Stranded (3 page)

“It's ranked like fifteenth in the world, Mom. It's a great school. They've got an Aquatic and Fishery Sciences program and…”
But Annemarie Cabot couldn't hear him extol the virtues of the university. All she heard was
“Seattle.”
A continent away.

“Let the boy go,”
his father said.
“He can't stay here and take tourists out fishing. He got in to … what'd you call it, Noah?”

“UDub.”

“They call it UDub, Annemarie,”
his father repeated.

“How's he going to pay for it, Ethan? How can we afford ‘UDub'?”

“I'll take out student loans, Mom. It's what everybody has to do anyway.”
He kissed his mother and told her he'd be fine. He told her he'd be home every year for holidays and the summer, and he would call once a week, and it would be like he never left. And then it wasn't.

His first year, he struggled. What had always come easy at Gloucester High wasn't so easy when he was being graded on a bell curve with everyone else for whom learning came easy. He was suddenly average and treading water. He skipped Thanksgiving to study, and that summer he got a job on an Alaskan fishing vessel so he wouldn't have to take out as much in student loans. If he could earn enough in the summer so he wouldn't have to have a part-time job during the year, he'd do better. Every missed trip home made it easier to miss another. The next semester, he met Abby. And the entire world changed. Not all of it for the better.

Noah shook away the memories and glanced back at Felix. He lay in his bunk, his breath a rasp. An occasional look of discomfort passed over his face in his sleep, even with the painkillers.
Broken ribs
. Broken ribs might mean he was a dead man. Especially if he had a punctured lung or some other kind of injury they couldn't see just from looking at him. Why was Mickle waiting until they got to the Niflheim to call for an evac? The seas were calmer. They could call now and get Felix to a hospital sooner than continuing on and making the helicopter fly so much farther to pick him up.

It had to be the ship's master's decision to wait. The Old Man had some bad reason for endangering Felix's life, and Noah wanted to know what it was. He walked out of the sick bay, headed for the wheelhouse.

 

3

The
Arctic Promise
was a platform supply vessel, a PSV, designed to maximize cargo capabilities for transferring supplies essential to offshore oil drilling platforms. On the way out, it was loaded with pulverized cement, diesel fuel, potable water, and food for the crew. For the return voyage it would haul volatile waste chemicals for disposal. The majority of space on the PSV was dedicated to the long, aft open cargo deck. At the forward end of the ship was a tall superstructure containing operations and a livable area. When Noah saw one for the first time, it looked to him like a boat that had been bred with a semi flatbed truck.

He was conflicted about working in the oil industry. He'd been raised from an early age to have a second nature, gut opposition to Atlantic coast oil rigs. A spill could devastate ocean habitats and the livelihoods that depended upon robust marine life far down the coast from where the drilling was done. His grandfather was politically active and strident.
Fishermen first!
had been Samuel Cabot's hue and cry. Like farmers and ranchers, fishermen fed America, and he was adamant that their livelihood was essential to the health of the nation. He wouldn't hear it when someone said they didn't see any sails on his boat and he needed oil and gas as much as everyone else.

Noah saw what siding with environmentalists against oil drilling one day and then against those same people when they came to protect swordfish and cod populations from overfishing had done to his grandfather, however. Both sides used the middle to get what they wanted, and the fishermen were left with a diminishing fleet, shrinking income, competition from farmed fish, and deteriorating health as they drank to relieve the pressure of being squeezed by twin behemoths. Noah, as a result, learned to just put his head down and work. He wanted no part of politics or activism. He wanted a job he enjoyed, to raise a family, and find a piece of happiness large enough for a single lifetime. Not too much to ask. At least he didn't used to think it was too much. Times changed, circumstances changed, and he needed the work. So, when OrbitOil was hiring, he applied. It was a job, and a safer one than the fishing boats he'd worked in the Bering Sea. At least that's what he'd been told the first time he'd been recruited to work on one. He wasn't sure “safer” was as accurate a description as “differently hazardous.” But that was the nature of maritime work. If he wanted a safe job, he should have stayed in school and become a librarian or an architect. Staying in school, however, was not an option available to him. He accepted that his fate was to work ships like the
Arctic Promise,
maybe for the rest of his life.

