A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  His eyes crinkled. “Viking boat sails in all weathers when we are far from land. We will not let this Brad and Casey come to us.” He paused. “They have the machine, yes?”

  “Yes. They got it back to the lab.” She looked up at him, realizing she’d been insensitive. What must he be feeling? His time was lost to him now. “I’m sorry you can’t go home.”

  “No one awyrcs the machine now.” He said it thoughtfully.

  “Not without the diamond.” Hmmmm. “Maybe they can get another one.” A thought occurred. It made her almost ill. “Maybe you can go home, Galen. It’s me Brad hates. I’ll give you the diamond. You wait here for them. They’ll fix the machine and send you back. I’ll . . . I’ll take the car and go.”

  Would they send Galen home? Would they imprison him to “study” him? Would they kill him when they’d finished just to make sure no one knew about the machine? Was anyone safe around someone who could torture and kill Jake?

  “We sail, Lucy.” Galen took her shoulders. “Together. Always together. That is right and true.”

  She blinked. Uh . . . was what she’d just heard a kind of Viking commitment? All she could do was nod, because it did feel right and true and she didn’t know what else to do.

  Galen took off toward the boat at a trot, holding her hand and pulling her beside him.

  “Dog,” he called to Vandal, who had ranged off to the west of the road. Vandal came at a dead run.

  Lucy raced around the boat, stowing everything that wasn’t already secured, while Galen changed into his Nikes and got out their weather jackets. They’d have to leave Vandal below until they were sure he had sea legs for the deck. Better safe than sorry. And hope he wasn’t seasick. Lucy got out the diamond and the gun and put them in her bag, which she stowed in the locker right by the hatch. She’d told Jake she’d never use a gun in this lifetime. But that was before someone had beaten him to death. Oh, God. What was she saying? She’d never have the courage to shoot anyone. She should have taught Galen to shoot. He was the ruthless Viking.

  She wouldn’t have to shoot anybody. They were going off the map. She went to the chart locker and got out the sea charts, flipping through to the ones for the bay and the coast. Galen came up behind her. “Here.” She pointed. “We are here. Island. Island. Strong wind through the Golden Gate. That’s tough sailing.”

  Galen studied the map. “Deop?” He pointed to the channel.

  She nodded. “Deep. Strong current.”

  “I understand. We call it stream. Boat cannot fight wind and stream, Lucy.”

  “In your time you couldn’t sail against the wind. But this boat does. We call it tacking. The sails move at an angle to catch the wind. I will show you.”

  She weighted down the maps and left them out for reference. Galen studied them a moment longer and nodded as though he was committing them to memory.

  “First we get off the dock,” she said. She went up to the cockpit and got the engine started while Galen made sure Vandal was tied safely below decks. The dog wasn’t happy about it, but there was no time for dog-overboard exercises today.

  Galen blinked once or twice at the motor’s noise but jumped off and untied the fenders and dock lines. “Bring those aboard,” she called, “and get them below.” She pointed. Galen followed orders like a seaman. No questions, no rebellious looks. One hurdle passed.

  She glanced up to see the hard-looking tanned guy out on his boat, watching them rig up. If he was surprised at all their haste or that they were going out so late in the day, he didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t, she guessed. He had a beer in his hand and was wearing shorts with his jacket. Real hard-ass. Just like Casey. She was sure they’d be meeting, as Casey returned in a couple of hours to “interview” everyone in sight. This guy wouldn’t be able to tell Casey much, except they’d sailed down the bay.

  Galen came up from below. Lucy throttled up gently in reverse and they backed out of the slip. As she turned the wheel, the boat swung out into the bay.

  The hard guy gave them a casual salute and, hesitating, she waved back. That was probably the biggest show of emotion he knew how to give.

  Twilight was about an hour away. She swallowed. Was she up to this? She’d sailed at night only once, when she and her father had torn a sail and come in late. And she’d never sailed in weather in the dark. Let’s hope Galen is wrong about the storm, she thought. She turned the boat directly into the wind to keep them from moving, and cut the motor.

