Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (37 page)

“You have thirty seconds to let him go, or I’ll
kill
Leyla. I
mean
it!
”

There was a hole in the cupboard next to Phil’s head, and a splinter of wood
drawing blood from
his che
e
k. “She shot at me,” he said in a low moan. “She
shot
at me. She shot at
me
.” He kept repeating it like a mantra, emphasizing different words, as if that would somehow help him understand what happened.

I glanced back at Stone. His eyes were wide and shocked. “I guess he isn’t much of a hostage,” he said.
“
She’s willing to trade his life for Leyla’s
.”

“I’m not,” I said.
I released Phil. “Get up there,” I said. “You’ve got to control her somehow. She’s going to kill us all.”

He slumped limply toward the companionway, and then turned back. “She coulda killed me,” he said.

“She nearly did,” I said.

He
hobbled
up the stairs.

“Borden!” Angela’s voice was shrill. “The gun – now!”

“Send Leyla down,” I called. “We’ll stay here, and you can leave with your brother.”

I heard Jasmine murmur something, and then Phil.

“Borden,” shouted Jasmine, her voice harsh and impersonal. “Give us the gun now. We aren’t messing around here.”

I turned quickly to Stone, who was sitting on the floor, eyes closed, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily. “Jasmine – whose side is she on, really?”

He opened his eyes and looked at me. “She’s good, isn’t she? She’s playing dirty-cop, but she’s still with us.”

I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Come on now!” said Jasmine.

“Empty the magazine,” said Stone in a low voice.

I pushed the button
, pulled out the magazine,
and furiously thumbed shiny brass bullets out of
it
.

“Quick,” said Stone.

I slammed it back in, checked the safety and
called
, “I’m tossing it up now.” Stone was crawling on the floor, scooping up the bullets. I walked to the companionway and gingerly
flipped
the weapon up into the cockpit.

“Did you get the one in the chamber?” Stone’s voice was low and tight.

Of course I hadn’t. They really hadn’t trained me for this at seminary. Maybe I could go back and teach a course on pastoral weapons handling.
I just shook my head.

I could hear Angela yelling from the deck above. “You are a moron, Phil
ip
. You can’t do anything right. I just asked you to watch them for five minutes, and I can’t even trust you to do that.” She said more, and it wasn’t very lady-like. It know it’s stupid, but I felt sorry that we had jumped him.

“You two stay put,” called Jasmine. “If you show your face, someone will shoot it.”

Now I could hear the roar of a marine engine, which quickly turned to a low rumble. I couldn’t really see out of the high windows. There was some shouting and more engine sounds. I assumed Red Holland was here and was maneuvering the power
-
boat into position. Abruptly, I felt the Tiny Dancer shift and start to bounce out of rhythm with the waves. I heard a banging and scraping from the stern. A minute later, Angela called out.

“Borden? Stone? I’m coming down.
You two sit on the settee, back behind the table. If I so much as squeal, Leyla loses a knee. If I scream, she dies. You understand?”

“Got it,” I said.
I help
ed Stone get up onto the settee
and scoot around. He groaned twice.

Angela came down the companionway. She glared at us, and then marched forward into her cabin. She came back with two heavy-looking bags, and dragged them up the companionway. After a moment, she returned to the forward cabin for a third. My heart began to pound.
She hauled that up the companionway as well.

She didn’t come back. Instead, she called, “We’re leaving now, and we’re taking Leyla to ensure your good behavior. Don’t even think about trying anything.” She pulled the companionway door shut and did something to it.

Stone began to curse, low and steady, and with surprisingly few repetitions. I felt the same way, though I refrained. I contented myself with leaping across the table, and jerking open the cupboard that held my duffel bag. I pulled it out and opened the zipper.

“Stone!” I said sharply. “Shut up and listen. They were going to blow the
Tiny Dancer
to pieces with explosives.
But I switched the bags. Now, when they hit the switch, they’ll blow themselves up, and Leyla and Jasmine along with them.”

I grabbed my bag and raced up the steps. I thrust at the companionway door, but it wouldn’t budge. I backed up and threw my shoulder against it, but it still didn’t open. Angela must have locked it or jammed it from outside. I tried again, and pain shot from
my
shoulder up to my bruised head. I felt dizzy and
sick, but I stepped down and threw a side kick at the seam of the doors. I have splintered two-by-fours with that kick, but at the time
,
I wasn’t
dizzy with pain and exhaustion;
I wasn’t standin
g two steps down from my target on a rocking and rolling sailboat in the middle of a
gale
on Lake Superior.
The doors gave a little, but held.

“Here,” rasped Stone. He had pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall of the galley. I held it like I’ve seen the police hold door-rams on TV, and slammed it
into
the doors. They gave a little more. I
pounded
it frenetically, again and again, and then I turned and put every ounce of force I had into another kick. The doors splintered and fell open.

I pushed them aside and thrust my way up into the cockpit
,
dragging my bag with me. I knelt down, unzipped the bag and grabbed a bundle of money
– the money that I had taken from Angela’s luggage and put into my own
.
The money I had replaced with explosives in her bags.
I snapped the rubber band off
the stack
, and stood up and threw it in air, scattering
green bills into the wind. I shouted “Angela!” as loud as I could, and then dipped down and latched on to the bag with my left hand.

