Buried At Sea (45 page)

"A ruddy great black thing," Cordi's friend had called the racing yacht in Stanley. It could not possibly be chasing them. It was probably a squid fishing boat. Or a freighter running before the storm, waiting for the wind to subside before swinging north to Stanley. Or a tanker bound east for South Africa.

The next crest lifted Hustle until the sea again spread before him. The tall, spiky silhouette looked closer. He tried to count the crests that sprawled between them and found it a task as difficult as counting airliner seat backs to the emergency exit. They bunched in the distance, but it looked like eleven rollers separated the two craft. When Hustle climbed to the top of the next sea, the boat behind had vanished. Deep in a trough, Jim realized, further back, or closer. From the next sea, he saw it again, only ten crests back. The tall, spiky, triangular silhouette it cut from the sky said it was no freighter, no tanker, no fishing vessel. Whatever the fast craft was, it was under sail, flying on the wind.

Jim forgot about dousing the storm sail. This was no time

to slow the boat but to speed her up. He was struggling to raise the main when Shannon came scrambling through the hatch and shut it behind her.

"More sail?"

"Look. Ten crests back. You'll see in a sec."

He raised the mainsail to the third reef. When he looked back across the swirling troughs and cascading swells the sharp point of the other vessel's mast poked the sky. It thrust higher, growing swiftly taller and wider as the black boat vaulted up a crest. Quite suddenly, the black sliver of its sail dominated the horizon.

"Wow. Where did that come from?"

"I don't know. It was just suddenly there."

"Is that the racer Cordi's friend saw?"

"I don't know. Can you count how many crests back he is?"

"Looks like . . . seven, eight . . . nine."

"He's gaining on us."

"What's that yellow thing up on top?"

"I can't tell."

"Some kind of a . . . lump."

"It's not a sail."

"Radar?"

"Too big."

Clipped onto the jackline, Jim worked his way back past the hatch. When the boat was in a trough somewhat out of the worst of the wind, he loosened the mainsheet and the sail filled with a bang. He passed Shannon the binoculars just as a roller caught up and lifted them.

"Jim, it's a person. There's a guy up on top with some kind of telescope." Jim was busy trying to steer the boat out-of a spin that threatened to throw her broadside to the sea. When he got her under control he sneaked a quick look over his shoulder, hardly believing that any man could be high up in the rigging in this wind. Virtually on top of the rig, his head nearly at mast height.

Shannon said, "It's too big of a coincidence. He's got to be looking for us."

"They're raising another sail," Greg reported from the masthead. JoyStick sprang to the top of a crest. The sea spread before Val, a vast gray corduroy of evenly spaced rollers. The sun pierced the thinning cloud, sharpening the scene as if an invisible hand had adjusted the contrast on a monitor. Val swept the water ahead with her binoculars.

Andy Nickels spoke into his radio. Joe, who had come up when Greg first spotted them, moon-walked to the mast with a high-power rifle slung over his back.

"Seven seas ahead," Greg said in her headset.

And there they were, half a mile in front, the white boat wallowing as it slid clumsily down the backside of an advancing sea.

Will was flying a storm jib on the inner stay. Val watched with some alarm as the main rose jerkily up the mast, from a triple-reef position to a double—far more sail than conditions warranted. She said to Andy Nickels, "Better get somebody into a wet suit."

"What for?"

"They're carrying too much sail. If they broach—" "The wind isn't that bad."

"It doesn't feel that bad. But we're on a hundred-and-tenfoot catamaran doing twenty knots: believe me, the apparent wind is nowhere near equal the real wind. They are on a fifty-foot monohull. If they broach or suffer a knockdown we've got to pull Will Spark out of the water."

Pete's barely perceptible nod confirmed the accuracy of Val's statement. But still Andy argued. "The water's forty degrees. He'll freeze to death in three minutes."

"Then prepare now to get him out in two—he's probably got Sentinel on his person. But if he's left the prototype on the boat we've got to find out where before it sinks—Pete, let me have the helm."

Andy said, "Okay. I'll suit up. You need the guys for the

boat. Pete, give me a hand." Pete followed him across the net to help him pull on the neoprene suit.

