by Melissa Good
“Well,” Kerry mused, “that’s interesting. I guess they use a generator for power, right?”
“Yep.” Dar stepped onto the boat and offered Kerry her hand.
“So we get to be hosts for the evening. That work for you?”
“Definitely.” Kerry allowed herself to be pulled on board.
Quite unreasonably, she’d developed a wary dislike for Bud, whom she hadn’t even met yet, and she was glad their first encounter would occur in their home territory.
It isn’t really fair to the guy, she acknowledged. Kerry reasoned it was mostly her gut level reaction to someone who professed a dislike for someone she dearly loved and admired, and she was willing to give the unknown Bud a chance when she met him, especially since Dar seemed to be at least willing to sit down to dinner with him.
But still… Kerry entered the cabin after Dar and cast her eye around it. “Go grab a shower first, I’ll straighten up in here.”
Dar looked around and then gave her a wry look. “Oh, right.
It’s trashed. Thanks, Ker,” she teased, referring to the customarily neat appearance of their joint living space. But she ambled towards the head anyway, filching a towel on the way.
Terrors of the High Seas 61
Kerry drummed her fingers on the galley counter, thinking hard.
DAR BROUGHT THE pot of coffee to the table and resumed her seat. They’d finished dinner, and the conversation had gotten more casual as the night had gone on. Bud was behaving, and he’d discovered Kerry was a camera fan after his own heart. Dar suspected the evening was going well and she relaxed, sneaking a glance outside at the dark, restless sea.
She’d anchored them near their dive from the prior day, and the moon had cooperated, lighting up the area with a ghostly silver glow. The ocean was picking up a bit, rocking the Bertram lightly but not enough to really bother anyone.
“So, Dar.” Charlie’s voice caught her attention. “You got any plans for your vacation?”
“Not really,” Dar replied. “We’ve just been picking spots and diving, taking it easy,” she said. “It’s been a busy year.”
“S’what I heard,” Bud said. He had a very deep voice that was typically emotionless. It matched his dark, somewhat hooded eyes, and the watchful gaze he habitually wore. “Scuttlebutt said you folks got to take over all the armed service gigs.”
“That’s right,” Kerry responded with a smile. “Starting in January, we’ll be taking over a lot of infrastructure. Should be quite a project.”
Bud eyed her. “Careful they don’t mess you up. You know the Navy, Dar. If they can point a finger, it’s in your eye.”
“They’re not that different from any other company,” Kerry told him. “Trust me, when you’re the outsourcer, if they can blame you for anything, they will. We have to deal with that all the time.”
There was a momentary silence, then Bud cleared his throat and looked at Dar. “Heard about your dad,” he rumbled. “That’s good stuff, Dar.”
Kerry neatly retracted her mental claws and took a sip of beer.
“It was…” Dar studied her glass, “one of the most amazing things in my life.” She shook her head. “But then, this last year’s just been full of things like that for me.” Twinkling eyes shifted to Kerry.
“He living down near the old place?” Charlie asked.
Kerry chuckled. “Right now, he and Mom are puppy sitting for us,” she replied. “They usually live on their boat, though.”
Bud snorted. “Boats? Puppies? That ain't the same people I remember.”
Dar shrugged. “Things change. People change. They went through a lot.”
Bud snorted again and Kerry’s claws emerged, just a bit. “I like 62 Melissa Good their boat. I think it was a great choice for them to live on,” she replied.
“Yeah, well, if you say so,” Bud said. “Musta changed a lot if Ceci Roberts’ll park her butt on some fishing dingy.”
“Oh, I doubt she’d do that,” Kerry said. “But…”
Kerry paused as the sound of engines came through the half open windows. She looked out, as did the rest of the table, and saw a large, well-lighted craft cruising slowly past them. “Hm.”
Dar leaned on the back of the banquette and studied it. “That’s a big one.”
Bud got up and positioned himself behind her, crouching down and resting his elbows on the sill. He squinted, studying the ship’s line. “Huh.” He pointed. “Got a search light on it. Just hit us.”
