Buried At Sea (40 page)

Shannon opened her eyes. She smiled at him, blinked in surprise at the sky, and sat up. Birds were wheeling and darting at the water. The sky was so clear that stars were still visible behind the boat. Foaming crests were tinged red by the dawn. "It is so beautiful."

" 'Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."

"It's still beautiful."

The

Ice Field

WE'RE GOING TO go south," he said.

"What's south?"

"The Falkland Islands."

"How far?"

"Eight hundred miles."

"Could we talk about this?"

"Well, sure, I mean . . . but what's to talk about?"

Shannon took his hand, opened it up, and traced the lines in his palm. "We've both been operating alone for the last three months. I think we have to sort of reboot—if we're going to be together." Jim looked around and laughed.

"What's funny?"

"We're in the South Atlantic Ocean, seventy miles off the Argentine coast, heading for the Roaring Forties in a fifty-foot boat. We're about as together as two people can be."

"So there's no 'if'?"

"Wait, wait, wait. I didn't say that. All I'm saying is, if there wasn't an 'if' in the middle of Buenos Aires, why would there be an 'if' out here?"

"Don't take it for granted—that's one of the things that worries me about not being able to walk."

"What do you mean?"

"You think I can't run away."

"Have I once bugged you to marry me since you turned me down?"

"No."

"Have I done anything but be your friend?"

"No."

"Are you happy to see me again?"

"I'm thrilled. I told you. My heart flipped inside out when I saw you."

"So, why would you want to run away?"

"The point is that you think I can't. That allows you to behave as if I won't. Like announcing, 'We're going to go south.' That affects our relationship."

"Shannon, we have a very big decision to make. Could we decide on our course first?

Before we discuss the relationship."

"Yes! Of course. It's been on my mind, is all. I've been thinking a lot about us. As I hope you have."

"I have."

"I don't want you to think that I'm the best you can do." He was about to say that she was the best he wanted to do. But her face was closing down, like that of a fighter crouching to cover up, and he could hear his own voice getting louder. He was pushing hard in high "captain" mode—quick and precise, and utterly sure of himself—but demanding more than she was ready to give.

"Maybe," he admitted, "I might have felt that way sometimes in the past. I'm sure I don'

t now."

"Will you think about it?"

It had occurred to him in the nick of time that this was not an argument to win. "Yes," he said. "I will think about what you said."

Shannon brightened immediately. "So what's the scoop on the Falkland Islands?"

"Number one, being British territory, they're the nearest place the Argentine cops can't touch us.

"Two, the McVay Foundation might not have much clout there, either.

"Three, they're probably expecting us to go north, so they'll string their ships in that direction, figuring we're heading for home, via Rio and the Caribbean.

"Four, the Falklands are relatively close—a week or two with luck—and we need food, water, and fuel.

"Five, they might even let us get on a plane to London. We could fly home in a few days."

"And leave the boat?"

"We'll have to talk about the boat. . . . Six, Will has an old girlfriend there. If we go to her first, maybe she can help us with the officials."

"Why would she?"

"She's in his will."

"But if the McVays knew about Will's doctor, wouldn't they know about his Falkland partner in crime, too?"

"She wasn't that kind of partner. She dumped Will because he was a crook." Shannon said, "Okay. Six good reasons. Any reasons not to—aside from the fact that the Falkland Islands are in the opposite direction of home?"

"Yes. One big reason. Very heavy seas."

"Too heavy for the boat?"

"The boat can handle it. The question is, can we?" "You were great yesterday."

"Thanks. We did all right; but like I said, we got some breaks."

"Any more reasons not to?"

"How do you feel about it?"

Shannon stretched her arms and took a long look around. The sun was burnishing Hustle'

s wet decks red and gold. "How do I feel? After the last two days I am so happy to still be alive. And I am so, so, so happy to be with you again. Right now, if you said, Let's sail to the North Pole, I'd say, Why not? How about you?"

"I'll be even happier when we're home safe."

"Grouch."

"Falklands?"

"Falklands."

"Okay, we're going to hang a ninety-degree right. We've

got the wind behind us, so we're going to let that mainsheet out and the jib sheet."

