Chapter 74 - Beneath the Iron Keel
The sheer scale of the *Navegador* was terrifying from water level. The rusty iron wall of its hull rose four stories into the night, dripping with black seawater and encrusted with barnacles. The smell of raw diesel, wet rust, and harbor silt hung thick in the air.
The interceptor came screaming in behind us, its powerful spotlight sweeping across the freighter's waterline. But Lind knew the geometry of the sea better than the hired guns at our back. He killed our outboards at the exact second we slid under the massive overhang of the freighter’s stern, directly beneath the enormous, motionless propeller blades.
The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the lapping of dark water against steel and rubber.
Above us, forty feet up, a rope ladder rattled against the iron hull.
"Move, Myrna!" Lind whispered, grabbing my canvas bag containing the red folder and Arthur’s ledger, slinging it over his shoulder. "Up the pilot ladder! The current will push the Zodiac out in two minutes!"
I didn't hesitate. At sixty-two years old, after running a farmhouse in New Hampshire through freezing winters and raising children who thought I was frail, my grip was made of iron. I grabbed the cold hemp ropes, found the wooden rungs with my boots, and began to climb.
Every muscle in my calves burned. The ocean surged beneath me, hungry and black, threatening to swallow me if my foot slipped on the slick rungs. Halfway up, the roar of the gray interceptor surged outside the freighter’s shadow. Their spotlight swept the water, catching the empty Zodiac as it drifted free into the chop.
*"Target abandoned vessel! Search the perimeter!"* came the crackle from their radio, echoing against the iron hull.
Lind was right below me, his shoulder bracing my foot whenever a swell swayed the ladder. With a final heave, my fingers hooked over the scuppers of the lower deck. Two pairs of rough, calloused hands grabbed the collar of my jacket and hauled me over the rail onto the wet steel deck.
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I collapsed onto my knees, gasping for air, the taste of salt and copper on my tongue.
A man in greasy blue overalls and a wool watch cap looked down at me, holding a dimmed red flashlight. "Welcome aboard, senhora," he said in heavily accented Portuguese. "We weigh anchor in ten minutes. And your friends on the water are very, very angry."
