Shark Island

by Chris Jameson

  “But you were,” Wolchko said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Damn right I was. I am. Who wouldn’t be? Yeah, it’s stupid, but psychologically, I know there are sharks following us right now, and knowing it makes my skin crawl, which in turn pisses me off. I don’t mind that they’ve made me afraid. If I’d been more afraid last year, I’d still have both of the legs I was born with. But I’m not going to let them make me a coward.”

  Wolchko’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I think it’s safe to say you’re not a coward.”

  She shrugged. “I want things from my life. I’ve got plans that I didn’t have before, and the path I’m on put me on this boat with all of you.”

  Wolchko leaned against the frame of the bunk. “How are you feeling now?”

  Naomi almost said, Sick, but then she realized that she didn’t feel very sick at all. A little queasy, but the feeling that she might vomit any second had gone away.

  “A little better. Did you hypnotize me?”

  “Distracted you is all. While the Dramamine did its job, or started to. I’d still wait a bit before you lie down.”

  “Thanks, Eddie. Really,” she said, breathing easier now. “What about you? Do you have a family that thinks you’re crazy to go out on two-day boat trips to play with sharks and seals?”

  His smile bled away and he glanced awkwardly at the floor. Naomi knew she’d said something wrong and wondered if she ought to apologize for getting so personal.

  “Look, I’m—”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” he said, holding up a hand to stave off her regret.

  The boat took its biggest roll yet and Naomi staggered forward, had to catch herself on the other side of the bunk frame, and ended up just a few feet from him. On the top bunk, Kat muttered some profanity and turned over, punched her thin pillow, and shot Naomi the angry look common to sleepers unhappy at being awakened. Then she closed her eyes and was out again. Captain N’Dour slept the sleep of angels, his face smooth and unconcerned.

  “I don’t talk about it much,” Wolchko said.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “She died. Cancer,” he said.

  Naomi’s heart broke for him. She could hear the pain in his voice, could see that he had no idea what to do with it. There was no comfort she could offer him, but still she wanted to ease that pain.

  “Do you think … I mean, I’m not sure how long it’s been, but do you think you’ll ever find someone else to be with? Not a replacement. I don’t mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” he said kindly. Sadly. “Most people don’t feel comfortable enough around me to ask. I don’t … I never make it easy on them. If you haven’t guessed, I can be a little prickly.”

  “Maybe so, but you’ve been kind to me.”

  Wolchko looked at her for a long time. Then he gave the tiniest tilt of his head. “You’re on the outside of this thing. I don’t like seeing people held at arm’s length, like they don’t belong.”

  Naomi frowned. “I guess you’ve had enough of that in your life.”

  “You’re pretty smart.”

  “I’ve been told that,” she joked. “I’ve also been told I’m an idiot.”

  Wolchko grinned. “Me, too. Mostly by my late wife. To answer your question, I don’t think about it much. Finding someone else would be difficult, mainly because I’m so difficult. You think I’m nice, but chances are good I’ll be rude to you more than once before we head home and I won’t even realize it.”

  “You might find someone who understands the way you’re wired, someone patient enough to not take it personally.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but I’m fine with being alone. I’m used to it anyway, and maybe that’s for the best.”

  Naomi searched her heart for something to say, anything that might brighten his outlook, but she could think of nothing.

  “Go and get some rest now,” Wolchko went on. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

  Naomi smiled one last time, but she knew he would see right through it. Neither one of them could have smiled sincerely just then. Her hip ached and she limped a little as she made her way to the bunk at the back of the cabin, heart heavy with sadness. She had lost her leg, but it seemed to her that Eddie Wolchko had lost so much more. There was no prosthetic replacement for the only person who had ever loved you.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Bayliner rocked from side to side on the roiling water, tilting so hard on the waves that Ash kept thinking about a plastic Fisher-Price boat she always had in the bathtub with her as a little kid. It might have been a floating soap dish, though—she couldn’t recall clearly. What she remembered was how much she had loved to make waves in the tub and watch the little plastic boat sway as the water grew ever rougher, until at last she churned the waves up so high that the boat would capsize.

