Chapter forty-two

Hot-wiring a boat is a lot quicker than hot-wiring a car. On a car, a thief has to remove the left side of the steering column. His screwdriver finds a round cup-like mechanism, and the car starts right up. A common auto-body shop tool called a dent puller is attached to the steering wheel, and the thief wiggles it back and forth until the ignition lock pops. Procedures may vary from car to car, but getting one started without a key is generally not a problem.

On a boat, the engine can be started by hand in the engine compartment. Wires are exposed, sure. But on a boat, it’s more a matter of using a starter button or hand-cranking one or more belt wheels, depending on the model, than crossing wires. A starter button, like the one Sam found on Firefly, is particularly easy and helpful when changing the oil—or chasing bad guys.

Sam untied the dock lines. Within seconds, he was clear of the no-wake zone in front of Provision’s and working his way toward Bald Head Island.

On any other evening, a night on the water—even in a fast boat—was a glorious mingling of fresh air and scents and sights. White Ibis settle down in their tree-top nests like ornaments on a Christmas tree planted on spoil islands created from dredged sands. An occasional dolphin leaps high enough to be seen, even in the brackish Cape Fear River. And the neon yellow-green marsh grass reaches up toward the Crayola orange, purple, and yellow sky, colors brilliant in the setting sun’s wake.

This particular evening, Sam noticed none of it. He veered to the right of Bald Head Island toward the Atlantic’s open waters. The island’s octagonal brick lighthouse, a relic of days when whale oil was carried up spiraling stairs to keep the lamp lit, and the tall black and white column of a lighthouse on Oak Island, could be seen from the channel. An imaginary line strung between the two lighthouses signaled the river’s end and the ocean’s beginning.

Boating around Bald Head is treacherous, even for boatmen familiar with the shifting shoals visible in shallow waters that flail a long serpent’s tail of sand from side to side, depending on which storm hit it last. During the daylight, fishermen pick their way through the channel, mindful that what appears on a chart may not be what’s under their keels. At night, all bets are off.

Sam held his left hand up to the sky, his thumb parallel with the horizon. He noted where the sun was on his ringless ring finger. At this time of the year, each finger between the sun and the horizon represents fifteen minutes. Another hour of daylight, tops.

He flipped the navigational lights on. He scanned the radio for conversations. First to the Coast Guard station, next to the weather station, where a computerized voice referred to as Mechanical Mike sounded off tides, times, and weather forecasts of waters stretching from Norfolk to Georgia. Finally, the scan button reached a frequency most commonly used by recreational boaters. Nothing much to listen to, unless you want to hear news of the catch of the day.

Sam set the radio on scan and listened to snatches of various conversations as he sped along the Oak Island side of the channel. When he saw the initial red open ocean buoy, fear crept up his spine for the first time that day—not for his own safety, but for Molly and Jenny’s. He wondered how far behind he was.

From Firefly’s starboard side came a deep rumbling and a flash of orangey red. The Coast Guard cutter flew past him and waved him off.

Had Hoops said something? Sam ignored their signals to back off and followed in the cutter’s wake for a moment before speeding up. Sam heard their admonition over the radio, but he ignored that, too. They knew who he was; Hoops would have told them. Running alongside the cutter, Sam didn’t bother with pretenses when he scooped up the radio’s hand-held mic and waved it in the air.

“Switch to forty-two,” he tried not to yell.

“Switching forty-two.”

If anyone heard the demand, he wouldn’t know it was a Coast Guard cutter. That’s just what Sam wanted.

A voice shattered the static on channel forty-two. “We’ll take it from here, copy?”

“I hear you. But I will not turn back. They are armed and dangerous, and they got hostages.”

“Concur,” answered the efficient voice. “This is not your ballgame anymore, cowboy. Turn back.”

“I’ll be your backup, but I am not laying off.”

Sam veered back behind the cutter. Firefly was fast, but it didn’t have the tracking devices the cutter had. Sam would let them take the lead to find Seawitch. Sam vowed to be there, too. Sam switched back to scan mode and dropped his pace a little, giving the cutter two hundred yards as it headed due southeast twenty degrees to open water.

Forty-five minutes left until dark engulfed the ocean. If they stayed close to shore, they could follow various towns’ markers and lights. Sam turned on the helm-mounted GPS and watched the numbers increase as he ran in deeper water. There was no radar on board, so he’d have to rely on the cutter’s direction. Sam figured that with these electronics on board, Firefly must have been Andy’s toy for fishing near Frying Pan Shoals. Sam marked his fuel and hoped the gauge was accurate.