Seize the Storm (16 page)

Jeremy asked, “Where's Laser?”

Elwood threw him another rope. “We'll tow the aircraft,” he added, to make his meaning clear.

Jeremy turned to Shako. “You didn't see Laser?”

Elwood put a hand out to Jeremy and took his shoulder. “Use a bowline knot, like I taught you.”

“Where's Laser?” asked Jeremy.

“No dog,” said Shako.

“Where,” asked Jeremy, “did he go?”

“I didn't see him,” said Shako. He was glad he didn't have bad news about Laser, too.

Elwood tossed the rope down on the deck and put his hands on his hips. “Did I tell you about that time,” said Elwood, “in the Yucatan jungle, what I saw, dogs nosing around human remains?”

“Yes, many times,” said Jeremy unhappily.

“That's one of the reasons why I hate dogs,” said Elwood.

“I don't think that's why,” said Jeremy.

Elwood was getting on his nerves. And he felt empowered by his surprising sorrow, and angry because he was sure that his companion had found Laser just now and killed him silently, with the butt of the Ingram.

“I think,” Jeremy continued bitterly, “you just like to show off what horrible things you've seen.”

Elwood did not respond to that remark.

“I'm going to jump-start the engines,” Elwood said. “Then we're going to run down that pretty ketch and take what we find on her.”

Jeremy wiped his tears with the back of his hand.

Elwood continued, “Are you going to help me, Jeremy?”

Jeremy did not answer him.

“Or,” continued Elwood, “am I going to go back to your dad and tell him that some women on a good-looking yacht sailed off with his money and Jeremy did not do one thing to stop them.”

Jeremy did not like to think about the money, being carried away at this very instant. Stolen. The idea of this theft was very objectionable, and it made him angry. He especially did not like considering what his dad would say if he was observing him right now.

He said, “I'll help.”

But he said it in this new, post-successful-landing tone of voice, having second thoughts, grieving over Kyle.

“You think this is easy, don't you?” said Elwood.

The way he said it was scary, and it got Jeremy's attention.

“And maybe you think it's easy for Shako, too,” Elwood added. “Jeremy, you have a lot of compassion for Kyle. And maybe for Paul, too, although I never saw Paul do a kind or intelligent deed in my life. You even have sympathy for a dog.” Elwood made a gesture of easygoing reasonableness, patting the air with both hands. “Maybe you want to start having a dash of compassion for Shako and maybe even for me.”

“My dad,” said Jeremy, “would be sad about Kyle and Paul, too. And my dad likes Laser.”

“Sure,” said Elwood with a smile. “Reminding me that you're the boss's son all over again, as though I might forget.”

Jeremy made a flick of his hand, impatient but acknowledging. Maybe playing the boss's-son note two or three times in an afternoon wore it out.

Shako wanted to tell him not to worry, this afternoon would work out fine.

Elwood debated inwardly how to force both compliance and good sense into Jeremy. A moody Jeremy was a bad example for Shako. These youthful hit men had to be kept following instructions; if you started them thinking and emoting there was no predicting what insight or remorse might derail them.

And Jeremy's monumental sulk was doing nothing to improve Elwood's own mood. Mr. Tygart had made a mistake letting his son fly on this mission, but here they were, dead bodies, missing money, vanished dog, and Jeremy about to get a lesson in how the world worked.

Elwood decided to keep it avuncular, even anecdotal. Jeremy had a soft heart—no need to tell him that Zeta was so badly mauled by the dogs that they found her lower jaw in the next county.

J
EREMY DID NOT WANT TO HEAR
any more from Elwood.

The big man looked haggard, standing in the stern of the boat, leaning on the rail. His unshaven appearance was taking on the serious stubble of a beard. His eyes were red. To Jeremy he looked quietly crazy and utterly dangerous.

Shako, for his part, had been thinking, maybe he and Jeremy would have a kennel someday. Beagles and Irish setters. A breeding kennel, with many excellent animals.

“I wouldn't hurt the dog,” said Shako, unprompted. He felt this was what he had to say, and he said it. “If I found him, I wouldn't hurt him. I swear it.”

