Nantucket Drowning: A Novel

By John O'Shea

A hurricane roars up, headed straight for Nantucket Island. That’s where James O’Neill, struggling hedge fund manager, is trying to put his life back together. Luckily, before the storm strikes, James is able to get his 12 son Danny on the last outward-bound ferry—but he can’t find his aging father. As the hurricane ravages the island, James searches for his elderly dad. He encounters mysterious men throughout the quaint town. After he spots two of them cruising offshore in his friend’s boat, he gives chase along the north shore. When they seize the island’s airport, James intercedes and realizes he is up against a foreign threat on American soil. He races across Nantucket to stop the remaining crew before they execute their plans, the effects of which could devastate the entire coast. Meanwhile, an explosion has ripped apart Danny’s ship and strands the young boy amid the raging seas. James is forced to make impossible choices between saving his family and intercepting terrorists before time runs out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483468112

Book preview

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LISBON

HE SHOULD’VE STAYED home. Yes, Lisbon was beautiful. Yes, the trip had been one of those once-in-your-life adventures. Yes, his health had held up. But Jason had so much going on back home. When they reached the boat, would he be able to bogart the dockmaster’s WiFi? Maybe he would have an easier time this late at night. But even if the line was free, would it reach their ship? They got the worst dock placement—virtually alone and as far from the dockmaster as possible. Would his iPad’s FaceTime work? What were the kids doing now? Five hours’ difference. They were likely sitting down to dinner now. He couldn’t believe he had two more days here and then a five-day sail ahead of them. On top of all that, something didn’t feel right.

Don’t you wish we could stay here forever? Herb asked.

He was buzzed, impaired for sure. Another night with dinner stains down his wide and wrinkled polo shirt.

Almost.

Ah, you still seem uptight. You shoulda had more of that port. Locals make it here.

You don’t say. Again.

You see? You’re—

Excuse me?

Jason spun. The floating dock rocked under him. A man appeared out of the night from behind them.

Herb burped. Another beggar? He spat over the dock into the ocean. I thought they respected the waterline.

Jason squinted into the night, wishing he had his night-driving glasses. The man, clearly in his thirties, and not American, or … Portuguese.

You left your credit card at the restaurant.

Herb pasted a hand to his back pocket.

Shit, I always do that. Such a pain in the ass. You gotta change all your Internet stuff. Herb took the offered American Express Black card from their guest’s long and needle-thin fingers.

The man was with them now, and under the dock light, Jason had a clearer view. Rough skin, unshaven. And slanted eyes. Asian. Chinese? The thin man held up a dark-green bottle with a fat belly encased in a weave of twine. "The manager said to say thanks. He said you might want a copo."

Herb swiped the bottle out of the messenger’s hand. I don’t know what that means, but tell him thanks.

Yes. The young man nodded.

Herb burped again. Say, what’s your name?

Jason wondered whether Herb knew he sounded like a quintessential ugly American.

The young man hesitated. He looked from Herb to Jason and then seemed to make a decision. Odd, Jason thought.

I am Talabek Firnok.

Herb blinked. Uh, okay, Talabek. Why don’t you join us for a final drink?

Join us? Jason hung his head. Seriously? What time is it? Has to be near eleven.

Really? He looked from Herb to Jason. What could Jason do? He shrugged.

Yes. Yes. Herb slapped him on the shoulder. The guy staggered forward. Talabek? What is that, Hungarian?

Hungarian? Jason laughed. Herb obviously didn’t mind how idiotic he sounded sometimes.

The extended docks wobbled under Herb’s weight. The yacht came into view, fifty yards out. The stern lights glowed. Mitch, Buzz, and Shep. Listening to Jack White and drinking Miller Lites. The boys will be excited to see this. Herb lifted the entwined bottle into the air. Boys! I’m home, bearing gifts!

The Feadship was a beautiful 127-footer, a Dutch-built yacht. A four-year and seven-million-dollar project. Five passengers, crew of three, and a cook—chef as Herb liked to say.

Jason watched Talabek. He kept his hands inside the pockets of his hoodie. Mitch and the others sat around an open-faced barbecue, coals under an orange-black flame. Zac Brown’s Knee Deep played from the ship’s Harman Kardon sound system. Jason took a seat in the corner. Herb staggered through the tight walkway with his oven mitt hand-wrapped around six wine glasses.

