Christer Magnusson had sent a floral arrangement, damn him, on Commodore’s behalf.
“You know,” Ridley was saying now. “I know you two had your differences, lass, but we could really use the boy. Court’s the best shot we have at raising that—”
She cut him off. “I know, Nelson. I tried. He just didn’t want to give up on that poker game. That’s it.”
She held his gaze. “Must have been some game,” he said at last. “I guess we’ll make do without him.”
“He’s not the only architect,” she said.
“No,” Ridley agreed. “But he’s damn well the best.”
8
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Christer Magnusson awoke at first light. He rolled out of bed, stood and stretched, and stared out through a wall of windows at the expanse of blue beyond. Then, as he’d done every morning for the past month, he walked into his kitchen and fired up his laptop computer and cursed the shipyard workers who’d tied up his boat for so long.
The master of the Commodore Titan wasn’t used to spending this much time on land, and it was making him crazy. But with the pride of the Commodore fleet—and, hell, the Pacific Coast—tied up all month for a refit, he’d been forced to adapt. Grocery stores. Starbucks. Netflix. Traffic jams.
Magnusson could adapt, but he’d never learn to like it. He belonged on the ocean, and he itched to get back.
Three more weeks.
It felt like an eternity.
Magnusson’s computer loaded, and he logged on to the Commodore database. Commodore kept an in-house ship-tracking server with real-time GPS monitoring of every registered cargo ship and passenger liner on salt water, the easier to anticipate lucrative salvage assignments. On a normal day, with his tug in the water, crewed and fueled and ready, the salvage master would have kept the server live around the clock, would bring his laptop to bed, even, so as to know instantly when a ship ran into trouble.
Lately, though, he’d had to shut down the computer, leave it in the kitchen if he wanted to sleep. It was torture otherwise, watching the ships pass, each one a potential million-dollar award, and none of them remotely accessible, not for twenty more days at the earliest.
This was the danger with the salvage profession. Heck, it was the danger with any life lived at sea. Sooner or later, you’d find yourself stuck on dry land for a spell of time, and if you hadn’t planned for it—well, it was a prison sentence.
Magnusson was forty-six years old, descended from a long line of blue-water sailors and merchant mariners. He’d crossed the ocean on cargo ships and ocean liners more times than he could count, had been working the sea since before he could drive a car; he’d simply never had time to build out the normal, onshore, storybook life.
And so he found himself in this vast, empty condo, no wife for company, no children or even a dog, just a laptop computer, a list of transient vessels, and a gnawing impatience he feared might just drive him mad.
* * *
• • •
ON MOST DAYS, the Commodore database looked like a slow-speed video game, an air-traffic control screen on the water. But today, up near the Aleutian Islands, Magnusson saw a hazard alert flashing.
Cargo vessel Pacific Lion involved in deep-water incident, the alert read when Magnusson clicked to open it. Crew evacuated to Dutch Harbor. One survivor still missing.
Magnusson muttered an oath. Stared at the map on the screen, the little dot where the Lion was last reported, the vast expanse of blue around it. Dutch Harbor, Alaska, sat in the middle of the Aleutian Islands, closer to Russia than to any meaningful part of America, literally in the middle of nowhere.
And the Pacific Lion, a 650-foot cargo vessel, was in trouble up there.
* * *
• • •
WITHIN TEN MINUTES, Magnusson had Commodore headquarters on the phone.
“Nobody’s really sure how it’s going to play out,” he was hearing from a man in the home office named Mueller, a vice president of something, a bottom-line, corner-office, dry-land kind of guy. “Crew abandoned her, expecting the ship would sink, but she hasn’t yet. Just lying there on her side, drifting into American waters.”
Magnusson walked back through his unlived-in condo to the windows. Stared out at the water.
“The vessel,” he said to Mueller. “Is there any sign that sinking is imminent?”
