by David Klass
My father wasn’t warning me about Snarks. It was sharks!
A great white!
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Nearly twenty feet long. Two tons of predator. It sees me and turns in my direction.
Why do they call them great whites? It’s pale gray. Narrow eye slits. Beady gray eyes.
Watching me swim toward it. Wondering how I’ll taste. Which limb to chew off first.
Opens its mouth. Like the window display of a knife store. Row upon row of gleaming ivory razors.
I’m ten feet away. Can’t stay down to avoid it. Can’t go around it because it’s right under the boat. Have to go past it, by it, through it.
No weapons except my bare hands. A blue flash! My father’s watch!
I remember Eko taking on the bull shark in the Outer Banks. The jeweled pendant on her necklace flashed like a disco ball, blinding it for a second.
A second is all I need. Burn, baby, burn. Disco inferno time.
Nothing happens.
I’m so close to the great white that I can see which rows of triangular teeth will clamp down on me first, and which will grind me up later.
Those jaws open to an impossible circumference. I can almost feel the teeth. So here it all ends—
SSSSZZZIIIP! Disco ball supernova. Blinding flash from my watch shoots toward shark’s eye slits. Great white looks dazed and confused. I swerve and put everything I have into one tremendous kick upward.
Enormous jaws close viciously, but miss me. They snap open and then whip closed again, inches from my right foot. Bad news. Shark vision improving. It sees me now.
Good news. My hands grasp side of boat. As shark swims in to finish me off, I pull myself up and over the side.
Great dorsal fin circles dejectedly and then the dental nightmare swims off in search of prey with less bling.
Hands grasp the other side of the boat. Dargon pulls himself into cockpit. Sucks air. “Well done, Jack. Bravo.”
“How come he didn’t go after you?” I gasp. “Let me guess. They’re man-eaters and you’re really a reptile?”
“They’re actually more man-snackers,” Dargon quips. He’s no longer gasping. Barely breathing hard. Amazing recovery time. Must be in fabulous shape. “The captain of your former trawler is proof of that. He misbehaved, so I had to disarm him, so to speak. It’s only when great whites smell blood that they become really nasty.”
“Looked badass enough. Took two chomps at me.”
“Playful nibbles,” Dargon assures me. “We were swimming upward, and great whites almost exclusively strike at prey above them. But he thought about it. Did you see how he hid in the shadow of the boat? They’re so cunning. If he’d been in the mood, he could have gotten both of us. I’m a man, not a reptile, and there’s nothing wrong with the way I taste. Do you have any other questions?”
Dargon leans back in the padded cockpit, half closes his eyes, and waits. If he’s really in a mood to answer my questions and tell the truth, that can only be very bad news for me. We must be at the end of our journey.
Still, I can’t resist. “How do you breathe fire?”
“It’s an old carnival stunt. The most dangerous of fire-breathing tricks. Called a blowout. You spit out a thin stream of fuel and ignite it. It makes a great impression on sailors, who tend to be a superstitious bunch. Come, what do you really want to know?”
“Why did you bring me here to swim with the sharks? You’re not suicidal, so you must have had a reason.”
“Well, I do enjoy taking occasional walks on the wild side,” Dargon admits. “But I did have another reason. I wanted you to know how close we are to Firestorm.” He pronounces the word with the same awe that Gisco used. “I wanted you to feel it.”
“So you know what Firestorm is?”
“As much as anyone. Which is not much. I know you have a connection to it. I know what the prophecies say.”
“Then you are from the future?”
“We’re cousins, Jack. Distant, perhaps, but from the same era. We’ve been sent on long journeys, and they’ve converged at this moment in time. An island. A sunlit cove. Two strong men.”
I hesitate. Decide to ask the million-dollar question. “I know why they sent me back a thousand years, but what’s your mission?”
Dargon sits up. Sunbathing over. He’s dead serious now. “The exact opposite of yours. To find Firestorm, and destroy it.” He locks eyes with me and speaks softly, articulating each word: “And I was supposed to kill you at the first opportunity.”
