First Avenue (44 page)

Using the ropes tied to front and rear grommets, Turner and Katherine carried the kayak around the cabin to the stern and lowered it over the rail. The sergeant and Markowitz replaced them on the rope lines. Each had a flashlight that they pointed straight down into the water so that the light would not reflect toward the
Nippon Blue
.

“Shut it down, Johnson!” the sergeant yelled.

As though an anchor had been thrown overboard, the police cruiser dragged down to a halt. Turner had already straddled the railing and was reaching his feet toward the rear hatch before the boat stopped. Katherine followed his example in the front. With the ropes, Markowitz and the sergeant held the kayak high in the water. As a swell brought the kayak up to meet him, Turner dropped into place. Sam climbed over the rail and held on to Katherine’s jumpsuit.

“Okay. Get in,” he said.

She lowered herself from the rail until her feet touched the sliced hatch cover. She let go. He thought she would tumble out, but she grabbed the edge of the compartment and wiggled into it. Sam dropped into the cockpit and stretched the elastic waist skirt over the rim. Markowitz released the rope supporting the back and the kayak swung around to face the stern of the police boat. Then the sergeant tossed his rope to Katherine, who stuffed the loose end between her legs. Sam felt the shotguns to make sure they were still in place, then waved for the police boat to go.

“Ease her forward, Johnson,” the sergeant yelled.

The engine picked up speed and the police boat left them behind.

“Let’s go,” Sam shouted.

Katherine and Turner thrust their paddles into the water at the same time. It was so dark that Sam could barely see them although they were only a few feet away. He could not see the swells at all. He would have to respond to them by feel. He was accustomed to the Sound at night but not on a night like this. Always before, he had been close enough to shore to navigate with reflected light. This far out with the rain obscuring what little light reached them, he knew it was possible they might not find their targets. It was possible they might not find anything. Simply staying upright was a chore as swells broke and poured over them, no matter how good his feel. Off and on, however, he could see the lights from the two boats, and he steered as well as he could for the dark passage between them.

Turner was a natural athlete. His rhythm was forceful and steady. Katherine’s stroke was less rhythmic but just as determined.

“They’re moving toward each other,” Sam shouted in Turner’s direction.

The wind carried away Turner’s reply, but Sam caught the gist of it. It had something to do with mothers and divine intervention.

Under his breath, although it would not have mattered if he had yelled it out, he began to urge
Gloria
forward. As though she were a living thing or more than a living thing, he sought her help.

As the two target boats came together, Sam estimated that
Gloria
was still about two hundred yards away. At first the lights moved separately like two fishing bobbers in rough water. Then there came a unity of movement, and he guessed that they had tied together. He thought he saw a shadow on deck, although the image disappeared so quickly he couldn’t be sure. Then the lights went out.

“Shit!” Turner’s response was unmistakable.

Sam looked frantically for bearings—a light somewhere that would act as a reference point. There was none. There was only the wind. The angle at which it struck him was behind, slightly to the left, and he could feel and hear the change as he moved his head. Katherine had stopped paddling as though there were nothing left to go for.

“Keep going,” Sam shouted to her. “Keep going,” he yelled back to Turner. “I know where they are. Let’s go.”

In fact he knew about where the boats were when the lights went out. Where they would drift in a few minutes with the wind and current was a different matter. He had to get close enough to see something before the boats moved too far. Their paddles grabbed the water in a desperate effort. He felt like a marathon runner sensing the finish line and pushed himself to sprint to the end.

He began counting his strokes. At fifty, he started over. At fifty again, he started over. Three times fifty, and he was struggling for air. The wind took it away. Three times fifty, and he had seen nothing. He should have seen something by then. Four times fifty would be too far.

A change of the darkness, a mere feeling of the change was what he noticed. It was sharply to the right—almost close enough to feel. He saw a dim light suspended in darkness. It couldn’t be more than thirty or forty feet away. He grabbed Katherine’s shoulder and pulled her back.

“To the right,” he shouted in a whisper.

For a moment he thought she would rise out of the kayak or strike him down, but she recovered from his unexpected hand. He reached back, but Turner was already nodding with such force that Sam felt his acknowledgment through the grip he had on Turner’s jumpsuit.

“Stop paddling. Get the shotguns.” That was all he could say for a moment as he corrected their course and kept them upright through a swell. He saw Katherine reach back for a shotgun and rip the plastic away. Turner chambered a shell. When he glanced back, he saw Turner holding the gun in front of him like the balancing pole of a tightrope walker.

Unsure from which side to approach, Sam groped toward the dim light. Although he had promised the kayak could turn on a dime, he was having trouble making it turn in any circle. The extra dead weight did not help.

Gradually he determined the outline of the boats. The
Nippon Blue
had turned 180 degrees from what he had expected. He turned
Gloria
back into the wind and pushed and pulled and urged her to the stern of the near-black boat. Katherine had her shotgun pointed toward their target. Sam half-expected a blast to come from one boat or the other at any moment.

When they were within a few feet of the
Nippon
‘s stern, Katherine put the shotgun between her legs and reached for the rear platform. The boat’s inboard motor was idling at low speed. Sam tried to control the final approach so that they wouldn’t slam into the other boat, and for agonizing seconds he saw the shadowy image of Katherine’s outstretched and empty arms.

Despite his efforts the kayak lurched the final few feet and practically threw Katherine into the
Nippon Blue
. He could only hope that no one onboard heard the crash. Katherine tied
Gloria
‘s rope to the stern plate, and Sam pushed
Gloria
around so that Turner could also reach the boat. Turner lashed his rope to a protruding handgrip. Sam shoved his paddle under a rubber strap and ripped away the skirt strap around his waist. While Turner scrambled onto the step, Sam pulled out the last shotgun, slipped away the plastic, and chambered a round.

