Apr 24, 2018 6 min read

The story so far: Just when the kayakers think they have successfully evaded the captain of the Sea Wolf, Aaron feels the barrel of a gun rammed up against his spine.

• Chapter 15

Kidnapped

“Don’t move, or I’ll blow a hole through you so big you could drive a boat through it.” It was a voice I knew: the voice of the captain of the Sea Wolf.

What came next happened so fast, it’s hard to capture in words. Lisa whipped out her can of pepper spray and sprayed the captain in the eyes. He flew backward screaming, and his rifle went off and almost deafened me. The bullet tore a hole through the tarp. Then another man – dressed entirely in black-stepped up to the fire and aimed a speargun at Willie, who by now had drawn his bowie knife.

Wild Man Willie roared, and flung his knife at the man just as he fired his speargun. As Willie spun away, the spear twanged into a tree trunk – barely missing Willie’s head. Simultaneously Willie’s knife grazed the man’s shoulder as Cassidy did a flying tackle around the man’s knees. The man toppled and crashed into the fire, scattering sparks like fireflies. Then he rolled out of the flames just as Roger appeared. His fishing knife flashed in the firelight.

But at that moment a third man – also dressed in black – stepped into the ring of light. The tip of his speargun swung threateningly back and forth toward Roger, Willie, and Cassidy. Roger held his knife at the ready, while Cassidy, hanging on like a bulldog, kept a lock on the fallen man’s legs.

Meanwhile Dad, who was grappling with the captain, got an elbow in the face. Then, before I could twist away, the captain held the barrel of his rifle to my head and said to Roger, “Drop the knife or I’ll kill him.” Roger did as demanded. “And you,” he snarled at Lisa, “drop the pepper spray.”

Lisa followed his orders, all the while staring the daggers of her eyes at him.

“You’ll never get away with this, pard,” Willie said. “We know you’re smugglin’ illegals. You wanna add a murder rap to that?”

“Shut up!” growled the captain. He pressed the rifle to my back, started shoving me away from the fire, and kicked Cassidy in the ribs. A grunt escaped Cassidy’s lips as he released the man in his grip. Brushing burning cinders from his sleeve, the man stumbled to his feet and weaved like a drunkard as he held his sore shoulder.

The man with the speargun continued to swing it back and forth, and as firelight licked his face, I got a better look at him. I made out the Chinese geoduck diver, Wong, beneath a black wool cap. With his black eyes darting in the fire glow, he looked more scared than vicious.

Pressing his rifle into my ribs, the captain started to push me. His eyes were scorched red, and tears streaked his cheeks. “The boy’s coming with us,” he rasped. “You’ll find him in Chinatown. He’ll be dead meat if you report us – hanging like a duck at the butcher shop. Don’t think I won’t do it. The illegals are money. He’s worthless. Play ball, and you’ll see the boy alive again.” Then he jabbed me with the barrel of his rifle, and we backed away through the woods.

“Better watch your backs, suckers!” Cassidy hollered. No, Cassidy! I wanted to scream. His foolish words pushed me further toward the brink of panic.

The men forced me into their dory, which was pulled up on the rocks in the inlet. Then, once we’d boarded the Sea Wolf, they shoved me down into a hold at the bottom of the hull, where I sat shivering and fighting nausea. An orange lightbulb burned dully in what seemed to be a small cage. Five pairs of eyes stared at me in the orange glow. Dark, haggard Asian faces hung in the shadows above what amounted to heaps of bones in rumpled clothes. The stench of vomit, dead clams, and human waste assaulted me, and I reeled in the horror of it all.

My wrists were bound by rope. My hands lay like lumps in my lap, numb to all feeling. My mind spun delirious nightmare images of skeletons in a dungeon with live, bulging eyes and tongues hanging out, and my own bones rattled like dice.

Somebody spoke to me, but I didn’t understand a word. It was an old man, with white hair that poked out of a bony scalp and chin. He was wearing a shiny battered suit that hung from him like from a clothes hanger. Reaching out a shaking bony finger, he touched my hand. Beyond him, an old woman’s mouth opened like an O in a silent wail. Two young men and a teenaged girl squirmed in their quiet heaps. The rain had stopped. The only sound was the creaking of the boat as it rocked back and forth.

“Who are you?” came the soft voice of the girl. “Why are you here?”

“I’m Aaron. Why are you here?”

“We’re going to Vancouver,” she said. “Where on earth are we?”

“You’re far from Vancouver,” I said. “Maybe two days north on this boat, as a guess.”

She said something in Chinese to the others, then let her head slump down between her knees.

“How long have you been aboard?” I asked. My back itched, but I couldn’t scratch it.

There was no answer. The old lady sobbed quietly and repeated the same words over and over. The girl turned to soothe her by stroking her bony arms. A long braid hung down the girl’s back, like a shiny black rope.

Trying to loosen my hands, I twisted and yanked and squirmed. Suddenly panic gripped me, and I yelled at the top of my lungs, “HELP ME! LET ME OUT OF HERE! HELP! HELP!”

Bile leaped to my throat, and the hatch above me banged open. The barrel of a rifle swung down, pointed at my head.

NEXT WEEK: Yin Yang