The crew swapped looks. “That’s it?” Jason Parent said. “Is that the contract?”
“Well, no. There was the matter of our fee.” McKenna tried to keep her poker face. “Mr. Nakadate and I agreed that ten percent was probably fair. He’s already wired us the money.”
“Ten percent,” Stacey Jonas said. “That’s nearly five million dollars.”
“We called it five, even. And I figure we’ll split it like bonus money, between the seven of us. That’s a little over seven hundred thousand per person. Sound fair?”
“Hell,” Ridley said, “sounds fair to me.”
“I’ll take it,” Stacey said. “Those jerks tried to kill me.”
“Fine by us,” Al said. Jason nodded in agreement.
Court Harrington hadn’t said a thing. McKenna caught his eye. “You’re awfully quiet.”
Harrington studied the dock. “I could have got you guys killed,” he said finally. “You don’t have to cut me in. Keep the money.”
McKenna shook her head. Made to argue. Ridley beat her to it. “Nah, that’s bull,” the engineer said. “No one ever claimed salvage was easy. You earned this money, lad, just like the rest of us.”
“You’re crew,” Stacey said. “Like it or lump it. You gambled, we won.”
“And,” McKenna said, “I don’t want you getting a swelled head or anything, but you kind of saved our bacon up there in Alaska. Consider it a performance bonus. Donate it to charity. Chalk it up to brain damage from that fall you took. But you’re taking the money, and you’re never, ever”—she looked at him, hard—“pulling a stunt like this again, understand?”
Harrington met her stare. Those green eyes. Held it a moment. Then finally, he grinned. “Aye-aye, Captain,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Settled.” McKenna clapped her hands. “Now, shall we celebrate?”
“Hell, yes,” Harrington replied. “I could really use a beer.”
McKenna climbed back aboard the Gale Force. Locked up the wheelhouse, made sure the rest of the tug was secure. The crew had already begun making their way up the ramp by the time she’d returned to the dock. All except Court Harrington.
He was waiting for her, watching her with those eyes, his mouth set and serious. McKenna cocked her head at him. “What?”
“I wanted to apologize,” he said. Hitched a thumb up the dock to the rest of the crew. “I mean, I know I already said sorry to them, but I wanted to apologize to you.”
“For the briefcase?” McKenna said. “Yeah, well. You don’t do it again, we won’t have any problems.”
“Not just for the briefcase. For what happened in Dutch. For taking things too far when you were just trying to work.”
McKenna said nothing. Looked away.
“I know I messed this up,” Harrington said. “You won’t let me give back the money. What can I do to make this up to you, McKenna?”
She didn’t look at him. “This crew needs an architect, Court,” she said. “You’re the best guy I know. And I like you, I care about you, and—damn it—sometimes, I still miss you. But this crew needs an architect more than I need a man in my life, understand? I can’t afford to lose you just because we gambled on an old flame.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”
He was looking at her again, earnest, and she could feel something give in her, some kind of grudge. Knew the crew was watching from up on the pier, and figured he knew it, too, figured he just didn’t care.
Figured she probably didn’t care that much, either.
“Give it some time, Harrington,” she said, turning away, turning up the dock toward the rest of the crew. “I’m not saying no yet, I’m just saying stand by.”
“Stand by,” Harrington said, and she could hear the laugh in his voice. “And what should I do while I’m waiting?”
“While you’re waiting?” She turned. “You can start by buying this crew dinner, Whiz. Fending off a pirate attack really works up an appetite.”
110
A few days later, and nearly five thousand miles away from McKenna Rhodes and the Gale Force, Hiroki Okura was woken by a knock at his door.
His life had been unpleasant, these last weeks, since his return from Dutch Harbor. As he’d expected, he’d been terminated from his position with the Japanese Overseas Lines. He’d been visited by police detectives, investigators. He faced criminal charges for his role in the Pacific Lion’s near capsize, for Tomio Ishimaru’s presence on the Lion, and subsequent death, for his own, unauthorized disappearance from Dutch Harbor and his attack on the American salvage crew aboard the Lion.
The charges were coming. The Americans had shipped him back to Japan on the promise that justice be served. It was only a matter of time.
And now, a knock on the door, and Okura, in sweatpants and a stained T-shirt, opened the door and stood blinking in the harsh light of day and saw that it wasn’t the police who’d come for him, at last, or his former employer, but a third party, a familiar face.
The man who stood on the other side of Okura’s door wore almost exactly the same uniform as the man who’d visited the sailor in the jail in Dutch Harbor: a black suit, a white shirt, a skinny black tie. An air of menace, barely contained. Okura realized he’d been waiting for this.
He’d heard about a high seas shootout off the Canadian coast while the Pacific Lion was being towed to Seattle. Apparently, the crew of the salvage tug had foiled the attack. Okura took this to mean the briefcase was still at large. He took the thug’s presence at his door to mean that Katsuo Nakadate still required his help.
Okura stared out at the man. Scratched the patchy growth of hair on his unshaved face. “I don’t know how I can help you,” he said, sighing. “I’ve told your boss everything that I know. The briefcase was aboard the Lion. If you still haven’t retrieved it, I don’t—”
The thug raised one hand.
“My employer has regained his stolen property,” the thug told him. “He requires, now, to know how it was taken from him in the first place.”
Okura stared at the thug. “It was Ishimaru, obviously. I was told he murdered his colleagues.”
“You knew him, did you not? Ishimaru? You were schoolmates together?”
“I—” Okura swallowed. “We were, yes. And I—I may have helped him by smuggling aboard my vessel. But that’s all I did, and I’ve paid for that, a heavy price. I’m ruined. You—”
“You were observed meeting with Ishimaru,” the thug said. “In the days and weeks before the theft. Tell me, what did you talk about?”
Okura didn’t answer.
“You had heavy debts, yes? A robbery would have served you just as well as it would have Ishimaru.”
The thug didn’t wait for Okura to answer. He thrust something into the sailor’s hand. A photograph, the same as he’d seen in Dutch Harbor. His sister, his niece.
“My employer would like to meet you,” the thug continued. “He hopes very much that you’ll accept his invitation.”
Okura’s mouth went dry. He felt the same sick, hollow sensation in his stomach as when the Pacific Lion began its off-kilter slide into the sea, the crushing sensation in his chest that had been present ever since.
He’d known there would be consequences for his actions. He’d prepared himself mentally for jail. He had not, he realized, imagined that Katsuo Nakadate would uncover the depth of his involvement in Ishimaru’s robbery.
Okura looked down at the photograph. He studied his niece’s face in the picture. His sister.