I ascended a flight of steel grid stairs cantilevered off a floating building marked MARINA OFFICE — Check In Here. On the second floor a corpulent young man sat behind a counter gazing at a computer screen. He glanced up at my approach. “Right mate, how long for how long?”
“Actually, I’m looking for Reg.” I said.
“He got the sack.”
I stared, trying to think.
“Got the sack, mate. Don’t work here no more. So, how many nights? Nothing long term.” He tossed a photocopied rate sheet on the counter. “That your Beneteau? Nice work those Frenchies do.”
“It’s a Beneteau. As for how many nights, I need to speak to Reg.”
“So you says.” He waved a meaty arm at Shadow and hunched closer to the window. “Last port? You got EU clearance?”
“Turkey.” I ignored the part about clearance.
He peered through duct-taped binoculars at Shadow. Anna had climbed on deck to secure the lines. “Blimey, you’re those Ruskies!”
“I’m Canadian.” I backed toward the door, still clutching our documents.
“S-H-A-D-O-W,” he read out. “Yeah, that’s this whole ‘Reg’ thing. I gotta call this in.” He dropped the binoculars and scrambled for the phone.
I backed through the door onto the steel grid landing.
“Stop. You can’t leave.” Rushing me, still holding the receiver, the phone clattered across the floor.
Half way down the stairs I swung over the rail, taking the last two meters in free fall. “Untie now!” I shouted to Anna. “Throw the lines. Leave em!” I sprinted down the dock, leaped onto our drifting yacht and shoved the throttle forward.
Shadow belched bluish-black smoke and started to cough before roaring to life. Water washed onto the dock. On deck, Anna fell backwards. “What’s happening?”
“We’re screwed! Last I heard from Tom was, if anything went wrong our fail-safe was Spanish territory — over there.” I pointed toward Spanish waters on the other side of an airport’s runway. It sliced across the peninsula into the bay. “Said Spain probably won’t cooperate with Gibraltar. Let’s hope he’s right!”
“What went wrong? Where is the man you were supposed to meet?” Anna crab-crawled along the deck to the cockpit. Police sirens rose and fell over the roar of the engine.
“Tom messed up. We’ve been burned. They bloody knew we were coming!”
A steep slope of boulders marked the end of the runway. The western approach for planes was cordoned off by floating markers extending further out. I saw macaroni and cheese colored buildings and anchored yachts to the north, through the approach. Something big was lined up on final, flaps, slats and wheels down. I steered hard right, into the no-go approach zone. An unlikely collision with a jetliner was the least of my worries.
In Spanish water, Anna kept Shadow idling among the anchored boats. I watched for speedboat activity from Gibraltar and was ready to run Shadow onto the beach at full throttle and make a run for Spain if we had to. We’d take our best shot at outrunning the bastards before giving up. Mad as hell, I wired the solar panels to the satellite modem and sent Tom a spirited email.
His response was almost instantaneous.
Situation compromised. Don’t know how but easy guess with Gibraltar the last stop before the big pond. The way I see it there might be ‘company’ coming and you’re going nowhere in that boat, way it is. You still have fuel? Find a Spanish dock and let Anna off to make a refugee claim in Spain before it’s too late. You might lose the boat but it’s better than losing your lives.
I showed the message to Anna. “He wants me to make a refugee claim in Spain?”
“Yeah, it’s dangerous to cross the Atlantic in a small boat and with the state this one is in, it’s more than likely we won’t make it.”
“Make it?” Anna repeated.
“Alive, won’t make it alive. In other words, end up dead.” I took a breath and started to rattle off the litany of woes. “Shadow’s a mess. We have no real navigation equipment, no charts, no water, electricity, radar… no autopilot and don’t forget that the stupid wind vane crumbled and furthermore, I don’t know how much fuel we have. I’d think that’s why Tom suggests giving up this fight, making a refugee claim, and living to fight another day.” I waved toward the Strait of Gibraltar. “In Spain we’ll be at the mercy of officials — they probably won’t kill us. Out there we’re at the mercy of the ocean and it probably will.”
“Will what?”
“Kill us. It’s dangerous.”
“I don’t know what’s more dangerous: to be at the mercy of people or at the mercy of the sea.” She wasn’t looking for an answer.
I wanted to make sure Anna knew what she was considering and went on. “It’s already September — the height of hurricane season. I don’t worry about me. I’m not afraid of my own death, but I worry about you. One thing I know for sure is that I can’t watch you die. I won’t be responsible for killing you.” My own feelings scared me. Anna looked suddenly vulnerable. It was at odds with the how I had grown to completely trust her with my life and our safety crossing the Mediterranean.
“Jess, believe me. I don’t want to die, but don’t you think we can do this? Don’t you believe in us like you have always done? It seems there is nothing impossible for us. Look how far we have gone already! We crossed the entire Mediterranean from east to west. It is a huge distance. Nobody in Russia would believe me if I told them we did this. We must go on. The last island is Cape Verde, from there to the first Caribbean island is only a couple thousand nautical miles — just another Mediterranean.”
I looked at Anna, clinging to the wheel, pleading with me to say okay to a voyage that would, in all likelihood, kill us. “That’s no sea, no Mediterranean out there. It’s an ocean, a huge body of water. Nothing stops the waves and they get huge. There is nothing to stop weather fronts and storms from getting bigger. They sweep across the ocean surface like runaway trains, gathering speed and force until they run you down. It won’t be like gales in Greece. Forty-five knots is nothing. A hurricane can pack winds of eighty, ninety even over a hundred knots. That’s faster than any car on any highway you’ve ever been on.”
“So, that’s the Atlantic, it’s a risk. We just don’t know. What are the chances of meeting a hurricane? Pretty small…”
“Pretty good, actually.”
“Who says it has to kill us?”
“But the boat’s a wreck, Anna.”
“So, fix it! You can fix anything. Just to the next islands. The Canary islands are maybe ten days from here. We might survive the Atlantic but what are my chances in Spain?”
“You won’t be dead. You will have a life!” I was pretty sure I wanted to take on the ocean and was also confidant Anna would insist, at least I hoped she would, but I was afraid of taking on the responsibility alone.
“What kind of life? What do I know about this country? How do I know what they will do to me? Why do we think they wouldn’t send me back to Russia? I don’t know answers to all these questions, but I know the sea. I can sense its moods, its weather and I know how to sail. I can react to the sea and deal with what it throws at me, I can understand it, it makes sense, it has no malice toward me — it just is. But in the hands of immigration officers I am at the mercy of people. I cannot change or affect my fate. I am trapped, powerless — a victim.” She let go of the wheel and bent toward the shore, hands out as if imploring it to answer her. “Can you tell me that I will be safe there?”