Buried At Sea (20 page)

requirements, of course, are best assessed by you. But between you and me, Admiral, you can name your price."

He punched End and looked quizzically at Val. "Your ears pricked up like a fawn's."

"What or who was 'of no consequence'?"

"Spark's crew."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, Dad, but he's just a kid along for the ride."

"He might have started out innocent, but who knows what ideas Spark's put in his head."

"All the more reason to keep him in the circle."

Lloyd McVay shot an angry look at his daughter.

Val McVay returned a self-absorbed, self-contained stare, defying him or anyone alive to challenge her on the facts. "If you had read his files as I have—with a view of asking `

What is this data telling me?'—you would conclude that Will Spark always teams up with some malleable young person whom he can control. Therefore, it doesn't take a genius to imagine that if Will Spark happened to fall overboard, then young Jim Leighton might know plenty about Sentinel—such as where Will put it." McVay snapped his fingers for a phone. "Get me Admiral Rugoff again. . . . Admiral, I'

m sure it doesn't matter, but the nervous Nellies on my staff want the young man, too." Val was shaking her head at her computer.

"Now what?" McVay asked when he was done with the Russian. Val said, "Those two are not e-mailing each other." "Jim and Shannon?"

"We've been monitoring RileySpa.com since I got Jim's address. Nothing."

"Wrong address?"

"No. I think I obtained his 'public' address. That his clients would use. They probably use different names to write to each other."

"That goes without saying. RileySpa is owned by Shannon's parents. Young lovers might well maintain separate email accounts for privacy. May I presume that you are also searching for those accounts?"

"I am, but it takes time. They've installed a respectable RSA hierarchical certificate security system and there are

two thousand five hundred and forty-eight separate addresses registered to the RileySpa website. Apparently they offer their employees free email as an inducement to stay. And every damned one of them uses seven screen names."

"Surely you're not surprised, Val. I would be surprised to discover in the entire country a single acquaintance of any of our employees who hasn't `pickabacked' onto the foundation's gratis e-mail. 'Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains. " Shannon's first reaction when she got Jim's e-mail was to dial 911. She had to tell someone who could help that Jim was in trouble. But who could help him hundreds of miles from shore in international waters?

"Daddy?"

"What's the matter, angel? You look like you're ready to cry." She showed her father Jim's e-mail. He blinked at it a moment. Then he asked a question that had nothing to do with anything. "What's this e-mail address?"

"Jim and I keep private mailboxes for our personal stuff. JLEIGHTON@RILEYSPA. COM and SRILEY@ RILEYSPA.COM are for the customers."

"Why?"

"These are for us, and if you tell Mom I'll change them," "Oh."

"Daddy, is there some way you could get the navy to help him?"

"Never happen. For one thing, the U.S. Navy doesn't dispatch ships for private citizens unless they are very rich and famous. For another, even if an American citizen could call up the U.S. Navy to send a ship, what would you tell the U.S. Navy? The reason this guy I know—"

"Let's call him my friend."

"—needs rescuing is that he's sailing with a man who shot a Nigerian woman? Sorry, hon. He's got a problem and you can't help him. But, hey, this reads like he's home free. He's coming home."

"If he can sail the boat all by himself."

"I can't believe they shot somebody. Must have been—" "Jim didn't shoot anybody."

"Your mother will freak when she hears this."

"Don't tell her."

"Not in a million years."

Shannon figured that two days was more like it—an-assessment of her father's ability to keep anything from her mother that he confirmed with an anxious, "But, honey, you've really got to wonder what Jim's mixed up in."

Worried sick, she felt helpless, useless, clueless, and very much to blame. And very much shut out by Jim's terse description of what had to have been momentous events. Will Spark's 1987 edition of Ocean Passages for the World looked like it had endured most of them. The navy blue cover was rubbed smooth, with threads showing dirty white through the cloth. The pages were thumbed, water-rippled, and coffee-stained. On the title page, Will had printed the names of three yachts that had carried the guide: Cordelia, Runner, and Hustle.

