The Apocalypse Club (30 page)

If I were to sum it up, I would say that if you’re thinking about stealing a boat, I’d strongly advise against it.

It was 24 hours after our little tête-à-tête in the cave. We had reached the port in Halifax using a stealth ultralight originally designed for two people. Max had made some modifications to strip some of the armour and weaponry off it so that I could ride in a sort of modified jump seat in the back next to the engine. Considering the thing looked like a cross between an oversized coat hanger and a go-kart, I had been reluctant to climb aboard.

“Get on, you rose-planting little old lady,” Max grunted. “This thing is designed to carry a battery of Inferno air-to-surface missiles. I’m sure it’ll carry your dainty derriere.”

“Air-to-surface missiles are designed to be fired directly from the aircraft at the ground,” I pointed out. “How do I know you won’t accidentally hit the wrong button and do the same thing to me?”

“What do you mean
accidentally
?” he said. “Keep moaning and I’ll do it on purpose.”

“We’re not flying this thing all the way to Greenland, are we?” I asked. The north Atlantic was something that only existed for me in the abstract, but I was convinced that plunging into it at 200 feet per second would change that impression in short order.

“Certainly not,” Tristan said. “Air traffic is quite closely monitored, even one as small as this. It will be much easier for us to sneak in by ship.”

And so, 24 hours and three narrowly avoided electrical towers later, we were hiding in a supply shed staring out over dark water at
The Salty Swinger
, a 40-foot cabin cruiser sitting anchored all by itself at the end of a private marina. I didn’t know a lot about boats, but I did know that it didn’t look anywhere near as nice or well-kept as some of the shinier new boats anchored at the far-more-crowded marina we had scoped out a couple of hours before.

“It looks like kind of a shitbucket,” I said, noting the peeling paint, dented railing and broken wheelhouse window. “For all we know, it might be sinking right now. We’ve only been watching it for twenty minutes. I bet the thing’s at the bottom of the harbour by tomorrow morning.”

Max gave me a sour look. “Nah. It’s perfect.”

“Why don’t we steal one of the newer ones we saw earlier?” I suggested. If we were going to sail it to Greenland, I didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t do it in something more comfortable. Perhaps even something with a fully-stocked kitchen and bar.

“Too much security on those boats,” Max said. “We grab one of them and we’ll have ’em down on our heads before we can even pull up the anchor. The only thing that stands between us and that one is a locked gate.”

“I feel like I should be wearing a life jacket just looking at it,” I said. “Don’t you remember the
USS Indianapolis
speech from
Jaws
?”

“I believe it extremely unlikely that the Japanese navy would put two torpedoes in our side here in Halifax harbour,” Tristan said. “Although there are sharks, there are very few man-eaters hereabouts.”

Max and I looked at him in disbelief.

Tristan shrugged. “Just because one lives in a cave doesn’t mean one has been living in a cave, if you catch my meaning.”

“It would appear so,” I said.

“I do not recommend the sequels, though. Particularly part four. Dreadful. Michael Caine is a fine actor, but that was an extremely poor choice.”

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to discuss the relative merits of aquatic monster movies and cinematic ups and downs of your fellow peers of the realm
after
we steal the boat,” Max interjected. “Until then, let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

“I still think we should steal one of the nicer ones,” I grumbled. “You used to work for the GDI. You can handle a couple of fat security guards.”

“Relax, Francine,” Max said. “This’ll be a cakewalk.”

We waited ten more minutes to make sure the boat was empty and then jogged down the dock. Max spent two minutes trying to pick the lock on the gate before grumbling that he didn’t have the right tools and ordering us to climb over top.

“I thought you knew how to do all that covert shit!” I said, watching as he scrambled up the bars.

“I normally use blasting gelatin,” Max said. “That would draw too much attention, anyway. C’mon. This is easy.”

It was easy for Max and Tristan, who zoomed up and over the gate like squirrels over a fallen branch. I, on the other hand, got halfway up and then got my leg jammed between the gate and the oversized hinge. For a moment, I thought I was permanently stuck, but then Tristan climbed back up and pulled me loose.

