by Mark Alpert
“There you go, ma’am,” he said once Ariel was safely aboard. Then he turned to John and pointed at the left side of the lower deck. “You should park your mom’s wheelchair next to that window. You’ll get a good view of the island from there.”
John thanked him again and pushed Ariel toward the window. He wasn’t accustomed to all this Midwestern friendliness. It made him nervous.
After another five minutes the boat was fully loaded and ready to go. It backed away from the wharf and slowly cruised out of Mackinaw City’s harbor. Once it reached the open water, though, the engines revved, the bow tilted upward and the boat accelerated. Soon they were speeding across Lake Huron, going at least forty miles per hour.
John bent over the wheelchair again. “Hey, this isn’t bad,” he whispered. “We’re really moving.”
“It’s a hydrojet ferry,” Ariel whispered back. “Very fast and maneuverable. The boat has pump-jets that suck in water and spew it out at high speed.” She pointed out the window. “Look, you can see the water jetting out of the stern.”
He turned toward the back of the Ojibway and saw a high rooster-tail of water leaping into the air and crashing down on the boat’s wake. They were already a couple of miles from shore and rushing past the Mackinac Bridge. John glimpsed the flashing blue lights of the police roadblock again, and this time he felt a surge of satisfaction at the sight. Suckers! We’re going right past you!
After a while he turned to the front of the boat and stared at Mackinac Island, which was growing larger by the second as they zoomed toward it. Just past the island’s wharves was an old-fashioned Main Street lined with two-story wooden buildings. A steep bluff loomed behind the street, rising about a hundred feet above the harbor. Perched atop the bluff was a cluster of buildings with a wall around them and a tall flagpole.
“That’s Fort Mackinac,” Ariel said, pointing at the island. “Built in the eighteenth century by the British, then taken over by the American army. It was a very strategic location in those days. A cannon positioned on that bluff could fire at any ship passing between the Lower Peninsula and the U.P.”
“Is the army still there?”
“No, it’s a state park now.”
Within minutes they reached the wharves in the island’s harbor. The Ojibway sidled up to a long wooden pier, where a crew of White Star Ferry employees fastened the boat’s lines to a pair of bollards on the dock. As the passengers rose from their seats, anxious to disembark, John peered through the window at another wooden pier about a hundred yards away. A boat that looked very similar to the Ojibway was docked at the end of that pier, and a line of people stretched down the wharf, waiting to board the vessel.
Ariel noticed it too. “That’s the ferry going to the U.P. As soon as we get off this boat, you’ll push me down Main Street to the other wharf.”
“Then we’ll buy our tickets and get in line?”
“If we hurry, we can be in Haven in a couple of hours.” She pointed at the gangplank, where the other passengers were already swarming ashore. “Go on, sonny. No time to lose.”
Burt Dunn, the Ojibway’s captain, stood at the gangplank again, this time saying goodbye to everyone. He smiled when he saw Ariel. Without hesitation, he helped maneuver the wheelchair onto the wharf. Then John started pushing Ariel down the pier, heading for Main Street. The other passengers rushed past them, eager to hit the town.
As John maneuvered the wheelchair through the crowd, he gazed down the length of the pier and surveyed the traffic on Main Street. Although there were no cars on the island, dozens of cyclists cruised down the street and hundreds of pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Several horse carriages clopped down the street as well, carrying tourists and their luggage to the island’s hotels. Another carriage was parked halfway down the pier, waiting for passengers. The carriage’s driver was nowhere in sight, but the horse was so tame it just stood there, untied, on the dock’s wooden boards, its nose pointed toward Main Street. It was a big, brown horse, like one of the Clydesdales in the Budweiser ads. John admired the animal as he pushed the wheelchair past it, then faced forward and focused again on the Main Street end of the pier. Up ahead, the ferry passengers branched off to the left and right, heading for the island’s fudge shops.
