Hatteras Blue (14 page)

Hirsch moved after Galloway, looking glum. He'd noticed she took early mornings unenthusiastically. They made their way forward, holding tight to lifelines and handrails as the boat pitched clumsily about. Galloway knelt, then stretched out over the starboard bow, inflating the buoy. The red-striped plastic popped and crackled as air hissed into it from the tank. As the last wrinkle disappeared he twisted the valve closed and began screwing an aluminum rod and flag to its top.

She held the sphere as he sorted out line and bent on a five-pound mushroom anchor. Minutes later the first drops spatted around them as they hurried into the enclosed pilothouse. Keyes pulled the sliding door shut behind them as rain began to lash the deck outside. It was a cramped space for four people.

"I'll take it," said Galloway, squeegeeing water from his eyebrows with his hand. He put the engines back in gear and spun the wheel left. The rudder hit the stops and he held it there. The boat began a tight circle to port inside the gray tent of the squall.

Galloway glanced at Keyes across the cramped wheelhouse. He was braced against the bulkhead, eyes closed, his head nodding with each roll. Well, nothing anyone could do about that. Every man had to fight his stomach for himself. He checked his instruments, his eye lingering for a moment on the fuel gauge. The Gulf Stream had cut their effective speed on the way south. These seas would increase fuel consumption, too.

Eventually they'd have to head for one of the inlets to gas up. Morehead City, he thought, might be the best, though Hatteras Village or Ocracoke were closer. But he wouldn't have to worry about that for a while.

And now they'd arrived. Out of the inchoate rain-mist ahead the buoy reappeared, lifted on a gray-green swell. It was time to start looking for Keyes's ... whatever. Galloway rubbed his back, wincing, and stared out the rain-smeared windshield.

"It seems to be letting up a little," said Hirsch.

"It hasn't started yet," he muttered, glancing at the barometer. His frown deepened. Twenty-eight and fifty-hundredths inches. And the last weather bulletin had been a small craft warning. There was a blow coming, all right. Impossible to tell how soon, or how bad.

"What's wrong, Tiller?"

"We may be in for some heavy weather," he said to them all. "If this needle keeps dropping, I might want to run for shore. We can come out again in a couple of days."

"No," said Keyes.

"What's that?"

"We're not going back." The blond man opened the door and looked out on deck. The squall was passing and a fine gray fog hung over the heaving sea.

"Take the wheel, Bern," said Galloway. "All right. Out." The pilothouse door slammed, and with none too gentle a hand he propelled his client along the rain-slippery afterdeck.

"What is this?" snapped Keyes, whirling suddenly to face him. "Get your hands off me, Galloway. Now."

He let go, just slowly enough, and leaned toward Keyes. An outskirt of the squall spattered them suddenly with cold rain. "Listen here, mister. You won't tell me what we're looking for. Okay, we've discussed that, you've made your position clear. But let me acquaint you with some of the facts of life on this boat.

I run her. Not you. I'll stay out as long as you can pay me—
as long as its safe.
When I decide it isn't, we go in. Got that?"

Keyes's blue eyes had turned flat. He reached back with one hand, clutching the gunwale white-fingered as the boat hung on the edge of a roll.

There were no more words. But words didn't matter now. Galloway leaned against the slope of the deck, near fascination despite his own anger. It was as if two men were struggling behind those sea-fatigued eyes. One of them fought for control, for rationality. The other was murderous and not quite sane.

The hatch slid open and Shad Aydlett loomed out. At his appearance the violence in the other yielded suddenly, visibly. Keyes nodded. "All right," he said, so quietly Galloway barely caught it. "Of course. You're the captain, Tiller. But I have to ask two things. First, that you not push me, physically or—otherwise."

"Sorry."

"And second, that we keep searching for as long as possible. For weeks if necessary. Even if it means discomfort, for me or the others."

"That's what you're paying me for."

"Then we understand each other." Keyes turned toward the sea, staring into the oncoming waves as if trying to see beneath them. "Rain's stopped. Can we get started?"

"Yeah, let's do that."

Standing before the chart table, taking a sighting on the tossing speck of the buoy, Galloway considered that last exchange. Keyes looked green, but seasickness didn't explain it all. The longer he spent with him, the more he realized there was something strange about the man. Something that was not in balance. And now he was under strain of some kind. From outside, or from within?

It might be fear. Fear of whoever had tried to destroy
Victory.
Keyes knew who they were, all right. But what else was hidden behind those protuberant eyes, wide and expressionless, hard as submerged rock, blue as the shoaling Caribbean?

I don't know enough to speculate even, Galloway thought again, picking up a pencil to tick the beginning of the first run. If I knew who he was—or what he's out here after—then I could guess. But I just don't.

Maybe it wasn't important who he was, what he was after, or whether it even existed. The essential thing, as always, was the money. As of that morning Keyes owed him $900. Enough to clear up Jack's medical bills already. After that he'd be in profit. Even with the chart, it could take them weeks to find whatever Keyes was after. Galloway grinned as if through a bad sunburn. Five years before he hadn't sweated the c-notes. It had been easy green, and plenty of it. The golden ticket, the milk run north.

It might be like that again. The more he saw of Keyes, the more convinced he was that the man was serious; someone like this didn't waste time chasing rainbows. If there really was something valuable out here ...

Forget it, boy, he warned himself then. There's no easy money. No free lunch. You paid too much for thinking that before.

He thought of his father then. He bent to the chart table, and his pencil sliced a scar across the face of the deep.

It was late in the afternoon of their third day at sea Their time had settled into the routine of watch, meal, sleep, watch. The seas had moderated, then increased again. The barometer had bottomed, recovered, and then declined. The air warmed to the high eighties and the overcast opened to an occasional thunderhead under blazing sky. The humidity was solid as a hot ice cube.

