Chapter 7
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West Shore of Chichagof Island, AK
The hum of the diesel engine resonated through Marco’s boots as he turned the wheel to starboard. He savored the familiar pulse of Radio Flyer’s twenty tons of fiberglass, metal, and wood gliding across the water at his command.
Seas were still choppy, but the wind had died down somewhat as the last vestiges of the storm moved on to the east. A narrow passage between two small islands gave Marco a close-up look at the shoreline. Rocks, trees, a tiny beach. No sign of anyone onshore. No red metal roof.
The hiss and whistle of SSB static droned on. “Status?” A woman’s voice broke through the monotony. It wasn’t her.
Marco turned up the volume.
“All tucked in, but lots of traffic.” Male voice. Clearer.
“Copy.” The woman again.
“Bogey still in the area on AIS.” The male voice again.
Short, crisp, vague, with no attention to radio etiquette. The memory of the distress call filtered through the shrill buzz of static. Who were these people using this obscure SSB channel? What were they doing?
He tuned his main VHF radio to the non-emergency Coast Guard channel to check in.
“Radio Flyer, I have your report from yesterday. We’re monitoring all frequencies for any distress call. So far we’ve heard nothing.” It sounded like the same Coast Guard operator as the day before. “Possible what you heard was long-range propagation.”
Not likely.
“I was transmitting on low power,” Marco replied. “Signal had to be close. Are you telling me I just happened to pick up some other random woman in distress at the same time you’re searching for one right here? There aren’t fifty people within a hundred miles.”
“Notify us if you hear anything further,” the operator replied. “Coast Guard standing by one-six.”
Marco flipped off the VHF radio. Clearly the Coast Guard was searching the water for a body, not the land for a survivor.
He was on his own.
His rig would have a much better chance to pick up a signal if he was near the transmitter. He would cruise the most likely area of coastline and listen up close with his gear. He doubted the Coast Guard would be able to hear a tiny walkie-talkie from some big central station miles away.
Radio Flyer responded to Marco’s precise steering, sliding through a precarious maze of rocks and shoals.
He kept a sharp eye on the sonar for any uncharted obstructions beneath the surface that could damage his prop or hull.
Nothing shallower than three fathoms so far.
The marine maps of this area were inaccurate—based on paper charts from century-old surveys.
If he ran aground, rescue would be slow in coming.
Two more islands in his search grid turned up nothing.
With daylight lasting until almost midnight, he figured he’d be able to cover a third of his target area.
The woman was out here, shivering onshore somewhere, hungry and desperate.
He wished he could do more, but searching after dark was dangerous and futile.
A bright-red-and-white Coast Guard rescue copter streaked overhead, skimming the tops of the islands he’d just searched.
His stabilized binoculars smoothed out his view of an oceanside beach—a collection of man-made debris, fishing floats, chunks of net, an old bucket, a lidless cooler—nothing that showed any signs of a woman waiting to be rescued.
Radio Flyer rounded the rocks at the end of the beach, turning in to another narrow passage.
A flat-black RIB—rigid inflatable boat—zipped by at high speed across the other end of the small channel. Ants crept up Marco’s spine. He grabbed the binoculars.
It looked like only the driver was onboard, wearing camouflage foulies and a neon orange stocking cap. Marco couldn’t make out a boat name or registration stickers. The transom sported two huge black Mercury outboards. The thing would probably make fifty knots or better.
Radar and AIS showed no signs of the boat, and it was the first vessel Marco had seen in two days.
It moved like a dark ghost on the water.
The flat black made Marco think military—but the bright cap didn’t support that.
It definitely was not one of the usual Coast Guard search and rescue skiffs. Something about the RIB wasn’t right.
Radio Flyer exited the narrow strait into the main channel. The black RIB had vanished like a phantom. Marco eased his grip on the wheel but couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.
The snow globe at the helm stirred as the chop intensified.
Marco bumped up the throttle to smooth out the ride.
Michelle had always insisted they carry a well-equipped ditch bag on the boat—a waterproof neon-yellow floating drybag with a first-aid kit, bottled water, energy bars, space blanket, an emergency locator transmitter, and other survival stuff.
They’d never been in a situation to use it, but if Michelle had ever gone overboard, she would have made herself easy to find—assuming she’d had enough time to grab the ditch bag.
Marco decided to anchor for the night in Klag Bay—the site of the old Hirst-Chichagof mine, the mining operation Joe Baxter must have visited every few days from Radioville in his wooden rowboat.
The rusted ruins of a stamp mill and an old staircase sluice box used to separate gold from gravel cluttered the shore, towering above the rotting pilings and pieces of old heavy equipment strewn about the beach.
They say you could hear a stamp mill more than a mile away.
The noise must have been deafening as the large steam-powered contraptions crushed ore with heavy steel stamps the size of boat anchors, breaking the rock into fine gravel.
Marco wondered how the early miners maintained their sanity with the nonstop pounding day and night.
Radioville had to be within rowing range of this mine if Joe Baxter had made the trip regularly by rowboat eighty years ago.
That gave Marco a decent chance of locating it.
He dropped the anchor and made sure the boat was secure.
The last hints of orange faded to purple as the sky darkened over Chichagof Island.
He connected his digital recorder to the SSB radio so he could capture any broadcast that came in overnight.
He climbed into his bunk and pulled the cool linen sheets up to his neck, stacking two pillows under his head.
The static on the radio in the pilothouse above was barely audible.
He counted his breaths. Slowly. One. two. three…
The arm underneath him went numb. He rolled onto his other side. The sheets stuck to his chest, clammy with sweat.
Fifty-five, fifty-six…
Michelle’s voice surfaced in a whisper through the radio static. “Come get me, Marco.”
Marco lost count again, threw off the blanket, dragged himself out of bed, and climbed up to the pilothouse.
A crescent moon was just rising above the shoreline as a river of low clouds flowed silently overhead, illuminated by the soft moonglow. A loon called out into the night. A faint reply from its distant partner echoed across the water.
She’s gone, Marco. Michelle is gone.
He fast-forwarded through the last hour of recording, volume on high.
Nothing but endless static hiss.