Then John spotted a tall, young man in a black leather jacket. Even from two hundred feet away, John could tell that the guy was trouble. He was eying each of the disembarking passengers, craning his neck to make sure he didn’t miss anyone, and checking their faces against a photograph he held in his left hand. He wasn’t a cop, though—he was too unkempt, too sketchy. And his hair was bright red, the same shade as Ariel’s.
John slowed to a crawl. Ariel looked up at him, and he could tell from her expression that she’d spotted the Rifleman, too. “Shit,” John whispered. “We’re screwed.”
An instant later the guy saw them. He stared directly at John, then at the photo in his hand. Then he stepped forward to get a better look, dodging the tourists moving in the opposite direction. He seemed puzzled at first by Ariel’s old-lady disguise, but after a couple of seconds he saw through it. He started barreling through the crowd, knocking aside everyone who got in his way.
They were trapped on the pier. There was nothing behind them but Lake Huron. John glanced at Ariel, expecting her to draw her Glock from her coat pocket, but she shook her head. “I can’t shoot. I might hit someone in the crowd.” She looked over her shoulder, scanning the pier. Then she pointed at the horse carriage. “Turn around and get behind that thing.”
“What? What are you—”
“Just do it!”
John spun the wheelchair around and ran back to the carriage. He heard footsteps and shouts behind him, the sound of the Rifleman barging through the crowd of tourists, but he didn’t look back. Dashing past the horse, he pushed Ariel behind the carriage’s back end, which shielded them from view. But by peering under the carriage and looking past the wheels and the horse’s legs, John could see the Rifleman. He’d broken through the crowd and now stood less than a hundred feet away, with no one on the pier between him and the carriage horse. The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a Glock that was identical to Ariel’s.
At the same time, Ariel ripped off her scarf and sunglasses and drew her own gun. But she didn’t aim it at the Rifleman. Instead, she pointed it straight up and fired into the air.
The noise was enormous. The carriage horse reared back on its hind legs, whinnying. Then it fell back on all fours and galloped down the pier toward the Rifleman, its hooves pounding the wooden boards.
The man stopped in his tracks. He raised his Glock and fired at the horse, but the shot went high and hit the carriage’s awning. Then the terrified animal charged into him, knocking him to the side. He collapsed on the pier and the carriage’s wheels ran over his legs. The horse kept galloping until it neared the crowd of tourists, who’d started running toward Main Street when they’d heard the gunshots. Then the animal pulled up short, frightened by the crowd’s noise. Meanwhile, the Rifleman lay facedown on the boards, motionless. He was either dead or unconscious, it was impossible to tell.
Ariel had already put her gun back in the pocket of her down coat. Although everyone on the wharf had heard the shot, John doubted that anyone but him saw her pull the trigger. The panicked White Star Ferry employees fled right past John and Ariel, running away from the Ojibway and following the crowd to Main Street. John gazed down the pier and felt a pang of guilt when he saw Captain Dunn dashing toward the island. The poor man was probably scared out of his mind.
Within seconds the wharf was nearly deserted. Then John saw movement on the other wharf, the one with the line of tourists waiting to board the ferryboat going to St. Ignace. Another man in a black leather jacket ran down the pier, shouting into a handheld radio as he headed for Main Street. Two more Riflemen were already on the street, sprinting toward the White Star Ferry’s wharf from the other side of town. Worst of all, John saw movement on the la
ke as well. He glimpsed a pair of sleek, neon-yellow speedboats about a mile to the southeast, racing toward Mackinac Island’s harbor. He couldn’t see the boats’ pilots or passengers, but he was willing to bet they were Riflemen. The guy with the radio must’ve alerted them.
“More of them are coming,” he said, pointing them out to Ariel. “What do we do?”
For a moment she just stared at the speedboats. Then she twisted around in her wheelchair and focused on the Ojibway, now abandoned by the White Star Ferry crew. “I know about hydrojets,” she said. “I think I can pilot her.”
“Wait a second. You’re talking about the ferryboat?”
“Just carry me up to the pilothouse, okay? I’ll figure it out.”
“This is insane. You can’t—”
“If you have a better plan, I’m all ears.”
