Black clouds rolled menacingly over the sea from Kodiak Island and turned the deep blue-green surface to lead. The orange glow of the sun was snuffed out like a candle flame. Unlike most storms that swept in from the Gulf of Alaska creating fifty- or hundred-mile-an-hour winds, this one bred a mild breeze. The rain began to fall, sparingly at first, then building to a deluge that beat the water white.
On the bridge wing of the Coast Guard cutter Catawba, Lieutenant Commander Amos Dover peered through a pair of binoculars, eyes straining to penetrate the downpour. It was like staring into a shimmering stage curtain. Visibility died at four hundred meters. The rain felt cold against his face and colder yet as it trickled past the upturned collar of his foul-weather jacket and down his neck. Finally he spat a waterlogged cigarette over the railing and stepped into the dry warmth of the wheelhouse.
"Radar!" he called out gruffly.
"Contact six hundred fifty meters dead ahead and closing," the radar operator replied without lifting his eyes from the tiny images on the scope.
Dover unbuttoned his jacket and wiped the moisture from his neck with a handkerchief. Trouble was the last thing he expected during moderate weather.
Seldom did one of the fishing fleet or private pleasure craft go missing in minsummer. Winter was the season when the gulf turned nasty and unforgiving. Chilled Arctic air meeting warmer air rising from the Alaska Current detonated incredible winds and towering seas that crushed hulls and iced deck structures until a boat grew top-heavy, rolled over and sank like a brick.
A distress call had been received by a vessel calling herself the Arnie Marie. One quick SOS followed by a Loran position and the words ". . . think all dying."
Repeated calls requesting further information were sent out, but the radio onboard the Arnie Marie remained silent.
An air search was out of the question until the weather cleared.
Every ship within a hundred miles changed course and steamed full speed in response to the emergency signals. Because of her greater speed, Dover reckoned the Catawba would be the first to reach the stricken vessel. Her big diesels had already pushed her past a coastal freighter and a halibut long-liner gulf boat, leaving them rocking in her wake.
Dover was a great bear of a man who had pain his dues in sea rescue. He'd spent twelve years in northern waters, stubbornly throwing his shoulder against every sadistic whim the Arctic had thrown him. He was tough and wind-worn, slow and shambling in his physical movements, but he possessed a calculatorlike mind that never failed to awe his crew. In less time than it had taken to program the ship's computers, he had figured the wind factor and current drift, arriving at a position where he knew the ship, wreckage or any survivors should be found-and he'd hit it right on the nose.