Chapter 7
As soon as Pedro went over, Shana forgot that she was wet and cold and rushed to the rail in time to see a spot of red tossing around in the dark water.
She searched quickly until she spotted a life ring hanging nearby.
Yanking it loose from its hook, she tossed it over in the direction where she saw the padre and hoped to hell he could get to it.
After one last glance over the rail into the rough water and she could swear she saw him, waving his arm, a flash of the red sweater bobbing, she dashed for the nearby cabin door.
Glancing at the lifeboat—it was more like a raft—hanging there in an intimidating tangle of cables for lowering and lifting, she realized she needed help.
Sliding and shivering, she rushed back to the doorway to go inside.
There was an alarm somewhere inside. She needed to find it fast—no way she could take the lifeboat out on her own.
She ran back to the cabin and reached for a phone on the wall inside the abandoned snack bar. Everyone stared at her. A crewman rushed toward her. She said, maybe too calmly, “Man Overboard.”
Then she pulled the red lever the instant she spotted it and pressed the intercom call buttons.
Listening to the buzzing, she was never more aware of the seconds ticking away.
The ferry wasn’t traveling fast, but they were far from Pedro by now.
She felt the engines slow and the boat turning and was alarmed.
There was no way the captain and the boat could have reacted that fast.
She yelled and was about to run back up those metal stairs to the bridge when she heard Andy’s voice. But he wasn’t on the phone.
“What the hell happened? You pull the alarm? Did the man—”
“Man overboard.” He’d already known. The crew had spotted him.
“Shit—” Andy ran past her with two crewmembers in tow, barking orders. Something about bringing the lifeboat down and going out with the emergency crew.
Shana hesitated only a split second, feeling a shudder of cold and knowing she should change into something dry.
There was no time. She rushed back outside to where the padre had gone over, and studied the nearby lifeboat to figure out how the hell to operate it.
In a few thundering beats of her heart she saw Andy running and stumbling toward her with two crew members following closely behind.
“Where did you last see him?”
She pointed in the general direction, accounting for the slight turn the boat had made since. It had come around and seemed to have lost forward momentum. Andy and his crew wasted no time prepping the lifeboat to be dropped in the water. He boarded the oversized raft and she followed right behind.
“Not you—you’re soaked—we have no time to waste. He doesn’t have much—”
“Then you shouldn’t waste it arguing with me.” She got in and one of the crew followed. The second crewmember operated the lift and lowered them over the side into the rough water.
Andy reached inside a chest and pulled out a life vest and a blanket. “Take this—you’re already wet and cold and we haven’t even started.” She shed her soaked jacket, put on the vest and wrapped the blanket around her, clenching her jaw against the bone-chattering chill that had settled in.
Once the boat hit the water, Andy started the small engine as they bounced in the restless waves.
His assistant lit up an oversized flashlight and aimed it in calculated arcs over the starboard side then the aft.
They were off in the direction where she’d last seen Father Pedro, traveling at a surprisingly swift speed.
Shana looked back over her shoulder once at the now anchored ferry.
It rolled in the waves more steeply without the forward momentum.
Every single light on the boat had been lit up against the darkening sky and the increasing blizzard of snow.
She said the words out loud that she couldn’t keep inside. “He has no more than fifteen minutes in this water.” She checked her Breitling Chronomat watch. “He has eleven minutes left.”
Dane contemplated his sanity and forced his fists open, stretching his fingers as Vendi fixed himself a coffee.
The radio buzzed. The headset sat abandoned on the control board and Vendi was out of position. Dane took one step and grabbed up the radiophone headset and put it on. He pressed the button and spoke.
“Go.”
“Captain Strong on Governor. We have a man overboard. Emergency procedure underway—”
“What the hell is the procedure and who exactly went over?”
“Who is this?”
Vendi crowded him and stared him down. But he didn’t rip the headphones off, so Dane spoke.
“This is Dane Blaise at USCG Station Vineyard Haven.”
“We lowered a manned life raft and they’re on the way to last known whereabouts. The ferry is standing by with lights—not much time.”