In seconds they were back at the gangplank. John pushed the wheelchair onto the Ojibway, then lifted Ariel out of the chair, and carried her up the stairs to the upper deck. Then they rushed into the pilothouse, a simple room with a big, curved window looking out the front of the boat. A wooden ship’s wheel stood in the center of the room, and next to it was a control board with lots of switches and throttles. It looked pretty damn complex, but Ariel wasn’t fazed. She pointed at the padded chair behind the ship’s wheel. “Set me down,” she ordered.
John lowered her into the chair. “Just one question. Have you ever driven a ferryboat before?”
“No.” She narrowed her eyes and studied the control board. “But I piloted a freighter once. That ship was twice as big as this one.” Leaning forward, she flicked a switch and pulled one of the throttles up. The deck rumbled as the Ojibway’s engines roared to life. Ariel grinned. “There, that was easy. Now all we have to do is cast off. Go back down to the pier and untie the ropes from the bollards.”
He stared at her while she wiped the old-lady makeup from her face. What’s with this girl? How does she know so much? The question bothered the hell out of him, but there was no time to think about it. He bolted out of the pilothouse and down the stairs to the gangplank.
The wharf was still deserted but Main Street was in an uproar. The tourists had stampeded away from the White Star Ferry and gathered in hysterical crowds at the north and south ends of the street. John saw no signs of the Mackinac Island police as he dashed across the gangplank. He assumed they were busy trying to control the crowds and hadn’t figured out what was going on yet. For the first time he considered the consequences of what he was doing, how much trouble he’d get into if he hijacked the ferryboat. They’d probably throw him into state prison, ten years at the least. But right now he was more worried about Sullivan’s men than the cops. He caught a glimpse of the three Riflemen at the Main Street end of the pier, where they’d stopped to regroup. They slowly approached their downed comrade, who’d started moaning and squirming on the dock. The men were cautious because they didn’t understand what had happened to their friend, but John knew that any second now they’d go on the attack and rush down the pier. Meanwhile, he could hear the whine of the speedboats approaching the harbor.
John headed for one of the two bollards that the Ojibway was fastened to. It was a thick iron post at the edge of the pier, and the ferryboat’s rope coiled around it in crisscrossing loops. He found the knotted end of the rope and started to unravel the loops, but it wasn’t easy—his fingers grew numb as he tried to untangle the line, which was wet and cold. After struggling for several seconds, he managed to unwind the rope and toss it onto the deck of the ferryboat. But as he ran to the other bollard he knew he was out of time. The three Riflemen had stepped past their injured friend. They chose that moment to sprint down the pier, with their guns raised and pointed straight at John.
The first bullet whistled past his head as he dove for cover behind the bollard. The second hit the thick iron post, which rang with the impact. John fumbled at the coiled rope, but it was no use. The men kept shooting at him as they ran down the pier. Even if he managed to unfasten the line, he’d never make it across the gangplank. He was pinned down.
But John didn’t panic. He kept working at the rope, loosening and unwinding it. He knew he wouldn’t make it, but maybe Ariel could. He realized at that moment why she’d made such a big impression on him, why he’d sacrificed so much to help her get home. He’d fallen for Ariel because he had nothing else. He had no family anymore, no friends, no job. His life—his real life—had ended three years ago, when Ivy died. That’s why he could stay so calm with all the bullets buzzing past.
The Riflemen were halfway down the pier by the time he freed the rope. He tossed the line over to the Ojibway and yelled, “Go, Ariel!” as loud as he could. While he gazed at the boat’s upper deck, hoping she’d heard him, one of the Riflemen fired at the pilothouse. The bullet shattered the big, curved window at the front, spraying glass everywhere.
John’s stomach lurched. All the strength seemed to drain from his limbs as he stared at the gaping hole where the window had been. Then he heard more gunshots, five of them in quick succession, but these shots came from the pilothouse, not the pier. One of the Riflemen tumbled backward and lay still. The other two stopped running and scrambled for cover, retreating toward the Main Street end of the wharf. Ariel had returned fire. There were no more tourists in the vicinity, so she was free to shoot at Sullivan’s men.
