The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (4 page)

“Dude, that’s just
an excuse.”

Chris thought for
a moment. “Still, my dad . . .”

“What does your
dad know that you don’t know?”

“He’s done it all
a thousand times. He’s crossed the border, he’s taken the boat through the
Malibu Rapids.”

“But he said it
himself. You have to start sometime. Dude, this is gonna be an adventure. I’ve
never done anything like this before. A whole summer. Think about it. No alarm
clocks, no classes. Nowhere to be, no one to answer to. And girls. There’s
bound to be bunches of chicks hangin’ out on those expensive yachts, loungin’
on the beaches. . . “

Chris waved his
hand dismissively at Ted. “You’ve obviously never gone cruising before. You
sail with the tides. If that means leaving at four thirty in the morning, you
leave at four thirty in the morning. And don’t expect to see many girls in
bikinis. Most of the people up there are older folks or families with little
kids. People our age can’t afford to go cruising.”

“So, what do you
think? Do we go or don’t we?”

“My dad. . . “

“Screw your dad.
This is about us. If he can do it, you can do it. I say that we go for it.”

Seattle, Washington

The marina
occupied a narrow strip of land clinging to the foot of the cliffs at the edge
of the bay. A glorious blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds formed a dome
over their heads and the snow-covered Olympic Mountains filled the western
vista across Puget Sound. Row upon row of boats formed a forest of masts. Just
to their left was the ship canal.

An ugly black
steel railroad bridge crossed Shileshole Bay where it narrowed to a wide canal.
Upstream from the bridge, the Hiram Chittenden Locks lifted boats and ships up
to Lakes Union and Washington in the heart of the city. Along the bank of the
locks, a manicured lawn with precisely trimmed trees and shrubs made up one of
the prettiest parks in the city. Tourist wandered the park, crossing the
footbridge over the locks and descending under the locks in the fall to see the
salmon swimming upstream in the fish ladder through viewing windows.

Ted and Chris
stood on the dock, staring at the big blue sail boat.
God, she’s in sorry
shape
, Ted thought. According to Chris, she had lain at her berth in Shileshole
Bay Marina relatively unused for more than five years. Since Chris’ mom died,
Harry hadn’t been able to set foot on the boat.

Washed out white
and yellow script
spelled out
D-E-F-I-A-N-T
on the side of her
dull hull and on her faded blue sail cover. The partially detached letters
N
and
T
drooped from the sail cover where the threads had worn out, like
something from a Salvador Dali painting.

 “Where do we
start?” Ted climbed aboard from the wide concrete float.
Concrete float?
Isn’t that an oxymoron? How do they keep this thing from sinkin’ into the
water?

 “Dad has a guy
that cleans her bottom and services her engine every year. I guess we’ll start
with clean up.” Chris opened the combination lock on the companionway hatch and
descended into the cabin.

A combination of
diesel oil and mold produced an unpleasant musty odor that enveloped Ted as he
climbed down the companionway ladder. Mildew covered the teak paneling.

“What a mess,” Ted
said. “It stinks.”

 “We must’ve
forgotten to hook up the electric heater last time we used the boat,” Chris
said.

Surveying the
cabin, Ted felt misgivings.
Dios mio, can we ever get her cleaned up?

“I’m gonna start
by ripping out that old tape player.” Ted pointed to the cassette player in the
bulkhead above the chart table. “Man, that’s an antique. We gotta have a sound
system we can plug our iPods into.”

“Whatever,” Chris
replied.

As long as he can
get Mariner games on the radio,
Ted thought,
he’s happy.

“We can pick up a
new system at Car Toys. I have Dad’s credit card.” Chris dropped his duffle bag
on the table.

This is going
to take some getting used to
, Ted thought.

If Papa had a
credit card, Ted didn’t know about it. They lived in a shadow economy where
everything was either cash or barter. Ted never understood how Chris could
spend his dad’s money so cavalierly.

Money had always
been an issue in the Higuera household. Lack of money, that is.  Mama and Papa
provided a neat, clean house. They always had food and clean clothes, but
growing up, Ted never had the cell phones, Nintendos and other toys that Chris
took for granted.

Chris didn’t seem
to have any problem spending his father’s money. No matter how much they fought
and bickered, when push came to shove, he pulled out his dad’s credit card
without a second thought.
Money doesn’t mean anything to these people.

