Impact (34 page)

But the boat only managed to go another hundred feet before the anchor fetched up hard on a rock and the boat swung around by the bow, the engine straining. They were still in range.
Karang! Karang!
came the shots, punching a pair of holes in the upper hull.

“Now! Cut the anchor!”

Jackie sprinted forward and, keeping low, using the pilothouse as cover, crawled up to the bow and sawed through the rope. The boat lurched forward and Abbey slammed the throttle to the console, eyes glued to the chartplotter, trying to keep the boat within the narrow channels among the islands. In a moment they were out of range and a few minutes later they passed the end of Little Green, swung around it, and headed down the winding channels for the open ocean.

Abbey throttled down and sagged against the wheel, suddenly feeling dizzy.

“Oh my God,” said Jackie, holding her head. “Oh my God.” Her face was bleeding from flying glass.

“Come here.” Abbey wiped the blood off her face with a paper towel. “Hold still. You’re hyperventilating.”

Jackie made a visible effort to get her heart and breathing under control.

“Man, Jackie, that was some scream you let loose back there. I’ll never call you a wimp again.”

Jackie’s shaking began to subside. “I was mad,” she said.

“You’re not kidding.” Abbey wiped the blood off her own face and steadied herself, her hands firmly on the wheel. She shifted her attention to the chartplotter, thinking of the best way to get into port. “Let’s go straight to Owls Head,” Abbey said. “Get the hell out of here and call the cops.”

“You can call the cops right now,” Jackie said, turning on the VHF. They waited for it to warm up. The boat swung north in the channel and, coming around a protected island, entered open water at the southern end of Penobscot Bay. A powerful swell shuddered the boat and Abbey was surprised to see the very heavy seas running out of the east, the kind of deep rolling swell that preceded a major storm. It was dark; she glanced up and realized the Moon had been obscured for some time. The wind was rising steadily and lightning flickered along the sea horizon.

She raised the mike, turned the VHF to channel 16, pressed the transmit button, and made an emergency broadcast to the Coast Guard.

75

From his shooting perch behind a boulder, Harry Burr watched the boat disappear among the islands. He shoved the gun into his belt and leaned on the rock, his head pounding. He could feel the blood still trickling down from his ear and scalp. Feeling the growing lump on the side of his head, an ungovernable rage took hold, so powerful it caused stars to pop up in his field of vision. Two bitches had fucked up everything, smacked him on the head, taken his dinghy. They saw him and they could identify him. The stars swarmed about and he felt the almost physical pressure of anger behind his forehead, a humming sound, like a cloud of bees trying to escape.

It was him or them. If he didn’t catch up to them and kill them, he would go down. It was as simple as that. If they got to shore, he’d be finished.

He ejected the empty magazine from his piece and reloaded it with loose rounds he carried in his pocket, smacking it back into place. He had very little time. But all was not lost. He still had the other dinghy and a more seaworthy boat—along with an ace in the hole: the father.

Ignoring the pounding in his head, Burr jogged down the strand and into the woods. He pulled the dinghy out of the bushes, retrieved the hidden oars, tossed them in, and dragged the skiff down the beach. Shoving off, he rowed toward where he’d anchored the
Halcyon
. The
Halcyon
was not a fast boat but he guessed it would be faster than the
Marea II
, which was, after all, just a fishing boat, not a yacht.

He pulled with the current, and as he did so, he noticed how dark it had become and how much the wind had risen. Even in the protected waters of the islands, whitecaps were forming, the sound of the wind moaning in the spruce trees. He could hear the distant thunder of surf on the windward islands, a mile off.

He crossed the channel and came around the edge of the adjacent island, the
Halcyon
coming into view. He could see the dark form of the fisherman, both hands shackled tightly to the stern rail.

He bumped up against the gunwale and climbed aboard, cleating off the dinghy. “Look sharp, Straw, we got business to take care of.”

“You touch my daughter and I’ll kill you,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll search you out—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He went straight to the VHF radio, turned it on to channel 16. If there was one thing he had to do, it was stop the girl from calling the Coast Guard.

