The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(64)
“The inflatable is gone,” one of Popov’s men announced.
Federov said, “Tell me where your son and Mr. Jenkins have gone, and I will not sink your ship, Captain. Refuse and we will do so, and I will still get the information from you. What is it going to be?”
“And I told you, Colonel Federov, that would not be wise,” the captain responded in Turkish. “I have alerted the Turkish coast guard to your presence in Turkish waters. They are old friends of mine. Check your radar. They are fast on their way. The way I see it, you have very little time to get back to your patrol boat and get back in Russian waters.”
Federov appreciated the man’s courage. “Perhaps your son can tell us where they have gone.”
Emir shook his head. “I do not know.”
“No?”
Federov removed his pistol and stepped to Emir, pressing the barrel to his forehead. “As you said, Captain, we don’t have much time. I’m going to ask you again, just this once, and I want you to think very carefully before you answer me, in Russian. Yes? Now, where are your son and Mr. Jenkins going?”
36
The inflatable skimmed across the water’s surface, the rigid hull slapping at the waves as the rubber bow bounced. Yusuf had the twenty-five-horsepower engine open full throttle, the boat going as fast as possible. Jenkins knelt on the rigid fiberglass floor in the middle of the boat to provide ballast. He wore a life jacket over a red survival suit. His hands gripped the rope holds on each side of the inflatable, and he felt each bounce reverberate in his back and his knees. Several times the waves were so jarring he thought the inflatable might flip. Those hours of warmth on the Esma now proved to be a curse, contrasting sharply with the cold air and the spray of frigid water.
Yusuf used a compass to keep the bearing he and his father had agreed upon. If he stayed on course, with the Esma running parallel to the inflatable, it would shield them from the Russian Coast Guard’s radar, and he might just make it to the Bosphorus strait. The technique was called radar shadowing. Demir had learned it in the navy. If done correctly, it would allow Demir to defeat the Russian radar, which would see just the larger boat, the Esma, on its monitor. By the time the Russian patrol boat stopped the Esma, took the time to board it, and the additional time to notice Yusuf’s absence, the inflatable boat would be half an hour closer to shore—if it didn’t capsize first. At least that was the plan.
Jenkins’s hands hurt from gripping the handholds, and the muscles throughout his arms and his core ached as he fought against inertia threatening to throw him overboard. The wind and the noise of the engine prevented the two men from speaking. The only thing Jenkins could do was look into the fog and hope he spotted an oncoming ship or floating debris before it killed them.
Thirty minutes after launching, Yusuf reduced speed, and the boat’s shimmying and bouncing decreased enough that Jenkins dared to remove his hands from the holds. He balled his fingers into fists, then cupped his hands and blew hot air into them. As he did, the fog suddenly dissipated and Jenkins stared up at a blanket of stars sparkling in the blackened sky. The stars seemed to descend all the way to the water’s surface, but a closer inspection revealed lights from hotels and houses littering hillsides rising on both sides of the tiny boat.
“The Bosphorus strait,” Yusuf said. “I think, Mr. Jenkins, we might just make it.”
Under other circumstances the setting would have warranted stopping the boat and taking time to appreciate the beauty. This was not that time. They passed beneath an enormous suspension bridge spanning between the two land masses. Lights atop the towers flashed a warning to approaching planes.
Jenkins kicked out his legs from beneath him and stretched his limbs. The waters had calmed considerably inside the strait. Yusuf slowed still further and fit the end of a metal rod with a blinking blue light into a hole. Jenkins quickly saw why. As they made their way through the strait, they passed large tankers, anchored in place, and cargo ships getting an early start to their day. Hit one of them and it would be like a gnat colliding with the windshield of a car.
Yusuf further reduced his speed as they approached a marina, and he deftly maneuvered around a rock outcropping providing protection for the boats moored there. That proved to be the easy part. A myriad of boats of different shapes, sizes, and colors crammed the marina, all seemingly moored without consideration to boat slips. Yusuf guided the inflatable around trawlers as large as the Esma and fishing boats no larger than their craft. There seemed to be no organization to the moorage—the boats stacked three and four deep, in the same slip, as if a tsunami had swept through, lifted the boats, and dropped them in a haphazard manner.
Yusuf maneuvered the inflatable boat to the far end of the marina and cut the engine, letting the rubber hull bump against a wooden boat docked in the last slip. He tied a mooring line to a cleat on the wooden boat and gripped the railing to pull the inflatable close. “Climb up,” he said to Jenkins.
Jenkins stood slowly and uneasily, feeling like he was skating on ice. He grabbed the railing and lifted himself onto the boat’s deck. Yusuf did the same, though with much greater ease.
“Come,” Yusuf whispered.
The night air was perfectly still and quiet, without the sound of moving cars or voices. Somewhere in the distance, a foghorn bellowed. It sounded almost alive. Yusuf led Jenkins to the other side of the boat and jumped a three-foot gap to a concrete pier. Jenkins followed him past wooden benches to the street, where a small town awaited dawn—two-and three-story buildings, colorfully painted, with retail stores on the ground level and apartments above them. Cars lined the street, parked with as little attention to parking spots as the moored ships to their slips, and seemingly making the street too narrow for even a single car to pass.