The telephone rang. I ignored it. I went into my cabin and stripped off my fatigues. They were damaged beyond repair, burnt through at the knees and elbows. The plastic tips of my bootlaces were melted. I put the Ruger away in the gun locker and loaded a more appropriate firearm.
I stared at my face in the mirror. A stranger with a red, boiled face and no eyebrows stared back at me. I pushed a finger into my cheek. The spot I touched remained white for a full thirty seconds before it slowly faded. First- and second-degree burns, nothing worse than a bad sunburn. Not as bad as it could have been. Other images floated to the surface of my consciousness, memories of napalm victims. For years after Vietnam I had been unable to eat barbecued ribs.
The telephone rang again. I let it ring six times. Whoever it was was persistent.
I changed into shorts and a sleeveless gray sweatshirt. My pain was constant now, but it was merely background. My face felt raw and hot. Pain radiated down my right leg from my buttock where I’d been shot. The jellyfish welts felt as bad as they looked. But I was alive and I had a mission. I was running on adrenaline and hope.
The telephone rang again. It was still ringing when I went topside to disconnect the utility connections and to prepare to cast off.
Somewhere out there was a small boat carrying Thompson and Kate and the rest of Thompson’s men. I had to make the effort to find them. Their twenty-minute head start had grown to an hour, expanding the possible radius of where they might be. There was little chance of finding them. It was a big ocean and, like Thompson’s boat, Duchess was small and slow. The only way to look for them efficiently would be in a small aircraft. Even then it would be chancy, especially at night. But I didn’t have access to an airplane. All I had was Duchess.
Someone came down the dock toward my boat. Only one man. From the cadence of his step I could tell that it was an athletic male wearing tennis shoes.
“Permission to come aboard?”
It was Max. He was carrying a small day pack and dressed in his tourist outfit. He looked ready to play volleyball on the beach, although I knew he must have spent at least six of the past hours on an airplane.
“Come aboard,” I said. I wedged the four-barreled .357 magnum derringer back into my hip pocket while he climbed the side of the boat and lightly touched down in the cockpit. He made no noise and Duchess shifted only slightly as she adjusted for his weight. “Thought you couldn’t make it out here.”
“Thought you could use some help.”
“I’m damned glad to see you,” I said. I worked mechanically, stowing lines and cables. As much as I appreciated it, Max’s arrival was not going to interrupt my preparations for departure.
“My people told me it got hairy out there tonight,” he said.
“I didn’t see anybody,” I said.
“They saw you. Said you took on four or five guys armed with automatic weapons and you only had an old six-shooter hand cannon. Said you were okay for an old fart.”
“Thompson’s got a hostage,” I said. “A female police detective. God knows what he’s going to do with her.”
“I know.”
“I was just leaving,” I said. “I have places to go.”
“I tried calling you.”
When I made no reply he went on. “You know you need permission from the harbor master to leave Pearl at night.”
“I’ve already got the FBI, the Honolulu Police Department and the state of Hawaii mad at me. I might as well piss off the navy, too.”
“Heard you started a hell of a house fire.”
“Listen, partner, I’ve got to try to find a sailboat that left Haleiwa an hour ago. I don’t know where he went, or in which direction, but I’ve got some ideas. I’ve got one shot at it and I want to make it my best one.”
Max reached into the cargo pocket of his day pack and took out a small black plastic box. “This will help.” He laid it on the cushion next to the transom and turned a switch. Red LED numbers lit up a small screen.
“What’s that?”
“Radio direction finder. Works on a special frequency. Had people following you. They were under strict orders not to interfere, regardless of what happened. If you were killed they were to return to base and not to speak of anything they saw. When you were not killed they followed the man you are interested in to the boat harbor in Haleiwa. Before the boat left they managed to attach a transmitter to the hull. We’ve been tracking it ever since.”
“And?”
“We can’t pick up the signal here because it’s line-of-sight and the mountains interfere, but the last bearing we had was off the western coast of Oahu. Heading south.”
“Right toward me.” I swiveled my head toward the Waianae Mountains. Only the lights of Makakilo sprawled along their eastern flanks made them visible. Otherwise they were a blackness against a greater dark. Somewhere beyond their peaks were Thompson and Kate. I pictured a map with a small sailboat moving toward Barber’s Point.
“You can catch them.”
“How many people on board?”
“Two men and the hostage. The two men had the others carry the gear aboard the sailboat and then they forced them into a van at gunpoint. They were shot inside the van. My people think they used silenced weapons because they didn’t hear any gunshots.”
That didn’t square with what the local fishermen told me, but they were more intent upon what they thought were the antics of a haole domestic dispute. The activity would have suggested that all the people got aboard when they left the harbor, and if the fishermen had not heard the shots they would conclude that everyone they saw was on the boat.
“And they didn’t stop them?”
“They didn’t have orders to do that. And they figured you wouldn’t mind if there were a few less.”
“Why would he shoot his own people?”
Max shook his head. “Lower his overhead. He’s on the run. Why take more than you need?”
I pondered that. Max had a point. It would be typical of Thompson. He wouldn’t think twice about eliminating anyone who was of no further use. And this man was holding Kate as a hostage.