Charlie was also now peering out the window. “Hey, you know, I think I saw that boat two days ago off the lee side of our island,” he said. “Big, ugly, black thing.”
Kerry rested her chin on Dar’s head. “Dar, that can’t be that obnoxious boat that passed us in the straits, can it?”
“Hard to say,” Dar murmured. “Let’s go check it out.”
They got to the door, but as Dar opened it, a loudspeaker suddenly cut the night.
“Dixieland Yankee, do not pull anchor. Stay where you are and prepared to be boarded.”
Dar blinked, and then abruptly her brain kicked into gear.
“Boarded? Who in the hell is that?”
Charlie watched over her shoulder as the boat started coming in at them. “Some very big shot with a ton of money, tell ya that.”
Dar headed for the bridge. “Kerry, go watch the anchor, will ya?” she shouted down as she scaled the ladder. “You guys, hang on!”
Bud turned and poked Charlie in the chest. “That means you, muskrat. I’m going up top.” He turned and followed Dar up to the bridge. Charlie remained in the doorway, holding on and watching the big ship approach.
Dar swung behind the console and hit the switches to retract the boat’s anchor, her eyes darting out toward the oncoming ship.
“Feels like I’m trapped in a cheap movie of the week,” she muttered, glancing up as Bud appeared next to her. “This happen a lot out here?”
Bud didn’t answer.
Kerry’s voice rose up from the bow. “Anchor’s in!”
“Get off the topside!” Dar yelled back, as she punched the starter buttons for the diesels. The engines caught at once and rumbled into life.
“Dixieland Yankee, I repeat: stay where you are. You are trespassing in restricted waters.”
Terrors of the High Seas 63
“Are we?” Dar asked.
“My ass,” Bud muttered. “This thing got legs?”
“Kerry!” Dar bellowed.
“I’m down!”
“Hang on.” Dar shoved both throttles forward and heeled the boat over, watching the bow rise as the dual diesels dug into the water. The bigger boat was moving to intercept them and a searchlight hit her in the eyes. Dar cursed and kept the wheel turned, just clearing the other boat’s bow before she whipped the wheel straight and gave the engines full throttle.
Their conjoined wakes rocked the Bertram, then the boat leveled out and Dar turned her eyes toward the depth meter, checking their draft. Behind them, the bigger boat had turned to follow, and she heard the roar as their engines were let loose in the chase.
“What in the hell is this?” Dar snarled.
Bud chuckled dryly, the first time he’d laughed that night.
“Welcome to the Caribbean, Paladar. There still be pirates here, y’know.”
“Pirates in seventy-freaking-foot, mansion cruisers?” Dar asked, glancing behind them. “Jesus!” The searchlight pinned them, and she could hear the engines getting louder. “Kerry! Strap everything down!”
“Already there!” Kerry yelled back. ‘What the hell is going on?”
“Dixieland Yankee. If you don’t reduce speed and go to idle, we will halt you by force. Please obey.”
“Kiss my ass.” Dar flicked two switches on the console and nudged the throttles a little further.
Bud was wedged between the seats and the console as their speed increased and the wind slammed against them. “You ain’t much of a rule follower, are you?” he co
mmented.
“I make the rules,” Dar replied. “Hang on.” She set two final switches, glanced behind them at the boat rapidly gaining on them, and shoved the throttles all the way forward. With a throaty roar, the engine superchargers cut in and the bow planed up out of the water as their speed doubled.
Bud clutched at the railing. “Shit.”
Dar looked back, and felt her heart rate slow a little as the other boat stopped gaining as quickly. She looked again, swallowing a nervous lump as she frantically tried to figure out what to do next.
The compass showed them going south, and the depth finder showed good depth under their keel. The only question was: where the hell was she going, and what was she going to do when she got there?
64 Melissa Good KERRY EXHALED IN relief as she saw the big vessel drop a little further behind them. “Excuse me.” She gently eased past Charlie, who was still in the doorway to the cabin. “This is getting very icky.”
“No shit.” Charlie eyed the big boat. “What the heck did you girls get yourselves into?”
