The Evolution of Fear (Claymore Straker #2) - Paul E. Hardisty Page 0,30

tops of the main cabin lockers emerged. Clay stood a moment, bucket hanging in his hand, feet planted wide against the roll, water sloshing around his thighs, tilted his head back and stared up into the swirling sky. Then he opened his mouth wide and screamed above the wind, howling his defiance.

11

Instruments of Darkness

He bailed to exhaustion.

By evening he had managed to remove most of the water from the cabin. In the last of the day’s light, the boat still pitching in wild seas, he winched the boom back aboard, lashed it to the deck, retrieved what was left of the mizzen rigging, and made fast whatever could be salvaged. He scanned the eastern horizon: no sign of land.

As darkness fell, he retreated below deck and collapsed into the main berth. He was asleep before his head touched the sodden cushion.

When he woke the starboard portholes glowed yellow, filling the cabin with morning. Waves lapped the hull. Clay closed his eyes and felt the ketch rock gently beneath him. Shaking off a forgotten dream, he swung his feet to the floor, winced at the pain in his arm. He pushed open the makeshift hatch, stood on the second gangway step and stuck his head outside. Flame bobbed on a sea almost calm under a blue cirrus sky, yesterday’s storm just a distant rumour on the northern horizon. The breeze was fair from the northwest. He was alone, rudderless, adrift and without power, the universe of the sea stretching away to every distant meridian.

First, he needed to look after himself. Every part of his body ached. He tore the wet bandages from his arm, examined the wound and applied a fresh dressing. Soon he had the stove going, water heating. He opened the food locker and rummaged through the jumble of disintegrating packaging, smashed glass and diesel-smeared plastic. The labels of most of the tins were either gone or indecipherable, so he picked a big can that didn’t look like beans and opened it. Peach slices in syrup. He gulped them from the can, the juice running down his chin and shirtfront. Amazing. He grabbed another tin, larger. It was some kind of meat stew, thick and rich. He dumped the contents into a pan and put it on the stove, his body quivering with the promise of healing protein.

After eating he set to repairs. Basic steering was the next priority. It took him the best part of the morning to hack away the shorn wheel sleeving and flange the emergency tiller to the rudder shaft.

With the sun nearing its zenith, it was time to start determining just exactly where he was. Clay found Punk’s sextant and took a noon sight. His calculations put him at approximately 6° 15´ W longitude, about sixty-five nautical miles west of Ushant, latitude uncertain. From here, any course east of south would land them on the north coast of Spain, anywhere from A Coruña to San Sebastián.

By late afternoon he had rigged a makeshift mast by lashing the boom to the main mast’s shorn stump, cannibalising stays from the tangled wreck of the mizzen and making them fast to the deck plates that had survived the dismasting. Soon he had the smallest of the reserve jibs up and flying as a mainsail in a reaching wind. It gave him less than a third of the original sail area, but with careful trimming and adjustment, he soon had Flame foaming along at what he estimated to be four knots, bound for Spain. There was still a long way to go, but it was a start.

As the sun set over the Atlantic, he sat at the tiller and sipped a mug of strong, sweet coffee, guiding Flame down the back of a following wave. At this rate, he could be in Spain in three days.

By now, Koevoet would have realised he hadn’t landed in France. Not at any of the major ports, anyway. How many places could they watch? Did they have a line into French customs? If the company was working for Regina Medved, which seemed almost certain now, they could bring their combined forces to bear. He wondered how long it would be until they shifted their attention to Spain. Koevoet already knew Rania was in Cyprus – had told Clay so himself. Maybe they wouldn’t even bother trying to intercept him on the continent. They’d just wait for him come to them. Clay imagined Eben’s killers, brush in hand, painting that horrifying message in