Someone was inside. He could hardly believe it. He turned the fishing boat back and edged in cautiously. It wouldn’t help if he ran into the thing and sank it. The wind wasn’t as strong here in the lee of the island. He motored as close as he could, then managed to snare the boat with his gaffing hook and pull it to the side. He could see someone lying in the bottom of the boat. Whoever it was didn’t answer his calls.
He couldn’t pilot his boat and pull the kayak out at the same time. Instead, he snagged the boat’s bowline with the gaff, tied it off, and then guided his own craft farther into the protected cove.
Once out of the worst of the wind, he dropped anchor and immediately went to the little boat. He pulled on the line and managed to haul the tiny craft up and onto his deck. The effort nearly killed him. If he was going to be doing air/sea rescue, he thought grimly, he’d better get in better shape.
He stared finally into the boat’s cockpit and got the shock of his life. Lying in the bottom of the boat, soaking wet and seemingly unconscious, was Grace. He stared at her in disbelief. What on earth was she doing out here?
He lifted her up. She weighed not much more than a hundred pounds, though the soaking clothes probably added a fair amount to that. He carried her into the cabin and put her on the tiny built-in bunk. He removed her wet clothing and covered her in blankets. Somehow, the reality of holding an utterly naked Grace didn’t seem to affect him as he’d always thought it would. She wasn’t shivering, and that worried him. She might be in the last stages of hypothermia. He needed to get her to shore.
He pulled anchor and started his engine. They were still some miles from the wharf. He kept one eye on the wheel and the sea and the other on his guest. Halfway in, she woke up. Sort of.
She spoke incoherently, her speech rambling. She was hallucinating. Roland tried to talk to her in a soothing voice, for she seemed terrified even in her sleep or whatever her state was.
The wharf loomed at last and he breathed a huge sigh of relief once he rounded the wooden bulwark and secured the boat with his lines. He probably should call for an ambulance, but knew it would take time before one could get here all the way from Sherbrooke in the bad weather. Instead, he carried her to her home and banged on the door with one foot until Ingrid came and opened it.
She stared at him in disbelief. Here was her nemesis, soaking wet, his hair windblown, standing on her doorstep holding the naked body of Grace, barely covered by a blanket. It was hard to say what sort of thoughts ran through her head. Roland could well imagine what they might be.
Instead of saying anything, he pushed past her into the living room and laid Grace gently on the couch.
“Ya got any more blankets ta cover her with?” he said. “She’s right hypothermic. Ya need ta take her inta the hospital.”
“What happened?” said Leo, coming down from upstairs. He grabbed several caftans from a rack and wrapped them around Grace.
“Found her out ta the Gull Islands,” said Roland. “Floatin’ in her plastic boat. She was unconscious. Bloody miracle I found her. What the hell was she doin’ out there by herself?”
“I don’t know,” said a worried-looking Ingrid. “When we got home, she wasn’t here. We thought she’d gone to visit someone.”
“In this storm?” Roland looked incredulous. “In a kayak? How crazy is that?” He took one of Grace’s hands and felt her fingers. They were like ice. “Ya got an electric blanket?”
Ingrid went immediately and got one, plugged it in and wrapped it around Grace, then layered the caftans on top. Her shivering stopped and her color began to return. Before they could decide if it was wise to move her and take her to the hospital, she woke up. This time she appeared to be lucid.
Ingrid sat beside her on the couch, one hand against Grace’s cheek. “How do you feel?” she said.
“T-tired,” came her one word answer.
“She should be all right,” said Roland. “I’ve seen lots of hypothermia. Get some warm soup inta her.”
With that, he turned and left. He felt decidedly uneasy being in the women’s home. He didn’t relish facing a fully alert Grace, wondering what had happened to her. It wouldn’t surprise him if they decided he must have had something to do with her physical distress and state of undress. He knew what they thought about him. The whale.
Back in his own home, he put on dry clothes and puttered around for a while. The place was several degrees cleaner than it had been when Rose was around. His mother had been so helpless that it made keeping up with things just overwhelming at times. And the distinct odor of her had begun to dissipate.
