Fire And Ice (35 page)

The boat was heaving around on the chop. It took a long time to pull off his sea boots, and it didn't seem worth the effort to struggle out of his foul-weather gear, so he found a blanket and collapsed on the leeward berth in the main cabin. The angle of heel pressed him against the bulkhead. He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket over him. He knew he had to sleep. He'd be no use until he had rested, but seared on his eyelids was a vision of Ronnie struggling like a kitten.

He turned on a reading lamp, swung his legs to the cabin floor, worked his way the several feet back to the

nav station and found the Sailing Directions and the Royal Navy's Ocean Passages for the World. He carried the books back into the berth, pored over the descriptions of the East China Sea, the Osumi Strait, and the section of the North Pacific between the Osumi Strait and Tokyo known as the Philippine Sea.

The weather in December was dominated by China's winter monsoon—the cold dry winds generated by a vast high-pressure system over the Mongolian and East Siberian hinterlands. On the first leg, from Shanghai to the south tip of Japan, they could expect northeast and northwest winds. Twenty knots on the open sea, a good stiff force 5

breeze—which could freshen at any moment to thirty-three knots, a moderate gale which would limit Veronica to a triple-reefed main and a staysail.

But once they got through the Osumi Strait, the continental high would kick up violent west winds. Low pressure moving eastward would slow the monsoon ahead of the depression and leave gales behind. Storms were frequent.

He turned on the radio for a new weather report. But long before he could chart it on the plastic cover sheet, he had passed out.

When Sarah came below for a moment's respite from the cold, she removed the books and covered his huddled body with another blanket. While the kettle heated on the kerosene stove, she went forward and turned on the light in the forepeak. The waves resonated against the bow. Ronnie's little cave, her life-size dollhouse. The ceiling over her berth was plastered with pictures of cats and penguins and photographs, cut from People magazine, of her current heroine, Surya Bonaly, the black French Olympic skater. In a gimballed holder swung a flowerpot with a shriveled aloe plant. She brought water to the powdery soil, thinking, Scratch an African and you'll find a farmer. She felt as if the Dallas Belle carried a curse from God. The innocent were not immune. She tried to picture her child asleep in Mr. Jack's cabin. Or lying awake, terrified. Fear threatened to overwhelm her. She could feel it swelling. She looked back at Michael for strength. His face looked old.

STONE AWAKENED IN SLOW STAGES, HIS BODY SORE, HIS MIND

suffused, at first, with a sense of well-being. He was back on the boat, the water rushing past the hull, the familiar creak of the rudder stock filled with peaceful memories. She was beating to windward, her heavy, shapely hull driving effortlessly on one of her finest points of sail. Felt like seven and a half knots. The sea was choppy; occasionally the bow smacked a wave, but she drove right on through.

Yet all wasn't right: she was carrying too much sail, heeling too hard, and actually losing speed when gusts angled her sharply. He looked at his watch. One o'clock. It must be broken. But when he held it to his ear it gave a steady ping. He sat up quickly, memory flooding back. Sarah had been on watch eight hours. He yanked on his boots. Tucked between the bed and the bulkhead was a thermos of coffee, with a note, DRINK ME. Sleeping like a rock, he hadn't heard her. The memory of Ronnie slammed into him, and he was suddenly wide awake. He carried the thermos up to the cockpit, climbing the companionway on aching legs.

"I'm sorry," he called.

Sarah was a shadow against the night. The sky was veiled with cloud and backlit by a faint glow—a halo cast by Shanghai, sixty miles astern. Whitecaps shone in the darkness around the boat.

"I'm fine," she said. "So glad to be outside again." She had shaken out one of the reefs, but the wind was gusting over twenty knots now and the boat leaned hard. She was usually a more cautious sailor.

"You must be beat." He poured her a cup of the coffee.

"The self-steering won't hold. The water's too choppy." As she spoke she steered out of a deep trough and through a wave that threatened to brush Veronica off course. Cold spray flew over the dodger and stung their faces.

"I think we're overpowered," said Stone.

"The wind dropped."

"Yeah, well, it's back. Head up a little."

Sarah steered closer to the wind.

