“Jesus is right,” he said, moving quickly aft to the back of the cockpit.
Their gray inflatable dinghy bobbed in the water along the stern, apparently undamaged. He stepped out of the cabin and onto the swim deck, pulling the dinghy next to the boat.
“Can you clear that branch? I need to check the dinghy and start the motor,” he called.
“Got it.”
He stepped into the dinghy and pressed down on each side of the craft with both hands. The cold plastic exterior gave slightly to the pressure applied, consistent with early morning inflation levels. The boat was undamaged.
“Now for the fun part…” he mumbled, staring at the motor.
He had battled off and on for nearly four years with the four-horsepower, gasoline-fueled contraption, having consigned it to a watery grave on more than one occasion. It should be simple. Open the air vent. Open the fuel valve. Open the choke. Start the engine. That easy. In four years, he could count the number of times it started without incident on his middle finger, which he often lifted to protest the manufacturer. Alex ran through his mental checklist and took a deep breath.
He pulled the starter cord, and the motor caught, puttering quietly at idle. He revved the throttle for a moment, letting the engine warm, before pushing in the choke. The motor continued to idle.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Everything had worked perfectly, which meant that he had wasted his one good start of the year on a test. Brilliant. He stopped the motor, leaving everything in position for a quick start. He heard the branch fall away, followed by a quick scream. He flashed his light forward, searching for Kate, but couldn’t immediately find her on the deck.
She fell overboard.
Alex jumped onto the swim deck and reached for the Lifesling preserver attached to the starboard rails, when Kate appeared from behind the mast.
“Fucking thing almost took me in with it!” she yelled.
“You all right?” he said.
“I’m fine. A few scratches,” she said, starting to walk back along the deck.
“Stay there. I need to check the anchorage,” he said.
He made his way forward and met her at the bow.
“We need to talk while I do this,” he said, reaching through the forward rails to grip the nylon line stretched into the water several feet below. “That air blast came from the same direction as the flash of light. Took eight minutes to arrive. Only a massive explosion could create something like—”
“Boston,” she muttered.
“I’m pretty certain that’s not the case. The wind came from the direction of the flash, which puts the explosion in the Gulf of Maine,” he said, tugging on the anchor line.
“I hope so.”
“Me too, but if the explosion was over water, we could be hit by a tsunami. We need to decide whether to stay onboard and ride out whatever crests the island, or abandon the boat for the concrete lookout tower near the cove.”
“I don’t think we should leave the boat,” Kate decided. “If it gets swept away, we’re stuck here.”
“I agree, but we have no idea how big the wave will be. Remember those videos of the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan? Solid walls of water travelled inland for miles.”
“How long do we have?” Kate asked.
“I’m not sure. If it took the wind eight minutes to get here, I’d guess we have at least another hour? I have no idea. Could be thirty minutes. The anchor feels fine,” he said, standing up on the bow. “We might not have a problem at all, honey. From what I remember reading, tsunami waves are barely noticeable out at sea. The problem occurs when the wave hits shallow water. We’re several miles from the mainland, and this is a small island. A tiny blip in the ocean for a tsunami. It might not rise up enough to mess with us.”
“Then I say we stay on the boat,” she said.
“We’ll keep the engine running in case we break free of the anchorage,” said Alex, starting toward the cockpit.
“If a wave makes it over the island, I don’t think the anchor will matter. It might cause a problem for us if it gets snagged on the rocks,” she said.
He flashed his light at the anchor line tied to the forward cleat. He couldn’t imagine climbing forward to cut the anchor line while the boat pitched violently. They needed a way to detach the anchor if necessary.
“Start securing the boat for heavy seas. I’ll run the anchor line back to the cockpit. We can cut it from here. I’m glad you thought of that,” he said.
“I’m good for an idea or two,” she said, brushing against him on her way back.
“That’s one more than I’m good for,” he said, grabbing her hand. “We’ll be fine, hon. I’ll be in Boston tomorrow, picking up Ryan. Nothing to it. We’ve been through worse.”
“I know. I’m just scared for him. He’s alone in a new place. No friends. Nothing.”
“He knows what to do. Ryan’s the least of our worries. He’ll probably be waiting for us at the house when we get back,” he said.
She buried her head in his chest and didn’t respond. The sound of rustling leaves raised her head, and he let go of her to grab the nearest deck-mounted handrail. They wouldn’t have time to get into the cabin if another blast wave hit them. A stiff gust of wind buffeted them for a few seconds, swinging the boat on its mooring to face an easterly direction. No flash preceded the airwave, which told Alex that the explosion had occurred over the visible horizon. The only thing due east of Jewell Island was Nova Scotia. When the wind completely died, he stared in the direction of the first explosion, wondering if his plan to stay on the boat would send them to a watery grave.
Chapter 7
EVENT +00:15 Hours
International Space Station
Commander David Stull, United States Navy, drifted away from the Harmony node to the adjoining Destiny Laboratory, using his fingertips to guide him. He was several minutes behind the rigid daily schedule imposed by NASA mission controllers, though his effortless flight down the equipment-packed passageway betrayed no sense of urgency. The draconian NASA itinerary served a purpose: to regulate the astronauts’ natural biorhythms in the face of a ninety-minute cycle of light and darkness experienced by the station’s low earth orbit.
An unresolved communications glitch had put him behind schedule today. The station’s connection to NASA had been interrupted during the final moments of their morning briefing and could not be reestablished. His initial diagnostics check indicated no obvious issues with the communications equipment onboard the station. Of course, he wouldn’t know for sure unless he inspected the radio link equipment directly, running a series of sophisticated checks on the transmitters. To do that, he would need to enter an unpressurized section of the Z1 Truss structure above the Unite node. This simple thirty-minute voyage into unpressurized space would require an entire day of planning.
He glided into the Destiny node, where Cosmonaut Sergei Moryakov waited. Moryakov’s permanent, good-natured smirk was gone. Something was wrong.
“Roscosmos station in Moscow lost all communications with NASA fifteen minutes ago,” said the cosmonaut, in perfectly structured Russian-accented English.
“So it’s on their end. Saves us the hassle of accessing Z1,” said Stull.
“It’s more complicated than that. You need to see something,” he said, gesturing for Stull to follow him.
Before either of them moved, the lights in the Destiny node flickered. Moryakov’s ice-blue eyes darted around the crowded laboratory compartment. In seventy-two days onboard the station, he had never seen the lights flicker—and he’d certainly never seen the Russian exhibit nervous behavior.