by Stuart Woods
“Something slow for sightseeing.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Just out to Catalina and back. A couple of hours.”
“I’ve got a Cessna 172, a nice one—good radios, GPS. It’s IFR certified, and it’s a hundred and fifty bucks an hour, wet.”
“I won’t be doing any instrument flying, but it sounds fine.” Stone gave him a credit card to imprint, then followed him out to the hangar.
“Let’s see you preflight her,” the man said.
Stone walked slowly around the airplane, doing the checks he’d done a hundred and fifty times, including the fuel.
“That’s pretty good without a checklist,” the man said.
“I did my initial and a lot of my instrument training in a 172,” Stone explained. “It’s all in my logbook.” He helped push the airplane out onto the tarmac, then the man handed him the keys.
“Go safely,” he said. “I’ll look for you back before the fuel runs out.”
“Thanks,” Stone said. He went back to the car and got Dino. “This way,” he said, and led the way back to the airplane.
Dino looked at the little Cessna with concern. “It’s kind of little, isn’t it?”
“A very sturdy aircraft,” Stone said. “More of them produced than any other; think of it as a kind of Volkswagen Beetle of the air.”
“I always hated those little cars,” Dino said.
“Hop in the passenger seat.”
Dino climbed in, and Stone got the seatbelt on him and fitted him with a headset, then walked around the airplane and got into the left seat.
“Where’s the pilot?” Dino asked.
“You’re looking at him.”
“Now, wait a minute, Stone,” he said. “I know you screwed around out at Teterboro for a year, but that doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere with you in the pilot’s seat.” His protests were drowned out when the engine roared to life.
“Don’t worry about it, Dino; I’ll get you home safely.” He ran through the pre-taxi checklist, then called the ground frequency for a taxi clearance. He was told to taxi to Runway 21.
“You’re sure you can do this, Stone? I mean really confident?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ve got something like two hundred hours in this airplane.”
“This same one?”
“Several just like it.” He pulled onto the runup pad at the end of the runway, revved up to 3,000 rpms, checked the magnetos, the oil pressure, and the temperatures, then called the tower. “Ready for takeoff on Twenty-one, VFR departure to the west.”
“Cleared for takeoff,” the tower controller replied.
Stone taxied onto the runway, eased the throttle all the way forward, and released the brakes. They were off the ground in less than a thousand feet.
“Where are we?” Dino asked.
“Open your eyes, and you’ll see,” Stone replied.
They were crossing the beach now, and they could see the dim outline of Santa Catalina Island in the smoggy distance.
“That’s where we’re going,” Stone said. He leveled off at a thousand feet. “Watch for other airplanes; we don’t want a collision.”
“A collision?” Dino cried.
“Help me avoid one, okay?” He consulted the chart to stay well out of the Class B airspace surrounding LAX. “Down there is Marina Del Rey, where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately.” He dipped a wing so that Dino could see out the left side of the airplane.
“Don’t do that,” Dino said through gritted teeth.
Stone pointed out another light airplane off the coast and made a course adjustment to avoid it. “That’s what I was talking about,” he said. “Watch for more.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dino replied.
They flew along for ten minutes without speaking while Catalina grew larger in the windshield. Stone pointed again and put the nose of the airplane down. “Look at that,” he said.
“The big boat?”
“Let’s get a closer look.” He descended to five hundred feet and flew past the yacht on a parallel course.
“Her name is Contessa,” Dino said.
“That’s the one we’re looking for; she’s on her way back from Marina Del Rey to her mooring off Catalina.” The yacht was slowing now as she approached the anchorage, and Stone circled. “See all those little things floating in the water? Those are empty moorings. They’ll be full this weekend, so tonight is a better time for us to go.” The yacht slowed, and a man in a small boat drove up to her mooring and tossed a rope onto her decks, where it was received by another crew member.
