Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  * * *

  Artie Drager couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so frustrated and furious. These heavily armed men who refused to even identify what agency or department they were with, or even if they were civilian or military, were completely unwilling to listen to reason. When a quick sweep of their powerful searchlight revealed no one on the beach where Artie said Scully was, the man in charge accused him of lying. Even with Grant and Jessica adding their protests, trying to convince him otherwise was futile. For whatever reason, these men wanted them gone from the coastal waters and Artie began to wonder what it was that the government or whoever they were with was trying to hide. Did they really think three people on a plywood sailing catamaran were a threat to national security? He wouldn’t have minded being forced to leave, as he wasn’t the one who wanted to anchor off Cape Sable for the night anyway, but leaving without Scully was devastating. They had no dinghy other than the kayak Scully had taken ashore, so there was no way to go back and look for him without taking the catamaran in even closer and beaching it, but the man giving the orders wouldn’t hear of it. Nor would he listen to Artie’s pleas for them to take their own boat over to the beach and check for themselves. There was simply no other option but to leave as soon as the searchlight revealed no clue of Scully’s presence there.

  And that was another thing that baffled Artie. Why would Scully not show himself? Was he hiding on purpose? Surely he would have seen that they were being forced to leave. Why did he not come out before it was too late? Grant thought maybe it was because he saw the blue lights and was afraid he’d be detained.

  “He’s on U.S. soil with no passport. He mentioned that to me back when we were on the river, heading to the cabin. He said he had one, from Dominica, but he had lost it before the blackout and couldn’t find it before you guys left Culebra when you first launched the boat. He wasn’t worried then, considering what had happened, and I guess it wasn’t an issue, since it wasn’t like you had to clear customs or anything when you got to New Orleans. This is the first time since he’s been here that he’s encountered any kind of authorities. Maybe the blue lights just freaked him out. He told me he avoided the police at all cost. I think he’d been busted for ganja more than once and it left him with a bad taste for being locked up.”

  “He told me the same thing about getting busted in the islands. But that was years ago, I think. I know he would have been worried seeing the blue lights, but he had to know he was still going to be stranded in a foreign country with no passport if he let us leave without him.”

  “We’ve got to go back for him somehow,” Jessica said. “We can’t just leave him here! He’s Larry’s best friend!”

  “I know, Jessica. I just don’t know how we’re going to do it.”

  The southeast breeze was carrying them rapidly away from land, and Artie steered due west back into the Gulf. The patrol boat was shadowing them to make sure they were indeed leaving, but had fallen back a half a mile by now and he assumed it would veer away and leave once they were far enough offshore.

  “I’m wondering how they knew we were there,” Grant said “Did they pick us up on radar of some kind, assuming they have one that still works, or was it just some random patrol and they stumbled upon us.”

  “I was wondering that myself.”

  “If it was just random, I was thinking maybe we could just go far enough out to satisfy them until they left, then hang around awhile and go back for Scully.”

  “We’ve got to,” Jessica said. “I’ll bet that would work.”

  “It might, if they don’t spot us again. But we have no idea how many boats like that they have watching the coast. He said the navy was guarding the coast. The more I think about it, the more I think those guys were navy. If that’s the case, it’s not going to be easy to get back near the shore again.”

  “It’s just our luck that the weather is great now,” Grant said, looking up at the countless stars arcing across the sky above the twin masts. If it was raining like it was back when we lost sight of the Sarah J., we could easily slip back in there.”

  “Maybe, but if they do have radar, they could still spot us even in bad weather. And, it would be risky approaching land on a night like that without instruments of our own.”

  In another hour, the boat that had been following them was gone, and Artie was in a quandary as he fiddled with the sheets, adjusting them so that the sails spilled the wind and slowed the catamaran down. If they were going to try and go back for Scully, they needed to do it soon, before they got too far away. It was already going to be hard to find the exact spot where they’d left him on the long and mostly featureless coast of Cape Sable. Getting back there in the dark would be tricky, as it would be easy to end up too far to either the south or the north as they approached the 20-mile long stretch of uninhabited beach again. One thing he knew though, waiting for daylight was out of the question. They needed to sneak in and back out again under the cover of darkness. After discussing it, the three of them decided to tack back and forth out there where they were until well after midnight, then they would head back and try to pick up Scully. With any luck at all, they could then turn around and be out of sight of land again before dawn, and could continue on to the Dry Tortugas and rendezvous with Larry and Casey.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE PROMISE OF A good night’s sleep at anchor had turned into a nightmare for Artie and the others aboard the Casey Nicole. Instead of resting, they were sailing back and forth, going nowhere some five miles off of Cape Sable; waiting. By 1:00 a.m. Artie figured they’d better make their attempt at picking up Scully while there were enough hours of darkness left to get to the coast and back out to sea again. He was sure the patrol boat that had rousted them and made them leave had by now had enough time to be far away from the scene. Whether there were others was a question they could only guess the answer to. They would sail back in the direction of the beach and hope for the best, but they were prepared to turn around again too if there was any sign of another boat like that.

