Dead in the Water

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Besides, as for her most recent fussing...it wasn’t as if she’d had any experience being on the run with a federal agent from murderous smugglers.

  “You’re smiling.”

  She grinned at him. “Thank you for making me feel better. Now, I suggest we actually do get our butts back in the kayaks and move on.”

  Before she could stand, he wrapped her with his newly injured arm, pulled her close and kissed her forehead. She held entirely still, breath caught in her throat, and reveled in the moment.

  As he seemed to be doing.

  * * *

  ENERGIZED BY THE hope of being able to contact the coast guard, Adam felt strong enough to go on.

  The gray-green bulk of what Claire had informed him was Hurricane Island reared ahead. Tiny, tree-topped lumps of rock appeared from the mist. None were big enough to qualify as islands. This whole area was a maze.

  As she’d warned him, the more open the water, the more it felt like real ocean, swells replacing swirls of currents. He was able to keep her in sight, and the waves weren’t large enough to challenge his limited kayaking skills, but he was having to work harder. The new injury had progressed from burning to a deep ache that felt as if the bone had been cracked. He knew that wasn’t so, but muscles and ligaments in his upper arm were attached to the humerus, the long bone. And some of them had to be damaged.

  The older, more serious wound had woken up in the last hour, too. This pain was deep in his shoulder and torso, and diffuse. Nothing he couldn’t ignore, but he’d really like to see a gill-netting fishing boat any minute.

  Like now.

  A curiously even line of those islets, these bigger than some, stretched ahead, north to south. Claire was staying well away from them, and something about the turmoil of the surrounding seas made him wonder if there weren’t more rocks that lurked just beneath the water.

  Adam had been studying the islets, but he heard something that snapped his attention back to Claire.

  She’d come to a virtual stop, and was trying to turn around, sliding sideways on a long swell. What the hell...?

  The bulk of a ship appeared against the gray seas. The silhouette wasn’t one Adam had ever wanted to see again, unless he was in a helicopter with a dozen members of the Canadian Coast Guard or Navy. He reached for the binoculars and, despite the droplets that immediately blurred the lenses, confirmed his fear.

  That rusty old tub was sitting out here waiting for them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  If anyone aboard the freighter was standing watch, it would be hard to miss the two kayakers heading straight for them. Especially him in this electric-orange-and-red kayak.

  He struggled to turn, too, just as Claire reached him.

  “Do you see it?” she called. “Is it them?”

  “Yes,” he roared, “and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “If we can drop behind the Mosquito Islets—”

  “Damn it.” He’d been craning his neck. “They’re doing something.” Then he knew. “Lowering the skiff down to the water.”

  The skiff wasn’t much, but it did have an outboard motor. Even a single man in it could strafe them with bullets.

  At that moment, the sound of an engine reached him, throaty and deep. Multiple engines. He turned his head sharply and saw a snow-white sharp-prowed boat cutting in front of them not half a mile ahead. Thirty to forty feet long, maybe, with a big cabin and what might be radar equipment topside. He’d seen plenty of sportfishing boats like this when he’d been based in Miami.

  What scared Adam was wondering whether Dwayne and company would think twice about killing half a dozen more people.

  He took a hand from the paddle to pull out the flare gun. Adam closed his eyes, but only for an instant.

  This was a risk, but what choice did they have?

  He pointed the gun at the sky and pulled the trigger.

  Not thirty seconds later, the flare shot high into the air, a vivid, sparkling, universal call for help. Damn. Had the fishing boat gone far enough past them, people in the cabin wouldn’t have seen the flare? He fumbled for the plastic bottle that held more flares and extracted one to reload, but first he twisted to look back. If the skiff was in the water, he couldn’t see it, no surprise considering it was aluminum against the gray-on-gray landscape.

  He pivoted back to see the fishing boat slowing, beginning a turn. Kicking up waves of its own and a frothing white wake. After shoving the flare gun into his PFD pocket, he dug in his paddle, saw Claire doing the same and wished they were in the US where there might have been a chance in hell one of the boaters would be armed.

  He started paddling again, Claire doing the same. God help them, they couldn’t outrun any boat with a motor, but the much larger fishing boat approached them a lot faster than the skiff could.

  A putt-putt behind them reached his ears. Adam didn’t bother looking back. A shot. The sportfishing boat closed the distance. A quarter mile, a few hundred yards. He pinned his gaze on it, paddling for all he was worth even as he veered to fall in behind Claire. Maybe the shooter would be content to kill him and would let her go. Or maybe, paddling just a little bit ahead, she’d be able to slide out of sight behind the larger boat in time.

  People crouched on the narrow walkway at the prow, waving and calling, although he couldn’t hear what they were saying. A man midway back had binoculars trained on something beyond the kayaks.

  Water kicked up less than a foot from the port side of Adam’s hull. The muffled crack of a rifle shot came after it. He had a minute then while he slid down the back side of a swell high enough to hide him.

  One of the men in the boat ahead bellowed through a bullhorn. “Stop firing a gun! We’ve called for the coast guard. You’re committing a crime—”

  Adam’s kayak jerked sideways. It had been hit.

