Buried At Sea (39 page)

Hustle staggered and for a second he thought she had struck a sandbar. But her sails hung slack and she lost two knots with only her engine to drive her through the thickening seas. Two men dressed in sea boots and slickers stepped out of the yellow boat's wheelhouse.

"Do you see any guns?"

"I can't see. Wait, what are they doing?"

They were twirling ropes, standing surefooted on their pitching deck, one moving toward the bow, the other toward the stern, glancing around to make sure their ropes didn't foul the cabin or the mast.

"Look out! They're throwing grappling hooks."

Jim spun the wheel. Always slow to respond when driven by her propeller, Hustle veered clumsily. The hooks lofted through the air. The forward one splashed into the sea. The other crashed on the deck, a foot from Shannon's hand, bounced wildly, banged against the backstay, clanged on the aftmost safety-line stanchion, and, miraculously failing to hook it, fell into the water.

The yellow boat could turn tighter than Hustle. As Jim changed course, it circled closer, as the fishermen, methodically coiling their lines, hauled in their hooks. In unison, they began twirling them again, while the yellow boat maneuvered.

The stern man threw. Jim slammed the wheel over and the hook splashed harmlessly behind him. Only then, as the second hook came flying across the water, did he realize they had set him up. It was too late to turn, too late to do anything but shove the wheel into Shannon's hands and run forward, pulling Will's bosun knife from his slicker. The hook caught the bow pulpit. The yellow boat turned away. The rope jumped as tight as a steel bar, and Hustle lurched into a clumsy, wallowing turn, dragged behind the fishing boat. Jim thought the line would rip the pulpit right off the deck, but when he reached the hook he discovered that one of the barbs had fastened around the immensely strong forestay.

Jim braced his knees in the pulpit, opened Will's knife, and frantically sawed at the rope. Hustle buried her bow, and a full sea nearly knocked him overboard. The rope parted with a loud bang and knocked the knife out of his hand. Will's lanyard saved it, and he ran, untangling the lanyard from his legs, back to the cockpit.

Shannon was fighting the wheel, trying to turn away from the high yellow bow aimed at their stern. The diesel engine

skipped a beat, coughed, and revved back to full power. The propeller bit into the water at the last second and Hustle shot free. The yellow boat pivoted into another tight turn and circled back, as both fishermen twirled their hooks again.

Hustle's engine quit. The grinding rumble ceased abruptly. Jim and Shannon looked at each other, horrified by the sudden deadly silence. "What?"

"I don't know." He pressed the starter switch. The engine ground but didn't start. "Maybe fuel."

"They're coming."

The yellow boat was so close that Jim could see the expressions on the suntanned faces of the fisherman twirling the grappling hooks: intense concentration, hope, and triumph fired their eyes. This was it. They were coming in like professionals, a well-oiled team doing their job. Instead of a huge tuna or a swordfish, they were going to hook a sailboat. Jim could hear their hooks whistling as they cut the air, accelerating for the throw. Suddenly, their expressions changed from unbending purpose to abject terror. Jim looked over his shoulder. The black sky was yards from his boat—pounding down like a cataract.

"HOLD ON," HE yelled to Shannon.

A tremendous gust slammed into the sails. Scant as they were, the sliver of storm sail and the severely reefed main dragged Hustle onto her side. The safety harnesses were still under the cockpit bench where Shannon was sitting. But when he reached for her he saw that she had fashioned a hand grip out of an idle line and secured it to an empty cleat. Jim tried to steer into the wind. But a slab-fronted sea struck before Hustle could straighten up. It smashed her hull like a bulldozer. The impact reverberated through the decks and as seawater burst over his head, Jim thought, If she were made of wood she'd be splinters.

He felt the boat try to rise from the burden of the wave. A second gust held her down. Heeled steeply, she shed the water from her decks, leaped up, and ran before the wind. Jim caught a single glimpse of the yellow boat's black bottom and then it was gone and he was battling for their lives, fighting to control the pounding, crashing hull and trying to figure out where the wind was coming from and where they-were going before they ran aground on Cape San Antonio.

It was so dark he had to turn on the binnacle light to read the compass. They were headed due east, pushed by a west

wind, straight at the cape. Somehow the sails had ended up wing and wing, the storm sail over the starboard side, the main over the port. Lightning flared on breakers, two hundred yards dead ahead, foaming on an outer bar.

