The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (8 page)

The Straits of Juan de Fuca

 “Hey! Chris, turn
this thing around. We’ve gotta go back and get my hat.”

“I’m sorry, bro.”
Chris laughed. “I forgot to tell you one of the rules of sailing: we don’t go
back for a hat unless there’s a head in it.”

“Crazy bitch. I’d
like to put her head in it.” Ted sat down and resumed eating his sandwich. “Goddamn
it, I liked that hat.” He glared at Meagan from time to time.

Meagan took a long
pull from her bottle of Henry’s, pulled up the strap on her tank top and
giggled. “I’ll buy Teddy a new hat when we get to Friday Harbor.”

****

Far in the
distance, Ted could see the San Juan Islands ahead of them. He looked aft.
Twenty miles behind them he saw the faded outline of the Olympic Peninsula. The
ocean seemed so huge, the
Defiant
so small. Without another boat in
sight, he felt like an infinitesimal speck in the universe.

Since lunch, they
watched the wind speed indicator steadily drop. The
Defiant
quit acting
like a scared race horse and more like an old plug. Ted gazed up, her sails
hung from the mast like old dish rags. She wallowed in the swell, barely
keeping steerage way.

Smith Island, the half-way point across the Straits, loomed a mile off of the starboard rail
like some mythical castle rising out of the sea. Tall cliffs exploded from the
water, an old light house clung precariously to the rocks.

“Damn, it looks
like we’ve lost the breeze,” Chris muttered. “I think we better fire up the
iron wind. Bring in the jib.”

Meagan cast off
the jib sheets while Ted wrapped the in-haul around the cabin top winch. He
started hauling the line in, but the damned winch didn’t turn.

“You’ve got the
line on the winch backwards, Dufus,” Meagan taunted.

Goddamn it. Do
I have to look stupid in front of her?
Without a word, his face burning,
Ted flipped the line off the winch and spun it on in the other direction. This
time, when he hauled in, the winch turned with the line, giving him greater
leverage. The billowing jib began to roll up like a giant window blind. In a
moment, it completely disappeared. Chris fired up the engine.

The
Defiant
began moving faster. The knot meter leapt up to six knots.

For the next hour,
they motored in the calm. Ted settled down in the cockpit with his thick
computer manual. He had to be ready for the Security + exam in September.

The swells slowly
started to dissipate, leaving the Straits mill pond smooth. With the boat’s
rolling stopped, Oscar poked his head out of the companionway hatch.

“Looks like our
little friend is going to make an appearance,” Chris said.

Ted looked over
the top of his book to see Oscar make one or two rounds of the deck, sniffing
and pawing at the unfamiliar fittings. The Burmese stopped to rub against
Chris’ ankles.

Chris bent down
and scratched his ears. “Hey, little fella, checking out your new home?”

Ted pretended not
to notice.

Oscar abruptly
turned away from Chris and meandered over to Ted. He leapt into Ted’s lap and
rubbed his face against Ted’s book. “Jeez, I can’t read with your damned cat
pushing my book around.” It almost hurt Ted to suppress his grin.

“He likes you.”
Meagan flashed a brilliant smile at Ted. “He wants some loving.”

Ted patted the cat
and gently set him down on the cockpit seat next to him. Oscar meowed at Ted,
jumped up to the coach roof and found a spot in the sun to settle in for a nap.

“This is really
eerie.” Chris said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Straits this calm.”

Ted stared out at
the oil-smooth sea. It looked more like a mill pond than an ocean. His skin
prickled. He felt an electricity in the air. His spider sense was tingling.

Meagan plopped
down next to Chris on the helmsman’s seat. He put his arm around her and gave
her a quick kiss.

“Oh, look.” Meagan
pointed. “On that bed of kelp. What are those, seals?”

Ted looked up to
see what she was talking about. Ten yards to port he saw a bed of kelp with two
little black heads poking up over soft round bodies.

“No,” Chris said,
“they’re sea otters.”

Still huffy about
losing his hat, Ted turned back to his book.

Meagan grabbed the
binoculars. “They’re so cute! Look how they’re lying on their backs in the
kelp. They’re like little fur balls.” She took the field glasses from her eyes.
“It looks like they’re taking sun. They look like cats. That’s what they are,
sea-kittens.”

Does she have
to make everything sound so cutesy?

The engine began
to cough and sputter.

“What’s goin’ on?”
Ted dropped his book.

The engine gasped
and died.

****

Horseshoe Bay, British Columbia,
Canada

With Bjornsen
gone, the rest of the al-Qaeda cell came aboard the
Valkyrie
. Ahmad
joined the three other young men as they unloaded their gear from the back of
Yasim’s battered van.

