Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (30 page)

I was feeling impatient and anxious. There was a long time when nothing happened. I looked at the Captain and Iverson. “Are we still connected?” They both nodded. Iverson said, “She’s going up the chain of command. An ensign doesn’t handle this kind of stuff by herself.”

Finally a male voice crackled through the air. “This is
Captain
Kurt Moser, U
.
S
.
Coast
G
uard.
Is this
A
gent
Stone?” My heart leaped within me when he mentioned Stone’s name. Stone must have had back
-
up. They couldn’t have intended to get lost in a storm.

“Captain, my name is Jonah Borden. I was on the boat with agent Tony Stone. He is in serious jeopardy, along with another civilian. We need help immediately.”

“Who is this? Where are you?”

“My name is Jonah Borden,” I repeated. “I escaped from the sailboat
Tiny Dancer
and was picked up
by
the freighter
Superior Rose
. Stone and a civilian are still on the sailboat, and I’m afraid they are going to be killed.”

“What about
A
gent Bianco?”

“You mean Jasmine? I’m afraid she’s working with the bad guys.”

There was a moment of static. “Doesn’t sound right,” said Moser finally. “Do you have any kind of position?”

“Better. I have last known position, course
,
and approximate speed.”

“Well done
,
Borden,” crackled Moser over the distance. “Give
‘
em to me.” Iverson looked at me approvingly. I pulled the GPS unit out of my pocket, and gave him what he needed to know. I could feel the stress beginning to drain away.
The cavalry had been summoned, and they seemed to know their business.

“Are you sure about these?” asked Moser. “
Superior Rose,
what is your current positio
n?” Dillon took the mic from me
and looked at one of the sailors who hovered near the instruments.
The sailor gave him the position and he repeated it into the mic.

There was a pause, presumably while someone at the Coast Guard station plotted the course.
“How did you get way the heck out there?” crackled Moser. “You were supposed to be in the Apostles. Were you crazy, heading out in this storm?”

“I’m sorry
,
sir,” said Dillon into the mic. “What do you mean?”

“I was talking to Borden,” said Moser.
“
We were tracking
his
sailboat until we lost the signal,
right
about when the storm started
.”

“Agent Stone lost some kind of pager overboard,” I said
, taking the mic
. “He was very upset about it.
The gang took
over the boat right about then,
and forced us to head out into the storm.
”

“
That
pager
was our signal
. Hold please.”
After a few minutes, Moser was back.
“All right, we have course and position at 2
2
00 hours.
It is midnight now.
We should be able to intercept in about seven hours
, or 0700
. Sit tight.”

“
Seven hours!
” I didn’t mean to yell, but I did. Iverson and Dillon looked startled. “That
’s
too late!
Captain, m
y theory is that they are planning to rendezvous with another vessel and sink the
Tiny Dancer
, with us in it.
I’m guessing at present speed they’ll m
ake the rendezvous at
five-thirty
in the morning or so.”

Captain Moser’s voice, though attenuated by static and machinery, sounded calm. “I’m sure you have had a rough time of it
,
Borden, and that feels like
an
eternity to wait. But it will be fine, I assure you.”

“Why so long?” I asked.

“
We
were shadowing you with the cutter
Alder
beyond the Bayfield peninsula. When the storm hit
,
we had to recall the speed runners, and the
n
we got a distress call back near Duluth. Since we thought you had taken shelter behind one of the Islands,
the cutter
left the Bayfield station to handle it
,
and
went back to cover the SOS. The
Alder
is in Duluth now.
”

They were about one hundred and forty miles away.

“Is there nothing closer?”

“The cutter
Alder
is our only full
-
size vessel on Superior.
You’re out in the middle of nowhere. The Marquette station is a h
undred and sixty miles from you, and there’s nothing there with more speed or range anyway.
”

“What about a helicopter or a float plane?”

“We can’t risk it in this weather, and even if we could, it is night and visibility is extremely poor.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

The cavalry was
coming, but they would be late.
F
ar too late.

Captain Dillon got back on the radio with the Coast Guard.

“Captain,” said Moser through the speakers, “I can’t order you to do this, but I wondered if you could stay in the area for a few hours?”

Dillon looked out of the dark windows of the bridge for a few moments, tapping the hand-held mic on his thigh. He brought it back to his lips and pushed the send button. “I need to check with corporate on this. If I don’t, it could be my job.”

“Understood,” said Moser through a burst of static. “Please get back to me when you have your answer.”

“Will do
,
Captain,” said Dillon. “Over and out.” He reached up and hung the mic back on its bracket. “Get me corporate headquarters.”

“Sir,” said the sailor who operated the radio, “it’s after midnight.”

Dillon swore. “I forgot. I’m going to have to wake someone up.”

