Ark Storm (4 page)

When she had a feel for the waves and the set patterns, had spotted an oddity or two, she pulled off her shorts and tee, wiggled into her wet suit, and worked through her stretch routine, a quick three minutes’ worth; then she trotted across the sand, board under her arm, into the water.

It took her a few minutes to paddle out, duck-diving the waves as she did so before she got out to the lineup.

Most of the other surfers greeted her with a wave and a shout.

“Hey Boudy!”

“Hey guys,” she called back, waving. The surf community. Nothing like it. Once you were in, you had to do something truly loathsome to be out.

Her regular surf buddy, Jordan, paddled up.

“How’s it hanging, Boudy?”

“Just peachy, Jordie. Catch any good ones?”

“Oh yeah. A real big set came in first thing. Woke me up.”

“Another one’s coming. Get ready.”

From habit, Gwen picked the last one in the set. She lined up her board, paddled, snapped to her feet, and rode all the way into the beach.

She paddled out again, watched one of the college boys riding in. He was standing in the barrel almost as if he were just out on the street waiting for a cab. Alert but relaxed too. In no particular hurry. Then she watched him skim out, almost effortlessly. He paddled back out.

Gwen eyed him critically. A stranger. He had nice style, she was forced to admit. Tanned and ripped too.

She turned away, focused on powering her way back out beyond the break point. She got an hour’s worth of good rides, caught a good wave, the second best of the day. Rode it in.

Jordie walked out of the shallows with her.

“I’m done, you?”

“Yep.”

Jordan hip-bumped her. “How about a coffee, my place?”

Gwen hip-bumped him back. “Not today, Jordie.” She grinned. “Not tomorrow either, ’fore you ask.”

“Can’t hang a guy for trying.”

“Hell, I’d worry if you didn’t.” She walked up the beach with her board, wondering whose eyes she felt on her as she walked, determined not to turn to check.

She secured her board and crossed onto Junipero Street, heading for Bruno’s Market & Deli. Outside she was ambushed by the smell of toasted sandwiches. Weak with hunger, she ordered a toasted BLT, and almost swooned with joy as she made her way round the aisles with a shopping cart, munching en route.

She somehow amassed two hundred dollars’ worth of supplies, including a case of Stella Artois, four bottles of local wine, a selection of healthy staples, pastries for tomorrow’s breakfast, and enough fresh produce to keep her going for a few days. She cleaned out her wallet. God, she really, really needed Falcon to come through.

Preoccupied, bag-laden, Gwen didn’t notice the eyes watching her from the car that edged by slowly and then fell in behind her, veiled by the two innocent cars sandwiched in between, as she drove away.

7

HURRICANE POINT, CALIFORNIA, SIX DAYS LATER, THURSDAY

Singing along to Jason Mraz, who lilted out from the waterproof radio, Gwen took her desultory shower. She wrapped herself in her tattered toweling robe when the phone trilled. Unknown number. She nearly didn’t take it.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Boudain, good morning. It’s Gabriel Messenger. I’m sorry it’s taken us a while to get back to you. We closed a big deal this morning. Now it’s out of the way I can focus on Oracle. We’d like you to come in again. We’ve got some questions for you.”

“Sure. When were you thinking?” asked Gwen, manically twisting her jade ring.

“How soon can you make it?”

She wanted to say now, right now. Prudence prevailed.
Don’t be easy, Gwen
.

“Tomorrow, round noon?”

“Make it eleven.”

“See you then.”

Gwen hung up, did a major happy dance round her room. “Yessss!” She punched the air. “They’re on the hook, Leo. And tomorrow I am gonna reel them in.”

8

HURRICANE POINT, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Gwen rang Joaquin in Peru.

“Hey,
flaco,
go buy yourself a beer, a new sweatshirt.”

“Beer is on my list,
flaca.
What’s wrong with my sweatshirt?”

“It’s lonely. You’re the only gay guy I know with an unfilled wardrobe. Listen, we got funding!”

“Awesome!”

Gwen laughed as Joaquin belted out a glorious roar.

“How is it over there?” she asked when he’d calmed down.

“Well, last night eight tiles blew off my roof, two days ago a coupla surf tourists drowned getting suckered by a rogue wave forty feet high at least, we lost five more sensors and buoys and the sensors we have left are all still screaming their warnings. I daren’t go out deep to check on the far offshore sensors, three of which I think have gone psycho. We got hit with three humongous thunderstorms in the last week, and I don’t fancy getting my ass fried or drowned.”