  The memory did nothing to improve her mood, which was already as foul as the weather.

  She had a vague recollection of the plastic Fisher-Price boat being chewed up by Panda, her husky. Damn, she missed that dog.

  The small boat shot up a wave and slid down another. They were running in darkness, following the WHOI vessel at a distance. Ash had a pair of military-grade night-vision goggles she told people she got from an ex-boyfriend who was a Navy SEAL, but that was bullshit. She’d bought them from a guy she’d met in an Internet forum—they’d cost her three hundred bucks and a Snapchat photo of her ass, the latter of which she’d have sent the guy for nothing.

  “Well?” a voice said beside her.

  The boat went up another wave. She grabbed a rain-slicked railing and turned to glare at Tony Feole. The goggles meant she could see details of his face that the night would otherwise have obscured. He looked tired and older, and she knew this mission was taking its toll on him. Feole didn’t have the heart for this stuff anymore and they both knew it.

  Rain pounded the deck of the ship and curtains of it swept across the undulating waters. Somewhere not far off, thunder boomed overheard. The clouds were so thick that there was no trace of lightning.

  “Well,” she echoed, studying Feole. “Well, it’s not working, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He looked sick. “Are you sure?”

  Ash tore the night-vision goggles off her head and handed them over. “Have a look for yourself. It’s not working, which means we need another plan.”

  Feole took the goggles like he feared they might bite him. Ash knew what he would see—the water behind the Thaumas churned with seals. The tech they were broadcasting to jam the WHOI acoustic signal had not done its job. Worse, from what she could tell in the dark, the number of seals had only increased, as had the shark fins weaving in and out among the seals. She had tried counting within the past hour and had spotted at least eleven sharks. Nothing scientific about it—the real number might have been more or less, depending on whether she’d counted some more than once or others had been submerged—but in any case, there were a lot of sharks out there. Great Whites, primarily. She had an image in her mind of what the water behind the Thaumas would look like at sunrise, with an entire ocean of marine life following the WHOI vessel like its captain was the Pied Piper.

  “Damn it!” she heard Feole snap as she headed into the wheelhouse. She ignored him. He might be angry or frustrated, but she knew he wasn’t going to take the steps that were needed now.

  In the wheelhouse, Ivor sat on his high seat at the wheel, drinking a mug of something that she knew would smell like coffee but would have been spiked with a little something else.

  “No luck?” Ivor said.

  “Give me a second,” she said.

  The boat rolled hard to starboard and she grabbed a handhold, grip slipping in the rain. Her face smashed into the side of the hatchway even as she caught herself. She cussed colorfully as she descended into the small berth below.

  Powell looked up from his laptop, blinking like a raccoon that had just been caught raiding trash cans in the beam of a flashlig
ht.

  “I’m doing my best,” he said weakly.

  Ash gnawed her lower lip instead of unleashing the tirade that simmered inside her. What would be the point? His tone made it clear that he knew it wasn’t working, even without going up on deck, and to her that cemented the certainty that it wasn’t going to work. Not tonight, anyway. Probably not ever.

  “Not so cocky now, are you?” she said, spinning on her heel.

  Wind swept off the deck and drove cold shards of rain into her face as she climbed back up onto the deck. In the dark, she could see Feole still standing at the railing with her night-vision goggles, as if Powell’s tech would suddenly kick in and start working. She and Feole had been friends for a long time. She knew that was about to change, but her beliefs were more important to her than her friends. He had lost his spine.

  The boat rocked to port and she held on for a second, then moved toward Ivor. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw grimly set.

  “We doing this?” he asked.

  “Fuck it, yeah. We’re doing it.”

