A Matter of Time (32 page)

Just then, the cell phone in his pocket went off. Colin pulled it out and answered it. “Ian?” He put his hand up to his other
ear, to hear his brother better. “Say again?”

The Frenchman reached over Colin’s shoulder, took the phone out of his hand, and tossed it over the side.

Colin glared at him. And tried to keep his expression from revealing what he had just heard. They were coming!

Below, the ship’s radio crackled to life. “Harbour Radio calling southbound vessel, three miles from Bremer Cut.” The call
was repeated three times.

“I ought to answer that,” said Colin. “They can see us on their radar.”

The Frenchman pondered this, as the radio crackled again. “Southbound vessel, be advised: We have received your distress signal.
Rescue 2 is on its way to you. Stay within the limit.”

Dupré made up his mind. “Take this,” he commanded, turning the tiller over to Colin. He peered into the hatch, keeping his
hand on the pole attached to Eric’s neck. With his other hand, he took the Glöck from his waist and shot the radio.

Colin looked at him in disgust. “You’d better pray we don’t need that to save our skins!”

Dupré ignored him. “What distress signal?”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about!”

The Frenchman leaned towards Colin and suddenly smashed him in the side of the face with the pistol. “I said, what distress
signal?”

Wincing in pain, Colin angrily replied, “And
I
said, I don’t know what he’s talking about!”

“Shall I shoot the boy?”

“I told you, I don’t—”

Taking careful aim, the Frenchman shot Eric in the upper left thigh. The boy screamed. Colin screamed. “Are you
crazy
? I said I don’t know what he’s talking about!”

Dupré smiled. “Now I believe you. Which means they were lying. Why?” He thought about it. “They want you to know help is on
its way. Rescue 2 is a police boat, isn’t it?”

When Colin didn’t answer, Dupré took aim at Eric’s other thigh.

“All right! It is a police boat!”

Dupré scanned the horizon behind them. Visibility was deteriorating, but there was nothing to be seen. “What did he mean by
the limit?” he demanded of Colin.

Silence. Dupré raised the Glöck.

“The twelve-mile limit,” Colin shouted, to keep him from firing. “It’s international waters beyond that.”

“So they must get here before we get there,
n’est-ce pas
?”

Colin nodded sullenly.

“How many miles have we gone?”

Colin shrugged.

“Guess!” Dupré ordered, waving the Glöck toward Eric.

“Six, maybe seven.”

“And how long will it take?”

“At this rate? About an hour.”

“In the end,” said Dupré pensively, “it always comes down to a matter of time.”

39
  
  
living the nightmare

Heading east on South Road after the Trimingham roundabout, there was a long downhill straightaway. Dan cranked the right-grip
throttle wide open and held it there, as the scooter’s speed climbed past 40, 50, all the way to 60 mph. Good thing it wasn’t
raining—and as if the thought had summoned them, the first drops began to hit the pavement.

With a bend coming up and the road now slick, he backed off a little, but only a little. Until he felt the rear wheel begin
to slide out from under him. He was barely able to correct it before losing control entirely. Badly shaken, he thought: A
man could get killed doing this! He backed off a little more.

The wind had picked up—just how much, he discovered as he roared down the hill past the Swizzle Inn and caught his first glimpse
of the long causeway that connected St. George’s Parish with the main island. On either side of the causeway, the wind had
whipped the sound into an evil, milky-green soup, with whitecaps everywhere and spindrift flying off the tops. The wind was
at least 30 knots.

And blowing directly across the causeway. Waves
were crashing against the low concrete wall on the windward side, the tops of them coming straight over the wall and flooding
the road. There was no traffic out there, for good reason: The causeway was impassable.

He started across.

A wave broke, drenching him and throwing him and the bike sideways. He barely managed to avoid the opposite wall. After that,
he hunkered down as low as he could get, his eyes barely above the handlebars. The next wave hit him, but did not move him
sideways as much, and he began to believe that he was not going to die out here, after all.

Once he got off the causeway, it was better. The straightaway past the airport was the longest on the island, and he again
cranked the throttle wide, passing a startled taxi in the process. He knew that the police seldom stopped rental scooters
(the ones with the red license plates), not wanting vacationers to leave with a bad taste in their mouths. He hoped they’d
make an exception for one going two and a half times the national speed limit; he could use a police escort just now. Of course,
when you
wanted
to be arrested, there was never a patrol car in sight.

The rest of the way into the town of St. George was twisty and tricky, but after the causeway, nothing fazed him. When he
reached the dock, there were two patrol cars, and no
Care Away
. Ducking behind a building to get some shelter from the rain, he called Ian.

“Missed them by about twenty minutes, I’d guess,” said Dan. “They’re probably in the narrows by now.”

“Well, we’ve had a bit of help from the wind, and should make it to St. Catherine’s in about ten minutes. Can you get there?”

“Roger that.”