Chapter 1 began matter-of-factly: "Ocean Passages for the World is written for use in planning deep-sea voyages." It made the challenge sound doable, or at least possible, an enterprise that could be undertaken with confidence if one went about it in a businesslike manner.

To exit the Bight of Biafra and the larger Gulf of Guinea—the great curve of the Atlantic Ocean that lay in the crook of Central Africa's south-and west-facing coasts—he had to reverse their inbound route from Cape Palmas on the southwest tip of the bulge of Africa. Back at Cape Palmas, he would hang a shallow right and sail northwest to the Cape Verde Islands. From there, it was 2,980 miles to New York.

Except it was winter. And a foldout chart in Ocean Passages showed in vivid yellow that in winter the New York route was beset by gale winds, heavy seas, and bitter cold. Will had talked about the North Atlantic in winter as a very dangerous ocean and Jim knew he had no business anywhere near it.

He found a southern route to Florida that looked promising. Florida was actually farther than New York—reached through the Bahamas via something called the North-East Providence Channel. The southern route looked warm and peaceful by contrast—a sundrenched novice's voyage he would find all the easier because the trade wind and the North Equatorial Current were both going his way.

Ocean Passages gave him the courses to sail to each way-point. And after a session with the GPS manual, which proved easier than programming his VCR, he learned to punch them into both the mast-mounted Global Positioning System and Will's handhelds, which meant he could set the auto-helm to the proper compass course and constantly check his accuracy with the electronics.

So he had a sense of hope and even high optimism when he next e-mailed Shannon. Things have settled a little. Will's still out of it. But I'm fine. Other than tired as hell. And I'm running the boat and I'm coming home! I know I can do it. I can navigate by the book. By the charts. And by the electronics, which make it simple. The boat, he didn't have to tell her, was a much more complicated matter. It was big and the forces that the sails

generated were potent. He was violently reminded of that when the second morning after escaping Nigeria a jib sheet—a line that controlled the foresail—broke loose. As he rushed forward to secure the huge sail, the flapping cloth hit him so hard it knocked him to the deck. Ears ringing, head spinning, he remembered too late that he should have turned the boat into the wind to reduce the pressure on the sail before he tried to wrestle with it.

I can handle the sails, as long as I keep it simple. No fancy sail changes. I'll just stick to the roll-out jib and the easily reefed main. I've been practicing reefing them. But maybe when I get out in the middle of the Atlantic on a calm day I might try flying the other jibs. Hell, why not fly the spinnaker--just kidding. though I might try the big light-air blooper.

The one thing I've gotten pretty good at is steering....

Often, he took over from the auto-helm to practice—particularly when the stars shone at night. On this westward track, paralleling the distant shores of Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, and Liberia, his guide was the row of three bright stars, the belt of the constellation Orion, which rose directly behind him after sunset, peaked above the mast, and sank into the ocean ahead of the bow.

He could see at a glance whether he was on course. Granted, clouds often blocked the sky in the Gulf of Guinea, but whenever that happened, he could steer by the compass and confirm his position with the GPS. Half the time the sky was cloudy; on the other hand, he told Shannon, the Harmattan haze grew thinner with each mile he sailed west. Fact is, if worst comes to worst end Will doesn't make it. I can probably do it all alone. He deleted "probably."

Hopefully, nothing important will break—it shouldn't. Will keeps her in great shape—

and the weather won't throw any

nasty surprises my way. It's a little scary. of course, but very. very exciting. I don't want to tempt fete by being overconfident. But Christopher Columbus crossed the ocean by this same route in a leaky old wooden boat and he had no idea what was on the other side. While I'm sailing a high-tech, million-dollar dream boat and have same idea of who, at least, is on the other side.

He took to sleeping in catnaps in the hammock right below the companionway. He felt safer three short steps from the helm and better in touch with the sea and the wind than in the pilot berth deeper in the cabin.

Shannon Riley began to investigate Will Spark—something, she realized, that they should have done before Jim went sailing with the man. She had been so caught up in the idea of the adventure, and Will was so clearly a competent blue-water sailor. Jim would still be safe at home if she hadn't pushed him.