"Shannon! Grab this!" He handed her the mainsheet. "Haul it in when I tell you." He put the wheel hard over and held it as Hustle cut across a sea that looked like a brick wall. She swung north. "Now!" As the mainsail swept across the cabin, Shannon hauled in the slackening sheet. Jim took one hand off the wheel and secured the sheet by guiding it into the grip of the self-tailer atop the winch. "Hands out of the winch." A lightning bolt struck the land a quarter mile away and illuminated the sandbar, which was exploding with surf beside the boat. Jim tried to coax her a little more to the west. A gust veering north banged the sails and Hustle slid closer to the bar. Another gust, from dead ahead, seemed to stop her in her tracks, as if she were giving up and waiting for the waves to throw her onto the bar. He could hear the surf thundering and could feel it through the hull and when the lightning flashed again, he could see, close enough to touch, the line of breaking seas grabbing at the boat like a long, white tentacle. The wind wheeled. The sudden shriek in the rigging took him completely by surprise—a powerful blast from the northeast. The sails crashed around, and Hustle stampeded off on a starboard tack, racing away from the shallows.

Jim couldn't believe how close he had just come to losing her. In his mind's eye he could see white water breaking a boat-width away: Hustle was ten feet from impaling the bar with her keel; ten feet from falling on her side, seas battering her mast underwater, pounding the sails, smashing her down.

Shannon was huddled beside him, hanging onto her handloop like a bronco rider. He put his mouth to her ear to be heard over the shriek of the wind: "Are you okay?" She turned to him, her eyes huge, and yelled in his ear, "This is so cool!" They had gained only two hundred yards when the wind shifted again and Hustle starting slipping toward the bar. Then the rain, which the wind had blown in fitful, sizzling bursts, suddenly poured from the sky, a slanting torrent so heavy that it flattened the sea. Blinded, Jim switched on the work lights, but he still couldn't see the bow, much less the bar. Nor could he hear the surf thunder over the roar of the rain. All he could do was steer north by the compass and try to nurse her west, against the seas, away from the cape and its deadly shallows.

Shannon tapped his arm. "I see a light."

Jim looked where she pointed, off the starboard bow, hoping it marked the Cape San Antonio lighthouse. "I see it." It seemed awfully close. He edged to port, clawing west, but he couldn't see to veer away from the light. For nearly ten minutes he struggled, but it seemed to have a magnetic pull on him.

"Is it moving?" He looked at the compass. The boat was heading west. Due west. He had fallen off course by a full ninety degrees, not realizing that the storm gusts were shifting with him and that he was, in essence, sailing back to Buenos Aires. The rain slackened and now he saw a hazy red light near the light he had been steering around. "It is moving."

Not a lighthouse but a ship. A slow-moving ship, plodding carefully through the storm, was working her way up the channel toward Buenos Aires. He had to find his position. He started to switch on the autopilot, then remembered that with the diesel dead, he shouldn't waste battery power. "Can you just hold this course a sec?" Shannon moved behind the wheel and hauled herself to a standing position so she could read the compass. Jim ran below and checked their GPS fix against the chart. Returning to the cockpit, he took the wheel, steered behind the ship, turned east, and trimmed the sails for their new course. "We're miles clear of the point."

"Nice going, Captain. I'm impressed."

Jim's spirits soared. It looked like they had made it. The wind was swinging south and the temperature was dropping, which indicated the end of the pampero. "Thanks. But she's a good boat and we caught a few breaks."

"She is a beautiful boat."

"Will gave her to me."

"You're kidding."

"In his will. Will's will. She's ours, if we want her." "Wow. Well, we have plenty of time to think about it. Now what?"

"We'll clear the coast tonight. And haul ass home tomorrow."

"I'm starving."

"I can't leave the cockpit. Too many ships."

"I'll make something. Don't worry, I'll find my way around." Jim showed her how to open the hatch and remove the washboards. Shannon lowered herself into the cabin. The last he saw she was locating light switches with the penlight she had found in Will's slicker.

Half an hour later, as the rain stopped, she tapped on the aft cabin port, popped it open to pass him a thermos of coffee, and dogged it shut before sea spray soaked Will's bed. Their bed, he realized, once they were safely at sea. The hot drink was a godsend, but thin. If they got out of this alive, he resolved to teach her how to make coffee Will's way. After another half hour, Shannon pulled herself up through the hatch. She was wearing another slicker and Will's sea boots. Attaining the cockpit, she reached down and produced two insulated mugs of soup.

