Black wind

little farther,” Dirk whispered, winding the towline over his shoulder and kicking toward the center of the cove. When they were a hundred meters from the shoreline, he tossed the line into the boat and pulled himself over the side, then grabbed Summer’s hand and pulled her aboard.
    “Not exactly a Fountain offshore powerboat but I guess she’ll do,” he said, surveying the interior of the small boat. Spying a pair of oars under the bench seat, he popped the shafts into the side oarlocks and dipped the blades into the water. Facing the stern of the skiff, with Kang’s compound illuminated in the background, he pulled heavily on the oars, propelling the small boat swiftly into the center of the cove.
    “It’s about a mile to the main river channel,” Summer estimated. “Maybe we can find a friendly South Korean naval or Coast Guard vessel on the river.”
    “I’d settle for a passing freighter.”
    “Sure,” Summer replied. “Just as long as it doesn’t have a Kang Enterprises lightning bolt on the funnel.”
    Glancing toward the shoreline, Dirk suddenly detected a movement in the distance and squinted to better see across the water. As his eyes focused, he grimaced slightly.
    “I’m afraid it’s not going to be a freighter offering us the first lift,” he said as his knuckles tightened their grip on the oars.
    The dock side guard had grown bored with his magazine and decided to patrol the moored boats once again. A fellow guard stationed on Kang’s yacht was from a neighboring province and he loved to harass the man about the lack of attractive women in his home region. Walking toward the dock, he at first failed to take notice of the empty beach, but then tripped as he stepped onto the dock ramp. Grabbing the side rail to steady himself, his eyes fell to the ground nearby, detecting the scarred indentation of a boat that had been dragged across the pebbly beach. Only, the boat was gone.
    The embarrassed guard quickly radioed his discovery to the central security post and, in an instant, two heavily armed guards came running from the shadows. After a brief but heated exchange, several flashlights were produced, their yellow beams rapidly waved in a
    chaotic frenzy about the water, rocks, and sky in a frantic search for the missing skiff. But it was the guard on the stern of Kang’s yacht who located the two escapees. Shining a powerful marine spotlight across the water of the cove, he pinpointed the small white boat lurching across the waves.
    “Not a good time to be in the limelight,” Summer cursed as the rays of the distant searchlight fell over them. The clattering burst of an assault rifle rattled across the water, accompanied by the whistling of bullets that raced harmlessly over their heads.
    “Get down low in the boat,” Dirk commanded his sister as he pulled harder on the oars. “We’re out of accurate firing range but they could still get off a lucky shot.”
    The small skiff was just midway across the cove and Dirk and Summer would be sitting ducks for a gunman in Kang’s speedboat, which could be on them in a matter of seconds. Dirk silently hoped and prayed that nobody would notice the boat’s stern line as they rushed to chase after them.
    On shore, one of the guards had already jumped into the green speedboat and started the motor. Tongju, awakened by the gunfire, burst out of his cabin on the catamaran and began barking inquiries at one of the guards.
    “Take the speedboat. Kill them if you have to,” he hissed.
    The two other guards scrambled into the speedboat, one of them casting off the bowline as he jumped aboard. In the rushed moment, none of the men noticed that the stern line was dropped over the outboard side. The pilot saw only that the lines to the dock cleat were free. As the boat drifted clear of the dock, he jammed it into gear and pushed the throttle all the way to its stops.
    The green boat surged forward for a split second, then mysteriously stopped dead in its tracks. The engine continued to scream with a whine, churning at high rpm, but the boat sat drifting lazily. The confused pilot pulled back on the throttle, unsure of what was causing the lack of forward motion.
    “Idiot!” Tongju screamed from the deck of the catamaran with uncharacteristic emotion. “Your stern line is caught in the propeller. Put someone over the side to cut it free.”
    Dirk’s handiwork had paid off. Diving under the speedboat, he had tightly wrapped the stern line