"Hey, I just realized, you changed the sails while I was sleeping."

"Shook a reef out of the main, doused the storm sail, and set a jib."

"Well, don't we sound nautical."

"Ready? . . . Here we go."

He eased the jib sheet and helped Shannon with the main, then turned the wheel until the compass needle pointed 190 degrees—just west of due south.

"The Sailing Directions recommend hugging the coast to avoid the current, but I'd rather fight the current than any ships they've got covering that angle—I'll show you on the chart. We'll figure out an exact course on the GPS, but one-ninety will do for now."

"I'm starving again."

"Let me have a look at the engine first."

"Bring me a morsel."

"Don't you feel at all seasick?"

"Not at all. Are you?"

"Just a little. I'm getting over it. It's just from being on land. I'll bring you a morsel." He sounded the diesel tank with a stick Will kept for that purpose. "Yeah, we've still got some." He found the Cummins handbook on the wide shelf filled with the operating manuals and read up on the engine, starting with the troubleshooting chapter. Clogged fuel filters were a common cause of breakdown, the manual warned—as had Will—particularly if the tanks had been allowed to get too low at the same time that the boat was tossed around in heavy seas. Right on both counts.

The engine crouched in a mystery space behind the companionway. Will had shown him how to change the oil, so he at least knew how to get the cover off, where the tools were kept, and how to arrange the work lights that turned the tight space into a functional, if airless, repair shop. It stank of fuel and burnt oil and paint. He lay down, reached into the sloshing bilge, and with the help of the manual located the fuel filters, removed them, found them clogged with gunk, washed them in a can of diesel, and reinstalled them.

"You look green," said Shannon, when he hurried up to try to start the engine. "Are you seasick?"

"I just need some air."

"What happened to your hand?"

"Cut it." He breathed a few mouthfuls of clean air and hit the starter. The engine ground over, fired, and settled into its patient rumble.

"Hey, Mr. Goodwrench."

"We'll charge the batteries and there'll be some hot water if you want a shower."

"I would kill for clean hair."

Jim was studying a sobering weather fax at the nav station, when Shannon emerged from her shower in the forward head. She wore a towel like a turban on her head and a thick terry robe she had found in Will's hanging locker. He put down the weather report. "For three months," he said, "I missed the sound of women's voices. And the smell of a woman in the shower."

Shannon reached for the heavy-weather teak handholds that lined the cabin ceiling. Strong arms rippling, she moved toward him by swinging herself from handhold to handhold. "Look at me! I'm flying."

She made it look effortless, but traversing the twenty feet from the head to the nav station left her flushed and gasping for breath. "Whew. Beats crutches. What's that? Oh, the weather fax . . . 000h, those are depressions, aren't they?"

"Moving right across our path."

"From what I've read about the Roaring Forties, that's not a surprise. How much time before they hit us?" "Tonight, tomorrow morning."

"Then we've got time."

"For what?"

"Why don't you take a shower? I'll meet you in bed."

Wrapped in a towel after his shower, Jim went shivering up on deck to check the sea. The horizons were clear of ships, the red-sky threat postponed, though the wind was getting colder and stirring spray from the tops of the waves. He took a third reef in the main just to be on the safe side and looked once more for ships. All alone. Still, he switched on the radar and set the collision alarm before he joined Shannon in the aft cabin.

Shannon was sitting up in the bed, still in her robe, her legs under the blanket. "It's been so long I feel like it's our first date."

"You wouldn't sleep with me on our first date."

"I would have if my parents hadn't been in the next room. I knew the second I saw you that things would get noisy."

Jim sat on the edge of the bed. She ran her hand across his chest. "God, you've really gotten thin."

"Don't look. I'm having trouble facing the mirror."

"No, I like it. It's just a different you. Not so bulked up . . . What about me? How do I look?"

"Delicious."

"You're probably so horny after three months you'd say a whale looked delicious."

"You look absolutely delicious. Your arms are prettier than ever."

"Amazon arms."

As her main power for moving around, they were beautifully sculpted. "Shapely, pretty Amazon arms," he said. "That's all you notice?"