“Take your time. It’ll be all over by the time we get there, anyway. Rescue 2 passed us a few minutes ago, going like the
proverbial bat. They were on top of the waves and flying!”

In the cabin of
Goodness
, Ian was at the wheel, negotiating each ten-foot wave as it came. He glanced over at Brother Bartholomew, and from the latter’s
expression assumed he was battling seasickness. “Keep your eye on the horizon,” he shouted, to be heard over the sound of
the storm. “Don’t look away from it. It’ll help your ear adjust your inner balance.”

Bartholomew nodded and managed a weak smile, but it was not primarily a queasy stomach that concerned him just now (though
he was doing a fair amount of swallowing, to remind peristalsis it would be inappropriate to reverse itself).

What was disturbing Bartholomew’s inner balance was a sickening sense of
déjà vu
.

For this was the nightmare! The one he’d had after seeing “The Perfect Storm”—in which he’d relived how his father had died.

Only he wasn’t asleep now, in his bed at home. He was wide awake. Living it. He swallowed hard. It was not the heaving sea
that had put this brackish taste in his mouth; it was the raw terror.

Taking his eyes from the horizon (just for a moment), he risked a glance at Ian. The man was resolute, even grim. But not
afraid. Maybe this fear that gripped him
was exaggerated. Maybe what they were doing was dangerous—but not suicidal.

And then
Goodness
buried her nose in the next wave, and she took green water over her foredeck.

“Hate it when that happens!” cried Ian. “Puts too much strain on the engine.”

Bartholomew nodded and swallowed harder.

Abruptly Ian pulled back the throttle, and veered the boat to starboard. “St. Catherine’s. Can you see the Chief?”

“Can’t see anything through this rain.”

“I’ve got to concentrate on the approach. You keep an eye out for him.”

“Wait! There he is!” shouted Bartholomew. “He just got there!”

In five minutes, Dan was on board, and they were back out on the roaring sea.

“Pull on a slicker,” Ian called to Dan, nodding towards the hatch to the hold. They’re in the port gear locker. It’s a little
late to keep you dry,” he said wryly, “but it’ll keep you warm.”

To Bartholomew, he said, “See if you can raise Harbour Radio on 2182 kHz. I’d like to find out what’s going on out here.”

Bartholomew turned to the frequency. It crackled, and he said, “Hello?”

“No, no, let me have it.”

Bartholomew passed the mike on its coiled cord to Ian.

“
Goodness
calling Harbour Radio.”

“Go ahead,
Goodness
.”

“That you, Shack?”

“Ian, what are
you
doing out there? Nobody’s supposed to be out on a night like this.”

“Just trying to help my little brother.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got him in sight, seven miles south of Bremer Cut. But listen, Ian, Inspector Cochrane in Rescue 2 said
that if we heard from you, we were to send you home. And that it was
not
, repeat
not
, optional.”

“Roger, optional, Harbour Radio—you’re breaking up a little there—we opt to carry on. How about a SitRep?”

There was silence as the Senior Watch Officer contemplated giving him a situation report. “Well,” he said at length, “if it
was my brother, I’d be out there, too. All right, here’s what we’ve got:
Care Away
is three miles from the limit, making about eight knots, tracking one-eight-five. She’s about four miles from you on a bearing
of one-two-zero. You should have a visual pretty soon.”

“We can’t see jack out here! Where’s Rescue 2?

“Between you and them. We’ve been vectoring them for an intercept. They should be to
Care Away
in four minutes.” There was another voice in the background. “Hold a minute; I’ve got to take this.”

In the gathering darkness, Bartholomew thought he saw something ahead. He pointed to it, and Ian, squinting, said, “That’s
a red light on a pole—we’ve got Rescue 2!”

The radio came back on. “Ian? Shack here. That was Cochrane. They’ve just lost their starboard motor. Can’t plane. He wants
you to come by and pick him and one of his men up.”

“Oh, he does, does he? Well, you tell him—never mind, I’ll tell him myself!”

40
  
  
lukewarm pursuit

With his back braced against the aft wall of
Care Away’s
cabin, the Frenchman trained the boat’s binoculars on the scene behind them. It was almost dark, nearly impossible to see
anything. But not quite. He gave Colin and Eric a running account.

“The police boat, which until a moment ago was in, as you say, hot pursuit, now appears to be disabled.”

He moved the glasses slightly to the right. “There is, however, another craft farther back—a small, conventional powerboat.”
He turned briefly to Colin. “Could this be your brother?” He turned to Eric. “And your father? Coming to your rescue? We shall
see.”

He turned back to the scene in the distance behind them. “The powerboat is stopping alongside the police boat. Someone’s just
gotten out of the police boat and into the other boat.”

He frowned and let the glasses hang down by the strap around his neck. “And now another man. With a rifle. That’s not good.”

He looked up at the nearly dark sky. “
N’importe
, in ten more minutes, they won’t be able to see us.
Malheureusement
,
someone ashore is obviously guiding them to us.”