motorcycle on rough ice. The connection between fingertips and the throttle pedal and the ocean's surface would be highly sensitive when she couldn't see, and any misstep potentially disastrous.
Glancing at the radar while trying to feel the water through her hands on the wheel, she tried to keep the boat headed just off the tip of Brown Island so that she would pass close by it as she headed into the San Juan Channel. For a couple of seconds she spied a radar target in the bay a quarter of a mile to her starboard, knowing that she would see it again in a short time. It was a log raft used as a tie-up for some derelict sailing yacht occupied by a fellow of little means that had no doubt been kicked out of the harbor, leaving behind only what had been his floating front porch.
It was smooth in the harbor and so she was able to go full out. The noise was all-encompassing, like standing beside Niagara Falls. The vibrations of the first little wind waves came hard. Rachael was gripping a handhold in front of her, watching the electronics.
Only the slightest touch of the wheel was required to control the boat. As she passed through the entrance out of Friday Harbor into San Juan Channel, the turbo-charged diesels were screaming in a high-pitched whine, and when she looked back, she saw the sheriff's safe boat accelerate quickly from the mouth of the main marina, its twin custom-installed 325-horsepower turbo-charged diesels pushing it to sixty miles per hour.
She heard shouting on channel 16, something like, 'Get them.' Only nobody could get this water rocket because there wasn't a boat north of Seattle, short of a hydroplane, that could catch Frick's ocean racer.
Out in the channel near the shore of Brown Island, she encountered moderate chop. It did not bode well for the next leg of their trip to Wasp Islands. For the moment they would circle Brown Island to increase their lead on the sheriff's boat and to reconnoiter the planned finale of her boat ride. Opus Magnum began to pound and some of the smacks on the water hurt their teeth if they didn't clench. Rachael looked grim.
Sometimes the boat wanted to ricochet off the small lumpy waves, and at those moments she felt out of control. Wind whipped over her head and then was catching the loosened canvas boat cover that had never been removed. Glancing at the speedometer, she noticed that she was at one hundred miles per hour when the canvas pulled off the grommets and disappeared behind the boat.
Even at night the sensation of speed at 106 miles per hour was incredible. The skin on their faces was molded back by the wind and their ears literally vibrated. At these speeds the wind came at hurricane force.
Blips on the radar screen held their eyes and Rachael's unending concentration. Every bird on the water, every decent-size chunk of wood, even waves with unusual crests, could make a blip, and a blip dead ahead could mean disaster.
In less than two minutes they had run the entire length of the outside of Brown Island and slowed to about seventy miles per hour to round the southernmost tip of the island, now heading back into Friday Harbor.
'Opus Magnum, Opus Magnum, this is the sheriff.'
The sheriff's boat with its sirens and lights was hailing her. And it was gaining on her, having made a much tighter corner around Brown Island still at top speed. She swung wide and went very close to San Juan Island, so close she was afraid of hitting the docks. There was much more to this game than making it around the island. She had to worry about the longest of the docks. Using the radar, she lined up the tips of the yacht docks that came out into the channel like a series of fingers. She let her eye fall on the most prominent that reached out much farther into the water than the rest. Without increasing her speed she set the autopilot for dead ahead. Autopilots were not normal equipment for these boats and the placard said not to use it when traveling in excess of thirty-five knots, which was almost always. Ignoring the placard, she lined up perfectly on the Sanker Foundation docks and the small floating log raft in the channel between Brown Island and San Juan. At night the raft was visible only on the radar.
'Slow down, slow down,' the deputy yelled. 'You'll hit something. Dead ahead on the radar; dead ahead, turn!'
CHAPTER 20
Sam went through the Sanker Labs Oaks Building door. After the third security guard had come running out onto the docks, the man stupidly aimed his service revolver toward the bay and the speeding boat. Sixty seconds later, Haley picked up Rachael and was halfway to Brown Island, breaking one hundred miles per hour.
Sam went in the door to the first hallway running parallel to the water and skipped the first lab, going to the second lab area from the outer door. All the labs on the waterside had a good waterfront view and this was no exception. Ben's office and labs were on the floor above, however the shop described by Lattimer was on this floor. He made his way past the paper cluttered desks and the many plastic tanks with their circulating salt water and myriad tiny creatures. After Haley disappeared behind Brown Island, he put the portable VHF to his lips.
'Hello, Frick,' Sam said into the radio.
'Go ahead,' Frick answered.
'Twenty-two alpha.' He deliberately picked the coast guard working channel for the conversation and changed over from channel 16.
'Frick?'
'I'm here.'
'This is Robert Chase,' Sam said. 'Nice boat you have here. Foot pedal for the gas is nice for two-handed driving- excellent custom addition. I like the singing bass on the wall plaque belowdecks. I also found your collection of pornographic torture magazines.
They certainly are windows into your soul. Of course, we knew what you were; this will just help during your trial for the rest of the world to understand.'
With that, Sam ended the call, got on the lab phone, and called the police dispatcher.
'Sheriff.'
'I understand you're looking for Robert Chase,' Sam said.
'Yes, we are.' The dispatcher's voice crackled with tension.
'I think a tow truck just took him and his 1967 Corvette and put them on the eight o'clock ferry that's motoring past Brown Island on the way to Anacortes. Only he gave the tow driver the name Fred Raimes.'
'I'm showing a caller ID that matches the Sanker Foundation.'
'I work security here, and I don't want any hassles with Frick. All right?'
'Okay. How do you have this information?' asked the dispatcher.
'I stopped to get gas at the Chevron and there was this hopped-up '67 Corvette, and I went over and talked to the tow truck driver, who was checking out the running gear and the engine. That's it. Good luck.'
Sam hung up. The story sounded plausible enough.
Sam got on VHF channel 68 and said one word: 'Go.'
'Copy that.' Rachael replied from the navigator's seat.
'Hey, there goes the ferry,' Khan said. From the conference room they looked out over Friday Harbor and the ferry dock in the distance.
'The ferry pulled out when we were screwing around,' said Frick. 'We don't know where Robert Chase is. He could be using a VHF from anywhere.'
'So he's looking at your porn and you don't know which boat Chase was in?'
They watched as Opus Magnum swerved to miss the log raft and then turned sharply back out toward San Juan Channel.
'Get boat two after them,' Frick snapped. 'Boat one is already being outrun. Out in the rough of the channel, the police boats may keep up.'
'Boat two has my guys in it,' Khan said. 'We won't have anyone to watch the marina.'
'I know who will be in it. They'll never catch Opus if it gets a big start. They used the loop around Brown Island to leave boat one behind. Boat two goes about fifty-five miles per hour with no fat asses and light on fuel.'
'What about the Coast Guard?' Khan asked.
'That's liable to bring in the feds,' said Frick. 'Get your guys after it. Now!'
Frick's cell rang.