“Two aboard,” Stone said. “One at the helm.” As they watched, the man in the small boat turned toward the harbor and went away. “The skipper told me he could run her with a mate when the owner isn’t aboard.”
“Well, it’s a very nice boat,” Dino said. “Can we go back to land now?”
“Look at the anchorage; I want you to have a good idea of where we’re going when we come back here.”
“Yeah, yeah, I see it, now let’s get back to land, okay?”
“There’s a life jacket in the back seat, in case we have to put down in the water.”
“Just shut up and get me back to land,” Dino said.
“All right, we’re done. Aren’t you enjoying the flight?” They hit a patch of bumpy air, and Dino clung to his seat.
“Not much,” he said. “Get me out of here.”
Stone turned back toward Santa Monica and tuned in the recorded weather information. When they were ten miles out, he called the tower. “I’m a 172 approaching from Catalina for landing; I have information bravo.”
The tower came back. “Enter a left downwind for Twenty-one; you’re number three for landing after a 182 and a Citation.”
Stone entered the traffic pattern as the other Cessna landed. “I have the Citation,” he said to the tower.
“Keep the Citation in sight, cleared for landing.”
“Jesus, will you look at this city,” Dino said, at last seeming to appreciate the view.
“Yeah. There’s LAX, where you landed, right over there; the tall buildings are downtown L.A., and over there on that hill you can see oil wells.”
“They have oil wells in a city?”
“I think the oil wells were there first,” Stone said, “and nobody’s going to shut them down until they’re dry.” He turned at right angles to the runway, then turned onto final approach.
Dino was finally taking an interest in the flight. “You found the airport,” he said.
“It’s easy, when you’ve got all these instruments.”
“And there’s the runway right in front of us.”
“Where it’s supposed to be.”
“Look at all the cars; they look like hamsters.”
They flew across the road at the edge of the airport, and Stone set the airplane down lightly and taxied off the runway. A moment later they were stopped in front of the hangar, and he shut down the engine.
“Hey, that was fun!” Dino said. “Let’s do it again sometime.”
Stone burst out laughing. “Come on, let’s call Rick and see about that boat.”
50
Late in the afternoon, Stone took Dino shopping. They went to the chandlery at Marina Del Rey and bought two sets of sailing waterproofs in dark blue, a large roll of duct tape, two heavy, rubber-encased flashlights, and a set of socket wrenches. Stone also bought a large-scale chart of the area, laminated in plastic.
“What’s all this stuff for?” Dino asked.
“It will be easier to show you than to tell you,” Stone said.
They arrived at Rick Grant’s house at eight. Rick got them a drink, then led them into the back yard, where Barbara Tierney was grilling steaks.
“She can cook?” Stone asked.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Rick said. “I’m gaining weight since she got here.”
Dino went over and introduced himself to the beautiful wom
an, then they all sat down at the table.
Rick handed Stone a set of keys and gave him a berth number at the Long Beach marina. “It belongs to my ex-brother-in-law,” he said. “It’s a big Boston Whaler with two one-hundred-horsepower outboard engines and a lot of gear.”
“Sounds ideal,” Stone said.
“He wants five hundred for the night.”
Fair enough. Stone peeled off the money.
“I don’t want to know the details, either before or after,” Rick said.
“We will preserve you in your ignorance,” Stone laughed. “Before and after.”
“What, exactly, have you got in mind, Stone?” Dino asked.
“Didn’t you just hear Rick say he doesn’t want to know?”
“Yeah, but…”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Barbara set plates of spinach salad on the table, and the three men began to eat.
“Let’s talk about general strategy,” Rick said. “What’s your plan?”
“Beyond tonight, I don’t have much of a plan,” Stone said. “I’m just trying to shake them up, to let them know that they’re not entirely in charge, cost them some money. If I can do that, then maybe they’ll start to make mistakes that we can capitalize on.”
“Won’t they think Calder is behind this?”
