FOUR

It was close to noon when Arne Hjorth finally got the engine of his boat to start. He pulled himself up, using the battery shelf and the edge of the hatch to help his arthritic knees straighten out. Harry had been right last night in the pub when he said they were all getting too old. Hell, he only had to look at the engine to see that. Once it would have gleamed, the metal lovingly cleaned and polished, the hoses stout and flexible, the walls surrounding it bright with new paint. Now everything was rusted so badly it was scarcely recognizable. Arne gave a grunt of bitter laughter. Like me, he thought as he slammed the hatch in place and flipped on the switch for the pump that held back the leaks. They were two of a kind, this old boat and him. These days he had to pee so often it seemed like he had sprung a leak himself and every morning when he dragged himself out of bed he felt as if every joint in his body had rusted out.

Yet they kept going, he and Silver Lady. They had spent their lives together out there on the water, dodging the storms, battling the waves, matching wits with the gods as they chased the silver treasure. And they had won, goddamn it! They had beaten the gods at their game—Aegir, Loki, Thor, all of them—but they hadn’t beaten the government. They hadn’t beaten the department of fisheries who let in the fish farms, who in turn had stolen the beautiful treasure they were supposed to protect.

He went up forward and released the line that held Silver Lady to the mooring buoy. Just a few years ago she had been tied to the wharf, safe inside the protecting arm of the breakwater, but he could no longer afford to keep her there. Now he could barely afford the rope to tie her up let alone the moorage.

But they weren’t done yet. Harry had been wrong about that. Arne was not ready to give up. He and his Lady would go down fighting.