Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (34 page)

“I’m not trying to justify anything
,
Angela. Forgiveness is exactly for things that ca
nnot
be justified.”

She gave a little groan. “Shut up.
”

“That’s always an intelligent argument,” I agreed.

There was an explosion of pain on the left side of my head, a scream from Leyla, and I staggered against the galley counter. Angela had struck me with her pistol
, very close to the same spot where Phil hit me earlier in the night
. Now she held
the weapon
pointed
at a spot
between my eyes, her hands trembling.

“I could blow you away right now,” she said. “End your little corner of oppression in this world.”

I looked into her eyes of death, and knew with certainty that life waited for me on the other side.
No one gets out of
this world
without dying
anyway, and a few years more or less doesn’t alter the final result. A bullet from her gun was merely a shortcut to the life I was looking forward to more than anything in this
mortal frame
.
I took a deep breath. Death held no fear, but I had unfinished business here. It didn’t seem like it was my time yet. I wondered if it ever did. I
wanted
to
save Leyla,
Tony
,
and maybe Jasmine
;
maybe even Phil and Angela. I took another breath. “How many men have you killed, Angela?” I asked. “Has it ever really helped?”

Her hand
s
shook more.
I could feel blood trickling from
my
temple, and my head began to throb
again
.

“Go up there and relieve Jasmine,” said Angela at last, lowering the gun. “She shouldn’t have to be cold and wet while you’re warm.”

I felt it was an unwarranted exaggeration to say that I was warm, but
under the circumstances, it seemed better to remain quiet
.
I refilled my coffee mug and turned to the companionway. As I pulled the door open, I thought that when Angela freely admitted to murder in front of three witnesses, she might as well have said right out loud that we
would all be
dead
within hours
.

“You didn’t tell her,” I said to Jasmine. She was sheltered under the dodger, letting the autopilot steer.

“I really am on your side.”

“Angela just admitted to murdering someone,” I said. “I think we don’t have
much more time
.”

What little I could see of Jasmine’s face, under her dripping hood, was grave. “I wish I knew the whole plan,” she said. “I know she’ll sink Tiny Dancer, but she hasn’t said how.”

“Does it matter?” I asked. I had a pretty good idea of how, but I still wasn’t completely sure I could trust Jasmine. She might be fishing for more information before she passed it all on to Angela.
I said nothing. Lat
er, I bitterly wished
that I had spoken.

“Maybe not
,” said Jasmine, “
—if
you are
right
and the Coast Guard is on the way.” I felt slightly g
uilty that I hadn’t told her the Coast Guard
would be too late
. If she was really on our side, she should know that. But
if she was really working with Angela, I wanted the pressure to be on.

“I
thought for a minute she was going to shoot me
just now,” was all I said. “I better stay up here, at least until she calms down.”

“What did you do?”

“I was pushing buttons, trying to get them to screw up or something. Probably stupid.”

I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could feel them on my face. “You sure you’re just a pastor?”

For some reason
,
that sort of question always irritates me. “Of course
I am
. Pastors are just people, like everyone else. Are you sure you’re just an FBI agent, or just Italian? Quit categorizing people.”

“How did you know I was Italian?”

“Lucky guess.”

She looked at me for a long time. “You’re not
telling me everything, are you?
”

I returned her gaze. “No.”

She was quiet for a minute.
“Jonah, I’m your ace-in-the-hole. You need me.”

“So you say – no offense.”

“I left the autopilot on. I got your rope out of the rigging. I didn’t tell Angela anything.”

“Look
,
Jasmine,” I said. “Nothing in our relationship up until this very night has been based on truth or reality. I just can’t trust you yet.”

She turned away abruptly.
“Fine. I’m going below,” she stalked to the companionway and disappeared.

I considered the dim lights glowing dully through the cabin windows. If I let the autopilot drain the battery completely
,
I might have a few minutes afterwards to steer us off course and delay us
. I could
claim it was an accident,
since I wouldn’t have the GPS any longer. But whenever the Coast Guard did show up, they’d be looking for us on the course I gave them.

I went back to the wheel and looked at the GPS unit. We were within about ten miles of the waypoint – maybe two
,
or two and half hours at our current speed. Once Angela and Phil were on the other boat, our lives would be forfeit. Under the circumstances, delay seemed like a good idea.

I waited under the dodger. The cabin lights looked washed out and old. I wondered when someone would notice, and what they would say. Leyla would probably figure it out, but she might not know it was deliberate. Jasmine, of course, would know. Maybe her response would give me the assurance I wanted in order to trust her.

I am not a swearing man, but I almost gave in to the impulse when I realized that a dead battery meant no more coffee. I cheered up again a moment later when I remembered that the stove was run on propane, and I could boil water and still make cowboy co
ffee, thick and full of grounds
.