  “Time for a quick course in sailing words while we rig her up.”

  Galen was an even quicker study than she expected. He obviously knew lines and sails, and some words were the same: “mast” and “starboard,” for instance. The biggest problem was, of course that back in his day ships didn’t have advanced hull design and triangular sail configuration that allowed modern boats to tack or sail close-hauled. And they had no wheel. They used tillers. That meant she was going probably to have to captain this thing. If he would let her. She pulled the mainsail out of its bright blue canvass housing. Woad. He’d say it was dyed with woad.

  They put the battens in, fastened the tack and the clew, attached the halyard. He hauled it up the mast. No sign of stiffness in his shoulder. Or he concealed it well. She pointed to the other winches used to haul and hold the sails in place when they were filled with wind and told him they were called grinders. She showed him how to grind and feed the line in at the same time. Galen got the idea immediately. In a racing boat there’d be a crew person for each of those tasks for each grinder, but he was going to have to do it all. She had him practice a couple of times. He had it down in no time. With those shoulders, he’d be a great grinder. If his strength lasted.

  Was he up to this? “Are you well?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “I am mighty.” He grinned. “Better than before.”

  Well, she had to trust him. There wasn’t anyone else. She tossed him the outhaul line and pointed to the cleat on the side. He tied it off with several deft wraps and moved automatically up to the jib, asking questions about what things were for, how the sails worked. Jake had the jib rigged on a roller furler, so all they had to do was haul one line. He’d planned for fast getaways, never knowing they wouldn’t be his own. She wasn’t going to imagine what Jake looked like after being beaten to death and left in the water overnight. Too many episodes of CSI. Not fair, she wanted to scream.

  She pushed down thoughts of Jake. He would have to wait for mourning.

  She tried to explain to Galen about the points of sail and how tacking worked to let you sail into the wind. You always had to tack out of the Gate. A wind was rising from N-NW ahead of what might or might not be a storm. He listened, nodding, asking a question or two.

  The feeling that this was just impossible was getting stronger. Two people sailing in weather through the treacherous currents of the Golden Gate with night coming on?

  But there was no choice. No choice at all.

  It was barely twenty minutes later when she put her hands on her hips and scanned their work for anything she’d missed. They’d made good time getting her rigged in view of the fact that one of them was inexperienced at modern sailboats. Both the mainsail and the jib were luffing, making a soft, ruffling sound as they flapped, head into the wind. Tiny storm sails were stacked where she and Galen could get at them in the cockpit next to the hatch below. Jake had, of course, outfitted the Camelot with foul-weather gear. Lucy stood at the wheel. Galen had accepted that without complaint. Points for him.

  “Okay,” she said. “Back the jib.” She motioned to the forward sail and pointed to the left. He trimmed the sail with the line that would pull the jib over to the left. As the wind filled it, the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched under his Henley shirt where he held the line. She turned the wheel. The bow moved to starboard on the port tack, out of the no-sail zone. Things must happen quickly now. “Trim the mainsail,” she called, and pointed right. He nodded, a smile lighting hi
s face. He winched the mainsail just taut enough as the wind came full on the jib.

  He was already on the move to the jib line when she called for him to trim it. He slacked the line that held it in the backed position, switched lines, winched it tight until it caught the wind in the new position. That was one perfectly trimmed sail, just off luffing to maximize the use of the wind. Guess he did know wind and water. The boat began to pick up momentum. She’d keep it on a wide reach for maximum speed. Damn Jake for keeping the boat up in this backwater. It was a long way down and around the point to the Gate. Full out, how fast could this size boat go? Maybe nine knots? And that only until they started having to tack against wind and current in the Gate. The Gate was tough in the best of times.

  She wouldn’t think about that. Because they had to get out of here and they had many hours of sailing ahead of them. Just because they were on a boat didn’t mean they were safe. She wouldn’t win a chase with Coast Guard powerboats. She wouldn’t feel safe even after they were out in the open ocean.

