Dan Barns: Problem Solver

Chapter Three

A/N: Early update for the heck of it! Haha! I've had a slow day so I thought I would give out another. :)

We hung out in the hotel for about six hours. Then headed for our boat for some night fishing. They had the docks under surveillance and were watching everyone closely. I got us to our boat and helped her in. I had her quickly start pulling the nets out of the bag and folding them. That was easy enough. As long as you did not watch too close. She was right, she was not good at task that were labor intensive. She looked nothing like the girl I was sent after. I had her wear her hair in a ponytail and actually put low light makeup on. I had my hands full.

She was able to untie the boat rather skillfully as we shoved off. She smiled as she did it. I knew she felt like she was helping. That definitely boosted our chances of looking like we belong.

She was doing a great job blending in. I watched as her father's men and the others that were after her look at her and keep on looking elsewhere for her. Then I see one holding a steady eye on us. I felt the way he was thinking. As we got out of the bay, I heard a large boat start up. I knew we had a problem developing. The engine that was started was the patrol boat, easy to outrun us and overtake us. It was also an easy to buy from the general's purse.

As I mentioned before, I knew this was going to be a tough one. So hillbilly to work. I had her change jackets, and I put on a rain slick. "Dear it is about to get real and real quick." I said as I put the motor on to full. I also put some local 100 proof in the gas can. I knew this could happen, but I have to get more distance from the bay. I had her throw over the excess weight, which was not a whole lot of weight, then had her scoot to the back of the boat. This gave us a little more speed.

I headed on a straight course and towards the far away coast line. Twenty miles is not much unless you are being chased by something faster and something a lot bigger. Like a cheetah after a rabbit. This is not good, but neither was our first can of gas going out as fast as it did. I switched the back up over before it was completely empty. I moved the can to the side. As I was feeling a little uneasy, and the young lady beside me was not in much better shape. I knew this was a long shot, but so was waiting in the small village. This was a way to ensure that no one else got hurt. Better to lose two than 30 to 2000 people. It was going to be dark soon and only sonar or radar. I was hoping dark would hurry.

I would love to have had more time and on flat land I could find ways to hide with her. That is when I saw a boat. I duck the small boat around to the other side of the bigger boat. An ocean barge is a great thing to hid behind or if the boat was smaller, go between and hid till the threat was gone. This barge had 7 long and four across. It takes a while to search. Finding a safe place to be was hard enough, this boat could hide our signature if we did it right. They were going the same way, and bigger than us. It was no surprise the patrol boat pulled up next to the ship to search for any stowaways aboard. We killed engines along with them and floated away. We slid on our darker clothes, and remained quite. I could see they were separating the barges just enough and shine a light down between them. This meant they wanted to make sure that we were not using this one as a decoy.

I moved our little boat toward the front of the boat slowly. Trying to keep a forward direction. I could hear the general's men asking if they had seen a little boat with two people in it. One of the men said they had as they past one of the bays, but they had not seen any real traffic since they hit the channel. I hear the order to search the sides of the boat and turn on the boats large lights so they could see any hitchhikers.

I paddled softly away. The less noise the better. I could tell she was trying to hold her breathe to help. I quietly explained that slow steady breath would be better. "Controlling one's breathing does not draw near as much attention as trying to catch your breathe after holding it."

She nodded and tried softer breathes. That brought her color back and she then started watching for the spotlight to get close to us. A few times it flew our way across the water. She would then hold her breathe again and release as it barely missed us. They were doing a sweeping pattern to see which direction we had gone.

I paddled a good hour before I would even think of starting the engine again. By this time we were in international waters. Five miles off the coast is suppose to be a free zone. Little governments do not always acknowledge this little fact. They will chase you up to ten miles out if they feel you are in no way going to get assistance from a major power. If they feel that you will be getting that assistance, then some won't go out beyond four miles.

I was glad that they were taking so long while they searched for us. I could use all the time that the ship could give us. One of the perks of ship captains who know when something wrong gets boarded. If they know they have nothing and they seen someone in trouble, they would delay the law long enough to give a head start. This one had probably seen the mistreatment of village people before. He offered drinks to them and asked questions on how he could help and a few personal story questions.

After the hour and ten minutes of paddling, I fired up the engine and ran hard for the coast. The long time of quite had bothered her. After about ten minutes the big ship fired up her engines and she slowly started moving more south then the straight line that we were heading. The engines of the patrol boat came to life and after a few minutes they were on the move as well.

The ride was starting to get a little rough as the waves grew a bit. Off in the great distant I could see a electrical storm. As the ocean moves, we probably have a little more than three hours if it stays slow. Weather will be weather though. I have seen more weathermen make fools of themselves saying the storm will go back to sea or will go to the north or to the south or my favorite, disappear before it causes us any real damage. A storm will do what it wants. The different temperatures of the ocean and islands that it crosses will change different things about it.

"Is that storm you are watching going to be a problem for us?" she asked.

She had surprised me when she talked. I did not realize how much concern I was showing in my face while looking at it and making sure we had time to get somewhere. "I will not lie. It might give us a few, but nothing we can't handle. Storm surges may be our biggest issues. We will be to land before the rain hits hopefully." I said as I was trying to figure out the closest safest place to go.

We sat silent for a little while.

She looked at me, "Are we clear of danger? Are we okay?"

"We will be alright. We may be clear, but there is always a bit of danger until I get you where we are going." I said sounding as confident as I could. I knew the patrol boat was behind us and going again. I felt the hair on my neck stand up. "Get down, we have a gun trained on us. I recognize the feeling from a few missions ago." I scooted down into the floor of the boat. I felt, no I pretty much knew they were closing in on us. The boat was getting closer and I knew of a small volcanic island to the north that was a crashing zone. I turned hard towards it. I could run a ground, run into a reef, or hit some hard rock that puts a whole into the boat. Yet that was a chance I would have to take. With these people wanting her and now myself dead, I had little choice.