Stone eased the mainsheet. "Want to haul down on the leech line when I give a yell?" He went forward, holding onto the lifelines, and released the boom yang. Then he tightened up the topping lift, working by feel among the familiar controls, and lowered the main halyard, feeling for a wire marker, cleated it, and pulled the slackened sail down and secured it to the gooseneck, then cranked up the halyard. "Haul the leech line!" Sarah used a winch to pull down the back of the sail, then trimmed the mainsheet. Stone released the topping lift and pulled the boom down with the yang. Then he ran some light line through the grommets in the sail and around the boom, gathering the loose cloth between the newly secured front and back.

At Stone's request the sailmaker had added a third line of cringles and grommets for another reef, but the second was sufficient for now. The Swan had straightened up. " Eight knots!" Sarah called. She welcomed him back to the cockpit with the coffee. Stone drank it quickly and took the wheel. "Got it."

"Oh-nine-three," she said, indicating the red-lit corn-pass. The speedometer was jumping between 7.9 and 8.1 knots. The sonar read forty-five meters. They had passed the southern fringe of the Yangtze Bank and the chop should be smoothing down some in the deeper water.

"Where's the GPS?"

"Ronnie has it."

No sweat. If the sky didn't clear, he could radio a passing ship for a position; and in the meantime there was nothing to run into between here and Japan for the next three days.

"Get some sleep," he said, anxious to work the sails. "Have you eaten?"

"Just the coffee. I'm fine."

"I'll bring you something."

"That's okay."

"I'll bring you something." She touched his face as she had earlier, as if looking with her fingers in the dark. "Punishing your body won't get her back." She left him a flashlight, fresh from the charger, and he shone it on the sails to see how they were drawing. Damned near perfect. The helm felt like the boat was well balanced, but if the wind rose any more, he'd fly a smaller jib and raise the inner forestay sail. He was not a racer by nature, but--chased across three oceans in Veronica—he had learned how to make a Swan fly. With her taller mast and the Technora main, she was even faster today. He was smarter too, more experienced. But he no longer had the body he could demand so much of; his hands had been losing strength for years, and now his legs were going. And he worried about his spirit: fleeing pursuit, he had been fueled by fear. Would love be as powerful?

The answer would come with a thousand small tests: the willingness to change a sail two minutes after he had just changed it; or, drugged by exhaustion, the energy to stand up and crank a winch half a turn when instinct said it might help make the boat go faster, but the mind groaned, Why bother?

When Sarah came up with oatmeal and honey, she panicked. The cockpit was empty. Whirling around, she saw him at the mast, working a winch, lost in the boat. For the first time since Ronnie had been taken, she felt relief. He was master of the Swan again, back in his element. For a fleeting instant she wondered what would happen to him if they went to Africa. He returned to the cockpit in a low, easy crouch, his hands brushing a jack line he had

rigged along the cabin top. His face was alight. "Beautiful sail. Pulling like a rocket."

"Will you shake out that reef?"

"No. Wind's really honking. Jesus, that smells good. . . . Delicious. Here, you have some, too. Help you sleep . . ."

Ronnie stared at her breakfast, lips tight, ears shut to Ah Lee's pleas that she eat—that she hadn't eaten lunch the day before or dinner and had left uneaten the late-night pizza the ship's cook had run up especially for his favorite crew member. She was starving, her stomach an empty pit. At first, after Moss grabbed her, she couldn't eat, but now she was hungry and it took a massive concentration on her mother and father to keep from cramming a whole blueberry muffin into her mouth. Ah Lee started up again, switching randomly between Shanghainese and English. She pushed the plate away.

The Chinese steward bent closer and whispered in her ear, "If you don't eat, Mr. Moss will hit me."

"He's bluffing," said Ronnie. But she couldn't ignore the bruises from the last time, the stitches her mother had just removed from his cheek, and the fear in his eyes. "Truth?" she whispered back.

"Very truth."

"Very true, Ah Lee. Or 'truth.' But not 'very truth.' "You eat, please. Please."

"Okay. Okay."

He folded his arms, and watched her down both muffins and her milk. "Now eggs, missy."

"Don't call me missy."

"Yes, Miss Ronnie."

"Don't call me Miss Ronnie. I told you, a million times. Ronnie. Ronnie. Ronnie."

"Yes, Ronnie. Thank you for eating."