“He knows nothing, and he’s a very fine actor, remember? He’ll convince them of his ignorance.”
“What if they hurt the girl?”
“They don’t have any way to relate what I’m doing to Arrington. They’re just having a run of very bad luck, and the only thing they can assign to it is what Dino said to Sturmack on the phone.”
“What did you say, Dino?”
“I said that Stone was getting them from the grave,” Dino grinned.
Rick laughed a lot. “Well, you’re right, they’re certainly having a run of bad luck. They’ve had an expensive motorboat sunk, two of them have been arrested—what next? They must be wondering.”
“I’m not going to keep them in suspense,” Stone said.
Stone and Dino arrived at the Long Beach marina after midnight and found their rented boat. It was painted black, for which Stone was grateful, and it looked very fast indeed. They tossed their gear on board, then Stone handed Dino the duct tape. “Tape over the name of the boat wherever it’s painted on and also the Coast Guard numbers. We don’t want any trouble for Rick’s ex-brother-in-law later.”
Dino went to work while Stone got familiar with the boat and its equipment. He was delighted to find a Garmin GPS unit, which had a color screen that displayed all the land masses and buoys in the area. That would make navigating at night a lot easier. He switched on the VHF radio and tuned it to Channel 16; if the Coast Guard were patrolling the area, he wanted to hear them before they saw him.
He dug out a pair of life jackets from a locker and handed one to Dino. “Better put this on.”
“I spent a lot of time on Sheepshead Bay with my old man in his boat,” Dino said. “I’m a lot more comfortable in boats than in airplanes; I don’t need that.”
“Dino, we’re going to be traveling fast at night; if we hit something and capsize, we need the jackets. Put it on.”
Dino reluctantly got into the life jacket and adjusted it. “Happy now?”
“Not yet, but I’m planning to get a lot happier.” Stone double-checked everything, then started the engines. Dino let go their lines and, keeping the big engines at idle, Stone maneuvered out of the marina. A few minutes later they were on their way at thirty knots. “Keep a sharp lookout,” Stone said. “There are fishing boats out here this time of night towing nets and trawls. We want to give them a wide berth.”
“Right.” Dino said.
It was a lovely night, with many stars, clear of the usual smog. They were making a lot of wind with their speed, and Stone was glad to have the warmth of his weatherproof suit. Catalina loomed ahead.
Contessa turned out be easy to find. She was the biggest thing in the anchorage by far, and she was wearing a bright anchor light; her bow and stem lights were on, too. Stone throttled back while they were still three hundred yards out and made his way among the moored yachts and empty moorings. Not many people would be sleeping aboard the small boats during the week, and Stone was glad for that. As they approached Contessa, she seemed to get bigger and bigger.
“Jesus,” Dino said, “that’s some piece of work, that boat. How much you think it cost to build it?”
“I don’t know—eight, ten million dollars, I would guess. Depends on when she was built. These days, she’d cost a lot more.”
“Okay, you think you can tell me what your plan is now?”
“First I’m going to have to get the crew off.”
“How many?”
“Two, I think.”
“And what the fuck are we going to do with them?”
They were at the stern boarding ladder of the big yacht now, and Stone pointed up to the deck. “There’s a rubber dinghy up there; I saw it from the air. I’ll toss it down to you. We’ll put them in that and set them adrift; somebody will pick them up after daylight.”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
They cut the engines and tied the Whaler to a teak swimming platform on the stern. Stone stuffed the duct tape and the socket wrench kit into his jacket’s large pockets, climbed up the boarding ladder, and stuck his head above deck; there was no one in sight, but operatic music wafted from somewhere. The rubber dinghy was gone. Stone looked around for another tender, but all he saw were two large speedboats, slung in davits. Maybe somebody had gone ashore; he hoped so.
With his flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other, Stone started forward toward the bridge. Along the way he looked into every port and window, watching for anyone stirring on the yacht, but he saw no one.
