Dead in the Water

by Robin Stevenson

  Inside the cabin, I could hear muffled voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I wiped my sweaty palms against my pants. They were taking too long in there. And the longer they took, the more nervous I got. I’d figured that Patrick would get dressed, Olivia and I would get a lecture on minding our own business, and then we’d go back to Jeopardy. But now I was starting to think that maybe that wasn’t what was going to happen at all. I looked at Olivia and wished we could talk for a minute, privately.

  I started to do some math, which was something I usually avoided. It didn’t make me feel any better. If Victor and Keith were really selling the abalone at forty or fifty dollars a pound, we were talking about some serious money. They were not going to be happy if Patrick told them what we had discovered. I looked at Keith, sitting silently across the cockpit in a white T-shirt and track pants, and I couldn’t help noticing the thick muscles bunching in his shoulders and neck. I swallowed nervously. He didn’t look like the kind of guy you wanted mad at you.

  Finally the door opened, and Patrick came out with Victor right behind him.

  Victor was tall and skinny, middle-aged, with fair hair buzzed short behind a receding hairline. He wasn’t as obviously muscular as Keith, but there was something about his face—a hardness around his thin mouth, a deadness in his small deep-set eyes—that made me shiver. “Well, it looks like we’ve got a bit of a problem here,” he said softly. He shook his head and looked from me to Olivia and then back to me again.

  “Look, it’s no problem,” I said, thinking quickly. “We’re sorry we disturbed you and all that. We just wanted to get off our boat and explore a little, you know?” I nudged Olivia, hoping she’d clue in. “We don’t really care what you guys are doing. It’s none of our business.”

  “Since when are you two minding your own business?” Patrick asked. He sounded resigned. “I think we all know you came over here to snoop.”

  Shut up, Patrick, shut up. I tried to think fast, to make up some story about what we were doing, but I didn’t know how much Patrick had already told them. He looked just like he always did—the crooked smile, the blue eyes, the easy relaxed posture. But he was standing over us, and beside him Victor was clenching and unclenching his fists.

  I backtracked and spoke directly to Victor and Keith. “Okay, I admit that. We were curious about your boat and what you were diving for. Like I said, I’m sorry. We had no right to be snooping around, and we’ll stay away now.”

  “Bit late for that,” Victor said. His voice was a harsh whisper. He looked at Keith. “Patrick says they saw the abalone.”

  My heart was banging away like crazy, and my hands were cold and sweaty. Victor looked like the kind of guy who might decide that smacking us around a bit might teach us a lesson. I tried to look relaxed, which took some pretty impressive acting. I leaned back and opened my arms wide. “Look, guys, I’m really sorry. But like I said, it’s none of our business what you’re doing here.”

  Olivia looked at me like I was nuts. “It’s absolutely our business. It’s everyone’s business.” She looked at Victor and at Keith. “Abalone is a threatened species. The reason you’re not allowed to catch it is because the numbers have declined dramatically since people started diving for them and harvesting them to sell.” She leaned toward them, eyes wide. “There is a real chance of northern aba-lone becoming an endangered species. Surely you don’t want to contribute to that?”

  I closed my eyes, groaning inwardly. She sounded as passionate as a TV evangelist trying to persuade her audience to see the light. Only this audience wasn’t likely to be converted.

  Victor started to laugh, and my eyes flew open again at the sound. It was the creepiest laugh I’d ever heard: soft, harsh and utterly chilling. Even under the bright deck light, his pupils were huge, and I wondered if he was on drugs. “You’re going to report us as soon as you get back to Hardy, aren’t you?” he said.

  I jabbed my elbow into Olivia’s ribs and hoped she’d take the hint. “Of course not,” I said. “It’s none of our business.”

  “Right. That’s why you were snooping around our boat.”

  I shrugged, feeling helpless. “We won’t report you.”

  “Do you know what would happen if we got caught?” he asked.

  I shook my head, trying to remember what Patrick had said. “Not really. A fine, right?”

