“Haven’t you been listening to a word I said?” Tupper demanded.
“A bit difficult when you’re muttering half of it.”
Tupper squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he spoke with barely controlled anger. Yet Dwyer thought the anger itself was a kind of control, and what it held the reins on was fear.
“Look, the whole ship’s on edge,” Tupper said. “I get that. But you’ve gotta listen to me, man. Better yet, don’t listen to me. Listen to the ship.”
Dwyer hesitated. Even the arch of an eyebrow right now might be enough to set Tupper off, and he really didn’t relish the idea of a fistfight down here. As it was he had to force himself to keep his breathing steady, keep his heart from racing, and he wasn’t succeeding completely. But Tupper was really losing it.
“Listen to the ship?” Dwyer said, carefully.
Tupper rolled his eyes. “Fuck! I’m not crazy, Dwyer. Come over here.”
He stepped into a narrow space between two large boiler tanks. Dwyer started to follow, then froze. The gap held only shadows, not even wide enough for light to pass through. The boilers hummed. His hands clenched into fists and his throat felt tight. He managed to swallow, then took a long, labored breath.
“Dwyer!” Tupper called from the darkness.
Dwyer took a step back instead of forward. Yet in the space of long seconds, he heard a loud thump. He frowned, distracted by the sound. It came again and he stepped forward.
“Tupper?”
The engineer popped out of the narrow space, and Dwyer jerked backward, startled. The thump came a third and fourth time, in rapid succession, muffled but still echoing low and deep in the boiler room.
“There. Did you hear it?”
Dwyer nodded. “What the hell is that? Is something wrong with the boilers?”
“No, man. It’s not the boilers. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Then the engineer’s rant came back to him, his mutterings about something in the water, banging on the hull.
“That’s coming from outside?” Dwyer asked, incredulous, as he pushed past Tupper and slid between the boilers. His skin crawled and panic threatened, but he kept on.
“Damn right it is,” Tupper said, right behind him. “Something’s knocking. And it wants to come in.”
Past the boilers, Dwyer stopped, waiting, thinking for a second that the sound wouldn’t come again, that Tupper had been wrong and it really was something to do with the engines and the boilers. And how the hell would they get out of there if the boilers exploded?
He laid his hands on the inner surface of the hull.
The knock came again, louder than ever, and he jumped back. “Jesus!”
“What do you think it is?” Tupper asked.
Dwyer stared at his palms, which still tingled from contact with the metal. He backed away farther, pushed past Tupper, slid quickly between the boilers, and quickened his pace as he threaded back through the Antoinette’s heart.
“Dude!” Tupper called, rushing to catch up with him, keeping pace just behind him. “What do you think that is?”
Dwyer still didn’t answer. He hadn’t a clue what could be banging on the Antoinette’s hull, but he had the terrible feeling Tupper was right; it wanted in. And no way did he want to be trapped in the narrow labyrinth belowdecks if it got its wish.
42
Angie sat beside Suarez, up in the wheelhouse, looking out over the hundreds of metal containers stacked on the deck in front of them, and at the ocean beyond. Every few seconds she caught herself glancing to the right, where the windows offered a view of the island and the ruined, sunken ships that clustered around it. But Suarez never wavered. His focus remained on the radar screen, where the image continued to refresh, scanning for any approaching ships. She had thought that he would ask her why she had remained when Dwyer had gone below, but Suarez seemed content to ignore her. Eventually, Angie couldn’t stand the silence.
“Aren’t you scared at all?” she asked.
The old Cuban cocked his head to one side and looked at her. “Pardon me?”
“I mean, you just sit there looking at the radar, calm as anything. We could go to prison. The FBI is probably moving in on us right now. And what happened to the guys with the guns, anyway? ’Cause it sounds like a clusterfuck. That doesn’t make you nervous?”
Angie hadn’t meant to ramble on like that. She only wanted to make conversation, to set Suarez at ease with her presence, hoping he’d step away from the command console and the wheel long enough for her to grab the PLB and set off the beacon. But her fear came tumbling out in the form of words.
Suarez raised his eyebrows. “You gotta be serene, Angela.”
“So you’re a wise old man, now?”
“Not so old,” he said. And maybe he wasn’t at that. The white hair and his innate gravity gave him the appearance of being sixty or more, but his eyes were bright and alive and his skin not so deeply lined. He might actually have been no more than fifty.
“I think serene’s out of reach for me right now,” she admitted.
“Then pray,” Suarez told her.
Angie arched an eyebrow, surprised, but then it occurred to her that she really knew nothing at all about the man.
“You’ve never heard of the Serenity Prayer?”
She shook her head.
“‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’”
A smile stole across her face. “See? You are a wise old man.”
Suarez chuckled. “Don’t push your luck with that ‘old’ business.”
But while they joked about it, the words of the Serenity Prayer were working their way into Angie’s heart and mind. Suarez wanted her to surrender herself to some higher power, to accept that their situation was not only completely fucked, but totally out of their control. Maybe that was true for him, but not for her. She had already taken steps to change her circumstances, and serenity be damned.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m not so afraid anymore.”
“My pleasure.”
He nodded, but his attention had returned to the radar screen. Angie glanced past him at the PLB, and knew the time had come. Single-minded and loyal, Suarez would not be easily distracted, which called for a more direct approach. With real regret, she looked around the wheelhouse for something to hit him with. If she knocked him out, she could set off the beacon and then go find somewhere to hide until the FBI showed up. There were a hundred little corners she could hole up in belowdecks, around the ballast tanks and boilers and engines. She could hide in a lifeboat, maybe even find a place among the containers out on the deck, or slip into an unlocked one.
A metal fire extinguisher hung by the door. The moment she laid her eyes on it, Angie felt a pang of regret. Her hands already began to cringe away from the action. But thoughts of prison could overcome a great deal of reluctance, and she forced herself out of the seat.
“I’ll see you later,” she said. “Thanks.”
Suarez only grunted, barely glancing up to acknowledge her departure.
Angie walked toward the door. Halfway there she froze, as Miguel Rio appeared on the landing outside the wheelhouse. He spotted her and frowned as he yanked the door open and stepped inside.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be off banging Dwyer somewhere?”
A rush of anger flooded through her and Angie gratefully let it carry her away. This was familiar territory.
“Fuck you. Who woke you up on the asshole side of bed this morning?” she snapped, cocking her head and crossing her arms, daring him to fight back.