Gale Force

11

The American Coast Guard brought Hiroki Okura and the rest of the Pacific Lion’s crew to Dutch Harbor—eventually.

First, the airmen flew Okura to the cutter Munro, where he rejoined the Lion’s crew in a helicopter hangar at the stern of the ship. The Coast Guard seamen brought the crew blankets, hot coffee, and soup, and the sailors from the Lion eyed Okura warily. They’d heard how he’d fought to remain on the ship.

The first Coast Guard airmen had flown back to Dutch Harbor. Now, in daylight, the Munro sent its own helicopter, a bright orange Eurocopter HH-65 Dolphin, to survey the ship. The Munro’s crew had opened the hangar doors, and the Lion’s survivors wandered out to watch.

Morning had broken, sunny and brisk, a beautiful day, the sea as close to flat-calm as Okura had ever seen in this part of the North Pacific. In the distance, three hundred yards off the starboard quarter, the Pacific Lion languished.

If only I’d had more time.

The crew of the Dolphin helicopter boarded the Lion and stayed there for about an hour. Okura smoked cigarettes on the Munro’s afterdeck and watched, until the Dolphin’s crew was winched back up to their helicopter and flying to the cutter. He did not see any sign that the crew had found Tomio Ishimaru.

Within five minutes, the Dolphin had touched down on the deck of the Munro. The pilot and his crew climbed down and hurried across the landing pad, conversing briefly with the Lion’s captain, before disappearing inside the ship.

The captain gathered his officers. “The ship is still very unstable,” he told the men. “The Coast Guard expects it will sink. There is no chance of retrieving our belongings.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Okura wondered.

“They are sending us home to Japan,” the captain replied. He looked at Okura, and his eyes narrowed. “I expect the company will want to know why the ballast transfer failed, Okura—and why you behaved so erratically after the disaster.”

A DAY LATER, Okura surveyed the small town of Dutch Harbor as he descended the Munro’s gangplank to the government dock. The town was pretty, that was for certain, a ramshackle crescent of houses and small buildings hugging the harbor bay, surrounded by lush mountains. The air was crisp and bracing and, here and there, the sun shined through the clouds. It was a beautiful day.

On the dock, a school bus was waiting to take the Lion’s crew to the town’s community center, where they would stay until a plane could take them home.

“Welcome to Alaska,” a customs official told the crew as they found their seats on the bus. “Your plane should arrive sometime this afternoon. Until then, we’ll make you as comfortable as we can.”

The chief engineer, a chubby man in overalls, raised his hand. He’d been on his way up from the engine room when the Lion had capsized. “We have no clothes,” he said.

The customs official nodded. “We’re going to try to scrounge up clothing for you. Everything we can provide, we will.”

“Food?”

“Yes, definitely. We have volunteers cooking you a meal as we speak.”

“Will we be allowed to go for a walk?” someone else wanted to know. One of the deckhands, a reputed alcoholic. Okura suspected he knew where the man wanted to go.

“No walks,” the official said. “As of right now, you’re not officially admitted into the United States. We’re just giving you a place to stay until you can go home.”

“What if we have our passports?”

The bus was moving now, rumbling across the dock toward a stretch of gravel road. The customs officer lost his balance and hit his head on the ceiling. Winced.

“We’ll deal with that on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “If you have any more questions, come and see me when we get there.”

The officer sat down, rubbing his head. Some other crew members shouted questions in halting English. Okura turned to stare out the window. If I had my passport, I wouldn’t need to go back to Japan.

But he didn’t have his passport. It was locked in the safe in his stateroom on the Pacific Lion, two hundred and fifty nautical miles to the southwest. And anyway, where would he go? What would he do?

If I had my passport, and fifty million dollars. Then I would be set.

But he had neither, and he sat and brooded in silence as the bus lurched and jostled its way into town.