Read Online Hurricane by Ken Douglas - Free Book Online

him. She wondered about Dieter, so smooth and suave and macho. She saw two new sides to him this morning, first a whiner, then a tyrant. She hadn’t found much to like about him before, now she found much to dislike and she was more convinced than ever to remain hidden. It would not be a good thing for Dieter to find them here.
    “ Get me down to the beach. I’ll wait for you there. And don’t keep me waiting all fucking afternoon, you understand me?”
    “ Yes, sir,” Kurt answered, still the frightened servant, and Julie wondered what could ever frighten Kurt.
    They watched from inside the abandoned house. Kurt helped his boss down to the beach. Then he started to pull the dinghy back into the water.
    “ Wait.”
    “ Sir,” Kurt said. The word was clipped short, like a German soldier being upbraided in ranks.
    “ I forgot the fucking phone.” Julie had known Dieter on both business and a social level for the last two years and she’d never heard him swear. Now it seemed like every other word out of his mouth was an obscenity.
    Kurt stood with water up to his knees as Dieter pulled the small phone out of his shirt pocket and punched the buttons. Both Julie and Meiko were watching and listening from the house above.
    “ Fritz, it’s me. I’m out on the little beach on the nearest of the Five Islands. Get out here and bring about five of the boys with you. If you’re here in less than twenty minutes you get a five hundred dollar bonus. If it takes you longer than thirty, you’re fired.” He slapped the pocket phone closed. “Now we wait and see if that bastard keeps his job.”
    “ You forgot about the doctor.”
    “ Shit,” Dieter said.
    Kurt turned away from his boss and started to haul the dinghy back out of the water.
    “ Now,” Julie whispered, pulling Meiko out of the house. They made their way down the other side of the hill as quietly and quickly as they could, to where their own dinghy was waiting.
    Julie, still in the lead, pushed the overgrowth aside and clambered over the dinghy dock. She hopped in the boat. Meiko jumped in after her and landed badly. She slipped and started to go down, but Julie caught her.
    “ Easy,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
    “ Thanks.” Meiko sat down on the right tube. “What’s this?” she said, noticing the new patch for the first time.
    “ I patched a leak this morning,” Julie said. Then she grabbed the starter cord and was about to pull it when Meiko’s hand closed over hers.
    “ What?” Julie said.
    “ They’ll hear.”
    “ Forgot. I was in such a hurry to get out of here that I wasn’t thinking.” She sat silent for a few seconds. “We’ll have to row.”
    “ Back to the yacht club?”
    “ No, Dieter’s Germans would see us way before we got back, besides the tide is going out and I don’t think we’re strong enough to row against the current.”
    “ What are we going to do? They’ll find us when they get back, for sure.”
    “ We’ll row to the next island. It’s not too far. We’ll be able to make it way before Fritz gets here.”
    Meiko scooted toward the front of the dinghy, untied the painter and pushed off. They each grabbed an oar and started to row toward the island.
    Off in the distance they heard the buzz of two or more outboards and they put more muscle into the oars. There was hardly any distance between the first and second island, but it seemed like the end of the world to Julie as they rowed against the current. She was afraid they wouldn’t make it before Dieter’s Germans came into view. She hoped they’d head toward the beach side of the island, so intent on getting to their boss on time that they wouldn’t notice them.
    “ What will they do if they catch us?” Meiko asked.
    “ They won’t.”
    “ But if they do?”
    “ I don’t want to think about it,” Julie said, rowing even harder. Meiko matched each stroke. It was getting close to noon and the sun was straight overhead. The gray,