The Drift (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 1) (30 page)

A
hmed
popped the ecstasy pill and washed it down with a gulp of whiskey.

“Right, I’ll put up the sail. Stow the money inside.”

Mohamed began gathering their windfall and shoving it into
the nylon tube.

Ahmed cut the motor and went on deck to haul up the canvas.
Doing exactly what the yacht crews had taught them in the harbor felt surreal.
It was magical to see the rich-green sailcloth blossom in the breeze and feel the
boat pick up speed.

He hopped down into the cockpit and adjusted the wheel, no
need for a compass heading when the lights of Spain shimmered in the distance.
With the ecstasy invoking a nostalgic caress, he reflected on the journey so
far
.
The uric stench of the orphanage where he first met his beloved
brother. The sewer where they overcame Rat Boy. The hut and the vicious beating
Al Mohzerer gave Mohamed. The kind old man Saleem. The pirates. And their
escape from the dock.

Never had Ahmed felt so happy and alive. Whatever challenges
Europe conjured up, they would face them with pride. No one would mess with the
boys, who intended to become the continent’s biggest drug barons. He
knew
it!

“Jiggy, jiggy, jiggy!”

An idiot emerged from the cabin to the blare of the Stoner
Brothers’ ‘How Fast Can You Live?’ Wearing his luminous-orange parker – pockets
crammed with Golden Monkey and bottles of Havana Club – a string vest, cowboy
boots and fake Ray-Bans, he had wrapped himself in ammunition belts and held
the shotgun and an AK-47 aloft. On his head was a black baseball cap with “BOY”
emblazoned across it in pink letters. In his mouth the fattest joint ever
rolled.

“Girls, girls, girls!” He grinned.

Ahmed looked to the sky and laughed until he could laugh no
more.

H
ans
stared at his reflection in the signaling mirror, unable to recognize the alien
looking back at him.

Is this me?

Fish scales and blood caked tanned, wizened skin stretched taut
over the contours of his skull. One was eye bloodshot, wild pupiled and sunk in
its socket, the other swollen shut by the festering wound eating up his face. His
unkempt hair and beard had turned white, and his scalp had bald bleeding patches
where the raft rubbed against it, pulling clumps of roots out. Ugly boils and
lesions covered his body, and he had lost the cap from a front tooth. The Rolex
hung loose on his wrist. In too much pain, he could not adjust the bracelet if
he tried.

Hans forced a half grin, knowing he was dying.

He had given up recording their progress and writing entries
in the log. They were in the hands of Mother Nature now. He hoped she would be
merciful and blow them to the shipping lanes. They must be close. Surely someone
would spot their plight.

The sea around them now teemed with life. Schools of bonito
and tunny joined in the ever-evolving chaos, whipped into frenzy by an abundance
of plankton blooms. Hans watched a dorado zip along the surface, sending a
school of flying fish airborne, their tormentor then wrenched from the chase by
the jaws of a huge shark. A mass of fins appeared in an instant, the sea wolves’
tails thrashing as they fought for a share of the prey, a crimson tinge infusing
the boiling sea.

Erring on the side of caution, Hans retrieved the solar
still. The last time he checked, there was a good pint in the collection bag, but
he had decided to float the still a while longer to accumulate more of the
priceless commodity. Now, as he pulled up the nylon tube, the bag felt a little
light. In fact, there was no resistance at all.

Panic set in.

Something had gone wrong.

Hans inspected the empty bag, to see a minute bite mark in
the plastic.

“Damn you, triggerfish!” He cursed the obvious culprits. “Why
couldn’t you leave us alone?”

Fixing the hole with duct tape was easy, but the lifesaving
liquid that took a day to collect had been lost. Now that evening drew in and
the sun’s distilling rays took leave, it would be another twenty-four hours
before they had anything to drink.

That night, consumed by pain, Hans slumped in the doorway
watching an electric-blue light trail stream in their wake. In reality, the spectacular
display was bioluminescence given off by single-cell organisms encountering the
raft, a protective mechanism to ward off predators. This was of no concern to
Hans, though. His vision blurred. Pain ricocheted around his skull whenever he
moved his eyes, locking his jaw and making him nauseous. He was content simply to
sit there, entranced by the beautiful phenomenon and absorbing its comforting aura.

A bulbous silhouette cut a swath through the light show. In
his hallucinating state, Hans checked himself, but, sure enough, there it was
again, something monstrous yet majestic rising from the depths to scope the
tiny craft. Hans stared into the heavenly color storm but could see nothing
until the surface erupted with a
phhhhsssssskkkkk!
and two enormous black
heads emerged – a humpback whale and her calf.

At any other time in Hans’ life, the mammals’ impromptu
appearance would have taken him by surprise, but so close to death and with no
energy left to expend, he resigned to the moment and let the experience wash
over him.

The mother’s eye stared at him knowingly, reassuringly.

“Hey Jessie! Come quick!”

She lay unstirring in the gloomy interior. Hans woke the
little girl and, with his good arm, helped her into the doorway.

“Guess who’s come to see us.”

“Mommy and JJ, Papa?” she whispered, her eyes glinting in
the dark.

