Gale Force

3

Hiroki Okura had had just enough time to send out a Mayday before the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship.

The captain was still wearing his dressing gown. He clung precipitously to the chart table at the rear of the bridge, looking more like a bewildered old man than the master of a fifty-thousand-ton cargo vessel. But his voice was strong, and the meaning clear: Time to go.

The Pacific Lion lay at a sixty-degree angle, the portside all but completely submerged. The ship’s bridge ran the width of the ship, and from the portside entrance, Okura could look out the window and see green water just a few feet below. The ship shuddered with every swell, threatening to topple. The crew would have to launch a lifeboat in the frigid Alaskan waters—and the starboard boats were too far from the water. They would have to take their chances and hope the portside of the ship didn’t collapse on top of them.

The rest of the ship’s twenty-six-man crew was already assembled at the forward portside lifeboat. One seaman wore nothing but a towel; none of the others had had time for survival suits. If they couldn’t make it to a lifeboat, they would die in the water within minutes.

Okura muttered a quick prayer. Then he crawled his way aft to assist with the launching of the boat.

The lifeboat was fully enclosed and watertight, equipped with food and water and a GPS beacon. There were four of these boats on the Pacific Lion, and each had enough room and supplies for the entire crew. One by one, the crew climbed aboard as the sea continued to rock the freighter, threatening to push the ship over and kill them all.

But the Lion didn’t capsize. Within minutes, the lifeboat was loaded and ready to be lowered into the ocean, just a few feet below the deck railing. Okura counted the crew and found every man present—all but one.

Tomio Ishimaru. The accountant, and the briefcase. Damn it.

Okura stepped back from the rail and signaled the third officer, who waited at the hatch. “Go. Call the Coast Guard. I’ll make my own way off the ship.”

The third officer stared. Called after Okura as he turned away from the lifeboat, clambering back toward the bridge and the interior of the ship. Whatever the man was saying, Okura couldn’t make it out. The wind was too strong, and the ship’s stance too precarious.