Max pulled a navigational chart from his pocket. “I don’t think he’s headed for another island. If he were, he’d run east to Makapu’u Point and then take the Molokai Express south from there. I think he’s trying to rendezvous with a ship south of Oahu. There’s plenty of ships out there tonight. Most are trying like hell to reach Honolulu before the hurricane hits.”
“Hurricane?”
“Headed north-northwest, last I heard. It’s about four hundred miles south of the Big Island. It’s supposed to be off Hilo by tomorrow, but it’s jinxed all over the Pacific. Nobody can tell where that thing’s going to end up.”
“And the sailboat’s last bearing was due south?”
Max smiled. It was a grim smile, more suitable to an undertaker. “Right toward it. If they keep that up they’ll either run into the hurricane or they’ll find their ship.”
“If that happens …” I didn’t know what else to say. If that happened, then Kate was lost, and so was any chance of retrieving the remaining tapes. Thompson would have all that remained of his tape library aboard that sailboat. Because of Kate my priorities were changing, but destroying the tapes was still high on the list.
“Wait one.” I went below and retrieved my cash from the bulkhead. If I went down I didn’t want this going with me. I looked at the stacks of currency, aside from Duchess the only wealth in the world I possessed. For the first time I was splitting my resources. I put it in a white plastic trash bag and went topside and handed it to Max. “This is yours if I don’t come back.”
Max didn’t even look inside the bag but I could tell he knew what it was. “It’ll be safe.”
“Throw a party if you don’t see me again. A small party. Save the rest for your retirement.”
“Here.” Max handed me another black box, somewhat smaller than the other and without a screen.
“What
’s that?”
“Another transmitter. Don’t want to lose you, too.”
I nodded and put the little bug in the pocket of my shorts. “Help me with the dock lines, will you?”
“Sure.”
“And see if you can put in a good word with the harbor master for me.”
“That’s already been arranged by someone with a little more juice than I’ve got.”
“The admiral’s here?”
Max smiled. “I didn’t say that,” he said, unlooping the last of the dock lines. When the engine started he gave Duchess a shove and I was away.
“Be sure to deep-six that thing when you’ve found what you’re looking for!” he called, meaning the direction finder. “We don’t want any comebacks if it all goes wrong!”
I waved to him as Duchess headed toward the channel. He remained there, a lone figure on the end of the dock, until I passed the Arizona memorial and I couldn’t see him any longer and he blended with the lines and shadows of the little marina that was my home.
33
I navigated Pearl Harbor’s narrow entrance channel, squeezing to get as much clearance as possible between Duchess and an attack submarine on its way home. A few years back I’d spent some time as cargo aboard a nuclear submarine. It took my team from point A to point B, never mind when and never mind where. I found it too small for my liking and the view terrible. Join the navy and see the bulkhead. I saluted the colors as the two boats passed. An officer on the sail returned my salute smartly, probably annoyed by the civilian sailboat coming so close to his precious sub. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but you don’t see many sailboats leaving Pearl Harbor at night, either.
Once out of the channel I adjusted Duchess’s engine to give me the maximum speed for the stormy conditions. She was a sailboat, but tonight she would be nothing but a motor vessel. The sails would stay down. The seas were mountainous, topped with whitecaps, and we spent as much time ascending the rollers and descending into the valleys of the big swells as we did making forward speed. I found we could not make over six knots.
The ride was a tough one, but not impossible. If the hurricane moved north before this was done it would then be impossible. Right now Oahu was protected from the full force of the storm by distance and the landmass of Hawaii. Once the hurricane cleared the Big Island, the full effect of a Pacific hurricane would be felt locally. If it weren’t for Kate I’d have abandoned Thompson to his fate. I didn’t know what kind of a sailor he was, but his boat was so small he’d have to be a better man than I to challenge these elements. A better man, or a more desperate one.
I set my course for Barber’s Point Naval Air Station. There were beacons and a coast guard station on the beach at Barber’s Point. That way Duchess could hug the coastline and we could stay clear of the shipping lanes. And the course had the advantage of being the shortest distance between the two points.
When I got a free moment I checked the radio direction finder. The little LED screen was blank. I hoped that meant only that Thompson’s boat was still on the far side of the Waianae Mountains, whose southern slopes terminated only a mile or so from Barber’s Point. If I continued heading west I figured to be nearly on top of Thompson when he cleared the headlands. That was the plan anyway, tenaciously retained because it was the only one I had.
There was no moon. Thick clouds obscured the sky from horizon to horizon. The lights of Oahu on my starboard were the only illumination, stretching in an unbroken line from Honolulu all the way to Barber’s Point. Far out in the shipping lanes I could see running lights of merchant vessels. They all seemed to be trying to reach safe harbor while they could. Aside from the roller coaster effect of the giant swells, it was easy. The hard part, I knew, would come later.
Duchess rolled and tossed for two hours without interruption, continuously rising and sliding through the black water, making slow, steady progress. It didn’t take much skill to maintain my current course but it took a monumental effort to sit still at the wheel and wonder what was happening to Kate. Thompson’s boat was heading directly into the wind and the swells; that should keep him busy. I didn’t want to think what he could be doing to her if he got bored.
