The Black Silent (23 page)

The boat skipped across the water, and sometimes when it came down, and cracked the back of a nasty little swell, the jarring could put a tooth through her tongue if she didn't keep it sucked down in her mouth. It was punishing work, fraught with the worry of flipping the boat or tearing off the power drives to the propellers and sinking the boat.

Coming off a particularly bad wave, the boat seemed to float and was dangerously bow up. There was a horrible sickening fear as they balanced on the head of a pin. They nearly flipped. She heard the speed of the overrewing engines and she slowed down. At sixty she found she could keep the propellers in the water and the boat more stable in the building sea.

Haley looked over her shoulder. There were two sheriff's boats, both falling behind, but not by much. Rachael shook her head, realizing the need to get a big lead in order to hide the drop-off at Orcas. The near boat had come straight out of the harbor and hadn't been slowed by the run around Brown Island. The water was pitch black outside the shaft of light created by the spotlight near the boat's bow. Above they heard an airplane, and the moment Haley got an inkling that it was staying above them, she doused every light and they disappeared into the blackness and plunged into their worst fears.

Once established on a heading, they were at Wasp Islands in seconds and Haley went over in her mind Sam's instructions for getting Rachael deposited at her uncle's without detection. The Wasp Islands were a bit of a maze for those not familiar with them. There were all manner of rocks near the surface sprinkled amid a bevy of small islands. Out in the channel she made a sharp turn to starboard and lined up on the ferry route, a narrow passage between Neck Point and Cliff Island. The interisland ferry route was narrow, but at least it was a straight line and was the traditional route used by yachtsmen. The line taken by the ferry was 1.69 nautical miles in length, beginning right beside the rocks off Neck Point and ending a hundred feet short of the rocks at tiny Bell Island. The route was ultimately pinched between Shaw Island and Crane Island. On her chart plotter the ferry route line showed crisp and clear, and even at a hundred miles per hour, the boat could pass safely, so long as it remained exactly on course.

But the route outlined by Sam was much more difficult and much more dangerous. Its advantage was that it would slow the sheriff's boat for a moment and allow her to disappear from their radar. Now that there were two boats that was especially important.

She decided to slow to thirty knots and eased back on the throttles. One slip and she would crash into the rocks. It all depended on a Global Positioning System that could easily hiccup. She set the radar to one-sixteenth mile per ring. Never had she gone this fast through such a narrow, treacherous area. She glanced at the radar and noticed that the distance to the police boat was closing. Without hesitation she leaned on the throttle and upped the speed to fifty knots.

"Oh, my God," Rachael shouted, looking at the chart plotter radar overlay. "How are you going to do this?"

The sweat popped out of Haley's pores. Rachael touched her arm. It would be the only time in her life that Haley would do anything this stupid.

Clenching the wheel and saying a prayer, she went from San Juan Channel to the start of the rocky gauntlet in sixty seconds. During that minute she left off all her lights but for the instrument panel and the screen in front of her. It was now a life-and-death exercise. Instead of heading sixty-nine degrees true through a narrow straight passage, as would the ferries and any sane yachtsman, she held eighteen degrees true north and went to what would be considered the wrong side of Cliff Island. Magnetic variation in this area was 19.1 degrees east. Her heart was pounding as she shot between the rocks. She held the heading for just over three-tenths of a mile, less than twenty seconds. On the chart plotter screen she watched the progress of the
Opus Magnum
as shown by the GPS. Thirty or forty yards distant to her right were rocks that would rip the bottom out, an island on her left.

Her mind focused without distraction, knowing that the least error would make a very dangerous situation more dangerous. This thing had no seat belt. The beacon lights over on the ferry channel moved by with mind-numbing speed. After about twenty seconds Rachael called out, "Turn sixteen degrees to a heading of two degrees true." She would hold the heading for only 325 yards. That took a second or two. At the next waypoint the boat had to turn very sharply. She turned hard over to the right. Her eyes flashed from compass to screen. She thought she had the turn and Rachael activated the waypoint.

She stared, every muscle in her body taut, wondering if she'd gotten the heading exactly right.

"Right on," Rachael called out. She glanced at the compass, then at the plot line.