“We’ll call in a helo to light it up and we’re on the way with a 47,” Dane said. Then he ripped the headset off, handed it to Vendi and grabbed his jacket. Cap was already shrugging into his while Vendi finished the call.
Dane was at the door when Vendi caught up with him and spun him around by the shoulder. Cap was halfway out the door on the deck.
“Are you crazy?” Vendi asked.
“They put a life raft out in this storm? Are they crazy?” Dane said. He knew without a doubt that Shana would be aboard that life raft. Because he knew without a doubt it had been the padre that had gone overboard. He didn’t think past his knowledge for the reasons how and why he knew. Not now.
Right now, he was going to make sure he was aboard the 47 to get to that life raft. To get to Shana.
Vendi shook his head. “You’re a real bastard sometimes, Blaise.” He shoved Dane out the door ahead of him and Dane kept going. There was no time to shove back. He headed for the hulk of the 47 obscured by heavy driving snow now and hopped over the locked gate to board it.
Dane boarded the 47 with Cap and Vendi. There was no time to call the standby crew in.
Vendi had said he’d allow Dane and Cap to help him, but he’d had little choice.
He called in the Jayhawk out of Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod.
They would meet the helo at the coordinates they got from Governor for the life raft.
The helo could help pinpoint the raft with its Nightsun searchlight.
Then they could get the people needing help back to the hospital.
Dane tried calling Shana one more time as they got to the bridge of the 47.
“No answer. Not even a ring. Phone’s off.”
Cap said nothing. Tony Vendi took up position in the Captain’s chair and fired up the engines. Then he placed a call to the captain of Governor.
“What’s the status on the man overboard?”
“We have an ID. Father Pedro of South America according to Shana George. She accompanied the crew on the life raft—”
“Shit,” Cap said.
Dane froze another ten degrees inside and felt the tension ratchet up across his shoulders. But he said nothing.
“What the hell?” Vendi said to the ferry captain.
“Our crew was light and she’s a trained professional so they took her with them. “That old man was crazy being outside on the deck. He came aboard with her—I think she might have felt responsible.”
Vendi ended the call.
“No shit she felt responsible,” Dane said to no one in particular. She always felt responsible. Same as he always had … before his meltdown.
That over bloated sense of responsibility was what had caused his meltdown. He compressed his mouth and clenched down on his resolve.
“Let’ s go for the life raft. I don’t like them out in this sea in that small craft.”
“The helo will get to the ferry and throw up their Nightsun lights to help with the search. We’ll stand by in case we’re needed. The ferry is anchored in rough seas right now, but when we get there we can relieve them so they can move on. We’ll take over as the anchor boat.”
“What are the chances I can get a ride on that helo?” Dane said. He knew the answer.
“Zero percent.”
He’d never wanted anything so bad in his entire life as he wanted to find Shana.
He’d settle for getting to her on the 47.
He was determined to get to where Shana was being tossed around in a life raft on a mission to look for that crazy old man, even if he had to swim there.
If the padre survived, Dane vowed to strangle him.
“We’ll get to her,” Cap said. He put a hand on Dane’s back and they both looked at the churning seas ahead as the 47 cut through the waves in a rough bouncing ride.
“What’s the ETA?”
“Three minutes,” Vendi said. “Then we stop and wait.”
Every muscle in Shana’s body was clenched against the body-wracking shivers from the cold—in spite of the blanket. Because the furious wind was relentless and the spray of waves now that they rode in the water hugging raft and lastly but not leastly the icy darts of snow. Millions of them.
With one hand hovering at her brow, she peered into the storm, leaning forward and hoping and willing herself to find that padre.
That stupid saintly padre. Straining to stay hopeful and trying not to think about the seconds ticking away—half wishing the time would fly by so that she could get out of this raft and back to the ferry.
Back to the island if she were entirely honest—she almost didn’t acknowledge what her eyes signaled to her brain.
“There.” She stood—or tried—and grabbed for the vest—reaching an arm out as the boat veered toward a bobbing body floating in a life ring.
He looked dead, but she didn’t say it. The other crewman jumped to her side and together they pulled him aboard.