One of Mick Walker’s staff had been waiting patiently, a shapely brunette with a lovely smile in a white dress. He’d paid as much attention to her as he could with Mrs. O’Brien nearby, but the first lady had now been escorted to the head table in the ballroom ahead and he was free to charm at will.
“Penny, was it?”
“Yes, Governor. Are you ready to come in?”
He looked around conspiratorially, resisting the temptation to counter with a bawdy affirmation. Am I ready to come in? Indeed I am, young lady! he thought, keeping his canary-eating smile under control.
“Well, tell you what. This has already been a difficult evening and there are a lot of serious decisions weighing on me, and it gets really… hard sometimes,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t mean to burden you with my troubles…”
“No, no! That’s perfectly all right. Is there anything I can bring you, or do for you?”
“Well… I’d really rather not go to the head table just yet. I don’t know how much time you have to spend babysitting me…”
“I’m all yours, Governor,” Penny said, causing another unseen bite of his tongue. “What would you like?”
You, naked on a fuzzy rug! he thought, keeping his expression pained and serious and keeping his eyes off her cleavage.
He sighed. “Penny, would it be an imposition to ask if you could please save me from the chitchat for a short while?”
She looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “You mean, in there?”
“Yes. The head table thing. Everyone assumes I need to be chatted up.”
“Of course, Governor.”
“Is there a—I don’t know, maybe a private area where we could go so I could relax for a few minutes? Maybe a skybox or something?”
“A… skybox?”
“You know, like in a football stadium?” He laughed as engagingly as he could. “No, I guess not. Bad analogy.”
She looked around, whether to see if anyone was listening or to figure out an answer to his question, he couldn’t be sure. She looked back and smiled suddenly. “Wait! I know a room I think you’ll like.”
“I know I’ll like it if you’re in it,” he said, still rubbing his forehead but watching her reaction. She was blushing, right on cue, but she didn’t back away. Instead, she cleared her throat and started again. “Governor, we have a brand-new—well, everything’s brand new of course—but our VIP lounge is just around the corner.”
“Great. Let’s go. Can we get some wine there?”
“I’m sure we can, sir. Of course, they’ll be ready to serve dinner in maybe ten minutes.”
“That’s okay. Politicians are supposed to be importantly late.”
She led and he followed, admiring the way her hips were swaying and pleased that she’d caught a glimpse of his interest in the hallway mirror.
“By the way, Penny,” he said.
She turned and smiled over her shoulder, “Yes, sir?”
“Please call me Frank.”
Chapter 21
CASCADIA ISLAND HOTEL 6:52 P.M.
The explanation that Mary Willis, one of the last guests to check in, had lost her ID was good enough for the front-desk manager. This was, after all, their opening night, and she had apparently arrived on the last successful ferry run and taken the bus tour before appearing with her invitation packet. And, he thought, he was carefully trained to make judgment calls, even if the Patriot Act did require a photo ID of every hotel guest. Besides, far too much was already going wrong to stress out over something so insignificant, especially where a lovely young woman was concerned.
And she had smiled at all the right moments and did not seem nervous, so she passed.
“We’re delighted to have you with us, Ms. Willis,” he said without missing a beat. He knew better than say anything about their sinking ferry. “We have you in the west wing, and here are your key cards and your information packet, and the opening dinner will be starting just a few minutes from now next door at the Casino Ballroom. We have people posted along the way to guide you over.”
“Thank you.” She started to turn away, then turned back. “One other thing… could you tell me if a Dr. Douglas Lam is in the hotel yet?” It was a long shot, she thought, but worth a try. He’d left his lab in Seattle, and his staff thought he might be headed to the island. The information had changed her plans.
The manager entered a few keystrokes in the computer and nodded. “Dr. Lam checked in just a while ago. If you’d like to pick up one of the house phones, the operator will connect you.”
“Thank you,” she replied, smiling at him.
A voice was calling someone from across the lobby, and with a start she heard her name.
“Diane!” a man bellowed. “How are you?”
She jumped slightly but forced herself not to turn and look, bending instead to pick up her bag as another woman answered the shout from somewhere behind her.
Diane Lacombe suppressed the flutter of fright in her stomach and walked as calmly as she could toward the elevators, reminding herself of her assumed identity. The possibility that someone on the island would recognize her had crossed her mind very briefly, but the urgent pursuit of Douglas Lam had forced all other worries aside—including the possibility that one of Mick Walker’s people—or Mick himself—might spot her.
Or someone less friendly, she thought suddenly, a rush of realization sweeping over her like a dizzy spell.
She rode quietly and stepped from the elevator onto her floor, hearing her heart pound and grateful the corridor was empty.
