The Black Silent

CHAPTER 18

Sarah James sat in the kitchen of her cedar home in a wooden chair that was not as comfortable as the chairs or sofa in the great room. But she had no interest in relaxing or watching more of Flick's manufactured history on the evening news. She had turned out the lights, believing it was safer. She worried about Ben.

The great room off the kitchen had a high-prow point that looked out into the second-growth forest, but it did not provide a view up the driveway. For that, she would need to stand and look out the kitchen window. In the dark, though, the lights of any approaching vehicle did illuminate the interior of the kitchen, turning the cedar golden.

So she waited for the tiny photons to arrive in their inexplicable waves.

She wore a dress for Ben; he was old-fashioned enough to like them, although on her he never seemed to notice-at least until recently and then she wasn't sure. It was painful but true and she didn't believe in kidding herself. Her romantic interest in Ben had been relatively recent and very secret and frankly had surprised her. He was twenty years her senior and she hadn't known that she could feel such physical love for an older man until one day she was looking at him and wanted to go crazy on his desktop.

Tonight, under her dress, she wore a bathing suit-not for flirtation but as a necessary part of the next step in their journey. She glanced at her watch: about fifteen minutes left.

She used memories of Ben to stave off the anxiety. One of her favorites had occurred on a Friday afternoon several months previous. It had been time to go back home to gardening, tennis, maybe a little golf.

She and Ben were discussing lab supplies and new summer interns from the university.

They were standing close and, for some reason after all those years, she had felt so familiar that she inexplicably put her hand on Ben's belly and sort of patted it. There had been some conversation about whether he was getting fat. He wasn't.

Then he took hold of her hand and looked down at her and Sarah knew he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He hesitated, obviously wanting to-about to-but somehow conflicted. No doubt it was all those years with his sweet Helen. She had been his soul mate. When he had disengaged, he kissed her forehead. It was sweet, but not what she had in mind. When she returned to her desk, she had allowed her imagination to roam free about what might have happened. Lately, however, he took every opportunity to be with her and wasn't at all above making up reasons. Getting together "as friends" was becoming a regular habit.

Although she wanted to come clean about her feelings for Ben, she knew she didn't dare. It was for Ben to validate them, and so far he had not. Ben had become no less charming, but he had become very secretive about his work. He had told Haley little for her own protection and hadn't told Sarah much more for the same reason. His leaving Sanker and avoiding other, greater threats was a thicket, and only Ben could negotiate the passage.

It was time to leave. She gathered up her things and her packed bag, and called Betty Horngrave. Of course, her friend of many years would be happy to check the place and feed the cat. The dog was already in the kennels. Then the phone rang. She picked it up and there was a click. Something about that seemed ominous.

She grabbed her small bag and her laptop computer, looked around, and walked out the door.

She was nervous and was unable to imagine what might happen when she arrived at the dive site.

Ben had explained to her that all of the San Juan Islands were created at the end of the Ice Age and were composed of glacial till. Most of the islands had thin topsoil, less than twenty feet, and in many places the leftover giant chunks of rock were at the surface.

Near Orcas Nob and at various points along the edge of Orcas, some very large rock chunks the size of stadiums were at the surface and the beach face was composed of hard-rock cliffs. Near here sat an experimental area operated by Ben some years ago, and Sarah had a hunch that perhaps that was where he was taking her tonight. It was a hunch based on something Nelson Gempshorn had said about a picnic she and Ben had enjoyed a long time ago. She couldn't imagine why she would be diving in that area; it was a steep drop-off to water ninety to three hundred feet deep. But if not there on President Channel, then where? And why Gempshorn's mention of the picnic, if not to clue her in?

She couldn't guess.

Sarah did think it odd that Ben had not called her himself. But the explanation that he was on the run and headed for a safe place had to suffice. She did not know Nelson Gempshorn well, but she knew that Ben did, even though he had tried to disguise the relationship and never spoke much of the man.

Some years previous, Ben had sometimes taken his small research submarine out there.

The area was about one mile north of an intriguing abandoned lime kiln from the early 1900s, with a standing chimney and underground passages that surfaced at the bank near the water's edge. There were no houses along that stretch of waterfront, although there were homes to the north and to the south. Now the area took on added interest and she tried to consider what could be going on and how she could have missed it.

