Runner (16 page)

My father went topside first. I followed, and he screened me as I edged my way along the starboard side of our boat to a place where I could slip onto Kovich's boat. Once aboard, it was simple enough to get into the inflatable. It was so low in the water, and there were so many other boats around, if someone were looking for me, they'd have had trouble seeing me.

I rowed past the line of piers till I cleared the breakwater and was in Puget Sound. The wind was in my face, slowing me, but I only had to row a couple of hundred yards to reach the beach. I made it in just a few minutes. The wind actually helped me row up onto the sand. I grabbed the inflatable, pulled it off the beach, and left it hidden in the scrubby grass by the dunes.

I made my way across the parking lot to the stairway that led to the Blue Note Café. I went straight up, fast, turning to look every twenty steps or so to see if I was being followed. No one.

When I reached the top, I checked my watch. Two-thirty. Melissa might not be back from school yet. I stood for a second, unsure what to do. Maybe her father was home; maybe he'd let me in. Maybe he'd listen to me. Maybe he'd believe me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Why had I ever told my dad I wouldn't go to the police? It was such a stupid promise.

But I'd made it. I'd made it and I'd stick to it. I turned north and headed along Golden Gardens Avenue toward Melissa's house. At first I ran, but then I realized that I wasn't sure which house was hers. I remembered that it was brick and that it sat at the top of a winding driveway, and I thought I remembered a security gate at the bottom of the driveway, but I wasn't certain.

I walked quickly along the west side of the street, craning my neck up at the homes above me. The first had white siding; the next was brick, but it seemed too new and too small. The third was all glass and windows. I felt panic coming on.

"Chance? What are you doing here?"

I turned, startled. The voice had come from across the street. Melissa was stopped, engine idling, her head leaning out the window, confusion on her face.

I ran across the street and quickly got into the passenger seat next to her. "I've got to talk to your father," I said. "It's an emergency."

She smiled. "My father? What? Are you going to ask for my hand in marriage?"

"This is no joke, Melissa. The stuff I've been smuggling—some of it wasn't drugs, some of it was explosives. All of it is stored on the
Tiny Dancer.
My dad is on the boat right now.
He's in danger. The smugglers—they're terrorists. They've searched the boat once already looking for the stuff; they're sure to come back. They're killers, Melissa. They're killers."

The smile disappeared. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Melissa, I need to talk to your father right now."

She shook her head. "I don't get it. Why my father?"

"Because that's what my dad wants me to do. He trusts your father." I paused. "Please, Melissa, we're wasting time. If you know where your father is, you've got to take me to him now."

She pulled into traffic. "He's home, Chance. Or at least he should be. He promised to take the afternoon off to buy me a new laptop for college."

Less than a minute later she pulled the Jetta into her garage. We both climbed out and she led me through a back door into her house. "Let me talk to him first," she said. "Explain things."

"No," I said, "I've—"

"Let me talk to him, Chance. I know him. It'll be faster." She saw the impatience in my eyes. "Trust me. Go through that room to the stairway. At the top, turn right. You'll see the solarium. Wait there."

She disappeared through a door. I went where she pointed, walking through a huge room with sofas and bookcases and Oriental carpets and paintings. A fire was going and classical music was playing even though no one was there. I found the stairs and climbed them to the solarium, which turned out to be a large sunroom with granite floors, a big-screen television, and ceiling fans to circulate the air.

A telescope was mounted on a tripod in a corner. I tilted it downward so that I could look through the viewfinder toward the beach. The blurry specks that had been people were suddenly so clear I could see the moles on their faces. I thought about how hard I'd tried to make sure no one saw me poking around in the rocks. What an idiot I'd been! All of the homes along the bluff had telescopes on their decks, binoculars in the cabinets. People lived here because they loved looking at the beach, the mountains, the sky. How many of them had trained telescopes or binoculars on me?

