Ashley said, “That’s sweet, Eric. But I think the rain won’t come for a while.”
“Ehhh.” Mack waved a hand at them. “Fuckin’ Valentine’s Day.” He said good-bye to Ashley and walked away, grumbling.
Val said, “Don’t mind my uncle, Ashley. He has a sailor’s mouth.”
“It’s okay. Where I work, I see all types. And hear all sorts of language.” She turned to Eric. “I appreciate your offer, love, but I will take the bus. I insist.”
“Can I walk you to the bus stop?” Eric said.
“I’m fine.” Ashley smiled. “Really. Good night.” She pecked Eric on the cheek, and he felt himself blush.
Eric watched the easy sway of her hips as she walked down the dimly lit path toward the road, another flash of lightning coursing across the sky. He finally shut the door when she was out of sight.
He looked over at Val. “What?”
“Nothing. Told you she was cute,” Val said. She smiled at him, but looked sad.
“Yeah. She’s amazing. Are you all right, Val?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You just seem . . . I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s because it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m not really a romantic, but it’s weird to not even talk to Will today.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
She shook her head. “He’s still mad at me for coming here. But every time I try to talk him about his . . . problems, he gets upset. I don’t want to bother you with our issues, though.”
“It’s okay. I’m a good listener.”
She looked at him, differently than she ever had before. His heart skipped a beat. Maybe he had a chance, right now. But they worked together, and she was with another guy. . . .
Then the look was gone. “Goodnight, Eric,” she said, and turned and went to her bedroom.
CHAPTER 25
Tom Rabinowitz looked at a unicolor monitor on the wall of the dim room—a greenish radar image that depicted crafts on the ocean surface. Directly above the midline of the ocean trench, where they were now picking up the large, unknown vessel. Not one of Uncle Sam’s.
“Stand by,” he said to Lt. Menendez.
Their sonar had detected no submarine activity, but he was interested in one large vessel moving directly over the grid. He’d need to verify its identity before they could proceed with the test. It was time to run Moby Dick again.
Usually, they ran the more innovative trials at night, to help avoid detection from the public. But this month they were ramping things up, because Russia was again showing renewed aggression toward its neighbors and acting dismissively toward threats from NATO and the President. The Navy had been running round-the-clock sonar testing, even running exercises with older techniques—like the antipersonnel sonar—as well as the novel ones he was using now. It seemed appropriate, since this testing center had been devised during the Cold War.
“Zoom to target bearing two-three-seven, lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir.” Menendez began to zoom in on the craft using the most recent satellite image, taken minutes ago.
Zoomed in on the sat image now, Rabinowitz could see the white craft on the rippled blue surface of the ocean. It was hard to tell from directly above, but it didn’t appear to be any sort of warship; probably a private yacht.
“Zoom another three hundred, lieutenant.”
Menendez zoomed in farther. Rabinowitz nodded. Definitely a private vessel, or a clever ploy at one. Because on the upper deck, there was a nude, or mostly nude, woman reclining in the sun.
“Jackpot,” he said, grinning.
Menendez, beside him, gave him an elbow.
“Not of concern?” she said, ready to designate the vessel.
“To you, maybe,” he said. “You see more action than this married sailor. Designate.”
“Aye, sir.” The flashing blip on the radar screen went away, replaced by a solid dot.
“All systems ready?”
“Affirmative.”
He felt a twinge of butterflies in his gut. “Single ping on my mark.”
“Aye, sir.” Menendez leaned forward and held her hand over a panel of buttons.
“Mark.”
In the dark room, an audible click came back to them over the speakers, but the sound was faint, just enough to give them an indication of a successful ping. Underwater, they’d just sent out a 230-decibel boom that would have sounded like a hunting rifle being fired next to your ear. Louder than all but one sound produced in the animal kingdom. A sound designed to disable a number of marine organisms.
Also a sound that could travel miles underwater, and bounce back to convey information, but likely would go unnoticed by the enemy.