  Afraid you’ll sink like a rock? Claire had asked.

  Here was his chance to find out what really would happen.

  The next thin line of water shooting above the waves was close to Claire’s kayak. Damn. The men on board the sportfishing boat were retreating from the prow and railing, alarm evidence.

  Then one of them shouted and pointed. Adam couldn’t see what they did, but a moment later a new flare shot into the air. Claire’s kayak sped by the prow of their rescuers and tucked in behind it. Adam fought to keep his kayak lurching ahead.

  Another shot, another. A spray of bullets surrounded him. One could have struck him, and Adam wasn’t sure if he’d have noticed. He saw a man on the fishing boat drop out of sight suddenly.

  But then another, similar boat approached, and Adam saw a third one speeding toward them from the south. Every skipper who’d seen the flare was responding.

  He bumped into the side of the first boat, his hull scraping it. Nobody reached down toward him or hung over the thwarts, but the next thing he heard was music to his ears.

  “It’s turning around! It’s running away!”

  With a groan, Adam slumped forward, head almost touching the deck. The kayak was still gliding forward—until a paddle was thrust toward him and he was able to grab it. Claire held firm until the two kayaks once again lay side by side, and he could clumsily hold an arm out to her.

  He thought she said, “We made it.”

  * * *

  “ONCE WE SAW that someone was shooting, we called for the coast guard,” said the red-faced man who looked like a former football player who was thickening around the middle.

  Adam asked, “Did one of you get shot?”

  “Tony Vargas.” The guy jerked his head toward what appeared to be the steps leading down to the cabin. “We moved him right away.” His expression was grim, as were those of the four other men surrounding them. “What the hell is this about?”

  They’d hauled Claire and Adam as well as their kayaks up onto the first
boat. The other, similar boats stayed close.

  Claire asked anxiously, “Is he badly hurt?”

  “Not good. Gut shot,” one of the men said.

  She saw Adam and that man lock gazes for a moment, but couldn’t know what they shared.

  Beside her, Adam exhaled a long breath. “Long story. Are you Americans or Canadians?”

  “American.” That was the first speaker. He nodded toward the boat closest to them. “They’re Canadians. I think the others are Americans, too. They’re putting up at the same camp we are.”

  “I’m Claire Holland,” she offered. “From Seattle. I was...sea kayaking with a friend when all of this started. He was shot...”

  “Adam Taylor. I’m with the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Things went wrong during an operation. I was undercover with drug smugglers.” He hesitated. “Some of what happened, and that I know, needs to wait for the coast guard. But the immediate story is that Claire and her friend chanced on the ship I was on while it was transferring illegal cargo.”

  He told the bare bones of the story: her dead friend, getting shot himself, her rescue, their discovery that they were being hunted.

  She gestured north. “We popped out of the Spitfire Channel to find the freighter that was carrying the drugs anchored where they saw us immediately. They lowered a skiff into the water and that’s what was pursuing us.”

  “We’re sitting in deep water,” one of the men said uneasily. “Any chance this freighter will show up any minute?”

  She saw the expression on Adam’s face just before he donned his mask, something he did so well. Yes, he thought that was conceivable.

  What he said was, “I doubt it. Three boats here, others that will come running if we shoot off another flare. They have to know at this point that someone will already have been in contact with the authorities. The smartest thing they can do is run. What I don’t know is whether they’ll continue south or go back north to Alaska. I want that ship boarded before it can dock.”

  The apparent skipper on this boat had been listening from the doorway into the wheelhouse. Now he nodded toward something behind him—probably a radio. “Sounds like the coast guard cutter will be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. They were tied up at Shearwater. A helicopter is on the way, too. Vargas needs to get medical care fast.”

  Claire, for one, would be very glad when that coast guard ship appeared. Right now, she felt dazed. Was this even real? Believing she and Adam had actually made it, that they would survive, didn’t come easily.

  Reassurance came from the rocking motion of the boat bobbing on the waves, and from her feeling so chilled. And the sight of Adam, dirty, wearing a week-old beard that didn’t quite hide the furrows on his face that were so much more deeply carved than they’d been the first time she saw him.

  He kept glancing at her, checking to be sure she was okay the same way she was doing with him. The minute she’d been helped to a seat, he’d chosen the one beside her. Their arms brushed. She needed to stay connected to him.

  And how long will that last? she asked herself.

  She already knew the answer. Not for long.

  Authorities would want to hear her description of events. After that, their next concern would be figuring out how to get her home. But Adam, he’d have to keep doing his job. Their closeness felt more real than anything else that was happening, but it was the illusion, not these kind men surrounding them. Or the whap whap of helicopter rotors she heard.

  They all turned their heads, looked up. A red-and-white-painted helicopter swooped toward them. Several of the men on this boat stood and waved their arms over their heads.

