The Last Layover (12 page)

“I think that is SOS,” Jason said, remembering back from his Army days.

Evan turned, ran up to the flybridge, and started flipping channels on the maritime radio. He saw a well-worn and sun faded decal on the side that had said “USE MARINE VHF RADIO CHANNEL 16 (156.8MHZ) FOR EMERGENCY”.

He flipped to channel 16 and heard in a woman's voice, “Viking cruiser, Viking cruiser, can you hear us?”

Evan responded, “This is the Viking
Mother Washington
. Who is this?”

After a short pause a frantic response came over the radio, “This is the
Little Angel
, we have a medical emergency onboard and need assistance.”

Evan responded, “We don't have any medical personnel on board.”

The panic stricken voice responded, “My husband is having a heart attack. We are on the boat alone and I can't operate this thing well enough by myself to get him to shore. We went out to sea to run from the chaos going on back home, and in a rush, he left his heart medication behind. Please help me get him to land so we can get him help. He is all I have.”

Evan could hear the tears in her voice and turned to Jason. Jason just gave him the nod and Evan replied, “Okay, but I must warn you if this is a trap we are heavily armed and we will not be victims.”

“Please, please just help me. I'll do anything!” she said frantically.

Evan told Jason, “Go tell Peggy I'll take control from up here and for her to stay down there for now just in case.”

“Roger that,” said Jason.

“Oh, and while you are down there, scour the medicine cabinets for anything that might be useful, like aspirin,” Evan added.

“Will do,” he replied as he ran down below.

Evan turned the
Mother Washington
into the direction of the sailboat and picked up the speed to about fifteen knots. Jason came back up to the rear deck and took up a defensive position. As they neared the
Little Angel
, all they could see was a slender woman in her mid-sixties. Her face was red from crying and she looked very frantic and distraught. As they approached to within fifty feet, Evan circled the little sail boat. He saw that it had been motoring on a small outboard kicker motor. The sails were in disarray and he couldn't see any signs of others.

“Look good to you?” he said to Jason. Jason nodded in the affirmative and Evan began to pull up alongside.

Once up alongside and only a few feet away, Evan pulled the transmissions into reverse and then neutral to stop the
Mother Washington's
forward momentum. The light waves of the morning gently bumped the boats together as Jason climbed on board with his hand on his pistol, which he still had holstered at that point. The woman led him into the small cabin. He ran back out, gave the thumbs-up, and then ran back inside to help her. Evan climbed down from the flybridge and threw a mooring line over to the
Little Angel
. He then climbed aboard and tied up to a cleat on the deck so the boats would stay together. He went inside the
Little Angel
and found Jason on his knees checking the man's vital signs.

“We have to get him help ASAP!” Jason shouted.

Evan threw his AR-15 over his shoulder and let it hang from its sling. He reached down and grabbed the man by his feet while Jason picked him up under his arms. They carried him over to the
Mother Washington
, where Peggy was now standing alongside.

“Give us a hand!” Evan shouted as they heaved the man over to the
Mother Washington
between the rolls of a gentle wave.

Peggy helped Jason carry the man onboard while Evan stayed behind to deal with the other boat. 

“Go with them,” Evan told the woman, pointing towards the
Mother Washington
. He untied all of the sails on the
Little Angel
and dropped them to the deck. He searched and found the longest mooring line onboard, which was roughly thirty feet long, and climbed out onto the pointy bow of the
Little Angel
. He tied the line to the stainless steel tow loop just underneath the bow pulpit. He then untied the mooring line that bound the two boats together and ran back to the stern of the
Mother Washington
with the line in hand. He took the line attached to the sailboat’s bow and ran it through the two tow loops on the stern of the
Mother Washington
, located just below the swim platform.

“I sure hope these hold,” he mumbled to himself.

Once he had done what he could, Evan climbed back aboard the
Mother Washington
and ran into the salon to find Jason trying to get the man to swallow some crushed up aspirin bits that he found in the stateroom medicine cabinet. Peggy was hugging the woman and trying to calm her down while Jason did what he could.

Evan said, “It looks like you guys have this under control, I guess we are scuttling the sneak-in-under-cover-of-darkness plan. We just have to make a daylight run for it and hope for the best.”

“Roger Roger!” said Jason.

Peggy nodded with tears in her eyes as she was immersed in the sadness and the fear of the woman.

Evan then ran back upstairs, laid his AR-15 on the seat next to him with his M1 Garand still leaning on the helm, and shoved the throttles forward. He turned for a westerly heading to get them headed towards land. They were at least several miles out to sea; he wasn't sure exactly how far and hoped they hadn't drifted too much during the night. He looked back to see the sail boat flailing around in the wake of the
Mother Washington
at full power and said aloud, “Whoops, too much!” and backed off on the throttles to find a happy medium between speed and stability. In the back of his mind he thought,
screw it, I should just cut that thing loose, but, then again, that boat is probably all they have left in the world. If he's gonna make it, they will likely need it to survive. They ran from the land for a reason. If she tells me to cut it loose I will, but otherwise I'll try and drag it along behind.

Down in the salon, as Peggy comforted the woman, she asked, “So, what's your name?”

“I'm Judith, and this is my husband, Bill. Judith and Bill Hoskins,” the lady responded.

“Where are you from? What happened for you two to be out here?” Peggy asked.

