Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“What do you mean, you can’t get it out of idle?”

“If I try to increase speed it cuts out.”

“So?”

“So that’s not good.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Not my thing, pardner. Send Barney over.”

“Barney? Did I copy you…Barney?” Hooker asked.

“She’s good with engines.”

“You’re kidding.”

I was standing behind Hooker, listening to the conversation broadcast over the walkie-talkie, and I had a real strong urge to kick him in the knee again.

“Do you know anything about marine engines?” I asked Hooker.

“Not a damn thing,” Hooker said. “I don’t even know anything about car engines.”

“How could you make a living driving cars and not know anything about engines?”

“I drive them. I don’t repair them.”

Truth is, I was itching to see his engines. I scrambled across to the Hatteras and followed Bill into the mechanical room.

“He’s got twin CATs,” Bill said. “Twice as big as the Sunseeker’s Mannings. I took a quick look but nothing jumped out at me. I guess that doesn’t mean much. I was never that interested in garage stuff.”

“Holy Toledo,” I said, eyeballing the CATs. “This is way over my head. I can take a car apart and put it back together again, but I don’t know anything about any of this.”

“Take a deep breath,” Bill said. “They’re just engines… only bigger.”

Maria was at the helm on the walkie-talkie. “The helicopter’s coming back,” she said. “Kill the lights.”

Hooker, Bill, and I stood in the darkness, waiting for Maria’s all clear. My mind was racing and my heart was skipping around. I was in a broken boat that was filled with Castro’s gold and something that looked like a bomb. And the bad guys were looking for us.

“All clear,” Maria said.

Hooker flipped the lights back on. “How bad is this loss-of-power problem?”

“I don’t know how bad it is,” Bill said.

“Executive decision,” Hooker said. “Let’s use the hoist to transfer the gold over to the Sunseeker while Barney pokes around down here. It’s probably better to have it in Rich’s boat anyway. No one’s looking for his boat. You guys can take off as soon as you’re loaded up, and we’ll follow when we can.”

I found the service record and some manuals and I began walking my way through basic troubleshooting. At the very least I thought we could limp out of the harbor and get far enough out of Cuban waters to radio for help and not get arrested.

I was checking hoses and seals when I heard the Sunseeker’s engines turn over. I looked at my watch. I’d been working for two hours. I stepped out of the mechanical room and went on deck. Bill was pulling away, moving toward open ocean. Maria was flat on the prow with a hand-held halogen, periodically searching the water in front of them.

Major lump in the throat time.

“He’ll be okay,” Hooker said.

I nodded, sucking back tears, not wanting to go hormonal in front of Hooker.

“I think I found the problem,” I told him. “You had water in the fuel, probably from condensation over a period of time. And it affects both engines. I was able to drain the water that collected in the fuel filters, and we should be good, unless they fill with wate