Seize the Storm

by Michael Cadnum

  He said, “Whatever you want.”

  And then Jeremy had the first stirrings of a new sensation.

  A feeling of power.

  ATHENA’S SECRET WAS UNDER sail for the first time in many days, under a medium-sized working jib, the canvas lovely and full, catching the first hint of trade wind from the east in the ruddy light.

  The sun was setting, bursts of cloud blazing on the horizon. Witch Grass was abandoned again, observed at an increasing distance by the crew of Athena’s Secret.

  Martin was at the helm, weary but happy. More than happy—he felt released from all that had happened. Susannah was with Martin on deck, and Laser was there, too.

  “Brave dog,” Susannah was saying to the German shepherd, a low approving phrase she repeated.

  Martin watched as the aircraft took off from the surface of the sea and swept upward and then turned back. The plane flew in a ragged circle over the yacht, a wide, slightly unsteady circuit, and then it headed west, into the rising darkness.

  Axel was asleep in his bunk, stupefied by scotch and codeine. He had wailed aloud that they would never see such a fortune again, until the liquor and pain pills shut him up.

  Now, Martin could detect a soft murmur, Leonard’s voice, and then Claudette’s, sounding relieved and eager to recount what had happened, turning naked event into another of Leonard’s personal legends. For Leonard, money seized and money lost was nothing compared with escaping with their lives—and having a good story to tell.

  Susannah was singing.

  Martin had never heard her sing at all, and now she kept her voice low, confiding her lyrics to the dog. But then she was not keeping her song so quiet, and the song was right there for him.

  Athena’s Secret was alive under their feet, the strakes and beams communicating the texture of the ocean, through the deck, into Martin’s body. The canvas strained the rigging, and the wind gently pulled the mast. The keel cut a space where the water had vanished, a space that the vessel sailed across as they soared.

  By Michael Cadnum

  Seize the Storm

  Flash

  Peril on the Sea

  The King’s Arrow

  Can’t Catch Me: And Other Twice-Told Tales

  Nightsong: The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice

  The Dragon Throne

  Starfall: Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun

  Blood Gold

  Ship of Fire

  Daughter of the Wind

  The Leopard Sword

  Forbidden Forest: The Story of Little John and Robin Hood

  Raven of the Waves

  Redhanded

  The Book of the Lion

  Rundown

  Heat

  In a Dark Wood

  Edge

  The Lost and Found House

  Zero at the Bone

  The Judas Glass

  Taking It

  Skyscape

  The Cities We Will Never See

  The Horses of the Night

  Ghostwright

  Breaking the Fall

  Saint Peter’s Wolf

  By Evening

  Sleepwalker

  Calling Home

  Nightlight

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

  Text copyright © 2012 by Michael Cadnum

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2012

  eBook edition, September 2012

  macteenbooks.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Cadnum, Michael.

  Seize the storm / Michael Cadnum. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: On a pleasure cruise in the Pacific, seventeen-year-old Susannah, her parents, seventeen-year-old cousin Martin, and eighteen-year-old crew member Axel face off against seventeen-year-old Jeremy, a drug lord’s son, and hired killers Elwood and fifteen-year-old Shako.

  ISBN 978-0-374-36705-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-5488-4 (e-book)

  [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Boats and boating—Fiction. 3. Criminals—Fiction. 4. Dogs—Fiction. 5. Pacific Ocean—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C11724Sie 2012

  [Fic]—dc22

  2011020865

  eISBN 9781429954884