23
Christer Magnusson could tell this job wouldn’t be easy.
Rescuing a ship was never a simple task, but in Magnusson’s experience, some salvage jobs came easier than others. A bulk freighter dead in the water and adrift in the open ocean with calm weather? Fairly straightforward. An oil tanker aground on a shoal in a storm, one hundred thousand tons of crude in the balance? A little more complicated. And this job, the Pacific Lion, definitely ranged closer to the latter.
She wasn’t filled up with oil, thank god; just Nissans. But the freighter would still make a mess if it landed on the rocks, a hundred nautical miles now to the north. Its bunker fuel alone would have a devastating impact on the Aleutians’ marine environment, would kill fish, birds, and mammals alike, coat the shore with black tar. Magnusson wanted to avoid that, and the bad publicity that would accompany such a spill. Anyway, if the Lion wrecked, he wouldn’t get paid.
Saving her, though, would be a challenge. He would need to get aboard, make sure she wasn’t taking on more water. Then he would have to figure out a way to reverse that list. And it was here that Christer Magnusson knew he was at a disadvantage.
There was one man—one person—in the northern hemisphere who Magnusson knew could save the Pacific Lion, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Magnusson had a fair idea as to why: Court Harrington had hired on with another operation somewhere. He was trying to save the ship for himself.
But which operation? Waverly’s best tug was out of commission. There were no other outfits on the coast that could handle the Lion. Hell, even this tug, the Salvation, would barely be up to the task. There was only one other name, Magnusson figured, that even remotely made sense.
Rhodes.
Gale Force.
Court Harrington had been close with Randall Rhodes. He’d spurned Magnusson’s entreaties to come work for Commodore time and again, even at the promise of better pay, steady work. If Harrington was allied with any tug, it was Riptide’s Gale Force.
But Riptide Rhodes was dead. And his daughter was towing barges. Could she really be making a run at the Lion?
Magnusson supposed he would find out soon enough. Knew he had the edge on experience over McKenna Rhodes, even if she had Court Harrington. But he would need to work quickly, secure the Lion for Commodore. Arrest the wreck’s drift north toward landfall, secure it offshore, and set to work on that list, Harrington be damned. With any luck, the weather would hold long enough for Commodore HQ to find him another architect. And maybe a bigger boat.
Either way, it was time to get working.
Magnusson descended from the Salvation’s wheelhouse, found the Japanese sailor, Okura, making coffee in the galley. Magnusson gathered the man’s search yesterday had not gone to plan, but that was hardly his problem.
“This tug will not be your taxi today,” he told Okura. “We came here for the Lion, and today we put a line on her.”
He turned on his heel before the sailor could answer. Climbed back up to the wheelhouse, a full day’s work looming ahead.
24
McKenna gathered the crew in the Gale Force’s galley. Matt and Stacey, Nelson Ridley, Court Harrington, and the Parents. The only crew missing was Spike, and McKenna figured the ship’s cat wouldn’t exactly have any sympathy to contribute, anyway.
“Commodore’s at the Lion,” McKenna told them. “According to the local gossip, they had a line on the wreck as of yesterday.”
From his corner of the galley, Al Parent muttered a curse. Matt and Stacey swapped pained looks. Jason Parent stared at the floor.
“Commodore?” Ridley scratched his head. “I thought the Titan was laid up in California.”
“It is,” McKenna replied. “That’s the funny thing. I thought we knew all the salvage outfits on the coast, but Commodore chartered a boat from in town. I guess the locals have a tug that can do the job.”
“Be kind of crazy to go all the way out there if they didn’t,” Ridley agreed.
“What does this mean for us?” Court Harrington asked. “They can’t really expect to right that list, can they?”
“What this means—” McKenna sighed. “What this means is that Commodore has a claim on the Lion. It means we’re too late.”
“So what are we going to do?”
McKenna looked around at her crew. The guy at the fuel dock had disappeared into his office about halfway through the Gale Force’s refueling. Came back with a story about a processing ship needing a tow, Kodiak to Seattle, ten thousand dollars a day.
“Probably a ten-day trip,” the guy had said. “Hundred grand in your pocket, right there.”
A hundred grand. It would keep the lights on, anyway. Get the Gale Force back down to the lower forty-eight on a paying run. Maybe they could pick up another job, quick and easy, in Seattle.
Maybe.
“There’s a tow job available, Kodiak to Seattle,” McKenna told her crew. “I’ll need Al and Jason and Ridley aboard. Matt and Stacey and Court, I’ll pay you for your time, fly you anywhere you want to go.” She shrugged. “I wish I could do better, guys.”
“Kodiak to Seattle.” Ridley rubbed his chin. “How much are they paying?”
“Ten grand. Day rate.”
“Cripes. That barely covers our expenses. And what about the engine overhauls? We were counting on this score to fix up the tug.”
“I know, Nelson,” McKenna told him. “I wish I had better news. We’re just too late. That’s all there is to it.”
Ridley stared at her, his brow furrowed, his eyes dark, the rest of the crew’s expressions a match. McKenna figured she could read what they were thinking, every one of them.
This never would have happened if your dad was still around.
25
Okura followed Robbie off the flimsy skiff and back onto the wreck of the Lion. They climbed up through the bridge again, all the way to the top this time, and inched across the starboard deck as the wind roared in their ears and the wounded ship rolled in the swell.
It had not been a pleasant ride from the Salvation to the freighter, not in the tug’s tiny lifeboat. The weather was picking up; overnight, the swell had increased to approximately six feet, and the wind gusted strong enough to send an eerie howl through the stay wires on the Lion’s foremast. According to Carew, the weather wouldn’t get really nasty for another few days, but Okura knew forecasts could be wrong. And in his experience, the North Pacific rarely stayed peaceful for long.
Carew and the Commodore men had motored the Salvation to the rear of the freighter, where they would attach a towing line to the stern and attempt to keep the wreck under control as the weather built up. Tethered to the Lion, they wouldn’t be able to retrieve Okura and Robbie, who would have to navigate two football fields’ worth of water to return to the safety of the tug. It wasn’t a comforting notion.
They reached a door in the accommodations house, a couple hundred feet from the bridge. “The crew quarters are down here,” Okura told Robbie. “We’ll search them next.”
Robbie tied off a length of rope to a railing inside the doorway. Beyond was a long, gloomy hallway. It looked like a garbage chute, or some sadist’s slide.