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“I’ll make you a deal Once we check out the area where Papa Heinrick saw hison, I’ll tell you my whole life story”
“You’re on”
They soon crossed Na to the boat’s GPS and Juan throttled down the engine to take the hydrofoil off plane
“This old girl drinks fuel at an awful rate when she’s up on her wings,” he explained “If we’re going to make it out and back we have to keep her to about fifteen knots I’ll stand the first watch, why don’t you head below? I can’t offer you a bath but we have plenty of water to freshen up and you can get some sleep I’ll wake you in six hours”
She lightly brushed her lips against his cheek “Thank you For everything”
TWELVE hours later, they were approaching the region where theup as a storm swept across the desert and slammed into the moist, cold air above the ocean Cabrillo wasn’t concerned about weathering a storm in the lifeboat What bothered hi their search that muchin the at havoc on the craft’s electronics He couldn’t get a tone on his sat phone and the radio received nothing but static across all the bands And the last tinals fro satellites to properly fix their position The depthzero feet, which was i up, slowly revolving in its liquid gi all around them
“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” Sloane asked, jerking her chin in the direction of the storm
“Hard to tell It doesn’t look like any rain is falling, but that could change”
Cabrillo settled a pair of binoculars to his eyes and slowly scanned the horizon, ti his movements with the slow undulation of the waves so he hadbut empty water,” he reported “I hate to say this but without the GPS I can’t set up a proper search grid, so we’re just blundering around out here”
“What do you want to do?”
“The wind’s holding steady fros so we can hold a course I guess we can search until it gets dark Hopefully the storm will blow over by dawn and the GPS will come back online”
By rough esti back and forth across the vast ocean like he wasa lawn The seas built steadily as they searched, so the waves were topping seven feet while the wind freshened, carrying the taste of the desert so far from land
With each lane searched both becaht about crazy old Papa Heinrick and that hisbout of the DTs
When Cabrillo saw a glint of white in the distance he dis atop a wave But he kept his eye on the spot and when they crested another swell, the speck was still there He snatched the binoculars from their holder His sudden rabbed Sloane’s attention
“What is it?”