“Savage?” the man had shouted, racing to a halt at the end of the dock.
“Akira?”
Impossible!
The guards charged back along the dock. The Japanese lingered, glaring toward Savage, then rushed to follow the guards. Darkness enveloped them.
The yacht tilted, shoved by the wind. Waves spewed over the side.
Lying on the deck, Rachel peered up. “You know that man?” A flash of lightning revealed her bruised, swollen face. Her drenched jeans and sweater clung to her angular body.
Savage studied the yacht's illuminated controls. Thunder shook the overhang. He felt sick. But not because of the churning sea. Akira's image haunted him. “Know him? God help me, yes.”
“The wind! I can't hear you!”
“I saw him die six months ago!” A wave thrust his shout down his throat.
“I still can't-!” Rachel crawled toward him, grabbed the console, and struggled to stand. “It sounded like you said-!”
“I don't have time to explain!” Savage shivered, but not from the cold. “I'm not sure I can explain! Go below! Put on dry clothes!”
A huge wave smashed against the yacht, nearly toppling them.
“Secure every hatch down there! Make sure nothing's loose to fly around! Strap yourself into a chair!”
Another wave slammed the yacht.
“But what about you?”
“I can't leave the bridge! Do what I say! Go below!”
He stared through the rain-swept window above the controls.
Straining for a glimpse of something, anything, he felt motion beside him, glanced to the right, and saw Rachel disappearing below.
Rain kept lashing the window. A fierce blaze of lightning suddenly revealed that he'd passed the harbor's exit. Ahead, all he saw was black, angry sea. Thunder rattled the window. Night abruptly cloaked him.
Port and starboard were meaningless bearings. Forward and aft had no significance in the rage of confusion around him. He felt totally disoriented.
Now what? he thought. Where are you going? He checked the console but couldn't find the yacht's navigation charts. He didn't dare leave the controls to search for them and suddenly realized that even if he found them, he couldn't distract himself and study them.
With no other recourse, he had to depend on his research. The nearest island was Delos, he remembered: to the south, where he'd arranged for a helicopter to wait in case his primary evacuation plan had failed and he and Rachel needed an airlift from Mykonos.
Delos was close. Six miles. But the island was also small, only one and a half square miles. He might easily miss it and risk being swamped before he reached the next southern island twenty-five miles away. The alternative was to aim southwest toward an island flanking Delos. That island, Rhineia, was larger than Delos and only a quarter-mile farther. It seemed the wiser choice.
But if I miss it? Unless the weather improves, we'll sink and drown.
He studied the illuminated dial on the compass and swung the wheel, lighting waves, heading southwest through chaos.
The yacht tipped over a crest and plummeted toward a trough. The force of the impact nearly yanked Savage's hands from the wheel and threw him onto the deck. He resisted and straightened, at the same time seeing a light pierce the dark to his right.
A hatch opened. Rachel climbed stairs from the underdeck cabin. She wore a yellow slicker. Presumably she'd obeyed Savage and also put on dry clothes. Ignoring his own risk, he'd worried that the cold rain would drain her body heat and put her in danger of hypothermia. Her shoulder-length auburn hair clung drenched to her cheeks.
“I told you to stay below!”
“Shut up and take this!” She handed him a slicker.
In the glow from the instrument panel, Savage saw the determined blaze in her eyes.
“And put on this dry shirt and sweater! You stubborn…! I know about hypothermia!”
Savage squinted at the clothes and the slicker, then peered up toward her bruised, intense face. “All right, you've got a deal.”
“No argument? What a surprise!”
“Well, I'm surprised. By you. Can you take the wheel? Have you piloted a yacht before?”
“Just watch me.” She grabbed the wheel.
He hesitated, but a bone-deep chill forced him to relinquish his grip. “Keep the compass positioned as is. Our bearing's southwest.”
In a corner beneath the overhang, partly sheltered from the rain and the waves, he rushed to change clothes and at once felt new energy, grateful to be warm and dry. Protected by the slicker, he took the wheel and checked the compass.
Directly on course.
Good. He planned to tell her so, but a wave struck the yacht, cascading over them. Rachel started to fall. Savage gripped her arm, supporting her.
She caught her breath. “What did you mean I surprised you?”
“When I work for the rich, they're usually spoiled. They expect me to be a servant. They don't understand…”
“How much their lives depend on you? Hey, my dignity depends on you. I'd still be back in that prison, begging my husband not to rape me again. If you hadn't rescued me, I'd still be his punching bag.”
As lightning flashed and Savage again saw the swollen bruises on Rachel's face, he shuddered with rage. “I know it doesn't help to hear it, but I'm sorry for what you've been through.”
“Just get me away from him.”
If I can, Savage thought. He stared toward the convulsing sea.
“My husband's men?”
“I doubt they'll chase us blindly in this storm. In their place, I'd wait till it ended, then use helicopters.”
“Where are we going?”
“Delos or Rhineia. Assuming the compass is accurate. Depending on the current.”
“And where do we go after-?”
“Quiet.”
“What?”
“Let me listen.”
“For what? All I hear is thunder.”
“No,” Savage said. “That's not thunder.”
She cocked her head and suddenly moaned. “Oh, Jesus.”
Ahead, something rumbled.
“Waves,” Savage said. “Hitting rocks.”
2
The rumble intensified. Closer and closer. A deafening roar. Savage's hands cramped on the wheel. His eyes ached, straining to penetrate the dark. Assaulted by bomblike concussions, his ears rang. He urged the yacht northward, away from the breakers. But the force of the wind and the waves shoved the yacht sideways, relentlessly toward the continuous boom he struggled to escape.
The yacht listed, pushed by the eastward-heaving current, tilting westward. Water gushed onto the deck.
“I'm afraid we'll go over!” Savage said. “Brace yourself!”
But Rachel darted toward the underdeck cabin.
“No!” he said.
“You don't understand! I saw life vests!”
“What? You should have told me earlier! That's the first thing we should have-!”
Abruptly she emerged from the hatch, handing him a flotation device, strapping on her own.
The yacht tilted sharper, deeper, westward, toward the boom. Water cascaded over the portside gunwale, filling the deck, listing it farther westward.
“Hang on to me!” Savage shouted.
The next wave hit like a roc
TWO. TIME OUT OF MIND
OBSTACLE RACE, SCAVENGER HUNT
1
They couldn't use the Athens airport. That was the obvious place for Papadropolis's men to look. The only other international airports were Salonica, several hundred kilometers to the north, and Corfu, equally far to the northwest. No doubt, those sites would be watched as well. Papadropolis-chronically impatient-would automatically consider the most rapid form of travel, even if reaching the latter two airports was time-consuming.