“Proceed with Series One,” he said.
They were underway.
CHAPTER 26
On the upper deck of the yacht, Tony D’Amico paused from repairing the speaker to watch as his boss’s girlfriend rose from her recliner. She was naked except for a white bikini thong and a set of large hoop earrings. A mane of blond hair hung past her shoulders. She caught him looking and smiled coyly, pressing her breasts together playfully with her arms, nipples hard in the cool breeze, as she gripped her elbows in her hands. She shivered.
“I’m cold, honey.”
“You look fine to me,” he said. He wasn’t a refined man, but in the late-day sun, with her bronzed skin, she was, he thought, truly a work of art. He replaced the plastic console over the wiring next to the all-weather speaker and rose to his feet.
Jenna wrapped her towel around her shoulders and hurried over to him, dancing on her toes, and pressed her lithe body against him. She nibbled his ear.
“Not here.” He pushed her away gently, feeling his excitement rising. “I mean it.”
“I thought maybe you could warm me up.” She reached down between his legs. “Wanna take a shower with me?”
He smiled. “We can’t, Jenna. We need to wait. Once we’re on shore . . .”
“I can go down there first. Just meet me in my quarters.” She licked her lips. “Just a quickie. Dan will never know.”
“No. I mean it. We’ve gotta be more discreet, or I’ll be out of a job, and you’ll lose your sugar daddy.”
Tony worked for Phillip Marks, Jr., owner of two NASCAR racing teams—and the sixty-five-foot yacht they were on now. Tony was the chef and maintenance specialist on Checkered Flag, and was everything Mr. Marks wasn’t—tall, young, handsome. Virile. And he wasn’t wealthy. Working for the past two years on the man’s yacht was the closest he had come to living like the rich. He didn’t want to lose this job, even for this girl.
He stepped away from her and shouted down to the captain, “Dan, can you fire up the music?”
A moment later, a song erupted over the speaker: Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” It was fixed. He knelt to replace the screws in the panel.
“Stop ignoring me, Tony.” Jenna was putting her bikini top on, and beginning to pout.
“We’ll be in port in a few hours,” he said, looking up at her. “I promise, we’ll find some time together there.”
They were in the middle of the ocean, somewhere between a few larger islands of the Bahamas. They had left Nassau two hours ago, bound for Oceanus, the newer resort off Andros Island. Mr. Marks was flying down to board the yacht there, to see his girlfriend, and to try his luck in the resort’s casinos.
But not until tomorrow.
Jenna said, “Whatever. I guess you’ll just miss your chance.” She turned and headed for the stairs near the stern, and he watched her walk away, hips swaying. Marks had paid for her to fly down to Nassau to meet some friends last week, while he was held up on business. It had been a good week. Best Valentine’s Day ever. Even if she wasn’t his girlfriend.
She tossed her hair, gave him one last playful look, and disappeared down the stairs. He stood and took a deep breath, watching the sun dip toward the horizon. Beneath it, in the distance, he could make out the dark, flat line of Andr
os. He tried to push Jenna out of his head, but couldn’t.
“You’re an idiot, Tony,” he muttered, and then rushed down the stairs after her.
The vibrations were growing louder.
Hundreds of feet beneath the surface, she knew that the massive object above was not prey. Nor was it a known threat. But the drone emanating from its belly, which hummed through her flesh, had piqued her curiosity. She was very hungry, and she had been successful at reaching an advanced age only because of her opportunistic nature.
She forced a volume of seawater out of her mantle and rose toward the approaching object.
The light from above had faded in the past hour, triggering her active state, and the sounds of her enemy had again driven her from the depths. She had not encountered one of them for a very long time, and was unsure what would happen if she did. But she could not risk it.