“You’ve had lots of chances to kill me,” I point out with bravado. “On the boat, the yacht, the island. What are you waiting for?”
“I killed the man who ran the trawler business, and took it over more than two years ago,” Dargon says. “Since then I’ve searched every inch of this damn island. I know Firestorm is here, somewhere. It has to be.” His voice sinks to a frustrated whisper. “But I can’t find it.”
He looks across the water at the mountainous island that rises above the tranquil bay. I follow his gaze to the highest volcanic crags, and then I look back at him.
“That’s why I didn’t kill you, Jack,” Dargon says. “I need you to find Firestorm for me. So I thought we might make a deal.”
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“What could possibly be in a deal for me?” I ask. “If I find Firestorm, you’ll just destroy it and then you’ll kill me.”
Dargon nods as if what I’m suggesting makes perfect sense. “That’s what my mission would dictate. But it’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t told you my theory about Hannibal,” he says, and he smiles cryptically. “Hannibal Barca. Son of Hamilcar. He was brought up in Spain. Do you know what his father’s army was doing in Spain?”
“No.”
“Pretty much anything they wanted,” he says with a chuckle. “Conquering it village by village with a brutal mercenary army. That was Hannibal’s grammar school. Raiding trips. Mercenary campfires. Then his moment came and he went over the Alps. He apparently decided he couldn’t take Rome. So he spent fifteen years riding in circles around the countryside of Italy. What was he waiting for? What was his plan?”
“Why do you think he did it?” I ask, intrigued.
“Ever been to the countryside of Italy?” Dargon asks.
“No.”
“Nice,” he says. “Nice now, and nice then. Vineyards and villas. Great wine, tasty food, beautiful women. Military historians have endless fancy strategic theories about Hannibal’s motives, but sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. He was a marauder, born and bred. Leading a ravenous mercenary army. Maybe they were just having too much fun to leave.”
I try to take this in. Figure out what Dargon’s really getting at. “But wouldn’t that mean he was betraying the people who sent him? Who were counting on him?”
“So what?” Anger rings in Dargon’s voice. He’s talking about Hannibal, but he’s clearly thinking of his own life. “What did he owe those cowardly merchants in Carthage? What did he owe his monomaniacal father, who had ruined his childhood, beating him out like a piece of steel to prepare him for a deadly mission? He owed them nothing!”
BAM! Dargon slugs the boat hard enough to put a noticeable dent in the super-strong fiberglass hull.
He struck with his right. Remember that, Jack. And don’t ever get on the wrong side of one of those punches, because he hits harder than anyone you’ve ever seen.
Dargon flexes his hand. Takes a second to regain control. Finishes in a voice charged with emotion. “Maybe Hannibal had the courage and vision to think for himself, Jack. To figure out what made him and his men happy and cut the false cords of loyalty and obedience to some faraway masters who didn’t give a damn about him. To eat the fat of the land and drink the fruit of the grape and enjoy his hour in the sun. People say he failed. But maybe he succeeded, on his own terms.”
He breaks off. Stands, as if embarrassed that he’s showed me too much of himself. Wa
lks to the yellow barrel. Leans against it for a second. I see his right hand move. He turns back to me. “Do you understand?”
“Completing your mission is no longer your priority?”
“Both of us, Jack. In the exact same bind. My father was horrible. Yours is no better. They’re birds of a feather, locked together with centuries of hatred and venom. What right did they have to map out our lives? If I kill you and destroy Firestorm, and cross back to the future, it’ll be to take up my father’s war and finish off the People of Dann. And then what? Rule among the cinders? Scratch out a royal reign in a barren world of darkness? Doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“Not as much as you’re having now?” I suggest quietly.
“You don’t remember it,” he tells me. “I’ve seen the future, Jack. A scorched wasteland, riven by fanatics who have hated each other for so long they’ll each do anything to win. Do you really owe them your loyalty? They didn’t treat you particularly well.”
I think of my childhood—nothing but a lie and a masquerade. “No, they didn’t,” I agree.