Suddenly, he stopped cold. Ideas descended on Roland’s brain like autumn leaves falling from the heavens and usually with less impact. Sometimes, though, he paid attention. Garrett and Sarah. They were still on the rig. He should do something. The thought simply hadn’t surfaced until this minute, so focused had he been on getting Grace to safety.
He got out the phone book and looked up the number for the Halifax Regional Police. It took him ten minutes to track down Garrett’s boss, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Alton Tuttle.
“He’s where?” Tuttle asked.
“I tol’ ya. He went on board Lighthouse Point rig ta look for his girlfriend. Said she’d been kidnapped. I think ya should send the Coast Guard out there ta pick ’em up.”
For some reason, Roland didn’t mention what he’d discovered, that Grace was involved in some sort of drug trafficking. Roland didn’t like drugs and had previously determined that he was going to use the information against his neighbors. But he couldn’t see his way clear to turning Grace in in her current condition. Instead, he simply outlined how he and Garrett had approached the rig and how Garrett had gotten off.
Tuttle was quiet for a moment. “You’re talking about international waters,” he said. “I don’t have jurisdiction. All I have is your word that someone was kidnapped. I’ll pass the information along. The Feds seem to be interested in Lighthouse Point, but I can’t say what their reaction will be. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a hurricane going on. No one’s going anywhere for a while.”
Roland hung up and went back to his cleaning. The process, he had discovered, was actually therapeutic, taking his mind off his troubles. He hauled out the little vacuum cleaner and began to sweep the carpet. Ma hadn’t run the vacuum in ten years. He was amazed to see color return to the worn rug as he passed over it again and again.
He stopped. Turned off the vacuum. His fisherman’s instincts told him the storm was abating. The decibel level of the wind was down. Just maybe Garrett was due for a break.
58
T
HE TINY, ENCLOSED RAFT JERKED
to a halt at the end of its tether. The abrupt stop sent the inhabitants tumbling on top of one another. When they had rearranged themselves, Garrett turned on a tiny battery-operated lantern.
They were a bedraggled bunch. The survival suits kept them from being cold, but Garrett could see that Lonnie was shivering. He took off his own suit and wrapped it around his cousin’s shoulders. Kitty also shed her suit and used it to cover his legs. Soon, his shivering stopped.
The raft’s movement was chaotic. Struggling at the end of its tether, subject to the whims of the weather, it jerked and bobbed in the huge waves and swell. Sarah began to get seasick. She huddled beside Garrett near the zippered flap, ready to lean out and vomit if it became necessary.
Suddenly, somewhere out in the darkness, they heard a cry. Garrett unzipped the entrance, leaned his head out, and played his flashlight back and forth. Almost at once a small flotilla of rafts, all bound together, flew by, just feet from him. He caught a momentary glimpse of Craig, wearing an immersion suit, as he was carried off by the wind. For some reason, the men were in open rafts. Maybe he and Lonnie had taken the only enclosed rafts that featured that particular life-saving innovation. Another one of DeMaio’s cost-cutting maneuvers? Garrett wondered.
He zippered himself back in and told the others what he’d seen.
“Wouldn’t want to be out in that maelstrom in an open raft,” said Lonnie. “Bad enough inside this coffin.”
“Do you think everyone got off?” Sarah asked, her face white from nausea.
“I doubt the bastards concerned themselves with the foreign executives on board,” said Kitty. “They were in full panic mode when they left us, headed for the storeroom. They wouldn’t have given the bigwigs huddling in their staterooms a passing thought.” Her face took on a look of grim satisfaction. “Instead of the evening of carnal pleasure they were expecting, courtesy of yours truly, they got a full hurricane instead.” She snuggled in closer to Lonnie for warmth. “Suits me fine. I hope all the bastards go down with the platform.”
As soon as she said the words, they heard an almost indescribable sound, similar to the noise when the crane collapsed. They all held their breaths, not certain what was happening.
“Shit,” said Kitty. “I take it back about the platform.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah cried.
Garrett leaned out the entrance again. When he did, he became almost immediately soaked from the waves and stinging rain. He craned his neck to look up at the platform. It still had lights, though they flickered ominously. That wasn’t the thing that worried him. He could see the pylon closest to them, or what was left of it. He stared in astonishment, then pulled his head back in.
“One of the pylons is gone,” he said.