When she was about to leave, she once again tried Haley's phone and received no answer.

As she was walking to the garage to get in her car for the drive to the Fisherman's Bay docks, a sedan pulled in. It wasn't a police car. Quickly she stepped back next to a large tree. A man jumped out of the car. Suddenly Sarah had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Sam left Rachael on the Geisha with the lights off, but for a small reading light. They had turned the heater on. Rachael waited by the VHF radio for their call, where she would sit, read, and try to relax until the appointed time.

With the Geisha's portable VHF radio in hand, Sam met Haley, and she drove them in Gibbons's car to the university compound immediately to the east of the Sanker Foundation, where there were various university dormitories and dwellings. Traveling to the marine lab would require only a brief inland deviation from a straight line.

Once in the university compound, Sam felt safer. Haley seemed to as well. It was dark, there were few lights, and the main administration building had been shut down for the holiday. When he climbed out of the car, he thought hard about taking the bolt cutters.

They were large and awkward, but would cut through a fence in seconds. The alternative would be a pair of needle-nosed pliers that might make a simple job excruciating. He used some loose twine in the trunk to tie the bolt cutters to his belt.

Venturing into dark woodland, thev slowly felt their way along under the fir and madrona down through the undergrowth alongside of the main building until they reached the beach.

For just a moment Sam thought about their chances of dying and it made him turn to her. As if she'd been thinking the same thing, Haley quickly kissed him on the lips. Once started, the kiss became deeper, stirring the repressed desire in each of them. It wasn't quite what Sam intended, but there was a sincerity to it that made it something to receive rather than reject. Or so he told himself. Too suddenly she stopped. It wasn't a normal ending to a good kiss.

Next came an awkward moment and then they hugged and pulled each other close.

Neither spoke. Neither wanted to try to define the moment.

"If you die, I'm going to be really pissed and you'll never hear the end of it," Haley said.

"And if I die because you die, I'll be twice as pissed."

"We need to discuss exactly how you are going to get Rachael to her uncle's dock on Orcas."

"Okay."

"My thought would be to take the way to Crane Island through the rock pile, going off the ferry route. Just like the smugglers used to do. You should go as fast as you can and survive."

"I'll go fifty at least."

"Turn off your running lights before you're even with the outer marker; then when you're almost past Crane Island, turn hard right back, double back through Poll Pass, stop at the dock before they can see you. Come on back by Crane Island, this time on the safe side, and lead them on a chase. Then do it just like we discussed."

"You're thinking this crazy-ass route will stop them, confuse them?"

"Would you follow somebody into those rocks at night? Or would you wait and see what the hell they're doing?"

"Effectively, I'm making a circle around Crane Island." "Yes. I realize I'm suggesting that you run fifty knots at night through the narrowest navigable passage in the world."

She looked at Sam without blinking. "I can do it," she said simply.

"At night you can't run this like you're in a race," Sam cautioned.

"I guess we'll find out, won't we? I am in a race for our lives. Don't kid yourself."

Sam didn't have a quick answer to that one. As a practiced sailor, he knew that when these boats operated at one hundred miles per hour plus, absolute attention had to be paid to the throttle. If the boat went airborne and the props came out of the water, the engines would overrev and burn themselves to a crisp. The antidote was to back off the throttle as the propellers left the water. But if the throttle was off too long and the props were resubmerged without power, they would be ripped off the boat with the entire drive assembly. There were plenty of race boat drivers who had learned the hard way not to push the speed in chop and lose control of the throttle.

Together they crossed to a thin rivulet of a creek that came down to the beach. It reflected a bit of the light from the lab parking area and some from the lights of Friday Harbor across the bay. Except for that dark mirror on the sand, the beach was indistinct, like the bottom of a freshly used coal bin. Moving slowly down the beach, they were careful to keep the crunch of the gravel to a minimum. With so much life at the boundary between the land and sea, things were constantly dying and their decay left an odor that mixed with the salt air in a kind of olfactory stew unique to beaches. Soon the beach turned to steep, slick, solid rock. This portion was very slow going with Sam's bad knee.

