Storm the Author's Cut (5 page)

"You'll need to recognize one from above." He gave her a detailed lecture on what to look for. She had seen many of the twin-engined amphibious planes from below as they flew overhead. She couldn't remember looking down on one from above.

When Lucas was satisfied that she knew what to look for, he switched the radio to the emergency frequency and listened to the searchers. It seemed that the search area had been divided into quadrants. Coast Guard 22, the large Sikorsky helicopter belonging to the coast guard, was keeping track of everyone's location and the progress of the search.

The sky above had darkened and the plane was tossed roughly by the wind as they flew over a headland. She had trouble keeping focused on the map as they bumped through a series of air pockets. Luke glanced from his instruments to the ground, but seemed unconcerned by the roughness of their ride. She concentrated on ignoring the turbulence, telling herself she had overcome the fear of flying that had dogged her since Shane's death.

"It'll be rough later. If you're thirsty, pour yourself a coffee now—there's a thermos behind the seat."

"I brought coffee, too." She took her thermos from her pack and filled the lid half full. It didn't seem prudent to fill it to the brim, considering the way the weather was deteriorating. She handed him the cup and he took it without looking, his eyes on the water below.

He took one sip and shoved the cup back at her. "I'll pass. Pour me one of my own, would you."

Strong, black liquid poured from his thermos. "Of course you'd take it black," she muttered.

"Of course," he agreed. "I chew nails, too."

She grimaced.

"Nice to know that something will make you speechless."

She wondered if his eyes were laughing at her but he was looking out the side window so she couldn't tell.

"If I hadn't talked fast, you wouldn't have let me come."

"True enough."

She had forced herself on him. Most men would have resented her tactics, but once she boarded the plane, he had stopped fighting her.

"See that island ahead? That's the beginning of the quadrant we've been assigned."

Her laughter died. For a moment she had forgotten the missing plane and the men who had been aboard it. She had forgotten Shane.

The overcast sky was overcast but the ocean below was only rippled, barely enough wind to keep their ride from being smooth as they flew south along the east coast of Moresby Island, the second largest island of Haida Gwaii.

Lucas switched channels on the radio to hear the latest marine forecast. The radio operator reported a gale blowing on the west coast of Moresby, with winds rising on Moresby's east coast in the afternoon.

Luke pulled out the map again when they reached the northerly edge of their assigned search quadrant. Their search area was roughly ten miles by ten miles square but she'd lost track of their location when they entered the group of islands.

Luke's large-scale map showed a confusing jumble of small islands, water, and the inlets typical of the beautiful South Moresby area, and he traced their search pattern with his finger on the map. Without reference to the map, Laurie would have had no idea at all of their location.

When she saw a strange collection of debris on the water, she pointed and Luke circled, dropping towards the water. As they came closer she spotted something orange—the color of the life jackets the missing plane would have carried as safety gear.

They dropped lower. Laurie was still straining to see when Luke pulled the stick back and they lifted up to return to their search pattern.

"Garbage bag," he muttered. "Someone threw garbage overboard."

They swooped down time and time again. Sometimes Luke saw some unexplained incongruity in the land or water below and banked to investigate; sometimes it was Laurie who pointed downward.

She lost track of time. The constant throb of the engines was so loud that sometimes she felt she could not hear anything at all; then Luke would speak softly over the intercom and she would hear his voice clearly.

Darwin Sound—a long, narrow passage—was the roughest spot of all. Luke told her that the wind often funneled through it, making eddies and swirls as the passage narrowed. He was alert as they came into the narrow part, anticipating the wild ride as the little seaplane was tossed about sickeningly. Once they were through, he circled back to fly through a second time, then continued their search pattern.

"I could have missed something there," she told him. "I don't think I got a good enough look at that island in the middle."

"I know, but we'll go on. We have to cover the entire quadrant first. If we don't find anything, then we double back on the doubtful spots."

The sky darkened until she doubted her ability to see anything on the ground. They flew on, back and forth, covering their area like a vacuum cleaner's pattern on a living room carpet. They stared at the water, the rocks, and the trees.

