But then, as though emerging from a fog bank or a wall of smoke, the fat bow of a RIB inflatable came clear. And standing in it was a tall figure dressed in yellow oilskins. Emma scrabbled round, looking up. The others, facing the other way, still had no idea that anything was approaching. Suddenly the Japanese yachtswoman’s usually calm eyes filled with tears. Her steady, sensible hands were scrabbling at the carabineer clip almost as wildly as Florence’s had done when all of them were trapped and drowning. Then, free, she pulled herself on to her hands and knees. She put her right arm around Liberty’s thigh and began to pull herself erect.
When Liberty felt the movement, she looked down. When she saw what Emma was doing, she turned and looked the way Emma was looking — and found herself almost face-to-face with her father. She stood there, stunned into silence. The fat black bow of the inflatable kissed the thick edge of the sail. Robin Mariner appeared at father’s shoulder and everything seemed to freeze.
Then Nic reached out to his daughter and Liberty led the way off Katapult8’s sail and into Maxima’s twelve-seater RIB. It was incredibly easy. The sail was steady and still, and the RIB remained hard up against it. Liberty, with her right hand in her father’s, stepped down into the RIB like a princess alighting from her coach in a fairy tale. The others followed in her footsteps as though in a trance. They were all so stunned that there was a dream-like quality to the whole rescue. Even questions such as, How did you find us? What on earth went wrong? Are you all right? got put on hold. Not that Liberty, Florence, Emma or Maya had much of their voices left. And Nic suddenly discovered a lump in his throat that effectively gagged him, while tears streamed down his cheeks along with the rain as he slipped his arm round the oil-skinned bulk of his daughter’s slim waist, hugging her to him as hard as he could. So they sat in silence to begin with, while the crewman holding the controls of the outboard guided them on the long, circuitous course back towards Maxima, once again avoiding all contact with the fatal nets.
Until Robin, never one to sit silent for long, said, ‘Welcome aboard, ladies. I hope we aren’t taking you from the frying pan into the fire.’
Liberty found enough voice to answer. ‘It would have to be one hell of a fire to be worse than that particular pan.’
TWENTY-SIX
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Liberty a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t think you meant it literally!’
The crewman brought the RIB round Maxima’s stern, well clear of the line of floats, passing beneath a disturbingly heavy plume of smoke that was belching out of the engine areas past the ruins of the swimming pool. Maya and Emma glanced up then returned to the vital work of bailing, for the rain was beginning to swamp the RIB with unsettling speed and Maxima was still a good way distant, especially as she sat on the far side of the maze of tangled net.
‘The engineers say it was a combination of electrical short and water damage,’ Nic informed them grimly. ‘But the way we were brought to a halt so suddenly may have caused some fuel lines to rupture as well as breaking the pool’s cover and causing it to overflow, which is what they reckon may have caused the electrics to short out and start sparking. But they think they can contain it. At least, that’s what they told me as I was coming aboard the RIB. Sometime in the near future, though,’ he added darkly, ‘I’m going to find out whose job it was to make sure the Spurs net-cutting equipment was working properly. Then I’m going to find out exactly whose nets these are and make them rue the day they were born.’
‘Come on, Dad,’ teased Liberty gently. ‘Who says rue the day? I mean …’
He laughed a little ruefully, but his expression didn’t really lighten.
‘We’ve shut off the main electric circuits except for the basic emergency systems, power to the davits and so forth, as you can see,’ added Robin, gesturing to Maxima’s dark windows. ‘Because if the fire is electrical, they’ll just reignite it time after time while there’s enough power to cause a spark. But without electricity we’re finding things a little difficult, especially as the sonar, the radar and some of the communications equipment were damaged as well. At least the fire-fighting equipment is on an independent circuit and seems to be working. I just wish more of the lighting and any of the heating was, too. The only warm place aboard is the burning engine room.’
‘But if we can’t radio for help at the moment, we have emergency beacons. We’ll deploy those before we let anyone freeze to death,’ promised Nic. ‘That will alert everyone nearby that we’re in trouble.’
‘If the ones nearest to us take any notice,’ said Robin bitterly.
‘Who’s nearest?’ asked Liberty.
‘There’s a vessel about half a kilometre south of us, but they’re maintaining radio silence and seem to be running without lights. Up to no good,’ Nic explained, his expression darkening once again.
‘Illegal drift netting, I’d guess,’ added Robin. ‘And they’ve sure as hell caught more than they bargained for.’
‘We could take the RIB, pack it with the heftiest men aboard then go across and talk to them,’ suggested Liberty, her voice suddenly shaking, going from elated to enraged in a heartbeat, delayed shock making her almost bi-polar. ‘I mean, I know how you feel about Maxima, Dad, and I must admit, all joking aside, I’m pretty pissed at what they’ve done to Katapult8. Perhaps we do want to make them rue the day sooner rather than later …’
‘Not a good idea,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t want to leap to conclusions or indulge in stereotypes here, but all of the Mexican pirates and bandits I’ve ever heard of are usually armed to the teeth and then some. Besides, we have other stuff to plan and try to do once we’ve had a chance to settle.’
‘Like what?’ asked Liberty.
‘Like getting some sort of control over Katapult8’s sail, which is a shipping hazard itself in its present state. But until the fire’s out and we have some sort of secure, well-lit and warm base to work from, getting Maxima fixed and functioning has to be our main priority.’ She looked up suddenly, her eyelids flickering helplessly as the rain beat against her face. ‘I wish poor Manuel hadn’t managed to do so much damage to the communications and so forth. If that report from KTLA5 was in any way accurate then this downpour is going to be followed south by one long son of a bitch of a storm …’
This conversation was enough to take them through the maze of nets to Maxima’s stern, where the bathing and boating section was folded down to sit a foot or so above the waterline. Behind it, the glass wall of the pool showed the sad state of things. The pool was half empty, its surface boiling in the downpour, which now had access past the ruined cover. The smoke which formed a big black plume immediately above them was oozing up on either side of it and through the vents from the engineering sections below. But Robin was pleased to see that it was no thicker than when she and Nic had climbed aboard the RIB half an hour or so earlier. And the gangway from the boating section to the main deck house was still clear and smoke-free. If things were no better aboard the incapacitated gin palace, at least it seemed that they were no worse. The CO2 fire control systems were working well. Maybe it was a flash in the pan after all. And they had Liberty and her crew back. That was a huge step forward.