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were guarded secrets, despite the fact that the boats were visible to the public during the actual races.
    At this high level of competition, seconds of advantage could make all the difference, and each team claimed to have developed numerous improvements to the initial designs.
    It was impossible to know whether there was any truth to these assertions. If nothing else, the claims alone had the effect of psyching out the opponent.
    With so much of their fate left up to the fickle nature of the wind, sailors—particularly those involved in racing—tended to be both paranoid and highly superstitious.
    Oscar edged toward the nearest boat, his senses on high alert. The Ninja had proven her elusive skills time and again. Even with her face plastered across the local news media, she had circulated freely in San Francisco, evading capture without a single reported sighting.
    If she could hide so easily in plain sight, she could find plenty of ways to mask her presence in a near-empty hangar.
    The catamaran’s shiny surface gleamed in the dim light. Leaning on his cane, Oscar peeked beneath the boat’s polished hulls.
    The space was empty, save for the sharp rudders that extended down from the hulls’ curved surface.
    He lifted his gaze to the upper portion of the craft. The boat had been staged without its extended sails—even the hangar’s high roof was unable to accommodate the sky-high sheets.
    Sturdy bracing welded to the metal sides held the two hulls together. A canvas of thick webbing stretched between the hulls, a support feature that allowed crew members to move from one side of the boat to the other.
    The narrow hulls provided the boat’s only interior space. Most of the crew members spent the race balancing on top of the craft, leaping across the support netting, and manning the rigging, a complicated network of ropes and pulleys that controlled the sails.
    As Oscar examined the craft’s sophisticated structure, he detected a small flicker of light inside the nearest hull. He leaned over to look down the interior length—and gasped at a sharp pain in his chest.
    The cane fell clattering to the ground, quickly followed by the heavy
thump
of his body.

Chapter 6
    SEMICONSCIOUS
     
    “SAN FRANCISCO IS a young city.”
    The Baron’s words echoed into the hangar from the stage outside. After the introduction of the two competing teams and the exhibition of the America’s Cup trophy, the business mogul had reserved a few minutes in the program for his concluding remarks.
    Lying on the hangar’s concrete floor, Oscar winced at the stabbing ache that raked through his chest, but the voice continued, overlaying the pain.
    “Compared to its older East Coast cousins and the gray-haired dowagers of Europe and South America, our beloved city is just a frisky green upstart. I think that’s what first drew me to her. She offers a clean slate for anyone who’s bold enough to write upon. There’s a sense of newness, that anything is possible—and nothing is forbidden.”
    Oscar felt his weakened body drift toward a semiconscious state.
    “Even among California settlements, San Francisco has a surprisingly late birth date. The remoteness of the location is partly responsible. Throughout much of the last millennium, the Northern California coast was seen as the end of the world. On maps, this faraway region was drawn as a sketchy, ill-defined mass positioned at the edge of the page, if it was shown at all. Before the development of commercial airlines, automobiles, and transcontinental trains, the area was almost impossible to reach. Only the bravest—or most foolhardy—souls dared to attempt the seaborne journey.”
    The Baron paused for a sip of water. The microphone picked up a light slurp before he continued.
    “But the city’s tender age is also the result of a geographic fluke. For over two hundred years, European explorers repeatedly missed the Pacific Ocean entrance to the San Francisco Bay. A couple of ships