Neither was Magnusson. The Salvation was ancient, underpowered, and ill-equipped for a deep-sea salvage job. But Bering Marine was the only outfit in town, and Magnusson wasn’t ready to give up an eight-figure charter so soon.
“When can you be ready?” he asked Carew.
The captain shrugged. “Take me a day or two, get the gear your boss requested. We weren’t exactly prepared for this kind of operation, you know?”
“One day,” Magnusson said. “We don’t have time to screw around.”
Carew rubbed his chin. Mulled it over.
“One day, fine,” he said finally. Then he grinned. “Listen, when we save that ship, you make sure they know it was the Salvation that done it, all right?”
14
There was nothing to do but wait.
Okura had eaten until he was sure he would never feel hungry again. He’d smiled and attempted to make conversation with the well-meaning Americans who’d brought food to the little town’s community center. Now all but a few of the Americans were gone, and Okura stood alone in the corner of the center’s gymnasium, waiting for the customs official to return and tell them their plane had arrived.
Outside, it was no longer sunny. A thick layer of fog was settling on the mountains above the town. Okura watched it drift down. It did nothing to help his mood.
He’d given his life to the shipping company. No woman would marry a man who was away at sea for nine months of the year. He’d missed the death of his mother and the marriage of his younger sister. There was nothing else in his life but the work. Work, and the gambling parlors.
When he climbed aboard that plane, he would no longer have a job. That was a certainty. He might even face criminal charges for his role in the Lion’s disaster—especially if Tomio Ishimaru ever surfaced. And even, if by some miracle, Okura managed to escape with his professional life intact, he would still owe debts he was incapable of paying, huge debts, to men who regularly called on the yakuza to help them collect.
Put plain, he was finished. There was simply no hope.
TWO WOMEN WORKED at the front of the gymnasium, clearing empty dishes from the table. They talked, and their voices carried in the silent space.
“That was Robbie who just called,” the first woman said. “Some bigwigs just came down to the dock, want to charter Bill’s boat and head out to the wreck.”
Her friend cocked her head. “What, the big wreck? What for?”
“See if they can save it, I guess,” the first woman said. “I didn’t really get the whole story. Anyway, they’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Probably gone for a week, ten days, Robbie said. So you know what that means.”
The second woman smiled. “Girls’ night.”
“Girls’ week. If the guy’s going to leave, I’m having a party.”
The women walked out of the gym, laughing. Okura watched them go. So someone was going out to the Lion. Probably, they would find Tomio Ishimaru, and his briefcase. Maybe they would even take a cut of his profits.
Good luck to them. May they live long and happy lives. I will think of them often, from prison.
He dwelled on this unhappy thought for a while. Then the customs officer came into the room, and everyone straightened and shifted and looked at him. The man wasn’t smiling.
“There’s a delay,” he told the crew. “It’s too foggy to land your jet. They’re going to fly on to Kodiak and try again tomorrow.”
15
The Gale Force chugged north up the west coast of Canada, skirting the wild western edge of Vancouver Island, dodging freighters and log tows, fishing boats with their trolling lines, and pleasure craft under sail and power.
In the Queen Charlotte Sound, between the north end of the island and the southern end of the Haida Gwaii archipelago, a pod of Dall’s porpoises appeared alongside the tug. It was morning, and McKenna was brushing her teeth on the afterdeck when the porpoises appeared, speed demons, racing alongside the tug and frolicking in the waves.
Some of the creatures were so close that McKenna imagined she could reach over the gunnels and touch them. They were so fast and carefree that she couldn’t help but smile as she watched.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Stacey Jonas said. She’d come out of the wheelhouse with her own toothbrush and a mug of water. “So fast and sleek.”
“They sure look like they’re having fun out there,” McKenna said, making room at the rail so Stacey could join her.
“Sure do.” Stacey grinned. “I love watching them. Any sea creatures, really. Sometimes I think I like animals more than I like human beings—present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course. And Matt, too, I hope.”
“Matt, too,” Stacey said. “And he’s the same way. I never love him more than when we’re both underwater, guiding a bunch of folks around some coral reef. We can’t talk to each other, but I still feel him there with me, and that’s more than enough for both of us. I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t feel the same way.”
You’d get divorced, McKenna thought. Like my parents did. Randall Rhodes had tried to get his wife aboard the Gale Force, when he first bought the tug. Come along for an adventure, he’d told her. You won’t even have to cook. But Justine Rhodes loved the city, loved her home, the proximity of the grocery store and the coffee shop and the park. Try as her father might, McKenna’s mom had never budged. And there was surely no way Randall Rhodes was coming in from the sea, so the marriage had wilted, fallen apart, leaving bitterness, hurt feelings, and a lonely, landlocked daughter, passing time in Spokane and dreaming about the ocean. Some romantic idea of what being a salvage master looked like.
It looks like this, McKenna thought. A beautiful sunny morning, a fresh wind off the water, a pod of porpoises leaping and splashing off the starboard rail. And a thousand gnawing worries. A lonely life lived in suspense, waiting for the moment the whole operation falls apart.
Stacey picked up on the look on her face. Wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Smile, kiddo,” she said. “You’re living the dream. People pay big money for this view.”
McKenna laughed. “I’m paying big money, too,” she said. “Didn’t Ridley tell you the tricks I had to pull at the bank just to get us out of Seattle? I don’t know what I’m going to do if we don’t—”
“We will,” Stacey said. “You will. You think hubby and I would fly all the way up here if we didn’t think you had the chops? It isn’t cheap buying fuel for Matt’s little plane, you know.”
McKenna said nothing. Stared out over the water, the blue sky. The low, purple mountains on the horizon. Wished she shared Stacey’s confidence.
The diver punched her on the shoulder. “Your dad raised a tug captain, girl. We’re going to kick this thing’s ass.”
“Hell,” McKenna said, turning back to the wheelhouse as the porpoises fell astern. “Just find me a decent architect and I’ll feel a lot better.”
At that moment, the rear wheelhouse door swung open above them, and Jason Parent poked his head out on deck. “Phone call for you, skipper,” he called down. “Sounds like Court.”
Stacey raised an eyebrow. “Good things to those who ask?”
“Apparently,” McKenna replied, starting up toward the wheelhouse. “Whatever you did just there? Keep that around. We’re going to need more when we get to the wreck.”