Rising Force Page 4

  “He’s a dog, sure,” I explained, “but animals have instincts far beyond anything we can comprehend. I think he spots the two locations in his dog’s mind and just draws a line between them, staying in the clam bed, as he moves out deeper.”

  It was the best theory I could come up with, having observed him hunt clams in the same way many times before.

  “Charity said you were an orphan,” Fiona said. “Like us.”

  Looking from one young woman to the other, I nodded. “Not like you, fortunately. But yeah, my parents died when I was a kid, and my grandparents took me in and raised me. They were good people. I never knew a time when I didn’t know they loved me.”

  “How’d you lose your folks?” Fiona asked.

  I can only imagine the two womens’ pasts, one having been kidnapped as a small girl, the other orphaned and put into foster care, both abused and victimized most of their lives. It was a frightening thought. Among their peers, that was probably a normal, valid question. Sort of like when two military people meet, the first questions are always where you were from, and where you’d been stationed.

  “My dad was a Marine, like myself,” I began. “So was Pap, his father. Mam and Pap raised me after Dad was killed in action in Vietnam and my mother took her own life, shortly after she got the news.”

  “How old were you?” Fiona asked.

  “Eight.”

  “Did you like living with them?” Moana asked.

  Of the two, she seemed to be the most empathetic. Considering what she’d endured, it was amazing that she felt anything, let alone the feelings of another person.

  “Yeah, it was good,” I said. “Pap became an architect after World War Two, and they lived pretty comfortably. My dad was their only kid. Pap taught me, and my dad before me, how to build things. I remember his workshop, the smell of sawdust, and how his tools felt in my hands. Dad had dabbled in woodworking before joining the Corps. He and Pap had planned to open a boat-building shop one day. Guess I sorta filled in for my dad, but the boats were built by McDermitt and Son. Like Dad was always there with us.”

  That seemed to pique Moana’s interest. “You built boats with your grandfather?”

  I grinned. “A few, mostly sailboats.”

  “What’s Charity’s story?” Fiona asked.

  I sucked down one of the clams before answering. “Maybe she ought to be the one to give you those details.”

  “I don’t know,” Fiona said. “We’re about to go off with her for who knows how long. I, for one, would like to know a little more about her.”

  “Me, too,” Moana chimed in.

  “She told us the other day that she’d been raped,” Fiona blurted out. “Do you know if that’s true?”

  I debated giving them any of the details as I knew them. In fact, I probably knew more than anyone about what had happened to Charity in Afghanistan. During the long, endless days we’d spent on the Revenge, hunting Jason Smith, she’d told me a lot about what had happened after she’d been shot down and captured. She cried on my shoulder quite a few times, even pounded on my chest with her fists once. Not an activity I’d want to repeat.

  She’d confessed that much of what she’d told me, she’d never even told her therapists. I had never violated that trust, nor would I.

  “She was an Army chopper pilot,” I said. “She was shot down and captured by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. If she wants to tell you the details of her three-day ordeal, she will. That’s not for me to say.”

  “But you know?” Moana asked softly.

  I looked at the tiny woman sitting next to Fiona. The sadness and shame, etched deeply on her soul, showed clearly in her light brown eyes. I nodded slowly.

  The clams were gone, so I stood and moved around the table, gathering up the plates. I dumped the shells in the bucket and then picked it up to take outside and dump.

  Moana rose and took the bucket from my hand. “Why would she tell you?”

  I shrugged and looked down at her. “I listened.”

  She started to take the bucket aft but stopped when Finn rose from the deck.

  “Don’t mind him,” I said. “He’s never hurt anyone, except for a few wayward clams. If anything, he’ll dive down and bring the shells back up to you.”

  Moana moved slowly past Finn. He followed her, again with his head and tail low, his way of acting nonthreatening.

  “So,” Fiona said, looking over at me, “you haven’t tried anything with either of us. Are you gay?”

  Grinning, I shook my head, as I carried the plates to the sink and washed them. “How old are you, Fiona?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “My oldest kid, Eve, is three years older than you. My youngest, Kim, turns twenty this summer. No offense, but you’re just a kid.”

  “You have kids?” she asked, as Moana came back inside. “And a wife?”

  Taking my seat again, I looked over as Moana sat at the far side of the dinette.

  “Two daughters,” I said. “No wife. Their mom and I divorced when I deployed to Panama twenty years ago.”

  “Twenty years?” Moana asked. “No girlfriends?”

  “I remarried a few years ago,” I said. “She was murdered.”

  “Wind Dancer to Gaspar’s Revenge,” came Charity’s voice over the less powerful Uniden VHF radio. It was mounted in the cabinet under the TV and had only a stubby antenna mounted outside the bulkhead. It was always on channel seventy-two, which Charity knew. I only use it for ship-to-ship communication to nearby boats. She sounded very close; probably within a mile.

  Rather than reach across both girls, and thankful for the interruption, I slid out and walked around the dinette, plucking the mic from its holder inside the cabinet. “Gaspar’s Revenge to Wind Dancer. ETA?”

  “Turning north into the channel now. Three boats at anchor here. I see your anchor light just beyond the point. Got room there?”