  Keith answered, “A huge fine, on top of the money we’d be losing by not selling what we’ve got onboard. We’ve got a full freezer of shucked meat, plus a couple hundred pounds of live abalone, and we’ve got buyers waiting for all of it.” He grinned. “Got a wholesale seafood company in Vancouver that’ll take as much frozen abalone as we can get.”

  “But that’s the least of it,” Victor cut in. “We could get jail time. For sure, they’d confiscate our boats and our dive gear. That’s a couple hundred thousand bucks right there.”

  I swallowed hard. I’d had no idea the stakes were so high. No wonder Patrick had tried to keep us away. “I promise,” I said. “I give you my word we won’t tell.” Olivia, please don’t say anything, I thought. She was a smart girl, but her timing sure sucked sometimes.

  “Your word,” Victor said, laughing. “What do you think, Patrick? Can we trust his word?”

  Patrick shifted from one foot to the other. His blue eyes met mine for a second and then flickered away. My heart sank. If Patrick wasn’t going to stick up for us, we were screwed.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “But even if they do report this, they’ve got no proof. You could dump the abalone and be long gone by the time anyone showed up.”

  “Ah, but then they’d be watching us like hawks,” Victor said, shaking his head. “We couldn’t make a move without the Fisheries guys being all over us. If your pals here make a report, they’ll be putting us right out of the abalone business.”

  Keith stood up, his broad shoulders and thick neck suddenly looking even more intimidating. The guy probably weighed more than Olivia and me put together. “Can’t risk it,” he said.

  Olivia’s leg was pressed against mine, and I could feel it shaking. Or maybe it was me that was shaking. I had a terrible feeling that I knew where this conversation was headed, but I still couldn’t quite believe it. Stuff like this only happened in the movies. Didn’t it?

  chapter fifteen

  I looked around the cockpit for anything we could use to defend ourselves. On a sailboat, there might have been a heavy winch handle, or even a knife strapped to the compass post. But I couldn’t see anything but a bucket and a few coiled ropes. I glanced back at the three men. Short of having a gun in my hand, I couldn’t even imagine fighting them. I mean, I’m five-foot-six, 120 pounds, and unfortunately I’ve never done any martial arts in my life. I snuck a peek at Olivia, who was even smaller than me. It sure would be nice if she turned out to have a black belt in Karate, but I figured her to be more of the ballet- and piano-lessons type.

  I glanced around again. No guns. Well, on the bright side at least we weren’t about to get shot. Then I saw something. Just a couple of feet to my right, beside the cabin door, was a VHF radio. A small handheld, just lying there, tucked in the corner where someone had forgotten to put it away. If I could just grab it... but there was no way. I’d have to pick it up, turn it on, turn to channel sixteen and then explain our location and situation. All with three, large, angry men within a few feet of me. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.

  Besides, odds were that no one was within range anyway.

  Except Jeopardy. And that gave me an idea. Maybe if we yelled, maybe if we made a whole lot of noise, Blair and Joey would hear us.

  I stood up and yelled as loudly as I could. “Help! Help! We’re on—” An enormous hand whacked me across the face, knocking my glasses off, smashing into my nose and mashing my lip against my teeth. Pain exploded in a flash of red and black, driving all thoughts from my mind for a few seconds.

  “Don’t do that again,” Victor advised me. H
is voice was flat and cold, but his lips were curled in a tooth-baring snarl.

  Olivia started to cry. “This is all my fault,” she said. “I was the one who wanted to come over here. Simon didn’t care what you guys are doing. Please just let him go. He won’t tell anyone about the abalone.”

  My mouth was full of blood and I ran my tongue along my teeth, checking to make sure they were all still there. A couple of hundred feet away Jeopardy sat still and silent in the water. No lights turned on. I braced myself and yelled again. “Joey! Blair!”

  Victor grabbed me and shoved me back down on the bench, pressing one hand against my mouth. “Duct tape,” he said, like a surgeon asking for a scalpel. Keith opened a cockpit locker, pulled out a monster-sized roll and started wrapping it around my head, covering my mouth completely.