“Thanks,” I said once I was back on the dock.

“Not at all, my boy,” he said. “Nearly did the same thing myself.” He hadn’t, of course, but it was nice of him to say.

The three of us clomped down the wooden dock about as subtly as migrating elephants. The wood groaned and bent so much under our weight that each step catapulted my foot up into the air. It was like running on rubber. The other dock, the newer one I had been pushing for, was made of concrete. As far as I knew, no one had ever died putting their foot through a concrete dock. Unless I actually put my foot through the dock and fell into the water, however, I decided that I would keep this observation to myself.

We reached the end of the dock and jumped over the rail onto the boat. Up close, it was even more decrepit-looking than from on land. The deck furniture was faded and torn. The paint on the floor was chipped and peeling and the wood itself full of chips and splinters. The deck was covered with used napkins and toothpicks. In one corner I could see what looked like a half dozen cheap plastic martini glasses that had rolled to the side in the swell. I could also see what looked like a pair of men’s boxer shorts, a neon red bra that looked like it belonged to a woman whose arrival would probably cause all males in proximity to go silent in disbelief, and a single red high-heeled shoe.

“Are you sure this thing is deserted?” I said, pointing to the cocktail party detritus.

Max waved dismissively. “That stuff’s probably been sitting there for weeks.”

I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could sense vague noises coming from the cabin below deck. The lights were out and I couldn’t see anybody down there, though. Maybe it was just the sound of the boat bouncing against the dock or some buoy or something.

“But –”

“Quiet,” Max said. “Let’s get this thing untied.”

I made my way to the back corner in search of the anchor line. The boat was pitching and rolling more than I had expected and I had to hold on to the sides to keep from falling over. “Where’s the anchor?”

“No anchor,” Max said. “It’s just tied up to the dock.” He pointed to a couple of thick ropes wound around some mushroom-shaped cleats on the dock. “You two get us loose and I’ll get the engine started.”

Max disappeared while Tristan and I attempted to untie the ropes. After some brief discussion, we realized that we had to climb back off the boat to remove the ropes from the cleats. No sooner had I removed the back one than the ship rotated away and started bobbing more violently. The wind seemed stronger out here than it had been back on land. Now the only thing holding the ship in place was the rope attached to the bow. If I unhooked that, my chances of jumping onto the boat before it was out of range were not good.

“Climb aboard!” Tristan shouted, waving. “I believe we can detach it from here!”

I nodded and jumped onto the bow. I lost my grip on the rail and was only kept out of the drink when Tristan grabbed my arm in a surprisingly firm grip.

“Thanks again,” I said. It was slightly humbling to have been saved twice in almost as many minutes by a man who was more than a century older than me.

“Not at all,” he said. “The seas are rather rougher than we had anticipated.”

We spent a couple of minutes trying to negotiate the knots before Tristan pulled a large knife out of a sheath next to his ankle and cut through it instead. Immediately, the boat whipped back and began pitching out into the harbour.

“That’s quite a knife,” I said as I watched him slide it back into place. “Where’d you get it?”

“It is, rather,” he said. “I procured it from the fellow I told you about earlier. It was attached to one of his larger remaining pieces. As it appeared he no longer had any use for it, I took it for myself.”

The two of us made our way to the control room, where Max was busy pushing various buttons to get the engine started. The windows appeared to be tinted and all the lights were out, both of which were making the task more difficult than it might have otherwise been, even for a person who knew where the starter was.

“Hurry up!” I said. “We need to get the engine started before we plough into a tanker or something.” Without a fixed point of reference, it was extremely difficult to tell how fast we were actually moving or in which direction, but until we started moving under our own steam, I was pretty sure we would shortly end up in a place that we would rather not be.

“Quiet!” Max barked. “I’m trying to figure this system out.”

I looked at the control panel. If any of the buttons were labelled, it was too dark to see what they were. Still, it wasn’t exactly the space shuttle. There were two banks of dials and two corresponding rows of buttons underneath. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a key slot or the kind of ignition switch you would find in a car. Did you need a key for a boat? It seemed logical, otherwise just anybody could walk in and steal one the way we were trying to do.

