by C. A. James
“Yeah, and George and Simon, too.”
“You knew about them?”
“I’m a G-man, remember?”
“Agent McCaig!”
He snapped out of his dark daydream. “Christine! I was . . .”
“You looked like your mind was off in the ozone somewhere.”
“Yeah, guess so. Hey, it’s good to see you. What’s the plan?”
“A race. Double-hander. You’re my crew today.”
“You know this is highly irregular, right?”
“You said you needed to talk, privately. This is when I have time, and it’s private. You coming or not?”
“Sure, why not?”
Someone shouted at them from a distance. “Hey, Christine, you ready to eat my wake?”
McCaig looked across the harbor at the voice’s source. It was another Santa Cruz 27 with a gleaming candy-apple metallic-red paint job, gliding noiselessly out of the marina on a light breeze. A tall, bearded sailor was standing in the cockpit, wearing bright yellow weatherproof bib overalls, with the tiller held lightly in one hand.
Christine yelled back, “In your dreams, Kerry!”
“Ha! I’m gonna clean your clock, and no more silly-ass excuses like terrorists falling from the sky!” he replied.
“You have a good recipe for crow, Kerry?” she shouted to the receding boat. “Cause you’re going to be eating some at the clubhouse tonight!”
Kerry laughed and waved. Christine turned back to McCaig.
“So, you ready to crew in an actual race?” she asked. “This one’s a double-hander, captain and one crew allowed.”
“I thought you liked to win.”
She laughed. “Oh, we’ll win. No worries there. Just do exactly what I tell you, OK?”
“I’ll bet you say that a lot.”
She laughed.
A half hour later they were in position, maneuvering among the fleet of two dozen boats, all jockeying for position. Christine was at the helm, steering the boat and barking orders at McCaig to release a line, crank in, ease off, and shift his weight to balance the boat.
It was amazingly complex—nothing like what McCaig had expected. He had imagined it would be like a car race: the boats line up at a line, a gun goes off, and they start sailing. Christine laughed at that.
“Sailboats don’t stop. There’s no parking brake; in fact, there’s no brake at all. If you’re on the water, you’re moving. If you’re not moving, you can’t steer. If you can’t steer, you’re out of control.”
“So if you’re not waiting at the starting line, where are you?”
“You don’t wait,” she replied. “A sailboat race starts long before the starting gun goes off. The perfect start is to cross the starting line at full speed, close hauled, on starboard tack, at the right end of the starting line, at the exact instant the gun goes off. Everybody wants to be that guy, but only one is. A second too early, you’re ‘over early’ and have to go back and re-cross. A second too late and you’re behind. Port tack and you have no right of way. Left side or the center of the starting line and you’re trapped in the fleet; you can’t tack because you’ll lose your right of way.”
“So what, you just go a certain distance back, calculate the time to the starting line, and set your speed so you get there at the right time?”
“Just watch and learn, sailor boy.”
The pre-start maneuvering was a chaotic jumble of turns and tacks, shouts of “starboard!” and “mast abeam!” There was good-natured cursing, boats stealing one another’s wind, and an undercurrent of intense competition as everyone jockeyed to claim that one course line that led to the perfect start. It was a chess game played on the water.
He gave up trying to understand the complex moves and counter-moves and instead focused on pulling lines, cranking winches, and enjoying the camaraderie.
At the one-minute warning horn, Christine made her final turn and ended up in decent position with the starting line dead ahead. Only one boat was slightly to windward and behind on her starboard side, its bow almost overlapping their stern. McCaig recognized the candy-apple metallic paint; Kerry was at the helm. Kerry had better speed and would soon overtake Christine and steal her wind.
He watched Christine. She was intently focused on the wind, waves, and competitors and didn’t notice his gaze. For the moment, he was just another piece of rigging that Christine would manipulate to win this race.
“Give me three clicks on the jib sheet!”
He cranked the jib in tighter.
“Main sheet!” He tightened it. “More!” He pulled hard on the line, his muscles bulging under the force. The four-part block-and-tackle amplified his muscles to almost a thousand pounds of force and brought the mainsail in just one more inch. He snapped the line into its cleat. The boat settled in and matched Kerry’s speed, holding off his advance. Both boats crossed the starting line perfectly as the starting horn sounded. Kerry tacked away to port to get away from the fleet, leaving Christine and McCaig in clear air.
“So. Not bad,” said Christine. She spoke without taking her eyes off the sails and boat. “Your first start, you did well. I might even let you to do this again.”
“I think I could learn to like this,” he replied. “What now? How come everyone is spreading out? Don’t we have to follow some race course or something?”
She laughed. “You’re such a natural at cranking and trimming, I forget that you’re a total landlubber. No, there’s no fixed course, just buoys. See that orange buoy about a mile up?” She pointed to windward.
“Yeah?”
“That’s called the weather mark. We have to sail around it to port—that means it has to be on our left side. Then down there,” she said, pointing downwind to another orange buoy barely visible in the distance, “is the leeward mark. We go around the course twice, then to the finish line at the committee boat, where we started.”
“So it doesn’t matter where you go in between, as long as you round the marks?”
