As his boat was driven from its route Thompson saw me for the first time, his face registering a satisfying mask of surprise. It must have been a shock. He’d killed me twice and yet here I was, following him to the edge of a hurricane. I was ready to follow him to the edge of hell itself. We rose over the next wave together and Duchess passed him. I didn’t get a chance to savor the moment. Thompson and his sailboat disappeared in our wake.
I cut the engine back to minimal revolutions but inertia continued driving Duchess ahead. My attempt at slowing her caused green water to break over the bow. Without sufficient forward momentum, Duchess became a toy of the ocean. Too much of this and she would be as waterlogged as Thompson’s boat, but if I increased speed I’d never get back to him, or to Kate. They couldn’t last much longer. But neither could Duchess.
I didn’t want to think about the return voyage with huge and erratic following seas. As far as I could tell we’d already reached the point of no return. In the last report I’d heard, the hurricane was moving north at better than thirty knots. In these seas Duchess could not make better than six. That presented a simple logistical problem that would not go away. But it wouldn’t be a problem unless I could get Kate off Thompson’s boat. I’d consider my mission accomplished if I could just leave him and his boat and all it contained out here. The storm would swallow him forever.
The next roller brought us nearly to a stop in the bottom of the trough. A wave crested above us, nearly as high as Duchess‘s mast. She started to slip sideways, a move that would capsize her. I gunned the engine, hoping to bring her bow into the wave. When it broke she was forty-five degrees to the wave’s direction of travel and she capsized. White foaming pressure hit like a wall of concrete falling from the sky, then there was a bottle green light, a painful pressure on the ears and a sense of disorientation, and then the battleship gray skies overhead once again as Duchess’s heavy keel did what it was designed to do. Gravity did not exist in those moments, replaced by a curious fatalism. Duchess would rise or she would not. Whatever happened, we would ride it out together.
When she righted herself I did a quick inventory of the damage. Her masts and rigging had vanished, swept away as neatly as if they’d been transported by a magician. All the rest of my topside gear was gone. Her engine had quit. But we were floating.
I tried starting the engine but it was dead. I grabbed the twoman inflatable life support raft from the cockpit storage locker. It was an improvement on the older life rafts because it had a complete watertight enclosure. It wouldn’t swamp. It also had an automatic strobe light and transmitter with new batteries good for twenty hours of constant use. I didn’t know if it would survive this kind of sea but there wasn’t an alternative. It was all I had. I slipped the safety loop over my left shoulder.
Duchess slid down the retreating side of another wave. Despite the damage she’d suffered, she met the next one head on, bursting through the crown like the thoroughbred she was. I looked back for Thompson’s boat and found to my horror that he was coming on, less than five yards from my stern, about to crash into Duchess.
I braced for the collision. The bow of Thompson’s boat smashed through the railing of Duchess’s stern, burying itself into the wooden hull structure below the cockpit. Reacting, not thinking, I jumped for his bowsprit, rolled to the top and hung on. The two boats were like mating behemoths, hinged at the larger one’s stern, the vicious wave action working them back and forth. I climbed aboard the smaller craft just before she slipped off my boat. Duchess was on her own. I never looked back, afraid of what I might see.
34
Thompson was too busy to notice me scramble aboard. For a moment I nearly lost my grip when the next comber crashed down upon us, sending both boats spinning in the trough. Green frothy water sent me slithering along the slick fiberglass roof of the cabin, nearly washing me overboard until I found a handhold.
When the water cleared I discovered I’d been grasping an edge of the forward hatch. I opened it and jackknifed inside, hauling the inflatable package with me. I landed on the forward bunk. Before the next wave rolled across the deck I shut the hatch and dogged it down tight.
I was aware of a small body lying next to me. Kate lay on her side, tossed in the corner like a discarded rag doll. Her eyes were closed and she was so still and quiet I thought she was dead. I put my ear next to her mouth and listened to shallow, rapid breathing. Her pulse was quick and weak. Her face was the color of oatmeal. When I checked her I found a wet, spongy spot in her skull behind her left ear.