As she neared the surface, her eyes began to make out the pale underbelly of the passing object. There was still some light from above, but it was very faint. Night had fallen. The colossal shape was moving smoothly, steadily, trailed by churning seawater. Despite its size, it was nothing like the leviathans she still feared. Lacking a protective external skeleton or shell, the organism was vulnerable here, near the surface in the open ocean. She had always relied on camouflage and intelligence to avoid her few natural predators, but fully grown now, she felt much less threatened.
Alert to any other possible threats, she began following the huge object, tasting the water. She sensed nothing edible, and after a short time, she started to turn away, toward the reefs. Where she might find nourishment.
But then she tasted something else in the water through the chemical receptors in her flesh.
A hint of food.
She turned back toward the object, and with a few pulses of seawater moved directly beneath it. She pivoted her body slightly, directing her arms upward. She reached.
And touched the smooth surface.
Tony cursed to himself as he replayed the scene in his mind. He wondered if he would still have a job tomorrow. What had Dan really seen?
After he and Jenna had finished, he had peeked out of her cabin door, and then, thinking the coast was clear, had hurried into the galley to find Dan staring at him.
Dan hadn’t said anything, and Tony had been fully clothed. But his hair was still wet. And he could tell from the captain’s expression that he was suspicious. Why the hell had Dan been there, below deck? He was supposed to be driving the goddamn boat.
All Tony had been able to blurt out was, “What are you doing down here?”
To which Dan had replied, “Getting coffee. What are you doing?”
He’d tried to come up with an excuse. “Dumping the tanks,” he’d said, then moved toward the console that controlled the pumps for the yacht’s gray water and sewage. Offshore dumping was illegal in many places, but easier than doing it in port.
Tony now sat hunched on a bench in the stern of the yacht, in the dark, his head in his hands. He’d been there for a half hour. They’d agreed to meet here, where the loud rumble of the engines would mask their conversation. They would be arriving at their next port soon.
He heard the door behind him open and glanced over his shoulder. It was Jenna.
She walked hesitantly toward him, and then stopped a few feet away. She had put on a skirt and sweater. She handed him a tumbler with a few fingers of whiskey, and he downed it.
“Where’s Dan?” he said.
“Back at the helm. Do you think he knows?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he asked you any more questions?”
“No. But I’m worried, Jenna. He’s really loyal to—”
Suddenly the boat lurched. Shifted. Then it slowed, settled in the water, as if it had somehow taken on a heavy load of cargo.
“What was that?” Jenna said.
“I don’t know. Shhhh!”
The loud drone of the engines died off as the captain put the motors in neutral. Tony jumped to his feet just as Dan, calm in virtually any situation, came running down toward the stern. He turned on the overhead light. He looked rattled.
“Did we run aground?” Tony said.
Dan, in his captain’s whites, scowled at him. “Aground? It’s more than a thousand feet deep here.” He leaned over one side, then the other. “Have you seen anything come out from under the stern?”
“Like what? There’s nothing out here.”
“I don’t know. Maybe part of another boat.”
Tony frowned. “Another boat? You think we—”
“Oh, my God, Dan,” Jenna said, covering her mouth with one hand. “We didn’t hurt anyone, did we?”
“I’m not sure yet. You two. Watch either side of the boat. See if you can see anything under it. And shout if you do. I’m headed to the bow.” Dan ran around the side of the boat, his thigh striking the chrome railing.
Tony moved to the port side and looked down into the water. They hadn’t been travelling fast in the dark, but the boat was still drifting forward at about five knots. In the dark, he couldn’t see past the surface. Nothing appeared to be floating.
Behind him, he heard Jenna moan. “I’m scared, Tony,” she said. “We’re not gonna sink, are we?”
“I’m sure we’re fine. And we have a dinghy onboard.”
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere. What if—”
“Dammit, Jenna!” Tony turned to face her. “Will you just look over the other—”
He stopped, his mouth open. Behind Jenna, on the well-lit gunwale, something had moved. Something fleshy and orange.
For a moment, Tony thought maybe it was a person’s hand, from the smaller boat they indeed had just demolished. A wounded survivor, trying to climb onboard.
