Gale Force

67

The four Japanese men stepped from the little plane and onto the tarmac. They paused briefly to breathe in the cool air, to survey the town and the mountains and the water. Then they walked into the terminal and out to the parking lot, where a couple of taxis stood idling beside a handful of private cars. A young woman stood waiting beside an American SUV. She held a sign that read GRAND ALEUTIAN HOTEL, and she straightened as the four men approached.

“Need a room?”

Three of the four men looked at the fourth, the young, slim man named Sato. “Yes,” Sato said. “We will need two rooms, if possible.”

The woman looked back at the terminal, the rest of the flight walking out with family members, friends, heading to well-worn pickup trucks. “Looks like I’ll have plenty of space,” she said. “Jump in.”

The men stowed their gear in the trunk, and climbed into the SUV as the young woman fired up the engine. Three men sat in the back of the truck. Sato sat in the front.

“What are you in town for?” the woman asked him as she pulled out of the lot. “Business, or pleasure?”

“Business,” Sato replied.

“Something to do with that ship that wrecked?”

Sato shook his head. “Fishing,” he said. “We represent a major investor.”

“Aha,” the woman said. “Well, you’re in the right place for that.”

THE DRIVE TO THE GRAND ALEUTIAN took all of five minutes. The woman—her name was Hannah, she’d told Sato—parked the SUV and opened the trunk.

“The shipwreck you mentioned,” Sato said as he followed Hannah into the lobby. “Did they save the crew?”

“The crew? Sure, no casualties.” Hannah paused. “Wait, I lied. One of those guys went AWOL, ditched the rest of his guys and went back to the ship on Bill Carew’s boat. What I heard, he was looking for something, but he shouldn’t have bothered. They brought him back to Dutch in a body bag.”

“How very sad.”

“You said it. Just goes to show.” Hannah shrugged. “There’s nothing in this world so important it’s worth dying over, right?”

She led Sato to the check-in desk, took his credit card. “How long are you staying with us?”

“We’re not sure,” Sato replied. “It depends how quickly we meet our objective.”

Hannah nodded. “Well, we’re nowhere near capacity,” she said. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem if you need to stick around for a while.”