Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) (2 page)

They fell silent. That was probably it, but they knew Zach was as level-headed as they come. It wasn’t like him to see something that wasn’t there.

They all looked forward, each in deep contemplation. The only thing they could see ahead was a slight trace of glowing algae, and that, too, soon disappeared.

S
TACEY was at the wheel at a little after seven the same morning when the radar showed a blip ahead of them. She kept her eye on it to see if it was coming or going, and asked Glen, who had joined her in the cockpit twenty minutes earlier, to keep his eyes on the horizon in case something came into view.

She soon determined that the object wasn’t moving. They were on a heading of twenty-nine degrees, the course from the island in the Marshalls they’d left three days earlier, to the big island of Hawaii.

The July sun was still far enough to the north to make seeing things in the water difficult at that time of the morning. It was off to the right and not directly in their vision, but the glare forced them to shade their eyes on that side. Neither could see anything yet, so they weren’t sure if whatever was out there was a ship at rest or an island. They had seen the chart for this area and didn’t remember any islands, but Glen went below to retrieve the chart to be sure. He brought it up, shaking his head.

Stacey had no doubt that Glen was right, but had him take the wheel so she could check it out. They’d learned long ago that there was usually plenty of time to double and triple check everything. When on a more than four-month family cruise that covered many thousands of miles, being thorough, and careful, was a must. She first made sure it was the right chart, and then examined it closely. She nodded. “Okay, we can be fairly certain there’s nothing permanent out there,” she said to her son, “so it has to be a boat of some kind. The question is, why is it stopped?”

“A fisherman?” Glen asked.

“Maybe, but I wonder what they could be looking for in waters this deep?”

“We’ll soon find out,” he opined. “It’s dead ahead.” He reached below the seat and unlatched the door to the storage bin under his seat, looking for binoculars. The first case he pulled out was for the night vision goggles. “A new spot for these?”

“Yes,” Stacey replied. “We thought they were convenient, as well as safe, being with the charts below, but we learned last night they have to be even more convenient.”

He nodded. They were always learning something. He replaced the goggles and pulled out the 10x35mm binoculars, the ones they used for long distances. Things kind of bounced with them, but whatever was out there was a long way off. When closer, they’d use the 8x35mm binoculars, which weren’t as powerful but were easier to keep focused.

Stacey folded the chart and set it on the cockpit seat next to her. Glen locked in the autopilot and took a seat across from her. Both turned to face the bow, their eyes glued to the water in front of them, He used the binoculars, and she looked with bare eyes. Up until a few days ago, coming across another boat out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean had been a pleasure, but now that the radios and GPS had lost their signals, and after what had happened just hours before, they were leery of what lay ahead.

He saw it first and pointed to the spot.

She saw it, too, but it looked like no more than a little dark spot on the water to her. He steadied the binoculars and focused in, then whistled.

“What?” Stacey asked.

“It’s really big.”

She stood and looked at the radar for the first time in several minutes. “You’re right. This blip is a pretty good size already, and we’re still miles away.”

They continued on for several minutes more, with Glen’s binoculars constantly pointed at what was up ahead. Finally, he said, “Mom, that’s an aircraft carrier.”

“An aircraft carrier? You must be mistaken. What would an aircraft carrier be doing here, just sitting around doing nothing?”

“Look for yourself.” He handed her the strong binoculars.

She looked, adjusted the focus, and studied the ship ahead. She held the big glasses as steady as she could so she could get as good an idea as possible of what was out there. When she was sure of what she was looking at, she handed the binoculars back to her son. “You’re right, as usual.” She started back toward the hatchway and ladder leading down to the aft cabin, where Zach had been sleeping for the past two hours.

“Mom, are you going to bed?”

She stopped, turned to look at Glen, checked her watch, and then came back to sit where she’d been before. “No, I don’t think anyone is going to be sleeping much today. Unfortunately, that includes your father, who’s only slept two hours in the last thirty-six. I’ll let him sleep a little longer, but something’s very wrong and we’re going to need him up here very soon.”

S
TACEY let Zach sleep another half hour, and by the time he got to the sailboat’s cockpit, he was able to get a good look at the aircraft carrier with the 8x35mm binoculars. He went over the whole ship and after a couple of minutes, his binoculars followed something down from the flight deck to the water. He focused in on a spot at the waterline.

“What is it?” asked Stacey.

“They’ve lowered a boat.” He swept the area for miles on either side of the aircraft carrier with the binoculars. “There’s nothing else out there.”

“What does that mean?” asked Denise. By now, all four of them were on the deck, three looking at the big ship from the cockpit and Glen forward on the bowsprit, watching the carrier with the more powerful glasses.

“No way of knowing at this point, but they could be coming here.”

“What for?”