Turner reached out a hand and pulled him onto the step. Sam grabbed Katherine’s arm and pulled her up with them. Water, either from the Sound or the rain, sprayed over them. He could taste salt, so at least some of it was from the Sound. They huddled for a moment on the step as they became used to the rolling motion of the boat, then they rose together to peek over the deck four feet above their platform.

There were ten or twelve feet of open deck between them and the cabin. Sam thought he saw movement close to the cabin on the port side next to the rail. He was sure of it when he saw a glow against the backdrop. The idiot was smoking a cigarette. How he could light it in such weather was hard to imagine, but Sam was grateful that he had persisted.

Turner pulled him down below the railing again.

“One guy,” he whispered to them. “The rest must be in the cabin. You cover me. I’ll put him out. Then we go into the cabin.”

“What about the other boat?” Sam asked.

“Did you see anybody there?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Here, take my shotgun,” Turner whispered. “Wrap your legs around the ladder. Safety’s on, one in the chamber.”

Sam handed Turner’s gun to Katherine. For support, he stuck his foot through the bottom rung of the ladder as Turner had suggested. Turner grabbed the ladder with both hands.

“Stay low,” Sam whispered.

Turner paused momentarily, signaled with his hand that he would follow Sam’s advice, and hoisted himself up. Sam clicked off the safety on the shotgun. With his finger outside the trigger guard, he pointed at the cigarette glow and hoped the cigarette would last a long time.

Turner circled away from the man, as far as the deck would permit, until he was against the cabin wall. Unless he had followed him from the beginning, Sam would not have seen Turner at all. Against the white cabin, however, his outline was more distinct. When Turner was within feet of his target, the man suddenly turned around. Sam’s finger moved to the trigger but held back when Turner lunged forward and struck the man in the solar plexus. The man doubled over, but was straightened again as Turner snapped his neck back into a chokehold. No air was going to come back in to replace that which was forced out, and the man’s arms flailed in a futile effort to resist.

“Watch the cabin,” Sam whispered to Katherine.

He started carefully up the ladder. As he approached, he saw that Turner still held the man’s neck. There was no sign of life in him.

“That’s enough,” Sam whispered. “Tape him up.”

Katherine glided silently toward them carrying her shotgun and Turner’s.

Very gently, as though with a sleeping baby, Turner lowered the limp form to the deck. At the last moment he released the chokehold that had squeezed off blood to the man’s brain. Sam patted the man down for weapons while Turner pulled out the roll of duct tape. Sam found a pistol stuffed in a shoulder holster. It felt like an automatic. He jerked it free and tossed it into the turbulent water.

Turner wrapped the man’s mouth and eyes first. Then he turned the man over and taped his arms together behind his back. Finally, he wrapped his legs and feet. If the man ever became conscious, he would certainly regret it.

Without saying anything, Turner took his shotgun from Katherine. They crept to the cabin door. Sam held up his hand to signal Katherine and Turner to wait, and he edged over to the corner of the cabin and peeked around the sidewall at the other boat. Two ropes connected the boats, and there were twenty or twenty-five feet of water between them. That explained why they were not crashing together. The cabin in the other boat was completely dark, and he could see no one on deck. If anyone was there, he was hidden inside the cabin. It would give them enough time. He returned to the cabin door and nodded to Katherine and Turner. Sam felt for the door handle with his left hand. When it was in his grasp, he whispered to Turner.

“I’ll go first and cover the left side.”

“I got the right,” Turner whispered in return as he crowded close to Sam.

“Kat,” Sam said, “watch the other boat.”

He moved the handle just enough to make sure it was not locked, then brought his shotgun up so that the barrel was against his cheek. He could hear his heart beating in the cold steel. When he was sure of his footing, he flung the door open and the two burst into the cabin at the same moment.

“Police! Freeze!” Sam shouted.

“Freeze! Move and you’re dead!”

There were three men gathered around a small table five feet from the door. To a man, they stood disabled—eyes wide, mouths open, nothing coming out. Sam and Turner bombarded them with a torrent of profanity and instructions and threats until even the weakest mind would understand that if anyone moved or burped or breathed too loudly, he would bring immediate and eternal destruction to them all. When a cardboard box fell onto the floor, not one of them took their eyes off the shotguns to watch its descent. It couldn’t be missed, however, as bundles of green bills spilled out. Without moving closer, Sam and Turner lined their suspects against the far wall, turned them around, spread their legs, and had them reach high on the wall. Sam saw them all, but until they turned around, he thought of them only as faceless, mechanical objects that had to obey or be destroyed.

They obeyed. Despite the danger and urgency, Sam could see the end of it now. Pierre was there with his pig eyes, as was Captain Russell with the first sign of despair dropping from his puffy face. McDonald woodenly turned as though as he had lost control of his finer senses, and his eyes were jumping with fear. Sam realized he had seen all of that before they turned away. He had seen, too, an open satchel on the counter and a plastic bag of white powder beside it.

He pulled the radio out of a zipped pocket in his jumpsuit and turned it on.

“
Harbor 4
to
Harbor 1
.
Harbor 4
to
Harbor 1
.“

The sergeant’s scratchy voice filled the room.

“We have the
Nippon Blue
under control. Come in loud and hard. Secure the second boat. We do not know if it is occupied. Repeat. We do not know if it is occupied.”

“Received. Coming in.”

There was a flurry of radio activity as the sergeant cleared the frequency with notice of an emergency and told
Harbor 2
to come in.
Harbor 2
was already under way. Sam looked out the open door to make sure that Katherine was all right and heard the wonderfully pleasing sound of sirens in the distance.