  I felt like I was suffocating. Can’t breathe, I tried to say, but I couldn’t open my lips, and all that came out was a strangled grunt. Frantic for air, I tried to grab the duct tape and tear it away from my mouth. Keith caught my wrists in his massive hands. He pulled them behind my back roughly and started duct-taping them together. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I desperately needed to open my mouth and gasp for breath. This is it, I thought. I’m going to die.

  They were going to kill us. It sounded crazy, but I was pretty sure I was right. Our lives were worth less to them than the abalone.

  Then I had an idea. A crazy idea—an idea that probably wasn’t going to work—but I didn’t have anything to lose. I let myself be shoved back down to the bench, pretending to lose my balance so that I landed a couple of feet away from Olivia. Closer to the cabin doors. Almost on top of that VHF radio.

  “So, do we need to tape you up like your friend, or can you keep your mouth shut?” Keith asked Olivia.

  “I’ll be quiet,” she whispered.

  Patrick looked at me, and his forehead creased in concern. “Um, I think Simon’s having some trouble breathing.”

  “Doesn’t much matter,” Victor said. “He’s not going to be breathing for much longer anyway.”

  Olivia choked back a sob. I wished I could tell her what I was going to do, but perhaps it was better not to get her hopes up. There was a lot of blood all down my shirt, and I wondered if my nose was broken. I was frantic for air, and for a moment a rising tide of panic almost overwhelmed me.

  Stay calm, I told myself. Stay calm. I concentrated on keeping my breathing slow and even. Then, trying not to let any other part of my body move, I fumbled behind my back with my bound hands. Where was that VHF? I felt around frantically.

  Got it. And there was the Transmit button on the side. I couldn’t say anything, but maybe...just maybe...I wouldn’t have to.

  I had to turn it on without changing the channel. Odds were good that it had been left turned to 16—the hailing and distress channel, the channel most boats monitored...and most importantly, the channel that Jeopardy’s radio was set to. I could feel three small knobs. One had to be the onoff-volume switch. Most likely, I thought, the first one, the one on the left. I hesitated for a second. If I turned the wrong knob— turned the radio away from channel 16—no one would hear us. And if the main radio in the cabin was still turned on, they’d all hear their conversation being broadcast, and they’d know what I was up to right away. And if my finger slipped off the Transmit button, even for a second, Keith, Victor and Patrick would hear the static of the radio, and that would be the end.

  No one was looking at me. Keith nodded at the other two men. “Victor’s right. If they don’t make it back to Port Hardy, they won’t be reporting anything.” He looked at Patrick. “How about if you just go back to your boat? Swim back. In the morning, you can discover the dinghy gone and two of your students missing.”

  Nothing to lose, I reminded myself. My hands were clumsy and my fingers turning numb from the tightness of the duct tape, but I managed to wedge the VHF against the back of the bench. Then, holding down the Transmit button with one finger, I twisted the first knob clockwise.

  Then all I could do was hope.

  chapter sixteen

  “So, I leave and you guys deal with these two. And then what?” Patrick asked, frowning. “I call the Coast Guard in the morning? Report them missing? Organize a search?”

  “Yeah. But it’ll be too late,” Victor said. “They’ll stay missing. And we’ll be long gone.”

  Olivia stared at Patrick. “This isn’t really happening. You wouldn’t let them kill us.”

  Patrick couldn’t meet her eyes. “Look,” he said. He hesitated, clearing his throat. “Look, you guys got yourselves into this situation. I did my best to keep you away, didn’t I? I warned you not to interfere.”

  I tried to catch Olivia’s eyes. She looked at me, her eyes shiny with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I shook my head, trying to tell her it wasn’t her fault. Play for time, I thought, wishing she could read my mind. Keep them talking.

  She seemed to have the same idea. “Patrick...you don’t really want to do this, do you? I mean, you’re not a killer.”

  “Patrick is a lot smarter than you. He knows when to butt out.” Victor laughed. “Besides, we keep him supplied with more than abalone.”

  Drugs, I thought. I’d been right about Victor being high. I’d bet if we had a chance to look around the boat a bit more, we’d find some bags of white powder hidden away. If these guys were dealing drugs too, they had one more reason to avoid being caught.