“Exactly. So this is the part where we can relax a bit. We’re going to tack upwind to the mark, but on each tack, we hold our course for a while. It gets crazy at the buoys. We’re going to put up our spinnaker for the downwind legs. That’ll be tricky, but just do exactly what I tell you and we’ll win this race.”
“Deal. So we’re not going out on the ocean today, past the bridge?”
“No, this is a smooth water race. A good place to break in a lubber like you.”
McCaig noticed that even while talking and gesturing, Christine was in full race mode, the tiller constantly moving, turning the boat minutely to take advantage of every shift in the wind and follow the smoothest path over each wave. Her eyes were never still, darting from sails to waves to her competitors.
He observed in silence for a few minutes. She brought the same intensity to sailing that she had on the job. And yet out here, her intensity grew out of her love of the wind, sea, boat, and sails. The boat became an extension of her.
“Ready about!” she called, startling him.
“Ready!”
“Helm’s a-lee!”
McCaig released the jib sheet and the boat whipped around from starboard to port tack. He wrapped the jib sheet around the winch, yanked it tight just at the right moment, and gave it a couple cranks with the winch handle to trim it perfectly. The boat settled onto its new course.
“Nice. Like you’ve been doing this for years,” said Christine.
“I’m pretty good with mechanical stuff. My dad was a farmer, and every farmer is a mechanic. I sort of grew up playing in the shop, helping him fix cars, trucks, and the occasional tractor or lawnmower. I guess a boat is just another type of machine. You figure out how it works, and then you’re good.”
“I never thought my boat would be compared to a tractor.”
McCaig laughed and then looked out across the bay. The fleet had split in two, some staying on starboard tack, some taking the port tack. Most boats had just made t
heir first tack, and the two halves of the fleet would soon come back together. Christine was leading the first group by about ten boat lengths, but only time would tell whether one side of the racecourse was favored.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said. “Off the record.”
Christine glanced away from her sails momentarily. “I’m racing, McCaig.”
“It’s important.”
She looked back to the sails and waves. “It can wait until after the race. I’m busy.”
“Zarrabian is alive. I talked with him.”
“What?” Christine stared at McCaig.
“Zarrabian is alive. He escaped.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“He held me at gunpoint not far from the burned cabin. After he was supposedly dead. Your sails—”
The jib started luffing as the boat turned too close to the wind, shaking and rattling the rigging.
“Shit!” She yanked the tiller and pulled the boat back on course. “Now look what you’ve done! Goddamn it, McCaig! Look at that!” She gestured angrily behind them. They’d lost at least six boat lengths of their lead.
“Sorry! I just . . . there’s something crazy going on.”
“Just be quiet, OK?”
He turned back to the sea and watched for a few minutes. The two halves of the racing fleet grew closer and closer together. He knew Christine was watching the other boats carefully, but he couldn’t help but notice a collision was imminent.
“Uh, are we going to collide?”
“Quiet. No. With luck, we’re still in the lead and will pass in front of Kerry.”
There was a look of intense concentration on her face as she steered, her eyes darting from her sails to the approaching boats. Finally a cry of “Starboard!” came from across the water.
“Damn, damn, damn!” she yelled. She pulled the tiller, turning so that they passed behind Kerry’s boat, narrowly missing the next boat behind him. As they passed through the wind-shadow of Kerry’s sails, the boat flattened and lost speed for a moment, then was hit by the full wind again and heeled back over, regaining the lost speed.
The minutes ticked by. Christine sailed on in silence, one eye on the sails and one on the weather buoy that marked the race course, calculating the best moment for the next turn. McCaig grew increasingly uncomfortable as wave after wave passed under the boat.
“Look, I’m sorry—”
“Not now! Ready about!”
“Uh, ready!”
“Helm’s alee!”
He released the jib sheet and cranked the sail in on the new course as before. They sailed on for another minute.
“Crap!” she exclaimed. “Let the jib out.” She yanked the mainsheet out of its cleat and let the mainsail out as she turned back toward the marina.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“You drop the biggest bombshell of the biggest goddamned story in the last decade on me in the middle of a goddamned race, and you think I can just keep sailing?”
“Sorry!”
“Sorry doesn’t get it, sailor boy. Christ almighty! I mean, I want to hug you and smack you in the head at the same time.”
McCaig raised his eyebrows. “Uh . . .”
“We’re out of the race, TJ. I blew another one for this asshole Zarrabian. That’s two races this season. It will be damned near impossible for me to take the season unless Kerry gets a brain aneurysm and loses about a hundred IQ points. And it’s going to be damned hard to explain why I left the race in the middle of the first weather leg. Kerry’s going to be crowing about that one for the next decade or two. Get it?”
“Sorry.”
“Quit the sorry. Just tell me what the hell is going on. We have lots of time before we’re back at the dock.”
Two hours later, Christine burst through Grant Petri’s office door. Jennifer, the young assistant, was sitting on his desk right next to Petri, her legs crossed seductively in front of him. She jumped up at the sound of the door.
“Jennifer, I need to talk to Grant. Alone.”
“I, uh,” said Jennifer. She glanced at Petri, who nodded toward the door. “Good to see you, Ms. Garrett. I’ll check in later, Mr. Petri, OK?”