At the top of the ladder, he pushed through the door into the wheelhouse. It was cast in a dull white glow from the windows ringing the compartment. Sitting at the top of the superstructure, the wheelhouse was designed for a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of both the vessel itself and the sea surrounding it. At the moment, the view was a solid wall of fog, reducing visibility to nothing. The ship's master, William Brewster, sat in one of the twin command chairs bolted to the floor, staring at a computer screen installed in the white and gray console in front of him, presumably navigating by instruments. He sipped from a cup of tepid black coffee. The bags under his deeply bloodshot eyes suggested caffeine wouldn't have sufficient effect for much longer. Aside from him, the wheelhouse was unoccupied.

Above the angled windows, a line of computer screens showed instrument performance and views of different areas of the deck; Noah wasn't sure what the instrument screens were displaying. He was a deckhand—a roughneck hired to help load and unload cargo. He knew how to steer and read the controls of a commercial fishing vessel. But in the wheelhouse of the
Arctic Promise,
the bridge equipment was as alien to him as space shuttle controls.

He craned his neck to peer through a window and found he couldn't see a foot past the forecastle. Fog obscured his view of the sea and the ship's prow. His stomach tightened as he had a feeling more like flying than seafaring. Noah would rather spend a month aboard ship than a day on a plane. If something happened, he could get into a survival suit and reach a lifeboat. If something happened on a plane, all he could do was pray. If he'd been a praying kind of man, that is.

“Noah,” Brewster said, not looking up from the screen in front of him. “I didn't call for you.” He set his cup on the console more or less on top of a brown ring dried between two keyboards.

“Mickle told me you want to wait until we get to the platform to call the med evac for Felix Pereira. He needs a helicopter now. He can't wait until we get to the platform.”

Brewster shook his head. “And when did you get your M.D.?”

“William, come on! The guy is hurt bad. It doesn't take a doctor to—”

“I don't have time for this shit, Noah. I think you can see we're in the soup here. I need to focus.”

“You do need to focus. You need to focus on the well-being of the crew. Felix needs a helicopter ride out of here.”

Brewster turned in his chair and pointed a shaky finger at the communication center. Noah couldn't tell if it was fatigue or caffeine that had the Old Man trembling, but whatever it was, he was glad it didn't take a steady hand to steer. “Knock yourself out. Radio plants are all dead. Sat phone isn't working, either. If you can hail anyone, order a fuckin' pizza and a taxi out of here.”

“Communication is out? Was that the stack that caught fire?”

“No. According to Nevins, it was a propulsion system. Whatever it was, there's a redundant system for both. I don't know why communication is disabled, but it is. I can only assume it has something to do with this.” He jutted his chin toward the window, indicating the fog. “This shit rolled in as soon as the storm calmed down. Never seen anything like it.” He turned his head, half-looking at Noah. “Even if I could call in a helo for Pereira, they couldn't find us in this. Best bet is to get him to the platform as fast as we can. At this point, it's closer than land.”

“How can you tell?” Noah leaned closer to a window, struggling to see through the haze and the ambient glow behind it. The fog trailed in wisps over the forward end of the ship, making it hard to see even to the end of the prow.

“I know where we were when the storm started.”

“You mean you don't know where we are now?”

Brewster stood. He shoved a gnarled finger in Noah's chest and pushed. Although Noah tried to stand his ground, the pain in his sternum forced him back. A lifetime of hard work had left William Brewster a hard man both in body and mind. He didn't like being challenged or second guessed. And he especially didn't like his son-in-law. Of all the daughters' fathers who'd threatened him with violence if he didn't treat their “little girls” right, Brewster was the only one whose threats had seemed credible. The man did not crack wise and he didn't say things he didn't mean. If he threatened violence, it was on the horizon, if it hadn't already arrived.