  “I hope Scully is still there. He had to have seen us leave. I’m worried that he might have gotten in the kayak and left already.”

  “But where would he go?” Jessica asked.

  “Knowing Scully…. well, what little I do know of him…. he would set off for the Dry Tortugas I guess. What other choice would he have?”

  “That’s a long way to go in a kayak.”

  “Not really,” Grant said. “Sure, it’s a lot slower than sailing there and a lot more work, but for a guy like Scully, who’s in good shape, 150 miles of paddling is not that big a deal. At least he’s got the good kayak and not that red P.O.S. I was paddling out to Cat Island on.”

  “We can hope he decided to stay put and wait for daybreak to leave,” Artie said. “If he didn’t, we might not ever find him.”

  “Well, if he really can make it to the Dry Tortugas….”

  “He can, Jessica. I don’t doubt that one bit. But you heard what that guy on the boat said. The Dry Tortugas are in the restricted area. If they really are patrolling the waters around there, I’m afraid we can’t make it there. And if we can’t, what about Larry and Casey? They may have been intercepted too.”

  “That worries me too,” Grant said. “If we can’t meet them there, how are we going to find them?”

  “We won’t; at least not in Florida. I’m worried that if they couldn’t enter the harbor there, they would have no choice but to go on to the Bahamas.”

  “Which means we wouldn’t either,” Jessica said.

  “Exactly. But I know nothing about that those islands he was talking about other than where they are on the chart. Larry kept saying how treacherous the waters were around there, and how off the beaten path they were. And now, without Scully, we don’t have a captain or a navigator. I’ve learned a little in the time I’ve been living on this boat since all this started, but not nearly enough.”

  “Yeah, and I know nothing about sailing.” Gra
nt admitted.

  “You’ve been doing a good job,” Jessica said.

  “Thanks, but Artie is right. Without Scully, we’re in a hell of a fix if we’re not able to meet Larry and the others at the Dry Tortugas. We’ve got to find him. We can’t give up until we do.”

  “I agree,” Artie said. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that this will be easy.”

  With the wind pretty much on the nose from the direction they needed to go, they were forced to take several long tacks to work their way back to Cape Sable. Fortunately, despite their collective lack of sailing knowledge, the Casey Nicole was easy to handle and the wind was steady at a manageable speed, even if it was not from the most beneficial direction. After an hour of this, they were getting close enough to begin to see the outlines of trees that confirmed the location of the mainland, even if they were still too far away to clearly see the beach.

  They were running dark, without the battery-powered anchor light they’d been using when trying to stay in touch with the Sarah J. on that stormy first night of the passage. Artie didn’t want to make it easier for another patrol boat to spot them, but now that they were close enough to land that Scully might be able to see them, he agreed to let Grant attempt to signal him with a few quick flashes of light from one of Larry’s powerful flashlights. With any luck at all, Scully might figure out it was them and start their way in the kayak so they wouldn’t have to look for him on the beach.

  They were on the starboard tack when Grant began this, heading northeast at an angle to the land. Grant was on the bow trampoline and Jessica was standing there beside him, while Artie steered as close to the wind as the boat would go. Grant had flicked the light on and off about a dozen times, aiming at different segments of the visible land, when suddenly, flashes appeared and streaks of light raced at them from the shore. The sound of staccato gunfire and bullets ripping into the water like a school of jumping fish immediately followed the light show. It took another couple of seconds for Artie to realize what had just happened; a burst of machine gun tracer rounds had cut across their bow less than a hundred yards ahead. When a blue strobe light flickered on and then off again after a few more seconds, Artie knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’d been warned.

  “GET DOWN!” he yelled to Grant and Jessica as he put the tiller hard over and let the Casey Nicole fall off the wind. He held his breath as they ran back to the cockpit and the boat surged forward on the new course—taking them away from land as fast as possible. Seconds passed and the next burst of fire that he expected might cut them to pieces never came. The blue lights did not come back on either, and there was no sound of a motor. He began to breath normally again as he dared to hope that they were going to be allowed to simply sail away. If so, it was a lesson learned and he wouldn’t take that chance again.

  * * *

  Scully was bewildered by the sudden departure of the Casey Nicole. Whatever had happened, it happened against the will of Artie, Grant and Jessica; that he knew for sure. The fact that the strange powerboat had flashed blue lights eased his mind a bit; that and he had not seen his friends’ bodies floating nearby or washed up on the beach. Scully figured that most anyone who simply wanted the boat would want it without them aboard, and would quickly get them off, either dead or alive. That they apparently hadn’t done this told him they probably really were police or authorities of some sort. If so, they had either arrested his friends and confiscated the boat, or they were making them leave the area for some other reason. He was certain they had swept a spotlight over the beach and through the dense brush where he was lying, dazed from his fall. But from what he remembered, if they were looking for him their search seemed hurried and certainly less than thorough, especially since they didn’t bother to come ashore. He wondered if perhaps they knew nothing of him at all, maybe because Artie and the others kept quite and said nothing of his presence with them.