  But if they made it—if they escaped Casey’s clutches—then what? She wasn’t sailing across the open Pacific to Hawaii, probably not ever, but definitely not in March with Pacific storms still slamming Northern California. Mexico maybe, or South America, where they could keep close enough to land to assuage her nerves. Galen would get a chance to learn Spanish.

  That didn’t feel right.

  Of course it didn’t. Even though she had Galen, it was her responsibility to sail this thing out into open water in heavy weather. She knew better than anybody that she probably wasn’t up to that.

  They were sailing south down what was technically called San Pablo Bay toward the narrows between Richmond and San Rafael that separated it from San Francisco Bay proper. They were practically on a run, with the wind filling their sails from just off their rear. Clouds rolled up over the hills behind her. She had Galen pull both the jib and the mainsail out almost like wings to catch that rising wind.

  Galen was grinning like he’d just seen a Valkyrie as he looked up to survey his handiwork. “This boat is fast, Lucy. She sails sweet.”

  Lucy just hoped it was fast enough.

  Chapter Twenty

  Damn pussy scientist, Casey thought. He goes off on his own without telling anybody when, wonder of wonders, they finally got a real tip. He tries to play the hero. And he doesn’t even take a gun. So the Viking beats him to shit and sends him packing. How stupid can you be?

  Now he’d spooked the quarry. Right when they had been about to close in.

  Not that it hadn’t already been a frustrating day. That bastard Lowell had a heart condition. He knew he could sneak out of the interrogation session by fucking dying. “Sorry, Colonel, gotta go,” he’d said when the chest pain hit him. His little smile as his eyes rolled up in his head made Casey want to stab someone again and again. They’d tried like hell to revive Lowell. But it was no good. Still, assuming he had spirited the fugitives away, Casey figured they’d need false documents. There were only a few guys around whom someone like Lowell would trust. It had taken all day, but they’d found the forger. They were just about to sweat him.

  And Steadman screws it all up.

  It was dark and raining hard when Casey’s little convoy pulled into the parking lot of the Quik Stop. No way the fugitives would still be here. Sunday traffic on the 101 had been pretty bad. It had taken Brad almost two hours to make it back into the city and Casey’s team an hour to make it back out. The guy couldn’t just call in? Too embarrassed. Probably only his anger at the girl and the Viking made him finally fess up. So he notches up another stupid move. Brad wanted to tag along for the confrontation, but Casey exiled him to the lab to watch over the machine. He should never have let the lab rat out of his cage.

  One of the SUVs flipped on a searchlight. It illuminated the little marina down at the end of the dirt road, maybe three-quarters of a mile. The light caught the white of boats and rocking masts through the pelting rain. Two cars were still in the parking lot. Casey couldn’t make out if one was an old blue Chevy.

  “Get down there and secure the area,” he ordered Pollington. “Evans, see if the clerk on duty is the one that saw the altercation. I want to know whether they left by car or by boat.”

  He stayed in the car, thinking. Either way it was bad. If they had left by car, the marina manager might have done a better job than Lowell at keeping track of occupants’ license plates. If they had gone by boat, Casey needed to know what kind.

  The wipers squeaked back and forth across the windshield. The rain was almost horizontal. He was betting they had left in the blue Chevy. No one would sail in this weather.

  Pollington, in his hooded slicker, waved at Casey from the marina parking lot and he rolled the Escalade down the dirt road. As he got closer, he saw the Chevy in the parking lot. The fools had taken the boat out. With his luck the weather would scuttle the boat and the diamond and the book would be somewhere out in the bay under one lot of water.

  Jesus.

  He climbed out of the car and stalked through to the marina. Two slips empty. Only one boat with lights on. Pollington was already hailing the occupant. Casey strode down the dock.

  A head poked out of the hatch to the rear deck.

  “Yeah?” The guy had a crew cut and looked like he ate nails for breakfast.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Pollington had a hard time sounding menacing with water dripping down his face.

  “I’m not in the mood for questions.”

