McKENNA THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Kept it in her mind all through dinner, as she pitched the job to her crew, and all through the night and the next day, as the Gale Force worked with the Coast Guard and Matsuda and his colleagues to ready the Pacific Lion for the tow.
It was a nice thought. A week or so on a boat with Harrington, nothing really to do but sleep and eat and relax, catch up with the architect a little more, see if there really could be a spark there again.
And McKenna knew if she turned down Harrington’s offer, she would spend the next ten days wondering—and probably more—because she was still attracted to him, kind of, even as cocky and smartass as he might have been. It had been a solid couple years since her last decent relationship, a long time to live without human companionship. Part of her wanted to say, To hell with it, and just dive in to ten days with Harrington, a pleasure cruise on the way home to reality.
She avoided Harrington as the Coast Guard surveyed the Lion again, searching for flooding and finding none. Thought about the architect as she and Nelson Ridley lashed the freighter’s massive rudder into a fixed position. As they worked to repair the ship’s emergency generator and restore power. As she worked with Ridley in the tug’s engine room to make a proper fix to that portside intake pipe. She was tempted, really tempted. She almost told Harrington yes.
But she didn’t. She didn’t because she had enough in her life to worry about without getting moony over the crew, Harrington in particular. She was happy with her career, and her life on the tug, and she’d been down this road with Harrington before. The architect was way too smart to wind up with some awkward moody bitch of a tugboat captain anyway.
Why tease each other? Why start something they knew could never end well?
So, at the end of the second day, with the Lion cleared for departure and the crew of the Gale Force prepping to cast off in the morning, McKenna sat down with Harrington in the wheelhouse and told him she was sending him home.
“I told you I’d get you to a hospital,” she said. “You shouldn’t even be here right now, not after that fall.”
Harrington laughed. “I’m fine,” he said. “We’re talking ten days of rest and relaxation, not another salvage job. I think a cruise would do me good.”
“And if you reaggravate an injury?” she asked. “You could mess yourself up for life, if you don’t treat this right.” It all sounded so weak when she tried to explain it.
“So you’re kicking me off,” Harrington said. “That’s what you’re doing?”
McKenna shrugged. “Come on, Court,” she said. “There’s no point, for either of us. You get back to dry land, back south again, you’ll wonder what the hell you were doing wanting aboard a smelly tug for another ten days.”
Harrington didn’t say anything. Pursed his lips and looked off through the window, and let the moment stretch out, the gulf widen between them.
Captain up.
McKenna stood. “I’ll book you a flight home,” she said, crossing the wheelhouse to the phone. “No sense dragging this out any longer.”
McKenna met his eyes, and his eyes were stone hard, but she could see behind them that she’d hurt him. He was hurt.
But he looked away. “Aye-aye, captain,” he said. “Whatever you say.”
88
Ridley drove them to the pier in the Gale Force’s Zodiac, and then he drove them to the airport in the fuel-dock owner’s truck. McKenna and Harrington didn’t say much to each other on the drive.
It’s better this way, McKenna thought. No chance anybody gets hurt this time around, anyway. No more hurt than we are already.
She wasn’t sure she believed it, though, and she knew Harrington didn’t.
Ridley drove across the runway and parked the car outside the terminal building. Waited behind the wheel as McKenna and Harrington climbed out. It was a decent day outside, not too cool, overcast, the fog just starting to drift in over the mountains. Harrington’s plane wouldn’t have any trouble getting out of town, not today.
She waited as Harrington retrieved his carry-on from the back of the truck, then led him into the terminal building. Through the window, McKenna could see the architect’s plane waiting, a twin turboprop PenAir Saab 340.
“Kind of a puddle jumper,” she said to make conversation. “Might be bumpy, but you’ll be okay.”
“I made it to the tug on a Coast Guard rescue helicopter,” Harrington replied. “I think I can handle it.”
“You’re booked through to Anchorage, then down to Seattle. You can pick up your tickets from Alaska Airlines when you get to Anchorage.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t looking at her, and she wasn’t really looking at him, either. They were both kind of marking time, and McKenna wondered what more she was supposed to say here.
“Anyway, thanks for coming out,” she said finally. “You should have the money in a day or two, tops.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Thanks,” he said. He hoisted his carry-on bag. Exhaled. “See you around.”
McKenna watched him walk away, out through the security checkpoint and into the waiting room. Watched him join the line of other passengers, present his ticket to the agent, walk out the other side of the terminal and across to the plane. He climbed the stairs to the cabin, found McKenna through the glass, and waved, once. Then he ducked inside the plane, and only then, when she couldn’t see him any longer, did McKenna walk away.
HARRINGTON WATCHED THROUGH THE WINDOW as the little plane rocketed down the runway and lifted off above Dutch Harbor. He could see the airport below, could see Nelson Ridley’s borrowed truck waiting outside the terminal, could almost convince himself he saw McKenna walking out as the plane banked and climbed. In the distance, he could see the Pacific Lion in the harbor, the Gale Force tethered to her bow. He could see it all, briefly, and then the plane was climbing into the clouds, and he could see nothing but gray. He sat back in his seat and tried to forget about McKenna Rhodes, steeled himself for the long flight south.
UNNOTICED BY McKENNA, and Court Harrington, too, was the well-dressed young Japanese man who’d arrived at the terminal in a taxi shortly after the three Gale Force salvors, hurried to the PenAir desk with barely a glance at where Harrington and McKenna carried out their awkward goodbyes, purchased a last-minute ticket to Anchorage and, while Harrington hoisted his carry-on bag and turned away from the salvage captain, slipped past and through security to the waiting area.
When Harrington boarded, the young man was already on the plane, tucked into a window seat near the rear, his nose in his phone, steadfastly ignoring the other passengers.
Harrington might have seen him, might not have, but he didn’t notice, in any case. The man was just another passenger on a half-full flight, another refugee from the edge of the world.
89
From his hiding place at the water’s edge, Daishin Sato felt his phone vibrate. He removed it from his pocket. A new text message.
The American has flown to Anchorage. I am following him.