“I wish I knew.” Kerry strode into the cabin and went to the storage chest, flipped the seat up and pulled out a long, black case.
She set it on the table and undid the catches, lifted the lid and laid it back. Inside rested a powerful, blued black shotgun, giving off the very distinct scent of gun oil.
“Ah.” Charlie was at her shoulder. “Shoulda figured Dar’d have one of these.”
Kerry pulled the gun out and opened the stock. “It’s not Dar’s,”
she murmured, flipping open a door in the case and removing shotgun shells. “It’s mine.” She glanced up at the surprised man.
“I’ve been shooting since I was eight.” She closed the shotgun and pocketed a handful of extra shells, then headed for the door.
She’d never really liked guns. Handguns, in fact, scared the daylights out of her, as she’d realized when they’d been faced with one in Chicago. But Kerry had realized that she hated the feeling of being helpless even more, so she’d gone out and gotten herself a gun she at least had experience with.
Kerry was pretty sure her father had never intended his forced familial skeet lessons to have this particular result. She had always found it ironic that of all her cousins and siblings, she was the only one who could hit anything smaller than a Volkswagen Microbus with any regularity. She still remembered those frosty fall days with reporters in full attendance, watching as adolescents barely able to lift the damn rifles gamely plugged away at skittish, fleeting, clay plugs.
She stood next to the door and peered out, holding the shotgun close to her body. If she squinted, she could just see figures moving out onto the bow of the larger vessel, one manning the annoying searchlight and two others approaching the railing.
Charlie limped up behind her and shut off the light in the cabin, affording them a better view. “No sense putting up a target,”
he commented. “Wonder what they’re after?”
“I have no idea.” Kerry inhaled sharply as she realized the bigger boat was gaining on them again. She made a grab for the doorframe as the Bertram heeled over, then accelerated again in a new direction. “Jesus, Dar.”
Being in international waters, there wasn’t anyone, really, they could call. They could, Kerry realized, get into very real trouble out there and it would be weeks before anyone knew about it. “Dar?”
“I know!”
Terrors of the High Seas 65
Kerry exhaled.
“Ker?”
“Yeah?”
“This could get nasty!”
Kerry stepped out onto the stern and worked the shotgun mechanism. “I’m armed.”
“Great.” Dar felt more than a little frazzled. “Here I am playing Captain Kidd, and I’ve got Wyatt Earp on the stern.”
Bud leaned over the edge of the console and regarded Kerry’s wind buffeted form. “She know how to use that thing?”
Dar grunted, focusing on her route. Ahead of her, the sky no longer held stars, and as she stared ahead, lightning fluttered, outlining huge thunderheads. She pointed. “That the storm you were telling me about?”
“It’s a storm,” Bud stated. “You figgering to head into it?”
“Not exactly.” Dar looked behind her. The big boat was definitely gaining on them now. “But it could get a little rough.”
She plotted a course and then settled herself, wrapping her legs around the captain’s chair. “Kerry, stow it! I’m gonna be moving!”
She heard the cabin door slam. “All right, asshole. Let’s see if you can stick with me.” Dar headed between two tiny, uninhabited islands. The Bertram raced over the waves, which were now perceptibly choppier. The searchlight zapped over their heads. Dar felt its glare on her neck and she pulled the boat into a gentle arc, first one way and then the other.
A popping sound brought her head up and around. Both she and Bud ducked as a flare seared past their starboard side. Dar spent an unfruitful moment wishing like hell her father was beside her, and then directed her full attention to threading the boat through the narrow channel.
“Getting shallow,” Bud offered.
“I know.” Dar kept one eye on the depth meter, and the other on the blinking buoys the marked the route. A roll of thunder rumbled overhead, almost obscuring the sound of the engines.
Another flare screeched by, this time on the port side. “Next one’s coming right up our backs, I’m guessing.”
“Inta the engine cowling,” the laconic ex-sailor stated. “Fastest way to stop you.”
“Thanks.” Dar’s eyes narrowed and she inched her route slightly to her left. Then without warning, she spun the wheel, sending the boat into a rapid curve. She straightened out and then went right again, daring their pursuer to follow them.