In two hours Duchess was off the beach near the naval air station. Dawn was less than an hour away, but there was no hint of light as yet. The radio direction finder showed no reading. There was no sign of Thompson’s boat. I continued west, hoping that once I cleared the headlands there would be something to guide me, and hoping Thompson hadn’t sunk or met a freighter somewhere along the Waianae coast.
One of the hurricane’s outer bands announced its presence with a sudden solid downpour accompanied by vicious shifting winds that shot the rain horizontally across the deck. I was instantly soaked to the skin and the rain cut the visibility to less than twenty-five yards. Duchess’s freeboard caught enough of the wind to heel her over toward starboard and push her bow around toward shore, where the backs of huge white breakers would break her hull as if it were eggshell. I fought the wheel, bringing her back on course.
The direction finder started beeping.
I glanced at the little screen, checked the compass mounted on the cabin’s bulkhead, and then checked the screen again. If I believed the little gizmo Max provided, Thompson was dead ahead, somewhere in the gloom along my own course of travel. If he was moving, the LED would display a change in course. The rain continued, a silver curtain blown by the warm, humid winds of a tropical hurricane. The direction finder did not indicate how far off the transmitter was, that would take triangulation, but knowing which direction to go, just possessing the knowledge that the boat still existed was enough for me just then. That gave me enough to continue.
I checked the marine weather forecast. The hurricane watch had been discontinued and a hurricane warning was now in effect. All vessels, not just small craft, were advised to avoid the area and head to the nearest port. The storm was now classified category four, one of the most powerful, and in the last hour, after taking a short tour of an empty corner of the Pacific Ocean, it had begun moving toward the west coast of the island of Hawaii. The eye was still three hundred miles south of Oahu, but its effects were now being felt along the Waianae and the southern coasts of the island. Maui and its neighbors were being thrashed by rain and high winds. And the hurricane wasn’t even in the neighborhood yet.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it began, leaving a hot, humid atmosphere and an oppressive ambiance behind. Dawn broke at my back, a dirty, gray light diffused with residual moisture. Warm breezes blew from my port side, providing no relief from the humidity. Visibility improved to half a mile but I could only see that far in the brief moment when Duchess crested a roller. The rest of the time she was sliding down the back of one wave or climbing the next, bucking and shuddering, her rigging groaning with the strain.
Once a rogue wave came in perpendicular to the wave track and I barely had time to turn her bow to quarter the monster before Duchess buried her nose in green water. I held on to the wheel with a death grip as she submarined through the peak of the wave and leapt free on the other side. The vortex swept away the cushions and all the other loose gear in the cockpit.
The radio direction finder went with the rest of the jetsam. Without that electronic eye, I was blind. I had no choice but to continue the same course, and assume it was correct. Just in case there were other rogues like that I tied myself to the wheel.
At the crest of a wave, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught something off my starboard side. Before the brain could register the event, Duchess was tobogganing down the back of the wave and I was bracing for the impact and the climb up the slope of the next. I looked for whatever had caught my eye the next time and saw nothing. It took three more roller coaster rides before I caught sight of a sailboat, shredded sails flying horizontally with the direction of the wind. Guides and sheets were flaying about and the mast looked cocked at an odd angle. The boat looked to be some two hundred yards away, just o
ff my starboard quarter. I would not have seen it at all except for the coincidental cresting of both boats at the same instant. Had I not been looking in that exact direction at that exact moment it would have been missed.
I calculated an intercept and adjusted course. I wanted to come from behind. Heading into these monstrous waves would cause all of Thompson’s attention to be directed forward. Given the dangers at his twelve o’clock, I hoped he wouldn’t pay any attention to his six.
The sailboat was gone the next time Duchess crested, and also on the next two waves, but the fourth one gave me an unobstructed view of the little craft.
It was closer now, some seventy-five yards distant, and more detail was visible. As the stern disappeared over the side of its wave I saw that it was trailed by a track of cavitated water, evidence that the boat’s engine was running. I also caught sight of a lone figure in the cockpit, although it was too far away to tell who it was.
The next time the boat came into view it was only twenty yards away. There was no doubt it was Thompson. In that brief glimpse his profile was unmistakable. No one else was visible. His sailboat was damaged, and it wallowed as it passed over the waves. I understood why Duchess had closed the gap so quickly. Thompson’s boat appeared to be partially filled with water. There was little freeboard below the gunwales. It was barely making headway. Another rogue wave would sink it. Another hour of this would have the same effect.
A blast of rain swept across the ocean, blanking out visibility beyond ten yards. Thompson’s boat disappeared behind a beaded curtain. Duchess had given me more than I could have expected, but now I asked for more. I gunned her engine and she shot forward, shuddering and popping from the strain, giving it all she had. Once, twice we rode up and over a rolling black mountain of moving water. The third time Duchess came crashing down behind Thompson’s sailboat in a course so close her wake lifted the smaller craft and shoved it aside.
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