Bernie was on the flying bridge,
sprawled
over a chair with an arm on the wheel and
one
bare leg dangling from the open window. She'd been there alone for three hours. Her breasts swung nearly free under the tiny bandeau of the new tiger-stripe bikini. Her bare shoulders were flecked with sweat. Her other clothes were getting dirty. She hadn't brought much aboard, they'd gotten underway too fast.

It's so hot, she thought. But anyway she was getting some tanning time in. She needed it. Among the college girls at the Nags Head beach she'd felt like the only bar of white chocolate in a Perugina display.

She blinked, yawned, and looked from the compass to the echo sounder. Nothing. It penned a monotonous line that dropped slowly as they wallowed eastward. Every so often a bump interrupted it, but the line always smoothed again into flat bottom. There was plenty of time to think. And she had to think. Especially about Tiller Galloway.

They'd met two months before, in the office the Dare County Board of Corrections maintained in Manteo for probation and parole counseling. He was her first client and she'd been nervous. Galloway, sitting with her in the bare room, had seen that and taken over. Put her at ease. Told her what she needed to know about him. Made it simple.

That alone put her on his side. But the more she found out about Lyle Galloway III, the more puzzled she became.

They'd gone over the facts first. Charge: smuggling. Verdict: guilty. Sentence: eight years. Served four years, paroled to two years discretionary. Current employment: salvage diver.

Second: the background. Good family. No, excellent family, known up and down the Banks for seamanship and courage for at least a hundred years. Decent work in high school, college, and ROTC. And to all appearances a good record in the Coast Guard. Until Vietnam.

Third: the man. Facing him across the parson's table in the counseling room, she had felt both the power of his personality and his profound alienation. She'd tried to reconstruct his emotional picture. His father was dead, he would feel, because of him. He was estranged from his family and friends, except for Jack Caffey. Jobs would be hard to find, money would be scarce; the words
convicted felon
did not figure well on employment applications.

In many ways, she thought, the parolee was like a forcibly dried-out alcoholic. He faced the temptation every day to slip back into crime. Of course the slippery way downward opened at every man's feet. But for the ex-convict, unlike those who'd always observed the law, crime was not unthinkable. It was a path he knew. Once lost, innocence, like virginity, could never be regained.

And prison made it worse. She personally thought the penitentiary system promoted the criminal life. Not only were prisons training grounds; they acted in a more subtle way: To those incarcerated other criminals became peers, became their standards of comparison for day-to-day conduct and even for right and wrong.

The parole officer's job was to counteract everything the parolee had picked up in prison, and to readapt him to normal life. Counsel him, build confidence, help him find work and new companions. And also to check on him: drop in on him at home, at work; interview employers and Mends; find out how he spent his time. She was supposed to be half friend, half jailer. It was a narrow line to walk.

But she felt she could make a difference here. That it was worth putting in the extra time. Tiller Galloway was a man at the edge. He could decide for evil or good. She'd try as hard as she could to bring him through that decision. But it was a choice that on some not too distant day he would have to make for himself.

She brushed away a fly. Several of them had accompanied the boat on the dash out of Hatteras, and they were permanent passengers now. She checked the compass, the sea ahead and behind, the sounder. Nothing. The clouds moved steadily overhead and the seas, looking glazed, came steadily in from the green emptiness of the Atlantic.

Her thoughts moved on to the two other men aboard. Shad Aydlett. She'd changed her first impression of him as a roughneck. Tiller had been right; that was only his rough clothes, his size, and his island accent, unfamiliar to her ears. The black man was unfail-ingly polite to her. But he watched her. No, not just me, she thought; he is comfortable with no one; he will not even sleep belowdecks; he watches all of us, Tiller, Keyes too.

Keyes ... she thought then, for the hundredth time since
Victory
left Hatteras, of the bomb.

She shifted on the seat. When she'd calmed down from the explosion, and from Galloway's uncooperative attitude, she'd thought about what to do. Her first impulse had been to call the Coast Guard on Tiller's radio and report it. It didn't have anything to do with Galloway. His denial, along with the note, convinced her of that. This new man, this Aydlett, had apparently invited himself along only the day before—and besides, he'd hardly want to blow
himself
up.

So the murder attempt had been aimed at Keyes.

But it was also true that informing the authorities would involve Galloway—inevitably, given his record and parole status. That had influenced her decision. She admitted that. But it wasn't the whole reason. No, she told herself, I made the right choice. I'll find out about this Keyes myself, find out what he's up to. And then I'll decide what to do.

Something called her away from her thoughts. She brushed away the fly again and glanced out and down. The sea slid slowly by, furrowed with steady swells. The horizon was empty. Yet something had interrupted her. She glanced at the sounder. That was it. The stylus had squeaked as it jumped, making a heavy line with lighter squiggles unraveling around it.

"Hold it, Bern," she muttered to herself. The bow had dropped off a few degrees while she watched the sonar. She brought it back, steadied up again on course, then looked back at the trace. The line dropped back to flat bottom as the boat churned on at three knots, corkscrewing as waves shouldered her upward.

She twisted and looked aft and down. Galloway sat nodding in the cockpit, a can in his hand. Aydlett lay on the bow, a towel over his eyes, to all appearances asleep. Keyes was not in sight. Somewhere below, she guessed, probably in his bunk. He'd had the helm through the midnight to six. She grabbed the throttle, untouched since she'd taken over, and revved it twice.

Galloway glanced up. She waved. "Tiller! Come look at the trace. I think we found something."

He swilled what remained in the can, dropped it into the life jacket locker, and came deliberately up the ladder. He leaned over her to check the trace. She caught the warmth of his breath on her bare shoulder, caught too the smell of beer.