Where you from, Tal? Mitch asked.

Herb spilled the port over Mitch’s glass and then found the inside.

Buzz Cavanagh whined, Christ, Herb, watch it. You know how hard it is to get stains out of this. The Feadship belonged to Buzz.

I am from Kyrgyzstan.

Jason nodded.

Herb wobbled over. Jason, dear, be a good boy and raise it up. This bottle doesn’t pour so well.

Right, the bottle. Must be its shape.

Kyrgyzstan? Where the hell is that? China?

Jason straightened in his seat. Firnok? How’d you wind up here?

A light thunder bumped below, like a bureau fell over. Buzz dropped his head over the back of his captain’s chair Christ, Bjorn, what the hell?

Maybe I should go.

Nonsense! Our gift-bearing geek. Herb lifted his port glass above his head. To the Kyrgistanian! Long may he return with booze. Victory, on our first night!

Hear, hear.

As he sipped his port, Jason watched Tal, never taking his eyes off him, even over the lip of his glass. The port tasted like it did in the restaurant—except for that acrid aftertaste—like overly concentrated coffee.

Herb shook his head. Wow, that’s good. He slumped back into his captain’s chair.

FaceTime time. Jason put his glass down. Better make sure to down a Poland Spring before falling asleep.

"Maybe I return tomorrow with a fine bottle of vinho verde and some prosciutto. Will you be here?"

I’ll be here all week. Herb rubbed his neck. Man, maybe we should turn the barbecue down.

Buzz coughed. That port— He coughed a dry, cardboard-paper cough. He slipped out of his chair and crashed to his knees.

Jason thought about rushing to help, but his throat swirled in flame. Charcoals. He swallowed a charcoal from the grill. He must’ve. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t move, not an inch. His fingernails scraped at his throat. Skin rolled under his nails. Fire raged inside. His vision blurred with tears.

In the chair next to him, Herb’s fireplug legs jerked, clicked out straight.

Jason told himself to fight it. Tal slowly tilted his glass over the side, the port forming a rope line down to the harbor. Movement caught Jason’s eye. Another figure surfaced from inside the boat. Not one of the crew. Big, dark. A buffalo of a man. His shirt bloodied. Whose blood? Chef Stiggie? Bjorn?

Keckk! Mitch convulsed in the beach chair across from him. Through the barbecue’s heat waves, Jason saw Mitch’s body lock lengthwise. The thin chair kwonked under him.

Fight it, Jason told himself.

The boat groaned to life. Someone started the engines. Orders shouted. Not English. Fight it! Maybe the rest of him could douse his enflamed neck. It wasn’t too late. Get overboard! He coughed. Something dribbled over his chin. He tore his eyes back to the big man, the buffalo. He unfurled the dining-room tablecloth.

Jason tried to move his arm. His arm shook, but not because he willed it.

The buffalo hefted Mitch up and over his shoulder. Mitch flopped, his glasses slapping to the boat deck.

Jason felt his eyes close. Fight … it.

The buffalo dropped Mitch. His body slumped over the side, his head clocking the side of the boat like a coconut. The buffalo unsheathed a glinting machete. He brought the blade over the side and jerked it across. Blood trickled over the sheath tip when he housed the blade on his hip. He turned toward Buzz. Jason’s eyes closed again.

This time, he could open them half-mast—and he saw dots sparkled on the periphery. Buzz and Shep were draped over the side of the boat next to Mitch. Herb too. The buffalo manhandled Herb through the hair. Herb convulsed his head from side to side, a final act of resistance. The buffalo drew his machete across Herb’s throat and then released his head. Herb flopped over the side, bent at his big belly.

The buffalo turned toward Jason. Fangs. The man’s smile gave him fangs.

Don’t fight it. Close your eyes. Close them!

Jason couldn’t feel much. When his eyes next flickered open, his vision swayed, the boat’s rear deck, the barbecue, now the coals were lava hot, that mix of dark gray and spots of bright-orange sunset. Jason thumped down on the side of the boat. Did his chin hit the side? The running lights gave him a little to go on. A conversation of bubbles from the wake. But so much blood on Buzz’s boat. Would that come clean? Warmth. He could detect warmth on his cheeks. His vision blurred. Tears? No, this was darker. When would he get to FaceTime?

