Gale Force

25

Okura followed Robbie off the flimsy skiff and back onto the wreck of the Lion. They climbed up through the bridge again, all the way to the top this time, and inched across the starboard deck as the wind roared in their ears and the wounded ship rolled in the swell.

It had not been a pleasant ride from the Salvation to the freighter, not in the tug’s tiny lifeboat. The weather was picking up; overnight, the swell had increased to approximately six feet, and the wind gusted strong enough to send an eerie howl through the stay wires on the Lion’s foremast. According to Carew, the weather wouldn’t get really nasty for another few days, but Okura knew forecasts could be wrong. And in his experience, the North Pacific rarely stayed peaceful for long.

Carew and the Commodore men had motored the Salvation to the rear of the freighter, where they would attach a towing line to the stern and attempt to keep the wreck under control as the weather built up. Tethered to the Lion, they wouldn’t be able to retrieve Okura and Robbie, who would have to navigate two football fields’ worth of water to return to the safety of the tug. It wasn’t a comforting notion.

They reached a door in the accommodations house, a couple hundred feet from the bridge. “The crew quarters are down here,” Okura told Robbie. “We’ll search them next.”

Robbie tied off a length of rope to a railing inside the doorway. Beyond was a long, gloomy hallway. It looked like a garbage chute, or some sadist’s slide.

Okura took the rope in his hands and began the descent, walking his feet down the steep hallway floor as he held himself upright. The thin light from the doorway above was all but gone by the time he reached the central passage with the galley to one side, the crew berths on the other. Okura turned on his headlamp and peered into the first of the crew’s rooms, could see two rumpled beds and a flimsy table. He couldn’t see Ishimaru. Couldn’t see the briefcase.

“Tomio?” Okura whispered.

There was no response.