“Jeez. Stay close to shore Joaquin. We’ll worry about those deep-water sensors later. As soon as I get my money, I’ll order all the new kit and we can review things then.”

“Move it, chica. This thing is changing week to week. We need the sensors, like, now.”

9

HURRICANE POINT, CALIFORNIA

Gwen made another call. She needed sunshine and celebration. Lucy Chen, bond salesperson, best friend since they’d met at age eight sitting on neighboring desks at middle school, answered with her usual prescience and the smooth jazz voice that beguiled a legion of brokers.

“Boudy! You got news?”

“And then some! Falcon want to invest! And they want to offer me a job. They say they need weather expertise and I have it, so would I come on board.”

“Awesome! Boudy! Well played. Please say you didn’t accept straight off.”

“Luce, I am not an idiot. I’ve brought their proposal home.”

“Right. I am ditching the date, coming over tonight. We need to talk strategy. Just do me a favor. Don’t cook. Let’s hit Carmel.”

“I could be insulted but I’m too happy. You’re on. My treat.”

*   *   *

Gwen found Lucy cruising the shops on Ocean Avenue. She’d already acquired three large, tony shopping bags.

“Candlesticks. Just gorgeous. And alpaca blankets,” said Lucy, holding them up like trophies. “I have a weakness.”

“You ’n’ me both,” said Gwen, giving her friend a giant hug. She grabbed two of the bags. “Here, let me lighten your load.”

Lucy rolled her shoulder. “Thanks.”

“You OK?”

“Shoulder’s playing up. Took a fall at the dojo the other day. Don’t bounce like a fourteen-year-old anymore.”

“Who does? But fourteen-year-olds can’t drink and we can. Follow me, there’s a great new bar by the water.”

“As long as the wine is excellent and chilled. We have a deal to celebrate!”

Gwen’s eyes shone. “And we shall!”

They walked in, snagged a corner table overlooking the beach.

“Let’s order first, then talk,” said Gwen. “I am ravenous.”

“When are you ever not? How you’re not the size of a horse, I don’t know.”

“I ever stop exercising, I probably will be.”

“Now that is what I call a view.”

Gwen, consulting her menu, did not look up. “Isn’t it great? I love this time of evening, sun going down, sea all golden.”

“All golden all right. And ripped.”

Gwen peered up. “The sea?
Ripped
?”

“Over there,” said Lucy, pointing with her chin. “The dude with the blue surfboard.”

“Hmm,” mused Gwen. The college boy with the seriously chilled surfing style.

“You know him?”

“Dropped in one of Jordie’s waves the other day. No etiquette.”

“Who needs etiquette when they look like that?”

Gwen watched him as, only partially shielded by his car’s open door, he dropped his trunks and pulled on shorts.

“You might have a point,” she said, grinning.

The surfer emerged from behind the door, pulled on a t-shirt and flip-flops. A friend called to him and together they made their way toward the café.

“Bottle of the Hawke’s Chardonnay, please,” Gwen asked the hovering waiter. “We’ll get round to food.”

The waiter, with the speed of the best of his tribe, glided away and back with the bottle, opened it, let Gwen sample and approve it, poured out two glasses, then intercepted the surfer and his friend, giving them a table on the other corner.

The surfer looked up, saw Gwen. His eyes narrowed, then he broke into a cocky smile.

“Oh no,” said Gwen. “He’s coming over.”

“What is your problem, girl?”

“He’s a surfer.”

“Boudy, this is crazy. When are you going to get over Brad?”

Gwen shrugged. “Brad is dead and buried far as I’m concerned. And there’s no law saying I have to like surfers.”

“No one with a pulse would not like that guy.”

The surfer stopped before their table, gave them a dazzling smile. Gwen took him in at a glance: jaw-length tousled brown hair, aware honey-colored eyes harboring some private joke, and curving, sensual lips. But he wasn’t a college boy, she noted. His eyes had deep grooves around them, cut by sun and surf and life. He must have been over thirty, but he had the body of a college-boy athlete still. Six-four, powerfully muscled, not in a showy gym way, but what looked like real, working muscles; a natural, unposed masculinity. Most working men didn’t have the time to nurture a physique like that. She wondered what he did.

“Evening, ladies,” he said in a low-slung voice with a hint of a rasp.

