The Raft (20 page)

And perhaps, as Maggie had said, this time
they'd finally have a chance to say goodbye. That kiss... it'd been
a step back, but perhaps you have to take a few steps back to
realize there's no going back at all. Goodbye would be nice,
goodbye would mean... goodbye.

Rachael drank her coffee.

She took her notebook out of her purse and
flipped it open to her notes from the County Jail. The waitress
came by for her order, but Rachael sent her away. The door opened
and in walked Special Agent Galahad. The whole restaurant turned to
watch him enter as the doorbell tinkled and the door swung closed
behind him. He'd exchanged his drab, FBI-tailored dark suit for a
set of BDUs. Blue and white camouflage, if that was actually a real
thing. He sported a large handgun on his belt and a heavy
bulletproof vest with “FBI” in large yellow lettering. His armor
was glistening wet from the short walk across the parking lot to
the front door. Crossing the room, he took the chair opposite
Rachael, pulled a bluetooth out of his ear and placed it on the
table in front of him.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. He turned over
his mug and the waitress arrived to fill it with coffee.

“No problem,” Rachael replied, snapping the
cap off her pen.

“Er... I was hoping this could be... off the
record?” Galahad held up a hand.

Rachael shrugged, snapped the cap back on her
pen and returned it and her notebook to her purse.

“I wanted to speak to you in person,
vis-à-vis the whole Senator Hadian and the
Seattle Times
situation.”

“Vis-à-vis?” Rachael raised an eyebrow.

“What sort of article are you planning to
write?” Galahad stated flatly.

“Ah.” Rachael bought herself a moment sipping
coffee.

“There's nothing floating around but the
innuendo of known felons...” Galahad began.

“No, I know,” Rachael agreed. She had
nothing. She knew it, and very likely Galahad knew it, too. But she
wasn't emotionally prepared to admit defeat. “Myself and Ms.
Straight are continuing our investigations.”

“Now, Ms. Bigallo...”

“What can I tell you, Special Agent?”

“You can tell me you don't even have enough
evidence to post a classified ad.”

“You're not trying to interfere with the free
expression of the press, are you, Special Agent?”

“I'm trying to protect a prominent man from
baseless attacks, Ms. Bigallo. Call it what you will.”

Rachael sighed. She really had nothing. Not a
stitch. Not even enough for an article on the Raft if she left out
all the libel against the Senator. She shook her head. “I'm sorry,
Agent, as much as I'd like to make your life difficult...”

“Then the
Times
is going to sit on the
story?”

“Story? What story? I haven't even mentioned
it to my editor.” Rachael shrugged in despair.

“Excellent.” Galahad slapped the table with
his palm. He picked up his cup and drank a large mouthful of
coffee. “Well, Ms. Bigallo. It's been a pleasure.” He began to
climb to his feet.

“What's with the combat gear?” Rachael
asked.

Galahad hesitated, then dropped back into his
chair. “We're back out on the Raft this morning,” he said with some
relish.

“Serving warrants? Dressed like that?”
Rachael asked with alarm. “It'll mean war.”

“No, no more warrants.”

“Then what?”

“Safety checks.” Galahad stifled a smile.

“What?”

“Coast Guard regulations. And the Revised
Code of Washington. They're quite explicit, even vessels carrying
foreign registration are required to have certain safety equipment
to navigate inland waters. Life vests and so on. And then there are
regulations regarding the safe and proper disposal of waste. Coast
Guard certification is required for all sanitation devices used
aboard ship. Those certifications need to be checked, regardless of
the home port of a vessel, or you can't sail in US waters. It is
well within the powers of the Coast Guard to board a ship and check
for the presence of the required equipment. It's not an intrusion
on foreign sovereignty.”

“You're going to write Rafters
tickets
?” Rachael could hardly believe her ears.

Special Agent Galahad beamed with pleasure.
“As you might be aware, the Kon-Tiki Races begin today. It's quite
a significant draw for both Rafter and mainland boaters. There's a
significant migration of vessels. North. The Coast Guard will be
policing those races, issuing citations to any and all vessels that
are found to be out of compliance with regulations.”

“But -” Rachael bit her lip. “You don't
seriously think the Rafters will sit still for any of this, do
you?”

