The Raft
Chapter 27
The Soft Cell bobbed, tied up against the hull of the Joshua James. The great cutter dwarfed Maggie's tiny, fragile vessel, looming over it in the drizzly morning air. A rope ladder came spiraling down from the deck above, clattering down onto the bow of Maggie's craft. A shadowy figure moved above in the haze.
“No one has shot at us yet,” Maggie said as she tested the strength of the lowered ladder. “I take that as a very good omen.” It had been a hair-raising feat, sailing under electric power the thousand yards between the Kalakala and Coast Guard blockade. Out in the open water, there was nothing protecting the tiny Soft Cell from the itchy trigger fingers of a hundred young, inexperienced seamen.
They'd pulled in alongside the four-hundred-foot cutter, however, without incident. The Coast Guard must have seen that they constituted no serious threat, Maggie mused. But she feared they'd used up a good measure of their luck in the process. And they had so many more impossible feats stretching out before them, feats that would require just as much, if not more good luck.
Maggie crossed her fingers and crossed her toes. Every little bit helped, she told herself.
Rachael was sick again at the grab railing.
So much for a winning streak, Maggie shrugged. It'd been a bumpy five minutes navigating in close to the giant craft. The waters were choppy and the angle had to be just right or the Soft Cell could have suddenly been thrown up against the mass of the James and smashed to splinters. The maneuvering had sent Rachael to the grab rail, doubled over, coughing with the dry heaves.
“Why don't you wait here until Gandalf and I call for you,” Maggie suggested, pulling herself up onto the rungs of the rope ladder.
“No, no, I'll be okay,” Rachael burped.
“No, I don't want you to puke on anyone. Not until we've gotten at least a little acquainted. It has to be some law of international diplomacy: don't vomit on the other party. Just stay here until you feel better. Okay?”
Rachael waved from the grab rail. She was too sick to really care.
Maggie began to climb. When she was halfway up, Gandalf took hold of the ladder. There he paused, reaching into his shorts pocket.
“Rachael, can you hold on to this?” he asked, holding out an envelope in his hand. When Rachael didn't respond, he placed the envelope on the control panel by the helm. “I'll just leave it here. Can you at least make sure it doesn't blow away?”
And he started to climb. Maggie was many feet above him, struggling in the wind to climb up the slick iron side of the cutter. Gandalf climbed hand over hand, moving with an energy that seemed incongruous with his age.
Rachael slumped down on the cockpit bench and rested her forehead against the cold, wet grab rail. She felt horrible, the dry heaves were worse than actually being sick. If only she could throw something up she might feel better, she contemplated. The cramps in her belly were twisting and turning.
What was she doing here? she asked herself. She hated boats. She hated sailing, she hated the rain, she hated being wet. And she'd found herself neck-deep in all of the above. And there Maggie and Gandalf were, vanishing up and onto the deck of the immense cutter. She had to get off her ass and help, it was the whole reason she'd come along. She was no good to anyone sitting down there, bobbing like a cork, puking up nothing over and over. Perhaps the movement of the water would be felt less on the deck of a bigger ship...
She tried to pull herself to her feet, but her knees felt like rubber. Just five more minutes, she told herself, and then she'd attack that rope ladder.
Ugh, climbing rope ladders, she hated that, too. She should have stayed onshore. At home. In the warm.
A shot rang out above. Then another, and then a cluster of louder, faster shots. Rachael leapt to her feet as a bolt of terror shot down her spine.
“Maggie!” she screamed, but the rain and the lapping waves drowned out her cry. “Maggie!” she bellowed through her tears. She leapt at the rope ladder, but her hands were slick. She slipped back and fell, smacking her head against the helm's control panel.
“Maggie!” The pain, the nausea, the terror all mixed in her head. She was blind with panic, the Soft Cell all around her moving and blurry. Some part of her brain came into focus and she remembered the small black gun she'd confiscated from Maggie. Oh God! She'd taken Maggie's gun and they'd shot her anyway! Bitter remorse mixed in with the cramps in her belly. Rachael slid across the slick cockpit and opened the storage compartment where she'd stowed Maggie's gun. She fished it out and tucked it into the waist band of her pants.
Hectically, she turned and started up the rope ladder. It danced and shuffled in her grasp, but she climbed undaunted.
Twice she lost her footing, scrambling to climb the ladder faster than was reasonable. As the rain blinded her vision, she pulled herself over the gunwale of the cutter and collapsed in a ball on the deck of the James, exhausted. Painfully, she attempted to find her feet, reaching for the pistol in her belt.
From the blurry streaming haze that fogged her vision, the butt of a gun swung out and connected with her chin.
Two or three teeth gave way and Rachael fell hard up against the gunwale. Again, her head smacked hard against something solid and the world around her faded in and out of darkness.
Hands were on her, feeling at her stomach. One hand found the handle of the pistol and it was wrenched out of her clothing.
Then the hands were pulling her up to her feet as she coughed forth a stream of blood from her mouth. She gagged, sobbed, then tried to open her eyes.
The deck was full of many armed men running, panicked, to and fro. Two had her hoisted by the arms, her limp body suspended between them. As Rachael began to focus, the outline of a body on the deck resolved before her.
It was Gandalf, surrounded by a pool of red. Blood was gushing forth from a wound in his neck as he clawed at it in a futile attempt to check the flow.
He gurgled, choking on a mouthful of blood, and then coughed it up. Then, as if the air was suddenly let out of him, Gandalf deflated. He relaxed, letting his arms fall away from his throat. He sprawled out, almost peacefully, taking his last pained breath.
“Maggie!” Rachael screamed. But Maggie was nowhere to be seen. Men with guns, men in body armor, the dead body of Gandalf on the cold, wet deck. All this, Rachael could see. But no sign of Maggie.
“Maggie!” Rachael tried one last time futilely. But the men were bustling her off, dragging her useless legs behind them.
Her bare feet passed through the pool of Gandalf's blood, leaving a slick trail of red in Rachael's wake. They were carrying her below decks. She faded back into unconsciousness.