Pilot Error (12 page)

Luke slanted a glance at his companion. She sat in the bow, with his Smartphone in hand, reluctantly following his instructions on how to search for a cell signal. Her robotic waving was almost comical, and he might have laughed had the situation not been so serious. Micki had kept a prudent distance since their unwanted but necessary closeness in the ditch, and what he really wanted was to know what was going on in that pretty little head of hers. She wasn't giving him much in the way of clues. Other than occasionally providing curt directions, Micki seemed oblivious to the fact that he was sweating his heart out and tearing blisters on his hands as he pulled on the oars with laborious strokes.

It took experience and strength to keep them headed in the right direction, fighting against the conflicting influences of wind and tide, in a rowboat without a keel. Maneuvering through the white-capped waves was a game of skill and nerve and, shooting a glance toward a sky rapidly darkening with even more ominous clouds, Luke wasn't entirely sure he was going to win. Grimly, he set his jaw and resolved that at least he would go the distance.

Their slow but steady pace gradually ate up the miles toward Marathon, and by early afternoon they had put two more islands between their would-be killers and themselves. Luke fought the urge to grimace as the pull of the tide deepened the growing agony of fatigued muscles in his arms and back. Not, he thought with a trace of heat that surprised him, that his companion was taking any notice of his effort.

He wished he could say he was as oblivious of her as she seemed to be of him, but he could not. They had both put on their clothes, but thanks to the heat and sweat and humidity, Micki's still-damp t-shirt clung to her like a second skin and left very little to his healthy male imagination. Trying to ignore her, Luke put his back into maintaining course against an ocean that wanted to carry them elsewhere. He had too much going on right now to be distracted by a feminine form, no matter how enticing. A lapse of concentration could spell disaster.

A large wave broke portside, stirred up by the rising wind, and sent them rocking wildly in their tiny craft. Luke heard Fizz whine softly from his position in the bottom of the boat, and watched as his mistress caught at the flimsy sides. When her sapphire eyes flashed a glower his way, he wondered why he had ever wanted her to acknowledge him in the first place.

"Need a little help, Hardigan?"

"No, thank you." His tone was just as sarcastic. "I can get us drowned all on my own."

Her brows drew together but a rumble from the clouds diverted her attention. "No way we're going to make Marathon before the storm at this pace, Yank." When her gaze came back to him, worry had shaded the scorn. It colored her words, too, no matter how flippant she may have intended them to sound. "Can't you row a little faster?"

"You want to give it a shot, beautiful?"

"Fine," she said, standing up in the already unstable craft. "Get out of the way."

She carelessly tossed the Smartphone in his direction, making him clumsily attempt to pin it between his knees lest it go sailing overboard. He missed, but managed to divert its watery trajectory downwards to the rough metal floor of the jon boat, where it landed screen side up between his feet. Micki didn't seem to realize that while they may not have a cell signal yet, the phone could turn out to be their salvation when, rather than if, they rowed into range of a tower.

Shaking his head, Luke was about to rebuke her carelessness, when the phone screen caught his eye. The GPS app was still open and running, albeit without a cell signal to update their position as they moved, so the area still showing on the digital map was the same one with the pin marking the crash site of the downed Coast Guard helicopter.

Shipping the oars, he picked up the phone for a closer look. He was right; they had just passed the small, J-shaped peninsula he remembered seeing from the air.

Lifting his head, Luke squinted past where Micki stood, struggling to maintain her balance in the rocking bow, across a gray sea under a gray sky. There, a mile or so ahead, was the island that heralded the helicopter crash site. Solemnly, he glanced down at the red digital map pin marking the location where Razor McNally had died.

Pilot error, they said. Pilot error, be damned.

"Are you going to trade places or not?" Micki demanded, drawing him out of himself.

