Fire And Ice Read Online Free Page B

surviving."
    "He's not going in the hospital."
    "We've done all we can," said Sarah. "I've counteracted the morphine overdose. Now he needs a hospital. I can't do any more. Let us go."
    "Can't do that. You're the only doctor the old man's got."
    "When will you let us go?"
    "Soon as Mr. Jack's issuing orders."
    "What about my husband?"
    "He's not going anywhere. You can sail back and pick him up when Mr. Jack says so." He ran an insinuating eye over her body. "Have yourselves a reunion." Sarah looked at her patient, pale as snow and barely breathing. His mutilated fingers twitched on the sheet. "You don't understand," she said. "You've got to get him into hospital."
    "Never happen, Doc."
    "What if he dies?"
    "He can't die. He's got him a doctor and a cute little nurse." THE TIDE HAD STRANDED THE OLD MAN'S CANOE.
    It took brutal minutes and all Stone's strength to wrestle the heavy plank hull into the lagoon. Then he saw the damage: the pillars that connected the outrigger to the pontoon had shattered when the canoe had struck the reef.
    He pawed frantically through the empty food baskets and hollow coconut shells that littered the floor of the hull, found the old man's spare rope in coils and lengths of cord neatly skeined. He wrapped the split pillars, and jumped aboard. The Dallas Belle was moving slowly, proceeding cautiously past the northern atoll. Stone sheeted out the sail and lowered the steering paddle, and headed for the narrow channel that cut the leeward reef. The little craft leaped lightly to the wind. But across the lagoon, the canoe staggered and began to lose speed. Stone—his eyes locked on the ship while he steered standing on the platform over the outrigger beams—
    finally looked down and saw that the hull was filling with water. In the scramble to launch, he had seen the obvious damage but had missed the more destructive consequence of the old man's crash landing. Plank lashings had parted, opening a seam from the bow to the forward outrigger beam—a split nearly six feet long, through which the lagoon poured as the wind pushed the canoe's nose into the smooth water.
    Stone ripped off his shirt, stuffed it into the gushing crack. Then he shifted his weight sternward to lift the bow, regained control of the boat, and sailed it through the short passage between the atoll and the barrier reef and into the pass through the reef itself. Outside, the sea tumbled a dozen rows of mangled surf. The canoe climbed sluggishly onto the first comber, fight-mg the weight of the water in her hull. The second wave slapped the little boat sideways. A third sluiced it back into the lagoon. The wind, beam on, banged into its flapping sail and wrenched the outrigger out of the water. As the canoe started to capsize, Stone slashed a stay with his rigging knife. The mast collapsed on the bow with a loud crack, and the canoe wallowed upright, sinking as the sail wafted around it like a shroud.
    Stone grabbed the steering oar and paddled for the shallows. Water poured over the gunnels. He jumped overboard and started pulling it toward shore, his lungs heaving, his heart pounding, his mind a blur of shock and despair.
    The ship was shrinking in the distance—already smaller than a toy on a boat pond. He'd been crazy to think he could catch it with a canoe. He had panicked, leaping to mindless action, and had nearly drowned himself—Sarah's knight on his charger, catching his neck on a clothesline.
    He grabbed his VHF radio, which he should have done immediately, and called on channel 16. "Dallas Belle. Dallas Belle. Dallas Belle. Come in Dallas Belle." There was no response. He called again, "Dallas Belle. Dallas Belle. Dallas Belle. Do you read me, Dallas Belle?" and pressed the radio to his ear. Mid-ocean static, a hollow, empty noise, barely distinguishable from the desolate roar of the surf. He switched to channel 5, which he and Sarah used to communicate when one of them was off the boat. "Sarah. Darling, can you hear me?