“That, honey, is another of the questions I have no answer for at the moment,” he told his daughter.

Glen, who had been engrossed in what he saw in the distance, hadn’t heard their conversation. He called back, “Hey, dad, they’re sending a launch our way.”

“Can you get a good look at it with those powerful binocs?”

“It’s still pretty far away, but it looks like it’s more than a small shore boat. Maybe forty or fifty feet. I think they’ve got a gun.”

“What?”

“I can’t be sure, but it looks like a bazooka, or rocket launcher or some other kind of weapon attached to the deck on the bow.”

Zach and Stacey stared at one another. What had been the family cruise of a lifetime was turning into a nightmare. “What do we do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “We get out our two little weapons and wait.”

“What can we do with a .30 caliber rifle and a pistol against a rocket launcher and God knows what else they have?” she asked. “We should have brought more weapons.”

“I didn’t expect to be confronted by pirates out here, let alone the U.S. Navy.”

Zach went below and came back with a lever action carbine and a 9-millimeter automatic handgun. He handed the pistol to Stacey.

“I can take that, Mom,” Denise said. “I’m a better shot than you.”

Stacey smiled at her daughter. “You are that, but a thirteen-year-old girl shouldn’t have to be defending her life like this.”

“Maybe not, but it looks like that’s the way it is.”

Stacey pulled her daughter close and hugged her, squeezing tightly for a moment.

“Look, we’re not sure yet that there’s any danger,” Zach told the women. “Let’s put the weapons down but keep them close, just in case. We’ll know soon enough if we’re going to need them.”

He looked at the other boat again, sweeping the whole of it. When he got to one spot, he stopped and studied it for a few moments.

“What is it?” asked Stacey.

“The writing on the side. It looks like it’s in Chinese or some other Asian language.”

“What does that mean?”

“No idea. The carrier is U.S. for sure, but that small boat is… I have no idea what it is.”

They all watched for several minutes as the boat from the carrier moved toward them. There was no longer any question. It was heading directly at their boat. Then, Glen jumped up and began running back to the cockpit, yelling, “Two guys went to that little cannon or whatever it is up front. They’re loading it.”

Zach leveled his binoculars on the boat’s bow. “Geez, he’s right, and they’re aiming at us. Get down, everyone.”

Before they could move toward cover, they heard the frightening sound of a shell being launched. It blazed right at them.

Z
ACH pushed Stacey and Denise down while Glen leaped toward the cockpit. They weren’t yet under cover when they heard the frightening sound of something whizzing by overhead. They looked at one another in amazement as they heard an explosion.

Looking back, they saw a fifty-foot powerboat less than a mile behind them, its bow on fire. They’d been so focused on the aircraft carrier and its launch, they hadn’t bothered to look at the area behind them or check their radar for over half an hour. In the past, that might not have made a difference, but things had suddenly changed.

As they started to get up, they heard another boom and were rocked a moment later by the wake of the boat that had come from the carrier as it rushed past, heading for the burning boat. As it passed, they could clearly see that the lettering on its side was Asian. Everyone aboard, though, looked American. The second shell destroyed the wheelhouse of the crippled vessel, and as the armed boat approached, five armed men opened fire with assault weapons. For a few seconds, there was return fire, but that ended quickly. When they were alongside, four men jumped aboard where there was another short volley of small arms fire, and then silence.

The family watched as the navy crew brought two men out from below. Even though they were wounded, the prisoner’s hands were bound behind their backs. The crew took the prisoners aboard the navy boat, and then returned to the burning craft, transferring things from the burning boat to their own. Zach and his family couldn’t see what they were loading. The men worked quickly, obviously in a hurry to get away. When they had what they wanted, they motored thirty yards out, then turned back and launched one more shell at the boat’s hull. The final shot hit right at the waterline, ripping the bottom to shreds. No longer having anything to hold it up, the boat was gone in minutes, leaving only a small oil slick and a little flotsam to mark the spot.

The vessel from the carrier headed back toward the sailboat. When they saw it coming, Glen grabbed the carbine and Denise started for the automatic.

“Keep them ready,” Zach told the youngsters, who were growing up quickly. “But don’t shoot unless you have to.”

As he walked over to the rail to watch the boat approach, a loudspeaker came on. “Ahoy, there, you aboard the ketch,
La Sirena
,” came a booming voice. “I am Commander Joseph A. Kotchel of the United States Navy. With your permission, we would like to come alongside your vessel. We have things to discuss.”

By that time, the other boat was thirty yards away. Zach leaned out and yelled, “What things?”

“What just transpired this morning, for one.”

“We saw what happened.”

“But, you don’t know why it happened.”

“We don’t care why.”

“Oh, but you will when you hear the story. What’s more, it is essential that we discuss what the immediate future holds for you.”