“Yes, sweet pea. They’ve come to tell us everything’s gonna
be all right. It’s gonna be okay.”

Hans held Jessica out so she could stroke the nearest whale’s
rubbery skin.

“Don’t worry, Mommy. Don’t worry, JJ. Daddy will look after
me. He promised.”

With that the creatures sunk below the waves and disappeared
into the abyss.

After tucking Jessica into her sleeping bag, Hans dozed off,
drifting between dreams of hope and hellish nightmares.

Something disturbed Hans’ slumber, a sound impossible to
place at first. He awoke to the thunder of a powerful diesel engine. Through the
doorway he saw a ship less than a hundred yards away, its lights blazing terror
as it closed across the moonlit void.

Hans wrenched himself from torpor and lunged for the Poly Bottle
containing the remaining handheld flares, but his efforts were in vain. Looking
up, he could make out individual rivets on the ship’s iron prow as its bow wave
slammed into them. Their humble home flipped upside down, catapulting Hans out
of the doorway and into wet darkness. He kicked for the surface, horrified to see
the raft cartwheeling in the white water along the ship’s rusty hull.

“Jessica!”

Hans could not believe what was happening, and as the
unrelenting hulk ravaged the fragile pod, he prayed his baby girl was not still
inside.

Using sidekick and his good arm to propel him through the
water, Hans struck out for the raft, which lay on its roof, bobbing in the ship’s
churning wake. The perpetrator had fled the scene, careening into the night
like a hit-and-run drunk.

Nearing the raft, a frantic Hans scoured the choppy surface.
He hoped to God that the equipment bags had not smashed Jessica to a pulp as
they tumbled around inside the canopy like rocks in a washing machine. Worse, that
the ship’s enormous screws hadn’t sucked his little girl under and shredded her
to ribbons.

“Jessica!”

Still no sight or sound of her, Hans heaved on the
man-overboard rope to right the raft. As it splashed down, he grabbed the
handline and clawed his way around to the entrance.

“Swimming time, Papa?”

“Jessie!”

She floated on her back in the flooded cabin.

Fueled on adrenaline, Hans pulled himself aboard, tears
pouring down his face as he gathered the first mate in his arms.

“I got all wet!”

“I know, honey. I know.”

“And the bag hit me on the head!”

“Oh, sweetheart . . . sweetheart.”

I
n
Cape Verde, Penny took up her usual spot in Salgadeiras, the café bar overlooking
the marina, and in particular the berth
Future
should have occupied. She
sat there every day, hoping the yacht would cruise into the harbor, Hans stoic
at the helm while Jessica played with Bear in the cockpit, her nights tortured
with visions of
Future
going up in flames.

As Penny cradled a coffee, a plethora of memories occupied her
mind. She thought about the moment she first met Hans, so handsome, courteous
and in control. It was a recollection she would treasure forever, knowing she
fell in love with him the second he spoke. When tucking Jessica into bed that evening,
she had to refrain from smothering the little girl in hugs and kisses. Her
cuteness and intelligence made her instantly loveable and a joy to be around. Penny
prayed for their safe return, willing to exchange a life at sea to be with them
in Maine.

However, after three weeks the Concern had no choice but to
scale down its expensive operation. If
Future
was adrift or her crew had
taken to a life raft, they would be too far out into the Atlantic for rescue
aircraft to continue flying an effective search pattern. No commercial flights
or satellites had picked up an EPIRB signal, the coastguard concluding the
device must have gone down with the yacht
.
At one point the crew of the
Monaghan
contacted the website to report sailing into a debris field, later adding,
upon inspection, it was likely garbage cast overboard by a cargo ship en route
from South Africa. Washington continued to block Muttley’s requests for
military intervention, something he promised Penny she had not heard the last
of.

Phipps, Hans’ former Navy SEAL buddy, would stay on Cape
Verde another month and continue to liaise with commercial vessels and yacht
crews, particularly those making the trip west to the Caribbean. “There are
millions of miles of empty ocean out there, Penny, but there is still a chance
if they can reach the shipping lanes.”

Each passing second Penny contemplated possible explanations
– a rogue wave taking down
Future
’s rigging and ruining communications, Hans
smashing his head in a fall and Jessica struggling to take charge of the boat –
until the scenarios became so implausible that not even she could believe them.

Every few seconds her eyes flicked to the restaurant’s flat-screen
TV. She hoped the looped CNN reports would be interrupted by a bulletin
announcing that the occupants of a life raft had been picked up or that a
ragtag pirate outfit had kidnapped an American and his daughter and were
demanding a ransom.

Penny watched with dismay as
Growing Old Disgracefully
pulled
into
Future
’s berth. Its crew, John and Margie Grenson, had pottered about
the North African coast for years, John having retired from a successful dental
practice in which Margie had been his assistant. A sprightly couple in their
seventies, not an awful lot phased them – the open ocean or otherwise – but recently
they had been forced to consider selling their cherished craft and moving back
to Connecticut. Piracy was on the increase and proved a constant source of
anxiety, and the ocean was full of all manner of floating foreign objects – or “space
junk” as John referred to it – that could sink a yacht.