Mr. Jack shuffled into the lounge wearing his robe and slippers. Ronnie's face closed like stone. He took the coffee cup that Ah Lee hurried to him, drank some with a slurping sound, and peered across the table. "Cheer up,

kid. Big day coming. Going to show you something that'll knock your eyes out." Ronnie stared at her plate. She felt very confused by Mr. Jack—betrayed. And a little frightened. She could never tell when he would suddenly start yelling, and now, without her mother to intervene, what would happen if he exploded?

"What's the matter, for crissake?"

"I want to go home."

"You're goin' home. Told you. Christmas Eve. Bang-up holiday with the folks." He winked, his wrinkles doubling, and broke into a raspy-voiced song, " 'I'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me. . . Oh for crissake don't start crying."

"I'm not crying," she said, though her throat was swelling and she could feel her mouth tremble in a way she couldn't stop.

"It's not my goddammed fault they ran off without you."

"You scared them."

Mr. Jack stared. His face got hard like metal. Then he laughed. "Well goddammit, kid, if they're scaredy-cats, don't blame me. . . . Now come on, cheer up. I'm going to show you something great today. And tomorrow you talk to them on the radio. Remember?"

"Noon. Of course I remember."

"That's right. Noon tomorrow. Nice long talk on the radio. 'Cept, of course, you gotta be careful what you say—you don't want to talk about me or Shanghai or anything. Just about you and them and how you'll have a great time at Christmas." He shuffled over to the tree and flicked on the colored lights. "If we hit Tokyo a little early, maybe I'll take you Christmas shopping in the Ginza. Get something for your mom and dad. So, you want to know what's goin' to happen today?"

She didn't. But her mother, she recalled, had been very careful to tell Mr. Jack whatever he wanted to hear, so she said, "What's happening?"

"What's happening? Come on. Go get dressed while I eat some breakfast and I'll get dressed and then you'll see what's happening."

When he came back out bundled in a big down coat, he had another for her, bright red, which fit perfectly. In the pocket were mittens embroidered with dinosaurs, and a red knit watchcap with a gold tassel. "Cold out. Button up." He bounded up the stairs to the bridge deck. "Move it. Double time." She ran after him, up the corridor and through the curtain to the bridge. It was cool and quiet, the big windows admitting the gray light through the hole the fire had burned in the shed roof.

Daddy's fire. She hid a smile. Mr. Jack had really yelled about the fire, called Daddy a " vicious bastard" and a bunch of other names that she had learned from American cruiser kids in Samoa.

"Come here!"

She followed him onto the cold bridge wing. Far away on the bow were hundreds of workmen, staring up at the cranes arching over their heads. Mr. Jack passed her the binoculars.

"No thank you. I don't need them."

She could see clearly; binoculars always closed in the view and she sensed that something big was going to happen and she wanted to see it all at once. Mr. Jack picked up a telephone. "Ready when you are, C.B." A whistle blew and all the workmen drew to attention, grabbing tools and bracing themselves.

"Oh, wow!"

Four gantry cranes—two to the starboard side of the gas ship and two to the port side of the cruise liner—moved in unison. She could hear their engines thundering, the note deepening as they took the load—like Veronica's motor lowering from burp-burp-burp to chug-chug-chug when they engaged the propeller. Cables tightened and the entire front of the cruise ship's superstructure—the front cabins and the bridge on top—began to rise. Ronnie held her breath.

The section the cranes were lifting looked about half the length of Veronica and was as wide as the ship. The

cranes raised it higher and higher. Then they began to maneuver it like a piece of Lego toward the right. "Wow."

"Wait for it, kid." Mr. Jack chuckled.

Slowly the cranes shifted the front of the superstructure over the side of the cruise ship, across the water between the two vessels, and over the gas carrier. The workmen, she saw, were holding onto lines, like spinnaker guys. Hundreds of them, struggling to keep the piece from swinging.

She started to say, "Oh, wow," again but realized she was repeating herself. "Son of a bitch."

"Whoa!" said Mr. Jack. "Mum's away, the kid'll play. Who taught you that? Daddy?"

"Mr. Jack, what are they doing?"

"They're playing erector set."

"I don't know what that means."

"Too young. What they're doing is transferring the superstructure of that old cruise ship onto my ship." "What for?"

"So we can go cruising."