Zavala, with his dark complexion and thick, straight black hair always combed straight back, could have passed for the maitre d' in a posh Acapulco resort hotel. The slight smile al ways on his lips masked a steely resolve forged in his college days as a middleweight boxer and honed by the frequent challenges of his NUMA assignments. The gregarious and soft spoken marine engineer had thousands of hours piloting helicopters, small jets, and turbo-prop aircraft and easily switched to the cockpit of a race boat. Working with Austin as if they were parts in a precision machine, he took command of the race from the second the referee raised the green starting flag.
They were up on plane at a near-ideal angle and blasted across the start line at one hundred and thirty miles per hour. Every boat had hit the finish line with throttle straight out. Two hard-driven competitors blew out their engines on the first lap, one flipped on the first turn, probably the most dangerous part of any race, and the rest were simply outclassed by the two leaders. The Red Ink rocketed by the others as if they were stuck on fly paper. Only the Flying Carpet kept pace. During the first Catalina Island turn, Zavala had maneuvered the Red Ink around the buoy so that Ali went wide. The F7~ing Carpet had been playing catch-up ever since.
Now the Carpet had taken wing and was coming abreast of the Red Ink. Austin knew of Ali's last-minute switch to a smaller propeller that would be better in rough seas. Austin wished he could trade in his large calm-water propeller. Ali had been smart to listen to his weather sense rather than the forecast.
"I'm cranking her up another notch!" Austin shouted.
"She's at one-forty now," Zavala yelled back. "Wind's up. She'll kite if we don't slow down."
Austin knew a high-speed turn was risky. The twin catamaran sponsons skated across the surface with practically no water resistance. The same design that allowed for high speed over the wave tops also meant wind could get under the hull, lift it in a kiting motion, or, even worse, flip it back onto its deck.
The Flying Carpet continued to gain. Austin's fingertips played over the tops of the throttle levers. He hated to lose. His combativeness was a trait he'd inherited from his father along with the football player physique and eyes the color of coral underwater. One day it would get him killed. But not today. He eased back on the throttles. The maneuver may have saved their lives.
A white-crested four-foot rogue sea was racing in off the port bow, practically snarling as it bore down on them. Zavala saw it angling in, prayed they'd clear it, knew instantly that the timing was all wrong. The wave hooked one of the sponsons like a cat's claw. The Red Ink was launched spinning into space. With lightning reflexes Zavala steered in the direction of the spin like a driver caught on an ice patch. The boat splashed into the water sideways, rolled so the canopies were buried, then righted after a few more yaws.
Ali slowed down, but once he saw they were all right, he gunned his engines, throwing caution to the winds. He wanted to finish as far ahead of Austin as possible. Ignoring the advice of his veteran throttle man, Hank Smith, Ali pushed his boat to the edge. The giant rooster tail arced high in the air for hundreds of feet, and the twin propellers plowed a wide and double furrowed wake for hundreds more.
"Sorry about that," Zavala called out. "Caught a wave."
"Great save. Let's go for second place."
Austin pushed the throttles forward, and with a scream of the engines they were off in hot pursuit.
High above the race course the Italian TV cameraman had spotted the dramatic reversal of the lead boats. The chopper swooped out in a wide circle and came back over the flotilla to hover at midchannel. Pozzi wanted a wide shot of the lone boat speeding past the spectators to the turn buoy for the final approach to San Diego. The cameraman glanced at the sea below
to get his bearings and saw wavelets outlining a large, shiny, grayish object mounding at the surface. A trick of the light. No, there was definitely something there. He caught the attention of the pilot and pointed straight down. "What the hell is that?" the pilot said.
Pozzi aimed the camera at the object and zoomed in with the touch of a button.
"It's a balena," he said as the object came into focus.
"For God's sake, speak English."
"How you say? A whale. "
"Oh, yeah," the pilot replied. "You see them migrating. Don't worry, he'll dive when he hears the boats."
"No," Carlo said with a shake of his head. "I think he's dead. He's not moving."
The pilot put the chopper at a slight angle for a better view. "Hell, you're right. There's another one. I'm counting three-no, four. Damn! They're popping up all over the place."
He switched to the hailing channel. "Come in, San Diego Coast Guard. This is the TV helicopter over the race course. "Emergency"
A voice crackled over the radio. "Coast Guard station at Cabrillo Point. Go ahead."
"I'm seeing whales in the race course."
"Whales?"
"Yeah, maybe a dozen. I think they're dead."
"Roger," the radio man said. "We'll alert the cutter on scene to check them out."
"Too late," the pilot said. "You've got to stop the race."
A tense silence followed. Then: "Roger. We'll try."
A moment later in response to a call from the station, the Coast Guard cutter moved from its post at the turn buoy. Orange signal flares blossomed against the blue sky.
Ali saw neither the flares nor the bloated gray carcass floating in his path until it was too late. He yanked the wheel, missed the obstruction by inches, dodged another body, but could not avoid a third. He veered off, yelling at Hank to cut power.
Smith's fingers flew to the throttle, and the planing hull settled down. The Carpet was still going fifty miles an hour when it hit the carcass. With an explosion of foul air, the body popped like a huge blubbery balloon. The boat careened off on one sponson, Ripped, somersaulted, and miraculously landed right-side up again.
Ali and the throttle man were saved from fractured skulls by their helmets. Working through a black haze, Ali reached for the wheel and tried to turn, but there was no response from the rudder. He called out to the throttle man. Hank was slumped over the throttles.
On the Nepenthe the captain had left the bridge and was down on the deck talking to Gloria Ekhart when the actress leaned over the rail and pointed. "Excuse me, Captain. What's that gold boat doing?"
The Flying Carpet was wallowing like a punch-drunk boxer trying to find a neutral corner. Then the twin bows came around, and the boat straightened out, gained speed, and assumed a trajectory aimed at the yacht's midships. The captain waited for the boat to veer off. It kept coming. Alarmed, he calmly excused himself, stepped aside, and whipped a walkie talkie from his belt. His mental computer was calculating how long it would take the gold boat to hit them.
"This is the captain," he barked into the hand radio. "Get this ship under way!"
"Now, sir? During the race?"
"Are you deaf. Weigh anchor and move this ship out. Now. "
"Move? Where sir?"
They had a snowball's chance in hell of getting under way in time, and his helmsman wanted to play twenty questions.
"Forward," he shouted, close to panic. "Just move it!"
Even as he barked the order the captain knew it was too late. The race boat had already cut the distance in half. He started to herd children to the other side of the yacht. Maybe a few lives would be saved, although he doubted it. The wooden hull would shatter into splinters, fuel would be spilled in a fiery conflagration, and the yacht would go to the bottom within minutes. As the captain grabbed onto a wheelchair with a little girl in it and pushed her across the deck, he yelled at others to do the same. Too frozen by fear to react, Ekhart saw the gold torpedo speeding toward them and instinctively did the only thing she could. She put her arm protectively around her daughter's thin shoulders and held her tight.