Chris seemed to
take on a new energy. “While you’re working on that radio stuff, I’ll start on
the bosun’s chores.” He began going over what he called the “standing and
running rigging,” whatever that was, on deck.

Ted went to work
on the mechanical systems. Mechanical work wasn’t exactly new to him. He’d
spent much of his youth hanging around his uncle’s garage in LA. His
Tío
Ernesto
managed to keep Papa’s 1985 Chevy conversion van running with
chewing gum and bailing wire.

Ted traced the
lines of the fuel system.
Wonder why there’s two fuel filters?
He heard
Chris climbing down into the cabin behind him. He turned to see Chris seat
himself at the chart table and take out a pad and pencil.

“Whatcha writin’
down?” Ted wiped his hands on a rag. “I thought you remembered everything.”

“That’s the way my
mind works.” Chris looked up from the table. “I have to write it down to remember
it. I’ve got a list going of repairs that we need to make, stuff that we need
to buy. I’m starting a list of the food and supplies we want to take with us.
Let’s see, we’re going to need new dock lines. . . I think we should get a new
in-haul for the jib. . . I want to replace the hinges on the lazarette. You
have any suggestions?”

“We should replace
the fuel lines on the engine.” Ted reached for an open end wrench. “These
things are so old that they’re brittle.” He wiggled a dried out black hose.

“OK” Chris said.
“I’m going to run over to Fisheries Supply and pick up some Tekka to clean the
teak. I’ll see if they have any rubber tubing.” He put down the pen and reached
for his Blackberry and car keys. “If you think of anything else you need, give
me a call.”

“Hey, dude, should
you really be spending your dad’s money on this shit?” Ted stood aside so Chris
could climb up out of the cabin.

“Don’t worry about
it, bro. The old SOB’ll never miss it. He never even sees the bill. His
accountant pays it for him.”

Well, maybe it
wouldn’t be so hard to get used to spending Harry’s money after all.

****

Toronto Canada

 “Fazul, can you
step in here a minute?” The tall, bald man looped his thumbs into his
suspenders, stretching them out.

Why did that self-important
fool want to talk to him?
He had hardly said ten words to Ahmad in the five
years Ahmad had worked for EverTech. Ahmad had devoted the last eighteen months
to developing a guidance system for the new Wild Fire air-to-air missile.

“Sure, Mr. Thompson.”
Ahmad pressed Ctrl-Alt-Delete on his keyboard to lock his computer while he
left his desk. He stopped at the door to Mr. Thompson’s office.  

“Sit down, we need
to talk.” Mr. Thompson folded himself into his brown leather swivel chair
behind the enormous desk.

“Yes sir.” Ahmad
sat in the uncomfortable, straight-backed chair. Something in the old gasbag’s
tone set warnings off in the back of his head.
He brings me before him like
a school boy.

“I’m taking you
off of the Wild Fire project.” Mr. Thompson paused to let it sink in. “I want
you to start turning your work over to Pasqual.”

“Why?” Ahmad felt
like he had been struck in the chest. It was hard to grab a breath. “Did I do
something?”

“I’m sorry, Fazul,
this isn’t my decision.”

“Mr. Thompson, my
work is excellent.” Ahmad looked around the office desperately, looking for
something that would help him make his case. “You’ve said so yourself. My last
performance review was ‘exceeding expectations.’ What happened?”

“Listen, Fazul,”
Mr. Thompson leaned back in his chair and locked his fingers behind his head.
“You know that we do most of our work for the Ministry of Defense. They say who
we can and who we can’t use. I don’t make these decisions.”

“The Ministry of
Defense?”
What could they possibly know?
He and Mohammed had been so
careful. Ahmad felt sick to his stomach. The nausea rose to his throat. “I
don’t understand.”

“They’ve taken
away your ‘Top Secret’ clearance,” Mr. Thompson lifted the brown personnel
folder on his desk, then let it drop back. “You can’t work on this project
without it.”

“My ‘Top Secret?’
Why? What have I done?” Ahmad was panting like a dog, his heart beat running
wild in his chest.
I have to remain calm
. Although he wanted to get up
and run, with a massive act of will power, he forced himself to sit still in
the chair.

