If the seas had been heavy, the Quest wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Even so, the boat landed hard. Stella fell, and Storm would have if she hadn’t had a tight hold on the ladder.
The boat came to rest at a tilt, its hull shrieking with agony. Its engines were still in neutral, but Storm could hear an uneven thrum that wasn’t there before. The diesels caught and sputtered, as if water was leaking into the engine compartment.
She knew nothing about mechanics, but she knew the ocean. They had very little time before a big wave came and lifted the boat. Then the Quest would either go out to sea or it would collide with the razor-sharp lava, where it would smash into shards of fiberglass and engine parts.
“Stella, is there a bilge pump?” she called out.
“Yeah,” came a muffled reply. “I’m looking for the switch.”
Stella was successful; Storm heard the bilge go on. With luck, it would flush enough water out of the hull to lighten the boat. Then Storm would gun the engines and hope for a wave big enough to raise the hull, but not smash them against the rocks. And hope the engines worked. And hope she judged the ocean right. And—
“Stella, is there a radio?”
Stella was out of the cabin, holding tightly to the base of the ladder. “I tried it, but the light doesn’t go on.”
With that statement, the bilge pump stopped. The electrical system had shorted out.
“Shit,” Storm said. Stella echoed her, then hustled back to the cabin to jiggle wires, look for leaks, or just say prayers.
Storm squinted into the black vastness of the ocean and hoped she and Stella would get the engine started before it was too late. In the waning light, it was becoming more difficult to anticipate incoming surf.
What she saw instead was a spectacle that gave hope wings. The bright lights of a good-sized vessel advanced, still far enough away to be visible over the spiky promontory of the bay. Against the indigo sky, the long, sleek vessel looked like a race horse approaching the gate.
“Hey!” Keiko’s voice called from below and aft. “Someone’s coming.”
Storm turned around to confirm, and saw a different sight. Keiko couldn’t yet see the seaward craft; her attention was directed toward a small boat that bounded over the waves from shore. The tiny running lights of a dory flickered like uncertain fireflies and its engine shrilled like a cornered hornet. The two men driving the little vessel had the motor maxed.
More lights appeared overhead, accompanied by the boisterous whopping of helicopter rotors. Someone on shore had noticed their struggle and had called for help.
The Coast Guard excels at sea rescues. The helicopter lowered a trained crewman and a stretcher onto the deck of the Quest, and the crewman—who turned out to be a woman—strapped Ken in and got him carefully hoisted into the belly of the craft. Billy wanted to go with him, but the rescuer nixed the request. She took Damon, whose shoulder was painful and swollen, instead.
“Anyone else unable to use their arms or legs?”
The answer was an uneasy negative.
“The cutter will evacuate the rest of you.”
The crewwoman then gave the group a casual salute and a signal to her colleagues, who pulled her up to the helicopter.
By this time, the Coast Guard cutter had launched a Zodiac, and its skipper pulled to the Quest’s port side.
“How many people on this boat?” he asked.
“Seven.” Storm counted heads. Damon and Ken had left in the helicopter, and Stella and Billy were stepping in the Zodiac. “Where’s Lara?”
Keiko whipped around and without a word, darted back into the dark cabin. A moment later, she re-emerged with Lara, who was still wrapped in a towel. Waiflike, her dark eyes peered out at the group and came to rest on the Coast Guard officer.
“Dad?” she said in the voice of a ten-year-old. “Did we get him?”