Frick's boat, the Opus Magnum, was completely tarped down. It was a customized 46

Rider XP with twin 1050-horsepower MerCruiser engines and ostentatious for its speed.

Sam knew the engines weren't winterized because he'd seen Frick use it on sunny days to travel around the islands and over to Anacortes and Bellingham. On calm days he sometimes went to lunch at one hundred miles per hour over to Lopez. There was too much wood in waters surrounding these islands to sustain those speeds without great care. Even then it was a death wish to travel at high speeds for sustained periods because of so called dead heads-logs nearly full with absorbed water that float one end up with the top end barely visible or just under the surface. If it rained, Frick took a more conventional foundation boat, and if it was particularly choppy, he did not exceed about sixty. The boat was the talk of the island, and it was no secret that it really belonged to old man Sanker.

Getting to the moorage dock would be a trick. It was gated and the ramp leading to it was high above the steep rock cliffs that substituted for a beach. The tide was close to high. Unless he wanted to swim in fifty-something-degree water, and he didn't, their only option was either to climb over the six-foot barbed-wire-topped gate at the head of the ramp, or climb up underneath the ramp on various cables and braces and then scale the cage along the side of the ramp and over the top of it. Add to all that the significant risk that someone watching might see them.

Their best bet was making the climb near the head of the ramp, where they would be visible from fewer angles. There still wasn't a lot of activity around the Foundation, but if Sam was right about Sanker's intentions, then that condition would not last. He scrambled over the rocks as best he could, frustrated with his bad knee. Haley had an easier time, half-walking, half-crawling.

When they reached the ramp to the floating docks, Haley stayed on the beach while he climbed vertical supports and the cross members to reach a thick cable. Stabilizing himself with his hands on the underside of the walkway, he was able to walk the cable, and as he did so, his body gained elevation until he reached the attachment point of the cable to the walkway and began climbing the sidewall fence.

The entire ramp was lit and he knew he presented a clear silhouette, so a shooter with a high-powered rifle could kill him with ease. He was happy he had put Haley in body armor. Using the bolt cutters, he made a hole in the bottom of the fence. The metal gave way like noodles. In less than sixty seconds he had two sides of a square hole cut. Then the door near the gate at the top of the ramp swung open.

Somebody was coming. He froze like a spider caught in a gust. A man in overalls stood in the doorway staring out into the night. Any second Sam expected the fellow to call out and he readied himself to flee back down the cables. With his bad leg and no gun he knew his chances of surviving were slim. Frick would kill him this time. The man yawned and took out a smoke. Now, at least, he knew why the fellow had opened the door. Cupping his hands, he lit up. Sam was amazed that the man hadn't seen him exposed as he was beside the fence. He figured he dare not move or the man's eyes would seize on the motion. In the squat by the fence things got tough in the legs and lower back, and he remembered the days when he'd have felt no pain. "Jack," someone called out.

The man quickly put out the cigarette and closed the door. Sam breathed deeply, suddenly realizing the fear. Quickly he went back to work and cut the remainder in seconds. He crawled through the break in the wire and lay flat. Now he beckoned to Haley, and she began a fast climb to the ramp and through the hole. In less than a minute she lay beside him.

With his duffel slung on his arm, Sam hobbled down the dock in the glare of the lights, feeling like a sitting duck. Haley ran ahead. He arrived at the Opus Magnum and followed Haley under the canvas. It was an exquisite piece of machinery, and it took someone like Sanker to afford it. As he expected, there were keys in the ignition. It was a locked and guarded facility, after all.

They turned on the dash lights; then Haley found a chart light at the helm. Having owned his own ocean-cruising sailboat and chartered many so-called bare-boat-power cruisers, Sam was familiar with the electronics, as was Haley. Normally, these racing boats didn't carry radar, but as a concession to the fickle fog of the Pacific Northwest, this boat had a custom-made radar arch. The screen was specially mounted between the two consoles. He turned on the radar and let it warm up on standby. Crawling outside, he took the canvas off the top of the dash but decided to leave the rest in place for the moment. These boats did not have windshields unless they were a completely enclosed canopy with fighter jet-grade Lexan. If one of these boats went upside down at over one hundred miles per hour, any normal sort of windshield would separate from the hull and decapitate driver and navigator.