"It's wonderful to get dry. I borrowed some clothes from Will. Fabulous cashmere—

cheers." They clinked mugs, the way they did at home. "Great kitchen. It's really beautiful down there."

But as Jim finished the soup, he realized that Shannon was troubled. "What's up?"

"I tried the radios. The short-range."

"The VHF."

"Whatever. I heard a lot of 'Hustle.' They're still looking for us."

"Lots of luck; it's a big ocean."

"But you said we're out of fuel. And low on water. And I didn't see much food. Where can we go to get enough to sail home on?"

Jim was bone-weary. "I don't know. We'll figure it out in the morning."

"Sure. But I'm wondering . . . I looked at the chart. It's a long way to Rio de Janeiro. Maybe we could get on a plane there, but what if they're waiting? Or what if the Argentines ask the Brazilians to extradite us for shooting a cop? Fat chance we'll be able to explain we were defending ourselves from being kidnapped. I'd rather fight extradition from home with Daddy's lawyers."

"That's why we're going home."

"Except we don't have food and water and fuel to get home with."

"Tomorrow, soon as it's light, soon as I get a little sleep, I'll check out the engine. I'm sure we weren't that empty. Meantime, let's go easy on the electricity. She's got enormous batteries, but they won't last forever."

"All I'm saying is we need a plan."

"All I'm saying is I'm so tired I can't think. Let's just get through the night—put some miles between us and them—and we'll tackle a plan in the morning. Why don't you catch some sleep? I'll be okay up here."

"I'm staying with you."

"It's getting cold."

"Not if I can help it."

"One of us has to watch for ships."

"We'll take turns. You first."

It was a pitch-black night without a star in the sky. Squalls overtook them, kicking the sea up and drenching the decks with rain, but moving on quickly. After the last, the wind began to ease a little. When it ceased to gust and wheel and finally settled into a cold breeze from the west-south-west,

Jim unfurled a bit of jib. He thought of rigging the dodger—the canvas and clear plastic hood over the companionway that protected the cockpit from cold wind and spray—but decided against it until they were farther out of the shipping lanes; the dodger made it hard to see.

In another hour, with the sea conditions easing, Jim shook the second reef out of the main. Hustle responded with a gratifying eight knots. After the crazy scramble on land it felt wonderful to be in control of the boat again.

Twice, while Shannon slept, Jim slipped below and listened to the VHF and the SSB. Most of the long-range radio traffic involved ships reporting their ETAs to the Port of Buenos Aires. The short-range was between ships, tugs, and Rio de la Plata pilots. Spanish, Chinese, and Russian sprinkled repeatedly with the name of their boat. Returning to the cockpit, he covered Shannon with a heat-retaining, waterproof foil space blanket from one of the survival kits. Then, while monitoring the dark and the compass, he held her in his arms and tried to put himself in Andy Nickels's mind. What if it was true that the McVay Foundation possessed the enormous state-within-thestate power that Will had claimed? If McVay wanted Sentinel enough to kill for it, wouldn't he use his power and money to divert ships to hunt Will Spark?

Andy Nickels knew his speed. All he had to do was draw a circle from the Rio de la Plata determined by time and speed and hunt within it. When the circle got too big, he would cover their likely landfalls.

Which left him and Shannon with the problem of where in hell to replenish their supplies. The entire Argentine coast was out. The same sorts of cops and smugglers and slum dwellers were surely to be found in Rio. The same was true for most parts of the Caribbean. Who knew how many enemies were waiting in Florida? No wonder Will had fled to Hong Kong. How far was that? Two oceans, twelve thousand miles. Six thousand to Connecticut was daunting enough.

He dozed a little despite the danger of ships. Once when

he started awake from a spooky nightmare and stared wildly around, he felt Shannon's fingers on his brow. "Sleep," she whispered. "I can see." They took turns through the night. At sunrise, she was curled beside him, her head on his lap. Her face looked free of care, secure in trust, sure that he would protect her. Her trust made him happy. It made him feel useful. Until he saw the salt-coated space blanket he had spread over her and suddenly remembered that Will had told him that the foil space blanket provided a strong radar signature—the perfect thing for a sailor lost in a life raft, the worst possible cover for one trying to flee. He pulled it off gently, folded it into a tight wad, and threw it below.