  Casey pushed by Pollington. “Look, we don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. We just want to know where the big blond guy and the red-haired girl made off to. If you talk to us, we just leave. If you don’t, then we start digging. Your choice.”

  The guy thought about it, though you’d never know it from his flat eyes.

  “Did you see them go or not?”

  The guy said nothing, but he opened the short doorway wider, and Pollington climbed down inside, dripping. Casey followed. The guy shut the hatch on the weather.

  “They left about five,” the guy said, not inviting them to sit down.

  “Bad time to go for a sail,” Casey said noncommittally.

  “They’ll be okay. They headed for the Carquinez Strait. Probably wanted to do a little river cruising where it’s a little more protected.”

  “Still, stupid to go out with only an hour of light.”

  The guy shrugged. “She was the one at the helm. Didn’t look real experienced. Maybe she misjudged the weather.”

  Casey looked at the wet floor. “Got anything else?”

  The guy shrugged. “They kept to themselves, all lovey-dovey like. Maybe Wally up at the store knows something. He usually knows everything.”

  Bet he doesn’t know who you really are, buddy, Casey thought. “Name of the boat?”

  The guy shook his head. “Never noticed.”

  “Okay. Thanks, man. We’ll leave you to your meal.” How could the guy eat with the boat rocking like this? They pushed out into the rain and climbed up to the dock.

  “Shall I get the Coast Guard to go up the Carquinez?” Pollington asked.

  “Yeah. Get the name and make of the boat from this guy Wally at the Quik Stop. But I want the Coast Guard on the lookout by the Gate, too. The Carquinez dead-ends in the Sacramento delta. That’s a trap for a sailboat with a keel.”

  “That guy didn’t have any reason to lie to us,” Pollington protested, maybe hoping the fugitives would be cornered as the river went shallow.

  “That guy lies every day of his life,” Casey said. “Get on the horn and pull some rank.”

  Rain spattered Galen’s face as the wind changed and he ducked to avoid the swing of the boom. He surged up to the winch and wound the handle with both hands as fast as he could. He felt Lucy adjust the rudder with her wheel. Through the boat he felt, too, that she was tiring, and fighting the mighty current here at the mouth of the bay took strength. She feared the
weather and the night. She was not used to sailing so. He was. Weather on the North Sea was treacherous, and one could not avoid the night when one was far from land. He tried to reassure her, if not in words, then with his own assurance. Her voice was raw, but she no longer had to shout instructions. He knew this small ship now and what she needed. The rigging had more sails than he was used to, but he understood their purposes. She could run fast, this boat, and steer precisely. She was a fine vessel, if very different from his shallow-draft, dragon-prowed craft. The giant bridge loomed ahead, dimly orange in the dark and the slanting rain. It looked like a sea monster arched between the spits of land. To be able to construct such an enormous thing, men must surely command magic. The lighted towers of the huge city were off to the left, winking through the weather. Magic. Magic, all of it.

  He was cold and wet and his shoulder ached from winding the winches, but he would last. He had to last. Lucy was counting on him.

  He glanced back at Lucy, leaning into the wheel, her braided crown of hair dark with water, its fire quenched. She had thrown back the hood of her coat. Her face was pale and bruised; her eyes squinted against the slashing rain. Lucy would not last.

  As he turned back to scan the sails, he saw lights ahead. Directly ahead, under the bridge and high in the air.

  “Jesus!” Lucy shouted as the lights resolved themselves into the largest ship he had ever seen. No sails, all black iron, it drove straight across their path out of the storm.

  “Starboard!” he yelled, and sprang into action. They’d never make it past the boat on their current course. They’d have to turn about almost into the wind to skirt disaster.

  He felt Lucy pull on the wheel. The current fought them, pushing them toward the huge ship that now towered above them. The boat tilted wildly. The sails flapped as he loosened the sheets so they could swing to the other side. The boom came across and he ducked, then spun and hauled in the mainsail tight to the other side and cleared the line. He scrambled up to do the same for the jib sail.