0600 hours: Michael Fisher, Boss of the Trade, stood on the quay to watch the morning light come on. A thick, cloudy dawn; the waters of the channel, caught between tides, were absolutely motionless. How long since he’d slept? He was not so much tired—he was well past that—as running on some reserve of energy that felt vaguely lethal, as if he were burning himself up. Once it was gone, that would be the end of him; he would vanish in a puff of smoke.
He’d emerged from the bowels of the Bergensfjord with some vague intention he couldn’t recall; the moment he’d hit fresh air, the plan had fled from his mind. He’d drifted down to the edge of the wharf and found himself just standing there. Twenty-one years: amazing how so much time could slip by. Events grabbed hold of you and in the blink of an eye there you were, with sore knees and a sour stomach and a face in the mirror your barely recognized, wondering how all of it had happened. If that was really your life.
The Bergensfjord was nearly ready. Propulsion, hydraulics, navigation. Electronics, stabilizers, helm. The stores were loaded, the desalinators up and running. They’d stripped the ship to the simplest configuration; the Bergensfjord was basically a floating gas tank. But a lot had been left to chance. For instance: Would she actually float? Computations on paper were one thing; reality was another. And if she did, could her hull, cobbled together from a thousand different plates of salvaged steel, a million screws and rivets and patch welds, withstand a journey of such duration? Did they have enough fuel? What about the weather, especially when they attempted to round Cape Horn? Michael had read everything he could find about the waters he intended to cross. The news was not good. Legendary storms, crosscurrents of such violence that they could snap your rudder off, waves of towering dimensions that could downflood you in a second.
He sensed someone coming up behind him: Lore.
“Nice morning,” she said.
“Looks like rain.”
She shrugged, looking over the water. “Still nice, though.”
She meant, How many more morning will we have? How many dawns to watch? Let’s enjoy it while we can.
“How are things in the pilothouse?” Michael asked.
She blew out a breath.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get it.”
A bit of pink was in the clouds now. Gulls swooped low over the water. It really was a fine morning, Michael thought. Michael felt suddenly proud. Proud of his ship, his Bergensfjord. She had traveled halfway around the world to test his worthiness. She had given them a chance and said, Take it if you can.
A glow of light appeared on the causeway.
“There’s Greer,” he said. “I better go.”
Michael made his way up the quay and met the first tanker truck just as Greer stepped down from the cab.
“That’s the last of it,” Greer said. “We tapped out at nineteen tankers, so we left the last one behind.”
“Any problems?”
“A patrol eyeballed us south of the barracks at Rosenberg. I guess they just assumed we were on the way to Kerrville. I thought they’d be on to us by now, but apparently they’re not.”
Michael glanced Greer’s shoulder and signaled to Rand. “You got this one?”
Men were swarming over the tankers. Rand gave him a thumbs-up.
Michael looked at Greer again. The man was obviously worn out. His face had thinned to skull-like proportions: cheekbones ridged like knives, eyes red-rimmed and sunk into their pockets, skin waxy and damp. A frost of white stubble covered his cheeks and throat; his breath was sour.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Michael said.
“I could go for some shut-eye.”
“Have breakfast with me first.”
They’d erected a tent on the quay with a commissary and cots for resting. Michael and Greer filled their bowls with watery porridge and sat at a table. A few other men were hunched over their breakfasts, robotically shoveling the gruel into their mouths, faces slack with exhaustion. Nobody was talking.
“Everything else good to go?” Greer asked.
Michael shrugged. More or less.
“When do you want us to flood the dock?”
Michael took a spoon of the porridge. “She should be ready in a day or two. Lore wants to inspect the hull herself.”
“Careful woman, our Lore.”
Patch appeared on the far side of the tent. Eyes unfocused, he shambled across the space, lifted the lid on the pot, decided against it, and took one of the cots instead, not so much lying down as succumbing, like a man felled by a bullet.
“You should catch a few winks yourself,” Greer said.
Michael gave a painful laugh. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
They finished breakfast and walked to the loading area, where Michael’s pickup was parked. Two of the tankers were already drained and standing off to the side. An idea took shape in Michael’s mind.
“Let’s leave one tanker full and move it to the end of the causeway. Do we have any of those sulfur igniters left?”