  Soaked to the skin, she went to the other station in the wheelhouse and took a seat. Ivor nodded slowly and with a strange rhythm, as if he were listening to music only he could hear. Slowly, he began to throttle up. It was subtle, but Ash thought if someone was paying attention they would be able to hear the difference in the engine’s growl. Ivor started to shift course, angling the boat toward the WHOI research vessel.

  Butterflies swarmed inside Ash’s chest. Some of them had wings of fear, but others flew with excitement, anticipation. She had been fully committed to this cause for years and now, at last, the time had come for her to prove just how complete that commitment really was.

  “Go,” Ash said, skin prickling with anticipation. The buzz that filled her was like nothing she’d ever felt. “Do it!”

  Ivor kept bobbing his head. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” he said in time with his nodding.

  He throttled up harder, the engine growled, and the boat started to skip along on top of the waves. It threw them from side to side. The wind picked up, thrashing them harder, but now they were really moving.

  A voice came to her in the air, strangled by the wind. At first Ash didn’t turn, though she knew whose voice it had to be. When she heard the stream of profanity, she turned and saw Feole picking himself up off the deck. Her night-vision goggles were nowhere to be seen—somewhere back at the railing, she figured—and he had lost his glasses as well. As she watched, his fingers snatched them up from the deck and he slipped them back on, trying to clean rainwater off the lenses.

  “Ivor, what the hell are you doing?” Feole barked as he stomped toward them, arms stretched out, staggering back and forth as he fought to keep his balance.

  Ash stared at him, feeling a twinge of pity. Tony Feole still thought he was in charge.

  Ivor did not reply to him, and neither did she. Feole ducked into the wheelhouse and reached for the skipper’s arm. Ivor shot one hand out, propped his palm open on Feole’s chest, and shoved him backward so that he sprawled back onto the deck in the rain.

  “Jesus! What is wrong with you?” he shouted before he turned to Ash. “What is he doing? Are you even listening?”

  Ash pointed at him, made sure he was paying attention. “Tony, I’m going to say this once. Go below.”

  Ivor scoffed loudly. “Might be best if you get yourself a life jacket, too.”

  Feole froze. The boat rolled to starboard and he reached out to Ash, grabbed hold of her to steady himself, and turned to stare out through the windshield. Through the rain and the sweep of the wipers, he spotted the Thaumas. Close enough to be intimate, Ash saw the moment of confusion cross his face, that frowning instant where he didn’t understand why they were racing to catch up with the Woods Hole research vessel—a boat nearly twice the size of their own—and why they were angling toward it. And she saw the moment when he got it.

  “Ivor, no!” Feole said, lunging toward the wheel.

  Ash dug her fingers into his arms, held him fast. “We’ve got to stop them.”

  Feole spun on her. “You’re out of your mind! I’ve got a family. You want to throw your lives away, that’s up to you, but—”

  “We’re not throwing anything away,” Ash assured him, grabbing his face, staring into his eyes. “We’re doing the job.”

  “If the job is suicide!”

  “They’ll veer off,” Ivor called to him. “I’ll give them plenty of time to notice. And I’ll keep doing it, forcing them off course, till they turn the hell around or come to a dead stop.”

  Feole ripped himself away from Ash and grabbed at the wheel. The two men began to struggle and Ivor shoved him away again.

  “You know it won’t work!” Feole cried, the wind and rain sweeping in through the open wheelhouse and whipping at him. “Their boat’s too big to maneuver like that. You put us in their path and you know they’ll clip us at least, maybe broadside. You’ll stop them all right, and kill us all in the meantime!”

  Ash grabbed his arm again. “Tony, get a life vest.”

  He stared into her eyes, saw the determination there, and she knew he understood then just how far she and Ivor were willing to go for their principles.

  Which was when Powell came up from below. He popped his head up, looking around like he’d just woken up from a winter’s hibernation. “What are you guys doing up—”

  Feole shoved Ash against the inside of the wheelhouse and lunged at Ivor, shouting for Powell to help him. Ash swore and tried to scramble after him, but as distracted as Powell so often seemed, he was quick when he had to be. A big man, he stepped between her and the scuffle at the wheel.