The door to her plush room was two doors down and she opened it quickly, stepped inside, and shut it behind her, standing still and breathing hard as her thoughts reconnected with a reality she’d shoved aside. She’d dropped out of sight in a panic, leaving a mess behind her with even her family thinking she was dead, all to get away from whoever was searching for what she had. All the way from San Francisco she’d alternated theories. Mick Walker might be responsible, she’d concluded at first, and, if so, her escape had been silly. He’d never harm her, and, in fact, only her apartment had been touched. But what if it was someone who’d invested in the island, or the worst possibility, what if it was her own employer? Whoever had tossed her apartment, if she’d wanted to let them find her as quickly as possible, the best method would have been to do exactly what she’d just done: blunder onto Cascadia Island.
The dark probability that Chadwick and Noble was involved was bubbling to the top of her cauldron of theories. And what if it went all the way to the top, and Robert Nelms was here? Was she walking into a trap she’d set for herself?
No, she concluded, unsuccessfully trying to lower her pulse rate with logic. No one could know I was going to come here. I didn’t even know myself until I reached Portland!
Nevertheless, she still had the CD, and going to the formal dinner would be a foolhardy idea. Better to get on the phone and search for Doug Lam, or look for him carefully from the shadows.
It’s almost seven. He’ll be at the dinner, and even if I could find him without being recognized, I can’t just go pull him out of there. She felt deflated to have come all this way only to have to sit around and wait for hours. This was a frustration she hadn’t expected.
You didn’t think this through! she chided herself. This is the worst possible place to be telling Dr. Lam what you’ve found.
There had been a bus tour of the island for everyone arriving on the ferry, and it had been startling to see how the barren rock she had thumped and searched and charted had been transformed into such a stunning resort. Not to mention some of the stranger aspects, like the massive concrete breakwater on the western end that had apparently just gone into operation in the past few days when a dam system holding back the surf was removed. It made the strangest noise.
Diane plunked herself on the bed and got up just as fast. She pulled up the phone and asked for Lam’s room once again, and again there was no answer. She pi
cked up the TV remote and sat, absently flipping on the set and punching through the channels until reaching a local newscast reporting the breaking news about a sinking private ferry and helicopter rescue in progress in the midst of a Pacific storm, the same ferry on which she’d just crossed the channel an hour before.
For no reason she could pinpoint, waiting was suddenly no longer an option, and she gathered her coat and purse and headed for the elevator.
CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT
Mick Walker was at the pilot-side of the Dauphin as soon as the doors began sliding open.
“Jennifer Lindstrom?” he said, shouting against the noise and the wind.
“Yes,” she shouted back, nodding as well while she kept her eye on the instruments and looked around to verify that the patients were being unloaded into the waiting ambulance.
He extended his hand. “Thank you for rushing into service!”
“No problem. Can your clinic handle these people? They’re critical!”
“I have two docs and more among my guests and we have a full operating room.”
“What? Sorry.”
“An operating room,” he repeated into cupped hands.
She nodded. “We have to get back out there. There are four more injuries.”
“I need to go with you and see the situation.”
She was shaking her head before he finished the statement.
“No way! We don’t have enough power for one more person and what we’re doing is very dangerous.”
“Look, I—”
She held up a hand to quiet him as she turned back to Gail.
“You have a dry flight suit in the 412?”
“Yes. Your dad is here… he’s getting it.”
“Okay. Keep that blanket on.”
“Jen, Ben wants to stay with us.”
“No!”
“He’s insisting it was just a bump. I can go down and he could run the winch.”
“He may have a concussion.”
“Yeah, but who else is trained to do it?”
Jennifer saw her father pop up in the left door of the Dauphin and hand dry flight suits to Gail and Ben as she was answering. He looked at Jennifer, who was shaking her head no, fully aware of what he was thinking.
“What choice do we have, Honey?” he mouthed to Jennifer. “Ben’s hurt and I’m not.”
He was already climbing aboard as he looked at her again. “And I’m still the goddamned chairman, okay?”
“Dad—”
“Don’t start. Gail can do the PJ work and I’ll run the winch.”
“We need a flight nurse!”
“And I’m not trained enough?” he said. “I pioneered this business. I’m probably a better emergency room doc than half of the licensed ones.”
Mick Walker broke in again, hesitantly, and Jennifer turned to him.
“Mr. Walker, I’m sorry to be blunt but I’m in command and you can’t go. Subject closed. What I do need you to do is get more rescue medevac helicopters on the way. Call Fort Lewis and ask for the MAST unit, call the Coast Guard, call the Air Force Reserve in Portland, and check with Nightingale Operations to see if there’s anything more we can send. We need more help quickly.”
He nodded, giving up the fight. “Okay.” He let her reclose the pilot’s door and backed away with his head down as he moved out of the range of the rotor blades. Jennifer looked around to see Gail strip off the last of her soaked underwear as Sven helped her into the dry flight suit and Ben waved from the sidelines where he’d been forcibly banished. She checked the fuel state again, verifying they had enough reserves, and motioned to the ground crew to clear everyone else away.
Once more the challenge was to match the forward tilt of the blades to the intense headwind so that the Dauphin wouldn’t be blown backward or tilt over as soon as she had enough torque to lift off. It was an unconscious process in which the controls were in constant motion. She repositioned them approximately where they’d been on touchdown, and the helicopter leapt up from the pad, tilting dangerously to the left for a moment as she righted it and shot forward into the rain and darkness once more.