“Well, Bill is a retired Navy Boatswain's Mate, First Class. We had been in the Norfolk area pretty much throughout his entire Navy career. After he retired, we stayed in the area and he took a civil service job on base working as a building maintenance man. After our kids grew up and left the nest, with one joining the Navy himself and being stationed in San Diego, and the other going off to college in Texas, we figured we didn't need the house anymore. It was always Bill's dream to have a boat of our own to travel in our retirement. About two years ago, we sold the house to finance his dream. With the market being down, it wasn't the nest egg that we had hoped it would be.

“We took that money and we bought our
Little Angel
. We moved into an apartment, not in the best part of town due to our fixed budget, and put the rest of our time, money, and energy into our boat. It's not quite what he had always wanted, but at least it was ours. We've spent the last two years working on it. Mostly painting and general fixer upper stuff. We hadn’t really taken it out other than to try things out. Then, last week I was at home and all of the power went out. My cell phone was dead too. I heard a lot of sirens all around and some helicopters flying overhead as if they were looking for something. Bill came home from work early, practically busting the door to the apartment down and started yelling for me to pack up. After he calmed down, he explained that there had been several mass shootings on base. Some terrorists with fully automatic machine guns had gunned down innocent people all over the base, from the pier to the commissary. He also said that a few car bombs had gone off and that the Navy was evacuating the ships from the pier. 

“On his way home, the traffic was madness. There were building fires all throughout the town and the power was down. He said he could hear some explosions off in the distance but didn't know what they were. With all of the uncertainty, we grabbed our things and headed for the marina. On the way there, we got caught up in traffic so bad, due to the subsequent mass panic, that Bill and I just grabbed our bags and walked the last few miles to the marina where our boat was berthed.

“Our plan was to do like the Navy and pull out to sea to let the madness subside while the authorities handled things. Unfortunately, we abandoned the car in such haste that he left the bag behind that had his medication in it. He has been battling heart trouble for a few years now. Once we got out to sea, we rode the current north on what Bill called the North Atlantic Drift. Bill said it was the current that goes from the Gulf up around Florida and pushes up the east coast to Newfoundland and then across the Atlantic. I guess he underestimated its pull because we went to bed that night and woke up a lot further up the coast than we had intended. Then yesterday Bill started not feeling well. He spent most of the day lying in the cabin. I assumed everything was going okay, yet we had drifted even further north while he was resting.

“He had me run the little kicker motor every so often to push us back to the west to keep within range of the coast. We didn't want to end up going too far out to sea and dying of thirst or something. Today, Bill got up to try and help me with a few things and collapsed. I've never been so scared in all of my life. The terror of knowing you may be losing your soul mate and only friend, while on a little boat out to sea by yourself, where there is no one around for miles to help you is overwhelming. I prayed and I prayed, ‘Oh please, God, deliver me an angel, please help me save my Bill. Please don't leave us out here to die like this’. And then I looked up and saw you on the horizon. I started the little kicker motor up and ran it as hard as it would go to try and catch up with you. You're my angels. God sent you to me.”

Peggy wiped the tears from her own eyes, hugged Judith, and said, “You’re not alone anymore.” The two held each other for a few minutes and then let go as both women tried to regain their composure.

Jason said, “If you ladies can keep an eye on Bill, I'm going to go check on Evan.”

Evan turned to see Jason coming up the stairs to the flybridge. Jason shared with him what Judith had told him about what happened back in Norfolk. Evan just shook his head and said, “How far does all of this go? Who the hell is doing this and who is helping them? There is no way something so widespread could have gone undetected like this. Hell, they are listening to you and me on our cell phones but they can't stop this crap?”

“Maybe they didn't want to stop it,” said Jason. “Remember, it is a whole lot easier to rebuild something into what you want after it is ruined than it is to convince people to let you tear it down in the first place.”

Evan shook his head again and said, “I miss the good ol' days when conspiracy theories were about aliens in Area 51 and stuff.” They both chuckled under their breath and looked ahead.

“The coastline is getting pretty visible now. It must not be too much farther away,” said Jason. 

“Yeah, we are making good time,” Evan replied. “I'm just glad that sail boat is towing as well as it is. I would have been heartbroken to have cut it loose only for you to tell me the story of what that boat means to them. Even if Bill doesn't make it, Judith should be able to barter it for something to help herself out.”

After a few more miles, as the coastline began to come into better view, they could see billowing clouds of black smoke. “What do you think that is?” Evan asked Jason.

Jason picked up his binoculars and said, “Looks like some large buildings. Isn't Atlantic City about the only place with buildings that big along this point of the coast?”

“I believe so, if we are where we think we are that is,” replied Evan. “Crank up that radar and let's get a snapshot of the coastline.”

Jason turned on the boat's radar, cranked up the radar gain, and adjusted the tilt as it began to show an outline of the coast. He pulled up the chart and compared it to what he saw on the radar display. “Come left about twenty degrees and I think we will be pointing at the bay,” directed Jason. 

Evan complied and set a course based on Jason's recommendation. About that time, Peggy came up the stairs onto the flybridge and said, “Dang guys, it's cold up here. Do you want some coffee or anything?”

“You know you're not our flight attendant right now, you don't have to wait on us,” said Evan with a crooked smile.

“I know. I just needed to step out for a minute and stretch my legs. Judith is down there lying next to Bill, praying for him. He's looking really pale to me and his breathing is very shallow. I'm no medical person, but I don't feel good about his condition at all.”

“Well, Peggy, since you are offering, we'd love some steaming hot coffee. Besides, you had better enjoy that galley while you can because as soon as we get to Damon's brother, we are losing the boat and may even be on foot.”

After a few minutes below decks, Peggy returned with a cup of coffee for both Evan and Jason. She also had two rain jackets that she found in the closet down below. “Here, this should at least keep the wind off of you. How much longer do we have?”