Galen came up from below. Lucy throttled up gently in reverse and they backed out of the slip. As she turned the wheel, the boat swung out into the bay.
The hard guy gave them a casual salute and, hesitating, she waved back. That was probably the biggest show of emotion he knew how to give.
Twilight was about an hour away. She swallowed. Was she up to this? She’d sailed at night only once, when she and her father had torn a sail and come in late. And she’d never sailed in weather in the dark. Let’s hope Galen is wrong about the storm, she thought. She turned the boat directly into the wind to keep them from moving, and cut the motor.
“Time for a quick course in sailing words while we rig her up.”
Galen was an even quicker study than she expected. He obviously knew lines and sails, and some words were the same: “mast” and “starboard,” for instance. The biggest problem was, of course that back in his day ships didn’t have advanced hull design and triangular sail configuration that allowed modern boats to tack or sail close-hauled. And they had no wheel. They used tillers. That meant she was going probably to have to captain this thing. If he would let her. She pulled the mainsail out of its bright blue canvass housing. Woad. He’d say it was dyed with woad.
They put the battens in, fastened the tack and the clew, attached the halyard. He hauled it up the mast. No sign of stiffness in his shoulder. Or he concealed it well. She pointed to the other winches used to haul and hold the sails in place when they were filled with wind and told him they were called grinders. She showed him how to grind and feed the line in at the same time. Galen got the idea immediately. In a racing boat there’d be a crew person for each of those tasks for each grinder, but he was going to have to do it all. She had him practice a couple of times. He had it down in no time. With those shoulders, he’d be a great grinder. If his strength lasted.
Was he up to this? “Are you well?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“I am mighty.” He grinned. “Better than before.”
Well, she had to trust him. There wasn’t anyone else. She tossed him the outhaul line and pointed to the cleat on the side. He tied it off with several deft wraps and moved automatically up to the jib, asking questions about what things were for, how the sails worked. Jake had the jib rigged on a roller furler, so all they had to do was haul one line. He’d planned for fast getaways, never knowing they wouldn’t be his own. She wasn’t going to imagine what Jake looked like after being beaten to death and left in the water overnight. Too many episodes of CSI. Not fair, she wanted to scream.
She pushed down thoughts of Jake. He would have to wait for mourning.
She tried to explain to Galen about the points of sail and how tacking worked to let you sail into the wind. You always had to tack out of the Gate. A wind was rising from N-NW ahead of what might or might not be a storm. He listened, nodding, asking a question or two.
The feeling that this was just impossible was getting stronger. Two people sailing in weather through the treacherous currents of the Golden Gate with night coming on?
But there was no choice. No choice at all.
It was barely twenty minutes later when she put her hands on her hips and scanned their work for anything she’d missed. They’d made good time getting her rigged in view of the fact that one of them was inexperienced at modern sailboats. Both the mainsail and the jib were luffing, making a soft, ruffling sound as they flapped, head into the wind. Tiny storm sails were stacked where she and Galen could get at them in the cockpit next to the hatch below. Jake had, of course, outfitted the Camelot with foul-weather gear. Lucy stood at the wheel. Galen had accepted that without complaint. Points for him.
“Okay,” she said. “Back the jib.” She motioned to the forward sail and pointed to the left. He trimmed the sail with the line that would pull the jib over to the left. As the wind filled it, the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched under his Henley shirt where he held the line. She turned the wheel. The bow moved to starboard on the port tack, out of the no-sail zone. Things must happen quickly now. “Trim the mainsail,” she called, and pointed right. He nodded, a smile lighting his face. He winched the mainsail just taut enough as the wind came full on the jib.
He was already on the move to the jib line when she called for him to trim it. He slacked the line that held it in the backed position, switched lines, winched it tight until it caught the wind in the new position. That was one perfectly trimmed sail, just off luffing to maximize the use of the wind. Guess he did know wind and water. The boat began to pick up momentum. She’d keep it on a wide reach for maximum speed. Damn Jake for keeping the boat up in this backwater. It was a long way down and around the point to the Gate. Full out, how fast could this size boat go? Maybe nine knots? And that only until they started having to tack against wind and current in the Gate. The Gate was tough in the best of times.
She wouldn’t think about that. Because they had to get out of here and they had many hours of sailing ahead of them. Just because they were on a boat didn’t mean they were safe. She wouldn’t win a chase with Coast Guard powerboats. She wouldn’t feel safe even after they were out in the open ocean.
But if they made it—if they escaped Casey’s clutches—then what? She wasn’t sailing across the open Pacific to Hawaii, probably not ever, but definitely not in March with Pacific storms still slamming Northern California. Mexico maybe, or South America, where they could keep close enough to land to assuage her nerves. Galen would get a chance to learn Spanish.
That didn’t feel right.
Of course it didn’t. Even though she had Galen, it was her responsibility to sail this thing out into open water in heavy weather. She knew better than anybody that she probably wasn’t up to that.
They were sailing south down what was technically called San Pablo Bay toward the narrows between Richmond and San Rafael that separated it from San Francisco Bay proper. They were practically on a run, with the wind filling their sails from just off their rear. Clouds rolled up over the hills behind her. She had Galen pull both the jib and the mainsail out almost like wings to catch that rising wind.
Galen was grinning like he’d just seen a Valkyrie as he looked up to survey his handiwork. “This boat is fast, Lucy. She sails sweet.”
Lucy just hoped it was fast enough.
Chapter 20
Damn pussy scientist, Casey thought. He goes off on his own without telling anybody when, wonder of wonders, they finally got a real tip. He tries to play the hero. And he doesn’t even take a gun. So the Viking beats him to shit and sends him packing. How stupid can you be?
Now he’d spooked the quarry. Right when they had been about to close in.
Not that it hadn’t already been a frustrating day. That bastard Lowell had a heart condition. He knew he could sneak out of the interrogation session by fucking dying. “Sorry, Colonel, gotta go,” he’d said when the chest pain hit him. His little smile as his eyes rolled up in his head made Casey want to stab someone again and again. They’d tried like hell to revive Lowell. But it was no good. Still, assuming he had spirited the fugitives away, Casey figured they’d need false documents. There were only a few guys around whom someone like Lowell would trust. It had taken all day, but they’d found the forger. They were just about to sweat him.