Suddenly, there was no more light coming from the cabin. In the same moment, I felt the
Tiny Dancer
swing to starboard, but this time she did not swing back, as she had done under the influence of
the
auto-pilot. I stepped quickly to the wheel and steadied her, holding her maybe ten or fifteen degrees off the original course. I punched the GPS, but to my satisfaction, it was dead.

I reached over and loosened the jib-sheet, spilling air out
of
the sail, and slowing us down. I tried not to do it so much that it caused a noticeable difference in the feel of the boat.

I
heard muffled voices from below
and some banging around. I wondered if Jasmine had taken a chance at Angela’s pistol in the dark. Even as I thought it, I hoped she hadn’t. Phil had a pistol too, and shots in the dark could hit Leyla or Stone.
After a moment
,
I saw the gleam of a flashlight through the windows.

This time it was Phil who came up, five minutes after I saw the flashlight. “What did you do?” He said. He looked tired and even more pinched than before.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I was glad for the dark. It made it easier to pretend surprise.

“All the lights went off. We don’t have any power.”

“Did you check the fuses?” I asked.

“We just did,” he said. “Everything looks OK.”

“I don’t know much about boats,” I said.

“You must have done something. The rest of us were all
just sitting there.”

“The storm probably loosened something. All this pounding can’t be good for the boat.”

He stood there for a
few
minutes, flinching as the spray and rain crashed onto his back.

“What did you do?”

Brightness may not have been one of Phil’s strong points. He didn’t seem to know what else to say.

“I’ve just been out here all night, keeping us on course,” I said. It was true, but of course, I was using the autopilot to do it.

He looked at me. I looked at him, and then out at the storm.
The
twelve
foot waves were pounding
the
port side about halfway along, sending spray flying as high as the mast. Ever
y
third or fourth wave caught us and washed over the deck, dumping water into the cockpit at our feet, which then drained out the scuppers.

“Look at it,” I said to Phil. “And this is calm compared to earlier. Something got wet, or got shifted by the movement and shorted out.”

“Do you mean it?”

I looked
at
what I could see of his face in the dark and under his hood. “
Mean what
?”

“Do you mean it – what you said about forgiveness?”

I blinked spray out of my eyes
and wiped my face with my right hand. “I do, Phil. There’s nothing I believe more.”

“Is it really true, that guy who wrote
Amazing Grace
?”

“It is,” I said. “He was a slave trader named John Newton. I think they made a mo
vie about his life or something. He was abused when he was younger and forced into a kind of slavery himself. But that didn’t stop him from making slaves of others.”

“And he was forgiven?”

“I believe he was. I don’t know how you
could write that hymn
if you weren’t
sure you were forgiven
.”

Phil was quiet for a long time. Then, without a word, he turned and went below.

The wind was strong and steady from the northwest, and I let it push us father east. I didn’t have the GPS anymore, so I wasn’t sure just how far off course we were. But the waves
had
moved from our port bow to our
port
rear quarter. That meant I started getting very wet again, because they were hitting the boat right next me, and when they washed over the deck, most of it came into the cockpit. Several times water swirled up to my knees before draining out.
I was cold and sore and desperately tired. But I ran Rich Mullins’
I
A
m
R
eady for the Storm
through my head, and pretended it was true.

It took them about half an hour to realize I wasn’t on course anymore. Jasmine came up
,
dressed in raingear and holding the portable GPS.

“They noticed you are off course. Angela was all for finishing the job on Tony as an object lesson, but Leyla pointed out that you wouldn’t know where to go
,
once
the
electronics w
ent dead
.”

My difficulty was that I had only Jasmine’s word for it. This is what I wanted to hear – that she hadn’t sold me out. But I wasn’t down there when it happened, so I couldn’t know for sure. At least no one had been shot – surely I would have heard that over the sound of the storm.

“I was hoping Angela or Phil would come up. That would leave only one against you, Tony and Leyla.”

Jasmine looked at me. “That’s a bad plan Jonah. Tony’s badly hurt
, and couldn’t help
. Would you
really
want Leyla
fighting down there
?
”

I felt foolish. “Sorry, of course not. I was just thinking of numbers.”

“It’s just too risky – guns in small spaces with several people
is a bad combination
. That’s how Phil’s brother got killed.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Sorry
,
Jonah, but that’s
the
truth.
Once it starts, it’s pretty hard to control what happens.
That’s why Tony’s down there fighting for his life.
”

I was torn with a desire to tell Jasmine about Tony. If she knew his wounds were not vital,
maybe she would be willing to
work with him to
try and take out Phil
or Angela
while
the other one was
in the cockpit
with the GPS
.
On the other hand, I would be literally killing Tony
if I gave away his secret and Jasmine was really working with Angela.

“Screw it,” I said. It was a phrase I had picked up at seminary. “Tony isn’t going die. He wasn’t hit in the lung.”