A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [17]
Flanagan and Jurgen exchanged a glance. “There’s nothing mechanically wrong,” Jurgen said, his voice muted and beaten. “Not that we can see. Whatever took out the ‘lectronics took out something critical in the engine, too. Solenoid, starter, distributor maybe. Somethin’. But we turn the key, and nothing happens. Nothin’.”
“We were just talking here ‘bout setting off the emergency beacon.” Flanagan looked into the fog through the windshield.
“Does the beacon work? Everything electronic is dead, right? How do you know it works? Did you test it?”
Jurgen flicked his head at the skipper. “I didn’t. Not yet.”
“I didn’t either. Shi—shoot, we’d better do that. Now.”
Jurgen nodded, and hopped down on deck. He scampered around the cabin and over the sundeck, pulled open a hatch and dug in its depths. Kelly looked at Flanagan.
“What if it doesn’t?”
Flanagan looked at her, his face pained. “Then we’re in some real shi— then we’re in trouble, ‘cause nobody’ll know where to look for us.”
Kelly’s heart flip-flopped in her chest, and her stomach did the same. “You … you filed a … a manifest thing, right?”
“A trip manifest?”
“Yeah.”
Flanagan looked through the window again. “It’s a day charter. There’s …”
“Oh my God. There’s no requirement to do that, is there?”
He hesitated, looked hard at her, then dropped his eyes, the lines in his face deepening as she watched. “No. No there’s not.”
“Oh … oh no. So no one knows we’re out here, where we are, what we’re doing, how long we’ve been gone, nothing.” Kelly felt cold sweat bead along her hairline, on the back of her neck, slick her palms and it sent a earthworm- clammy shiver slithering up her spine.
“The emergency beacon’ll probably work, Kelly,” Flanagan said. “It’s not powered by the boat, and the battery should be good for a couple years sitting in the box. It runs ‘bout a week when it’s going off.”
Jurgen bounded up the ladder. “Got it.” He handed Flanagan a small box. The skipper opened it and inspected the beacon. The inside box lid detailed how to use the tiny device, and he skimmed the instructions for a moment, then he threw the switches.
Nothing happened.
“Aw, shit,” Jurgen muttered. “Oops, sorry. Shoot.”
Flanagan threw the switch back and then tripped it again. He turned the box over, opened the battery hatch, removed the battery, reinserted it, and tried the switch again. Nothing.
“Damn,” he breathed. “That storm did something. Must’ve.”
Kelly looked from one of them to the other. “Now what?” She tried not to sound as panicky as she felt. “What do we do?”
Flanagan and Jurgen glanced at each other. Neither spoke. Flanagan sighed. “I guess we ought to tell the others … I guess.”
“They’re gonna freak,” Jurgen said. “Man, Skip, that Charles dude’s gonna have a stroke.”
“I know, but we can’t hide it from ‘em. They oughta know.”
Kelly shuddered again. “I wouldn’t say anything until you have some sort of … of plan. You have a plan, don’t you? I mean, a fail-safe back-up sort of thing?”
Flanagan shrugged. “The beacon is the back-up fail-safe thing. It’s broke too. In this fog a flare’s no good either.”
“But you do have flares, right? And they do work, right?”
“‘Course we have ‘em,” Flanagan barked. “It’s a requirement.”
“Look, Captain, no offense, okay? But you guys don’t across as the most prepared and competent crew on the seven seas, y’know? I mean, we haven’t caught squat the entire three days and now your emergency beacon doesn’t work, along with the rest of your equipment. The boat seems okay but it obviously isn’t in very good maintenance here, or you’d—”
Flanagan snapped to life. “All right, hold on a damn minute there,” his face blotched red, jaw muscles dancing beneath his three-day stubble. “The boat’s in perfect working order, everything checked out ‘fore we set off. That freaky-ass storm knocked the stuffing out of the equipment and there ain’t a damn thing me, you, or anybody else coulda done about it, Kelly. You might not be happy with us here, but what’s goin’ on ain’t my fault and it ain