DAD’S HOUSE

YOU THINK THIS is funny?

James O’Neill opened his left eye. Night crust locked his right. His head felt cracked. Police? Chief. Max … Maxwell. The chief’s belly stared down from over the balcony of the chief’s belt. James touched his head. Had someone injected him with a needle?

Where? It was all he could produce with his dry throat. He lifted his face from the rough surface and slush of drool.

A seagull’s caw sounded like carpenter’s nails on glass.

Morning, Prince James, Maxwell said.

Wait. The film dripping from his face was not drool. The stink penetrated his nose. Vomit. Rotten garbage from his gut. He shucked the left side of his face and the melted pizza pie down his shirt.

Maxwell slipped his cell phone out of his pants pocket. If I can find someone who saw you driving last night, you are so mine.

What do you remember, James? Another voice.

James squinted. Microscopic slits. Ned Reddish. Redd. Friend. Midmorning. Pier. James’s favorite corner of the pier. Why was he here? How did he get here? Behind him, in the harbor, his Grady-White Haste lapped in the light waves, its bowline lazily tied to the dock cleat and its bow slightly cracked. The dock was smashed, two planks deep. Aw, hell.

Maxwell clicked a photo with his cell. By the way you cinched that knot, looks like you were drinking. Were you? Under the influence, Your Highness?

Was I?

Redd slipped off his sunglasses. His eyes drew on James’s. They glowed with caution. Go slow. Thank God, James had known Redd for so long. Redd crouched. What happened?

The needle returned. How hard could it press? The last vomit giblet fell into Nantucket Harbor from James’s brushing. I honestly don’t remember.

Tell me you were drinking. Maxwell wouldn’t let up. He bore a grudge against James, based on an ancient jealousy. James couldn’t even remember the island real-estate agent’s name. Jasmine or something.

There’s a beer mug in your rig.

James checked his boat. As he did, he surveyed the harbor. So many empty moorings. Cranes working down near town launch? A Boston Whaler soared up out of the harbor, showering saltwater off its barnacled bottom. Did he cause the evacuation?

Maxwell crouched, focused on James. Where’d you get the blood?

James looked at his shirt again. Just the vomit. Then he saw it. His knuckles were speckled with dark-red splotches.

You out earlier this morning, James?

Redd spun back toward Maxwell.

James didn’t like the urgency, the surprise flash in Redd’s eyes. James didn’t need much more of a warning light. Redd circled back. Rory Portnoy’s trawler was drifting. Blood across the helm. Frank Bellows found it. No Rory in sight.

Frank Bellows? Coast Guard? James thought back on Rory. Good guy. Simple lobster fisherman. Local. Experienced pilot. What happened? Again, James thanked God. Redd had thrown him a marker. James wasn’t a violent man. Not really. I-I don’t think so. Why was his memory such an empty slate? What was the last thing he remembered?

Music. Cashews. Twist … Twisted. I was at the Twisted. The Twisted Harpoon was a local, somewhat exclusive saloon.

Hah! So you were drinking! Maxwell rode back on his heels and squeezed another photo.

James rose—slowly. Eye to eye with Maxwell’s six foot two. Easy, Chief. I was there for business.

The memory returned. James’s stomach bottomed. The import of meeting Victor Slevin sobered him as best anything could. James’s entire business, all of his employees, depended on a successful session.

All good things, huh? Redd forced a smile. When they were young, drifting down off the south shore, Madaket Beach, each would take turns offering Chaucer’s line when the last of a fun night yielded to the next day.

James ran a hand into the muck of his hair. It crackled. He had arrived on time last night—with a solid plan, a willingness to negotiate, and four or five counteroffers and contingencies.

Maxwell clicked another photo of James’s boat. One call to the Twisted ought to substantiate this.

Who were you with? Redd asked as he scribbled on his pocket pad.

James pinched his eyes. Oh, God. He remembered. He nearly vomited again. Tom Glavin, his wife’s attorney … and then some.

James took as big a breath as he could. More acid gurgled up his throat. Plug the nausea.

