“In other words, we wait?”
Cerney nodded. “We wait.”
CHAPTER 27
Cassy Clark wasn’t happy about the west wind they were sailing into. The trade winds in this region were almost always out of the northeast. Any major deviation from that pattern was usually a sign of bad weather in the offing.
But the night sky was cloudless: the stars bright and unwavering. The swells were gentle, with no whitecaps under a moon waxing toward gibbous. None of the usual signs of a coming storm, except for the unseasonal wind direction.
Even so, she was tempted to fire up the single-sideband radio and try for a weather broadcast. She’d have to talk it over with Jon first, though. For all of his wonderful qualities, her hubby had more than a few obsessions, and one of them was battery power. He hoarded electricity like it couldn’t be replaced, as though the wind generator at the top of the mast and the boat’s diesel engine were in imminent danger of simultaneous failure. As though dead batteries in some way equated to mortal danger, despite the fact that electricity wasn’t actually necessary to live comfortably on the boat.
Their food was canned, and didn’t actually require cooking if the propane tank for the stove ran out. The reverse-osmosis water filter could be pumped by hand. The compass was magnetic. On the boat, electricity was a great convenience, but everything vital to their survival could be operated without it.
Jon knew all of that, and yet he couldn’t stop treating electrical power like a life-or-death resource. Cassy sometimes wondered if he had begun to subconsciously associate electricity with ammunition.
She still didn’t know everything about his last firefight: the one that had wiped out so much of his unit. Uncovering the hidden details — the parts Jon never wanted to think about — might take Cassy years of gentle coaxing, assuming that he ever loosened up enough to talk about them. But she knew one crucial part of the story, because it surfaced during the worst of her husband’s nightmares. Pinned down by superior firepower, Jon’s unit had run low on ammo. Jon himself had run out completely.
Cassy had often tried to picture what that must have been like — to load your last magazine in the middle of a desperate battle — to feel the last of your rounds ticking away, one by one. Knowing that the Marines around you were caught in that same dismal countdown, their own final magazines depleting one precious bullet at a time while the enemy continued to spray fusillades of deadly fire. Waiting for that inevitable instant when your M-4 carbine locked on an empty chamber.
Cassy didn’t know what feelings might course through the hearts of combat trained Marines in that circumstance, but all she could imagine were despair, blind panic, and a crushing sense of hopelessness.
And maybe that’s what electrical power was to Jon. Something he could stockpile. A resource that he could squirrel away and protect. A reserve that wouldn’t deplete itself when he needed it, the way the last of his ammunition had finally run out.
Maybe that was a stupid guess. Maybe the obsession had nothing to do with ammunition or Jon’s final battle. But the source was somewhere back in Afghanistan; Cassy was sure of that. And one of these days, she hoped to have some luck in soothing that particular fear.
In the meantime, she’d hold off on using the radio unless she spotted signs of impending weather. She would concentrate on her sailing and ignore the implied threat of the strange west wind.
At the moment, the Foxy Roxy was close-hauled on a starboard tack, but Cassy was thinking about bringing the bow a degree or two closer to the wind. She checked the inhaul, factored the tension against the gentle pull of the helm, and decided to leave the old sailboat right in her current groove. Maybe another half hour on this leg, and then it would be time for a tack to port.
Jon would be up to relieve her at about nine-thirty, so she might leave the tack for him. He was already awake. She could hear him moving around below decks — getting dressed, making coffee, preparing for his shift on the helm.
They were pleasantly familiar sounds. Part of the now comfortable pattern of life on the boat. The clank of the metal coffee pot. The zip and shuffle of feet finding their way into khaki trouser legs. The quiet click of Roxy’s claws on the deck as she observed the minor flurry of activity like a canine overseer. An occasional yawn from Jon as he shook off sleep and brought his mind and body up to speed.
But tonight Cassy heard sounds that were not part of the usual pattern. A yip of pain or surprise from Roxy, followed by frantic thrashing and the sound of a falling body. Then a string of curses from Jon, more confused in tone than angry.
Cassy leaned toward the open companionway. “You okay, honey?”
Jon didn’t answer immediately.
Cassy raised her voice a notch. “Jonnie, is everything okay?”
“I think so,” he said. “Give me a second.” He sounded hesitant. Puzzled.
Without stopping to think, Cassy released the helm. She was vaguely aware of the wheel turning without the pressure of her hand, the bow coming about into the wind, the old boat starting to lose way. She didn’t care. She was through the companionway and down the three steps into the cabin before she even realized that she was moving.
Jon was sitting on the deck with his back against the galley cabinets, rubbing his eyes while Roxy sniffed around him with obvious concern.
Cassy dropped to her knees and put her hands on his shoulders. “Talk to me, Jonnie. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Jon’s hands came away from his face and he began blinking furiously. “Can’t see very well. My vision is blurry. Purple spots in front of my eyes.”
Cassy turned his face toward her own and tried to get a good look at his pupils between blinks. She couldn’t tell much without an ophthalmoscope. “Has this been going on since the blast?”
Jon nodded. “Yeah, but not this bad.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
She sighed and slapped at his shoulder. “You don’t hide things from me, Jon. I thought we had a deal about that.”
“We do,” Jon said softly.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to overreact.”
Cassy shook her head. “I swear to God, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d throw your sorry ass overboard.”
“I outweigh you by ninety pounds.”
“More like eighty-five,” Cassy said. “You think I never learned how to move patients who were twice my weight?”
Jon half-smiled. “There’s a difference between a cooperative patient and an uncooperative Marine.”
She swatted at his shoulder again. “What makes you think you’d be conscious at the time, asshole?”
Before he could respond, she stood up. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
“It’s my turn on the helm,” Jon said.
“Not anymore, it isn’t. You are now officially out of the watch rotation, Mr. Jarhead. Doc’s orders.”
“You can’t single-hand it all the way to Key West.”
“We’re not going to Key West,” Cassy said. “Change in plans. I’m turning this tub around, and we’re heading to Guantanamo.”
“That’s the wrong direction,” Jon said. “Anyway, they won’t let us in. Gitmo is not an open base.”