The Raft

  #

  Befitting their great expense, the Kalakala decks were a masterpiece of Art Deco styling. The restoration of the passenger deck up to which Maggie and Rachael sprinted had returned it very much to its former glory. The red velvet seats, the intricacy of the metalwork on the grand staircase, the gold leaf all spoke of a bygone era of panache and luxury.

  Maggie and Rachael, however, had no time to savor their surroundings. Sprinting for the grand staircase, they took the steps two at a time.

  The stairs brought them out onto the ferry's rear open air deck. Through a pair of double doors, sporting a pair of the ferry's signature modernist portholes, Maggie and Rachael stumbled into the Kalakala's Horseshoe Café. The ferry's old lunch counter was now converted for use as Gandalf and Tiger Print's living quarters.

  Tiger Print looked up surprised from a seat at the room's titular-shaped counter. “Upstairs,” was all she said.

  Through another set of doors, taking a narrow, steel-lined flight of steps, Maggie and Rachael emerged on a flying bridge. The door to the wheelhouse was open and Maggie jogged quickly up to it. At the wheel, looking out at the commanding view of the Coast Guard blockade, Gandalf stood.

  “They really mean it,” he said. “They really mean to stop us.” Gandalf turned and saw Rachael standing at Maggie's arm. “You found her. Good.”

  “We've got a small window to negotiate a peace,” Maggie said, breathing heavily from the jog up three decks. “But I'll need your help. Orac's Armada seems to have lost steam, but it won't be long before someone tries to run that blockade.”

  “I didn't think they'd really do it,” Gandalf said, looking back out at the foggy outline of the large Coast Guard cutter. “But it must have taken all of yesterday to gather such a fleet. All that nonsense with the FBI agents, the warrants, that was just to distract us. This had been their plan all along: cut the Sound in half, keep the Raft from the Kon-Tikis. Do they think this will find them their murderer?”

  “No, they're not...” Maggie let it go.

  “Perhaps Orac is right, perhaps non-violent resistance...”

  “It won't be non-violent for long, Gandalf, you know that. If the Coast Guard opens fire on a blockade runner. The Rafter's will shoot back.”

  “And you think we can negotiate with them?” Gandalf turned back to Maggie.

  “I'm just hoping to confuse them,” Maggie admitted. “Promise them something, anything. They think you speak for the Raft, Gandalf, that you're our leader. They can only understand the Raft in those terms. We can use that.”

  “I can't negotiate on behalf of the Raft,” Gandalf hedged.

  “You don't have to. Lie, Gandalf. Lie. Promise them anything. Tell them what they want to hear. If we can get the Raft past this blockade, save the Freaky Kon-Tikis, then later maybe we can negotiate something substantive. But this gunboat diplomacy...”

  Gandalf looked pale. He stepped away from the helm and pulled himself up to his full height. “Okay, what do we do?”

  “We sail over there and tell them we've found Meerkat's murderer,” Maggie answered.

  “You have?”

  “No, but it'll get us aboard. Then we try to hammer out some way to get the Raft past that blockade. That's where you come in. And Rachael will witness it all, make sure they realize that everything that happens here today is on the record.”

  “That's it? That's all you want?” Gandalf smirked. “The impossible?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  “Then stop bellyaching,” Maggie commanded. “Come on.”