Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

The Sea Foam was a fully equipped working boat. Which meant that the quarter-mile-long net was piled up on the flat stern with an aluminum skiff trailing behind, attached by a tow rope. The way it works is the skiff and the boat each get one end of the net. They pull in opposite directions, making a big semi-circle. Then after waiting awhile, they meet up, completing the circle. The skiff driver hands off the rope to someone on the mother ship. At that point the big boat has control of the net, which gets hooked into the winch. When the net is winched in, it gets tighter and narrower. The circle closes, collecting all of the fish into the middle. In the end, the fish are hauled up in a part of the net called ‘the sock’. They get dumped into a hatch filled with ice chips and sea water.

Game over for the fish caught in the sock.

Guilfoyle maneuvered the Sea Foam into the channel between the mainland and Carolina Island. Hank was looking at the rippling wake formed by the boat. I was looking out to sea. Presently the view was over to the cove on Carolina, where I had stopped the zodiac with Chapman the night before. Carolina Island receded and a half-hour later I heard the motor drop. I tapped Hank on the arm. He looked away from the water and I motioned up to the wheelhouse.

Guilfoyle was kicking back in his chair looking east through a pair of binoculars. He heard us coming up the ladder, dropped the binoculars to his chest. “Here we are, like you wanted. A mile out. What now?”

I held out a hand and he put the binoculars in it. I looked toward the mainland. Bell Island was a lump of green a mile off. I could make out some low buildings, not much more. I said, “Spotting scope?”

Guilfoyle said, “Roger that.” He eased out of the chair and slipped into the captain’s quarters behind the wheelhouse. When he came back he was carrying a long tan padded rifle case. He unzipped the case and pulled out a Remington 700 with a glossy walnut stock. Up on the rail was a Leupold scope. I noticed Hank eyeing the gear up in the wheelhouse. Guilfoyle had a fancy large screen unit that did fish finding and GPS navigation, all in one, and of course, the gun.

Guilfoyle flicked off the lens caps on the scope and handed me the rifle. I opened the side window. He passed me a clean microfiber cloth. I set the hand guard on the folded cloth and sighted through the scope. Bell Island got a lot closer all of a sudden.

I could make out three single-story buildings, a fenced-in area, and a pebble beach. Behind the buildings was a tall communications tower. About two hundred yards in front of the beach was a very long dock. A horizontal platform in the middle of the water. No movement, no people, nothing happening. I focused again on the dock for a moment.

I said, “Looks deserted from here.”

Hank said, “Should we get closer, maybe go around it?”

I said, “Good idea.” I glanced at Guilfoyle and inclined my chin. “What are we supposed to be doing, in case someone is watching?”

Guilfoyle said, “Well Keeler, I reckon we are prepping the net for dry dock storage.”

I said, “Let the net go and bring her in, do a full round?” He nodded.

I took Hank down and we got the wet gear on. Bib pants and hooded jacket. All yellow and orange. I took an old SEAS hat off the hook and handed it to him. He declined. I said, “A lot of people end up wearing these, Hank. We’ll be bringing the net in from the water, over the winch.”

He said, “That’s okay, I don’t wear baseball hats all that much.”

“People tend to wear them, working on a boat.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

I shrugged and adjusted mine. “It’s here if you need it.”

Meanwhile, Guilfoyle raised the anchor and turned the boat toward Bell Island. It had become a beautiful day, clearing up a little from earlier. The cool breeze and salt spray coming off the Pacific felt great. I looked down over the rail at the wake. A pair of porpoises was playing in the troubled water.

Thirty-One

Hank and I stood behind Guilfoyle in the wheelhouse. We were coming up on half a mile away from the island. I put my hand on the captain’s shoulder.

“Pass close in, see what we can eyeball. Maybe draw security if they’ve got it.”

Guilfoyle cut the throttle. He bobbed his head twice. “Roger that. Why don’t both of you get on the net? Look like you’re working the boat, in case they have anyone watching.”

I motioned Hank to come down out of the wheelhouse. I brought Guilfoyle’s binoculars with me. We got to the back of the boat and sat on the netting piled up in an organized mess.

Hank made himself comfortable on a spiral of webbing. “What’s going on?”

I said, “We’ll go in close to the island, and Guilfoyle’s going to bank us past real slow. If there are no issues, I’m thinking we might take the skiff in and land it. Then we get to look around.”

He said, “Sounds good to me. Why all the gear?”

I said, “In case there are issues. We’re a fishing crew. It’s standard practice to do a last run with the net before putting it up in the loft for the winter. We do that, check out the condition of the webbing and see if anything needs to be repaired right away. In fact, we already did that three days ago.”

Guilfoyle had the throttle pushed all the way forward, the diesel engine gurgled like a healthy and energetic beast. I watched the island through the binoculars as we got closer. There was nothing remarkable about it. The compound of buildings was visible to the naked