“So cut them loose. Join me. Find Firestorm, and instead of destroying it, I’ll use it. We’ll use it, to enrich ourselves. It’s a weapon, Jack, that no one can stand up against. With Firestorm we’ll be unstoppable. I won’t have to hide on this wretched island, cowering in international waters, extending my influence by baby steps. Find Firestorm for me and I will move mountains! We can be kings, Jack! The power of the pharaohs! That’s what I’m offering you.”
“What about the future? My father? Your father?”
“Let the future unravel as it will. Define the universe around yourself and your own happiness. That’s solipsism. Be strong and embrace it! I have enough lobster tails and caviar on ice to last us the rest of our lives. After we’re gone, who cares? When I die, the universe dies, or at least the only part of it I care about. Join me, Jack. Find Firestorm for me. We’ve reached the end of our journey. It’s a yes or a no.”
I stand and look back at him. What he said has struck a deep chord. We do have many things in common. We have both lived distorted lives. We’ve both been used, and possibly betrayed, by our fathers. But I’m not interested in the power of the pharaohs. And I know a bad dude when I see one. Also, I don’t think he’d be such a great business partner. I recall that lovely reef on the seamount, and what he was going to do to it. Nope, not for me.
“No, cuz,” I whisper. “That’s my answer. No way. Not now. Not ever. Go ahead and kill me. You’ll never find Firestorm. Maybe my father will send somebody else. I understand the Mysterious Kidah has gone missing. Maybe he can locate Firestorm and use it. You’ll never be sure.”
Dargon gazes beyond me, at the bay. Lost in thought for a second. No, wait, scratch that, he’s not gazing out at the bay. He’s looking at the water.
I smell something.
Then I see it for the first time. A vast red puddle, gushing out of the yellow barrel, forming a crimson slick over the surface of the rippling waves.
A nauseatingly thick, sweet smell.
Blood.
“Do you by any chance know what the ampullae of Lorenzini are?” Dargon asks.
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Blood spreading over water.
Dargon standing with his feet spread to width of shoulders. Arms away from body. Ready to kick or punch.
Fight coming. No doubt about it. Dargon said I wouldn’t last twenty seconds. Based on the dent he put in the fiberglass hull, I’m inclined to agree.
Gisco may be right, Dargon may well have enhanced genes. He may be a composite of all that’s dangerous in the animal kingdom. How can I fight someone who has the eyes and reflexes of a raptor and the muscles of a bull, and strikes with the speed and fury of a lion?
I move into a fighting position of my own. Ready to shift in any direction at the slightest sign of trouble. “No,” I tell him. “I don’t know what the ampules of ziti are. Sounds like a pasta.”
“Ampullae of Lorenzini,” he corrects me. “Two things you need to know about great white sharks, Jack. Some people think that when you’re confronted by a great white, the best thing to do is to freeze. But they have unique jelly-filled canals in their heads called the ampullae of Lorenzini that allow them to sense the tiniest of electrical fields. If you so much as twitch—if one of your muscles undergoes the slightest involuntary contraction—a great white knows you’re alive and just trying to play possum. Makes them even hungrier.”
“Thanks,” I tell Dargon. “And that’s important because—”
“Of the second thing you need to know about great whites,” he continues. “They have an absolutely remarkable ability to smell blood. They can sense a few drops of it at a great distance. I’ve just dumped twenty gallons of human blood into this bay. There are at least a dozen great whites nearby. Their top swimming speed is about twenty miles an hour. So you do the math.”
“They’re on their way,” I mutter.
“Lunchtime.” He nods. “Goodbye, Jack.”
I know it’s coming, and I’m still too slow. It’s the same right hand that dented the hull. I raise my left to block it, but the punch pulls into the station way ahead of schedule.
Cranial cave-in! Feels like it crashes right through the side of my head.
I don’t think it actually cracks my skull, but it does knock me across the cockpit so hard that I bounce off the padding. Reel back, dazed, right into Dargon’s arms.
Next thing I know, I’m high off the ground. Lifted in a combination jujitsu hold and judo throw that wasn’t covered in any of Eko’s combat lessons. The jujitsu part immobilizes me while inflicting indescribable pain. I hear myself whimpering like a baby.