But the slithering, meaty thing continued over the side, stretching. Growing. Like some enormous, slender tongue, longer than a person. But it wasn’t a tongue.
It was covered in suckers.
“Tony?” Jenna was staring at him, but he couldn’t respond. “Tony, are you okay?”
“Jenna. Come here. Right now.” He reached out a hand.
The tentacle slithered down to the deck, toward Jenna’s feet. Another one slid quietly over the gunwale to join it.
“What?”
“NOW!”
She started to step toward him, but stopped. And looked down, to see what was touching her calf.
CHAPTER 27
Val’s lungs were beginning to burn, but she held tightly to the two long, spiny antennae in her fists and braced her feet on the coral bottom. She tugged again, but the big lobster wouldn’t come out of his hole.
She and Mack had been hunting in twenty feet of water, free diving with only their scuba masks on. The legal way to catch some dinner. He’d taught her how to do this as a teenager, in the Florida Keys. Back then, she’d cut her hands more than once on the sharp antennae, learning not to let her grip slip. The injuries hadn’t stopped her from going back to do it again and again. It was fun to catch spiny lobsters, and even more fun to eat them.
When Mack had come around, he’d given her and her mom the attention they lacked from Val’s father, who was often absent. Drunk somewhere. And when Mack came to town, he left intentionally, since the two men couldn’t stand one another.
Mack had once been Val’s idol. He wasn’t a drunk, and he was nothing like his sister—Val’s mom—who had always been so meek. He was a scuba diver, a fisherman, a traveler. A hero to her. He’d already been a career soldier then, visiting them whenever he had leave time, but that was before he went to war. To Iraq.
Back then, he’d been so young, still so optimistic and confident, when he still had both of his legs. He wasn’t bitter or angry. But in the war, he hadn’t just lost his leg.
After that last tour, he’d never taken her in the water again.
She pulled at the antennae. She was making progress—she could see the front end of the crustacean appear in the mouth of t
he hole. He was an impressive specimen. As his carapace cleared the opening, but before he could try to swim away, she let go of the antennae with one hand and reached for his tail. Just as her hand neared the hole, something big slithered out of it, making her start.
A tentacle.
She flinched as the squirming thing rushed toward her hand. She jerked at the lobster and felt its antennae break off in her hand, and smiled despite herself, her heart now thudding in her chest, her lungs burning even more.
It wasn’t a tentacle. Only an eel.
Val watched her lobster dinner flap its muscular tail and dart away across the bottom, escaping her and the pesky five-foot moray eel that remained in the hole, jaws agape. Val was out of breath. She pushed off the bottom.
At the surface, she looked back toward the boat a hundred feet away and saw that Mack had remained aboard this time, having already caught two or three lobsters. Even with just one leg, he was still better at this than her. She’d only gotten one so far. She gulped in air for a few moments before putting her face back in the water. Searching.
She was thankful for the traits she had gotten from Mack, whether inherited from their lineage or simply learned—her tenacity, her courage, her need to explore. He’d expect her to keep trying until she caught this damn crawfish. She wondered if she also shared his cynicism, his anger. If she would be the same as him if she too saw war, and lost a leg.
Floating facedown, she continued looking for the runaway lobster. Below her in the shallow garden erupted an abundance of bright corals, such as she had hardly seen anywhere. Brain corals. Purple, branching Gorgonians. Pillar corals in all hues. And bright yellow sponges standing out on the less colorful reef like highlighted text on a legal document. Just above the Andros Wall, this fully intact barrier reef was the third largest in the world, yet had remained pristine. But would that change in the coming decades, with Oceanus now here? Hopefully they wouldn’t ever blast a hole through the reef to create a deepwater port for the cruise ships, like she heard they had in Cozumel.
Near the edge of her field of vision, a long shark appeared, swimming close to the bottom. A hammerhead, maybe eight or nine feet long. Just passing through.
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