Silent a long moment, Luke considered her. Even sunburned, and tousled by wind and saltwater, Micki Jacinto was a breathtaking, passionate creature... but he could not let that sway him. Not now. He needed a look at that helicopter and he needed to do it before a storm swept away the evidence he hoped to find, or the bastards who were covering their dirty tracks destroyed it.

"Well, Hardigan?"

Fizz lifted his head to regard him quizzically, and Luke reached a decision. He took the oars back into his hands.

"You're right, we're never going to make it back to Marathon before that hits." He jerked his head upward to indicate the approaching thunderheads. "We've got to pick our place and burrow in before it gets here."

Resolutely, he began to row toward the island before them. Finally agreeing with him about something, Micki resumed her seat in the bow. "Any port in a storm," she said with resignation. "I guess that's how the saying goes."

Luke found he could not meet her eyes. "Yep, any port in a storm." Thunder rumbled in the distance. "And it looks like this one is going to have to do."

In the twenty minutes it took to reach the shore, the wind picked up, with gusts from ten to thirty knots, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees. A mammoth wall of angry dark clouds bore down on them, simultaneously growing higher and more threatening. By the time their jon boat's hull finally grated on the coral beach, Micki's grip on its sides had become white-knuckled.

She hesitated, looking out over the tiny key before moving to get out. "I don't know... this isn't much of an island. More like a sandbar with a couple of palm trees. A bigger one would be a better choice."

"True." It wouldn't hurt to be agreeable, not now. Climbing out, Luke encouraged Fizz forward with a beckoning gesture. "But since we're here, let's look around. Maybe there's a fishing shanty here, too, that we could use for shelter."

Micki threw him a withering glance. "I hate to tell you but those aren't exactly a dime a dozen."

"So it doesn't hurt to look, right?" He reached to take her backpack, but she pulled it to her and stood up to cut off his assistance. Giving in, he took a step back to give her room to climb out on her own. "Besides," he said, rolling his shoulders with a theatrical groan, "I need a little time to rest."

Micki moved past him onto the sand. "I told you I'd take over for a while."

Luke drew a silent sigh of relief. Maybe this would be relatively painless after all. In a swift move, before she turned to see, he pushed the boat back into the chop of waves.

"I mean, you don't have to do all the work just because—" Micki stopped suddenly, her jaw dropping open when she saw him using the momentum from his run to haul himself into the boat as it headed back to sea. "Where are you going?"

Luke caught up the oars again and set a course for the J-shaped peninsula. "I'll be back, I promise."

Micki looked as if she was about to dive into the ocean after him. "Oh sure, Hardigan." She took two steps into the lapping waves despite the widening distance between them. "I can tell you're a man of your word. I'll expect you back, real soon."

The contempt in her tone stung. "I'll be back." A chill wave drenched him, rocking the small craft. "I just have to take a look at that Coast Guard helo first."

Her face was an incredible mix of anger and disbelief. "The helo? Why?"

Why. He couldn't tell her that for the same reason he couldn't take her with him. Instead, he settled for shouting his promise yet again. "I'll be back in an hour. No longer."

Luke thought he was far enough away that hearing her would be impossible and, at her shouted words, wished it had been so. The shaking rage in Micki's voice, desperate and defiant even in the face of being abandoned in an overcast world of rising water and wind, would stay with him forever.

"Go to hell, Hardigan! I hope the damn ocean swallows you!"

***

Micki's words rang hauntingly in Luke's ears, as he shed his khaki cargo shorts for the dive and pulled his snorkel mask from his bag. As he settled it on his face against the coming sting of saltwater, the jon boat rocked precariously in the chop and made him survey the threatening sky. The same lousy weather that had kept the Coast Guard from dredging the helo for a full investigation now hindered those responsible for the crash from clearing out of the area. From the clues he'd gathered so far, Luke guessed they would be gone in another few hours.

