‘Biddy, can you contact Sulu Queen?’ asked Robin, her voice level, calm, controlled — seemingly distant in Richard’s ringing head. ‘See whether there’s any damage to ship or crew?’
‘Will do, but I’ll have to be quick. We’re starting our descent to Maxima any moment now and I need to warn Captain Toro that we’re inbound. He and Mr Greenbaum are very keen to get underway. Katapult8 left at nine on the dot — though Liberty and her crew’ll be fighting the tide for a while yet.’
‘We haven’t held everyone up, I hope?’
‘No, Mrs Mariner. We’re bang on schedule. It was Liberty who jumped the gun. I’ll get on to Sulu Queen now …’
Richard was still blinking and rubbing his eyes when Biddy patched her conversation with Sulu Queen through on to the cabin’s communications system. ‘No!’ spat Captain Sin’s familiar voice, clearly partway through a conversation. ‘No one aboard is hurt. Dazzled and deafened, perhaps. But not hurt. And yes, our control and communications systems are fine. Though I will, of course, be conducting a full inspection to make sure none of the navigating programmes or circuits have been damaged.’
‘That put your mind at rest, Mrs Mariner?’ asked Biddy.
‘Yes, thank you. For the moment, at least.’
‘Thank you for the information, Sulu Queen. I must break contact now. Your owners will be back in touch if they require any further information. Over and out. Hello, Maxima? Maxima, this is Biddy in the Bell, coming in for landing. Hello, Maxima …’
The Bell settled on to its landing pad minutes later. In the interim, Richard’s eyes had cleared so that he was able to swing the luggage out into the hands of a waiting steward with enough speed to ensure the minimum possible soaking. Nic met them on the bridge as they hurried through the smoked-glass doors and past the silver-webbed fantasy of the lift shaft. ‘Good,’ he said, turning back from a conversation with Captain Toro. ‘Now we can get underway and head out after Katapult8.’
‘She left an hour ago, I understand,’ said Richard.
‘Yup. But she’s fighting the tide and there’s been precious little in the way of wind — down here, at least.’ Nic looked up at the writhing clouds eerily close above, which came and went through the drizzle as it filled the air and smeared the clear views. ‘This is one set of circumstances where Maxima’s big Caterpillar motors have the advantage. Especially as the tide’s on the turn. We’ll head out on the top of the water if nothing else. It’ll be like skiing downhill if not quite surfing into the ocean with the flood washing out behind us.’
As he spoke the massive motors came online, two soaking deckhands pulled the mooring lines aboard and Maxima headed out of the marina, swinging on to a southerly course and surging up to full power as she did so.
THIRTEEN
‘There she is!’ called Robin. But then she corrected herself automatically. ‘No. My mistake. I think it’s a whale …’
‘Is Katapult8 still showing on the radar, Captain?’ Richard asked Captain Toro, calling across the bridge from the open area of the radio shack, where he had just broken contact with Captain Sin aboard Sulu Queen. He was concerned about Katapult8 because her cutting-edge automatic identification system, or AIS, kept cutting out. The equipment on Maxima should have been able to track that, but they were having to rely on old-fashioned radar at the moment. Liberty knew about the malfunction, but in order to fix it she would have to heave to in a period of relative calm and send someone up to the top of the huge composite sail. And, quite frankly, Richard suspected that Liberty was happy with the relative freedom the fault was giving her to run ahead and play hide-and-seek with her father.
‘Yes, she’s registering,’ answered Captain Toro, ‘but right at the outer edge. I really don’t believe Mrs Mariner will be able to see her, even with our most powerful field glasses. Even if conditions were perfect …’ The captain let his voice fade away as he gave an infinitesimal shrug. The tone and the gesture said it all. Conditions were well short of perfect. Even though Maxima had been running south at full speed for a good eight hours now, she only just seemed to be breaking out of the overcast that was still smothering Long Beach more than one hundred and eighty miles astern. The whole of the northern sky behind them was a wall of low, black thunderheads that stretched away west, apparently far enough to be raining thunderbolts on Hawaii; perhaps even on Tokyo too.
Richard paused for a moment, looking out through the clear-view windows surrounding the command bridge. There was something slightly out of kilter here, he thought. Something not quite right. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked as he tried to pin down the cause of his sudden disquiet. Perhaps it was just the view, he thought. Yes. That was probably it.
The view was enough to give anybody pause. Even those like Richard, who half believed the sayings his grandmother and great-grandmother might have set store by. Like red sky at night, sailor’s delight. There was definitely a red sky tonight, he thought. Red sky and then some. The sun was setting just south of the massive wall of charcoal cumulonimbus, sinking into the western ocean like a huge bullet wound in the heavens, spattering crimson light northwards on to the coalface cliff of the clouds and south into the haze above the restless Pacific. A blood-red haze sucked up by the unseasonable heat that swept over them as soon as they sailed out from under the lingering cloud cover, and threatened to intensify the further south they went. There was a wind which was powerful enough to raise a disorientating chop, but not strong enough to move the haze, because the air whose motion caused it was dangerously close to one hundred per cent humidity — only slightly less humid than this morning’s penetrating drizzle, in fact. The whole restless vista was full of lines and angles, surfaces and shadows which were easily able to conceal Katapult8’s sail — even if it was the size of jumbo jet’s wing; even if it was blacker than the roiling clouds.
The drizzle they left in Long Beach had intensified into a proper downpour now, Captain Sin had informed Richard during the contact he had just broken. A downpour heavy enough to be interfering with the clearing of the docks but not, as yet, heavy enough to trigger the governor’s emergency plans. Except in places like Glendora and Azusa, at the foot of dangerously steep hill slopes, where the deluge might loosen the topsoil with tragic effect. A danger that was in the forefront of many minds, especially after 2014’s terrible mudslide in Oso, Washington.
Not that Major Guerrero and his containers full of supplies would be joining either the governor’s or the National Guard’s plans anytime soon by the look of things, mused Richard now as he observed the sharp, red-fanged chop, narrow-eyed against the glare of the blood-orange sun. The lightning strike which had dazzled him eight hours earlier may not have damaged Sulu Queen to any great extent, but it had, it now transpired, fried several vital electronic systems in the crane that towered beside her. Particularly the anti-sway system — the electrical arrangement designed to limit pendulum movement of the containers, especially at the lowest points of lifting and placing — the points where the ropes were at their longest. The points at which absolute precision was most vital. The anti-sway system would be crucial as the rain intensified and the wind strengthened towards gale force. And the earliest an engineer would likely be able to start work on the repair would probably be tomorrow.