  Either way, it didn’t matter now. What he had to do was decide what to do next now that he was on his own. The Casey Nicole and the other boat were completely out of sight by this time, so there was no point in hanging around waiting. Scully was quite certain they would not be coming back for him, whatever the reason for their unplanned departure. He could stay through the night and try and sleep until dawn, but on this beach sleep would be impossible anyway without protection from the mosquitos. Besides, Scully wasn’t sleepy after the adrenalin rush of realizing the boat was gone without him and he figured he might as well get moving. There was really nothing else he could do but set out for the Dry Tortugas alone. That’s where he was supposed to meet Larry, and that’s where he should have been tonight if he had not gotten so far off track in his navigation. The error was his fault, and he could blame himself for his predicament and whatever was happening to Artie, Grant and Jessica, but Scully was not one to dwell on blame or regrets. He had spent his life living in the moment, and at this moment he was going to get in the kayak and start paddling south.

  He didn’t have a chart of the Everglades or the Florida Keys, but just hours ago he’d stood there in the cockpit of the Casey Nicole, looking over Larry’s charts with Artie. He had gotten a good idea of the major reference points in these waters as they deciphered where they were once they realized they were in the wrong place. He couldn’t remember all the details, of course, but he was sure that if he followed this beach until it ended, he would be at the bottom of the Florida peninsula, and from there, the crossing to the Keys was within reasonable paddling distance. If he could reach the island chain, then all he had to do was follow it west. The Dry Tortugas were the end of the chain, after the Marquesas, which were beyond the end of the road that stopped in Key West.

  He knew the direct sailing distance was about 150 nautical miles from where they’d dropped the anchor off this remote beach. The route he would have to take in the kayak would be longer. It would take days no matter how hard he paddled, because he would have to stop where he could on the islands to sleep and he would have to find food and water along the way. The coconuts he’d already gathered were a good start on both, but he would need more than that to sustain him for such a journey. He loaded all but two from his pile into the kayak, and then used the machete to open those two and drink his fill of the refreshing water. Most of the green nuts he’d cut down earlier were at the “drinking nut” stage, so completely full of water that no sound could be heard when shaking them. These were also Scully’s favorite for eating, the inside still underdeveloped and soft, almost the consistency of custard. Scully split the two shells open after he’d drained them of water and used a piece of the wooden husk to spoon out this delicious treat. It would hold him over for a few miles, and then he would stop somewhere and take the time to catch a fish or two. The waters here in the place called the Everglades seemed to be teeming with life, so he was certain that would not be a problem.

  Two hours later, Scully reached the end of the long strip of beach than ran north to south, and he knew he had to be at the southernmost tip of Cape Sable. From here, the beach gave way to a shoreline of mangrove forests that curved around to the east. He pulled the kayak ashore and got out to stretch and look around. It was still two hours until dawn, but he was not really tired. Looking off to the south, there was nothing on the empty horizon to indicate the existence of the chain of islands he knew was there, but then he knew too that the distance was far too great to see such low islands. Maybe before the blackout, one could stand here at night and see the distant glow from the cities of the Keys, but not now.

  He had walked to the highest point on the beach and was about to turn around when the quiet of the night was shattered by a distant burst of machine gun fire. Scully could tell it came from the north, from the direction he had paddled, but he didn’t quite know what to make of it. Sound could be deceptive at night, he knew, so there was no way of telling how far away it might be. There was no mistaking what it was, but wasn’t sure just what kind of weapon it was. He waited, listening for more shoo
ting, but there was nothing but the maddening buzzing of mosquitos around his head. He knew the Casey Nicole had sailed west and was already out of sight of land well before he’d left that place where he started his journey, so he wasn’t concerned that this gunfire involved them. So much was going on everywhere that he’d been since the blackout that there was no real reason to be surprised. It sounded far enough away not to be an immediate threat, but he saw no reason to linger either. He returned to the kayak and struck off paddling south, into the empty, dark horizon, not knowing exactly how long it would take him to reach land again.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE WIND MADE HIS decision for him as Larry steered Tara Hancock’s Tartan 37 for the Bahamas. The more direct route if one were looking at it on the chart would be to pass south of Andros Island from the Straits of Florida and lay a course directly for Ragged Island. But Larry had doubted from the beginning that such a route would be feasible, and of course he was right. Unless there was a strong cold front pushing south from North America, the winds in this region almost always prevailed from the southeast. From where they were between the Keys and Cuba, aiming south of Andros was practically impossible on a sailboat this time of year, when such a front wasn’t going to happen. And even if their fuel was unlimited or easy to resupply, motoring that far against the wind with a small auxiliary still wasn’t really an option. The direct route was a head-on bash against wind and sea, with a motor or not.