I swung the telescope around toward Pier B. I wasn't sure if I could pick out the
Tiny Dancer,
but it was worth a try. I scanned down the piers slowly ... Pier G, Pier E, Pier C, and finally Pier B. I checked out the ramp and the security gate. Everything looked completely normal. I slowly moved the telescope from boat to boat. There was lots of activity; people who hadn't been on the pier in months were getting their boats ready for opening day. Dozens of sailboats were out in Puget Sound, where a week earlier there had been fewer than ten.

I moved the telescope slowly down the pier, hoping to see my dad. A couple of times I scanned too fast and the telescope jumped way off line. Finally I managed just the right touch.

There was Tasker's sailboat with the Mariners windsock, then Nelson's at slip 41, Heller's at 43, and after that Kovich's boat. I stopped—somehow I'd jumped over the
Tiny Dancer.
I ran the telescope back. Kovich's boat, then Heller's, then Nelson's. One more time, with my heart pounding: Nelson's boat, Heller's, Kovich's.

The
Tiny Dancer
was gone.

Just then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, moving fast. I stepped away from the telescope as Melissa's father came through the door.

I'd pictured him as tall and thin with glasses and maybe a trim beard or a goatee. Instead he was a balding, barrel-chested little guy. "Think for a minute, Chance. Then tell me exactly what I need to know right now. OK?"

His voice was calm, but intense. His eyes were intense, too. Whatever Melissa had said had had its effect. There was no doubt in his expression—he was ready to act.

I left out any explanation of how the explosives got on the
Tiny Dancer,
and just told him what was there. "There's something else," I said, gesturing toward the telescope. "The
Tiny Dancer
is gone."

"Did your father tell you he was going to take it out?"

"No, and he wouldn't have unless he had to. It hasn't been out in years. The rigging, the sails, the hardware—it's not seaworthy."

"What are you thinking, then?"

"That he took it out into the Sound to keep the terrorists from getting to the explosives. Either that or..." I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"Or what, Chance?" Mr. Watts said.

"The terrorists have got the boat."

Mr. Watts turned and headed downstairs. Melissa and I followed, and then waited as he made a series of phone calls. I couldn't tell who he called, but I thought it was the Coast Guard and the police, and maybe the FBI. Every once in a while he'd turn and ask me a question. "What was the slip number? ... The length of the sailboat? ... Any distinctive markings?" Finally he hung up. "Let's go," he said.

"Where?" I asked.

"There's a police helicopter waiting for us down on Lake Union. Chance, your dad might be out there by himself, safe as can be, but we can't make that assumption. If terrorists have hijacked the boat, then it's a floating bomb. There are a hundred, no ... a thousand, different targets out on the Sound. We've got to find the
Tiny Dancer
before any of those targets get hit."

"I'm coming too," Melissa said. "And don't tell me I'm not."

"You are coming," he answered. "In fact, you're driving. I'm expecting some phone calls."

We hurried out to the garage. I climbed into the back seat of the Jetta and her father took the passenger seat. Melissa backed the car out, whipped the wheel around, and maneuvered down the driveway and out onto the street. "Drive fast," her father said, "but not too fast. No accidents. You got it?"

The police helicopter pad on Lake Union is about five miles from Melissa's house. Instead of taking the neighborhood streets, she drove through the Ballard industrial area that runs right along the water. The roads are potholed and crisscrossed by abandoned railroad tracks, but there are few lights or stop signs.

As we passed under the Ballard Bridge, her father's cell phone rang. The person on the other end spoke for a few moments. "Are you asking me what I would recommend?" he said.

The caller said something I couldn't hear.

"OK," Melissa's dad answered. "Here's what I'd do. I'd close every single bridge over the water. I-5, I-90, Aurora, 520—all of them. And I'd hold every ferry at the dock."

Again the caller spoke.

"I know it would paralyze the city," Melissa's father said, his voice angry. "And I know this is a long shot. But better to paralyze the city than to have a whole bunch of people dead."

He snapped the phone shut and slipped it into his pocket.

"Are they going to close the bridges?" I asked.

He just looked out the window.

We were nearing Gas Works Park. "Up there," he said to
Melissa. "That gravel road. Turn right and drive all the way to the end."