When the rain started they could see even less, but Luke flew on. It seemed hours later when he marked their location on the map, then called Coast Guard 22.

"This is CF 191. We're heading in to Lyell Island camp for fuel, then we'll resume searching."

"See anything at all?" crackled the coast guard pilot in Laurie's ears.

"Nothing," Luke told him. "Conditions are deteriorating here. The narrow passages are gusty, especially Darwin Sound. How's the weather forecast? Any chance of a break?"

The coast guard man laughed bitterly. "They've predicted sunshine for California—we get the storms."

When Luke had cleared with the helicopter, he turned towards the east and Lyell Island.

"It's getting worse?"

"Looks like it," he agreed. "We'll listen to the new lighthouse weather observations in an hour. You can tell a lot about what's happening from them. We might be in a localized squall, or we might be blowing up for a real storm."

When they passed over the trees on the north side of Lyell Island she was surprised to see a settlement with chimneys smoking and men moving about on the ground. Luke brought the plane down gently into the sheltered bay and motored over to the floating wharf, As they bumped gently against the wharf, two men caught hold of the pontoon and secured the Beaver with ropes.

"Morning, Luke!" the older, heavy-set man shouted around his cigar. "We'll fuel her up—you get on up to the cookhouse and have a bite. Bloody awful weather for a search!" He opened the door and his massive arm reached to lift Laurie down on to the float. She landed awkwardly, then looked back to see Luke climbing out behind her.

"Thanks, Tubby. We could use some hot food."

She rubbed her arm as they walked up to the mess tent.

"You might have a bruise there."

"If he's really called Tubby, it's a misnomer! I thought he'd crush my arm when he grabbed me!"

"He's strong, but you're a pretty tough yourself." He glanced down at her. In jeans and a heavy sheepskin jacket she didn't think there could be any female curves showing, but she felt herself flush at his look. "Small and feminine," he murmured, "but definitely not fragile."

His eyes said that he found her attractive and when he looked at her like that, she felt an intense awareness of every female curve of her body. She thought how different his black eyes were from Ken's brown ones. Luke's eyes were deep enough to drown in.

She looked away quickly.

She belonged to Ken. She loved Ken.

This crazy, momentary madness surging in her veins was—madness! The drama of the search had made her forget who she was for a minute. She had better not forget! Laurie Mather's days of wild impulses were long gone.

"Do you think they really have hot food in there," she asked to distract herself.

"I can guarantee you won't be hungry when we leave."

A small, dark Italian man named Mike waved them to a long table and served plates heaped high with steak and mashed potatoes, and poured two cups of strong, black coffee.

"I feed you good, then you find our men."

"Drink the coffee," Luke advised. "The stuff in your thermos isn't strong enough to keep you alert."

The monotony of staring at endless, similar bits of tree and rock and water
had
begun to make her sleepy. She drank the coffee obediently.

"Luke, that passage—Darwin Sound—where it was so rough—"

"Maybe," he said, as if he knew her thoughts without her speaking. "Visibility was poor, so he was flying low over the water. With the squall to the north, he might have flown south of Lyell Island and up through Darwin Sound. We checked it twice, and we'll check again after we eat."

She remembered the turbulence, rocks and trees. She could have missed something in the trees. They had been bouncing around so badly, she'd had trouble keeping track of where she was looking.

"If you were flying in those circumstances, would you have gone up that passage?"

"Not with a Goose—the air speed is too fast, not much time to react if you're flying low. Flying north in Darwin he'd have been going with the wind. That makes it even faster, harder to control flight in the narrow passage at speed."

Laurie sipped on the strong coffee. "You're saying you wouldn't have gone there, yet you flew thought twice searching."

"I keep wondering why, if he was ten miles away, they didn't see him from the camp here. You can see the Hecate Strait quite well from here. Someone should have seen the plane."

After their quick meal, the cook walked out of the building with them and stood to watch them on their way back to the seaplane.

