Rick Scanlon, captain of a rusty-hulled freighter, is watching the distant lights of the San Francisco shore line inch closer when a commuter plane skids across the bow of his ship and flops into the water. With Rick directing his crew, everyone on the plane is saved, including Dr. Patricia Kendall, a beautiful passenger who Rick personally saves from drowning. He finds that he can't take his mind off her after the rescue, and it isn't long before the two find themselves involved in a passionate romance. The well-publicized rescue brings in some much-needed business to Rick's operation, including a job from the DEA to help bust a drug ring in Hong Kong. At first, Rick is unaware that the agent leading the operation is actually loyal to the Taliban and is seeking a trove of treasure. To complicate matters, he encounters Dr. Kendall during his travels-and inadvertently involves her in the sting. To Rick, there would be nothing better than getting both the riches and the gorgeous doctor and living happily ever after-but that means going against both the Taliban and a raging ocean in a battle that could cost him his life.

CONCEALED IN DESTINY

By Ken Coats

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Ken Coats
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-8333-6

Chapter One

Night came early, and it was ugly. Rain, which was wind-whipped into stinging pellets, raked the ship's bow as it plowed through tall, rolling waves agitated from their quiet undulations three hours earlier. Rick Scanlon stared through the wall of water cascading down the windows of the pilothouse. The winter storm had caught up with his freighter just as a dim line of lights appeared across the eastern horizon ahead, marking the coastline of San Francisco. There were some unusual lines in his dark features when he looked up at the ship's clock. The time was 1830 hours.

His ship, a bulk carrier named Raleigh, moved through the water at quarter speed while it was rendezvousing with the pilot boat, which contained the current harbor pilot on duty. The launch was just now pulling in close to the leeward side of the freighter. Illuminated by large searchlights on the small boat, the Raleigh and the launch paced each other side-by-side, over and through the tall, undulating waves while Rick watched two of his deckhands drop a Jacob's ladder over the side.

The rope ladder with wooden slats for rungs unwound down the side of the Raleigh while it careened against its slippery hull. As he stood on an elevated platform attached to the side of the station boat and the boat nudged the Raleigh's hull, the pilot stepped off onto the ladder while he timed his departure to coincide with the crest of a twenty-foot wave.

Turbulence begets technique, Rick thought. Only harbor pilots who were skilled in their profession could make such a risky transfer so easily.

On the bridge ten minutes later, after he was escorted by Charley Gibson, one of the deckhands, the pilot introduced himself as Hugh Langton while he hung up his weather gear. A slender man who appeared to be in his fifties, Langton first checked the Raleigh's papers and took enough time for a general knowledge of the ship's tonnage and engine power before he ordered, "Four degrees to starboard!"

"Four degrees to starboard!" Helmsman Bob Greely responded.

Fifteen seconds later when the cargo ship's rudder reached its new position, Greely repeated, "Four degrees to starboard!"

The maneuver was only for Langton to get a feel for the vessel under the current conditions. When the Raleigh finally turned to the new heading, Langton was satisfied with the feel of the vessel under the current conditions of the ocean.

"Can you keep her in the lane tonight?" Rick asked, nodding toward the two rows of lit buoys, which marked a wide channel ahead of his ship.

"The storm is making the steering a bit sluggish, but we still should be docking at Oakland to give you and your crew plenty of shore time this evening," Langton replied.

"That's what I like to hear," Rick said and then moved on to the back of the wheelhouse, where Gibson was drinking coffee. He stood by the cup storage locker, which was nothing more than rows of individual niches in the bulkhead.

"I'd hand you one poured, captain, but I can't reach your cup," Gibson said, nodding upward to the lone cup on the top row just as the ship's first mate, Jess Williams, entered the pilothouse. Water spilled down his yellow slicker into small pools tracing his footsteps across the deck.

As he looked over at the pilot, Jess said, "Glad to see you got her heading for the gate." His voice echoed inside the darkened bridge. "As you know, there's bound to be quite a swell running just outside the channel in the shoal water."

"No problem. I've checked the Raleigh's steering with your helmsman," Langton replied, nodding toward Bob Greely. Then with a half-smile, he added, "Just another day at the office."

"Good! Let's get this old bucket into port! I'm ready for a drink!" Jess said. He left the pilot and Greely at the wheel and moved on back to join Rick and Gibson. As he hung up his slicker, he found his own cup from the bulkhead niche. When he turned to the young deckhand, he asked, "Ready for some dry land, Gib?"

"Yeah, I was thinking about what you told me earlier today. A trip to Big Irene's should fix me up, right?"

"One way or the other," Jess said. His smile revealed a missing tooth when he looked over at Rick. "Coming with us, skipper? Irene was asking about you the last time I was there."

"Got other plans tonight," Rick said. Then, as if he was testing his own memory, he added, "I haven't been to her place since I got back from Desert Storm, and that's been a while. She still got her upstairs business?"

"Yeah, and Irene tells me you used to keep her girls up there pretty happy."

"Well, I'll probably go back again when I'm gray-haired and have trouble getting it up."

"Ah, go to hell," Jess snorted.

Each man balanced himself against the Raleigh's motion by holding onto the bulkhead's bracing structure. The talking continued between Jess and Gib, but Rick only half-listened to the conversation. His thoughts were on his ship's overdue mortgage payment. The bank had sent him three e-mail notices during their homeward voyage from Japan. With the bank's gluttony for their money, he thought to himself, the income from this recent cargo delivery will slip through my hands as quickly as the fish a zookeeper feeds to a sea lion.

Chapter Two

The storm was causing the commuter plane, a thirty-seat, turbo-jet plane, to be late in arriving at the Oakland International Airport. Despite the erratic motion of the plane, the young female flight attendant was doing her best to comfort her passengers. She had just retrieved a pillow from the aisle for one of them when a pamphlet landed at her feet. The attendant picked it up and then noticed a blonde woman several seats forward raise her hand. With effort, the attendant moved up the aisle and handed the pamphlet to the passenger.

Dr. Patricia Kendall accepted the medical journal with a sincere thank-you accompanied by a smile. She started reading the journal again, but the print zigzagging from the plane's motion discouraged her. She tossed the pamphlet in the vacant seat beside her on top of the Reno Gazette-Journal. A small headline in the newspaper proclaiming Presidents' Day weekend peeked out from under the pamphlet.

Two hours ago on the way to the airport in Reno, her parents had tried to persuade her to leave the following morning, but she had insisted on making this 6:00 p.m. flight. Tomorrow, she would have a first- period lecture at the university followed by two knee arthroscopies at the hospital. Relying on an early morning flight to meet the day's work schedule was too uncertain.

The weather could have made this brief holiday a lot more enjoyable, she told herself while she watched the rain hit the window of the regional jet. It had rained the entire three days she had been home. Being the youngest and only single member of a five-sibling family, she felt it was her duty to visit her aging parents as often as possible.

The incessant raindrops against the plane's window formed continual pools of water. She glanced again at the words written on the back of the seat in front of her: "Use seat bottom cushion for flotation." The message, which was not only beneficial for the present conditions, brought memories of her career as a flight attendant. After college, her desire for travel had trumped her medical aspirations, which had been simmering in her mind since...