The Navigator

“How many workers are on the platform?” Austin asked.

“It’s got accommodations for two hundred thirty.”

“Will they have time to move out of harm’s way?”

“They’re pulling anchors, and the service boats will start towing soon, but the rig is geared to move out of the path of slow-moving bergs that get past the ice patrol. They’re not built to dodge a runaway ship.”

Austin wasn’t so sure of the captain’s use of the term runaway, which implied that the vessel was out of control. His own impression was that this ship was very much in control and that it was being aimed directly at the Great Northern rig.

A sharp-eyed crewman pointed to the sea off the starboard bow. “I see her.”

Austin borrowed the crewman’s binoculars and adjusted the focus knob until the profile of a containership came into view. He could make out the tall letters painted on the red hull that identified the ship as belonging to a company called Oceanus Lines. Painted in white letters on the ship’s great flaring bow was the name: OCEAN ADVENTURE.

THE SHIPS moved abreast on a parallel course about a quarter of a mile apart. The Eriksson blinked its lights and blasted its horn to attract the ship’s attention. The Adventure plowed through the sea without slowing. The captain ordered the crew to keep trying to make contact visually or over the radio.

The oil rig was coming into view. The platform squatted on the sea like a four-legged water bug. Its most prominent features were a towering oil derrick and a disk-shaped helicopter pad.

“Does the rig have a chopper?” Austin asked the captain.

“On its way back from making a hospital run. Too late to do an air evacuation, anyhow.”

“I wasn’t thinking about evacuation. Maybe the chopper could put someone aboard the ship.”

“There won’t be time. The best it will be able to do is pick up some survivors, if there are any.”

Austin raised the glasses. “Don’t bring out the body bags just yet,” he said. “Maybe there’s still a chance to save the rig.”

“Impossible! The platform will sink like a stone when the ship slams into it.”

“Take a look around midships,” Austin said. “Tell me what you see.”

The captain peered through the lenses. “There’s a gangway hanging down almost to the waterline.”

Austin outlined his plan.

“That’s crazy, Kurt. Too dangerous. You and Joe could be killed.”

Austin gave Dawe a tight smile. “No offense, Captain, but if your Newfie jokes didn’t kill us, nothing will.”

The captain gazed at Austin’s determined face and his expression of utmost confidence. If anyone could pull off the impossible, it would be this American and his friend.

“All right,” Dawe said. “I’ll give you everything you need.”

Austin slipped into his foul weather jacket, yanked up the zipper, and headed down to the deck to fill Zavala in. Zavala knew his friend well enough not to be surprised at the audacity or the risk of Austin’s idea.

“Pretty simple scheme when you think about it,” Zavala said. “The odds aren’t the greatest.”

“Slightly better than a snowball’s chance in hell by my reckoning.”

“Can’t get much better than that. The execution could be a little tricky.”

A pained expression came to Austin’s rugged face. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t use the word execution.”

“An unfortunate slip of the tongue. What does Captain Dawe think of your idea?”

“He thinks we’d be crazy.”

Zavala fixed his eyes on the massive containership plowing through the gray seas on a parallel course and his agile mind calculated speed, direction, and water conditions.

“The captain’s right, Kurt,” Zavala said. “We are crazy.”

“Then I assume you’re in.”

Zavala nodded. “Hell, yes. I was bored lassoing icebergs.”

“Thanks, Joe. The way I see this thing, it all comes down to risk assessment versus reward.”

Zavala understood exactly what Austin was getting at. “How many guys are on the oil rig?”

“Captain says two hundred plus, in addition to those on the ship.”

“The math seems pretty simple. The risk is high but not insurmountable, and we might be able to save more than two hundred lives.”

“That’s the way I look at it,” Austin said. He slipped on a flotation vest and tossed another to Zavala. They sealed the deal with a firm handshake. Austin gave a thumbs-up to the captain, who’d been watching their discussion from the bridge.

UNDER CAPTAIN DAWE’S tight command, the ship came around and stopped at an angle to the wind that would allow Austin and Zavala to launch the bright red, sixteen-foot inflatable boat on the lee side of the ship. The ship cut the full impact of the wind, but the boat still tossed on the mounding seas like a rubber duck in a bathtub.

Austin was fitted out with a pocket radio attached to a hands-free microphone and earpiece. Captain Dawe would keep him up to date on the progress of the oil rig’s anchor-hauling crews. If the platform got all its anchors up in time to move out of the way of the oncoming ship, or if there were any deviation in the ship’s course, he would call Austin, who could then abort his plan. If the ship–platform collision seemed imminent, Austin could go from there.

Austin hung from the ladder with the wave crests splashing at his feet, then stepped off and landed square-footed in the boat. It was like jumping onto a wet trampoline. He would have been bounced out, but he grabbed the safety grips on the pontoons and hung on to the violently pitching boat.

When the inflatable had stabilized under his weight, Austin started the seventy-five-horsepower motor. With the outboard grumbling and snorting in the waves, Austin gripped the ship’s ladder and steadied the boat so Zavala could join him. Zavala stepped into the bouncy inflatable with his usual catlike grace, cast off the bow and stern lines, and shoved the boat away from the ship.

Austin turned the tiller over to Zavala, who goosed the throttle and pointed the blunt bow on a course to intercept the Ocean Adventure.

Chapter 10

FROM THE SIX-STORY-HIGHBRIDGE of the Ocean Adventure, Captain Irwin Lange had a gull’s-eye view of almost the entire length of the ship under his command. He had been at his lofty post when the helicopters had dropped out of the sky and landed on top of the container stacks. His initial reaction had been one of astonishment. That quickly changed to anger as he gazed through the big windows that overlooked the long deck.

The captain took pride in his Teutonic imperturbability. His stolid character was mirrored in firmly set facial features that almost never changed from their expression of genial self-competence. This was different. His lantern-jawed frown deepened. The helicopters had landed without his permission. His logical mind quickly dismissed the possibility that the helicopters were in trouble. One helicopter, maybe. But not two.

This was not right. Not proper. Peering through his binoculars, the captain became even more incensed as a dozen or so figures jumped from the helicopters and fa

Pirates!

Lange took a hard swallow. Impossible. Pirates operated in far-off places like Sumatra and the China Sea. There had been pirate attacks off the coast of Brazil and West Africa. But he found it inconceivable that sea marauders would operate in a frigid, fogbound area like the Grand Banks.

In his many years of sailing the Europe-to-America route, the captain’s only brush with pirates had been a video produced by an insurance-trade group. The shipping company that owned the ship under his command had distributed the video to its captains with instructions to watch it with their officers. The video showed fierce-eyed Asian pirates attacking a tanker in small, fast boats.