Charon's Landing

One Hundred Eighty Miles North of Puget Sound

The sea was as dark as a slag heap belched out of a blast furnace, hard and relentless. The waves were undulating furrows arching westward, pushing aside everything that got in their way, including the fishing boat Suzy’s Pride, a bow-heavy purse seiner. The thirty-year-old boat was out well beyond her limit, chasing fish so far into the Pacific that her antiquated radar system could no longer see the jumbled coastline of the mainland.

It was the black hour, the lowest ebb of the night between one and five when everything except the desperate slept. For nearly seventy hours, Steve Hanscom had guided his boat behind a school of feeding sea bass in hopes of coming across a large shoal of Pacific sardines. Such was his luck, he’d had two possible catches scattered by a pod of orcas that had decided to shadow his tired boat.

While at first delighted to point out the killer whales to his young son, Hanscom now cursed the capricious mammals for their dogged loyalty to Suzy’s Pride. A fourth-generation fisherman who realized that there would not be a fifth, Hanscom still tried to make a living from the sea that had provided for his family since the middle part of the last century. With a mortgage on his boat and one on his house and a car that used more oil than gasoline, he knew all too well what a big catch meant to him and his family. Two, possibly three, more runs out into the open waters beyond Puget Sound and he would be bankrupt if he didn’t come up with a big haul.

That was why Steve had pulled his eleven-year-old son, Joshua, out of school for the month and put him to work on the boat. In the few weeks they would have together, Steve hoped to teach the boy what it meant to work for yourself and to in-still the pride that his own father had taught him. In a few months, surely by spring, Steve would be just another guy putting in his time for someone else, but right now, he was his own man, and by God his son would know what that felt like.

Though others would suffer by Steve losing his boat, particularly old George Boudette, the grizzled sea dog who’d forgotten more about fishing than most men would ever know, Steve Hanscom worried most about his own son. Josh had been raised by the lore and lure of the sea. It was simple economics — and the harsh reality that the Pacific Northwest was being over-fished — that was driving him out of business, yet Steve still blamed himself for not being able to pass on the legacy that had been passed to him. He saw it as his own personal failure.

The ship’s wheel moved effortlessly under Steve Hanscom’s gentle touch, the varnished oak made smooth by generations of constant contact. Standing alone in the wheelhouse as he had since Suzy’s Pride had left Seattle, Hanscom watched the depth finder, hoping to see the shoal of sardines pass under the boat again, signaling him to throw the big purse net back over the flat transom.

“I’ll spell ya.” The voice penetrated his personal world, startling Hanscom so that his fists tightened on the wheel.

He turned. “No thanks, Georgie. Get some sleep.”

“I’m eighty years old. I don’t need any more sleep. I’ve had my share until the big one comes.” George Boudette’s eyes were alight with the last spark of life, like a lightbulb burning brightest before it faded forever. George had crewed with Steve, Steve’s father, and, as a boy, Steve’s grandfather.

“How’s Josh?” Steve asked. His son was below.

“Asleep at the radio like Marconi’s assistant,” George said fondly. “You shouldn’t have sent him to bed and told him to listen to the set at the same time. He took your second order a lot more seriously than the first.”

“We aren’t going to catch any fish, so he might as well feel like he’s doing something on this trip. Listening to the chatter of the big container ships heading to Seattle is better than sitting on the deck and twiddling his thumbs.”

“We’ll hit fish before dawn,” George said with undeniable confidence.

One deck below, Josh Hanscom was coming awake again, gripped by the same excitement that had held him enthralled since his father had told him that he didn’t have to go to school this month. It was like Christmas morning in the quiet hours before his parents woke. Yet behind it was a stronger emotion. He had been given a job to do. His father had told him to keep listening to the radio and that was exactly what Josh intended. He didn’t realize that his task was more to keep him occupied than for any legitimate purpose.

Ashamed that he’d fallen asleep on duty, Josh rubbed at his eyes and yawned before concentrating on the transceiver. This was the third straight night that he’d been in the same clothes, and like his dad, he’d gotten into the habit of spraying frigid deodorant under his arms as soon as he woke. Josh even mimicked his father’s shocked expression when the aerosol hit his tender skin. After hosing himself with Right Guard, Josh scaled up through the frequencies listening for anything that might help his dad find fish. He worked the twin dials with delicate fingers, easing from one frequency to another so subtly that the transition was unnoticeable unless one really listened to the pitch of the static coming through the speaker.

