CHAPTER 20
Depressurization
It was after four when Kelly pulled into the marina. He backed the Scout to the transom of his boat and got out to open the cargo hatch after checking the darkness for spectators, of which, thankfully, there were none.
'Hop,' he told Billy, and that he did. Kelly pushed him aboard, then directed him into the main salon. Once there, Kelly got some shackles, regular marine handware, and fastened Billy's wrists to a deck fitting. Ten minutes more and he had cast off, heading out to the Bay, and finally Kelly allowed himself to relax. With the boat on autopilot, he loosed the wires on Billy's arms and legs.
Kelly was tired. Moving Billy from the back of the VW into the Scout had been harder than he'd expected, and at that he'd been lucky to miss the newspaper distributor, dumping his bundles on street corners for the paper boy to unwrap and deliver before six. He settled back into the control chair, drinking some coffee and stretching by way of reward to his body for its efforts.
Kelly had the lights turned way down so that he could navigate without being blinded by the internal glow of the salon. Off to port were a half-dozen cargo ships tied up at Dundalk Marine Terminal, but very little in his sight was moving. There was always something relaxing about the water at a time like this, the winds were calm, and the surface a gently undulating mirror that danced with lights on the shore. Red and green lights from buoys blinked on and off while telling ships to stay out of dangerous shallows. Springer passed by Fort Carroll, a low octagon of gray stone, built by First Lieutenant Robert E. Lee, US Army Corps of Engineers; it had held twelve-inch rifles as recently as sixty years before. The orange fires of the Bethlehem Steel Sparrow's Point Works glowed to the north. Tugboats were starting to move out of their basins to help various ships out of their berths, or to help bring new ones alongside, and their diesels growled across the flat surface in a distant, friendly way. Somehow that noise only emphasized the pre-dawn peace. The quiet was overwhelmingly comforting, just as things should be in preparation for the start of a new day.
'Who the fuck are you?' Billy asked, relieved of his gag and unable to bear the silence. His arms were still behind him, but his legs were free, and he sat up on the deck of the salon.
Kelly sipped his coffee, allowing his tired arms to relax and ignoring the noise behind him.
'I said, who the fuck are you!' Billy called more loudly.
It was going to be a warm one. The sky was clear. There were plenty of stars visible, with not even a hint of gathering clouds. No 'Red Sky at Morning' to cause Kelly concern, but the outside temperature had dipped only to seventy-seven, and that boded ill for the coming day, with the hot August sun to beat down on things.
'Look, asshole, I want to know who the fuck you are.'
Kelly shifted a little in the wide control chair, taking another sip of his coffee. His compass course was one-two-one, keeping to the southern edge of the shipping channel, as was his custom. A brightly lit tug was coming in, probably from Norfolk, towing a pair of barges, but it was too dark to see what sort of cargo they bore. Kelly checked the lights and saw that they were properly displayed. That would please the Coast Guard, which wasn't always happy with the way the local tugs operated. Kelly wondered what sort of life it was, moving barges up and down the Bay. Had to be awfully dull doing the same thing, day in and day out, back and forth, north and south, at a steady six knots, seeing the same things all the time. It paid well, of course. A master and a mate, and an engineer, and a cook - they had to have a cook. Maybe a deckhand or two. Kelly wasn't sure about that. All taking down union wages, which were pretty decent.
'Hey, okay. I don't know what the problem is, but we can talk about it, okay?'
The maneuvering in close was probably pretty tricky, though. Especially in any kind of wind, the barges had to be unhandy things to bring alongside. But not today. Today it wouldn't be windy. Just hotter than hell. Kelly started his turn south as he passed Bodkin Point, and he could see the red lights blinking on the towers of the Bay Bridge at Annapolis. The first glow of dawn was decorating the eastern horizon. It was kind of sad, really. The last two hours before sunrise were the best time of the day, but something that few ever bothered to appreciate. Just one more case of people who never knew what was going on around them. Kelly thought he saw something, but the glass windsheld interfered with visibility, and so he left the control station and went topside. There he lifted his marine 7 x 50s, and then the microphone of his radio.
'Motor Yacht Springer calling Coast Guard forty-one-boat, over.'
'This is Coast Guard, Springer. Portagee here. What are you doing up so early, Kelly? Over.'
'Carrying out my commerce on the sea, Oreza. What's your excuse? Over.'
'Looking out for feather merchants like you to rescue, getting some training done, what do you think? Over.'
'Glad to hear that, Coast Guard. You push those lever-things towards the front of the boat - that's the pointy part, usually - and she goes faster. And the pointy part goes the same way you turn the wheel - you know, left to go left, right to go right. Over.'
Kelly could hear the laughter over the FM circuit. 'Roger, copy that, Springer, I will pass that along to my crew. Thank you, sir, for the advice. Over.'
The crew on the forty-one-foot boat was howling after a long eight hours of patrol, and doing very little. Oreza was letting a young seaman handle the wheel, leaning on the wheelhouse bulkhead and sipping his own coffee as he played with the radio mike.
'You know, Springer, I don't take that sort of guff off many guys. Over.'
'A good sailor respects his betters, Coast Guard. Hey, is it true your boats have wheels on the bottom? Over.'
'Ooooooo,' observed a new apprentice.
'Ah, that's a negative, Springer. We take the training wheels off after the Navy pukes leave the shipyard. We don't like it when you ladies get seasick just from looking at them. Over!'
Kelly chuckled and altered course to port to stay well clear of the small cutter. 'Nice to know that our country's waterways are in such capable hands, Coast Guard, 'specially with a weekend coming up.'
'Careful, Springer, or I'll hit you for a safety inspection!'
'My federal tax money at work?'
'I hate to see it wasted.'
'Well, Coast Guard, just wanted to make sure y'all were awake.'
'Roger and thank you very much, sir. We were dozing a little. Nice to know we have real pros like you out here to keep us on our toes.'
'Fair winds, Portagee.'
'And to you, Kelly. Out.' The radio frequency returned to the usual static.
And that took care of that, Kelly thought. It wouldn't do to have him come alongside for a chat. Not just now. Kelly secured the radio and went below. The eastern horizon was pink-orange now, another ten minutes or so until the sun made its appearance.
'What was that all about?' Billy asked.
Kelly poured himself another cup of coffee and checked the autopilot. It was warm enough now that he removed his shirt. The scars on his back from the shotgun blast could hardly have been more clear, even in the dim light of a breaking dawn. There was a remarkable long silence, punctuated by a deep intake of breath.
'You're...'
This time Kelly turned, looking down at the naked man chained to the deck. 'That's right.'
'I killed you,' Billy objected. He'd never gotten the word. Henry hadn't passed it along, deeming it to be irrelevant to his operation.
'Think so?' Kelly asked, looking forward again. One of the diesels was running a little warmer than the other, and he made a note to check the cooling system after his other business was done. Otherwise the boat was behaving as docilely as ever, rocking gently on the almost invisible swells, moving along at a steady twenty knots, the bow pitched up at about fifteen degrees on an efficient planing angle. On the step, as Kelly called it. He stretched again, flexing muscles, letting Billy see the scars and what lay under them.