There was a long
silence. Mr. Thompson seemed to be considering his options. He tapped the
eraser on his mechanical pencil against the file folder. Finally, he spoke
again.

“If you want my
opinion, you should be more careful about the people you hang out with. CSIS
investigators were in here last week asking about you. They think you’re
running with some dangerous radicals.”

“Who? I don’t
understand.”
Dangerous radicals?
It had to be Mohammed. Ahmad hadn’t
done anything wrong. He was just exercising free speech.

“It doesn’t
matter. You’re off Wild Fire. I’ll try to find some kind of maintenance work
for you that doesn’t require a ‘Top Secret’ clearance.”

Maintenance work?
The bottom of the software development barrel. He wouldn’t spend the rest of
his career fixing other programmers’ mistakes.

Seattle, Washington

Ted heard a steady
stream of cussing from up on deck. Chris was not happy as he stripped the
yellowed varnish from the
Defiant’s
woodwork. Ted tore the old tape
player out of the cabin and installed a state-of-the-art sound system. For the
crowning touch he installed all-weather speakers in the cockpit so that they
could listen to his tunes while they were sailing.
This boat will be a sail-a
with rock ‘n’ roll-a.

After finishing
with the sound system, Ted meticulously replaced all of the fuel and water
lines on the old Yanmar Diesel.

 “I know we need
to bleed the air out of the fuel lines before we start the engine,” Ted shouted
up to Chris on deck. “But I’m not exactly sure how.”

Chris put down his
paint brush and dropped into the cabin. “Hey, you’re the mechanic, bro. I
thought you could fix any engine.”

“
Tío
Ernesto
didn’t do a lot of work on diesels.” Ted ran his fingers over the fuel filter.
“I guess the Amazing Teddy-Man is gonna have to figure this out by hisself.”

A sweet, citrus
fragrance wafted by Ted’s nose.

“Hi guys. Need some
help?”

Ted looked up to
see a pair of wedge-heeled sandals in the companionway. His eyes made the long
journey up a pair of tight fitting jeans to a well filled out University of
Idaho T-shirt, stopping at the raven black hair and emerald green eyes. His
heartbeat quickened.
Man, that Candace always looks fine.
A gold
necklace with a diamond pendant encircled her neck, matching the dangling
earrings. A huge diamond engagement ring flashed at him from her left hand.

“What’re
you
doing here?” Chris looked up from the engine.

“I thought I’d
help you get ready for the cruise.” Candace lowered herself into the cabin over
the exposed engine.

Usually
good-looking chicks were high maintenance, but here she was with rubber gloves,
a bucketful of cleaning supplies and a willingness to tackle ugly chores.
I
wonder if she’s gonna worry about messing up her nails?
As Candace climbed
down to the cabin, her fragrance overpowered the boat’s moldy smell.

Chris met
Candace’s appearance with an icy shrug. “You can start in the forepeak,” he
told her. “Clean the mildew off of the woodwork, then rub it with teak oil.”

Ted flashed an
angry glare at his friend. “Easy, dude. The lady’s offering ta help.’

“When you get done
there, move on to the head,” Chris went on.

Why’s Chris
trying to chase her off?
Cleaning the head was an ugly task. The marine
toilet hadn’t seen a brush or cleanser in years.
Oh well, better her than me.

Candace kicked off
her sandals, rolled up her sleeves, pulled on her rubber gloves and went to
work. She cleaned her way aft sanitizing every surface in the cabin.

“I think this boat
must be held together with mold.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’ll probably break
apart and sink if I clean it all up.”

Wow! She’s
doing a great job
. Ted hadn’t expected her to put out that much effort.

“When was the last
time the galley was cleaned?” Candace started to work on the several years’
worth of grease accumulated on the gimbaled stove.

“Not since Mom
died.” Chris answered coldly.

This can’t be
good.
Now Candace was really invading Chris’ mom’s territory. Chris had
told Ted stories of the times his mom was wedged in her galley, cooking gourmet
meals under difficult conditions. Chris was not going to react well to this.

****

Toronto, Canada

“They’ve done it
again,” Ahmad exhaled a sign of disgust and turned to his father.
How could
he not care what was going on in the world?
He glanced around the room,
taking in the rich carpets and the Arabesques hanging on the wall. As always,
his mother had fresh cut flowers on the table.