Kalil, a diesel
mechanic by trade, came aboard with tool boxes full of the equipment he needed
to maintain the ancient Atlas diesel engine in the
Valkyrie
. Mohammed, a
former member of Canada’s Royal Brigade, traveled light, with just his duffle
and a K-bar fighting knife. Yasim, the cell’s leader, promised the group that
they would be armed after they moved to a remote location along the Inside Passage. After stowing his gear, Mohammed left to fulfill another part of the
mission.

Hani brought tubes
of nautical charts, cruising guides and a fat copy of
Sailing Directions
.
His handheld GPS was much more powerful and up to date than the decade old
technology already on the boat.

Ahmad had the most
gear of all. He had boxes of electronic equipment, tools and manuals. Most
important was a large tube of blueprints that he stowed under his bunk in the
deck house.

****

Ahmad took a safe
boating course and learned to handle small boats on instructions from Yasim. He
had never before set foot on board a boat as large and complicated as
Valkyrie
.
It was eighty-five feet long and displaced two-hundred and fifty tons. The boat
was older than his grandfather.
Our leaders planned well to find Hani to run
this monstrosity.

The harbor at Horseshoe Bay, on the north side of the Vancouver metropolis, was much too busy for their
purposes. Ahmad was relieved that firing up the engine was not difficult for
Kalil. Hani took the helm as Ahmad turned on the radios, depth finders and
other electronic equipment in the pilot house.

 “Are we ready to
leave?” Yasim asked, entering the pilot house. “We can’t get away from cursed
place too soon.”

“In a moment,”
Hani replied. “I think I understand the controls, but I’ve never handled a
vessel this large by myself.”

Ahmad watched as
Hani surveyed the controls.

“Allah will guide
your hand, my son,” Yasim said.

“Where did you
learn to run a boat?” Ahmad asked.

“At the Marine
Institute in St John’s. Yasim found me there and asked me to change my course
from Remotely Operated Vehicles to the Bridge Watch program.” Hani was all
business.

“Cast off the dock
lines,” Hani shouted out the pilot house window. Kalil untied the dock lines
and shoved the
Valkyrie
out into the channel, then jumped aboard. Hani
eased the gear shift lever into reverse and cracked open the throttle. The
elderly diesel belched smoke and a swirl of white water appeared under
Valkyrie’s
stern. Slowly, the huge old purse seiner began to back away from the dock.

Ahmad paid close
attention as Hani closed the throttle, slid the gear shift lever from reverse
to forward and moved the throttle ahead slowly. The boat checked its rearward
motion and began to gain headway.

“I think I may
learn how to run this thing.” Hani beamed at Yasim.

“All in good time.
Right now concentrate on getting us out of harbor without hitting anything. We
don’t want to call any attention to ourselves.”

“This Marine
Institute, they train people to be sailors?” Ahmad asked.

“Yes. For the
Merchant Marine and the fishing industry,” Hani answered.

“How long is the
program?”

“Eight months.”
Hani took his eyes off the channel and looked at Ahmad. “We took classes on
ship handling, math, navigation, first aid, safety. I graduated with my seaman’s
papers.”

“And they taught
you how to handle this boat?”

“We spent a term
at sea. It’s called the work term. We were crew on the Institute’s training
vessel.”

The conversation
engrossed both Ahmad and Hani. There was something about Hani that Ahmad liked.
The short broad-shouldered man knew who he was, what he wanted out of life. He
was intelligent and confident. The conversation became so animated that neither
noticed when Hani missed a channel marker. The shallow water alarm on the depth
finder went off. It was too late.

Ahmad heard a loud
crash as the boat came to a complete halt. 

The Straits of Juan de Fuca

“Shit,” Chris
muttered. “It sounds like we have air in the fuel lines.” He turned to Ted.
“Can you bleed the lines?”

“That’s right.”
Ted started down to the cabin. “Give the Mexican kid the hard job.”

“Meagan, take the
wheel. I’ll help Ted with the engine.”
Chris slipped from behind the
wheel and followed Ted down.

Ted removed the
companionway staircase revealing the rusty engine.

“Let’s see if I
can figure out how to do this.” Ted leaned over the engine. “
Tio Ernesto
didn’t do much work on diesels, but there ain’t nothing mechanical that Ol’
Teddy can’t fix.”

“Careful, bro,
that engine’s hot.”

Ted ran his eyes
along the fuel lines. “OK, here’s what I know: We’re gonna hafta crack the
bleed screw on top of the fuel filter here.” He pointed to a cylindrical
aluminum object bolted onto the left-hand side of the engine. “There’s bleed
screws on the fuel injectors. I guess we’ll hafta bleed the lines from there
too.” Ted pointed out the various engine components as he spoke. “You’ll need
to turn the engine over until we get a clear stream of diesel oil with no air
bubbles in it, then I’ll tighten the screws up.”