I stood again, with another bundle of money in my right hand, and held the bag out over the water with my left.

“Stone,” I called over my shoulder. “Get the other two bags in the starboard cupboard, quick.”

The getaway boat was idling its engine and heaving with the waves
,
about thirty yards away. The
y
had apparently
pushed off
,
and
were
prepar
ing
to watch the explosion from a safe distance.

“Angela,” I shouted again. “I’ve got your money. The explosives are on
your
boat.” I threw the money in my right hand up into the wind. It disappeared into the rain and spray of the dull-gray morning. “Now,” I yelled, “You drop your guns and the explosives over the side, and give us Leyla and Jasmine, and we’ll let you have your money, and go wherever you want. If you don’t, the money goes to the bottom.” I shook
the
duffel bag over the water.

Something strange was going on.
I expected every one of them to be fixated on me and the money, but t
hey seemed to stop paying
attention long
before I was finished.
There was a flurry of movement, and then
Angela was saying something urgently to Red Holland. Jasmine thru
st something into Leyla’s hands
and then suddenly
they both jumped
overboard into the waves. Phil, Red
and Angela
followed almost immediately. They all started swimming away from the power
-
boat
,
frantically battling the waves and kicking up spray.

“Oh no,” said Stone behind me.

The swimmers had covered maybe half the distance between us when there was a massive “thump” that I felt deep in my chest. A huge fountain of spray burst into the air where the power boat had been.

I turned and hurled myself down the companionway, grabbing life
vests
and racing back to the cockpit.
I didn’t know if anyone on the other boat had had time to get them.
I emerged
to see
a giant wave
swelled up over us. It grew bigger and very steep.
As the wave loomed higher, an awful realization grew within me.
I threw
the
life vests
at
Stone
,
and turned to pull the companionway doors shut. But they wouldn’t latch – I had broken them in order to get out in the first place. I tugged frantically, and then
the
wall of water fell on
top
us.

I was slammed into the side of the cockpit, and then swept down into the cabin by a raging torrent of icy water. It poured in like a river. I scrambled to my feet, the water already to my waist, and saw
another
life
vest
bobbing by the galley. With extreme effort I managed to push forward and grab it. I buckled it on securely and pulled the straps as the water reached my chest and lifted me off my feet.

A second later, the cabin was completely full. I took a deep breath, and then I was under water, but there was no longer a current against me. My life jacket floated me up toward the ceiling. I opened my eyes, and saw the dim outline of the companionway. I could feel the pressure building on my ears. Frantically, I pulled myself up the passage and then I was out. A piece of wire rigging snagged me for a moment. I struggled insanely, and then suddenly I was free, floating upwards, while the ghostly shape of the
Tiny Dancer
dropped like an iron bar into the clear timeless depths of
L
ake Superior
, carrying with it more than half a million dollars in unmarked bills
.

My lungs were bursting by the time I hit
the surface
.
The top of the mast was just disappearing below the waves maybe eight yards away. Even in the dull light of the storm, as I looked below my feet
,
I could see the white sail and the dim shape of the hull slowly receding into the deep darkness far below.

I looked around me.
Wreckage from Red Holland’s vessel was spread out all over the surface. Bits of wood, pieces of cushions, a water bottle. Tony
Stone was ten yards away, riding up a wave to my right. I could see the dark heads of
the
others a little beyond him. As before, the icy water was stealing my breath and strength, but I forced myself to swim towards them. I saw Stone toss someone a life vest. As I got closer, I could see that something had reopened his wound, and blood swirled in the water next to him. At least in this vast freshwater sea we didn’t have to worry about sharks.

After what felt like a long time, I reached the others. They were all there: Leyla, Jasmine, Stone, Angela, Phil and Red. By the time I reached them, everyone had a life vest. Even if Superior did have sharks, I figured the cold would kill us long before any predator would have found us.
I figured we had less than half an hour.

“Huddle,” I gasped. “Our body heat will help.”

“I don’t have any body heat left,” muttered Jasmine. But we all dog paddled toward each other, grabbing on to arms and life vests. I worked my way to Leyla and put my arms around her, grabbing Stone’s vest on the other side. Someone else held mine from behind.

No one said anything for a while. We bobbed high, riding a wave, and then slid back into a valley.

“Anyone know how close we are to land?” asked Leyla.

“Maybe fifteen
,
twenty miles from Isle Royale,” said Red. A lot of teeth were chattering. Every face that I saw had blue lips.
By some strange, common, unspoken consent, we avoided talking about the strife between us.

“Not likely anyone will be out and about in this weather,” commented Jasmine.

I put my face close to Leyla’s. “Courage, dear heart,” I said. She squeezed my arm.

“I love you
,
Jonah.”

As I hung in the bone-numbing cold of the water, feeling the heat slowly ebb out of me, certain things became
very clear.

“Leyla,” I said in a low murmur, close to her ear. “I would not have planned it this way. This isn’t the atmosphere I would
have
aim
ed
for. But I need to tell you some things. I know now that I cannot stand the thought of losing you. Ever. I can’t picture a life without you in it. I have made peace with my past, and the only thing I can see
in my
future is you.”