He nearly missed it. In the lower band of the VHF there was a quick squawk of white noise, different from the background static but so much the same that Josh almost ignored it. Yet he dialed back, and suddenly there it was again. Someone was definitely transmitting, but the signal was too far away to get in clear. It was just garbled noise, a harsh squelch much like what the older kids at school called music. Not knowing the consequences of capturing a signal at 2182 MHz, Josh listened intently until a voice emerged from the static. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the VLCC Southern Cross posting an All Ships Signify.”

Startled by the hail, Josh rushed from the cabin, scrambling up to the bridge. “Dad, hey, Dad,” he shouted.

“Hold on there, Jakey,” Steve Hanscom said, using his son’s nickname. He stood hunched over the sonar scope, George Boudette at his shoulder, one scarred hand holding the wheel steady without having to actually look at the sea.

“Look at the size of that bastard,” George breathed in awe, despite his decades at sea. “I’ve never seen a shoal like it.”

“Goddamn it, Georgie, we struck gold.” Steve straightened and turned to his son. “Jake, go rouse the men. We’ve got some fishing to do.”

George Boudette idled the engines down to trolling speed, twisting the wheel so that the Suzy’s Pride started a wide arc around the huge mass of fish roiling just below the surface, driven mad by the predatory sea bass darting through their midst. Steve turned from the sonar, confident that Georgie would handle the bridge duties while he and the two deckhands prepared to cast the seine net around the school of sardines.

“But, Dad,” Josh persisted, “I just heard a Mayday on the radio. It was on 2182.”

It took a few seconds for Steve Hanscom to understand what his son had said. “You heard a call on 2182? Are you sure?” Suddenly the excitement about the shoal beneath them wavered.

“Yeah, a man said Mayday and everything,” Josh replied excitedly, not knowing the consequences of what he was saying.

“Get ready to cast off the purse,” George cried, concentrating fully on the task of bunching the fish onto the surface until the sea was bowed with their tremendous numbers.

Steve hesitated, looking at his son’s eager face, wanting to believe that the boy hadn’t heard a call on 2182 MHz, one of the international distress frequencies. He had to make a decision in the next few seconds or the shoal would disperse, driven off by its swollen size.

“Cast!” he shouted down to the deck where his mates were already prepared, alerted by George Boudette’s foot pounding the deck above the cabin where they slept.

The net was shoved over the back of the boat with sheer muscle power, yards and yards of material and dozens of floats and weights tossed into the water until their own drag helped haul them over the transom. The release was timed precisely with the steady throb of the motor and with the easy circle the boat drew in the water. The net was paid out at the very perimeter of the shoal in order to capture the greatest number of fish.

Normally, Steve would have been on deck assisting in the release, making sure his expensive net didn’t become fouled as it oozed into the Pacific, but he had grabbed his son by the hand and dragged the confused boy back into the cabin, to where the radio transceiver sat on its built-in shelf.

“Show me,” he said, tight-lipped, his body almost quivering.

Scared, Josh powered up the venerable Motorola, avoiding his father’s eyes as the set warmed, its dials glowing whitely in the dim cabin. He scanned the frequencies, zeroing in on 2182 MHz. Nothing came through the speaker except snow — dead white noise. Steve began to breathe again, thankful that his son had been wrong. There was nothing out there tonight; no one was calling for help.

Had there really been a distress, maritime law dictated that the preservation of human life came above any other consideration. Steve would have been forced to cut away the heavy nets paying out behind the vessel and make the best possible speed to render assistance. If that had happened, he could forget ever coming up with the money to replace them. But Josh had been mistaken. There was nothing out there, and Steve had some fish to catch.

He was just reaching to turn off the radio when a loud, clear voice burst from the speakers, so close it sounded as if the person was in the cabin with them.

“Mayday, Mayday. This is the captain of the VLCC Southern Cross requesting an All Ships Signify. Mayday. Mayday.”