“You want me on
deck?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, standby to
crank the engine.”

Ted dug out an
open-end wrench from the tool kit under his bunk while Chris climbed over the
hot engine to the cockpit.

“OK,” Ted shouted
up to Chris. “Turn her over.”

Chris hit the
starter button and the engine ground over. At first, a frothy pink mix blew out
of the little hole in the bleed screw, then it became a solid stream of diesel
oil.

“Okay, that’s
good,” Ted shouted as he tightened the bleed screw. Next he cracked the bleed
screw on a fuel injector.

“Try it again.”

Chris cranked the
engine over until a steady stream of diesel flowed from the injector.

“That’s good.” Ted
tightened the screw down. “Try it again.”

This time, the
diesel fired and caught. “Woohoo! Ol’ Teddy figured it out!”

Ted put the companionway
stairs back in place, covering the rusty old hunk of iron, and washed his hands
in the galley sink.

For half an hour
they motored on, then the engine sputtered and died again.

****

Horseshoe Bay, British Columbia,
Canada

What have we
done?
The lack of motion on board the
Valkyrie
stunned Ahmad
.

“We’ve gone
aground.” Hani shoved the gear shift lever into reverse and gunned the engine.
“Maybe we can back off.” A froth of white water burst from under her stern, but
the
Valkyrie
held fast. “We have to get out an anchor.”

“Why do we need an
anchor?” Ahmad’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “We’re stuck on the bottom. We
need to get
free
of the bottom.”

“If we can set an
anchor out in the channel, we can kedge ourselves off the rocks.” Hani’s hands
pantomimed pulling themselves free.

Hani’s nautical
jargon totally confused Ahmad. 

“Get the skiff in
the water,” Hani directed. “Fire up the motor.”

Ahmad, sensing
Hani’s desperation, ran back to the after deck, calling Kalil to follow him.
They used the cargo boom to hoist the aluminum skiff off of the seine net and
swing it over the side, into the water. 

“It looks like you
guys’re in trouble, eh?” The shout came from the skipper of a crab boat idling
into the harbor. “Eh” rhymed with “hay.” “Can we pass you a line?”

Ahmad looked up to
Yasim, standing on the bridge deck, with a look of panic.

“What should we
do? We don’t want to have contact with the infidel, but the longer we stay here
stuck on the rocks, the more exposed we are.”

“If we remain
here, authorities will surely take notice. Coast Guard will come to offer
assistance. We can’t afford to make contact with them. Take help from this
kaffir.”

“We’ll bring our
skiff over to take your line,” Ahmad shouted across to the crab boat.

Kalil managed to
get the cranky diesel in the skiff to turn over. Ahmad dropped into the skiff,
cast off from the
Valkyrie
and motored towards the crab boat.

The skipper
screamed as Ahmad came along side too fast and bumped into the crab boat’s
side. “Be careful, God damn you.”

“I’m sorry. It’s
the first time I’ve driven this boat.”

“Who the hell are
you guys anyway? No fisherman I know would handle a skiff like that.”

Panic ate at
Ahmad’s gut. He took a deep breath. His training started to come back to him.
Stick
to the cover story.

“We’re marine
surveyors. We’ve just bought this boat.”

“Well, you sure as
hell better learn to handle her.” The skipper passed a thick rope down to
Ahmad. “Make this fast to your tow bit and I’ll haul you off of there.”

“Thank you.” Ahmad
tied the rope to the skiff and headed back to
Valkyrie
.

He passed the
heavy line up to Yasim and stood off to help again if necessary. Yasim looped
the line around the tow bit on the
Valkyrie’s
bow.

“We’re ready,”
Ahmad shouted, waving his arms.

The crab boat
slowly moved forward, taking up the slack in the line. As the line straightened
out, water dripping from it as it rose, the crab boat let out a great bellow
and a dark cloud belched from her smoke stack. Ahmad felt his pulse rate rise.
The crab boat went to work and slowly, the Valkyrie began to pivot on her keel.

The noise coming
from the crab boat was terrifying. Surely everyone in Vancouver must be able to
hear.
Any chance of our slipping away unnoticed is gone.

“It moved,” Yasim
screamed. “I just felt boat move!”

Ahmad saw the
Valkyrie
lurch forward a few inches. She pivoted towards the crab boat, then jumped
forward a few more inches. Finally, with a mighty roar and a belch of smoke,
the crab boat hauled
Valkyrie
free. 

“Thank you so
much,” Yasim yelled as he untied the tow line and waved toward the crab boat.

The crab boat let
out two long blasts from its horn, the skipper waved, and the crab boat turned
back towards Horseshoe Bay.

“Allah be
praised,” Yasim said.

Ahmad let out a
long breath. “We better get out of here quickly before we draw any more
attention.”