“Frankly, we don't really care.” Galahad
seemed distracted, in a hurry to leave. “The law is the law and it
is our job to enforce it. It's been a free-for-all out there aboard
the Raft for too long, and the consequences have been deadly. The
time has come for a little law and order aboard the Raft. And
there's no time like the present.”

Rachael scowled. “Hadian's tax vote passed
then?” she said.

Galahad hesitated. “I -”

“It didn't!” Rachael pounced. She reached
back into her purse and came up with her notebook.

“It was sent back to committee,” Galahad
admitted. “The Anarchists and the Dixie Separatists threatened a
filibuster. Nothing to do with the language relevant to the Raft,
you understand, but...”

“The Raft has gotten a reprieve.” Rachael
scribbled. “So you're going to lawyer them to death instead.
Counting life jackets.”

“Ms. Bigallo...”

“You must know how the Rafters are going to
react – of course you do, look at how you're dressed. Are you
that
stupid?”

“Only an idiot would sail out there unarmed.”
Galahad climbed to his feet.

“But you just had to stop by and make sure
the Senator's reputation was in tact, that none of this was going
to blow back in his fat face,” Rachael said, loud enough for the
whole restaurant to hear.

“As far as we're concerned, the murderer of
Joanna Church is still at large aboard the Raft.”

“But no one named Joanna Church has been
murdered, the identity of the body has come back. I saw the
coroner's report his morning. Meerkat's real name was Rebbecca
Oldrich.”

Special Agent Galahad paused for an instant,
concerned. Was it confusion or irritation? Rachael couldn't quite
tell. Then he turned on his heels and marched for the exit, his
heavy boots echoing off the restaurant's wooden floor.

Curious, Rachael thought as she closed her
notebook and searched in her purse for her phone.

Chapter 22

Maggie awoke to the sound of a gunshot.

She sat up erect in bed, kicking off the
heavy quilt. The shot was far off, but it had definitely been a
gunshot. Maggie listened. There was a second crack and Maggie leapt
from her bunk. She exchanged the warm, soft comfort of below decks
for the cutting, diagonal spears of rain outside the companionway.
The clouds were low, the world engulfing the
Soft Cell
in a
blanket of gray nothing. But she'd heard a gunshot, she was sure of
it.

As the torrential rain soaked through her
PJs, Maggie asked herself exactly what she'd expected to find above
decks. A muzzle flash? In the fog? It was easy enough to make a
rough guess to the shots' source: they'd come from a general
easterly direction, back towards the
Kalakaka
and the main
island of the Raft. Maggie dived back below decks and quickly
dressed. Within ten minutes, the
Soft Cell
was underway,
motoring slowly though the rainy gloom.

Muted silhouettes of other craft began to
appear at the edge of Maggie's vision as she drew closer to the
epicenter of the Raft. The dark shadows were oddly motionless. The
normally busy decks of vessels appeared abandoned in the gloom.

Where had everyone gone?

The answer came quickly as Maggie closed in
on the
Kalakala
, the faint din of something that sounded
like a sporting event reached Maggie ears: a crowd, a large crowd,
hooting and cheering. As the streamlined dome of the ferry broke
through the fog, Maggie could see the car deck packed to the grab
rails with bodies. Shoulder to shoulder, Rafters were standing, all
eyes focused into the depths of the ship. Maggie swiftly roped the
Soft Cell
up to the outer edge of the
Kalakala's
collected donut of boats. She scampered quickly across the slick
connected decks until she'd reached the ferry.

“Making false accusations and speaking
hearsay isn't going to do any of us any good!” Gandalf boomed at
the collected mass of humanity. Dropping down onto the car deck,
Maggie attempted to squeeze into the crowd. There couldn't have
been a soul aboard the Raft who wasn't in attendance, there was
barely an inch for her to maneuver. Someone had cleared Gandalf's
putt-putt golf course away, but the giant J.P. Patches head was
still standing at the far end of the ferry. Gandalf was using it as
a podium, balancing precariously on the flat of J.P.'s floppy hat.
“What we need here is some calm, rational deliberation. If we all
start going off half-cocked -”

The crowd erupted in a cacophony of jeers and
hoots. There was obviously no interest in rational deliberation.
Gandalf waved his arms, trying to restore order. After little
success, he pulled a single-action revolver from his belt and fired
it into the air, off the rear of the car deck. It got the desired
result. The collected throng of Rafters lowered their objections to
a murmur.