  Three boats? I thought. There were only two earlier. How did another slip in without my noticing it?

  “All alone on this side,” I replied, grabbing up the small, hand-held VHF. I turned it on as I headed aft.

  The girls followed me out to the cockpit. Charity’s old cutter-rigged sloop could be seen in the distance, lowering her sails in the moonlight. I knew her boat was full of high-tech gadgetry, and the sails were operated by electric winches, but it was still a pretty cool sight: an antique wooden sloop sailing into a safe harbor under the moonlight.

  It only took Charity a few minutes to anchor up. I heard her dinghy’s engine start a few seconds after she shut down the sailboat’s diesel. It idled for a moment, then Charity’s voice came over the hand-held.

  “Need anything besides the steaks?”

  I raised the portable radio to my mouth. “All I have to drink is water, beer, and rum, and the water’s running low.”

  “Keep your Red Stripe and Pusser’s,” Charity replied, sounding more cheerful than the last time I’d talked to her. “I have a pretty good red that will go well with the beef.”

  A few minutes later, I heard her dink’s motor drop into gear and throttle up. It came around Wind Dancer’s stern and started straight toward us, coming up on plane. She crossed the water between our two boats, then throttled down and coasted up alongside.

  Tying off to the stern cleat, Charity stood, shouldered a pack, and picked up a small canvas bag. With one hand on my boat’s transom, she looked up at me and smiled. “Permission to board?”

  “Granted, and welcome,” I said, extending my hand.

  She took it and stepped over to the swim platform and through the transom door.

  “Bingham was here a couple of hours ago,” I said. “He arrived shortly after we got the hook down. The Pences and Haywood weren’t on the cruise ship, and apparently stole a boat at Half Moon Cay and disappeared.”

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nbsp; She paused for only a second, then grinned and handed me the canvas bag. “I don’t have enough steaks for them. Besides, they’re Bingham’s problem now.”

  Charity and the girls went inside as I set up the small propane grill. I keep it stored in the engine room most of the time. It had an arm that fit snugly into a rod holder in the gunwale and held the grill out over the water. By the time I had it mounted and the burner fired up, Fiona brought the steaks out, marinating in a bowl of what smelled like teriyaki.

  “She seems a whole lot happier all of a sudden,” she said, as I placed the steaks on the grill.

  “She’s got her own way of coping,” I said. “This is the real Charity. She just stows all the dirty laundry in a back part of her mind.”

  We dined inside, to keep the bugs at bay. The dinette only seats three, so I got out four sturdy folding tray tables, and we all sat on the couch. Finn lay on the deck in front of us, looking up expectantly whenever one of my guests speared a piece of meat.

  “Give him a piece of fat and he’ll be your friend forever,” I told the girls.

  Fiona picked a piece up from her plate and held it out to him. Finn looked over at me, as if asking permission. As a rule, I never feed him from the table, but he knew he’d always get something.

  I nodded my head and Finn rose slowly, then walked toward Fiona. Stopping a good distance away, he very gently leaned forward and took the hunk of fat from her fingers. He barely tasted it before it was gone. Then he went back to where he’d been.

  We talked a bit longer, enjoying the first good meal we’d had in days. The women drank Charity’s wine, but I stuck with my beer.

  Finn rose, and I could see Moana at the far end of the couch, reaching a tentative hand out toward him, a small piece of meat in her fingertips. He glanced at me again, and once more I nodded my consent.

  Finn seemed to sense the girl’s hesitation and fear. He approached very slowly, with his head and tail down. A foot away, he stopped and leaned forward, slowly raising his head and opening his mouth slightly, while stretching his neck. He looked like he’d topple forward, he was so off balance. As gently as he could, Finn took a corner of the meat with his tiny front teeth.

  Moana pulled her hand back and looked over at me. “I thought you said he was an attack dog.”

  “No,” I replied. “I said if you stayed on the couch Finn wouldn’t hurt you. He wouldn’t have bothered you if you’d gotten off the couch either.”

  “I have something for you,” Charity said, pulling her backpack over to her feet.

  Taking out a legal-sized envelope, she passed it to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “The title to Salty Dog,” she replied. “It’s been signed over to you, all legal, and stamped by an ex-pat American notary in Nassau.”

  “I can’t take this,” I said, extending the envelope back toward her.

  “You just did,” she replied, grinning, and ignoring my outstretched hand. “Look, I can’t sail two boats. Vic would haunt me if I just up and sold it to anyone, and I really don’t need the money. You’re getting nowhere with your mission in this stink-pot. You’ll never find Savannah if you can’t ask the right people. Besides, I think Vic would have wanted you to have it.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t operate two boats at once any more than you can.”

  “I talked to Deuce,” Charity said. “To thank him for his help. I might have mentioned that you’d need someone to run the Revenge back to your island. He and Julie both agreed you and Salty Dog are a good fit. And Andrew said he’d be on the next flight after your call.”

  “You should do it,” Moana said. “I knew you were looking for your lover, and if something helps you find her, you should use it.”

  Fiona nodded her head in agreement. Charity only shrugged and said, “It’s a done deal, Jesse. Salty Dog is your boat.”