His father sat in
his brown leather recliner, reading the sports section. The Iranian soccer team
was playing in the World Cup, a recording of the Iran vs. Mexico match played on television for the umpteenth time. Ahmad smelled the delightful fragrance of lamb
stew with spinach and prunes, wafting in from the kitchen.

“What has who
done?” His father folded the paper precisely and set it in his lap.

“The government
has finally admitted culpability.” Ahmad turned the front page section towards
his father.
Now he will have to see what his beloved Canada is really like.

“For what?”

 “Torturing Muslim
civilians. Look.” Ahmad waved the newspaper in the air. “Canada’s paying Maher
Arur ten and a half million dollars for detaining him illegally and torturing
him.”

Visiting his
father’s neat row house had become increasingly painful. The traditional Friday
night dinner, before visiting the mosque, was a minefield of political passion.

“It was a mistake.”
His father reached for the tea cup Ahmad’s mother faithfully kept full.

At least Mother
still knew her place,
Ahmad thought.

“Our government
doesn’t torture people,” his father continued. “They are trying to make it
right.”

“It’s a mistake
that they keep making over and over again.” Ahmad folded his paper and set it
aside. “In Kandahar they’ve been torturing suspected Taliban members. Beating
them with cables and giving them electric shocks.”

“That doesn’t
concern us.” Mahmoud cleaned his glasses. “The Taliban is at war with Canada.”

“How can you say
that?” Ahmad shifted his weight forward in his chair. “
We
are at war
with
them
. We’re the ones going to their country to fight; they’re not
coming here. These are our people we’re fighting.”

When his father
finally spoke to him, Ahmad felt like he was five years old again. “Ahmad, you
understand nothing. We expect people like that to make wild accusations. It’s
what they do, standard operating procedure. They have no credibility.”

How could his
father sit there and discuss it so calmly? Where was his sense of outrage? Of
loyalty? His father had completely sold out to his adopted country.

“Canada is guilty of war crimes.” Ahmad’s voice went up in tone and volume. “What we’re doing in
Sarpoza Prison is every bit as bad as what the Americans do at Abu Ghraib.”

“I’ve been down
that road before.” Fire flickered in Mahmoud’s eyes. “When the Shah was in
power everyone whined that they didn’t have freedom.”

“Father, the
Shah’s secret police, the Savak, tortured and killed people.” Ahmad’s heart was
beating so quickly he could feel it in his ears.

His father reached
for the remote control and clicked off the soccer match. “That was nothing
compared to the Ayatollah.” His father clinched his fist every time he said the
word “Ayatollah.” “After Khomeini came to power, he put more than sixteen
hundred dissidents to death.  Our people. My friends. I spent a year in one of
his prisons. There’s a reason we fled to Canada.”

“I don’t condone
what the Ayatollah did, but these were enemies of Islam. We had to purge all
the un-Islamic elements from our society.”

“WE?” his father
shouted, then he paused and regained control of himself. “You’re just parroting
words.” His father waved a hand dismissively at Ahmad. “You can’t possibly
understand. You weren’t there. It’s easy to criticize from the safety of
Canadian freedom. I lost my friends, my family, my fortune. Your mother was
chased from the streets, stoned. For a few years, our entire society went mad.”

“But look at the
outcome, father.” Ahmad spread his hands, as if he were revealing a stunning
vista to his father. “We have a perfect Islamic state.”

“It’s only perfect
because you don’t have to live there. You don’t know what it’s like to live
under the rule of the mullahs. Canada is much better.”

“The Canada that
kills
our people? The Canada that
tortures
its own citizens? The Canada that’s
in the American’s pocket? This is not
my
Canada.”

“You take these
things too personally.” Mahmoud picked up his paper again.

“How can I not? They
affect me, they affect all of us. Maher was detained because his
mother’s
cousin
was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Ahmad waved the newspaper
at his father again. “They didn’t even prove it; they just threw him in prison
for a year.”

“I’m sure there
was more to it than that.” Mahmoud flipped his paper open, signaling an end to
the discussion.

“Sure there was.”
Ahmad ignored the signal. “They turned him over to the Syrian police. He’s a
Canadian citizen and the Americans flew him from New York back to Syria. They knew that the Syrians would torture him. Our beloved government just stood by
and watched.”