“Kate!”
She didn’t move. Whatever was going on in the irreplaceable gray jelly of her brain wasn’t registering my voice, or was incapable of answering.
“Kate!”
There was no response. I had seen concussion before. Unless she could get medical attention soon there would never be any response again.
I watched for Thompson and the other man who had been described boarding this boat. Looking through the aft porthole I could see part of Thompson’s leg as he struggled with the wheel. Of the other man I could see nothing. He had either been swept overboard by accident or Thompson had eliminated him, further lowering his overhead. It didn’t matter. Either way it was only the two of us now. And the sea would play the winner.
I searched the tiny cabin. I’d taken no weapons with me when I jumped other than the little .357 magnum derringer and my Buck Folding Hunter. The derringer had all four barrels loaded. Everything else I owned was aboard Duchess. It began to look like everything I owned would soon be at the bottom of the Pacific.
Water-soaked cardboard boxes were piled on the floor and the settee in the lounge, piled all the way to the overhead. They would be Thompson’s master tape library. Other boxes lined the deck. They were more sturdy, made of wood and banded by double metal straps. I tried to lift one and found it almost too heavy for one man. Few common metals have that weight: lead, uranium or gold. I guessed gold. Seven boxes of the stuff were going to the bottom with us, more bounty to be found by some future treasure hunter with an ability to get to eight thousand feet.
Sitting on top of the boxes of gold was a crocodile leather briefcase. It was locked, but it was relatively easy to open with a church key I found in one of the galley drawers. Inside the sodden leather case were many small manila envelopes. Each envelope had an abbreviated script scrawled across it. One said, 2 CT. VVSI. I opened it and found a diamond whose brilliance reflected fire even in the darkened cabin.
There were over a hundred of the little packets. I had no idea what the value of a diamond was, but I knew that one this size, if it was perfect, could be worth more than five thousand dollars a carat. I estimated the value of the briefcase to be close to a million dollars. This was the bulk of Thompson’s movable retirement fund. It was perfect for him: small, portable, unreportable and untraceable; better than cash. On impulse I decided to take it along. If it was good for Thompson, it would be even better for me.
Taking the briefcase, I crawled to the forward berth and lifted Kate from her bunk, carefully cradling her head. Her respiration was so quiet I had to put my ear to her mouth again to make certain she still survived. I opened the overhead hatch and maneuvered her onto the deck, keeping low and trying to keep from washing overboard at the same time. Thompson hadn’t seen me yet. When he did he would react. I didn’t need the complication. Getting off this boat with Kate was my only priority. If I didn’t have to deal with Thompson, so much the better. This boat wouldn’t last and I’d be happy to let the elements finish the job.
When I had Kate tied off I reached below and grabbed the briefcase. Another wave poured over the bow, pushing us underwater so long I thought the boat had been sucked down for good. The boat’s positive buoyancy finally overcame the weight of the sea and rose to the surface again, giving me a chance for a single breath before the next one buried us.
The boat remained under longer with each successive wave. I’d left the hatch open and water was filli
ng the air space below. A few more waves and it would be gone. The next time we were underwater I untied Kate and the briefcase and pulled the D-ring on the life raft. It inflated immediately, but too late to rise above the hull. A fluke caused that wave to be shallow, and the life raft inflated on deck, twisting and trapping the little doughnut of air in the stainless steel deck lines. As I worked to untangle the steel cables from the raft I heard a hoarse cry. Thompson had seen us.
A bullet struck the deck inches from my leg, nearly taking off my knee. Two more little wasps buzzed by my ear. Galvanized by adrenaline, I placed Kate into the habitable space of the raft, tossed the briefcase in after her, and shoved the raft into the sea. Another shot plunked into the water near the raft before the crest of the next wave washed over us, knocking me off my feet. The raft bobbed away in the turbulence, the wind rapidly pushing it toward Oahu. I grabbed for a handhold but was washed toward the cockpit.