Christine sat down as Jennifer walked out. The moment the door closed, she turned to Petri.
“Jesus Christ, Grant, she works for you.”
He shrugged, re-buttoned the top button of his shirt, and snugged his tie.
“Grant, I need indefinite leave and a blank check.”
“Sure, and I need a fountain of youth and a hundred million bucks. Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t, because you’re going to give it to me.”
“Garrett, I love playing tantalizing guessing games. Maybe this time you could just tell me what the hell you have.”
“Grant, we’ve been doing this for what, five years? We have our spats, sometimes we joke, and sometimes we’re really pissed. This time it’s serious. I need to go after this story.”
He leaned back and gave her an appraising look.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Dead serious. Deadly serious.”
“OK. I’m listening.”
“Zarrabian’s not dead.”
He sat up straight. “You’ve got a reliable source for this?”
“Grant, that’s not even the story. Not only is he alive, but the only guy who knows it is being railroaded out of the FBI.”
“Special Agent McCaig?”
“One and the same.”
“And he thinks Zarrabian is alive?”
“He doesn’t think, he knows. Zarrabian held him at gunpoint, something like two hours after they discovered the burned-up cabin and the body that was supposedly Zarrabian.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“OK, now comes that off-the-record part. McCaig slipped up and told me that much before he got to the part about off the record. But everything else I’m going to tell you, he said it’s off.”
“There’s more? That’s already a bombshell.”
“Yeah, Grant, but it gets better. Off the record, OK?”
“Sure, OK.”
“Remember when I said I thought McCaig knew something about Zarrabian that he wasn’t telling us?”
“Yeah, but you were pretty vague. Your ‘gut feeling’ is where we left it.”
“Well, my gut was right. McCaig doesn’t just know something about Zarrabian. They’re know each other. Fairly well.”
“What the fu . . . ?”
“They were thrown together by chance. McCaig was in some kind of Special Ops in the Marines. They were sent into Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in the eighties. Somebody in the CIA was suspicious about a warehouse and nerve gas. They got over the border, scouted the place, and waited until they thought the place was empty. McCaig got his team inside, then more or less stumbled on Zarrabian. McCaig didn’t want to kill Zarrabian since the good ol’ U S of A wasn’t even supposed to be there, not to mention that Iran wasn’t officially our enemy. I guess they got to know each other pretty well.”
“What, they sat down to socialize for a while?”
“Even better. They tied Zarrabian up. You remember that Zarrabian studied engineering at Berkeley?”
“Right, he told you that on your boat.”
“Yeah. Two years upper-division studies. Got his degree in engineering. Lived in a dump in Oakland with three other Iranian engineering students. Anyway, so McCaig has Zarrabian tied up, McCaig’s team is digging around the place, and the Iraqis start bombing it. Maybe they’d got the same intel about nerve gas, who knows? After a couple bombs gave them pretty bad headaches, Zarrabian confessed that there was a tunnel. McCaig got his men and Zarrabian into the tunnel, and they all survived the bombing. But the Iraqi bombs blew out the stairway and filled it with rubble. They were stuck in an underground tunnel for two days and nights. With Zarrabian.”
“No shit? So they did sit down to chat. How’d they
get out?”
“Zarrabian hoped that if he waited, someone would come to investigate and he’d get the credit for capturing an American Special Ops team. After two days with no food or water and no sign of anyone else, he told them that if they blasted through a certain door, there was another tunnel that led to the next building.”
“What’d they do with Zarrabian?”
“Did what soldiers have done for centuries. They trusted him.”
“Like, just let him go?”
“No, but remember, they’d had two days to work this out. McCaig explained that they’d either have to kill him or take him prisoner. Zarrabian said of course, that it’s what he’d have done if their roles were flipped. So Zarrabian didn’t want to die or be a prisoner, and McCaig didn’t want to kill him or drag his uncooperative ass across the mountains. Everyone was on the same page.”
“And?”
“And so they shook hands on it: McCaig would let Zarrabian go, and Zarrabian would wait another six hours at the bombed-out warehouse, then make like he’d just escaped from the place.”
Petri shook his head in wonder. “And they trusted him?”
“Apparently so. And it paid off, big time.”
“How’s that?”
“So the other day, somebody torched Zarrabian’s cabin. McCaig was there doing his FBI thing. The fire trucks were leaving, the forensic guys were cleaning up, and McCaig decided to check out the woods behind the place. And about a quarter mile back, he found himself looking down the barrel of Zarrabian’s gun.”
“Jesus.”
“You said that already.”
“Get on with it, OK?”
“So Zarrabian told McCaig it’s payback time, that something didn't make sense. McCaig didn’t buy it. Like, you were a real soldier, a man of honor, now you’re a terrorist, and I’ve gotta cuff you sooner or later.”
“Good point. You know, that’s a really good point,” said Petri. He thought for a moment. “Christ, if McCaig isn’t outright lying to you about all this, that’s where you’ve gotta start digging. What the fuck is going on with this Zarrabian guy? What was this guy?”
“A colonel. Highly respected. A family man.”