"James Morrow - Towing Jehovah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrow James)

migraine flared in Anthony's skull. He'd experienced worseтАФ attacks that
had dropped him to his knees and shattered the world into naming
fragments of stained glassтАФbut this was still a killer.
"You don't look well, sir." Buzzy Longchamps, the chronically jolly chief
mate, strode onto the bridge to begin his watch. "Seasick?" he asked with
a snorty laugh.
"Let's just get out of here." Anthony clamped his temples between his
thumb and middle finger. "All ahead full. Eighty rpm's."
"All ahead full," echoed Longchamps. He moved the twin joysticks
forward. "Speedy delivery," he said, lighting a Lucky Strike.
"Speedy delivery," Anthony agreed. "Ten degrees left rudder."
"Ten degrees left," echoed the able-bodied seaman at the wheel.
"Steady," said Anthony.
"Steady," said the AB.
Ambling up to the twelve-mile radar, the chief mate touched the
amorphous target. "What's that?"
 "Wooden hull, I suspect, probably out of Barranquilla," said Anthony. "I
don't think she's carrying coffee beans."
Longchamps laughed, the Lucky Strike bobbing between his lips. "Stu
and I can manage up here." The mate tapped repeatedly on the able
seaman's shoulder, as if translating his own words into Morse code.
"Right, Stu?"
"You bet," said the AB.
Anthony's brain was aflame. His eyes were ready to melt. In the
presence of any navigational or meteorological hazard, two officers
must be on the bridge at all times: so ran one of the few truly
unambiguous sentences in the Carpco Manual.
"We're only two miles from open water," said the mate. "A
twenty-degree turn, and we're outta harm's way."
Longchamps snapped up the walkie-talkie and told Kate Rucker, the AB
standing lookout in the bow, to keep her eyes peeled for a rogue freighter.
"You sure you can handle this?" Anthony asked the mate.
"Chocolate cake."
And so Anthony Van Horne left the bridgeтАФthe last time he would do so
as an employee of Caribbean Petroleum.
Nameless as a wild duck, the mahogany steamer came out of the night
at thirty knots, loaded to her gunwales with raw cocaine. No running
lights. Dark wheelhouse. By the time Able Seaman Rucker screamed her
warning into the walkie-talkie, the steamer was barely a quarter mile
away.
Up on the bridge, Buzzy Longchamps cried, "Hard right!" and the
helmsman responded instantly, thereby setting the tanker on a direct
course for Bolivar Reef.
Lying in his bunk, prostrate with pain, Anthony felt the Valpara├нso
tremble and lurch. Instantly he rolled to his feet, and before he was in the
corridor the obscene odor of loose oil reached his nose. He rode the
elevator to the weather deck, ran outside, and sprinted down the central
catwalk, high above the writhing tangle of pipes and valves. Fumes swirled
everywhere, sweeping past the kingposts in palpable clouds and spilling
over the sides like absconding ghosts. Anthony's eyes watered, his throat