"That was wonderful," Laurie told Mike. "We were starving."

"Come back when you run out of fuel this afternoon. I feed you again. My Tony is on that plane. You find him for me?"

Luke held out his hand to the cook. "We'll do our best, Mike. Thanks for the meal."

They walked down to the dock in silence. Luke didn't climb aboard immediately, but stood watching a Cessna seaplane circling overhead.

"One of yours?" asked Tubby.

"Yeah, Gary's flying it. He'll be needing fuel, too." Luke pulled out his wallet. "How much for the fuel, Tubby?"

Tubby shook his head. "The company's paying. We appreciate what you're doing for us."

"You don't owe me. Next time it could be me out there."

"Not you, Luke. You'll live to be an old pilot. That missing plane... you know who was flying, don't you? Dennis Delmonte."

When the Cessna arrived at the wharf, Tubby and Luke lashed the pontoon into place behind the Beaver. Laurie recognized the pilot who climbed out as a local she had seen many times in Masset at her father's hotel.

Luke opened the Cessna's fuel filler. "Anything, Gary?"

"Rain and wind. My sector's east over Hecate Strait—checked out about fifty logs with seagulls sitting on them. Caught the forecast—getting worse out there."

Luke nodded. "Go up to the cookhouse and have a meal. Tubby'll fuel you up."

"You going back up, Luke?"

"Yes, and keeping an eye on the weather. Do the same, Gary. There's no sense having two planes missing."

"I'm not going to fly into any hills." Gary's eyes were on her as he spoke and she realized that he must recognize her. She wondered if he'd been on the search when Shane crashed.

"You'll be all right with Luke, Ms Mather. He'll bring you home safe."

Luke threw him a sharp look. "Go up and eat, Gary." He watched the other man's retreating back, and then tipped his head back to eye the dark clouds above.

"By mid-afternoon we'll have the gale here, too," he predicted. "Likely a storm warning for the east coast by nightfall. Storm force winds are higher than gale force."

"I know."

"You can stay here at the camp. You'd be safe and warm. Mike would look after you."

"You told Gary you weren't taking chances."

"I don't plan to take any chances I can avoid. If I'm out searching and it blows up wild, I'll find a bay and set her down. I don't plan to crash, but if you come back up with me, you could spend the night stranded in some deserted inlet until the storm blows over. Here you can be stranded in relative comfort."

"How can I stay in a warm cookhouse, knowing there are passengers in a crashed airplane, shivering in the wind and rain?" She knew the passengers could be dead, but she couldn't bear to believe this search would end in tragedy. The thought of flying through a storm frightened her, but not as much as her unwelcome memories. "I'm coming with you."

She felt the jittery wakefulness that normally signaled too much coffee. She welcomed it now and watched the ground intently when they resumed their search of the quadrant, this time working west from the camp on Lyell Island towards the larger Moresby Island.

The wind increased steadily, tossing the seaplane with turbulence. They worked their way back and forth over the land and the water.

It seemed hours later when he said, "One more pass and we'll be back over Darwin Sound. One flight through the Sound, then we're packing it in."

"The passengers—"

"The storm is shutting us down. Another hour and visibility will be too poor for us to fly safely, must less see anything on the ground. We'll wait it out back at the camp on Lyell."

She recognized the passage when he turned to line up for the flight through Darwin Sound.

"It'll have to be a high pass," he muttered. "I don't know if we'll be able to see much."

The land bent the wind into unpredictable gusts, tossing the Beaver about like a leaf in a hurricane. She tried to focus on the shore through increasing nausea, tried to study the wild, white water below them. When she spotted the island in the midst of the passage, she saw trees, a pile-up of logs on the shore... and something white.

Something white!

She felt dizzy, staring down at the turbulence, her brother in the seat beside her.

Shane flying the heaving plane.

...then the illusion passed. Luke beside her... an unidentified white blur below.

"Something!" She gripped his arm. "White! The island! Back on the island."

The wild ride had settled now, still wind-tossed but flying level in the wider part of the channel. "Luke?"