The weather outside must have worsened considerably. The creaks and moans had become more pronounced, the sway of the ship heavier. A couple times, Okura was thrust up and away from the deck with the force of the swell, tossed into the air and then down again, his grip on the rope slipping, his feet nearly giving out.
Somewhere below him was water. Okura could hear it sloshing in the darkness, something dripping. The decks were slick with oil. It leaked from the cars’ engines and drained steadily down the listing deck. Okura imagined the dark frothy mixture at the bottom of the cargo hold, imagined falling into the cold water, drowning in it, coughing up oil and freezing salt water in pitch-black surroundings.
Somewhere below, too, was Tomio Ishimaru. Okura had wrestled the stowaway’s body off of its little platform, sent it plunging down to the darkness, heard it collide with something, a car probably, then another. Then he’d heard the splash, and the stowaway was gone.
Fifty million dollars. Now it’s all mine.
THERE WAS STILL NO SIGN of the briefcase when he’d reached the end of his rope. Okura wrapped it around his glove, found another bulkhead wall to rest against, then stretched and drank water from the canteen he’d stuffed in his pack. Surveyed the situation.
There were cars everywhere. The darkness seemed to close in around them, bringing with them a lingering, primal fear. This was a madhouse.
Three or four rows down, Okura could see the portside hull of the Lion. There was a pool of oily water immersing the first row of cars completely, and part of the second row. Headlights emerged from the murky depths like shipwrecks. There was still no sign of the briefcase.
It must have fallen all the way to the bottom, was probably lying somewhere in that oily water. Okura hoped the briefcase was watertight, imagined coming all this way to find a case of sodden, pulpy stock certificates, unreadable and utterly useless, the perfect punch line to this entire sick joke.
The rope was too short to continue any farther. Okura suddenly felt exhausted, beaten, and he wondered how many hours he’d spent down here, whether it was still daylight outside.
Magnusson will salvage this ship, he thought, staring down the row of cars toward the icy water at the bottom. He’ll pump out all the water and bring the ship upright, and I’ll intercept the briefcase when the ship has been saved. To hell with staying down here any longer.
He stood and straightened, already feeling the fresh air on his face, tasting the hot food in the Salvation’s galley. But as he turned toward the hatchway and prepared to make the climb, he spied something, a blur as his headlamp passed over it, and then he looked closer and saw it was the briefcase.
It was lying on the windshield of a sports sedan, five or six rows away. Only God could tell how Ishimaru had managed to kick the damn thing so far, but there it lay, dry and unmolested.
Now all that remained was to retrieve it.
35
By morning, the gale was a foregone conclusion.
The waves had grown to ten-foot swells overnight, gloomy gray rollers that rocked the Gale Force fore and aft, coating her decks with salt spray, spilling coffee and ruining sleep. McKenna and Al Parent traded off all night, jogging the tug in the swell, keeping her bow pointed to the waves. McKenna watched the Lion, searching for any sign that she was flooding. Waiting for the moment the big ship finally sank.
Morning was a gray horizon to match the sea, the Lion drifting north at a knot and a half an hour, the Salvation’s efforts to arrest the drift not amounting to much. The wind was gusting to twenty-five, the gale warning all over the forecast. It would arrive in earnest by afternoon, and its heavy winds would push the vast, exposed bulk of the Lion northeast toward the Aleutians at an increasing speed, until there was nothing anyone could do but pray she sank before she made landfall. If she stayed afloat, McKenna knew, she’d be on the beach within a couple of days.
McKenna called the crew to the wheelhouse. They crowded in, Matt and Stacey and Court Harrington around the chart table, Nelson Ridley beside McKenna at the wheel, Al and Jason Parent by the doorway, and Spike on the dash. They looked out at the Pacific Lion, the Salvation at her stern, her flimsy towline drawing taut, then slackening as the waves battered both vessels, the Salvation’s black exhaust nearly obscuring the Lion’s stern.
“He’s got to get her moving,” Ridley muttered. “What in hell is Magnusson doing, farting around over there?”
“There’s no way he can move that ship,” McKenna replied, “and he’s a fool for even trying. So let’s get our pumps and generators ready to go. Climbing equipment, too. Matt and Stacey, I need you inside the Lion as soon as we get our line on.”
The Jonases nodded. “You know us, boss,” Matt said. “We’ll be ready.”
“Al and Jason, you get the towline ready,” McKenna continued. “We’re going to rig a bridle at the stern, stabilize her, see if we can’t put some distance between us and the Aleutians before this storm takes over. We’re going to need every inch of open water, from the looks of it.”
“Aye-aye,” Al agreed.
“Good. Nelson and I will join Matt and Stacey on the ship. It’s all hands for this job.” She turned to Harrington. “You have that computer of yours fired up?”
“Just waiting on the numbers,” Harrington said.
“Perfect.” McKenna turned back to the window. It was eight in the morning, and today, she knew, would determine the Lion’s fate—and the Gale Force’s. “This is our wreck,” she told the crew. “So let’s be ready to claim her.”
36
The wind howled.
Christer Magnusson stood at the Salvation’s wheel. Bill Carew and his deckhand joined him in the wheelhouse. Foss and Ogilvy were in their bunks, resting. They’d drawn the night watch, and it had been a long night.
The other guy, Okura, was still on the ship somewhere. Refused to leave, the maniac. Magnusson studied the Lion’s stern, figured the guy would probably wind up dead, decided he was glad he’d asked for that twenty-five thousand up front.
Behind the Salvation, the Lion dragged at the towline, the wind catching the freighter’s hull and shoving it off course, threatening to pull the smaller boat with it. Bill Carew had the Salvation’s engines revving high, almost at their limits, but the force of the wind was nearly overpowering the ship, and that, Magnusson knew, was a very bad sign.
Bill Carew met his eyes. “You want to have your men slacken off that winch and we’ll release the tow?”
Magnusson didn’t answer. The correct thing to do in this circumstance—the seas getting bigger, the wind moaning through the rigging, foam and salt spray everywhere, an underpowered boat, and a heavy, wallowing tow—was as Carew suggested: slacken off the towline, untether the Salvation from the wreck, and turn around, with tail between legs, head back to home base.
But Magnusson hadn’t built his career on giving up early. If that woman on the Gale Force wanted to take the Lion from him, she was damn well going to earn it.