Gale Force

12

McKenna guided the Gale Force out of its berth and into Lake Union, past rows of fishing boats, pleasure craft, and tugs to the George Washington Memorial Bridge, where the water narrowed northwest into the Fremont Cut, splitting north Seattle in two. The ship canal was narrow and crowded with traffic, and McKenna piloted the tug carefully as she approached the system of locks at Salmon Bay that would drop the Gale Force twenty feet to the Puget Sound.

It was never the most relaxing way to start a journey, but McKenna felt calm anyway as the tug waited its turn and descended through the locks, ducked under the train bridge, and turned north into Shilshole Bay, leaving Seattle behind for the open water of the sound. She was happy, at least, to have escaped the city. The water was where she belonged.

There were problems to consider, of course, and all of them pressing. There was the problem of money; namely, that the Gale Force didn’t have much. There was the issue of the Pacific Lion’s pronounced list—the Coast Guard was reporting sixty degrees—and how McKenna would reverse it without the whiz kid in the picture.

She’d called around, tried every naval architect she could think of, some of them salvage experts with whom her dad had worked before Court Harrington, others she knew only by reputation. The response had been singularly depressing.

“No offense, but I just don’t know you, Ms. Rhodes,” a professor at the Webb Institute told McKenna. “I’m sure you’re just as good as your father at this stuff, but if you’re asking me to fly across the country to work with an unknown entity, I’m going to need at least a hundred thousand dollars up front.”

“I can’t offer you that much,” McKenna replied, “but I can assure you a share of the profits. We stand to make—”

“I know what you could make,” the professor interrupted. “I also know you could very well walk away with nothing. And I just can’t take that risk. Not with an unproven captain.”

The story didn’t change much, no matter who McKenna called. Nobody knew her, except as Riptide Rhodes’s little girl. No one trusted her ability to bring the Lion to safety.

BEYOND THE ARCHITECT CONUNDRUM, there was always the possibility, too, that the ship would sink before the Gale Force arrived, or that some other salvage outfit would put a line on her first. By rights, McKenna knew she should be pulling out her hair right now, or turning the tug back toward the dock and looking for a nice job in an office or something, but instead, she felt calm. Serene. She felt her dad here, somehow.

It would have been impossible not to feel Randall Rhodes’s presence in the wheelhouse. The man had molded the command center in his image, from the carpet on the wheelhouse floor to the leather on the captain’s chair. The wheel, salvaged from an old steam tug in Prince William Sound. The pewter picture frame beside the depth sounder, a Christmas gift from McKenna from aeons ago. It had held a picture of McKenna for as long as Randall Rhodes ran the boat, the same picture, Little League, age eight. Braces and a ponytail and a wide, awkward smile. She’d always been embarrassed when she caught a glimpse of that photo. Wondered how her dad could expect the crew to take her seriously.

But they had taken her seriously, or they hadn’t lasted long. Randall Rhodes had seen to that—not that he’d cut her any slack, either, not while they worked. The girl in the picture might as well have been someone else’s daughter when they were out on a job; the old man worked every member of his crew just as hard as he worked himself, no quarter given, no excuses. She’d found it unfair at first. Hated her father. Thought about quitting, packed her bags plenty, stalked off in a huff every time the Gale Force made land.

Somehow, though, she was always aboard when they cast off again. And now that old pewter frame held a picture of her father, faded flannel shirt, beard going to gray, a stained Baitmasters hat. And a smile for the camera that still caught McKenna off guard when she’d see it, even now.

NELSON RIDLEY CAME UP into the wheelhouse as the Gale Force approached Dungeness Spit, the top end of Puget Sound, some five hours after setting out from the Seattle docks. He handed McKenna a cup of coffee and stood beside her at the wheel. “How’s she looking, lass?”

“So far, so good,” McKenna replied. “Forecast is just fine, and we’re making steady time. Should clear Cape Flattery right on schedule.”

Ridley looked out through the forward windows. Up ahead, the Strait of Juan de Fuca stretched ninety-five miles to the open Pacific, the snowcapped mountains of the Olympic Peninsula to port, Vancouver Island and Canada to starboard, as far as the eye could see.

“How are the mains doing?” McKenna asked her engineer.

“That turbo’s humming like a champ,” Ridley replied. “All good so far.”

So far, McKenna thought, then admonished herself. No sense jinxing the operation any more than normal. Seafarers were a superstitious lot; you didn’t leave port on a Friday (it was Tuesday, thankfully), you didn’t dry your coffee mugs upside down (invited capsizing), and on some boats, you didn’t bring bananas on board—or women. McKenna was no fan of bananas, but she’d be damned if she was staying on shore, so maybe she wasn’t superstitious. Still, she wouldn’t be trimming her nails or running any laundry until the job was over, lest she anger the sea gods, or whatever.

Ridley let her stand in silence for a minute or two. “You getting anywhere with the architect situation, skipper? Any news from Court?”

“Not yet,” McKenna said, avoiding his eyes. “I’ve been calling around, other contacts, don’t have any leads yet. But I will.”

“Not many people can do what the whiz can.”

“Yeah, well, the whiz isn’t coming.” It came out rougher than she’d planned. “He’s busy, Nelson, and that’s all there is to it. We’ll make do.”

Ridley didn’t say anything for a moment, and McKenna could practically read his doubt.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, we’ll make do. We always do, right?”

“We have a long run up to Dutch, anyway,” McKenna said. “I’ll have a replacement by the time we make the wreck. I promise.”