“Look out!” I let go of the wheel and shoved Lucia to the ground. I fell on her as the cable split apart over my back with a snap and the pieces lashed out like whips.
The torn end of the backstay flew past the spot where Lucia’s head had been seconds before and crashed against the porthole, sending huge teak splinters and broken glass flying, and breaking the cabin door. The cable rose in the air, shaking like an angry cobra, and crossed to the other side of the mast, where it tore off part of the storm sail we’d hoisted up. Then I realized Pritchenko wouldn’t need to cut the forestay. The hurricane had solved that problem for us.
As the boat perched sideways on the crest of a wave, an enormous gust hit us and we witnessed a sight few sailors have seen and lived to tell about. The mast of the Corinth II, weakened after hours in the storm, finally surrendered. With a crunch that set my teeth on edge, the crack gaped wide like a dark mouth and burst, splattering the deck with carbon-fiber pieces. The mast rose into the air, sucked up by the hurricane. The bow mast hung in the air for a few seconds, tied to it by the other shroud, like a strange X made by a crazed carpenter. With a jolt, the other shroud ripped, amid the swirling rain, and the mast fell into two gigantic waves that passed us on the right. We were safe by a hair. But the situation was still grim.
“Better get inside!” I howled over the wind. “There’s nothing more we can do up here!”
“Like hell!” Pritchenko snapped as he helped me to my feet. “If I’m gonna drown, I wanna be outside—not entombed in this tub.”
“Prit…” I clenched my fists. The Ukrainian could be very stubborn. “Get the hell down there. It’s too dangerous to be on deck!”
“I’m not moving from this spot!”
“Get down there, you stubborn Russky!”
“I said no! And I’m Ukrainian, not Russian!”
Lucia, who had retreated below, poked her head through the shattered cabin door. The look on her face told us something was wrong.
“There’s two inches of water in the cabin,” she said, trying to control the fear in her voice. “We’re sinking.”
That’s just what we need, I thought. The old hull must’ve developed a hairline crack after years of neglect and exposure to the sun. And a little bubble of air hidden in the hull must’ve broken through the fiberglass. During the storm, that crack had grown without warning. Water was leaking in below the waterline. I didn’t know how fast, but in minutes, hours, or days—if you were a real sailor, you could figure that out, asshole—the boat was done for.
A sailboat with no mast and a leak who-knew-how-big in the worst storm I’d ever seen. Fabulous. Fucking great. I didn’t need the Undead to drag me to my death. I could do it without their help. And take everyone with me.
“Is it true?” Prit asked, with a chill in his voice. “We’re sinking?”
“No,” I lied. “Water must’ve leaked in through a broken porthole. Just to be safe, get the extra bilge pump.”
“I’ll get it,” Lucia said.
I grabbed my girl’s hands for a second. I saw fear in her eyes, but also a deep serenity born out of so much suffering over all those months. If we were going to die, Lucia would calmly stare Death in the eye—and spit in its face too.
I knew I had to tell Prit the truth. The Ukrainian needed to know that the boat could sink at any minute. But my old pal had figured it out from the look in my eyes.
“We’re screwed, right?”
I didn’t answer. My gaze was glued to the horizon, at the terrifying spot where water and sky indistinguishably meshed. I’d lost track of time, but it must’ve been almost midnight. Bursts of foam and black waves made it hard to see anything. The boat was bouncing around so much that I couldn’t fix my eyes on one point. But, for one moment, I thought I saw something not too far away. I rubbed my eyes and tried to spot it again. After a moment, as the Corinth II rode another wave to towering heights, I saw it again. I had no doubt.
Less than half a nautical mile downwind, I saw a green light.
5
I took a few deep breaths to calm my wildly beating heart. That green light could mean just one thing.
“What is it?” Prit asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“What do you see out there?” I pointed to the spot on the horizon. “Do you see a flashing green light?”
“What the hell are you talking about?
“Wait… There! See it?”
“I’ll be damned! It is a light! Where the hell’s it coming from?”
“It’s gotta be the signal from a ship!” I said. I could barely contain my excitement. “And judging from how high up it is, the ship’s huge.”
“How huge?”
“Can’t say for sure, but a lot bigger than our puny sailboat.” I tried to turn the wheel, but it barely moved.
“What do we do?” Lucia blurted out. I sensed hope in her voice. She’d come back on deck with a wet and angry Lucullus in her arms.
“For now, hope our boat keeps moving toward the light. When we get closer, we’ll send up a flare. Then we have to find a way to get off this wreck and onto the ship without drowning.”
“We don’t know who’s on it,” Pritchenko observed grimly. “Could be a patrol from Tenerife sent to arrest us. Or a boat full of Undead, adrift for months.”
“A boat full of Undead would’ve run aground a long time ago,” I replied as I tried to steer the Corinth II toward the light. “At this point, I’d climb back aboard that Russian tub, the Zaren Kibish, even with its crew of armed lunatics.”
The Ukrainian nodded with a wry smile. He knew our situation was desperate. Reaching the mysterious ship was our only hope.
The next five minutes seemed like an eternity. Each time we crested a wave, our eyes scanned the horizon for the light, but in that short time we’d lost track of it.
I briefly toyed with the idea that we’d been hallucinating. Then a more chilling thought popped into my head. If that gale had blown us just thirty feet from the mystery ship, we’d never see it. If we saw the red light on the ship’s port side, we’d know we’d passed right by. In that wind and with no mast, turning around was out of the question.
Suddenly, a huge wave struck the side of the boat, sending freezing black water over the deck. The boat lingered a moment at the top of the next wave, but when it started down the other side, it spun sharply. We were going to capsize.
“Get ready to jump!” I shouted, my throat raw from saltwater and yelling.
Suddenly, the spinning stopped. The boat was at the bottom of the trough between two waves. The huge crest had swept us farther away, across the horizon. The next giant wave came roaring toward us. The wheel spun wildly and the boat rocked from side to side. Then the wind died down as if by magic.
“What the hell?” Prit asked.
“Not sure, but I think we’re in the eye of the hurricane.”
“Look!” The fear in Lucia’s voice made my heart clench.
When I looked where she was pointing, I was stunned.
Fifty feet away, the huge bow of a tanker blocked out the black sky. It was headed full speed right for the Corinth II’s fragile hull.
“They’ll roll right over us!”
There was nothing we could do. Our boat was adrift. The rudder was probably gone, the auxiliary engine was out of fuel, and we had no time to maneuver. The behemoth tanker couldn’t see its bow from its bridge, much less a little sailboat in its path. They’d never spot us; in the storm, we were invisible to radar.