Mueller didn’t answer right away. Magnusson could hear him typing something. “No,” the vice president said finally. “According to the Coast Guard, it looks pretty stable.”
“And the weather?”
“The weather.” Another pause. “Decent for the foreseeable future. It was rocky last night, but it calmed down some this morning. Looks like there’s a window, anyway, before the wind starts to blow again.”
“And the Waverly boat is unavailable.”
“Right.”
“So who is going to salvage the ship?”
Mueller let out a long breath. “No idea,” he said. “Damn it, Christer, if the Titan wasn’t still laid up, we could save that old hulk and make the company a pile.”
This, obviously, was the worst-case scenario. A freighter in trouble, a potentially lucrative payday, and, someone else would win the award.
This, Magnusson figured, must be what it felt like to be stuck in prison, watching some other man marry your bride.
But Magnusson hadn’t built a career on the water by doing what he was told. And he hadn’t turned his Titan into the envy of the Pacific Coast salvage fleet by backing down from an obstacle, be it wind, weather, wave, or lack of proper equipment.
“We can still save the ship,” Magnusson said, and he knew immediately that he was finished with dry-land living.
“What? The way that ship’s drifting, it either sinks or makes landfall long before the Titan’s even back in the water. It’s impossible.”
“So I don’t use the Titan,” Magnusson said. “Get me a couple good crew and a flight to Dutch Harbor immediately.”
The master could sense the vice president’s confusion on the other end of the line. “Christer, I don’t—”
Magnusson ignored him. He’d been doing this for too long to let a chance like the Lion slip away. “And a boat,” he told Mueller. “Find me the best boat in Alaska, right away.”
9
McKenna spent the morning running errands around town. Came back to the docks with the bed of her old Ford full of food and assorted provisions. Nearly ten in the morning, and the first of the crew had arrived—Matt and Stacey Jonas, the divers.
They were an interesting couple. Matt was tall and lean, his skin tanned and leathery. Stacey was just as tanned, but nowhere near as weathered; she was three years Matt’s junior, but it could just as well have been a decade. The Jonases had been happily married for as long as McKenna had known them, so she tended to think of them as a unit, but despite their mutual love of all things adventuresome—hang gliding, cave diving, BASE jumping, and the like—the two shared markedly different pasts.
Matt was an Ohioan by birth, a rust belt refugee who’d always wanted to see the ocean, and who’d thus found himself migrating to San Diego after dropping out of college. There, he’d met Stacey, a California girl through and through, a surfer girl and all-around thrill seeker.
According to Gale Force lore, the Jonases’ first date had been a skydive—at Stacey’s suggestion.
“She got me up into that plane and opened the door,” Matt liked to say, “and then she winked at me and told me if I wanted a second date, I’d better jump fast. And then she was gone.”
He’d jumped, of course, and when he’d touched down, he found himself not only with a new girlfriend, but with a taste for adventure, to boot.
“And the rest,” Stacey would add, raising her glass for a toast, “is history.”
The Jonases had b
een running dive charters in Baja since the Gale Force quit the big salvage stuff after Randall Rhodes’s death, but they’d jumped at the Lion job, no questions asked, as soon as McKenna had called them.
“Love it,” Stacey told her when she’d explained the score. “We’re in.”
McKenna laughed a little. “You want to check with Matt before you sign on? This is a big change from sand and snorkels.”
“Matt’s down for whatever,” Stacey replied. “He’s as sick of babysitting rich guys as I am. This sounds like an adventure.” She went away, came back. “Matt’s already got the plane gassed. We’re wheels-up in a couple hours. See you on the dock!”
Now they’d arrived, and watching them cross the tug’s afterdeck to greet her, McKenna was struck by a sudden sense of sadness, an acute reminder of loss. Her dad had hooked up with Matt and Stacey early on. Found them in a dockside bar in Monterey, hired them, and leaned on them for years. They were competent and fearless, willing to dive anywhere, and when diving wasn’t on the menu, they’d do just about anything else Randall asked of them—from welding, to climbing, to heavy-equipment operation. Matt had even earned his pilot’s license, and the two traveled private, flying to gigs and new adventures in their personal Cirrus SR22 propeller plane.