“I have a bearing,” Brewster said. “And I know what our speed has been since I had us positioned by satellite. I know where we are. You, on the other hand, wouldn't know your ass from your elbow if I grabbed one to help you have a seat on the other. Again, is there a reason you're up here?”

“No. Just Felix. That's all.”

“That
is
all. You're relieved. Report to your cabin. You're restricted to quarters and the mess room. I don't want to see you again until we reach the Niflheim. Once we're there, you can fly home with your pal and I never want to see you again. Period.”

“You're firing me? After I saved the ship?”

Brewster snorted with derision. “I'm firing you for disobeying orders. The bosun put you on the ice. You weren't supposed to be anywhere near the deck or any of those shipping containers. And you sure as shit weren't supposed to be in the instrument room.”

“It's a good thing I was.”

Brewster's face clouded over. His white brows knitted over cornflower blue eyes and the muscles on the sides of his face flexed as he gritted his teeth. Noah tensed, awaiting the swing of a fist. If he could stand the first one, he might be able to hit back.
If
he could stand the first one.

“You don't belong on this boat, Cabot.”

“You're the one who approved my application.”

“In desperation; I needed hands. Believe me when I tell you I regret it now. Whatever Abby saw in you, I didn't agree with her then and I disagree even more now. If I see you up here or on the cargo deck again, I'll throw you overboard. I wager I'll have half a dozen men fighting each other to help me do it, too. Now get out of here and let me find the way.”

“Aye, sir,” Noah saluted.

Brewster held up a middle finger in response.

Noah backed out of the compartment, choosing to take the nearest door and descend the exterior ladder. He'd once tried to imagine what it would take for his father-in-law to grow to at least tolerate him, if not outright like him. He'd catalogued all the possibilities: treating Abby with love and faithfulness, getting a good, stable job and providing while she went back for her master's degree, fathering William's only grandchild. None of it had been enough. That he was Noah Cabot and had married Abigail Lynne Brewster was too high a hurdle to overcome. And now they were at loggerheads. No matter what he did, it wasn't good enough. He'd tried to find common ground and even think of the man as family, but Noah didn't crave his approval any longer. It was too late for them both.

The frigid air was strangely humid, and the fog felt like a bed of needles prickling his exposed face and hands. He hurried as much as he could while still being careful not to slip on the ice clinging to the ladder risers and handrail. The bow of the
Arctic Promise
was caked in it and she was still riding low in the water. The good news was they hadn't capsized, somehow, and more ice didn't seem to be accumulating. For the time being, she was seaworthy and the crew was safe. But if they sailed into another storm like they experienced last night, it would be short work for the vessel to grow top heavy and turn over.

On C-Deck he hesitated, giving the starboard fast rescue craft—the FRC—a quick once-over. Serge, the bosun, was also the coxswain and responsible for maintaining the lifeboat. Noah wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he didn't want to run into another problem like he had the night before with the zip tie on the fire extinguisher.

He leaned over the rail to inspect the ropes tied to the vessel in the “securing arrangement” before lifting the cover to look underneath at the craft itself. He didn't know exactly what measures would need to be taken to lower and launch the small craft, but to his eye, it looked good. He breathed a small sigh of relief, even if the feeling he got from his inspection was more confusion than satisfaction. Nothing looked like it would hinder the crew's ability to board and launch the craft. He made a mental note to make it to the port side to have a look at the other FRC as well. There were only sixteen men aboard, and each rescue boat held twenty. Almost all systems on the ship had at least one redundant backup. But if an escape vessel failed, they'd be pulling freezing men out of the ocean. Better if the first one they tried worked as expected.

He turned to head inside and found himself blocked by a crewman. Theo something. Theo Mesires. He was a typical deckhand. Strong and solidly built, the kind of guy who liked working with his hands and liked complaining about work twice as much. “Whatcha doin', Noah? Finding more fires to set?”