  Within minutes, a medic had dropped down to the boat deck from the helicopter, bringing a stretcher with him. With the help of a couple of the fishermen, Tony Vargas was strapped to the stretcher. He was in so much pain, Claire wanted to look away from his face but didn’t let herself. He was another victim of these monstrous criminals, just as Mike had been, and then Kyle Sheppard.

  Oh, God, she thought. If she didn’t have cell phone coverage, she could surely borrow a VHF radio to call Shelby and tell her Mike was dead.

  She’d never had to bring that kind of news to anyone, and didn’t want to start now. But it had to be her, not some impersonal police officer asked to do the notification by Canadian authorities.

  “What are you thinking?” Adam asked, as the stretcher swung into the air, being winched to the open door of the helicopter hovering above.

  “That I should call Mike’s wife.”

  He took her hand in his, the warmth more comforting than it should have been. “Why don’t you wait until we talk to the people from the coast guard? We don’t want your friend’s wife—”

  “Shelby.”

  He nodded. “Shelby calling friends or family to tell them, or posting what she knows about his death on social media, until investigators are ready to release the information.”

  She wriggled her hand, but he didn’t release it. “You mean, you?” Claire asked.

  “I’m one of them.” His expression was gentle, his voice less so. “Most of it will be taken out of my hands from here on out.”

  “I’m glad.” Seeing his raised eyebrows, Claire said, “You need to go to a hospital and have your wounds checked out.”

  A smile appearing in his eyes, he rotated his right arm. “Now you’re telling me you didn’t know what you were doing when you patched me up?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You know I didn’t.”

  He dipped his head toward her, speaking too softly for any of the other men to hear. “I think you did.” His breath tickled her ear. “Turns out, you’re a lot more capable than you knew you were.”

  After a moment, she straightened. He was right. She’d proved herself over and over this week. The challenge she’d believed she and Mike were facing was nothing in comparison. She’d have gone home feeling good about their adventure, but now...

  I’m more than I knew I was.

  But she couldn’t forget the cost. She’d miss Mike, although that was nothing to what Shelby would have to endure. Kyle Sheppard must have had friends and family who would be plunged into shock and grief. Tony Vargas, another vacationer, might not survive.

  And Claire knew life would never seem the same to her. How could she have fallen so hard for a man in a matter of days? Dread filled her at the idea of saying goodbye and going home.

  It was like having a huge hollow opening inside her. She might have even made a sound, because Adam said, “What?”

  “I... Nothing.” His gaze on her face was keen enough, she could tell he wasn’t satisfied. “I’m feeling too much. I mean, we started today with your raid on that encampment, we paddled hard in the pouring rain only to face new disaster, we saw the hope of rescue that might not happen because of the bullets flying, and now here we are.”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. His arm came around her. “These last days, you’ve been a constant in my life I’ve never had.”

  “There’s the coast guard lifeboat!” a man at the rail called, interrupting them.

  A lifeboat? That sounded...puny.

  “Finally,” Adam murmured.

  * * *

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, the two of them were aboard a ship that might have been fifty feet long. It was painted in an eye-catching bright red and white, which Adam knew to be the Canadian Coast Guard colors. Their kayaks and all their possessions had been transferred, too.

  He’d shaken hands with everyone on the sportfishing boat, and a few who leaned across from one of the other boats. Claire hugged everyone, sniffled and then mumbled to him during the transfer, “I probably stink!”

  Adam laughed. “I’m sure I do, too. And I can guarantee that nobody cares.”

  The ship carried a crew of five officers and four others. Six men, three women. Several of them studi
ed the bullet hole in the red kayak before two officers led him and Claire to a cabin to talk.

  They listened to his recitation of events, called the number he gave them for confirmation of who and what he said he was and let him speak to his immediate superior.

  “We were just starting to get seriously worried about you. I know you expected that tub to turn around and go back to Juneau, but it hasn’t docked. Tell me again where you are?”

  Adam gave him the bare bones, too, to which the two Canadians listened closely. Then he said, “That freighter has to be stopped before it docks or has a chance to transfer cargo. That’s got to be a number one priority for both governments. Some or most of the drugs have already been handed off.” He gave the identifying details on the yacht. “However, we were interrupted before we were done. That’s when the first kayaker, Mike Maguire, was shot and killed, and when I was shot and went overboard.” Adam glanced at the two coast guard officers and gave a mental shrug. “They were transporting something else, too. I...overheard the head guy, Dwayne Peterson, talking to his number two man. They’d been paid a lot of money to pass along a little extra.”

  Everyone in the cabin stayed so quiet, he couldn’t hear them breathing. Even Russ Garman, his supervisor, only waited.

  “Uranium,” Adam said.

  Even Claire blinked at the urgency of ensuing conversations. What she took for an oceangoing version of the order, be on the lookout, went out to other coast guard vehicles as well as Canadian ferries and, who knew, Canadian naval vessels? She sat, quiet and forgotten, as US naval and coast guard people were patched into conversations with their Canadian counterparts.

  One of the officers left the cabin, and minutes later she realized that the small ship was underway. Taking her and maybe Adam to a drop-off point? Or searching for the freighter that had—what?—an hour head start on them?