Matt and Stacey had made plenty of money with Randall, but beyond that, they’d all bonded with one another, grown close as family—heck, they were family to McKenna, and she’d missed them nearly as much as she missed her own father.
Avoiding Matt and Stacey’s eyes, McKenna hugged them both, tried to push her dad from her mind. She caught Matt and Stacey swapping a glance behind her as she helped them stow their kit bags in their stateroom in the tug’s fo’c’sle, but ignored it. Sooner we’re at sea and working, the better.
By the time they’d returned to the deck, more of the crew had arrived.
* * *
• • •
AL PARENT, the first mate and relief skipper, was a big, barrel-chested man with two shocks of red hair on his temples and none in between. He was a longtime sailor and an experienced towboater, and he would run the Gale Force while McKenna oversaw the salvage operation.
Al had stuck around, too, after Randall Rhodes’s death. He was quieter than Nelson Ridley, and more laid-back than McKenna, but McKenna knew he was as fiercely loyal as she and her engineer were when it came to the Gale Force and maintaining her father’s good name. As he came down the dock, she could tell he was excited by the way he barely glanced back at his grandson, who was following in his daughter-in-law’s arms.
Al’s son, Jason, trailed his father, walking down the wharf with his young wife, Angel, and their infant son, Ben. Your typical wharf rat, Jason was twenty-five or so, slimmer than his father, with a little more hair. He’d been raised on the water, grew up around boats, and there’d never been any question he would wind up at sea, though he’d barely started with the Gale Force when Randall Rhodes died.
Jason hadn’t seen much of the salvage business, not yet, but he would soon enough, McKenna figured. He’d be the de facto deckhand on the tug; aside from tending to the lines and helping with the grunt work, he’d cook meals for the crew in the tugboat’s small galley.
McKenna shook hands with both men, waved hello to Angel and to Ben, who gave her a big smile and looked around at the boats, as if he were already planning his own trip to sea.
The kid was adorable, McKenna thought, with rosy cherub cheeks and a patch of blond hair, that big beaming smile.
“I don’t know how you’re going to say good-bye to him,” she told Jason. “He’s such a handsome devil.”
Jason looked back at his son and wife. He blushed a little bit, scuffed his boot on the wharf.
“Hoping we’ll hit a big score on this, skipper,” he said. “Set aside a little something for the kid’s education, his future, you know?”
“Looks like he’s pretty happy around boats,” she said, grinning. “We might have to save a job on this tug.”
She smiled at little Ben again, then looked past him just in time to see a black flash hurdle the bulwarks and careen across the deck. “Cat came back, huh?” she said, grimacing.
Al grinned. “Ship’s cat, skipper. Don’t leave port without him; you know that.”
The ship’s cat, Spike, was as grouchy as ever, and McKenna figured she wouldn’t mind so much if the Gale Force did leave him behind. Three years into her command of the tug and the cat still hadn’t warmed to the new regime; he barely paused to give McKenna a petulant once-over before darting over the bulkhead and into the tug—headed, no doubt, to stake a claim on the wheelhouse.
“I’ll know I’ve made it when that cat deigns to let me sit in my own captain’s chair,” McKenna told the crew. “That’s when I’ll know I’m a real tugboat skipper.”
Matt and Stacey laughed, and Jason smiled, too. But Al wasn’t paying attention. He was looking around the afterdeck and the dock, frowning. “I guess Ridley’s in the engine room,” he said. “But where’s the whiz kid?”
Court.
McKenna felt every one of her crew’s eyes turn toward her. Knew they were flashing back, too, to her dad’s sloppy memorial.