The others stared at him. “Gone?” all three said in unison.
Garrett nodded. “Completely. Must have totally collapsed. That was the sound we heard. I think we need to cut loose. I don’t have any idea how long the rig can stand on three feet, but it can’t be long in this storm. Also, the pylon that went down is on the side closest to us. Makes sense that when the rig goes, it’ll fall toward the weak link. That would be us.”
“What do you think?” Kitty said to Lonnie.
“I think I should have gotten a longer piece of rope. Look, I still don’t like the idea of blowing off into the dark. The rig might hold, but the decider for me is that missing pylon. If it could collapse so suddenly, it has to mean the others are at serious risk of doing the same. When the pylon we’re tied to goes, it’ll drag us straight to the bottom. I say we cut loose and take our chances.”
Garrett played the light over their faces. Everyone nodded in agreement, so he took out his knife, reached out the opening and prepared to slice through the rope. At the same instant, there was a low groaning sound, and they all peered out the opening.
The rig was shaking, literally twisting in the wind, and beginning to lean slowly toward them. Even as Garrett sawed frantically at the rope, they watched the platform pivot and then pause, like Baryshnikov at the top of his leap. Then it began to tumble. With lights flickering and the sound of tearing metal, it bore straight down on them.
Finally, Garrett sliced through the rope and they were abruptly whisked into the night by the wind. Through the opening in the tent wall, they saw the rig’s lights go out for the last time, leaving them only with the image of the tilting rig engraved on their retinas. A moment later, there was a huge blast as the mass of equipment, steel, cranes, and concrete hit the ocean surface just yards behind them.
It was as though a small meteor had struck the ocean, instantly raising a tidal wave, which caught them and threw them forward. Garrett barely had time to zipper the flap before they tumbled over and over in the surging sea waters. He couldn’t tell which direction was up. For what seemed like an eternity, there was nothing but a jumble of legs and arms and bodies bouncing around inside their little pup tent. Lonnie landed heavily on Garrett several times. If it hadn’t been for the give of the water beneath their float, the full weight of his cousin landing on him might have broken some bones. He heard Kitty and Sarah cry out as they were also struck by tumbling bodies.
Then the enormous wave passed and they were floating again, completely at the mercy of the wind.
“I’d say that qualifies,” Lonnie said, “as cutting it a little close.”
“You think?” said Garrett.
They tried to get comfortable, all rubbing sore spots from their pummeling. Lonnie insisted that Kitty and Garrett put their survival suits back on.
“I’m not cold anymore,” he said. “And if anything happens to our raft, you need to have those suits on.”
They could feel themselves being whisked along the ocean’s surface, pushed by the fierce winds.
“Maybe we’ll blow up on one of the islands or the coast,” said Sarah.
“Be nice,” said Garrett, “but hardly likely. We’re too far out. Almost no islands out here. It’s conceivable, I suppose, that we could be blown toward shore rather than out to sea, but …”
He stopped in mid-sentence. There was a sudden lull in the storm. The wind declined noticeably, and the rollicking, nausea-inducing speed of their helter-skelter retreat into the night slowed.
Lonnie unzipped the flap and played the torch back and forth. Swells and whitecaps were down. Even the stinging rain seemed to have stopped. “I think the worst is over,” he announced.
Then Garrett raised one hand and the others grew silent. They all heard the same thing.
“It’s a plane,” said Sarah, incredulously. ”What’s a plane doing out here?”
“Got to be air/sea rescue,” said Garrett. “The storm must be clearing for them to brave this.” He reached up to the top of their raft and flicked on a switch that caused a red beacon to flicker.
“Can they possibly see that?” Kitty asked.
“That’s what it’s designed for,” said Lonnie.
The plane went away, then came back and began to circle, proof they’d been sighted. An hour later, a Coast Guard cutter hove to beside them and pulled them aboard.
“Find any others?” Garrett asked first thing.
The cutter captain shook his head.
“There are a bunch of men in rafts out there somewhere,” said Garrett.
The man nodded. “If they’re out there, someone will find them. We’ve got a dozen boats looking for survivors, along with the plane and two rescue choppers. But right now, we’ve got you to take care of. Our medic will check you out and then we’re heading for the hospital in Sherbrooke.”