And John was free to make a run for it. While the Riflemen retreated, he popped up from behind the bollard and charged toward the Ojibway. In no time at all he leaped across the gangplank, reaching the safety of the lower deck just as the bullets started flying again. Ariel must’ve been watching him from the pilothouse, because an instant later the ferryboat pulled away from the wharf. John retracted the boat’s gangplank, manhandling it onto the deck, and then the Ojibway set out for the open waters of Lake Huron.
They headed northeast, with the pair of neon-yellow speedboats about a quarter mile behind them. Ariel throttled up the engines, pushing the pump-jets as far as they could go. John stood in the pilothouse behind Ariel’s seat, looking over her shoulder at the control board. The needle on the speedometer pointed at 45 knots. He didn’t know how many miles per hour that was, but judging from the way the boat was bouncing on the surface of the lake, he guessed it was pretty fast. The wind and spray blew into the pilothouse through the broken front window, coating their faces with cold droplets.
The speedboats were faster, though. After a few minutes they were less than a hundred yards behind the Ojibway, one on the left side of the ferry’s wake and the other on the right, both clearly visible through the still-intact window at the back of the pilothouse. They were close enough now that John could see who was inside them. Sitting in each boat were two red-haired Riflemen, a pilot and a passenger, and each of the passengers carried an M4. As John stared at the men, they raised their carbines and aimed at the ferryboat.
In one swift motion he grabbed Ariel by the waist and pulled her off the pilot’s chair, covering her body with his as they hit the floor. The bullets crashed through the back window of the pilothouse and shattered the glass, but luckily none of the shards hit them. After a brief pause the Riflemen fired a second barrage that struck the steel wall of the pilothouse below the window. Although some of the bullets dented the metal, they couldn’t penetrate the wall. John breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he and Ariel stayed low, they’d be safe. “You okay?” he asked as he slid off her.
She nodded. Sitting up on the floor, she gripped the ship’s wheel and straightened out the Ojibway, which had skewed to the left. “You’ll be my eyes,” she said. “Go take a peek out the front and see if we’re still going in the right direction.”
“Uh, it would help if I knew where we’re headed.”
“They’re called Les Cheneaux, a bunch of small islands off the shoreline of the U.P. I know the area, it’s treacherous for boaters. Lots of shoals and shallow spots.”
John crept to the front of the pilothouse and peeked o
ut the gaping window. The wooded shore of the Upper Peninsula stretched across the northern horizon. To the northeast, the shoreline turned jagged, pocked with dozens of islands and inlets. The nearest island was nothing but a long ridge of sand and shrubs. “Yeah, the islands are up ahead. Most of them are still pretty far off, but it looks like the closest one is only a couple of miles away.”
“That’s Goose Island. And there should be a shoal in front of it, about—”
Another barrage from one of the M4s hammered the boat. Again, John heard the sound of glass breaking. The noise came from the left side of the boat, probably the windows on the lower deck. “Jesus!” he cried. “Are they trying to hit the engines?”
Ariel shook her head. “The pump-jets are deep within the hull. And so are the gas tanks. Don’t worry, the M4s can’t hurt us.”
As if in response, the Riflemen fired their carbines yet again. This time the bullets smashed the windows on the right side of the lower deck.
John had a bad feeling about this. He suspected that the Riflemen weren’t shooting randomly. Their targeting was too deliberate, always focused on the Ojibway’s windows. They had a strategy, and he needed to figure it out. Creeping past Ariel, he went to the broken window at the back of the pilothouse and cautiously raised his head. The speedboats were only thirty yards away now, one on each side of the ferry. In the boat on the left, the passenger put down his M4 and reached inside a long black case. The Rifleman seemed to be assembling something, taking pieces out of the case and putting them together. It was probably another weapon, John guessed, but he didn’t know for sure until he glanced at the boat on the right. The passenger there had completed the assembly process and propped the weapon on his shoulder. John recognized the thing from TV news programs he’d seen, footage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.