He climbed the stairs to the bridge and peeked in. There was one deckhead light on, and a radio was playing, but no one was in sight. Very slowly, he opened the door and stepped onto the bridge, the pistol out in front of him. There was no sound but the radio.
He carefully opened two doors on the bridge; one led to a stairway below, the other was, apparently, the captain’s cabin. A lamp was on, and the bed was mussed, but not unmade. He poked into the captain’s toilet, and that was empty as well. Surely the crew wouldn’t leave the big yacht entirely untended?
It seemed preposterous, but perhaps there really was no one aboard. He opened the door to the stairway and started slowly down, listening at every step.
51
0ne flight down, Stone looked into the large saloon and dining room, then into the galley. A light was on in there, and an open jar of mayonnaise with a knife stuck in it sat on a countertop. Looked as though someone had made a sandwich earlier.
Stone went back to the stairs and descended another flight. He could no longer hear the music now; there was only an unearthly silence. Surely the ship’s generators would be running. He bent down and placed a hand on the deck, feeling for vibration. Nothing. The ship must be on battery power. He walked down a hallway, still keeping quiet, and looked into every cabin, switching on a light in each. No one. Good.
Having searched the deck, he walked down another flight of stairs, where he found a door on either side of him. A sign on the one to his right read CREW QUARTERS. A sign on the other door read GUEST QUARTERS. The crew must be asleep instead of on watch, he thought.
He put the flashlight in his jacket pocket, set down the bag he was carrying, removed the roll of duct tape, opened the door to the crew’s quarters, and listened. Silence. Leaving the bag in the hallway, he checked every cabin and found no one. Bad crew, he thought, ashore drinking when there was an intruder on the yacht in their charge. He went through the other door and checked the guest cabins on that deck, finding them all empty.
Finally, he descended to the lowest deck and went into the engine room, switching on the lights. There were no ports in here, so no one could see the light from shore.
Now he had his work to do. He set down the bag, took out the socket wrench kit, and went to the nearest seacock. The valve was joined to the cooling water pipe by two flanges—one on the seacock and one on the pipe. He closed the seacock, selected the proper socket, and went to work on the six bolts holding the two flanges together. When he was done the two flanges remained stuck together with some sort of sealant, and he couldn’t pull them apart by hand. He’d come back to that.
He went to the seacock for the other engine and repeated the process, then turned to the big ones—the seaboxes. The two six-inch pipes rose vertically from the steel-plated deck, each capped by a steel plate that sealed the top of the pipe. Smaller pipes branched off the sides of the larger one, each with its own seacock. He closed all the valves, found the right socket, and removed the eight bolts securing the sealing plate to the top of the pipe. Water began to leak through the seal, but the plate remained in place. He left it there while he performed the same operation on the other seabox.
“Now,” he said aloud, “I’ve got to find something that will dislodge the sealant on each pipe, and I’m in business.” He looked around and saw a workbench nearby; he walked over to it, opened a closet adjacent to the bench, and found a selection of large tools. He chose a small sledgehammer with a three-foot handle.
He went to the first engine cooling pipe and fetched it several blows with the hammer. Gradually the sealant let go; then he repeated the action with the other engine’s pipe. He dropped the sledgehammer on the deck near the door, then went back to the workbench, found a chisel and a hammer, and went to work on the sealing plate of the starboard seabox. After his first blow, water began to squirt under high pressure; he hit it twice more. The plate flew off, and a six-inch column of water rose from the pipe, striking the deckhead. The noise, echoing off the steel plates, was deafening.
Working quickly now, he chiseled off the plate on the port seabox and another column of water exploded from the pipe. Finally, he opened the seacocks for the port and starboard engines, and he had two more three-inch blasts of water pouring into the engine room.
He stepped back to the door and admired his handiwork. All told, he had the equivalent of a sixteen-inch column of water flowing, under great pressure, from the Pacific Ocean into the big yacht.