Val concentrated on keeping the catamaran under control. It had not occurred to her until this moment that she might frighten Will into accidentally sinking himself. What was the expression? "The fog of war." She had just learned that it meant the murk of all the things you forgot to plan for.

Joe was climbing the mast. The SEALs had rehearsed this repeatedly on the way out of Tierra del Fuego. He found his foothold on the first spreader and clipped his tether around the thick carbon-fiber spar. Then he leaned back in his harness like a telephone linesman to establish a steady shooting position.

Now she had two men up the mast, which left only her and Pete and Andy Nickels to drive the boat. With luck the wind would hold steady and nothing would break. But at twenty knots in heavy seas there were dozens of what-ifs waiting to happen and she hated leaving anything to chance. Opting for luck was her father's way, not hers. "Greg," she ordered. "Joe can see them now. I need you on deck."

"Yes, ma'am." And down he plummeted, riding the steep backstay in a fifteen-story free fall, which he controlled with a Rube Goldberg block-and-brake rappelling system he had fashioned during the voyage from Buenos Aires.

"Dead ahead," Joe radioed from the first spreader. "Five hundred yards." Accustomed to driving a boat where eight knots was fast and ten screaming, Jim was shocked by the black boat's speed. In the time it took to shake out the third reef in the mainsail, it halved the distance between them and was suddenly close—little more than a quarter mile behind.

Startling, too, was its size. The thing was enormous, immensely tall. Its spire of sail and mast scraped the sky like a black steeple. And it looked very wide, wider than Hustle was long. Slicing through a crest in a cloud of spray, carving

a flat course through the pummeling seas, it moved more like a ship than a sailboat. Jim looked at his knot meter. Eight knots as a following sea kicked Hustle in the stern, ten as she surfed its crest. Then it raced on and she slowed with a sickening lurch, descending out of the wind. Eight knots, seven, six. Five and four across the trough, then a gradual acceleration as the next sea finally picked her up. The wind, fitful in the troughs, blew hard across the crest and she surged ahead.

He saw immediately that the black boat had crossed two troughs. "She's twice as fast," he said to Shannon. Shannon was studying it with the binoculars. "Two hulls. It's that catamaran Cordi's friend saw. No wonder she's fast. . . . There's a guy standing on the first spreader and four in the back. . . . I think the guy on the spreader has a gun—Jim, get down! It's them. He's aiming it."

Pushing off from the cockpit coaming with her arms, she threw herself at Jim. They sprawled to the narrow deck between the benches. A high-power bullet whipped past the mast with a sharp crack that made them both flinch.

The wind banged into Hustle's mainsail and an errant cross sea smacked the side of her bow. The combined force overrode the auto-helm, and the boat headed up—turning into the wind—bared her hull to the following sea, and plunged back into the trough. Jim lunged for the helm. Shannon dragged him back with both arms around his waist. " Keep your head down!" "We'll broach! I gotta steer." A second murderous crack drove them both to the deck. The sea reared, so high it blocked the light. A wind gust crashed into the mainsail. Knowing what was coming and helpless to stop it, Jim grabbed Shannon and held her tightly as the boat fell on its side. The icy sea broke over them, flooding the cockpit and smashing them into the safety lines. "Hold on, hold on, she'll come up!" Jim yelled. Shannon screamed. Jim yelled, "She'll come up. She has to." But the rolling sea filled the mainsail, which was already in the water, and held the boat flat like a pinned wrestler.

"Tell him to stop shooting," said Val.

Andy Nickels spoke into his radio mike. "Another shot across the bow. Make believers of 'em."

"I said no! You'll panic them. They're overpowered already."

"We'll debate tactics later," Andy said coldly. "Right now, you're on my ground and we'

re taking them my way." "Lost 'em," Joe radioed.

"What do you mean, 'lost'?"

"They fell behind a wave. They disappeared. I can't see 'em. They're gone."

"They can't be gone," Andy Nickels yelled in his mike. "They're only two hundred yards ahead. Look for them."

JoyStick chose that moment to rocket to the top of a high crest. At the helm, Val could see for miles. She felt her stomach clench with the unfamiliar circumstance of being taken by surprise. From JoyStick's bows to the dark horizon, the jagged, blistered sea was empty.

