Texan? Not what she’d imagined for Hassan, but she wouldn’t interfere. Not after all this. Without thinking, she licked the palm of her hand and went to work trying to pack down an errant clump of hair.

  “Mother!”

  Alexis stuck her head over the lip of the conning tower, just as Dr. Nassiri batted his mother’s hand away from his head.

  Alexis laughed and Dr. Nassiri turned and held his hand to his forehead, blocking the sunlight to get a better look. The morning light did the Texan more than justice, she was radiant. He swallowed hard and ignored his mother’s ministrations.

  “Thought you should know—we’re getting incoming radar contacts,” shouted Alexis. “Looked like a flock of birds at first but they’re flying too straight and much too fast. Vitaly says they’re drones bearing in from Anconia Island. They’re fifteen minutes out on a direct intercept course.”

  Dr. Nassiri frowned. A cluster of drones wasn’t a good sign. Just one might have been surveillance or on some unrelated mission. A cluster meant they were potentially armed and maybe even accompanied by a surface vessel. He held the mooring line fast as his mother gingerly stepped from the smoldering yacht to the submarine. She ascended the ladder to the conning tower and disappeared inside.

  “Are they weaponized?” he shouted.

  “Vitaly says yes. Air-to-ground missiles.”

  Dr. Nassiri ably hopped from the yacht to the submarine and deftly untied the mooring line. Knots came easily to his surgeon’s muscle memory, even unfamiliar designs. It was his guess that a surveillance drone had picked up on the smoke column from the Horizon. Whether any of the drone operators had seen the Scorpion or not, he couldn’t guess. But he knew he didn’t want to be around when they arrived. Dr. Nassiri climbed the boarding ladder and joined Alexis on the top of the conning tower.

  “We have another problem,” said Alexis. Wrench in hand, she pointed towards the snorkel pipe rising behind them as it hummed along, gently exhaling a steady stream of diesel exhaust.

  “What is it?”

  “Batteries are charged off of the diesel engines,” she said. “And they’re only about twenty percent of capacity. We’re not going to have much juice to play with if we submerge now.”

  “That does sound like a problem,” he mused.

  Alexis stepped onto the interior boarding ladder. He followed, slamming the hatch shut behind them, twisting the wheel until it sealed tightly.

  Dr. Nassiri dropped into the command compartment, right next to where Vitaly manned the pilot’s console. Vitaly shot him a pain-tinged smile—it made Dr. Nassiri just a touch uncomfortable, but he couldn’t place why. Fatima found a seat in the corner, close enough to listen in, but far enough away to keep out of the action. Dr. Nassiri got the sense that she needed a job on board, something to keep her busy and useful.

  “Submerge the Scorpion,” ordered Dr. Nassiri. “Head towards the coast. Let’s get a little distance between us and those drones. Appreciate the warning, Vitaly.”

  “Is not problem,” said Vitaly. “Vitaly does not want to die. Making depth one-zero-zero feet.” He pressed forward on the controls, and the Scorpion almost imperceptibly leaned forward as she slipped underneath the waves. The side-to-side motion of wave action ceased, replaced by a sense of momentum and calm. />
  “Set to cruising speed,” continued Dr. Nassiri. “No need to use any more electricity than necessary.”

  “What’s the decision about Jonah?” asked Alexis.

  “We will stay and find him,” said Dr. Nassiri.

  “We will search as long as possible. He deserves that much.”

  Fatima nodded at him with a look of approval. “As does Klea.”

  “We save?” asked Vitaly, not completely convinced.

  “We save,” confirmed Dr. Nassiri. “My working theory is that Jonah escaped on the missing life raft at some point after we rescued my mother. Perhaps Jonah set the explosion off himself as a distraction. It would certainly be his style.”

  “I do not understand—why blow up own boat?” asked Vitaly.

  “They couldn’t outrun the pirates, not without a greater head start. From my examination, it appeared the explosion came from within the main cabin. That’s interesting to me for two reasons. First, I don’t think the pirates could have hit the cabin interior with a rocket-propelled grenade. It’s just too lucky of a shot. Second, why the cabin? Why not the engines? I think the goal was to make a big explosion without immediately sacrificing speed. To me, it appears deliberate and purposeful. A desperate plan, but a plan nonetheless. There was plenty of debris for them to hold on to … overturned skiffs, parts of the hull, maybe even a life raft. We can’t be out here indefinitely, but I imagine we can search for a least a few days. After that, it wouldn’t matter either way. What do you think?”

  “If Jonah alive, he know Vitaly stay and save him,” said Vitaly “If Jonah dead, Vitaly will know for sure. Either way, Vitaly sleep better at night.”

  “So we need a plan,” said Fatima.

  “I have not only plan. I have solution,” said Vitaly. “You know search theory Bayesian?”

  “No,” Fatima admitted.

  “I learn this some time ago,”said Vitaly.“Is mathematical equation for finding lost man at sea. We start with the voyage of the … what is the name of Batman’s yacht?”