"You're off the course!" Rachael shouted suddenly.

Haley flashed to the depth sounder and saw sixty feet, fifty-two feet; she was outside the channel route, forty feet. She wanted to scream.

"Stop," Rachael shouted. Haley let her foot off the throttle. Fifty feet. Fifty-five feet.

She came to the left a few degrees.

"Good," Rachael shouted. Back in the channel she slammed her foot down. Crane Island was just under six-tenths of a mile distant and she was flying toward it at a mile a minute and accelerating. She got ready to slow and make a left turn before she hit the rocks. Quickly she glanced over her shoulder. The lights of the first sheriff's boat were clearly visible. They were slowing, obviously confused. Behind them the second boat was barely visible.

No time to ponder. She went left along the shore of Crane Island at fifty knots, now completely out of sight of the sheriff's boats, and more important out of radar range in the shadow of Crane Island.

Then a green line on the radar—dead ahead—out of nowhere.

"Look out!" Rachael screamed.

Haley got off the gas and twisted the leather-covered wheel. Her wake slammed into
Opus's
stern lifting it crazily. She managed to resume course and then she tried to get oriented. The boat was askew in the passage but rapidly straightening. She told Rachael to goose the starboard engine with the hand throttle and that brought it square. Then in a giant gamble, Haley hit the foot pedal, opening the throttle on both engines full out.

She glanced and saw the sheriff's boat following at speed evidently having overcome their fear.
Opus Magnum
heaved its mass out of the water as it rose up on the plane. She reset the course more than ninety degrees to the next electronic way station lined up with Poll Pass. Scared, she held the wheel—as if by gripping it, she could will the yacht through the passage.

The distance between the small boat piers on her left and the shore on her right was less than one hundred yards at low tide. But there was considerable kelp choking the area. It was now about low tide and she probably had an unobstructed passage about thirty yards wide. It was the narrowest navigable passage in the world's oceans.

If she found one log in Poll Pass, she would be out of luck. Maneuvering would be impossible even if the radar picked it up. She had a few seconds to think this thought; then she was aligned, using the wheel, locking the autopilot, and approaching full speed.

Her left hand hovered over the wheel and her right was on the off switch for the autopilot. Given the very narrow passage and the near-zero visibility, she thought the autopilot might do better than she could. She had to get through Poll Pass before the police boat saw what she was doing. She was in the pass itself for a couple seconds, then in the still inner channel beyond.

She spun the wheel and nearly flung Rachael out of the boat. She popped on the spotlight and radiated the dock and the big express yacht that she knew to be
Inevitable,
belonging to Rachael's uncle. She pulled up beside the dock, Rachael touched her shoulder and leaped. Rachael waved as Haley doused the spotlight and raced away. It was lonely and the fear was even worse. Once in the middle of the converging passages, she stopped amid the swirling white water of her own incredible wake. If one of the police boats had proceeded on the ferry route, they would be popping up directly in front of her. What she expected was that one of the sheriff's boats would follow her route and the other would approach Crane Island, cautiously sticking with the ferry route and avoiding the S turn, and then depart the ferry route and follow the shore around Crane Island as she had done. From there, she didn't know what they would do.

She poked her nose out into the ferry lane and watched the radar for oncoming traffic.

There was no police boat. They had both gone behind Crane Island trying to follow, but no doubt at a slower speed. She waited a minute more and then reversed direction at full speed, breaking one hundred miles per hour on the ferry route along the south side of Crane Island. When she reached the middle of the island, she glanced at the radar. The absence of the police boat from the radar picture made her suppose they had to be near the opposite end of Crane Island, near Poll Pass. Hopefully, they were confused, doubting their radar. There were three routes to Anacortes or to Bellingham. Worse yet, each of the various starting points had multiple possibilities the further you traveled, so it would get confusing, quickly, if they lost her.

She kept the power full on and headed back out to San Juan Channel, trying to remain in the shadow of Crane Island for as long as possible. As she passed the western end of Crane Island, the night was pierced by flashing lights. One sheriff's boat had waited right by shore in case she made another circle as she had done at Brown Island. There was a boom and she knew a bullet had just ripped through the hull. Fear coursed through her like electrical energy.