76

When Abbey finished making the identification call and released the transmit button, instantly a hoarse voice came on. “Abbey? There you are!”

It was the killer’s voice. He must have gotten back to his boat and had been monitoring the emergency channel.

“You bastard, you’re toast,” she began.

“Ah, ah! Don’t use bad language on an official government frequency, where your father can hear it.”

“My—what?”

“Your father. He’s here on the boat and we’re having such a good time together.”

Abbey was struck speechless for a moment. The wind shook the pilothouse and a sudden hard rain slapped the windows. A flash of lightning split the air above, followed by the crackle of thunder.

“I repeat: your father, Mr. George Straw, is here on the boat with me,” he said smoothly. “Switch to channel seventy-two and we’ll chat.” Channel 72, Abbey knew, was an obscure noncommercial frequency that nobody used.

Before she could respond, the radio hissed. “
This is Coast Guard Station Rockland responding
—”

Abbey cut off the dispatcher, and dialed in 72.

“Much better,” came the voice. “Want to say hi to Dad?”

Abbey felt physically sick. It had to be a lie. She heard a muffled sound, a curse, the sound of a blow. “
Talk
to her.” Another thud.

“Stop it!” Abbey screamed.

“Abbey,” came her father’s distorted voice. “Stay away. Just get the hell into port and go straight to the police—”

Another heavy blow, a grunt.

“
Stop
it, you
bastard
!”

The killer’s voice came back on. “Get back on sixteen and call off the Coast Guard. Now. Or he’s fish food.”

With a sob, Abbey dialed back to channel 16 and told the Coast Guard that it was a false alarm. The dispatcher began to advise her to head to port immediately because of the storm. She signed off and dialed back to channel 72. She glanced over at Jackie but she was staring back in shock. The boat shuddered through a comber and the wheel jerked around, the boat yawing.

Jackie suddenly gripped the wheel, giving the throttle some fuel, and the boat yawed back around and just barely met the next wave on the starboard quarter. “I’ll take the helm. You deal with him.”

Abbey nodded dumbly. The wind was picking up by the second, lashing the ocean’s heaving surface into honeycombs of foam.

Back on channel 72 the killer gave a low laugh and then said, “Hello? Anybody home?”

“Please don’t hurt—”

Another smack, a groan. “What’s your position?”

“Penobscot Bay.”

“Listen carefully, here’s the plan. Give me your GPS coordinates. I’m coming to you and I’ll give you your father back.”

“What do you want?”

“Just a promise that you’ll forget all about this. Okay?”

“Abbey!” came a faint cry, “don’t listen—”

Another thud.

“No,
please
! Don’t hurt him!”

“Abbey,” came the calm voice of the killer. “Keep in mind we’re on an open channel. Understand? I’m coming to you. There won’t be any problems if you follow my instructions.”

Abbey tried to breathe through an involuntary spasm in her throat. After a moment she said, “I understand.”

“Good. Now your GPS coordinates?”

Jackie reached over and grabbed the mike, turning off the transmit button so they couldn’t be heard. “Abbey, you know he’s lying. He’s going to kill us.”

“I know that,” Abbey said ferociously. “Just let me
think
.”

Even as they had been speaking, the swell was rising fast. The
Marea II
, engine grinding away, was being shoved sideways by each wave.

“Abbey? Are you there?”

Abbey took the mike back. “I’m figuring it out!” She turned to Jackie. “What do we do?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Hello? Maybe Dad needs another beating to help you figure?”

“I’m just southwest of Devil’s Limb,” Abbey said.

“Devil’s Limb? What the hell are you doing way out there?”

“We were heading for Rockland,” she said, madly thinking.

“Bullshit! If you’re out there, gimme the coordinates!”

Abbey punched the keys of the chartplotter, fixed a waypoint next to Devil’s Limb, and read him back the false coordinates.

“Jesus Christ,” said the killer after a moment. “I’m not going out there. You come back here.”

Abbey sobbed. “We can’t! We’re almost out of fuel!”

“Lying bitch! Get back here now or Dad goes chumming!”