BRIDGE, MV QUAALATCH
The master of the Quaalatch had taken one look at the damage to the passenger deck and all but folded up. With his first mate dashing back and forth among the four remaining injured, and the last of the remaining deck crew already gone in the third lifeboat, only seven remained aboard, including a man in a stained and wrinkled business suit who had looked up in puzzlement to see the captain standing in the doorway too stunned to speak.
There were two inflatable Zodiacs left, and the first mate had planned to use one for the final abandon-ship escape after all the injured were airlifted off. But Reilly hadn’t formally approved the plan, or done much of anything besides make the initial call for help.
There was no question his job was gone. And there was no question the Coast Guard would crucify him for continuing the operation in the teeth of a storm, and for God knew what other violations. He would need a new line of work after all these years, since no one would trust him ever again on the bridge of a ship.
He had slipped back to the circular stairway and returned to the badly tilting bridge, noting on the electronic status board that the number of flooded compartments had not increased. The boat was heeled over to the left and toward the bow, but the angle wasn’t getting worse, and there was a slim possibility that they might not sink after all.
Not that he cared if it did. Or more precisely, not that he cared whether he survived it. Wasn’t a captain supposed to go down with his ship? He thought he understood why. It would be easier than a lifetime of guilt.
A Coast Guard station had been calling, hailing the MV Quaalatch by name, but for a few seconds he hadn’t answered. Sitting in a self-pitying daze was easier.
The stunned paralysis had suddenly ended, however, and a part of his mind watched himself cross the bridge and scoop up the microphone to confirm their condition to an inbound cutter.
And, just as quickly, he was in motion back down the stairway, carrying a handheld radio and finding the first mate, moving to ready the Zodiac and double-checking the condition of the car deck. The battery-powered lights were beginning to fade, and he returned to the bridge to begin working on the engines, realizing belatedly that the emergency stop switches had never been reset. He went through the procedure and brought first the left, then the right engines to life, checking the transmission controls and finding them responsive. He slipped both engines in reverse, wondering if the screws were still in the water, and discovered that the boat was moving backward under its own power.
There were emergency pumps as well that had been forgotten, and he selected the appropriate valves now and began sucking at the water in the least damaged forward compartments as he formed a plan. With luck, he might be able to not only hold position, but maybe even power the crippled ferry back to the peninsula-side dock where a crane could keep it from sinking further.
There was no future in trying to go forward and forcing more water in. Reverse was the only option, and he got on the handheld to tell the first mate his plan just as the sound of the helicopter returned overhead.
CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT
By the time the Nightingale Dauphin had lifted off without him, Mick Walker was already in motion.
Talking quickly on the walkie-talkie function of his cell phone, he directed the driver first to the casino, then countermanded himself and headed for the ferry slip and the incomplete marina where the first of the lifeboats was supposed to be coming in. He climbed out of the car and took a quick look at the ashen face of the man he’d hired to manage the dockside facilities and the ferry slip. If he’d had time, he would have felt sorry for him.
“Where are they?”
The port master shook his head, uneasy being the bearer of bad news.
“They had to head for the peninsula side.”
“What? Why?”
“There’s
no place to land them here, after the accident.”
“What are you talking about?” Mick snapped. “We’ve got one dock completed in the yacht basin over there.”
The port master swallowed hard, meeting his boss’s irritated glare.
“The collision sank it, Mr. Walker.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Well, then we’re going to be dependent on the slip, I guess, which means we’ll have to rent or lease another ferry, something from the Washington state fleet, perhaps. I’ll need you to get on that instantly.”
“Mr. Walker…” The man was looking almost panicked.
“I know it’ll take a while to get it here, but if we can conclude the deal tonight and get a crew, we can have it here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sir? Please!”
“What?”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“The… the impact dragged the outside pilings down and pulled up the cross braces, and then—”
“Get to the point!”
The port master winced and swallowed hard, meeting his boss’s irritated glance as if he were going to be vaporized on the spot. “The ferry slip is unusable, too. In fact, it’s completely blocked and destroyed. It wasn’t the initial collision, it was when the boat floated backwards still tangled up with the broken pilings. It pulled everything along with it and just… ruined it all. We’ll have to dredge the entry before any other boat could safely approach. The concrete barriers are lying across the entry, and since that main piling was also the lynchpin of the yacht dock, it pulled it apart as well and sank it.”
“Bloody hell! How do we get a boat ashore? The island’s entire perimeter is dangerously rocky!”
“I know it.”
Mick shifted his weight, looked toward the dangling remains of the approach to his million-dollar ferry slip. “One more time. You’re not telling me that we can’t even get a rowboat landed here, are you?”
“Yes, I am. Not even a dinghy. The slips are destroyed and the coastline is far too dangerous. I mean, we can rebuild all the facilities…”
Saving Cascadia Page 22