Well, Maggie had found the source of her gun
shots.

“Hey, what did I miss?” Maggie asked, tapping
the nearest man on the shoulder. It was the latecomers at the very
back of the
Kalakala
and the man Maggie spoke to was an
old-timer known as Woodgum.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled a
toothless smile at Maggie. “Oh, hi, Maggie. You just arrivin'?” he
asked in a thick Inland Northern accent.

“I was...” Maggie tried to think of a
suitable excuse for her tardiness. “Sleeping.”

“Oh, yeah?” Woodgum laughed. “Well, you
missed all the excitement. The first few junks that sailed north,
ya know, them that's headin' up early for the Freaky Kon-Tikis, to
set up, they run into the Coast Guard. Big ol' cutter from the
Pacific. Blockadin' the Sound off Point No Point, don't you know?
Stoppin' everythin' afloat.”

“A blockade?” Maggie said in surprise.

“Oh, yeah, it's war, everyone's sayin'. Them
Coast Guard fellas mean to keep us from the Freaky Kon-Tikis!”

“But -” Maggie stammered in shock. At the
front of the
Kalakala,
Gandalf was again speaking up.
Woodgum turned to listen.

“Now I know you are all a little hot under
the collar, but we've got to stay calm and we've got to stay
organized!” Gandalf's voice was echoing through the car deck. Now
that everyone was quiet, he needed no amplification to be heard all
the way at back of the ship. “Our unity is our strength, people, we
have to remember that. If we start trying to push past that cutter
one or two at a time, them Jack Boots are going to pick us off. But
if we can stay united, there's a chance we can stand up against
this affront and send a message back to the dryland that the Raft
is not to be trifled with, that we will not stand idly by and let
our citizens be pushed around!”

There was a general murmur of approval from
the audience.

“But we have to face reality here. The Coast
Guard, the Feds, the police, they have us outgunned.”

The crowd made some unhappy grumbles. Gandalf
silenced them with a wave of his hand.

“And if we sail full steam at that blockade,
the only place we're going to find ourselves is in a gunfight! And
a gunfight with the Coast Guard is no gunfight we can win!” Angry
hoots of disapproval. “We have to attack this more strategically. A
head-on collision is just going to let the authorities paint us as
extremists.”

“We're not starting any fight!” someone in
the audience yelled out. “Sailing on the open water isn't an act of
violence. If the government thinks that gives them the right to
stop our ships, board our vessels, then that's starting the fight,
Gandalf! It's them, not us!”

The car deck erupted with cheers of approval.
Gandalf was losing the crowd.

“You have a point, my friend, but it's a
point you won't live long enough to make twice. What do we have?
Pistols? Rifles? Shotguns? And you want to sail towards machine
guns? Cannons? What you're suggesting is suicide. Dying today for
no reason won't do any of us, or the Raft as a whole, a damn bit of
good!”

“You just want to sit on your ass then? Float
here and cower in our bunks? And miss the Kon-Tikis?” someone
called out.

“No, no!” Gandalf said adamantly. “Point No
Point is not the only route to the San Juans. We can also sail via
Skagit Bay.”

“And Deception Pass? Are you crazy?”

“It can be sailed.”

“You're crazy!” And a wave of laughter and
ridicule washed over the gathered Rafters.

Gandalf stood at the pinnacle of J.P.
Patches's hat and tugged at his beard in despair. He was convincing
no one, and the strain was showing on his face.

All through the speech, Maggie was making her
way towards the front of the crowd, pushing through the gathered
Rafters wherever the slightest light showed between them. Everyone
was armed, Maggie could see, rifles slung over shoulders and
pistols on hips. The meeting was less a town hall than an armed mob
waiting for its orders. Maggie began to understand the magnitude of
the bomb that Gandalf was standing on J.P. Patches's head trying to
defuse.

Everyone on the Raft had been waiting for
this day, anticipating it. They'd collected weapons and ammunition
in preparation. Every Rafter knew that some day soon the government
would come for them. And today, that day had finally arrived.