I stepped away from the action. Iverson took my arm. “Coffee?”

I brightened. “Absolutely.”

“Sorry we didn’t get you something earlier, but you were pretty insistent about your call. I see why now.”

Iverson led me through a small passage behind the main bridge and into a kind of sitting area. A big industrial-style coffee maker was bolted to a wall and a counter.
He
grabbed two mugs from a cupboard,
filled them
and handed
one to me
. The first sip was heaven. The second sip sobered me up.

“I have to get back to the
Tiny Dancer
,” I said numbly.
Iverson looked at me without expression.

I met his eyes. “You married?”

He shook his head.

“Ever been in love?” He nodded.

“How would you feel, if you were safe drinking coffee somewhere, while your love was tied up in a boat, prepped for execution in a few hours
?
”

Iverson said nothing, just regarded me thoughtfully as his sipped his coffee.

“You cut the lifeboat free – the one I was in.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Those conditions, I made a judgment call. The
boat
or your life. I picked your life.”

“Can I take one of your lifeboats?”

He put down his coffee. “What are you talking about?”

“I need to get back to the
Tiny Dancer
. Look, the bad guys don’t even know I’m gone. I was steering the boat for them while they held my sweetheart – her name is Leyla – hostage. I set it on autopilot and
got in the lifeboat and tried to make it to you guys when I saw your lights. As far as they know, I’m still up there at the wheel.”

“How long ago was that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,
maybe an hour and a half
. If I go quick, I could get ahead of their course and wait for them, and get back in the boat before they know I was gone.”

“You are
one
crazy dude,
you know that?”

“I’ve done hostage negotiation before,” I said. “I’m the police chaplain in my town.”

Iverson was silent.

“I can’t let her die,
”
I said.
I sipped some coffee and looked away
miserably
. “My first wife was killed by a
burglar
.”

Iverson began swearing. I realized maybe there was a reason for the expression “swear like a sailor.” He got up.

“I’ll be right back.”

He was gone for fifteen minutes, which gave me time to finish my coffee, plus a second cup. I was warm and comfortable, but nothing could ease the anxiety that chewed away at me inside. I was starting to wonder if the
Superior Rose
had any of those automatically inflating life rafts that I could steal. The problem would be getting ahead of the
Tiny Dancer
with nothing but a tiny plastic paddle. The
Superior Rose
had been going roughly parallel to the
Tiny Dancer
, but downwind,
and of course, much faster,
so I would have
to paddle
against the force of the storm.

I stood up just as Iverson walked into the room. He limped directly to me and met my eyes. “Let’s go.”

“I can’t stay,” I said. “I’ll take one of those inflatable rafts if I have to.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, ‘let’s go get you back to the
Tiny Dancer
.’ Captain’s letting us take
his
launch.
”

I was speechless, but I followed Iverson with alacrity when he turned and led the way back down to the deck level.
As we made our way out into the howling wind and back toward the stern, Iverson called out over his shoulder.

“Cap’n is an ex-Coastie. We both miss the action a little
sometimes
and it seem
s like this one was made for us
and dropped in our lap.”

“I am a pastor,
my boss is God,
” I shouted back. “Maybe it
was
made for you
.”

He flashed me a
tight
grin in the dark, and we continued on.

The launch was more substantial than the lifeboat that had pulled me out of the lake. It looked like a large narrow speedboat with a covered bow and a windscreen and roof protecting most of the cockpit. The outboard motor looked huge.
By the time we got back to the stern
,
a crew of men had already hoisted
it
on a pair of davits
and were lowering
it
into a position where we could get on.
Without any ceremony, Iverson and I scrambled aboard, followed by a short, broad muscled sailor and
then another one
, taller and slimmer
.

“What’re we doing now, First?” asked the short, muscular man.

“Covert insertion,” said Iverson
absently
, checking the cockpit. He tested the radio, examined gauges and then gave the thumbs up to the davits crew.

“Huh?” asked the muscled sailor.

“Sorry
Jones
,” said Iverson. “We are taking this man,” he pointed at me
,
“back to his yacht, but in secret, so the folks on that boat won’t ever know he was gone, or that we were there.”

“Why dint ya just say so?”

“Never mind,” said Iverson.

I heard Jones mutter, “
C
rap navy-speak.”

The taller sailor was called
Felix. The crew lowered us back into the waves.
Iverson had the engine going as soon as we hit the water. There was a little bit of maneuvering and hassling with the davits. It seemed to take forever to me, but probably it was only a few seconds. Finally, we were under way.

The storm had abated a little. The wind still whipped spray everywhere, but the rain seemed to have quit, and the waves were averaging maybe
twelve or fifteen
feet now, instead of twenty or more.

“Let me see the GPS,
said Iverson, gunning the engine.