Twenty seconds must be up, because the judo throw part commences. Dargon tosses me far out over the bloody bay. “Goodbye, cuz,” he whispers as he releases. While I’m flying through the air, I hear the rocket boat’s engines switch on.
Splash down into the bloody water. Cold revives me. Bay water no longer crystal clear. Visibility severely restricted by thick crimson fog.
I surface, and shake my head to clear it. See the rocket boat speeding away. Dargon waves once in farewell, and shouts something in Latin: “Frater, Ave atque Vale.”
I recognize it, from Tennyson. It means “Brother, hail and farewell.”
Goodbye, rocket boat. Hello, great white.
Two dorsal fins cutting through the water toward me. Several hundred yards away but closing fast.
Think, Jack. You have maybe a minute.
All I can think is that I’m about to be eaten.
Buzzing panic.
Paralyzing hysteria.
I fight it down. Fifty seconds. THINK!
Here’s what won’t work. Trying to swim out of danger. They’re much faster and you’re in the middle of a bay.
Also, playing possum’s not a great idea. Because eventually you’ll twitch and their ampullae of Lorenzini will chime like dinner bells.
What does that leave? Nada.
Great whites like to strike upward. So get down.
I fumble with Eko’s necklace. No time to unstring beads. I gnaw two of them off. Swallow. Feel them breaking apart in my stomach. Dive straight down.
Two sharks speeding toward me like twin torpedoes through the red haze. If there’s anything on this earth more frightening than a pair of great whites racing toward you through a fog of blood, I can’t imagine what it is.
Fifteen seconds. I’m below them now, so they adjust their trajectories. Fish in the area start clearing out fast. Some sixth sense warning them. Feeding frenzy on the way. Alert! Alert! Leave the area!
Schools of mackerel dismissed. Eels evacuating. Grouper un-grouping.
I need help. No one left to help me. And even if there were, I’ve not been able to communicate with wild creatures.
Then again, help is my only chance.
There’s a first time for everything.
I summon all my psychic energy. Everything Gisco and Eko ev
er taught me. If I’m really the beacon of hope I should be able to do this. Desperation helps. I feel a moment of pure primeval energy—as if I’ve returned to a wild state myself.
I suck it up. Roll with it. Spit it back out in a distress bulletin on every channel in the band. “HEEELLPP! SOS from the beacon of hope. Sharks coming! I’m your only chance! The ocean’s only chance! I’m the guy who’s supposed to save all of you, but you have to save me first! NOW! HEEEELLLPPPPP!”
Nothing. I might as well be praying to the Great Dog God.
Sharks now thirty feet away.
What would Gisco do in this situation? What escape would present itself to that great genius of cowardice?
Easy. He’d hide. Crawl in a hole.
But there are no holes. This is the ocean. Water above. Ocean floor beneath.
And in that ocean floor … lava caves!
Great whites less than twenty feet away. Jaws opening. Rows of teeth flashing.
I dive for bottom. There’s a cave. No, not quite a cave, but a little grotto, protected by an overhang.
I reach it just before the killing machines reach me. Squirm my way in. Hope there are no eels around.
Great whites circle grotto. They can see me. Smell me. No doubt their ampullae of Lorenzini are picking up my fearful contractions. But they can’t get at me.
One of them tries to poke its nose into grotto. Nope. Shark too big. Grotto too small.
The other one decides to gnaw off overhang. Uh-oh.
If they can remove my ceiling, they’ll swim into this grotto and chew me up like a doggie biscuit.
I can hear their teeth grinding rocks and lava. The overhang is cracking and powdering. Another five seconds and they’ll have ripped open my hole. Four, three, two, one …
BAM. Great white pushed sideways by sudden impact.
It’s a beautiful sleek dolphin! Jaws looks at it, irritated.
BAM. BAM. Two more dolphins hit other great white.
Sharks momentarily distracted.
I stick my head out of grotto. See yawning entrance to deep lava cave twenty feet away. The sharks will get me if I try to cross that much empty ocean floor.
