degrees to the next electronic way station lined up with Poll Pass. Scared, she held the wheel-as if by gripping it, she could will the yacht through the passage.
The distance between the small boat piers on her left and the shore on her right was less than one hundred yards at low tide. But there was considerable kelp choking the area. It was now about low tide and she probably had an unobstructed passage about thirty yards wide. It was the narrowest navigable passage in the world's oceans.
If she found one log in Poll Pass, she would be out of luck. Maneuvering would be impossible even if the radar picked it up. She had a few seconds to think this thought; then she was aligned, using the wheel, locking the autopilot, and approaching full speed.
Her left hand hovered over the wheel and her right was on the off switch for the autopilot. Given the very narrow passage and the near-zero visibility, she thought the autopilot might do better than she could. She had to get through Poll Pass before the police boat saw what she was doing. She was in the pass itself for a couple seconds, then in the still inner channel beyond.
She spun the wheel and nearly flung Rachael out of the boat. She popped on the spotlight and radiated the dock and the big express yacht that she knew to be Inevitable, belonging to Rachael's uncle. She pulled up beside the dock, Rachael touched her shoulder and leaped. Rachael waved as Haley doused the spotlight and raced away. It was lonely and the fear was even worse. Once in the middle of the converging passages, she stopped amid the swirling white water of her own incredible wake. If one of the police boats had proceeded on the ferry route, they would be popping up directly in front of her. What she expected was that one of the sheriff's boats would follow her route and the other would approach Crane Island, cautiously sticking with the ferry route and avoiding the S turn, and then depart the ferry route and follow the shore around Crane Island as she had done. From there, she didn't know what they would do.
She poked her nose out into the ferry lane and watched the radar for oncoming traffic.
There was no police boat. They had both gone behind Crane Island trying to follow, but no doubt at a slower speed. She waited a minute more and then reversed direction at full speed, breaking one hundred miles per hour on the ferry route along the south side of Crane Island. When she reached the middle of the island, she glanced at the radar. The absence of the police boat from the radar picture made her suppose they had to be near the opposite end of Crane Island, near Poll Pass. Hopefully, they were confused, doubting their radar. There were three routes to Anacortes or to Bellingham. Worse yet, each of the various starting points had multiple possibilities the further you traveled, so it would get confusing, quickly, if they lost her.
She kept the power full on and headed back out to San Juan Channel, trying to remain in the shadow of Crane Island for as long as possible. As she passed the western end of Crane Island, the night was pierced by flashing lights. One sheriff's boat had waited right by shore in case she made another circle as she had done at Brown Island. There was a boom and she knew a bullet had just ripped through the hull. Fear coursed through her like electrical energy.
CHAPTER 21
Khan was tapping Frick's shoulder, but Frick was staring at the ferry disappearing in the distance.
'Don't let that ferry go!' Frick shouted at the deputy.
'How can I stop it?' the deputy shouted back. 'You gotta call the department of transportation.'
But Frick knew that the captains of the ferries made those decisions. Nobody told the captain of a ferry where he had to go when under way. They could ask. The ferry could be hailed on 16, but that was a public channel. They also monitored channel 9 and that was used by the public much less often. However, there was also a special channel used only by the ferries. He called the dispatcher, who had the special channel in a file, and he used that method. Instantly the captain was on, Frick explained and got his wish. It had been easy. The captain agreed to return.
Although decisions while under way were the captain's, it might be different once he was docked. To keep the ferry there all night, Frick might actually need the department of transportation. There was no way he was going to devote the manpower required to search the boat in a couple hours. He knew that Chase would not stay cooped up on a ferry tied to the dock, even in the unlikely event that he was on it. Delia put through an employee of the transportation department, whom Frick had been trying to get on the line for fifteen minutes.
'This is Roy Nageler.'
'This is the sheriff of San Juan County,' Frick lied, 'and I have asked the captain of the ferry to stop and return to Friday Harbor. He's coming back to the dock.'
'The ferry's coming back to Friday Harbor, you say?'
'Yeah, and I want to keep it here as long as it takes. Maybe all night.'
'All night?'
'I think that's what I said,' Frick said.
'This will have to go up the line. I doubt that all night's gonna fly.'
Frick hung up, waiting for the next call.
'Our men at the scene think Opus could have dropped someone off at Orcas,' Khan said.
'We can't worry about that.'
'Earlier, a deputy saw a big blond guy down at the docks. He was with a blond woman named Rachael Sullivan.' Khan consulted a set of notes. 'Her uncle has a place on Orcas and her parents have a big place in Anacortes.'
'I know who they are,' Frick said. 'That's bad if Opus dropped her off.'
Frick put out a call on the radio to the deputies chasing Opus Magnum.
'Opus is going full out,' Khan's men explained over the radio from the boat. 'We nearly hold our own in the rough water on the way to Wasp Islands, in the San Juan Channel.
We're barely keeping her in sight on the radar when it's smooth. She looks like she's headed for Lopez.' Frick clicked off, disgusted.
'They've gone to great effort to convince us they're leaving, and to spread us thin,'
Frick told Khan. 'I think they're staying.'
'So what's your suggestion?'
'The woman- Rachael's uncle owns Inevitable. It's the fastest express cruiser around.
Custom-made. Let's have someone waiting in Anacortes at her folks' in the event she goes there. We're running out of time, and if we want different results, we're going to have to use different methods.'
'What are you suggesting?' Khan asked.
'We forget about Monday and the state police and the FBI and we concentrate on now.
We get results. Then you and I get out of here with the goods. I want Sarah James found, strapped down, and made to talk. She must know more than she's saying. I want to know about these scientists he's been talking with. I want to know what the hell is going on.'
His mouth went dry with anticipation. 'Actually, if they find her, I'll handle her myself.'
'If we make people disappear, rough 'em up, we're gonna pay.'
'I'm planning on leaving the country,' Frick said. 'Too much has gone wrong.'
'That takes money,' Khan replied.
'You'll have plenty,' said Frick. 'Like you said, we're working for ourselves now.'
Khan's cell rang. He listened and smiled. 'They caught Sarah James coming out of the woods, going for the neighbor's place.'
The guns had missed her and anything vital. There was a hole right in front of her knees where the fiberglass was blown in. Haley was sure that there were more such holes behind her, but everything still ran for the moment. Turning down San Juan Channel, she headed for Lopez Island. Concentrating was difficult and at times Haley's eyes felt like they were being sandpapered. Green blips came and went as waves tossed the objects in and out of visibility and even seabirds sometimes appeared as unknowable, disappearing phantoms. Eventually it was a game that she would lose-unless she was lucky enough to make the planned finale before she hit the log with her name on it. Out in the San Juan channel heading south, there was a good chop and a rising breeze. Winds were at