Melissa followed his directions. As soon as the Jetta came to a stop, we got out, and three men ran up to us. "Is this the kid?" one of them said, pointing to me.

"That's him," Melissa's dad said.

"You come with me," the man said, and he grabbed me by the arm and led me toward a stairway.

"What about us?" Melissa called after him.

"Just the boy," the man said, waving her off.

Before I had a chance to object, we were headed up the stairs. At the top a helicopter, its blades whirring, sat on the pad. "Keep your head down," the man said. "Now move."

We ran, his hand grasping my upper arm, to the helicopter and I climbed onboard. It was the first time I'd ever been near a helicopter, and the sound of the blades was about twenty times louder than I'd expected. I sat in a cushioned seat and fastened my seat belt just as the copter lifted off. Another man handed me a pair of binoculars. "You know how to use these?" he shouted.

I nodded.

"All right then. Find that sailboat for us."

The helicopter rose off the pad and headed east toward Lake Union and the major bridges. It was the wrong way and I knew it. There hadn't been enough time for the
Tiny Dancer
to sail into Lake Washington. The boat would be in the cut or still out on Puget Sound. "We should be going west," I shouted to the man.

"Just look," he said, pointing to my binoculars. So I looked.

White sails dotted the lake, powerboats cutting between them. The copter flew low toward the I-5 Bridge.

"See anything?" the man shouted.

I shook my head. "They couldn't have gotten here," I said again. "There hasn't been enough time. We need to go west."

"Are you sure?" he said.

"I'm sure."

The man shouted to the pilot. The pilot looked at me.
"West," I yelled. "West." The pilot shrugged, then turned the copter around and headed west.

I kept remembering what my dad had said about the Ballard Locks. Was that the terrorists' target? On a sunny day like this, there would be hundreds of people leaning over the railing watching the boats pass through, and more people onboard the boats tied side by side in the locks.

Finally we were over the locks. The sailboats were so close to one another that it was impossible to read the names. We hovered overhead; people pointed skyward, puzzled and excited by our presence. Once I thought I saw my father, but then two little boys wearing orange life preservers came on deck and waved to me.

"Anything?" the man shouted.

"No," I shouted back.

"You sure? We could stay longer."

"I'm sure."

The copter rose in the air and headed out over Puget Sound.

I've lived near the Sound my whole life, so I know it's big. But I'd never realized how big until that moment. The pilot shouted something to the man sitting next to me, who turned to me. "Which direction?"

Which direction? I had no idea. It would be a guess, nothing more. And if I guessed wrong? Then it came to me. South led to the city of Olympia and land. North led to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and out into the Pacific Ocean. That's where my dad would go.

"North," I shouted to the man. "Head north." He nodded and the copter banked right. Within a minute we were over Shilshole marina. I raised the binoculars to my eyes and looked down.

Police cars blocked off the entire marina; a line of fire trucks clogged the street in front. SWAT team members were
walking up and down Pier B. The whole thing was unreal; it couldn't be happening, but it was.

I felt a nudge. "Look for the boat, kid."

That brought me back. The man would point, and I'd focus the binoculars on sailboat after sailboat. "No. No. No." It was hopeless. Hopeless and pointless. Those old guys who comb the beach with their metal detectors hoping to find a diamond ring had a better chance of finding what they were looking for than we did. Puget Sound was too big; the
Tiny Dancer
was too little.

The radio crackled. I couldn't make out much of what the pilot was saying, but I could pick up the excitement in his voice. "What is it?" I said to the man next to me. "What's happened?"

"There's a boat sailing erratically. It passed right under the prow of a freighter, and now it's headed north in the wrong traffic lane."

"My dad wouldn't do that."

"He might if he's trying to attract attention."

The helicopter dipped and then headed northwest toward Kingston. Below and ahead, I could see a patrol boat racing in the same direction as we were. The men in the boat were armed with rifles. "There!" This time it was the pilot shouting and pointing. "There!"

My hands were trembling so much from cold and from fear that it was hard to bring the binoculars into focus on the boat. But finally I did. Standing at the wheel of the sailboat was my dad. "That's him!" I shouted. "That's my dad!"