Haley turned on the chart plotter, the GPS, autopilot, the depth sounders, and the rest of the electronics. The most significant custom feature was a gas pedal integrated to override the hand throttles. Old man Sanker had customized the boat so that he could control the power without a navigator and keep two hands on the wheel.

"You know that you shouldn't go over seventy in chop," Sam said.

"I can if I let off the gas when I become airborne and reapply the throttle when I hit."

Sam looked at her askance. He knew that her last serious boyfriend had been a wealthy race boat aficionado from California. According to Haley, the man had a boat with three 1000 hp Paul Phaff-built engines, with MerCruiser number six outdrives in a forty-two-foot hull. It was a few years ago, but having driven that, she might drive this speed machine.

He noticed a tremor in her hand. She zeroed the chart plotter in on Friday Harbor and Brown Island. Keeping the volume down, Sam tuned the VHF to channel 16, knowing that she was likely to hear a lot of yelling from the foundation over the hailing channel.

That brought a brief smile.

Quickly he went below and rummaged through the cabinets looking for Frick's personal items. It didn't take him long to find what he needed.

When everything was ready, he pulled back a good section of canvas making an easy escape hatch. He clicked the radar off standby, making sure it was set to one-quarter mile, and that the gain gave her a sharp image. It would be critical.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped back on the dock, cast off the stern, and tossed the line in the boat, then the midships and last the bowline. She was drifting backward when he saluted her and half-ran, half-hobbled as best he could up the dock to the Sanker Building. The knee was hurting him bad. At the building he waited on the hinge side of the door to the foundation labs.

Wasting no more time, she fired up the engines, gave them a goose on the throttle once, didn't bother with a warm-up, and then popped them in gear. Then she stepped on the gas and the turbo diesels whirled the props, causing the fifteen-thousand-pound boat to leap out of the water.

Haley switched on the running lights and the rear deck lights as well as the spotlight up front. Now she was lit up like a Christmas angel atop the tree.

"Hey!" someone shouted as she literally roared away from the docks.

Sarah pressed herself against the wall of the house, hoping that the man would go to the front door and not the back. He walked forward slowly, seemingly uncertain. He was large in every respect. No doubt he was a thug who worked for Frick. He wore a trench coat and something bulky beneath it that protruded from under the sleeves. For some reason he was looking back at the county road and then looking around 360 degrees.

She was afraid to think about why he might be doing that. Then he opened the trunk of the car. She shivered despite herself. These days car trunks were supposed to have internal latches. She wondered if this car had one.

She was frightened, more frightened than she could recall. She tried to be absolutely still but found herself breathing more heavily and she had the terrible urge to run.

Instead, she ducked low and went down the three stairs of the back porch to the ground level and got on the far side of another tree. Then she moved down the side of the house toward the forest. She lived on five mostly forested acres, typical of the island, and she was going to get away from the house where no one would find her. When she glanced back, she saw him coming forward, obviously approaching the back door. Perhaps he had heard her. Then she was around the corner of the house, her shoes full of mud, scrunching her toes to keep them on as she ran.

"Roxy, Roxy." She barely heard the calls. Suddenly it came clear to her. The man was Ted Henry, her neighbor, looking for their cat, Roxy. The bulky thing under the trench coat was his pajama top. His pants had looked baggy. They were the pajama bottoms.

Darn. She looked down at her mud-spattered nylons and her ruined shoes. She marched back across the mucky grassland and walked around the corner. Then she froze. There was a second car behind Ted's, who was now a shadow lying on the ground under a man's boot. The boot was on Ted's neck and Ted was swearing to the man that he didn't know anything. The man was saying something about a Peeping Tom. Instantly she got it. The thugs were pretending to have something on Ted so that they could rough him up, rattle him, get him to talk about Sarah and Ben. Lately Ben had visited often and Ted had noticed the comings and goings and, of course, had remarked upon his observations.

"Hey, you," the man with the foot on Ted's neck shouted.

Sarah ran hard, straight for the forest, and did her best to keep her shoes on her feet.

Nelson hadn't told her much, but he'd made one thing clear: these people would kill her when they were finished getting what they wanted. She clutched her laptop computer and ran without her bag.