Gale Force

29

Christer Magnusson was in the Salvation’s galley, pouring a fresh cup of coffee, when the radio crackled in the wheelhouse.

“Salvation, Salvation, this is the Gale Force. Are you on here, Christer?”

A woman’s voice. McKenna Rhodes. Shit.

Magnusson crossed to the galley porthole, peered out, and saw nothing but ocean. He hurried through the house to the bulkhead door and the afterdeck, walked out under the mammoth A-frame crane, and peered back across the stern, beyond the hulk of the Lion.

For a moment, he saw nothing but gray swells and whitecaps, the turbulence of the building sea. Then the Salvation rose on a wave, and Magnusson spied the tug a half mile or so off of the starboard quarter.

“Helvete.”

It was the Gale Force, all right—big and brawny as always, and as pretty as the days Randall Rhodes had run her, a fresh coat of paint on her red-and-white superstructure, her hull black as coal. Magnusson had spent many trips racing that tug to a wounded freighter, and more than a handful shaking his fist at her stern from the Titan. She still looked good, Magnusson had to admit. She looked like a tug that could save the Lion.

But could the Rhodes girl?

McKenna Rhodes was an enigma to Magnusson. He’d spoken to her rarely, on those brief occasions when the Gale Force and the Titan found themselves in the same harbor and he’d dropped by Riptide’s galley for a cup of coffee with his rival.

She’d been quiet during those meetings, as far as Magnusson could remember. But she’d sure kept her eyes on him, studied him while he talked, as if she were committing every word to memory. He’d liked her, as much as he liked anyone on Riptide’s boat: she carried herself like crew, not like Riptide’s daughter, and by any account, she worked hard. Certainly, she had guts, sailing the old man’s tug all the way here on a gamble.

Magnusson hurried back inside the Salvation, up into the wheelhouse, where Riptide’s daughter was still trying to raise him on the radio.

“Salvation, Salvation, I know you’re out there,” McKenna was saying. “This is McKenna Rhodes on the Gale Force. How do you read?”

Magnusson glanced back at the tug again, through the rear windows. Then he picked up the radio. “Gale Force, this is Salvation.” He forced a smile, kept his voice nonchalant. “Fancy meeting you all the way out here, McKenna. How are you?”

But McKenna Rhodes wasn’t having any small talk. “What are you up to, Christer? You know damn well you can’t save that ship with that old boat you’re running.”

Magnusson spit into his ramen cup. “We have a line on her, and we’re holding our own. If you came out here thinking you’d push me off this wreck, I’m sorry, but you wasted a trip.”

“Unless you’re hiding about five thousand horsepower, the wind will give you all the pushing you can handle,” McKenna answered. “Weather’s building, and I have a team here who can get that ship upright. I suggest you stand down and let us do our jobs.”

Magnusson pursed his lips. McKenna had her dad’s audacity, that was for certain. And she probably had Court Harrington on board, too. But she was still in second place, and Magnusson wasn’t about to back down.

“Sorry, McKenna,” he replied. “We signed an Open Form with the owners, and we’re salvaging this ship. We’ll keep you in mind if we require assistance. Over and out.”

He hung up the radio. Then he picked up the sat phone. Dialed in to Commodore home base, waited on the connection.

Pick up, damn it, he thought, studying the Salvation’s lack of progress on the GPS screen. I need another boat, and an architect, now.