65
Okura waited until he could no longer hear the voices of the men outside. Then he waited longer, until he couldn’t breathe the rank air in the locker for one minute longer. He crawled to the door, listened a moment, and slid the door open to the galley beyond.
Relief. Even the stale galley air was fresh, compared to what he’d been breathing. And nothing moved amid the mess of spilled food and kitchen equipment. The galley was dark. The men were gone.
Okura loosened his grip on his pistol. His fingers ached, he’d been holding the weapon so tight.
He navigated the hazards that littered the galley. Made the bulkhead door and pulled himself up to the long central corridor. Crept down to the stateroom where he’d made his nest. Dropped in, and felt under the bed for the briefcase.
It was there. The men hadn’t taken his money.
The crew was gone. They hadn’t discovered him, and they’d left the briefcase. But Okura knew he would have to be careful while he waited for the salvage team to finish their job. They would be wary now.
66
“You disobeyed a direct order,” McKenna said, pacing the wheelhouse. “You did exactly what I told you not to do, Court, and you put yourself, and this job, back in jeopardy.”
Six hours since the Coast Guard’s Dolphin helicopter had returned her and the crew of the Gale Force to the tug, and McKenna was still steaming mad. Could hardly look at Harrington, who sat at the chart table, his laptop in front of him and the ship’s cat on his lap.
The rest of the crew was downstairs, in the galley. Jason Parent had cooked up a delicious salmon steak dinner with roast potatoes and a passable, if slightly limp salad, and McKenna had eaten with the rest of the crew, though she’d barely tasted a bite.
“I know what I saw, McKenna,” Harrington said. He wouldn’t look at her. “Someone made a nest on that ship.”
“I don’t give a damn if you saw my dad himself in that stateroom, Court,” McKenna replied. “I told you to stay topside and keep out of trouble. And you went exploring instead.”
Court said nothing. Stared down at Spike like he was hoping the cat would bail him out of this jam. But the cat only purred, apparently unbothered by the fight.
Traitor, McKenna thought.
“You’re confined to the tug,” she told the architect. “I can’t trust you on that ship anymore. You can radio your instructions from here, but you’re not setting foot on that wreck again. Are we clear?”
Harrington didn’t answer right away. He looked up slowly, looked straight at McKenna. And then he laughed.
The bastard laughed at her.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “McKenna—”
“Captain Rhodes,” she replied.
“Captain Rhodes,” Harrington said. “Whatever. You need me on that ship if you want me to save it. You can’t just confine me somewhere.”
“I can and I will,” McKenna replied. “In case you forgot, this is my goddamn tug.” She glared at him. “And you’re going to respect that, or I’ll ship your ass back to Dutch Harbor.”
“And do what? Sink that ship over there just to prove a point?”
She wanted to strangle him. “If I have to, I will,” she said slowly. “I’m not going to fight you, Court. This is my boat. You work for me. You’re going to remember that, or you’re not going to last.”
Harrington said nothing. He looked at her, and he wasn’t smiling anymore, and for a long moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Harrington shifted. “This is about your dad, isn’t it?” he said. “This is you trying to make up for what you think you did.” He blew out a breath. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You—”
McKenna shook her head, cut him off. “This conversation is over,” she said, starting for the wheelhouse stairs. “You have your numbers. Make me a model. I want to start pumping tomorrow.”
She hurried out of the wheelhouse before he could reply. Fairly ran to her stateroom, closed the door tight, leaned against it, and felt her eyes brim with tears, and freaking hated herself for it.
That cocky bastard, she thought. I never should have hired him on for this job.
But she couldn’t raise the Lion without him, she knew, and Harrington knew it, too. And that was the part that pissed her off the most.
67
The four Japanese men stepped from the little plane and onto the tarmac. They paused briefly to breathe in the cool air, to survey the town and the mountains and the water. Then they walked into the terminal and out to the parking lot, where a couple of taxis stood idling beside a handful of private cars. A young woman stood waiting beside an American SUV. She held a sign that read GRAND ALEUTIAN HOTEL, and she straightened as the four men approached.
“Need a room?”
Three of the four men looked at the fourth, the young, slim man named Sato. “Yes,” Sato said. “We will need two rooms, if possible.”
The woman looked back at the terminal, the rest of the flight walking out with family members, friends, heading to well-worn pickup trucks. “Looks like I’ll have plenty of space,” she said. “Jump in.”
The men stowed their gear in the trunk, and climbed into the SUV as the young woman fired up the engine. Three men sat in the back of the truck. Sato sat in the front.
“What are you in town for?” the woman asked him as she pulled out of the lot. “Business, or pleasure?”
“Business,” Sato replied.
“Something to do with that ship that wrecked?”
Sato shook his head. “Fishing,” he said. “We represent a major investor.”
“Aha,” the woman said. “Well, you’re in the right place for that.”
THE DRIVE TO THE GRAND ALEUTIAN took all of five minutes. The woman—her name was Hannah, she’d told Sato—parked the SUV and opened the trunk.
“The shipwreck you mentioned,” Sato said as he followed Hannah into the lobby. “Did they save the crew?”
“The crew? Sure, no casualties.” Hannah paused. “Wait, I lied. One of those guys went AWOL, ditched the rest of his guys and went back to the ship on Bill Carew’s boat. What I heard, he was looking for something, but he shouldn’t have bothered. They brought him back to Dutch in a body bag.”
“How very sad.”
“You said it. Just goes to show.” Hannah shrugged. “There’s nothing in this world so important it’s worth dying over, right?”
She led Sato to the check-in desk, took his credit card. “How long are you staying with us?”
“We’re not sure,” Sato replied. “It depends how quickly we meet our objective.”
Hannah nodded. “Well, we’re nowhere near capacity,” she said. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem if you need to stick around for a while.”
68
Harrington worked on the models through the night. He made coffee in the galley as the light disappeared outside the tug. Brought it up to the wheelhouse and sat with Spike at the chart table and stared at the computer and tried to conjure a way to guarantee the Pacific Lion’s survival.
Tried to chase the fight with McKenna—Captain Rhodes—from his mind.
The night passed quickly. It was only six hours long at this latitude, anyway. At dawn, Nelson Ridley came up into the wheelhouse. “We didn’t give your bunk away, lad,” he said. “You’re allowed to take a nap.”