Hanscom’s blood went cold. Yet it was not the loss of his own future that frightened him; it was the message itself. He knew enough about ships to know that a VLCC was not some small coastal vessel but one of the supertankers cruising between Alaska and California. He recalled the hours of television he’d watched following the Exxon Valdez disaster. If one of those monsters burst her belly and spilled its poison near Puget Sound, Hanscom would be one of thousands of fishermen who would never work again.

Steve took only a moment to weigh his decision, for he really had no choice. Not only was he obliged to help the tanker if she’d sent a Mayday, he also wanted to go to her aid. If, in some small way, he could prevent a catastrophe, and maybe save the waters leading to the Sound, he had no reservations about cutting away his nets and racing to give any assistance he could.

“Josh, tell Paul to cut the nets and have Georgie power up the engines,” Steve said forcefully. If he was going to lose his boat because of this, he was damned sure it would not be in vain. He checked the numbers of the radio’s direction finder and quickly calculated the course. “And tell Georgie to steer 342 degrees true and burst the engines if he has to.”

Josh ran from the cabin, his high, clear voice shouting excitedly but with the authority of a man on a mission. Steve picked up the hand mike. “This is the master of the trawler Suzy’s Pride, reading you strength four. Please amplify your signal. I am running at top speed to your location. Verify your position and state your emergency.”

Relief washed over Lyle Hauser with the fever of sexual release. “Thank God you’re out there, Captain. I didn’t think I would be close enough to shore for my signal to be picked up for another ten hours. My ship has been taken over by terrorists who were working with some of my crew. I’m adrift in a life raft approximately two hundred and fifty miles north-northwest of Bellingham. I can’t give a more accurate position fix.”

Steve thought he was hearing something out of Mutiny on the Bounty. A ship seized and its captain set adrift in a lifeboat? This was the dawn of the twenty-first century. That sort of thing didn’t happen anymore. It defied belief. Was this some sick hoax?

But the Suzy’s Pride was well beyond the range of nearly all shore-based radio sets, and the direction finder said that the signal was coming from somewhere out to sea. It could be true. Jesus, he thought, terrorists in control of a supertanker?

“You must relay a message to the authorities,” continued the voice from the speakers, “but under no circumstance are the owners of my ship to be informed. I fear that they may be involved with the terrorists.”

“I don’t understand. Please clarify last transmission. Captain, I cannot radio shore this far out; my set isn’t powerful enough. I will reach your position in a few hours.” Steve felt his boat gaining speed.

“Negative. Make your quickest landfall and report what’s happened to the Coast Guard. They must stop the Southern Cross. The tanker should be close to Seattle by now, and I believe they intend to destroy her in Puget Sound.”

Steve snapped on the overhead lights and pulled a chart from the cabinet under the radio, anchoring its corners with two empty coffee cups and a navigation reference book he’d been using to teach Josh. He scanned it quickly, making a few rough estimates before responding.

“Captain, I am equidistant between Port Hardy and Bamfield, British Columbia. I can rescue you and still make quickest landfall. Say again, I will be at your position in about” — Steve calculated an approximate distance using the signal strength and power of his radio, factoring in atmospheric conditions as well — “five hours, and we’ll be within radio contact with Port Hardy another three hours after that. It’s the best I can do.”

“Understood, Captain,” Hauser replied, realizing he’d drifted much farther out into the open Pacific than he’d thought and understanding just how lucky he’d been that someone was monitoring a radio this late in these usually quiet waters. They were almost two hundred miles from the nearest sea lanes.

“We’ll monitor this frequency until we have you visually. Suzy’s Pride out.” Steve set the mike back onto its cradle.

He climbed back up to the wheelhouse. George Boudette stood behind the wheel, riding the waves that were starting to buck against the boat’s blunt prow. Josh stood next to him. Steve noticed that George had the engines throttled back an inch or so away from their maximum stops. He reached over and slammed the twin handles all the way forward. The diesels under the deck bellowed harshly in reply, and the ship started to vibrate. To run at this speed for more than a few hours would cause permanent damage to the engines and prop shafts.

“If the bank ends up with my boat after this, I’m going to make damned sure she isn’t in working order when they get her.”