“A sunken freighter.”
“Oh… wow.”
Jim backed Vagabond away and put her into neutral at Neil’s command.
“She was either sunk by the blast or may have hit the submerged causeway. All we can do is ease forward some more, but we may be near it or on top of it.” Neil left Jim to climb up on the cabin roof to see better.
It was ten minutes later that they spotted the causeway. It emerged in front of them like a long spit of land, which it was, as solid as the rocks that it was made of. Their spotlight revealed, however, that the roadway was shattered and dozens, even hundreds, of burned-out cars gleamed brightly in the ship’s spotlight. No living being responded to their presence.
Neil had Jim swing Vagabond to starboard, and they motored south about two hundred feet from the causeway, Neil and Tony watching for the break in the wall that separated them from the sea. The air was still, and the sight of the endless line of blasted cars, motionless bodies sometimes visible inside them, made the humid air seem even more oppressive. They were all in full foul-weather gear, except that Jim had pushed back his hood.
Tony spotted the end of the causeway first and shouted the information back to Neil, who still kept Vagabond’s heading due south, as if they were going to motor right past it. But when the changes of depth registered by the depthmeter indicated that they were definitely in the middle of the big ship channel, Neil was sure the gap hadn’t been created by the explosion.
“Take her through,” he said quietly to Jim. “And on the other side alter course to due east magnetic.”
“What about speed?” Jim asked.
“Slow her down to five knots. We don’t want to hit something now that we’re so close to getting out.”
As they began motoring through the opening—now the other end of the causeway was also visible in the spotlight off starboard—Jim became aware of the gentle swells of the open sea, lifting Vagabond’s bow like a mother’s gentle hand and then lowering it again, the ship pitching so gracefully that it was like a rocking cradle.
“What’s that?” Tony shouted, pointing now to his right.
When Neil swung the spotlight in that direction, something huge appeared to be thrashing around in the water, sending gigantic bubbles bursting up to the surface not far from the end of the causeway. As Neil held the light on it, they all stared until finally Jim realized what it must be: air escaping from a hole in the undersea automobile tunnel directly beneath them must be bubbling up to the surface. Neil shut off the light with a grim nod.
As Jim slowly altered course to due east, he smiled to himself with the excitement of breaking free. Except for the unlighted buoys, sunken ships, derelicts, fallout, and further explosions, it was all clear sailing from here, he thought almost gaily. Ahead of him he could see only darkness, Tony even now not visible.
Lisa came up out of the main cabin with three cups of water and handed one to Neil and another to Jim.
“Thanks, Lisa, we’re sweltering up here,” Jim said, smiling down at her. “But we’re out of the bay.”
“We’re in the ocean?” she asked him.
“Yep. And no new fallout either.”
Seth Sperling suddenly appeared in the darkness beside them.
“Where are we?” he asked, staring at the dark shape of the causeway still visible astern and off to port.
“That’s what’s left of the northern section of the causeway of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel,” Jim replied, looking forward to where he could just make out Tony crouching at the bow. “We’re out in the ocean.”
“And what’s that boat coming toward us?” Seth asked next, as casually as if they’d been in a crowded, well-lit harbor.
“What?” said Neil, wheeling to face where he saw the little man staring.
A motorboat without its running lights on, which must have been hidden on the seaward side of the causeway, was angling in at them from the darkness of the causeway.
“Get the guns!” Neil hissed at Jim. “Aft cabin. Lisa, get below. Tony!” He shouted forward to the dim figure at the bow.
“What’s up?” Tony asked as he began to amble back aft, stopping near the mast to retrieve the spotlight.
“A boat coming!” Neil snapped back. “May be pirates.”
Neil squinted into the darkness and suddenly saw the motorboat now only thirty feet away and closing fast, its big outboard motor now audible over Vagabond’?, diesel. When it was obvious that the smaller craft had no intention of standing off to identify itself, Neil threw the throttle full forward, and Vagabond slowly responded. Jim returned with the weapons.
“Keep the .22,” Neil whispered fiercely to Jim, taking Macklin’s .45, “and take the helm. Seth, can you use a pistol?”
Wide-eyed, Seth shook his head “No.”
“Then take it forward to Tony. Quick!”
Even as he spoke, he could see the motorboat was already only a few yards away, a twenty-footer with three or four men aboard. Neither boat was showing running lights, and the men on the motorboat had not hailed them or signaled to them in any way. Neil shouted at them but there was no answer.
Crouching in the wheelhouse doorway and certain of danger, Neil fired a warning shot above Vagabond’s combing and over the launch, which had now moved so close to Vagabond that he couldn’t have hit it from the wheelhouse if he’d tried. The thump as the launch careered into Vagabond’s port hull was both heard and felt.
“Get down, Jim!” Neil whispered, watching the combing for the outline of a human figure. He could still hear the roar of the outboard outside the line of his sight, less than fifteen feet away. Crouching down, Jim swung Vagabond sharply to starboard for the moment, tearing the two boats apart. The launch, speeding along on its earlier course, came in sight twenty-five feet off Vagabond’s port side, and Neil fired a second shot, this time to kill, but Jim had swerved back again, throwing off his aim. Feeling sure he hadn’t hit anyone, he watched tensely as the launch quickly closed on Vagabond, disappearing behind her combing.
“Stay below!” Neil suddenly shouted, fearful that Jeanne or Frank, awakened by the shots, might emerge right in the line of fire. Then, again acting instinctively, he ran in a crouch across the wheelhouse out into the opposite cockpit and crawled onto the deck beside the entrance to his aft cabin. As he stared through the blackness at Vagabond’s port side, he suddenly realized that the motorboat had dropped back into Vagabond’s wake and…
The bam-bam-bam-bam-bam of the automatic rifle sent Neil rolling off the deck back into the side cockpit, the slugs slammed through the forward Plexiglas windows of the wheelhouse, and Jim swung the trimaran sharply into another evasive turn to starboard.
Trembling, Neil quickly crept back up to peer astern, but the launch was no longer in their wake; from the sound of the outboard it seemed to be returning to the port side.
Two quick shots rang out from forward, sounding like Tony with the .38, and a vicious bam-bam-bam-bam answered from the automatic rifle.
Jim swerved again, this time into the launch, and the two boats collided with a crash that elicited a scream from one of the attackers. Jim held the trimaran at full port rudder, the two boats crashing together again, and a man suddenly pulled himself up onto the deck behind the port cockpit and .fired two shots at Jim as he crouched at the helm.
Hearing rather than seeing what was happening, Neil leaped aft to get around the wheelhouse, saw the man with the gun, shot him once, and then kept running across his cabin top to fire his last three shots down into the launch, which was speeding along, locked together with Vagabond. Then he dove into the port cockpit, rolling away into the wheelhouse. Jim, squatting down, pulled the wheel now full the other way; Vagabond swept off to starboard.