Somehow Glavin had tracked him down. While James and his wife, Susan, had been separated for four months, she had been insisting on a divorce for the past two. Didn’t she understand he’d been traveling the world, trying to save the business that allowed her to live in a house with ten bedrooms, two pools, each with its own bubbling Jacuzzi? Glavin and his smooth eye sockets had jammed the manila folder into James’s chest. Glavin’s unnaturally white teeth glittered when he insisted, We’re gonna need you to move your stuff out. He winked when he said We’re. And that’s when the blood came. It took two busboys to pull James off Glavin.

James wanted them focused on something other than him. He couldn’t guarantee he could step into his boat without falling over. No other word on Rory?

Redd adjusted the volume of the radio on his hip. No, his wife said he was just pulling in the last of his traps before the storm.

Storm? Then James remembered. The hurricane. Rex. A monster. That’s why all the boats have gone. As well as anyone with good sense. Last night, snagging Victor’s commitment before he evacuated was vital. James looked at the sun rising in the morning sky. Victor would be gone. Hardly mattered now. James never got the chance to meet him last night.

Redd stood and affixed his sunglasses. Coast Guard is looking, but they’ve only got six sets of eyes.

Maxwell butted in. To say nothing of the storm prep they’ve got to deal with.

Prep. Time was running out. Soon, James himself would have to gather his father and— Oh my God.

Maxwell rose up. What’d you do now?

Danny.

Maxwell squinted for understanding.

His twelve-year-old, Redd offered.

I’ve got to get home. James spun to his boat.

Easy now, Your Highness. You’re not excused from anything.

Redd touched James’s shoulder. You should see a doctor. You look like hell.

James leaped to his bowline and unwound it with the speed of a calf roper. He rolled over the bow, planted his feet inside, and spun to the helm.

Maxwell stepped forward. I’m calling around. So help me, if I find you were out cruising on a belly of tequila—

James hardly heard him. Last night, he had had the sense, or senselessness, to leave the keys in the ignition. He started his twin 250s. They gunga-gurgled as he backed away from the dock. The harbor called for no-wake speed. His bow arced slowly out toward the harbor. No wake? Screw that. He gunned the throttle. A small riot of bubbles and foam exploded from the rear of the boat. Like a slow-motion bullwhip, he snaked the Grady White around a buoy and then a piling. Ever since he was a young boy, James chose to ignore most basic safety guidelines.

At the age of ten, he had accompanied his father and mother when his father became ambassador to Rengala, a small Central African country. Rengala offered heat and poor infrastructure. Life in Connecticut provided all kinds of guardrails, sidewalks, seat belt laws, speed limits. The absence of them in Africa, welcomed risk. He used to bike and later motor scooter over pocked fields, rocky paths posing as roads, and through neighborhoods of goats, rusted-out pickups, and collapsing tin homes. Knowing how hard it was to tame him, his father’s security detail taught James about self-defense, including escape maneuvers and a variety of martial arts. Forearms. His childhood memories were filled with rocky forearms—swatting him, choking him, crashing against his own attempted punches. While it was necessary to arm James with this knowledge, it also emboldened him to head straight into tricky situations. Two different presidential administrations rotated his father’s assignment, and while the scenery might’ve changed for young James, the challenges didn’t. With that as a foundation, he grew up embracing risk.

His hair sizzled in the wind as he broke into open water and pushed the throttle to full, threading Nantucket’s waters. The shoals had ground through the hulls of hundreds of ships over the years. While it took time to acquire knowledge about how to navigate the shallows, James had honed his understanding over the summers of his youth.

The breeze felt good—no, make that great—against last night’s filtrate seeping through him. He drove the Grady White close to Nantucket’s perimeter, which he often described as shaped like a foot. Fourteen miles separated the island’s toe and heel. About four miles deep. The sole formed the entire south shore, exposed to the Atlantic Ocean. The toes represented two smaller and less populated islands, Muskeget and Tuckernuck. The top of the foot was the entrance to Nantucket Harbor, where Brant Point Lighthouse kept watch.

The houses that lined the harbor epitomized perfection. Not a loser in the lot, they were quintessential New England shore homes, the types of spreads the Kennedys lived in. The average sale price for a single-family home on the island ran close to two million dollars. The houses on the shore, a multiple. They were all decked in gray clapboard shingle. The Nantucket Historic District Commission mandated all houses on the island use gray clapboard shingle from white cedar trees of northern Maine and Canada. Nearly every house on Nantucket adhered to this statute. Decree had also banned traffic lights and brand stores; you couldn’t find a Starbucks. The surroundings alone made it easy to forget the quagmire awaiting him back in Connecticut and New York City.