K
han was tapping Frick's shoulder, but Frick was staring at the ferry disappearing in the distance.

"Don't let that ferry go!" Frick shouted at the deputy.

"How can I stop it?" the deputy shouted back. "You gotta call the department of transportation."

But Frick knew that the captains of the ferries made those decisions. Nobody told the captain of a ferry where he had to go when under way. They could ask. The ferry could be hailed on 16, but that was a public channel. They also monitored channel 9 and that was used by the public much less often. However, there was also a special channel used only by the ferries. He called the dispatcher, who had the special channel in a file, and he used that method. Instantly the captain was on, Frick explained and got his wish. It had been easy. The captain agreed to return.

Although decisions while under way were the captain's, it might be different once he was docked. To keep the ferry there all night, Frick might actually need the department of transportation. There was no way he was going to devote the manpower required to search the boat in a couple hours. He knew that Chase would not stay cooped up on a ferry tied to the dock, even in the unlikely event that he was on it. Delia put through an employee of the transportation department, whom Frick had been trying to get on the line for fifteen minutes.

"This is Roy Nageler."

"This is the sheriff of San Juan County," Frick lied, "and I have asked the captain of the ferry to stop and return to Friday Harbor. He's coming back to the dock."

"The ferry's coming back to Friday Harbor, you say?"

"Yeah, and I want to keep it here as long as it takes. Maybe all night."

"All night?"

"I think that's what I said," Frick said.

"This will have to go up the line. I doubt that all night's gonna fly."

Frick hung up, waiting for the next call.

"Our men at the scene think
Opus
could have dropped someone off at Orcas," Khan said.

"We can't worry about that."

"Earlier, a deputy saw a big blond guy down at the docks. He was with a blond woman named Rachael Sullivan." Khan consulted a set of notes. "Her uncle has a place on Orcas and her parents have a big place in Anacortes."

"I know who they are," Frick said. "That's bad if
Opus
dropped her off."

Frick put out a call on the radio to the deputies chasing
Opus Magnum.

"Opus
is going full out," Khan's men explained over the radio from the boat. "We nearly hold our own in the rough water on the way to Wasp Islands, in the San Juan Channel.

We're barely keeping her in sight on the radar when it's smooth. She looks like she's headed for Lopez." Frick clicked off, disgusted.

"They've gone to great effort to convince us they're leaving, and to spread us thin,"

Frick told Khan. "I think they're staying."

"So what's your suggestion?"

"The woman— Rachael's uncle owns
Inevitable.
It's the fastest express cruiser around.

Custom-made. Let's have someone waiting in Anacortes at her folks' in the event she goes there. We're running out of time, and if we want different results, we're going to have to use different methods."

"What are you suggesting?" Khan asked.

"We forget about Monday and the state police and the FBI and we concentrate on now.

We get results. Then you and I get out of here with the goods. I want Sarah James found, strapped down, and made to talk. She must know more than she's saying. I want to know about these scientists he's been talking with. I want to know what the hell is going on."

His mouth went dry with anticipation. "Actually, if they find her, I'll handle her myself."

"If we make people disappear, rough 'em up, we're gonna pay."

"I'm planning on leaving the country," Frick said. "Too much has gone wrong."

"That takes money," Khan replied.

"You'll have plenty," said Frick. "Like you said, we're working for ourselves now."

Khan's cell rang. He listened and smiled. "They caught Sarah James coming out of the woods, going for the neighbor's place."

The guns had missed her and anything vital. There was a hole right in front of her knees where the fiberglass was blown in. Haley was sure that there were more such holes behind her, but everything still ran for the moment. Turning down San Juan Channel, she headed for Lopez Island. Concentrating was difficult and at times Haley's eyes felt like they were being sandpapered. Green blips came and went as waves tossed the objects in and out of visibility and even seabirds sometimes appeared as unknowable, disappearing phantoms. Eventually it was a game that she would lose—unless she was lucky enough to make the planned finale before she hit the log with her name on it. Out in the San Juan channel heading south, there was a good chop and a rising breeze. Winds were at twenty-five knots on her nose and there were small craft advisories.