mainland.
As they skimmed northward, the waves grew. Jim slowed down, as the bow of the kayak kept diving into the water. Anika would get, disconcertingly, slammed into the ocean as they descended the back of a passing swell. Water would rise to her armpits, flowing around the tuiliq, and then the kayak would pop out.
Now that he slowed, they motored up and down the swells, the engine in the back of the kayak chuffing quietly along.
Up in the sky, the long streaming fingers of the green, shifting into blue, Northern Lights, reached down toward the horizon, then dissolved into curtains of slowly dancing light.
Closer to the land on the other side of the inlet, the eastern side of Baffin’s horn, the swells faded away again. But Jim didn’t speed them back up.
Anika spotted why. A small catamaran floated at anchor, tucked in behind a rocky peninsula that calmed the water even further.
There were satellite dishes off the back, and solar panels unfurled from stands, like giant, silver sunflowers. SPITFIRE was printed across the left hull in black letters.
“The boat belongs to a man named Prudence Jones,” Jim explained. “He’s an intelligence operative who works in the area.”
Anika spun around, twisting the tuiliq with her, to look at Jim. Was this another trap? “A spy? You’re handing me over to a spy? How is that helpful?”
Jim smiled. “The reason Violet sent you out here is that Jones can get you safely to her retreat. And, because Jones keeps his ear to the ground, he’s someone you should meet in your situation.”
Anika sighed and looked back at the boat. “I guess.”
“Listen,” Jim said, his voice suddenly steely. “Violet is a good person. A lot of people, they freeze First Nations people out of the jobs, forget them, or just think of them as people who sell interesting art and talk about their history. Not Violet. I like her, so do a lot of other people here on Baffin. She’s putting a lot on the line because she likes you, and we don’t want to see her burned because of it.”
“I
Jim shook his head. “Jones is one of Violet’s most important working relationships. I’m just asking you to be … careful. She’s already lost The Greenhouse for now. For what it’s worth, I think, having heard what Chernov told me about your problems, that you should meet Jones.”
“Okay. But who does Jones work for?” Anika asked.
Jim smiled and cut the engine off, and they coasted up to the leftmost scooped-back pontoon of the catamaran.
“Jones!” Jim shouted as they bumped up against the fiberglass stairs. He unzipped his skirt from the kayak. “Jones!”
A tall black man with dreadlocks opened the sliding door of the cabin and stepped out into the cockpit to look down at them. He smiled. “Jim
“Violet left you a message?” Jim said.
Prudence Jones walked over to the back of the pontoon and held out a hand to Anika. “Anika Duncan, right?”
Prudence Jones, thought Anika as she unzipped herself out of the tuiliq, had to have come from the Caribbean somewhere. The accent was … well, not quite Jamaican as she thought Jamaican should sound. It sounded very much like some of the English Nigerian patois she’d heard on the streets in Lagos.
Prudence had a very light accent, though. He’d been away, and far from home, for a long time, she guessed. “Yes,” she said, and held up a hand.
“Call me Roo,” the tall spy said as he grabbed the offered hand and yanked her right up on out of the kayak onto the steps. “Got some iced beer in the fridge, Jim. You coming aboard?”
“No,” Jim said. He pulled her backpack out and threw it up onto the cockpit deck, then zipped a cover over the exposed hole Anika had sat in. He started paddling backward. “I have to go and post bail for Violet and set up the escape trip.”
Roo sucked his teeth, making a frustrated sound. One familiar enough to Anika that she felt like Roo was a distant cousin she was visiting.
Then what Jim said sunk in. “You didn’t tell me she was in jail!”
Jim nodded. “They were going to be taking her in, they said. Best to keep you in the dark and get you out of Arctic Bay. Don’t worry. I’ll have her out by the morning.”
He fired up the engine, and the kayak surged into motion. Minutes later it was a distant dot.
“So you’re a spy?” Anika said.
“And you a fugitive, yeah…” Roo pointed at the cabin’s door. “Beer?”
The cabin, which sat straddling the large pontoons, was spacious. A U-shaped settee and polished wood table dominated the area as they stepped down a few stairs and went in. Varnished floors sparkled, and the large oval windows let in lots of light.
Roo stepped down a small set of stairs into the right-hand hull, his head now just above the main cabin’s floor. There was a small kitchen laid out along the side of the right hull: three-burner stove, a freezer, and a small fridge. Anika leaned over a wooden rail to see more shelves on her side: spice racks, dishes, and boxes of pasta cluttered them.
She was able to look down toward the back of the right hand hull, and saw a small office with four screens mounted on swinging arms. To the front was a bathroom.
Roo handed her a bottle of Red Stripe. “It’s a cliche,” he said. “But also a taste of home.”
He showed her where she’d be sleeping. The left hull, to the rear, had a twin-sized bunk in the very back. The bathroom was to the very front, and in between was more storage: shelves full of dried goods, cans, a locker of heavy weather gear.
Back up in the main cabin, Anika frowned. “Where do you sleep?” she asked.
Roo pointed to the wall the settee backed up against. “I have a very comfortable room up in there. The door opens on the office you was peeking at by the galley.”
“Oh.”
“And, after this beer, we need to get moving.”
“Where are we going?”
“Pleasure Island. You been?”
“No. I’ve heard of it. That’s where Vy’s hideout is? That’s eight hundred miles of sailing.”
Roo grinned. “The cockpit’s enclosed, so you be helping keep watch. But I don’t want you on deck. Don’t want you washed over, or for anyone to see you.”
“Why the hurry?” She swigged the rest of the Red Stripe, and he took the empty bottle.
“This UNPG cutter that lurks around Somerset Island. Trying to avoid a boarding.” He waved a hand.
“And if we get boarded?” Anika asked.
Roo’s smiled wavered. “Then we have to get creative, yeah?”
17
The anchor took all of a few minutes to haul up by hand. Roo leaned over the front of the boat, grunting, his back flexing and arms rippling as he pulled the rope up, hand over hand. His tightly wound dreadlocks swayed about as he moved.
For a few minutes, the
Another minute of vigorous winching later the catamaran’s two sails were filled with wind. They’d been both been wrapped up on thin spindles, and had easily deployed.