  I didn’t want Victor’s boat, but Charity was dead set on giving it to me—and there was some truth to what they were saying. If I was aboard a cruising sailboat, other cruisers might be a bit more forthcoming and at least listen to why I wanted to find Savannah.

  The rational side of my brain worried that if I needed to be somewhere fast, I’d be screwed in a slow-moving sailboat. Then again, Charity’s chopper was on Andros, convenient to anywhere in the Bahamas. And the Bahamas were where Savannah liked to cruise.

  The first silvery light of dawn came too early. When my eyes opened, they focused on the single overhead portlight, the only light source in my cabin. Sunlight wasn’t shining directly on it yet, but the lightening sky above was visible through the tinted glass. That meant the sun was at or near the horizon. The solstice had been just two weeks ago, so early was a relative term; the days were still quite short.

  I glanced over at the clock mounted on the bulkhead. The low light made the thick hands barely visible. The local time was after seven, and the sun would be up soon.

  We’d stayed up past midnight, just talking—something I rarely do these days, if I can help it. The staying up past midnight part, that is. I’m still a ways from being a total recluse. The previous three nights had me sleeping in shifts, so I’d taken advantage of the relative calm and slept quite well for a solid six hours. Another hour would have been great, but an unnecessary luxury.

  Rising, I used the head, then put on clean skivvies and went up to the galley, feeling more refreshed than I had in days. My mouth was dry, the prelude to a hangover. But my mind was clear. I’d only drunk five or six beers the previous evening before the women left the Revenge. After the second bottle of wine was gone, Charity had taken the girls to her boat to get settled in. So I wasn’t worried about walking around my own boat in just my underwear.

  I went straight to the coffeemaker. I’d spared no expense on this very necessary piece of nautical equipment. It was mounted securely in the cabinet, with a latch that held the pot in place while underway, and the pot had a spill-proof top. So far, it hadn’t spilt a drop, but I hadn’t felt the need to test it in rough seas yet.

  Pouring a mug of the Central American brew, I took a swallow, then started to go back down to my stateroom to dress—but when I looked out the side porthole in the direction of Charity’s boat, it wasn’t there. I looked all around. The salon has plenty of visibility to the sides and aft. The bow was still facing the beach, and I couldn’t see in that direction, but she wouldn’t be there, anyway.

  I placed my mug on the counter and went out the hatch to the cockpit, Finn right behind me. Stepping up on the side deck, I looked forward and all around. Nothing.

  Dropping down to the deck, I looked down at Finn. “You didn’t hear them leave either?”

  He only whined and went over to the transom door. I opened it and let him out onto the swim platform. “Don’t be long,” I told him. “We’re leaving shortly.”

  Finn stepped out onto the swim platform and jumped in the water. As he started swimming toward shore, I went back inside.

  My sat-phone was lying on the dinette table, the envelope under it. I picked it up to call Charity and saw that I had a text message.

  Sorry for taking off. I need to move them away from civilization. All comm is off for a while. We’ll meet again soon. Enjoy the Dog—C

  Salty Dog, I thought. A name changing ceremony would be in order soon, whether I kept it or not. I’d agreed to accept the boat, but only if Charity would let me pay for it. She’d agreed to let me pay for it but wouldn’t budge on the price of ten dollars.

  She’d said that the needed parts had arrived in Nassau, and she had paid the mechanic enough to get started, but he would need a few hundred more when I got there. The boatyard had promised it would be ready by the seventh, the day after tomorrow.

  Just what I needed, another hole in the water to pour money into.

  Down in my cabin, I showered quickly and dressed for the
day. It was forecast to be bright and sunny, so I wore loose-fitting khaki cargo pants, a baggy, long-sleeved denim work shirt that was faded nearly white, and my worn-out Topsiders. Picking up my clothes from yesterday, I transferred everything in the pockets into my clean pants, opened the port hanging locker, and tossed the dirty clothes in the basket on top of the tiny, single-unit washer and dryer combination.

  When I returned to the cockpit, Finn was already on his way back. In a pinch, he can use the swim platform and I hose it down immediately. But he prefers being on dry land when he does his business.

  Once Finn boarded, I closed the transom door, then went forward and released the safety from the anchor chain. Finn found his usual spot in the corner of the cockpit, and I went up to the bridge and started the engines.

  It only took a few minutes for the windlass to haul the fifty feet of chain rode aboard, and then we idled south, out of the cove. The sun was just above a clear horizon to port, and there were two boats still anchored in the first cove. I remembered both of them from the previous evening, but the one Charity had mentioned was gone.

  Suddenly, in a moment of mental clarity, the image of the boat I’d seen before the container encounter filled my mind’s eye. The elegant lines of a yacht built many years ago. The wide aft cabin and high stern of a classic motoryacht.

  Could that have been the Hatteras the Pences stole? I throttled up to cruising speed as we left the channel. At the time I’d seen the boat, the time and distance from Little San Salvador were about right, if they’d headed due north.

  I took my sat-phone from my pocket, knowing that I wouldn’t have regular cell service here. Digging through my other pockets, I found Bingham’s card and punched in the numbers.