History is repeating itself on hundred years later on Alaska's breathtaking Inside Passage. Re-creating the famous Voyage of 1897, the Spirit of '98 is setting sail from Skagway, Alaska, en route to Seattle, Washington, carrying two tons of Yukon gold. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his love, famous female "musher" Jessie Arnold, are among the excited participants. The Grim Reaper is a passenger as well. Dressed in period coustoume, Gold Rush buff Alex Jensen is only too happy to be representing the Troopers on this historic journey through a giant maze of scenic straits, harbors, and inlets. But the strange disappearance -- and probable death -- of a crew member pulls Alex rudely back to the present. As the only law officer in the vicinity, it is now his duty to unravel a twisted skein of lies, greed, and lethal shipboard secrets -- before the Spirit's fateful encounter with murderers abroad a stolen ketch writes a grim new chapter in Alaska's history.

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Death Takes Passage

Chapter One

1:30 A.M.
Friday, July 11, 1997
Juneau/Douglas, Alaska

The moon was almost full, but clots of clouds scudding darkly overhead persistently obscured it, allowing only infrequent and mottled patches of pale light to relieve the blackness of the waters of Gastineau Channel. It had risen just after midnight, from behind the tall, sharp peaks that rose on the eastern side of that slim arm of the sea like a wall. It would soon disappear, along with the few stars that slipped in and out of view.

The late breeze had quickened into a wind, which sighed through the evergreens on a small bill that stood between the Douglas Island boat harbor and the channel. The hill sheltered the small marina from the winter gales that frequently whipped the confined seas of the channel to an icy froth, driving injudicious vessels desperately toward any possible berth. This July wind, however, would more gently blow itself out under the curtains of rain promised by the threatening clouds. It was not unusual weather for the Southeast Alaskan Panhandle -- lush, green, and intensely alive, home to rain and fog.

Within the harbor, no one noticed when one ketch began to slowly, silently swing away from the dock. It gradually came about and headed toward the channel like a dark ghost, or the shadow of a huge waterbird.

The soft splash of a mishandled oar and a muffled curse revealed a man in an inflatable dinghy, rowing ahead at the end of a towline. As this smaller boat -- conveniently borrowed from another vessel -- gradually cleared the harbor, its oarsman became a brief silhouette against the navigation light that marked the harbor's entrance. His outline showed shoulders too broad to be hidden by the bulk of a dark slicker and a baseball cap with a brim that dipped and rose as he leaned to pull strongly against the weight of the water. He cast a glance over one shoulder to be certain that his line of exit from the marina was as direct and efficient as possible.

A second darkly clad man stood at the wheel in the stern of the ketch. A wiry knot of muscle, he was spare of flesh and small of frame, and the wind tugged contemptuously at the straggle of beard that thinly disguised a weak chin. Shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, he turned once to assure himself of the continuing emptiness of the dock that fell slowly astern.

As the dinghy moved into the channel, the wind hit with enough force to make it slip southward, but the rower put more of his back and strong arms into the endeavor and managed to maintain a route that was mostly crosswise to the southerly flow of wind and tide. Ever so slowly, he pulled the boat away from the shore into open water, until the stern was completely clear. Then, with rapid and less cautious strokes of the oars, he rowed quickly back to the ketch, swung himself aboard, and left the purloined dinghy to drift away. Riding empty, high, and light, it quickly became a toy for the wind to toss, disappearing instantly into the dark.

The engine came abruptly to life, as the first man encouraged the heavy boat away from the shore and swung it to starboard, into the deep waters of the channel. Within ten minutes the two men had managed to raise a single sail. They killed the engine and were gathering silent speed, still without lights, driven south before the wind toward the confluence of Gastineau Channel, Taku Inlet, and Stephens Passage. Beyond this, if all went as planned, it would be easy to lose themselves in the giant maze of the straits, sounds, bays, arms, harbors, and inlets of the Inside Passage, making pursuit an impracticality, except, perhaps, by air.

They fully expected it would be a long time before anyone learned there was any pursuit to be mounted. The boat they had commandeered was not local. Its home port, painted on the stern below its name, was Nanaimo, British Columbia, though, with traditional courtesy, the Hazlit's Gull flew a small United States flag on its stern. It had been chosen from among the many boats that occupied the southernmost marina in the area, more than two miles from the tall bridge that connected Douglas Island with Juneau to the east, across the channel.

The two men had masqueraded as acquaintances in search of the Gull's passengers, and they had gleaned, from the harbormaster's registry, the intended length of its stay -- two weeks. Several days of careful but seemingly casual observation of the boat had told them that a young married couple owned and sailed the ketch, and that one of them -- a factor in making it their vessel of choice -- was no longer on board.

Clued by a duffel set onto the dock and a scene of affectionate leave-taking, one of the men had followed the young man to the Juneau airport and watched him catch a plane. From a casual question to the gossipy owner of a nearby boat, its watchers knew it would be several days to a week before the husband would return. By the time he reported his boat -- and wife -- missing, both would probably be as abandoned as the stolen and discarded dinghy.

Though making good time, the Gull rolled and pitched rhythmically in the rough waters of the channel. The heftier of the two men controlled it with an expertise that revealed prior experience. The older man joined his friend in the cockpit. Lowering himself into a seat, he turned to watch the lights of Juneau and its island neighbor, Douglas -- a soft reflection of light to the west -- fade in the distance.

"Can't understand why anyone would want to live in a place you can't get out of except by boat or plane," he said, cupping his hands against the wind to light a cigarette. "How long till daylight?"

Excerpted from Death Takes Passage by Sue Henry
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