Chapter 48

THE COMMAND TEAM,led by Chris Murray, said nothing about Hope’s progress out to sea. As long as she was talking, Murray seemed happy to let her trundle on ahead of us. But I wanted Hope to stop. While she was underway, she thought she was shifting closer and closer to being free, and I knew negotiations would last longer while she felt she had the upper hand. Jenny Spelling was sick. She wouldn’t last a twelve-hour siege. I shifted in beside Tox at the helm and pointed to the New Hope.

“Come up alongside her,” I said. “Keep your distance, like she said. Don’t get any closer.”

I went out of the bridge and down the steps to the back of our vessel. There was a tarp to protect the deck from the rain, hanging over the rear of the galley. I tore that down. I dragged a net out of a box on the deck and then went inside, grabbed sheets and blankets from the bed, and lugged them out onto the deck.

Hope’s vessel slowly loomed up beside me. All the lights were on. I could see the young woman standing at the helm, looking out. I couldn’t make out her expression. Jenny was on the other side of her, just her feet visible near a gap in the wall outside the bridge.

“I don’t know what this boat is doing out to my starboard side.” Hope’s voice was high with tension on the radio. “But I want them to fuck off.”

“What are you doing?” Tox shouted at me.

“Go round the front!”

The engines roared beneath me. I copped a hit of sea spray in the face as the boat lurched over the waves. As we came across Hope’s bow, I waited until the right moment and then began hurling the sheets, blankets, tarp, and net into the sea.

“What the fuck?” Hope screamed on the radio.

I hung on as we took a huge wave to the starboard side, crossing over to Hope’s port side.

I didn’t know if my plan had worked immediately. There was no discernible crunch of the propellers as they became tangled in the debris I’d put right in Hope’s path. After a while, I noticed her boat was slowing. There was smoke on the wind.

I looked up in time to see Hope on the port side, standing over Jenny as she lay helpless on the deck. As I watched, Hope looked back toward the boats behind her and raised the radio to her mouth.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Hope said. “Now I’ll have to punish her.”