“Good evening,” hummed Lucy.

Gwen growled something inaudible.

“We meet again,” he said to Gwen.

“If you can call sharing the ocean
meeting,
” drawled Gwen, as if she were quite bored.

The surfer smiled off the barb. He nodded to Lucy. “I’m Dan Jacobsen.”

“I’m Lucy, and this is—”

“Boudy, if I heard right.”

Oh God, thought Gwen, he’d heard them.

“Gwen,” she said archly. “Boudy to my friends.”

Lucy gave him an apologetic look. “Don’t mind her. Low blood sugar.”

“How d’you get to Boudy from Gwen?”

“Boudicca,” said Gwen. “Lucy here gave it to me as a nickname when I was eight, ’cause I liked to fight. It kind of stuck.”

“Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe, kicked the Romans’ asses in Britain, for a time anyway,” he noted wryly. “Yeah, I’ve heard of her.”

“And she looked like a warrior queen, did our Boudy,” added Lucy.

The surfer looked Gwen up and down. Slow, incendiary.

“Still does,” he said. “See you on the waves, Boudy.”

Gwen shook her head, watched the man walk away waving a farewell. He had just the slightest of swaggers, and, like most surfers, a tinge of arrogance. Gwen glowered at his retreating back and took a fortifying glug of wine.

“So, changing the subject before you kick my ass,” said Lucy. “Falcon Capital. Tell all.”

Now Gwen smiled. A dazzler. “Get this! They want to put ten million in, for a twenty percent stake. They want to employ me full time. Apparently my expertise will be ‘useful,’ to them. Salary of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year!”

“You happy with the equity, giving so much away?” asked Lucy levelly, unimpressed by the dollars.

“It’s for Ten. Million. Dollars. Luce! Ten Mill! No more posing in swimsuits. And Oracle gets all the funding it needs. And boy does it need it. Yeah. I’m happy. Plus, I get to keep Hurricane Point House. Do every last damn repair it needs. Get a power shower!”

“No.”

“What d’you mean
no
?”

“The Oracle money stays in Oracle. It ain’t fungible babe. Be real careful with compliance stuff. Separate bank accounts and all. You need a signing-on bonus. Do up your house with that.”

“Lucy, I don’t want to screw them,” said Gwen, twisting her jade and gold ring round and round in place.

Lucy reached out and grabbed Gwen’s hand. “Cut the ring-twiddling shtick, will you? Know it gets on my nerves.”

Gwen stuck out her tongue, felt about fourteen. “It’s my ring and I’ll twiddle it if I want to.”

Lucy gave an exasperated sigh and released her friend’s hand.

“Listen, Boudy, they’re freaking venture capitalists. They’ll be screwing you, and so well you’ll just sit there and say,
more,
and that’s kind of fine, up to a point, but please, please don’t ever hold back on screwing them when you get the chance.”

“So, I screw them back. OK. I get that.”

“They’ll respect you for it in the morning. I promise. The last thing you want to be is easy in their world. So, your golden hello…”

“Please don’t tell me that’s like a golden shower.”

Lucy burst out laughing. “Shower of cash, babe. Ask for $100k. And listen, if they want you, they’ll pay for you. $100k is peanuts to Gabriel Messenger, a few minutes work.”

10

BAR AGRICOLE, SAN FRANCISCO, FRIDAY NIGHT

The two men spoke in hushed voices in the crowded Bar Agricole in the financial district of San Francisco. Angled together they could hear well enough but nobody else could. In the packed bar, late on a Friday night, alcohol flowing like water in all but their glasses, no one paid them any heed, which was all part of the plan. In their dress-down Friday uniform of casual trousers and polo shirts, they looked like just another pair of still-prosperous but market-weary traders letting off steam before going home to their wives in Marin County. Braying laughs and tall tales were all the white noise they needed.

“We have a problem,” said the tall one, known to his associates as The Man. No one was quite sure who had coined the moniker—some thought The Man himself, for there was a self-celebrating machismo about him—but whatever its provenance, the name suited him and it stuck. The Man toyed with the condensation that slicked down his chilled glass, as if what he was about to say had really no import at all. He looked up, met the other’s eyes.

“Contagion of an earlier leak,” he said deliberately. “Thought it had gone away for good. Raised her pretty little head in town last week. Been making noises about a
guy getting rough, blacking her eye, losing trade. Guy was drunk, talking all kinds of crap.”