That's wonderful, Elwood told himself sardonically. That is simply brilliant. Shako is vowing harmlessness on the one day I need Shako to be a piece of equipment that knows only one thing.

Because the rich people on that yacht were all going to die, Elwood knew. Shako was going to wipe them off the surface of that pretty decking, blow them out over the water, and they would be supper for the denizens of the deep. Elwood had to smile. He liked thinking about them that way, transformed into chum for the tuna.

“You are going to locate some of that frozen food, the two of you,” said Elwood, “those Chicago-style pizzas thawing in the galley. You'll also see if Paul left me any of the Bacardi Gold, and then I'm going to get the batteries running, revise the connections, and see how much work I have to do on the voltage regulator. But before we do that, I'm going to ask you to please take the bodies of our deceased friends and drop them into the sea.”

“I can't do that,” said Jeremy.

*   *   *

Jeremy and Shako moved Paul's body first, the skinny remains with one steel tooth. The man looked like a stranger, nothing like the lively, nervously sketched stick figure he had been in life, always running off to the ABC store for Mexican beer and a fresh carton of cigarettes.

The body was still somewhat stiff, and they had to bring it down the steps to the main deck, and there was no other way to do it, no ceremony, no prayers. They rolled him over and dumped him into the sea.

Moving Kyle was more difficult.

His body made sounds, breathy, groaning noises, and Jeremy nearly burst into tears. The smell was bad, but to Jeremy the unpleasantness was necessary, the rankness of the corpse a definite reminder that an outrage had been committed.

Shako got a plastic bottle of Palmolive dish soap from the galley and a blue plastic bucket. They used salt water because the water pump wasn't working yet, washing their hands, and then they used a mop and sponges to wash up the blood, and that was the hardest chore of all, how the sticky stuff dyed everything it touched.

The main cabin was partly carpeted with Astroturf, and the blood stuck between the little fake blades of grass.

The two of them scrubbed, and a quiet work flow unfolded, a peaceful companionship.

“You know Elwood,” began Shako.

This was an unexpected remark—or fragment of a remark—but Elwood was one of many things Jeremy did not want to consider.

“I guess so,” he said, in no mood for conversation. He didn't think even Elwood really knew Elwood.

Plus, with Shako you might make a mistake and make a flippant remark, Shako might crush you like a tick, and Elwood and Shako together would roll your dead body into the ocean. Once you saw the possibility of such a thing you almost saw the logic.

“You know how Elwood thinks,” Shako added, wringing out a sponge.

“No,” said Jeremy flatly. “I have no idea.”

“You know he has plans,” said Shako.

Jeremy realized that Shako was being unusually talkative, and so he took a moment to pay close attention.

But the moment was over, it seemed, Shako taking the mop from Jeremy's hands. Beneath their feet, the vessel's engine was grinding, stuttering, grumbling into life.

“What kind of plans?” asked Jeremy.

Shako gave him that smile again, that no smile, thin-lipped look, his eyes shielded by the sunglasses.

But this chance to understand Shako a little, to extend their moment of teamwork, was important to Jeremy. He did not want it to pass.

Shako was closing up again, turning into the Shako who did not talk, and so Jeremy said, simply to keep the conversation alive, “What does it say on your arm, in Chinese?”

Shako looked down at the tattoo, a vivid violet on his lower arm.

“What does Elwood do with the killers?” asked Shako, his tone so level it did not sound like a question.

Jeremy understood that this was not a translation of Shako's Chinese tattoo. This was a broader question, and an insight into Shako's view of his own future.

Jeremy had considered this before. The youthful killers always vanished, killed in shootouts, surfing accidents, overdoses on liquor and pills. He knew what Shako was suggesting.

“I think Elwood likes you,” said Jeremy. “More than the others, I mean.”

But as he said it he knew that this was false reassurance. He was afraid that Shako would be disappeared, just like all the others. That was how it worked: there were videos of your target practice on YouTube, watched by millions, and you ended up gone.