WE'RE GOING TO die right here and now, thought Jim. The sea must have smashed a hatch and Hustle was filling with, water. Why else would she lay on her side like this?

Thousands of pounds of lead in her keel should have whipped her upright. Instead, she lay flat, her mast, storm jib, and mainsail submerged. Then, with a loud, wet, whooshing sound audible over the wind and breaking waves, the sails tried to spill their load of water

"Here we go, here we go. Hold on, Shannon."

Jim grabbed the helm as Hustle sprang upright. The wind was still screaming over the side. She was still beam to the sea and in danger of broaching again.

"Look!" cried Shannon.

The black boat had passed them. On a track less than a

hundred yards away, it was racing east, running with the

wind at an incredible speed, leaving them in its wake. "They couldn't see us when we got knocked down." "They'll see us now."

And indeed, before the catamaran had raced a half mile, the crew must have spotted them, because she suddenly changed course, turning left, peeling away to the north. A raked mast stepped way back on the hulls made her look all business, like a lion about to sprint.

"Where are they going?"

"It's a catamaran," said Shannon. "They can't sail as close to the wind as we can."

"At that speed they don't have to."

The catamaran was playing chess with the wind. Racing north a couple of miles on a broad port reach, it would spin around and come flying back at them on a broad starboard reach—at twenty or thirty knots, while Hustle plodded along at eight.

"What are we going to do?" asked Shannon.

Jim looked around frantically. The knockdown had been a blessing in disguise. But it was the only gift they'd get, and they'd better not waste it. Always see what's going on before you make a move, Will had said. Know the score.

The seas were rolling from the west. The wind had shifted again, angling to the south, and was booming out of the southwest. Whatever refuge the Falkland Islands might offer was far too many miles to the west-northwest. The only good news he could see was night moving in from the east. And the only direction in which he could go that the catamaran couldn't sail directly was south. But the Burdwood Bank lay south. Jim watched the black boat charging along a trough, skimming the edge of a roller. She was going to whip around any minute. But suddenly she fell further off and raced downwind. "Where's he going now?"

Shannon had it in the binoculars. "They have a problem. I saw the left-hand bow go underwater—oh, wow, look! They're spinning out!" At their distance it was hard to tell precisely what had happened, but something had caused the big catamaran to suddenly wheel around and head upwind and stop. Its huge sail shimmered wildly. Shannon said, "I read that sometimes they nose-dive into a surprise wave. Jim, what can we do?"

The catamaran recovered quickly, filling her sails. The mast was unbelievably tall. Judging by the gunman astride the first spreader Jim guessed two hundred feet. Any second

now it was going to turn and come after them. He looked east at the night, their only friend.

"They're turning," said Shannon.

Jim started the engine.

The black boat grew large in the northwest. "He's doing forty knots." But running at an angle across the seas was making the catamaran roll violently as the crests lifted first the starboard hull, then dropped it, while simultaneously thrusting up against the port hull. Now it was less shiplike than sailboat-like, heeling sharply, spilling the wind as the huge mast whipped across a broad arc.

"How many crew?" he asked Shannon.

"I see five."

"They must have their hands full."

When it was a mile behind and closing fast, Shannon said, "He's not aiming the gun yet."

"Get down." He dragged her off the bench onto the floor of the cockpit. Scalp prickling, Jim poked his head up to judge the distance. "Okay, get ready. We're going to do a oneeighty to starboard." He reached up to the engine controls without exposing his head, engaged the propeller, and shoved the throttle to full power.

Hustle was already surfing a crest at ten knots, so the prop cavitated, spinning uselessly in a pocket of air. When Jim looked up again, the black boat was only two hundred yards behind, its bows rising like a pair of knives. He waited until the last second, then hauled himself up on the helm, turning it as he climbed to his feet.

Hustle swung sharply to starboard, right in the path of the black catamaran. He saw immediately that he had cut it too close. The cat was nearer than he had realized, right on top of them.

He thought he heard the man on the mast yell. Jim had misjudged its speed. The twin hulls bracketed the slow-moving sailboat. Jim could see between them—under the massive connecting beam that would shear Hustle's mast like a scythe. He felt the propeller bite tentatively. The sloop swung