In twenty minutes, he arrived at his destination. He cinched his boat’s bowline to the dock cleat and surveyed the walkway up the seventy-foot bluff to his father’s house. As he took the stairs, he felt acidic. Despite having built a multibillion-dollar business, visiting his father’s house always made his gut ache.

When he reached the top step, the grounds of the house stretched before him. A beautiful lawn with a near golf-green manicure, a porch with a swinging bench seat, and an Olympic-length pool with a film of leaves across the top. His father typically didn’t close it for another two weeks. He glanced over his shoulder at the ocean beyond the bluff. Far in the distance, tiny crosses dotted the horizon with blinking red lights—the controversial new wind farm.

No matter the wind’s strength, though, it could never drive the ocean up there. Seventy feet was way too far.

James let himself in through the back door. The air conditioning hit like a cool breeze. All the more ominous, knowing his father hated it cool.

He dripped perspiration and seawater onto the mat. Servants’ stairs led to the second floor.

Well, well, heard you had quite a night last night, a voice said from the stairs. It belonged to an older man with one good leg and one lagging right side: his father, Walker O’Neill.

You too?

What do you mean, me too? I’m just making an observation.

Doesn’t anybody care to hear my side of the story?

Okay. Walker reached the ground floor and kept walking the hallway toward the kitchen. How much did you have to drink?

Very funny. At most I had two drinks.

My son, the lightweight.

Where’s Danny?

Upstairs. Alone.

Dad, I get it.

You should knock off the running around and focus on him. He’s got a lot going on for a lad his age.

I was twelve too once, with a lot going on, or don’t you remember? James blamed his father for making selfish decisions disguised as service to the country. Just about the time James turned nine, the president had asked Walker O’Neill to serve overseas. What started as US ambassador to several developing African nations deviated into special envoy assignments with only dotted-line reporting to the State Department. The real orders came from some dark, unnumbered basement office in Langley, Virginia. The assignments went from mediating cross-border water rights to requests for military consultation. The role drew Walker deeper into increasingly complex waters. The tides eventually took James’s family under, and they never resurfaced whole. Through it all, as a highly observant kid, James learned a host of skills that served him well when the Agency came calling his senior year at the University.

He followed his limping father into the chef-standard kitchen, with its sleek cutlery and shiny appliances. Walker unnecessarily ducked under the hanging copper cookware. I always think those things are gonna fall on me.

He had prudently invested the small fortune he earned at Beckford Investments during the first twenty years of his working career. The latter twenty he spent in the public service. All the while, his nest egg grew into a fortune.

You all packed?

His father gave a dismissive wave over his shoulder. Oh, I think we’re going to ride it out.

Dad, are you nuts? They say this is going to be like nothing this island has seen for fifty years, maybe ever. Haven’t you seen the reports about what it did to the coast?

Most of this house is new construction. James took a glass down from the cabinet and slipped it under the refrigerator’s ice-and-water dispenser. The first two cubes missed the glass and skittered away across the cherry hardwood floor. Marion and I will let you know what the aftermath looks like. We stocked up last night. You were out.

Christ on a stick, last night’s episode was never going to leave him. Dad, you told me you got ferry tickets …

I did. You and Danny are covered. They were more precautionary for Marion and me.

I can’t believe this.

We’re seventy feet up. This house is not going to flood. Seriously.

Do you have any idea what one-hundred-fifty mile-per-hour wind gusts will do to this place?

Marion’s starting on the shutters as we speak.

Shutters. James was afraid of this. Look, Dad. This thing could rip through here, at the very least tear the roof off, blow out your windows. It’s not safe.

We’ll be fine. You go.

We’ll. The word stung. Bile bubbled in James’s stomach. We’ll sounded too much like he and Marion were a couple. James let it go for the moment. Dad, this storm is going to be historic.

Maybe I’ll watch the monsters fold.

James knew he meant monstrosities, the windmills. A longtime resident, his father was no fan of the new wind farm, constructed in the middle of Nantucket Sound, between Cape Cod and Nantucket, manmade objects plopped into the beautiful ocean view of both shores.

His father pivoted toward James—the tension in his face, a flint in his eyes, and then a dash of reflection. "Show Danny