Gale Force

5

“I’m all in.”

Court Harrington pushed six towers of poker chips into the middle of the table and stared down at the felt through his mirrored sunglasses. Around him, the noise of the casino faded into a dull murmur, replaced, more or less, by the pounding of his heart.

Hope the guy in seat eight can’t see it, Harrington thought, stealing a glance across the table at his opponent, an older man in a LAS VEGAS baseball cap—a tight player who hadn’t shown down a bluff all day. Now, with three clubs on the board, Harrington was really hoping the guy would make him for the flush.

Time slowed as seat eight thought things through. It was day four of the World Series of Poker Main Event, a ten-thousand-dollar buy-in spectacular that, this year, had attracted more than six thousand hopefuls gunning for their shot at fame and fortune. Seven hundred players remained, and all but sixty of them would make a profit for their efforts. Based on seat eight’s tacky ball cap and his careful play, Harrington made him for a tourist and assumed he would prefer to fold his way to the money, avoiding any big risks.

But the guy was sure taking his time, studying Harrington across the table, really staring him down—chatting to him, too, nonchalant, friendly. “You got clubs, do you?” the man said with a good ol’ boy drawl. “Guess I should have raised you on the turn.”

Harrington didn’t reply. No sense giving the guy any tells. He shuffled his chips instead, looked out at the cards on the board, tried to will the guy into making a move.

Finally, seat eight sighed. Leaned back, checked his cards, and threw them into the muck. “Nice hand,” he told Harrington. “Next time, I won’t let you stick around to chase that flush.”

We’ll see about that, Harrington said, checking his own hand, a pair of red sevens, and throwing it into the pile before stacking his chips. I just have to remember to stay out of your way when you actually get a hand.

BREAK TIME, TWENTY MINUTES; the last break of the day. Harrington followed the other hopefuls out into the casino hallway. Seven hundred gamblers descending on the restrooms, heading outside for a smoke, whatever. Harrington wandered out to the food tent and checked his phone idly as he waited in line. Saw he’d missed one call, from an out-of-state number. Harrington didn’t recognize the number, not at first.

Then he did, and it stopped him where he stood.

Harrington hit redial as he made the front of the food line. He ordered a cheeseburger and dug out his wallet to pay as the phone rang in his ear. Then the call went through, and there was McKenna Rhodes, exactly the same as she ever was.

“Court. Hey.”

“Hey, you,” Harrington answered, taking his cheeseburger and waving off his change. “Long time, no talk. How long’s it been, anyway?”

McKenna paused. “It’s been a few years, I guess.” There was something strange in her voice. “Listen, this is going to sound weird, but do you have a minute to talk?”

Harrington carried his burger to a table. Sat down, unwrapped it. “I have about five minutes,” he said. “But that’s literally it. I can call you in a couple hours, though, call you tomorrow?”

“No time,” McKenna answered. “Listen, do you want a job?”

A job.

At thirty-six years old, Court Harrington was still one of the youngest naval architects in the United States—and one of the most accomplished in the world. A graduate of the prestigious Webb Institute on Long Island—and, later, of MIT—he’d fallen into the salvage trade on the advice of an old professor, who’d referred him to Randall Rhodes for a one-off job down in Colombia, a container ship run aground on some undersea rock. The ship’s hull had been breached, and the ocean nearby was considered very environmentally sensitive. Rhodes had hired him to plot a strategy to get the ship off the reef without spilling any fuel oil—though he’d cautioned, when he met Harrington at the airport in Cali, that the local authorities already considered the project a lost cause.

“Nothing’s a lost cause,” Harrington had replied, shaking the captain’s hand and brandishing his laptop. “The models I make on here, we could refloat Atlantis.”

Admittedly, that was something of a stretch, but not by much. Harrington’s proprietary hydrostatics program had earned him his doctorate; with it, he could create accurate, highly detailed models of any vessel, afloat or sunk, in the world, and determine how any environmental change, man-made or natural, would affect the ship’s equilibrium. This was particularly useful when it came to raising wrecked ships for big paydays.

He’d helped Randall Rhodes save the ship in Colombia, and the master of the Gale Force had been so impressed that he’d offered to keep Court on full-time retainer. Harrington—once he’d established that he could still spend the off-time on his sailboat in Myrtle Beach, relaxing and playing video games and flirting with coeds on spring break—had hired on instantly.

It had been the beginning of a fruitful and lucrative partnership that lasted four years and had earned Court a fairly decent sum of money, and plenty of notoriety besides.

In the process, though, he’d screwed things up royally with the boss’s daughter. Who was now calling to offer him a job.

“IT’S A CAR CARRIER,” McKenna was saying. “Up in Alaska. The crew screwed up the ballast transfer coming into American waters, and she tipped over onto her side at about a sixty-degree angle.”

“Oh.” Harrington felt his stomach rumble. Figured he should scarf down the cheeseburger and stop by the restroom before poker started again. “Well, shoot, McKenna, I don’t know how much help I can be without knowing the specifics. Maybe if you want to, I dunno, fax the pertinent information to my hotel here in Vegas?”

McKenna hesitated. Then she laughed a little bit. “I guess I’m not really asking for your opinion so much as I’m hoping you’ll consider heading out with us.”

“Out… where? To the ship?”

“You’re the best in the business,” McKenna said. “Regardless of what happened between you and me…” She trailed off. Then came back, stronger. “Look, I could really use you, Court. The crew could really use you.”

Two minutes left of the break. No time for the restroom. Court realized he would have to eat at the table, kind of a faux pas. He hurried out of the food tent and back through the casino to the poker room, the last of the stragglers ahead of him.

“Gah,” he said. “Listen, McKenna, I’d really like to help you, but I’m in the middle of something here, something big, and I can’t leave just yet.”

“How big?” Rhodes replied. “This is a ten-million-dollar payday.”

“I get it,” Harrington said, “but this is the World Series of Poker. Eight thousand people, and I’m second in chips. First place is eight point six million.”

The line went silent. Harrington ducked through the swinging doors into the poker room. Started through the sea of tables toward his seat.

“How long do you need?” McKenna asked finally.

“To win this thing? Another week or so, maybe. Then another couple days to celebrate.”

“Too long. This ship could be at the bottom of the ocean in a week.”

Harrington reached his table. “It’s only half sunk?” he said finally. “I’ve never done that before. Hell, I don’t think anyone’s ever done it.”

“I know,” McKenna said. “It’s a pretty big deal, Court. For all of us.”

She let it hang there, and, despite himself, Harrington started mulling it over. Figured the notoriety for saving this wreck would just about make up for not winning the tournament. Figured the money would be nearly as good, too.

Nearly as good, but not quite.

The dealer was dealing the first hand. Seat eight was watching him, eyeing his stack. Harrington sighed. “I just can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t walk away now, not while I’m second in chips. I’m sorry.”

He ended the call. Sat down at the table just as the dealer was finishing the deal. Tucked his phone away, set his burger in his lap, and checked his cards: pocket queens.

Well, never mind that shipwreck, he said, reaching for a stack of chips. Let’s play some cards.