She heard their engines rev as they accepted her challenge, and with that sound, Dar smiled. “Gotcha,” she whispered, ramming the throttles home and skimming down a specific line in the sea with a light, precise touch on the controls.
66 Melissa Good Bud was gripping the console, his eyes wide. “Dar, you’re gonna bottom.”
Dar watched the depth meter. “C’mon…c’mon.” It sounded a warning, and she kept her fingertips on the wheel, mentally crossing other body parts and just wishing. The Bertram threaded a tiny line down the center of the meter, the klaxon blaring louder and louder as the sounds of their pursuers also got louder.
“Jesus Christ!” Bud yelled. “You have all lost your damn minds!”
“Nah.” The boat flashed over a section of water, then the klaxon cut off, just as they heard a horrific crunching sound behind them. Dar chanced a quick look behind her and saw the big boat heeling off to one side, its engines dying and panic on the bow. She faced forward again, into the rain now hitting the shield around the console. “I just play a mean game of chicken.”
Every nerve in her was alive. Dar could see her own grin reflected in the glass, and she just barely kept herself from letting out a wild yell of triumph. “All right,” she was proud of the even tone in her voice, “now let’s get outta here.”
Bud unglued his hands from the rail. “Whoinhell taught you to drive?” he growled.
Glinting blue eyes reflected back in the windshield. “My dad,”
Dar replied, savoring the moment. Then she keyed the mic for internal communications. “Kerry?”
“Here.” Kerry’s voice sounded a little out of breath. “Holy shit, Dar!”
“Yeah.” Dar trimmed the engines, which now labored against the rising seas. “Out of the frying pan… I’m gonna circle back around and see if I can get past this storm and come back into the island from the other side.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Monitor the radio. See if you can pick up those bastards calling for help. I want to know who they are.”
“Right.”
Dar clicked the mic off, and clipped it. “Board me, will you?”
she muttered. “I don’t thin
k so.”
KERRY PUT THE mic down, but left her hand on it for a long moment as her nerves steadied. “Okay,” she finally said, gathering her composure and pushing away from the wall. “Glad that’s over.”
“Me, too,” Charlie agreed. He was seated securely in one of the chairs bolted to the deck. “Now, whatinthehell was it?” He got up and peered out the window. “Sumbitches bottomed, huh?”
“Yeah.” Kerry walked over to the galley and removed a bottle of Gatorade, popped the top and sucked down several mouthfuls.
Terrors of the High Seas 67
She set the bottle down. “Now all we have to worry about is the weather.” She walked back over to the radio, set it to fast scan, and turned the volume up. The shotgun was already tucked back into its case under the seat, and now that the immediate danger was over, Kerry felt her entire body shaking in reaction.
Adrenaline rush, the hard way. With a sigh, Kerry sat down in the other bucket chair and let her hands rest on her thighs.
“Ain’t’ your cuppa brew, is it?” Charlie asked.
Kerry gave him a wry look. “I’m a Midwestern Republican with a degree in Information Technology. What do you think?”
The big man chuckled. “You done pretty good, though,” he said. “Where in the Midwest you from?”
“Michigan,” Kerry replied. “Saugatuck.”
“Been up there a time or two,” Charlie said. “Got to do some dry suit work in the lake once upon a time.”
Kerry was glad of the distraction. “Is there anything to see down there?” she asked curiously. “I always wondered. Other than downed freighters, I mean.”
Charlie shrugged. “We weren’t sightseeing,” he explained with an apologetic look. “You could ask Big Andy, though. He did two tours up there.” He paused. “Strange, talking about him real time now.”
“I can imagine.” Kerry leaned back, folding her hands over her belly. “I’ll ask him, though.” She smiled. “I remember the first time we went diving with him. He’s like a fish.” She waggled one hand in mid air.
“Always was,” Charlie acknowledged. “A real natural. Used to watch him swim and wonder if he was hiding gills.”
Kerry nodded. “I know. Dar’s the same way.”