“Elwood gave you a computer flight game, didn't he?” asked Shako.

A flight simulator, Shako meant, how to fly the twin-engine de Havilland, with approaches and runway patterns for hundreds of airports. Strictly speaking, it was not a game.

“He did,” said Jeremy. He was careful, keeping the conversation positive. With Shako, you never knew.

“Maybe sometime,” said Shako, “you could show me how it works.”

Jeremy ran Shako's remark through his mind. Did Shako mean: give me the software? Did he mean, even worse, give me the software or else?

No, it was all right. Shako was just suggesting. He had the smooth manner of a killer, but for an instant Jeremy saw the human being in Shako, wanting to be a friend.

“I'd like that,” said Jeremy.

F
OR MUCH OF THE AFTERNOON
it looked to Martin as though
Athena's Secret
was going to escape.

The aircraft and the powerboat both receded, dwindling into pinpoints on the ocean, and the wake of the yacht stretched far as she continued to bound through the waves, putting miles between the crew and the possible danger.

Leonard kept his seat against the gunwale, one hand clinging to the bag of money. Claudette brought out a blanket to cover his legs as the mid-afternoon breeze began to freshen. The wind was off the port bow, and the yacht was fighting not only the breeze but a current, too, as the sea began to work against her.

Under sail, she would have been a thing of beauty, but under engine power she thrust through the water like an extension of Axel's stubborn willfulness, and Leonard's, too, the two men driving the yacht so hard the vibration filled the frame of the hull, spray lashing the deck.

“Keep a course west by northwest,” said Leonard.

If you did not know him well, you would think that he was happy. To Martin, however, he looked increasingly discontented, masking his anxiety with great effort. He sat on the deck refusing to look at anyone, staring straight ahead like a man waiting for long delayed bad news.

“Watch the oil temperature,” he said, “especially on the starboard engine.”

“We're good,” said Axel.

But Martin was suspicious of this confidence, and he joined Axel at the helm, eyeing the control panel with its leaping indicators, needles approaching the red zone on the temperature and RPM gauges.

*   *   *

The only sign that their voyage might eventually return to normal was the reappearance of the blue shark. For the first time since the storm, the sleek predator shadowed the yacht.

“She's not made for this,” said Martin. “Top speed into the wind for an hour is too much of a strain.”

“We're good, Martin, don't worry about it,” snapped Axel.

Axel's knuckles were white as he gripped the spokes of the wheel, and when a splash of salt water struck his face he did not bother to wipe it away.

Susannah made them hot drinks, cocoa for everyone but Leonard, who received a blue mug of coffee from her with a grateful smile.

Claudette leaned against the cabin, and when she knelt she was able to find a place where there was very little wind.

“No sign of
Witch Grass
following us,” she said.

She handed Martin the binoculars.

He adjusted the lenses, and it seemed to Martin that, at the very moment, stirred to life by Martin's attention, the distant vessel came to life.

*   *   *

Witch Grass
began her pursuit, her prow a notch against the horizon.

Martin understood that the prevailing mood of his fellow crew members was apprehension—anxiety regarding the money, for the ship, and a dread of what might happen to all of them if they were caught.

“Maybe,” suggested Martin, “the new crew of
Witch Grass
are a friendly, forgiving bunch.”

Claudette slanted her eyes at him and offered a world-weary smile.

The shadow of the yacht fell back across her wake.

It was late afternoon.

*   *   *

Through the binoculars, shared among them,
Witch Grass
was coming on, determined and slicing easily through the swells that the yacht found daunting.

Even towing the aircraft, as
Witch Grass
appeared to be, she had an aggressive manner of reaching and maintaining speed.

Susannah came out on deck and reported that her patient was continuing to recover.

“I gave Laser some more broth,” she said, the wind flinging her hair all to one side. She used one hand to pull it back off her face. “His body temperature is back to almost normal.”

She had put on a nylon windbreaker with a broad red diagonal stripe, like a tire track. Martin could see her in a few years, announcing to a nervous waiting room that the prize bull would survive surgery, but that the matador was now an organ donor.