  “Tony—” Powell started.

  “They’re trying to steer us right into the path of the WHOI boat!” Feole shouted.

  That was all Powell needed. Ash grabbed him from behind, tried to pull him away, but he was too strong. He did not even bother to shake her off as he forced his way past Feole and grabbed hold of Ivor. Feole hadn’t stood a chance on his own, but Powell wrestled Ivor away from the wheel and the two big men careened out of the wheelhouse. The swell of the ocean tipped the boat and they stumbled to the deck in a tangle of limbs. Fists started flying, and Ash knew they had passed the point of no return. She started toward Feole and he stared at her, eyes wide.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shrieked.

  “This has to happen, Tony.”

  “Bullshit!” he spat, hands white-knuckle tight on the wheel as he throttled down and changed course, pointing them farther out to sea. “The only way Powell and I are letting you idiots put us in the path of that boat is if you beat us unconscious or kill us.”

  Ash hesitated, fists opening and closing.

  “You’ve been to my house, damn it!” Feole shouted. “Eaten at my table. You think I don’t want to stop those WHOI assholes, but I do, Ashleigh.”

  “We’re not going back to port!” she roared at him. “I’ve had enough of letting these people get away with whatever they want to do, enough of them acting like human life is the only life that matters. I can’t turn my back anymore. I’m not going home with my tail between my legs!”

  “Fine!” he shouted. “But we’ll find another way. I’ll do anything for this cause, Ash, but I’m not going to die for it!”

  Ivor hurtled back into the wheelhouse, yanked Feole away from the wheel, and cast him to the floor. Ash whipped around to see Powell standing, wiping blood from his mouth out on the deck in the rain. The fight wasn’t over, and Feole was right. If she and Ivor wanted to do this their way, they were going to have to subdue Tony and Powell. Or kill them.

  What the hell are you thinking?

  She exhaled. A rush of bile burned up the back of her throat as she thought about the possibility of killing this man who had been her friend for so long. Hell, the possibility of killing anyone. That wasn’t going to happen.

  “Ivor, stop,” she said.

  He throttled up again, turning back
toward the Thaumas.

  Ash grabbed his arm again. “I said stop. We’re not doing it like this. It won’t work.”

  The massive Viking glanced at her and for a second she thought he might hit her next. Then he deflated a bit, snarling and cursing under his breath as he eased back on the throttle.

  “You people are batshit crazy,” Powell snarled, moving toward Ash.

  Feole stepped into his path, struggling to stay on his feet as the deck rocked beneath them. “Eric, listen—”

  Powell spat a wad of bloody saliva onto the deck. The rain washed it away. “Listen to them? They could’ve killed us just now.”

  “You’ve gotta be willing to die for what you believe in,” Ivor said, barely looking at them. He stared out through the windshield, craning his neck to watch as the WHOI research ship plowed on through the water without them, moving farther ahead.

  “It’s not a damn war,” Powell said. “We’re not under attack!”

  “Isn’t it?” Ash asked. “I don’t want to die, either, but I’m willing to risk my life—”

  Feole’s mouth gaped. He stared at her as if he had never seen her before tonight. Rain slicked his face and made him look younger, somehow, as if they were both still the kids they’d been when they met.

  “Ashleigh, come on. You know what would’ve happened if Ivor had put us in the path of that boat,” he said.

  “They’d have done their best to avoid a collision,” she argued.

  “No way they could avoid it!” Feole snapped. “Not in this weather, with us running dark, just putting ourselves in their way. You two are lunatics.”

  “Tony,” she began.

  He stepped close to her, put his hands on her shoulders so they were face-to-face, physically close in a way they hadn’t been for ages. They had never had sex, but their friendship had been close enough once upon a time that Ash thought of it as intimate. And it was intimate now, enough that she felt suddenly guilty for having struck him. She remembered what they’d meant to each other, once.