“No, please,” Abbey sobbed. “All your shooting cut a fuel line. We’re almost out of fuel!”

“I don’t believe it!”

“We just now clamped it. It’s the truth!”

Smack.
“You hear that? That’s for lying again!”

Abbey swallowed. She had to take the risk. “Please believe me!” she said, controlling her voice. “Why do you think I was calling the Coast Guard?”

“Fuck that, I’m not crossing open water in this sea.”

A gust carrying a wallop of rain lashed the boat, water spraying in the broken windows. Another swell shoved the boat sideways and Abbey had to seize the ceiling grips to keep from falling.

“He’s going to kill us!” Jackie hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m . . .
pretending
to surrender.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hear me?” came the voice. “Get your ass back here or he’s chum.”

She pressed transmit. “Look, please, I don’t know how to make you believe me, but I swear I’m telling the truth. You blew the shit out of this boat and a bullet nicked a fuel line. I barely got enough left to maneuver. Just bring me my father and I’ll do whatever you want. You win. We surrender.
Please believe me.
”

“I’m not going out there!” the man screamed.

“You
have
to come this way to get to Rockland Harbor.”

“Why the fuck would I want to go to Rockland?”

“You’ll never make it anywhere else in this storm! Don’t be an idiot, I know this ocean! If you think you’re going to Owls Head, you’ll be wrecked on the Nubble.”

She heard a string of profanities. “This better not be bullshit because your father’s handcuffed to the rail. My boat sinks, he’s going down.”

“I promise I’m not lying, just please get here and bring me my father.”

“Keep channel seventy-two open and listen for my instructions, over.” The transmission clicked off with a burst of static.

“What’re we doing?” Jackie cried. “You have a plan after we surrender or what?”

“Take us to Devil’s Limb.”

“In a storm like this? It’s way the fuck out there!”

“Exactly.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I will when we get there.”

Jackie shook her head, gunned the engine, and sent the boat surging through the moiling sea on a course for Devil’s Limb. “You better think fast.”

77

Rising from takeoff at the Portland Jetport, the plane broke through the storm clouds and was suddenly bathed in the eerie light of the full Moon. Wyman Ford peered out the window, freshly awed by the spectacle. It was no longer the familiar orb of memory and romance but a changeling Moon, new and frightening, casting a greenish light over the mountains and canyons of cloud below the plane. The plume of debris from the strike had gone into orbit, spinning into an arc. An excited murmur of voices rose in the cabin as passengers peered out the windows. After gazing at it for a while, Ford, disturbed by the sight, slid the window shade shut and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, and concentrating on the meeting to come.

An hour and a half later, as the plane approached Dulles, Ford roused himself and, despite his vow not to, lifted the shade to look at the Moon again. The arc of debris was still stealing around the disc of the Moon, growing into a ring. The city of Washington lay spread out below, bathed in an eerie green-blue glow that was neither day nor night.

He was not all that surprised to be met at the gate by federal agents, who escorted him through the deserted concourse, the television screens in waiting areas blaring identical news, showing pictures of the Moon intercut with various talking heads and reports from the reactions around the world. Panic, it seemed, was taking hold—particularly in the Middle East and Africa. There were rumors of the testing of nefarious and top-secret weapons by the U.S. or Israel, panic about radiation, hysterical people being rushed to emergency rooms.

The agents walked on either side of him, stone-faced, saying nothing. The streets of Washington were virtually deserted. People in the capital were, perhaps instinctually, staying inside.

Walking through baggage claim, the agents helped him into a police-issue Crown Victoria, placing him between them in the backseat. The car blazed through the deserted streets, light bar going, until they arrived at the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Seventeenth Street, pulling up to the ugly redbrick building where Lockwood and his staff worked.

As he expected, all the lights in the building were ablaze.

78

Using the GPS, Harry Burr fixed a waypoint on his chart and set a course for the reef labeled “Devil’s Limb.”

He glanced back at the father; he lay slumped in the stern, still shackled to the taffrail, semiconscious, the pouring rain and sea spray drenching him. Burr might have hit him a little too hard that last time. Fuck it, he’d revive enough to play his part for the final act.