"I can't see a thing under that robe you're clutching like chain mail. But from the blouse you were wearing to entertain your Argentines, I gather you've been working on your pecs."

"Well, they're better than my legs."

"As your physical therapist, I'm better qualified to make that judgment. Please let me open your chain mail." "No." She pushed his hand away.

"Have you been doing your exercises?"

"Yes."

"Prove it."

She looked away. They were joking and not joking. Jim wondered—as he had so often—

whether their dance with reality would be even harder if he had known Shannon before the accident.

But he hadn't. The Shannon he knew first was the bed-bound, weeping Shannon. He leaned close and brushed her ear with his lips and kissed her neck. "Come on," he whispered. "It's me." Her parents had hired the hottest surgeons that money could buy. As they cobbled smashed bone back together, repeatedly inserting and removing pins and drains, they had left a lacework of scalpel tracks from Shannon's pelvis to her knees. But most of her scars were as thin as the fathom lines on the South Atlantic chart, most of the punctures shallower than raindrops.

"I swear they're fading."

"Am I too skinny?"

"No." Shannon's legs were undoubtedly much thinner than when she had skied, but they had not atrophied as they would have if she were paralyzed. She had lost less definition than a more heavily muscled man would have.

"Too fat?"

"No." Exercise and massages helped maintain a semblance of muscle tone.

"I'm getting either fat in the butt or skinny—I don't know which is worse."

"Skinny would be worse," said Jim.

"I guess I'm getting fat."

"Round," said Jim. "Pleasingly round:'

" 'Pleasingly round'? That sounds as sexy as 'pleasingly plump: "

"Sexily round. Beautifully round. Grabbably round." Their dance continued. She pushed his hand away. "You're lying to make me happy."

"You make me happy. I have no reason to lie. And I am now going to grab you to make me even happier."

Shannon pushed him away again, but she was laughing. "Tell me about the women you met in Africa—other than the one Will shot."

"I wrote you. It was monk time. Just shut it down. It made things easier not to even think about it."

"That's fine at sea, alone with Will. What did you think when you saw his girlfriend?" Jim smiled. "I thought, 'Shannon, Shannon, Shannon, I love Shannon, I don't even notice this African lady who happens to be built like a Baywatch babe on steroids and falling out of this tight white dress.' "

"You didn't notice her."

"Will, the bastard, says, 'Check out her sister.'

"Did you?"

"No! I shut it down so tight I'm afraid I've lost all feeling forever."

"Then what is that thing bulging under your towel?" "My bosun's knife."

"May I see it?"

"I only take it out on deck."

"Come here, let me hold you. . . . I loved your letters. At first I didn't—I mean, you said nothing: 'the wind blows, the water is blue,' thanks a lot. But then you told me stuff you were thinking and feeling and I really felt another kind of closeness to you. Do you know what I mean?"

"Shark attack."

"That was obviously hard to write. You didn't say much. It was all between the lines. But you're a guy, you can't help it. Macho—Mr. Muscles. I was really flattered and glad that you tried. You were talking to me, at last."

"I worried I was bitching and moaning too much. And I gotta tell you, it's hard to open up to somebody who's said, `No thanks.' I didn't want to be a pest. And I didn't want to sound more miserable than I was or more pissed off."

"You told me what you were feeling. Like when you wrote about those poor people in the gas explosion. And how you felt when Will was sick ... It was almost like meeting somebody new." She laughed. "It makes me feel kind of funny being in bed with you. Like there are two of -you, the Jim I used to be with and my new e-mail Jim. Am I going to be cheating on my e-mail Jim when I sleep with the

old you—what? Or am I going to be cheating on the old you when I sleep with my email Jim—why are you laughing?"

"I'm not laughing. But, if you've ever had a threesome fantasy, now's your chance." MIND THE CABLE, Senator."

Lloyd McVay led their visitor past an armed guard into a hastily assembled satellite receiver room in the cellar of the former brood barn. Technicians in gray jumpsuits were snaking fiber-optic cables from the rough-hewn ceiling beams. Cooling fans hummed, keyboards chattered, light danced on flat-panel displays.