Gale Force

16

The community center was dark. The rest of the crew slept on cots and blankets provided by the people of the community. But Hiroki Okura lay awake. He couldn’t sleep.

The fog that had descended over Unalaska Island had granted him a reprieve, however brief. The jet the company had chartered had flown on to Kodiak, and would try again to land tomorrow. Sooner or later, it would succeed, and the crew would be taken home to Japan.

Okura knew he should be preparing to face his fate with honor. An honorable man would return to Japan and face the consequences of his actions. But however appealing honor may have seemed in the abstract, in practical terms, Okura found the concept lacking.

He sat up from his cot and surveyed the gymnasium. The American customs officers had posted a guard at the front of the community center, more symbolic than anything. There was a police officer, also, patrolling the grounds. Okura could see the intermittent flash of his light through the windows of the gymnasium. Outside, the night was foggy. A plan slowly formed in his mind.

Quiet as he could, Okura stood and dressed. He rolled up his bedclothes on his cot, fashioned them into the form of a sleeping man. Then he crept down the row of cots to the rear of the gymnasium, where there was a fire door.

Someone whispered his name. “Okura-sama.” It was the alcoholic deckhand. “Where are you going?”

Okura hesitated. “Cigarette,” he said.

It was the wrong answer. The deckhand propped himself up on his elbow. “Lend me one?”

“Last one,” Okura told him. “Sorry. Go to sleep.”

“Damn it.” The deckhand sighed. Looked around the gymnasium and finally lay his head down again. Okura waited in the shadows until the man was breathing heavily, and the police officer’s flashlight had passed outside the window. Then he pushed open the fire door and slipped out into the night.