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Accustomed to driving a boat where eight knots was fast and ten screaming,
Jim was shocked by the black boat's speed. In the time it took to shake
out the third reef in the mainsail, it halved the distance between them
and was suddenly close—little more than a quarter mile behind.
Startling, too, was its size. The thing was enormous, immensely tall.
Its spire of sail and mast scraped the sky like a black steeple. And it
looked very wide, wider than Hustle was long. Slicing through a crest
in a cloud of spray, carving a flat course through the pummeling seas,
it moved more like a ship than a sailboat.
Jim looked at his knot meter. Eight knots as a following sea kicked Hustle
in the stern, ten as she surfed its crest. Then it raced on and she slowed
with a sickening lurch, descending out of the wind. Eight knots, seven,
six. Five and four across the trough, then a gradual acceleration as the
next sea finally picked her up. The wind, fitful in the troughs, blew
hard across the crest and she surged ahead.
He saw immediately that the black boat had crossed two troughs. "She's
twice as fast," he said to Shannon. Shannon was studying it with
the binoculars. "Two hulls. It's that catamaran Cordi's friend saw.
No wonder it's fast....There's a guy standing on the first spreader and
four in the back....I think the guy on the spreader has a gun—Jim, get
down! It's them. He's aiming it."
Pushing off from the cockpit coaming with her arms, she threw herself
at Jim. They sprawled to the narrow deck between the benches. A high-power
bullet whipped past the mast with a sharp crack that made them both flinch.
The wind banged into Hustle's mainsail and an errant cross sea smacked
the side of her bow. The combined force overrode the auto-helm, and the
boat headed up—turning into the wind—bared her hull to the following sea
and plunged back into the trough.
Jim lunged for the helm. Shannon dragged him back with both arms around
his waist. "Keep your head down!"
"We'll broach! I gotta steer."
A second murderous crack drove them both to the deck. A sea reared, so
high it blocked the light. A wind gust crashed into the mainsail. Knowing
what was coming and helpless to stop it, Jim grabbed Shannon and held
her tightly as the boat fell on its side.
The icy sea broke over them, flooding the cockpit, and smashing them into
the safety lines. "Hold on, hold on, she'll come up!" Jim yelled.
But the rolling sea filled the mainsail which was already in the water
and held the boat flat like a pinned wrestler.
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