The force of the wave ripped me along the length of the boat, bouncing me between steel stanchions and the cabin wall. I crashed against something solid and was pinned against it by the weight of the water. When it subsided I found myself upside down beneath Thompson’s feet.
He would have killed me, but he was entangled in the safety railing. He knew I was there but couldn’t get at me. I reached for the derringer in the hip pocket of my shorts but it was gone.
Thompson kicked me in the chin. Stars exploded in my head. His second kick struck my right shoulder. Something collapsed inside, lighting up a fiery agony. My vision dimmed around the edges.
Another wave flooded the cockpit and knocked him back against the railing. I was aware that the boat was settling deeper. Water didn’t drain from the scuppers anymore. Now it flowed in from the sea.
Because I was protected by the cabin superstructure I was the first to regain my balance. Thompson saw me on my feet and with a superhuman effort fought against the wave and righted himself. He still held an automatic pistol. He aimed it at my face and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“You! You fuck! You fucked me!” Fury swelled him, making the muscles along his jaw rigid with the emotion. I could almost smell his anger. He pulled the trigger again, and again nothing happened. He threw the pistol at me. It bounced off my chest.
He had something else to say but I didn’t want to hear it. In a single, practiced motion my hand went into the right front pocket of my shorts and brought out the Buck knife. A flick of the wrist locked the blade in place as my hand was rising toward him. Before Thompson could react I stabbed him in the solar plexus, just under the rib cage, up through the heart, pushing the blade all the way to the brass pommel. He was dead before I withdrew the knife and the next wave washed him away and he was gone, vanished as if he’d never been.
As I stood there watching for sign of Thompson, the biggest wave yet rose before the bow of the little sloop. It was twice the height of the aluminum mast. When the boat rolled nearly vertical I made an instant decision. I reached into a cockpit locker, grabbed two life vests and dove into the water. I got four strokes away before the wave broke and the world was transformed into white, pounding turbulence.
I tumbled inside the maelstrom until it subsided and I could surface. Unlike Thompson’s boat I’d been near the top of the swell when it broke and my natural buoyancy had been aided by the vests. The boat’s positive buoyancy had been almost zero when the wave broke over it, and it remained toward the bottom of the trough.
This time it didn’t come back and I was alone in the middle of the mountains of the sea.
A Sea King helicopter picked me up about noon. Max found me by triangulating the little transmitting beacon he’d given me the night before. Conditions were calmer. The hurricane had shifted again and was heading west, toward Wake Island. Local conditions had been downgraded to tropical storm intensities.
Aboard the helicopter I learned that Kate had been picked up earlier by the coast guard and had been rushed to Queens Medical Center for an emergency operation to relieve the mounting pressure of a massive traumatic cerebral hemorrhage. I refused to cooperate with anyone until I knew her condition and then I became an immense pain in the ass until they took me to Queens. Max ran interference with law enforcement while I waited.
We were still there five hours later when the big policeman who frisked me at Kelly’s that first day I met Kate came into the room and told me to come with him. Max blocked access and I thought there would be a fight until the policeman, whose name I learned was Kimo Kahanamoku, relented.
“She’s not comin’ back, Mr. Caine,” he said. “Doctor told me a few minutes ago. They did all they could do. They couldn’t do nothin’.”
It was like being hit in the chest with a fist. Max put his arms around me and pulled me tightly into an embrace. “It’s over, John,” he said.
The room lights dimmed, gone blurry by water that suddenly filled my eyes. I nodded absently, thinking of the little time we’d spent together. There wouldn’t be a chance to see her again, to feel her touch, hold her hand, smell her hair or feel her breath on my neck and her body against mine. All the solid, powerful essence of her was gone. There wouldn’t even be a chance to say goodbye. She was gone. We have so little time here and there’s such a long, long time afterward. Like forever. I wanted us to have more. I wasn’t ready to lose her.
And I was suddenly ashamed of myself. It wasn’t just my loss. It was also hers. Kate didn’t want to die. It was not her intention to slide off into that uncertain blackness alone. She’d wanted to live, too.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s over.”