She pulled Will Spark's membership file from the RileySpa computer, which stored the addresses of inactive members whom they routinely peppered with "come back" mailings. Will had left his club before RileySpa had bought it. But the transfer of Will's information had succeeded. It had even transferred his membership card photograph, which showed an older, white-haired man in glasses looking down and away from the camera. He had given his address as the Larchmont Yacht Club, which immediately made her wonder why he had joined a Bridgeport health club that was thirty miles away in a lower-rent area. Probably he'd had an office nearby.

Most members paid their monthly dues by credit card. Will Spark had paid cash. He had left the space for his business address blank.

None of this really meant anything. He paid cash. His address was a fancy yacht club. He had left the notify-in-caseof-emergency line blank. So what did that mean? He was alone in the world.

Shannon telephoned the Larchmont Yacht Club and

asked for Will Spark's business address. The yacht club did not give out such information, she was told frostily.

"Is he still a member?" Shannon asked. The yacht club did not give out membership information, period. The person hung up on her.

The hot, dry Harmattan kicked in hard from the northeast and filled the sails. Hustle boomed along on a broad starboard reach, a fast yet comfortable point of sail with an easy rhythm that allowed Will to sleep in peace.

The speed was exhilarating and boosted Jim's confidence. Still, he kept her many, many miles from the coast—a separation that increased sharply as they passed the Bight of Benin. Its shore was so low that it offered no landmarks, while its surf-pounded beaches were further obscured by haze, "The Smokes" Will had called it on their way in. Jim wanted no part of it. He kept going straight west, paralleling the equator, some 150 miles to the south, while the Nigerian shore hooked away north to form the bight. Soon he was over a hundred miles at sea. The air cleared a little as their western course took them farther and farther from the windblown sands of the African deserts. Ship traffic thinned—although oil tankers still raised the occasional ominous ridge on the horizon and solemn lights at night—and Jim drove the boat with a growing sense of relief that they had escaped the constraints and dangers of the land.

Dear Shannon.

Right now a huge shark is following the boat. He's got a big fin, like in the movie. And every now and then I can see his tail break the surface. Which reminds me, since I'm alone on deck all the time now. I'm going to start wearing my safety harness. Don't worry. I'm clipping it on right now. Things are going pretty good. Will is still pretty out of it, but sleep can't hurt at this point. He's got a lot of healing to do. In the morning Will's dark, rich mix of French and Italian roast, ground powder-fine, suddenly appealed more than his

regular tea and he brewed a cup in Will's "camp coffee" fashion—drenching it with boiling water and waiting for the grounds to settle. He was changing Will's IV solution bag—and wondering whether he should try to wake him to get him to eat or let him sleep—when the wind began to back, which usually meant trouble.

Sure enough, as the wind swung north and west in front of the boat, slowing it, the seas grew confused. The sails began to slat and the rigging bang. The heat thickened, thunder muttered, and lightning flickered on the clouds.

In another hour the wind died completely. The clouds closed in and rain showers fell straight from the sky, nudging the horizons, drifting over the boat, and wandering away. In the absence of the wind, the sea's surface flattened.

But big swells still marched below. The boat began to roll so violently that Jim had to raise the leeboards on Will's bed to keep the unconscious man from being thrown to the deck.

Hustle rolled on the oily swell in the peculiar way she had when they were becalmed in the Doldrums, and to Jim's amazement he felt himself getting seasick again. He could feel it rising in the back of his throat—nausea combined with a gloomy depression—a grim reminder that his fragile inner ear doomed him to repeat performances whenever sea conditions changed.

He was catnapping in the cockpit—despite the deepening impulse to vomit and occasional spatters of warm rain—waking regularly to check for tankers, when around noon his attention was drawn to a strange narrow column of rain a quarter mile from the boat. He thought it was another shower, but it was spinning, whirling as it descended from a black cloud.

A second whirling column of water rose from the sea. The two columns joined and grew large. It tripled in height and thickness and began to dart on the sea's glassy surface like a hungry tongue.