Perfect.
Like some pretty ladies of Stoke’s former acquaintance, the Magnum 60 was all bow and no stern. She had a small open cockpit aft, inside which were four deeply contoured bucket seats, bright yellow like the hull, with harness equipment like you might expect on the space shuttle. Along her sleek flanks, she had five oval portholes forward, meaning there was built-out space below.
What you do down there, Stoke thought, is not take little nappies or read spy novels and do crossword puzzles. You go down there to take care of business with Mama once you get offshore and shut two engines down and crank up a third, the Johnson. Boat like this was all about testosterone, a little too much or a little too little, depending on the owner.
“Looks like a Chiquita banana on steroids,” Stoke said, uncleating a spring line and heaving it aboard. The Russian guy fake-laughed, going for the stern line.
He said, “This is the sister ship to the boat that won the greatest sea race in the world, Sheldon. The Miami-Nassau-Miami at an average top speed of over eighty-five miles per hour. You know what sister ship means?”
“Lemme think a sec. Identical twins?”
“You are a very intelligent individual. You’ve heard of Bounty Hunter? Don Aronow’s Maltese Magnum? These magnificent boats are names out of racing history.”
“Don’t I know it,” Stoke said, as if he had a clue.
Yurin started to climb down into the helm seat, and Stoke stopped him, grabbing his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “I’ll drive,” he said. “You ride shotgun. You know what shotgun means?”
“Shotgun?” the Russian asked.
They already had their helmets on and two-way radio communication. It was the only way you could talk aboard these monsters, even when there was no hurricane blowing.
“You want to drive?” Yurin said. “Are you serious, man?”
“I just want to putt around. You know, here inside the marina. Get a little feel. Don’t worry about it.”
“You think you can handle this thing? You have some experience with this kind of boat? Any kind of boat?”
“Navy SEAL operations, Team Two. Riverine patrol boats in the Mekong Delta. Three tours.”
The Russian looked at him with different eyes.
“Good enough,” he said, and went around to the dock on the vessel’s port side, loosening the stern, spring, and bow lines. “Climb aboard,” he told Stoke. “I’ll cast you off and jump down.”
Stoke saw that the helm seat had no seat to speak of, only a curved backrest with a narrow bench you parked your butt on. The sides wrapped around you nice and snug, especially snug for him, but okay. He turned on all three of the battery switches, checked the fuel level and oil pressure. All good to go.
She had twin 1800-horsepower Detroit racing engines, and when he turned the key on number one, the response was one sharp blat and then a deep vibrating rumble. Followed by the second engine, the feeling of power coming up through the soles of his shoes was something else entirely.
Yurin freed the last line and leaped aboard as Stoke started reversing out of the slip. There was so much power on tap you had to handle the throttles like surgical instruments. Tiny adjustments.
Yurin was strapping himself into the portside seat as Stoke got the big Magnum turned around and headed toward the mouth of the harbor.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Yurin said. “Gale-force winds coming right up the Cut! We’ll get knocked on our asses out there.”
“Relax, Sunshine,” Stoke said, looking over at him. “I think we’ll poke our nose out in the Atlantic. Just get a touch of it, see how she handles the rough stuff.”
Yurin started to say something, thought better of it, and just shook his head. He planted his feet and held on to to the stainless grab handle mounted on the dash in front of him.
“That’s it. Just hold on, Yurin. We’ll be back in your office signing papers before you know it.”
Stoke lined up in dead center of the narrow channel, aiming for a spot midway between the two massive cement breakwaters that enclosed the marina. The entrance was funnel-shaped, with the narrowest part on the seaward side. Beyond the entrance, the Atlantic looked like really convincing special effects, pretty much the way it did in that movie The Perfect Storm. Mountainous crests, cavernous troughs, the wind rising to a wailing gale, ripping the crests off waves, well-defined streaks of foam marching off to the southeast. A boiling black sky overhead.
Stoke eased the throttles forward until he saw the tachs reading 2,500 rpm, mentally preparing himself like a bull rider in the chute.
“Ready?” Stoke said, glancing over at Yurin. They were mid-channel, almost out in open water, about to enter the funnel.
No reply. The copilot was wearing the thousand-yard stare, wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into, if his life was worth a measly million bucks for a plastic play toy.
Stoke suddenly firewalled both throttles, and the boat came screaming out of the water, leaping forward with a thunderous roar of exhaust as the big props grabbed water. The boat went flying through the chute, wide open. At the other end, an oncoming wave was building, rushing toward them. It looked to be a green frothing wall about twenty, thirty feet high, and it was just getting started.
“Watch out!” the Russian screamed.
“Not a problem,” Stoke said calmly in his lip mike.
The Russian’s eyes went wide with terror. His client seemed intent on slamming the Magnum head-on into the oncoming wall of water. They were going to smash it like a bullet to the forehead. Wave had to be forty feet high now. The water was glassy green, so clear you could almost see through it to the other side. The props whined as the sharp prow of the Magnum struck the wave, pierced it, and then Stoke just drove the boat right through the wall, the bow eventually emerging from the other side.
The bow was suspended in midair, the back half of the boat, including the cockpit, was momentarily still inside the wave, and then they were through and pitching forward, the nose dropping and the bottom of Stoke’s stomach falling away as they went screaming down the wall of another big wave, into the trough of a brand-new wave just starting to build.
“Holy fuck,” he heard Yurin say, sputtering. Stoke looked over at his drenched passenger and liked what he saw. Fear.
What was left of the boat’s curved windshield was a mangled piece of chromed frame wrapped around the Russian’s chest, sheets of broken safety glass in his lap and on the deck around his feet.
“Not bad, huh?” Stoke said. “I thought we’d lose a lot more than just the goddamn windshield. Look, we’ve still got the spotlight up on the bow. Now, that’s good construction.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Easy, Yurin. No way to speak to a prospective customer.”
“Go back!” Yurin said. “Turn us around. You’re going to snap this thing in two out here!”
“I’ll go back, but first I’ve got a couple of questions.”
“Questions? About the boat?”
“No. About you.”
“Me? I’ll tell you about me. I’m going to fucking kill you, okay? I’m going to rip your ugly head right off your-”
He was clawing at his safety harness, desperate to get out of his seat and remove Stoke’s head. Stoke looked over at him, smiling.
“Look, just calm down, okay? Let me explain something. Only take a second. You’re an asshole, all right?”
A sudden surge threw both men back in their seats, snapping their heads back. They were angled sharply upward now, Stoke was using the powerful engines to climb the nearly vertical face of another building wave. And keep Yurin firmly planted in his seat.
“What?” Yurin shouted. “What the fuck do you want to know?”
“You’re Black Beret, right? All you security guys at the birthday party. Russian Black Berets?”