  I desperately needed to breathe. I was starting to feel dizzy and sitting here, half-suffocating, was unbearable. I tried not to move but I couldn’t help it. I jerked forward, and my hands slipped off the VHF.

  There was a loud burst of static, and everyone froze for a second. Keith lunged forward and threw me off the bench onto the cockpit floor. I lay there, unable to move, unable to breathe, staring up at Olivia and hoping she could tell somehow that I was in real trouble.

  “What the hell?” Keith hissed. “Did you turn this on? Because it’s not gonna do you much good with your mouth taped shut.”

  “Tie up the girl,” Victor said. “We can just dump them both overboard.”

  Keith pulled Olivia to her feet, yanked her arms behind her back and wrapped them with duct tape. This is it, I thought hopelessly. We were both going to be killed, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was as helpless as the damn abalone.

  “You can’t dump them here,” Patrick pointed out. “There’ll be a search, and if they find them tied up...”

  I couldn’t believe he was talking about it so calmly.

  “He’s right,” Keith said. “It’d be better if it looked like they died of natural causes.” His face lit up. “Or an overdose.”

  Victor nodded, a satisfied smirk curling his lips. “That’s perfect. Everyone will think they just snuck away from the sailboat to get high.” He headed into the cabin.

  Keith followed him, turning to talk to Patrick over his shoulder. “Keep an eye on them. We’ll just get the stuff.”

  My mouth was full of blood and I kept swallowing, terrified that I was going to choke. I wondered if my parents would believe that I’d overdosed. They knew I didn’t use drugs. But maybe they’d just figure I hadn’t been honest with them. It wasn’t like we were all that close. I wished I had a chance to tell them...to tell them...Everything was starting to go black.

  “Look,” Patrick said, “I’m sorry about this. I mean, I never wanted you guys to get hurt but...”

  Then I heard another voice. “Get in the cabin,” it said. I twisted my head around and struggled to see. Without my glasses, everything was a blur, but I could see Patrick standing by the cabin door. “He’s got a gun,” he yelled and dove into the cabin.

  I heard the cabin door slamming shut behind him. A gun? Who? Nothing made sense. Then cold water was dripping all over me, and someone was ripping the duct tape off my mouth. I took a loud heaving gulp of air, and another and another. My chest hurt, but it was the best feeling ev
er.

  “Come on, man,” Joey said. “Get up.” He was standing over me, soaking wet. I’d never in my life been so glad to see anyone.

  “What...what...,” I gasped, trying to stand, my hands still behind my back. I looked around. Blair was standing warily by the cabin door, a gun in his hand. A bright, orange gun. I blinked a couple of times and realized what it was: the flare gun from Jeopardy. Joey handed him a loose padlock from one of the cockpit lockers, and Blair used it to lock the door. On the other side, behind the dark Plexiglas, I could hear the three men shouting and swearing.

  “Jeez...” I tried to think, but nothing quite made sense. I stepped toward Olivia, grinning. “I’ll untie you,” I said. “Umm...” I realized my own hands were still tied.

  “My hero,” Olivia said sarcastically.

  Joey noticed our predicament and came to the rescue, unwrapping the tight layers of sticky duct tape and freeing first my hands and then Olivia’s. I fumbled on the floor, found my glasses and put them on. Everything slid back into focus.

  “What if they manage to climb out a window?” Olivia whispered. “I bet the tall skinny guy could fit.”

  Blair shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll shoot them.”

  “Would that work?” I asked quietly. “I mean, it’s just a flare gun.”

  We all looked at each other. None of us knew the answer. Patrick had yelled, “He’s got a gun!” He would have recognized his own flare gun though. Had he been trying to save us somehow, to give us a chance to get away?

  “Let’s get out of here,” Olivia said.

  “We’d better take their runabout,” I said. “It’ll be faster than the sailboat.”

  Olivia nodded agreement. “I’ll see if the keys are in it.”

  A minute later, she was back, shaking her head. “We’ll have to take Jeopardy.”