Gale Force

22

The Gale Force made Dutch Harbor the next morning. Sailed up through Akutan Pass into the Bering Sea, around the top of Unalaska Island, into Unalaska Bay, and down toward the village.

Court Harrington joined McKenna in the wheelhouse as the Gale Force motored across the bay. “So this is Dutch Harbor,” he said.

“The one and only,” McKenna replied. “You never made it up here with my dad?”

“Not this far out. Most I know about this place, I learned from that fishing show, the crab guys. Kind of doesn’t seem real.”

It was a beautiful little town, and the mariner in McKenna was fascinated by the mix of traffic in the harbor, from deep-sea container ships to Coast Guard cutters to fish packers and freezer boats to trawlers and crabbers. Harrington pointed out the window at one of the boats. “Right there,” he said. “I definitely saw those guys on TV.”

“You want to motor on over there, see if they’ll give you a spot?”

The architect laughed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it. It’s tough work on those crab boats. Hardest job in the world, they say.”

“Psh. They never worked on a salvage tug.”

“Settled, then. As soon as we save that Lion, I’m coming back to Dutch and ditching you for a crab boat. You can look for my ass on TV.”

McKenna throttled down, pointed the Gale Force at the fuel barge. “I’d better get your autograph now, then,” she told him. “Just in case.”

MCKENNA BROUGHT THE TUG into the fuel barge, nodded hello to the owner as Jason Parent and his dad secured the mooring lines.

“Gale Force,” the owner said, admiring the tug as he passed McKenna the fuel hose. “I remember this boat. Hell of a tug. Riptide Rhodes’s, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” McKenna replied. “My old man.”

“Your old man.” The owner squinted up at her, appraisingly. “Well, what brings you to Dutch, anyhow?”

McKenna shrugged. The law of the gold-rush mariner, whether fisherman or salvage speculator, was to keep one’s mouth shut, especially on the docks, where gossip was often the primary industry.

“Just come up to have a look around,” she told the owner. “The crew always wanted to meet those crab guys, and I figured maybe we’d run into somebody who could use our services.”

“Always a lot of guys needing help around here.” The owner gestured across the water. “Especially with Bill Carew and his gang out with those Commodore boys.”

McKenna felt her insides go a couple degrees colder. She followed the man’s eyes to some ramshackle barges tied up in the elbow of a long spit of land. “Commodore guys are in town?”

“You bet. You heard about that big car carrier that nearly flipped over the other day? No sooner had the Coast Guard rescued the crew than a couple of those Commodore guys were climbing off a plane, scrounging for somebody’s boat to take them out there.” He spit on the dock. “Dunno how they plan to actually save that wreck, but they’re the experts, I suppose.”

“They put a line on her?” McKenna asked.

“That’s what I heard from the Coast Guard.” The guy grinned up at her. “Pity your old man isn’t still around, huh? Tug like this, he could rack up a hell of a payday out there.”

“Yeah,” McKenna agreed, and she felt it like a punch in the gut. “A real pity, all right.”