“The whiz kid’s not coming.” She sighed. “We’re going to have to make do without him.”
She watched Al Parent’s expression as she relayed the story of Court and the World Series of Poker, watched Matt and Stacey share another look and felt herself going red.
“Job needs an architect, doesn’t it?” Al asked.
“Definitely,” Stacey said. “I saw the pictures of that ship. We need to get her upright somehow.”
“Are you sure you can’t convince Court to come along?” Matt said. “Heck, I’ll chip in a part of my share, if it helps.”
McKenna closed her eyes. Tried to chase the feeling that she wasn’t cut out for this game, just an amateur, playing pretend.
“We’re going to have to do this without Court,” she told them. “I’ll get us another architect, don’t worry.”
10
There was no more time to worry about Court Harrington, not with a voyage to prepare for. Matt Jonas and the Parents helped McKenna stow the groceries in the tug’s hold as Stacey stocked the lockers inside the house. By the time the crew had McKenna’s truck unloaded, the pumps and generators had arrived, and Jason Parent worked the crane to offload them from the dock to the afterdeck: heavy, boxy things, a hundred pounds apiece. Jason stowed them behind the wheelhouse, affording them as much protection as possible from the elements. They’d be indispensible for moving water out of the Lion, and McKenna knew she’d need every one of those pumps in working order when she arrived on the scene.
McKenna was checking over her deckhand’s work when Ridley emerged from the engine room, wiping his brow. “Turbo’s a go,” he told the captain. “Let me do an oil change on the auxiliary and we’re all set.”
“Perfect,” McKenna replied. “We should be all squared away here by the time you’re finished.”
“Fine.” Ridley glanced at Jason Parent, then leaned closer to McKenna. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?”
McKenna followed his eyes, frowned. “Sure.” She walked with Ridley to the stern of the tug, where a pair of chocks stuck up from the bulwarks to guide the towline over the rail.
“I went to the shop this morning,” Ridley said. “Had to pick up the parts for the turbo, like I said.”
“Yeah,” McKenna said. “I remember. So?”
“So, they wouldn’t give me credit.” Ridley scratched his head. “Skip, they say we’re used up. I had to put the parts on my wife’s credit card.”
McKenna closed her eyes. “Damn it. I’m sorry, Nelson.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ll pay off the card before Carly even sees it, but, I mean—” He studied McKenna’s face. “Are we really in it that bad, lass?”
“I knew we were right on the edge, but—” Ridley shook his head. “How are we going to put diesel in this boat? Are we that dry?”
McKenna hesitated, just a beat. “We’re going to be fine. I called the bank this morning, soon as they opened. Took out another equity loan on my dad’s old house, a hundred grand. It’ll give us enough operating capital to get up to the Lion and see what we can do.”
Ridley looked dubious. “Yeah,” he said. “All right, skipper.”
Just don’t ask me how we’re going to get home, Nelson, McKenna thought. Or what I’m going to do if I can’t find us an architect.
* * *
• • •
BY NOON, the Gale Force was ready to go.
McKenna fired up the mains, feeling the big tug rumble and shudder to life beneath her. The engine room was insulated with about a mile of soundproofing, but still, the big 20-710s sounded like a freight train when they came to life.
Spike jumped up onto the dashboard, picking his way along the instrument panel, shying just out of McKenna’s reach. He stopped and sat and studied the skipper while he cleaned one black paw with his tongue, his yellow eyes wide and inscrutable.
The cat leaped away when McKenna tried to pet him, jumping down off the dash and padding out of the wheelhouse. McKenna watched him go, trying to ignore the sting of rejection, feeling stupid for even feeling it.
Someday, she thought. Someday, cat, you’ll respect me.
It was a ridiculous thought, but it buoyed her, nonetheless. She turned back to the wheel, ducked her head out the portside window, and surveyed the dock, where Jason and Al Parent stood ready to loosen the mooring lines.
Gale Force Page 5