Determined, he took the last item he would need from his bag—a waterproof pocket camera—and slipped its nylon lanyard around his neck. Waiting for the storm to pass wasn't an option, not even with nature's visual warning that diving in such conditions was insane, if not suicidal. Sure, it would have been simpler, and safer, to wait for the official accident report, but simpler wasn't necessarily better in this case. Luke wanted the truth, and while he was pretty sure the main operation that had ultimately led to the helicopter crash was civilian run, he didn't know how deep the corruption went or who could be trusted. If the rot had somehow crossed the civilian line and crept into military ranks, then an 'official report' would be next to worthless.

In the back of his mind, he also knew he was breaking every rule in the book. Although it seemed unlikely, given the weather, he knew that if he got caught poking around an 'open investigation' crash site, it would land him in a fat lot of trouble with his superiors, the Coast Guard, and possibly even the NTSB.

With a quick tug on the anchor rope to ensure that it was still firmly wedged on some part of the submerged helo, Luke accepted all the risks and slipped over the side. Holding onto the rope, he took a deep breath and flipped downward. The truth waited beneath him, untouched on a sand and coral seabed, submerged in less than fifteen feet of water.

He followed the line down toward the Dolphin helicopter, the normally serene underwater realm now ruled by churning turbulence, which somehow seemed to bring substance to Micki's condemning words. As the iron gray ocean closed silently above him, swallowing him like a giant watery maw, Luke spared a thought for her, left on the beach and thinking the worst of him, and wondered uneasily if her curse hadn't just come true.

'I'll be back.'
Hah!

Micki paced back and forth in the sand, and glowered at the wide expanse of whitecaps on an ocean that had remained empty ever since Luke disappeared around the nearby peninsula. He would be halfway toward the next island by now—a good distance closer to Marathon, a hot shower, and some dry clothes. There was no way he was coming back, and she was just wasting time standing there hoping that he would.

But—
the thought made her catch her bottom lip with her teeth as a strong feeling of abandonment quivered through her—
what else can I do?

'Plenty.'
It was her father's voice in her head, and his memory that filled her with a renewed sense of determination. For starters, she could activate the emergency transmitter she had in her backpack. At least Hardigan hadn't taken that.

Fizz lay silently beside the camel-colored backpack, faithfully guarding what was currently her most treasured possession. When Micki dropped to her knees in the sand and reached for the bag, he looked up at her with trusting brown eyes.

"It's okay, boy," she said. "We don't need Luke Hardigan anyway. It's better that he's out of our hair."

Good old Fizz, he was one male she could always count on—him and the guys back at Marathon.

She checked her watch for the gazillionth time. It was 4:30pm. By 5:00pm, the guys would all be at
The Sandpiper
for a drink on the way home from work. Tex would probably stay there to eat too, doing his usual complaining about not having a significant other to make him a decent home-cooked meal. Padre and Tim might end up joining him, if they didn't have other plans. And Dirk—Dirk would be off home to spiff himself up for their dinner date at the mystery spot he promised. When he called by her trailer and found she wasn't there, he would immediately suspect something was wrong. Knowing Dirk, he would drive all the way back into town to check the hangar and see her Cessna was missing.

That would get his boxers in a bunch! Dirk would raise the alarm, and Tex and Padre and Tim would be out looking for her in force, despite the pending storm. The two Coast Guard pilots would lift off in a Dolphin rescue helicopter, putting their training to the test, and Tim would brave the waves in his deep sea fishing boat just because it was her. Then, when they found her, maybe Tex would haul her up into that helo of his with a cheerful, 'Howdy, Ma'am, need a lift?'

Yes. Now that she was going to be missed, it was time to activate the transmitter and give them a better idea where to look.

Micki had both hands inside the backpack and around the ELT, when an eerily cool breeze gusted over her, lifting gooseflesh on her skin. Pivoting, her focus drawn to the sky, she found herself right under the shelf of billowing thunderheads that had been chasing them for hours. The wind that swept before the storm brought the smell of rain and a charge in the air that meant only one thing.