“Things happen in
war time.” His father’s nose was now buried in the newspaper. “We have to give
up a little of our freedoms to ensure our security.”

“How would you
like it if it was your freedom that they had taken? Something must be done to
stop this.” But his father was not paying any attention to him.

At that moment
Ahmad knew he must join the fight. If good men like his father could sit idly
by while the world turned a deaf ear on these crimes, then he must do something
about it himself.

****

Seattle

Ted took a deep
breath and swung his legs into the lazarette. He dreaded climbing down into the
confined space.

The lazarette was
a large locker on the starboard side of the cockpit that went all the way down
to the bilge and provided access to the back of the engine, under the cockpit.

Ted checked the
engine oil and coolant. He fought down a rising feeling of panic. The air was
heavy down here; a flashlight provided his only light. The smells of the oil
and the bilge weren’t so bad, but he felt like he was buried alive.

“Are you guys
getting hungry yet?” Candace poked her scarf-covered head out of the
companionway hatch.

“Yeah, I’m
starving.” Ted popped up like a jack-in-the-box and gulped a breath of fresh
air.

“How about I run
over to Gordo’s and get us some burgers?” With long, trim legs, Candace easily
climbed over the exposed engine to reach the deck.

“Sounds good to me.”
Ted wiped his hands as he climbed out of the lazarette.

“Chris, how about
you?” Candace turned to Chris. “You hungry?”

“Yeah, sure.”
Chris mumbled from the cabin roof where he was replacing some kind of broken
fitting.

“I’ll take a bacon
cheeseburger and fries,” Ted said.

“What would you
like, Chris?”

“Whatever.”

“Cokes okay for
you guys?” Candace removed her scarf, took the scrunchie from her pony-tail and
shook her long, lustrous black hair free.

She looks like
a shampoo commercial
, Ted thought. “Yeah, Cokes are good.” He brushed back
his unruly hair. All the time, his eyes never left Candace.

Ted admired the
view as Candace walked down the dock. Her tight jeans and T-shirt showed off
her model’s body. “Man, that’s one fine looking woman. Even in her grubbies,
she looks like a million bucks.”

“Don’t go getting
any ideas, bro.” Chris interrupted his fantasy. “You’d be like a Chihuahua sniffing after a Great Dane bitch.”

Ted pictured
Candace at the graduation party. She stood at least a full inch taller than him
but in heels she towered over him. “I’m just sayin’ . . . Man, did she look hot
at the party in her little red dress.”

“Speaking of the
party, I’ve been meaning to tell you . . .” Chris climbed down from the cabin
roof and sat in the cockpit.

“Yeah?”

“I invited Meg to
go with us.”

“You what?” Ted’s
head swiveled around.

“Well actually, she
sort of invited herself. She asked if she could come along. I told her it was
OK.”

“Dude, there’s no
room for a woman on this boat.”

“Sure there is. My
mom and sister always went with us on our summer cruises. When Dad raced the
boat, Mom manned the galley.”

“No, you don’t
understand.” Ted shook his head. “I’m saying she’s not the type. She’s more Nordstroms
than REI.”

“REI?”

“Yeah, the
outdoors type.” Ted settled into the cockpit across from Chris.
He can’t
really be serious.
“I don’t see her getting her nails dirty pulling up the
anchor.”

“Maybe not, but at
least she can take care of the cabin. It’ll be nice to have a good cook for a
change. I’m getting tired of your cooking.” Chris grinned.

“Well, where is
she then?” Ted made a show of looking down into the cabin. “If she’s going to
be part of this crew shouldn’t she be here helping get the boat ready?” 

“She had some
interviews at Nordstrom today. She couldn’t make it.”

“Dude, if she’s
going to go with us, she should help get ready. Your future step-mom’s putting
more effort into our trip than she is.”

“She’s already
invited.”

“Un-invite her!”

“Deal with it.”
Chris picked up his wrench and screw driver and descended the companionway
stairs.

Híjole, this is
gonna be one long summer.
Ted sat opened-mouthed as Chris stormed below.
He’s
letting that little bitch drag him around by the ring in his nose.
But,
when Chris’ mind was made up, it was made up. 
I guess Princess Meagan is
going with us.
Chris was one stubborn son of a bitch.