Cross Current - Kling Christine - Страница 66
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“Shit.”
Solange poked her head out the cabin door and looked up at me with alarm.
“Hey, sorry. Just go back and lie down, okay?” There wasn’t any need to make her even more scared. I had no idea what the boat’s fuel tank capacity was, but I was pretty certain that a gauge reading less than a quarter of a tank meant we did not have enough fuel to get back across the Gulf Stream to Florida. That was probably why we had no pursuers—they were at the fuel dock.
Maybe we’d get within VHF range of the coast, and I could call for a tow. There would be a lot of charter and tow-boat captains who would find that highly amusing. I’d probably never live it down, but given that just an hour ago I was wondering if we were going to live at all, I guess it wasn’t so bad.
I made a quick 360-degree check around the horizon. To the north, a nasty squall loomed like a black hole and seemed to suck what little light there was into its dark curtain of rain. I was running without lights, trying to make sure I saw any other boat traffic out here, because they sure as hell weren’t going to see me.
I went below to dig around and see if I could find a chart. The mainland wasn’t all that hard a target to hit, but I was certain we didn’t have enough fuel to get there. I wanted to make sure we were in the most populated shipping lane when the tanks ran dry. Thinking about how this boat with no power would wallow in the swells, I knew we would need to get found pretty damn quick.
When I came out of the cuddy cabin, the air temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees and the wind was starting to pick up. Ahead, the rain was visible, even on this dark night, and it looked like we were about to drive into a black wall. I checked the autopilot and the fuel gauge. We’d already used half of the fuel we’d had when we left Bimini. I didn’t know how much longer the boat would run, but hopefully, it would run long enough to get through this squall.
The wind hit us about thirty seconds ahead of the rain. It was as though someone had turned on a hurricane-force wind machine. Some of the gusts must have been clocking at over forty-five knots, and when the rain hit, it felt like we were being attacked with an air stapler. The stinging raindrops made it nearly impossible to open my eyes, so I huddled behind the windscreen for cover. Within minutes, I was drenched down to my underwear, and the rain was so cold, I trembled uncontrollably. Solange opened the doors to the cuddy cabin and stuck her head out. I could see she was crying.
“So much water,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. It’s the rain,” I shouted over the noise of the storm. “It will be over soon.”
The wind and rain had not yet let up when the outboards started to sputter. I throttled back, thinking I could keep the engines running a little longer at the lower speed, stretch out our fuel, but both engines immediately quit. The boat didn’t glide to a stop, she just lurched down, dead in the water, and immediately began to roll in a wild corkscrew motion driven by the waves kicked up from the squall. Solange opened the doors to the cuddy cabin, and when I saw the water sloshing over the cabin floor, I realized what she had been trying to tell me earlier.
“Watch out,” I said as I pushed her aside and dove below. I located the electrical panel and tried the manual override on the electric bilge pump. Nothing happened. “Okay, Rusty, where’s your hand pump?” I started going through lockers and finally found a cheap little plastic pump under the bunk. Of all the things for him to cheap out on, I thought. I handed Solange the end of the hose and told her to hold it out the doors as I pumped the water out of the cabin, onto the deck, where I hoped it would drain through the aft drain holes—if they weren’t already underwater.
I started strong, pumping like our lives depended on it, which of course they did. After about five minutes, I still couldn’t tell if I’d made any progress, and I had to switch arms. I stood for a second to shake out my shoulders, and I watched as a large green wave dumped across the boat and gallons of seawater sloshed through the companionway into the cabin. I shook my head. This was futile. She was going down.
I went back to pumping, but I started directing Solange to put together a survival bag of things that we would need in Rusty’s life raft. She found bottles of water and a box of protein bars. I took a couple of the candy bars and stuffed them in the pockets of my jeans. I’d need to keep my strength up to keep going with this pumping.
When she came across a diver’s buoyancy compensator, I had her hand it to me, and I put it on, checking to make sure the C02 cartridge was in the pocket. I hated life jackets, but with this less bulky vest, I could inflate it only if I needed it. I took the whistle and small strobe light off an adult life jacket and attached them to my buoyancy compensator.
Sound travels better through water than through air. When you’re inside a boat, and another boat approaches, you will always hear the engine through the water first. I knew exactly what that rumbling noise meant the minute I heard it.
From down below, it was impossible to tell what direction the boat was coming from. I told Solange to stay in the cabin, and I went out on deck. The squall had let up, and the gray light of morning had increased visibility tremendously, but the sky still hung very dark and low. When we rose to the top of a swell, I looked all around the horizon, but I didn’t spot the boat before we immediately plunged back into a trough. I tried the VHF radio at the helm but discovered that all the electronics on the boat were dead. I could see now how low Rusty’s boat was riding in the water, and I understood why the waves were breaking over the gunwales, swamping us. I remembered Rusty’s flare kit in the seat locker and dug it out, fitted a flare to the gun, and shot it into the air.
I waited until we had crested an entire series of waves, and I still didn’t see anything. The noise was growing louder, though. I had just decided to try another flare when the approaching boat went from being a distant possibility to being right there, coming over the top of a wave, headed straight for us. Although I couldn’t see anyone on board, the high white fiberglass bow of what looked to me like an ocean racing boat seemed to appear out of nowhere. For an instant, I feared the captain didn’t see us, wasn’t slowing down, and he was going to run us over, slice our boat in two. At the last minute, the racing boat veered off, the stem swung around, and I saw the trademark name Donzi painted along the waterline. The boat looked to be about forty-five feet overall, and as it slowed and the engines went into neutral, a man stepped away from the helm and leaned over the side. I realized that I knew him.
“Seychelle?”
“Joe?”
“Are you okay, honey? What the devil are you doing out here? Take this.” He tossed me a line, and I tied it off to a midships cleat on our sinking boat.
“Man, am I ever glad to see you,” I said. “This boat’s taking on water, and we were getting ready to abandon ship.”
Then I felt a small hand on my thigh. I reached down and pulled Solange up so that Joe could see her, too.
I started to speak again when Solange called out at the top of her voice.
“Papa!”
I looked at him and then at her. “No, Solange, this is Joe,” I said. When I turned back to look at him, he wasn’t alone anymore. Gil Lynch stood to one side and the slender Haitian man who worked with Malheur stood to the other.
Solange cried out, a plaintive wail so full of pain that I wrapped my arms around her and turned my back to the men on the big ocean racer. I stroked her head as she gulped for air.
Joe D’Angelo was Gil’s boss? I wanted to cry out, too. There was nowhere left to go.
Joe called out to her. “It’s okay, kid. Don’t worry. These are my guys. I won’t let them hurt you.” I watched over my shoulder as the Haitian man, lying on his belly on the stem of the ocean racer, reached for the side of our boat.
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