Max had unscrewed the side of one of the control panels to reveal a spider’s nest of wires. “What are you trying to do?” I asked. “Hot wire the boat?”

“Shhh!” Max said, feeding the wires through his fingers. “You’re fucking with my concentration.”

“Concentration?” I said. “We’re floating free in a gale and about to crash into some enormous goddamn breakwater or something and you bitch at me about screwing with your concentration? Didn’t they teach you this shit in the GDI?”

“Shut up!” Max said. “I never took amphibious assault training! Well, I did. But I didn’t finish.”

“Why?”

“I can’t swim.”

“What?”

“Gentlemen!” Tristan said. “Let us focus on the matter at hand. Perhaps I can be of some assistance here.”

“What do you mean you can’t swim?”

“I think that’s self-explanatory.”

“Perhaps if we were to attempt to locate the battery cable and re-route it through the ignition system, we might meet with some measure of success,” Tristan offered.

“I don’t believe this!”

“Believe it, Francine. Now can the complaints and look for a manual. There’s gotta be one in one of these cupboards somewhere.”

“Perhaps our search might be aided by some form of artificial illumination,” Tristan suggested. “Did anyone have the foresight to include a flashlight with our equipment? I regret to say that I myself did not.”

“Is this your idea of military precision? Break into the first floating piece of shit we find and then look for the owner’s manual?”

“Yes, and as soon as I find it, I’m going to shove it so far up your ass that you’ll be able to read it for me without opening your eyes.”

“Gentlemen, please! I really do believe that our best course of action at this time is to set aside any differences of opinion as to how we came to be in our current circumstances and pursue the most economical course of action to extricate ourselves from said circumstances.”

I was about to advise Tristan that, while what he was saying made sense and I agreed with him in principle, I still felt duty-bound to express my opinion on the matter to the man who had put us in this situation (although I wasn’t going to use those precise words), when I was interrupted by several thumps and a clang that sounded like it came from behind and below.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Perhaps we have collided with another vessel or some sort of object has broken loose in the stern,” Tristan said.

“Check it out,” Max said to me, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the stern. “We’ll stay here and get this fucker moving.”

I wanted to point out that we were already moving – that movement was not, in and of itself, the problem – but I bit back my comments and headed grudgingly out the door. I don’t know quite what I was expecting to find when I reached the back deck, but it certainly wasn’t what I saw when I got there.

Six senior citizens. All of them naked.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded the apparent leader. He looked to be in his late sixties. He was bald except for the mass of white curly hair that covered his chest and round belly like shag carpet. Even in the darkness I could see he was as tan as a baseball glove. All of them were. All three of the women had unusually perky boobs, which I immediately attributed to plastic surgery. Aside from their tans, the men all looked like they had retired from jobs that required little to no physical activity. Even in the strong wind, I could smell sweat, booze, and an overabundance of perfume and cologne.

My mind was blank. What do you say to the presumed owner of a boat that you are in the process of stealing?

“Who am I?” I said. “Who the hell are you?”

“We’re the Salty Swingers Society!” the man said. “And this is my goddamn boat!”

It was pretty clear to me that I had interrupted some sort of party, or come in at the end of one after all the participants had passed out below decks. How to play this? Concerned citizen seemed like a viable option.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, we were passing by and we saw your boat coming loose from the dock, so we jumped aboard to try to keep it from drifting away. We didn’t know there was anyone else aboard.”

The old man’s brow furrowed. He had the kind of large, wide eyes that made him look permanently furious.

“What a buncha nickel-plated horseshit!” he yelled. “You’re a bunch a goddamn thieves, pure and simple! Outta my way, Jerry!”

The old man pushed the small, skinny man next to him aside and grabbed at a container attached to the deck next to a saggy orange life jacket. At first, I thought he was going for some sort of first aid kit. Then I saw him pull out what looked like a gun and point it at me.