“You gonna come with me now?”
“I don’t think so,” said Max. “He’s already in federal custody. Mr. Caine won’t be going anywhere.”
Kahanamoku nodded. “We thought you’d say that,” he said. “There’s a federal judge who’s issued a warrant. That means he’s coming with me.”
Max looked at his watch. “How old is that warrant?”
The big policeman shook his head. “I dunno. Couple hours. Why?”
“Check with the judge. See if it’s been canceled.”
There was a brief staring contest. Neither man was accustomed to bluffing. Each man saw that in the other. Kahanamoku nodded. “I’ll check. You two wait here.”
Max put his arm around my shoulders. “We’ll be here, Lieutenant, when you get back. You can bet on it.”
35
They say that no good deed goes unpunished. A corollary to that should be: The greater the good, the harsher the punishment. I’d gambled almost everything and lost everything I’d gambled, but in the end I’d succeeded, to a point, and that point meant everything. Admiral MacGruder’s reputation and that of his daughter remained intact and her killer had been quietly punished. Evidence of Mary MacGruder’s disintegration had either burned or gone to the bottom of the Pacific.
Thompson spoke of winners and losers. He’d lost, I’d won, although the difference between the two of us was mere survival. That being the case, then Kate had lost, too, and I’d lost Kate. The Pyrrhic cost of my success was something I was not yet ready to contemplate too closely. I’d lost the one thing that meant anything to me in this whole event. Maybe, in the end, survival was the only thing that really mattered.
Numb from the sheer magnitude of the loss, I plodded through the next few days, facing whatever happened. The experience was not all that new to me. I’d been here before. If survival were to be my only reward, then surviving each day seemed wholly appropriate. To mark the time I started a beard, a measure of my days of confinement.
There were many questions to be answered, many questions from many people from many different agencies, because there was, as one investigator put it, a basic question of jurisdiction. Kimo Kahanamoku, the Honolulu police detective, took a special interest in my interrogation and after a silent, internecine struggle between the relevant law enforcement agencies I understood he finally had the lead in the combined investigations.
Someone arranged temporary accommodation for me in transient officer’s quarters at Makalapa. It didn’t shelter me from law enforcement but it did keep the media types away. I wasn’t officially under arrest, but it was clear that I wasn’t supposed to leave the CINCPAC compound, either. That wasn’t a problem. I had nowhere to go and no way to get there. I was provided unmarked utilities to wear. From my window I could see a portion of the little marina that had been my home for over a decade. It might as well have been a photograph of a Martian landscape. I couldn’t go there, and had I been able to leave the base there was nothing to go to. I spent my days speaking to detectives and federal investigators, and I passed my nights staring at the ceiling and thinking of Kate, thinking about what would have happened if …
If is a terrible word.
A week after Kate died, Kimo came to my quarters. He brought me civilian clothes, pants and shoes and a loud Hawaiian shirt and tersely told me to put them on. I dressed while he watched, followed him to his car, and allowed him to drive me to the InterIsland Terminal at Honolulu Airport. We flew in a tiny Aloha Airlines prop plane to Princeville on the north shore of Kauai. He said little. During most of the flight he stared mutely out the porthole at the ocean below.
It was one of those breathtaking, spectacular Hawaiian days of sunshine and warm breezes, the kind of day pictured in hotel brochures and sugar cane commercials. We were met at the airport by a large Hawaiian man wearing ratty shorts and a clean white dress shirt. He was barefoot and heavily bearded, and what was visible of his face, arms and legs was decorated with crude tattoos. His graying black hair hung nearly to his waist. He gave us open-ended leis made from aromatic maile leaves, draping them around our necks in a solemn ceremony. He gave Kimo a bear hug and gently shook my hand, as if he were aware of my injuries. He knew my name and introduced himself simply as Ed. Ed had an ancient green pickup parked in the lot. I crawled in between the two giants and we headed west on the two-lane highway toward Hanalei.
Diamond Head Page 19