Chris’ eyes rolled in their sockets like a Hail Mary-tossed pair of craps. “Geez, chief . . . I really made a . . . ass out of myself, huh?”
Jake shook his head emphatically. “No way, you were the bravest one out there. If you didn’t distract the shark when you did, she would have had me for sure. You saved my ass, kid. You’re a hero.”
“Really?” Chris swallowed hard, trying to bring his eyes into focus. “Wow. Hey, what’s all that . . . screaming?”
Jake glanced toward the dock, shaking his head. “It’s nothing, kid. Just close your eyes and rest. I’ll check in on you at the hospital later.”
“Okay . . . thanks, chief.”
Jake watched as Chris’ eyes closed and he faded out. He gave Albert a quick nod of thanks and jogged off through the crowd. He looked left and right, searching impatiently for Amara. “Damn it, doc, where the hell is that ambulance?”
“It’s on its way!” she yelled back from forty feet away. She had her radio pressed tightly to her ear to hear over the crowd.
Jake spotted a pair of state troopers moving toward him. He closed the distance between them with a few quick strides. “Guys, clear all the people off the docks and get everyone off the beach. Once backup arrives, we’ll take my patrol boat out.” He pointed toward the collapsed section of the docks. “We have to start circling the outside of the marina. A bunch of people ended up in the water. It looks like most made it to shore, but we need to make sure. The creature’s moved off. But it may come back.”
He turned and loped over to Amara. The cetaceanist was wide-eyed and trembling.
“Are you okay?” he asked, fighting down the urge to give her a hug.
Her eyes went wide and she gave an involuntary headshake. “Me? What are you talking about? You almost got eaten twice and you’re asking about me?”
Jake gave a morose chuckle and shook his head. “I’m fine, doc. I learned at a very young age that I’m pretty tough to kill.”
Amara frowned, bending at the waist and gently touching his injured side. “Yeah? Well, I think you’re going to need stitches for that.” She handed him his gear and boots.
“I’ll be fine. I just need some butterflies.” Jake’s chest still heaved, and he winced as he donned his shirt and gun belt. He breathed a sigh of relief as a fleet of squad cars and ambulances pulled up. He walked over, waiting until he could speak to the medics taking care of Chris and the badly wounded girl, then guided Amara toward the deserted stage area. As he did, the pliosaur’s distant roar shook the dunes beneath their feet.
“Oh my God, Jake, it’s unbelievable! He’s even bigger than I thought!” Amara exclaimed. She twisted against him, her gaze turning back to the docks.
“I’d go along with that.” Jake gazed through haunted eyes at the damaged harbor. “Well, there’s one thing we can say for certain . . .”
“And what’s that?”
“We don’t have to worry about anyone doubting our findings anymore.” He wore a resolute expression. “The whole world now knows what we’ve got swimming around out here. Now we have to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
Jake raised a hand to redirect the lens of a shoulder-mounted news camera that was pointed in his face, forcing his way past the irate reporter and his cameraman. He continued leading Amara away from the docks, toward the Harbinger.
Behind them, the pandemonium on the beach continued.
Dean Harcourt clicked off the enormous television mounted on his office wall. Disgusted, he sent the expensive device’s remote control spiraling across his ornate Louis XIV desk and onto the floor. He drummed his fingers irritably on the wood before heaving himself back into his well-padded chair.
Sprawled on the desk before him lay a dusty mountain of memorabilia: newspapers, photo albums, and scrap books. He thumbed through one, smiling sadly at pictures of himself and Brad out hiking and fly fishing together. His smile flatlined and he closed the book.
The senator sighed heavily. He was surprised to find Brad standing by his side in almost every photo. His brow furrowed into deep crevasses. He began to blink rapidly and slumped down into his chair. His intercom buzzed, giving him a start.
“Senator, I have Mr. Thayer on line three,” his secretary said.
Without so much as a “thank you,” the stocky politician stretched out his arm and jabbed the phone line’s button.
“Hello, Darius.”
“Take me off speakerphone.”
“Relax, we’re alone. You can speak freely.”
“Fine. We have a serious problem with the Braddock thing,” Thayer said in his idiosyncratic voice. “I think we’re going to have to shut down.”
The senator took his cigar from its solid jade ashtray. He puffed fiercely on it, staring with hypnotic eyes at its fiercely burning tip before he replied.
“If you’re referring to the situation I watched on the television, Darius, I am aware, as is the rest of the world.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see the footage myself. Like something out of ‘Jurassic Park!’ “
“Yes . . . amazing.” The senator crushed out his cigar. He wiped his mouth, opened his desk drawer, and extracted a whiskey glass and a bottle of Johnnie. Unscrewing its top, he poured three fingers worth and began to sip.
“I’ve already called off our spin team,” Thayer said. “Damn waste of money. But given what’s happened in town, there’s no doubt now what killed Brad.”
“Indeed.”
“So, what’s our next move?”
“Our next move . . .” Harcourt held the chunk of crystal to his lips, savoring his drink. As he finished sipping he held the whiskey glass up to the light, peering through the amber-colored liquid. His mind began to wander, and he stared through the half-filled glass as if it were a window to another place or time. “I want you to use those gumshoes you’ve got in place to find out everything there is to know about the Asian woman that spoke at that press conference. I believe she’s some sort of marine biologist. I want to know about her, and her ship.”
“Okay . . .” Thayer’s voice resonated back. “And we’re doing this because . . .”
Harcourt cleared his throat. “Because, as you said, the whole world now knows the identity of my son’s killer. And that includes me.” His voice was soft at first. Then it hardened. “But more importantly, because I said so.”
Thayer thought long and hard. “Look, Dean, I sympathize with your loss as much as anyone. But I’m not in the mood for cloak and dagger games right now.” An unusually irate tone was beginning to emanate out of the speakerphone. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to? Call it ‘professional courtesy,’ if you will.”
“I’m not up to anything.” Harcourt downed the remainder of his drink in a single gulp. Holding the empty tumbler once more to the light, he resumed peering through its translucent surface. “I’m just keeping myself apprised of all the pieces on my chessboard. Because it’s just possible one of those pieces may provide me with something I need.”
“How so?” Thayer replied instantly.
“And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.”
“Cute, but this isn’t Sunday school. Now what the hell are you planning?”
“Just get me the information I asked for, Darius.”
There was a long sigh. “Okay, Dean. It’s your dime.”
There was a sharp click as the lawyer hung up.
Still holding his glass, Harcourt ignored the dial tone and subsequent screeching sound. His countenance began to change; like a shadow creeping catlike across the floor, it transformed from near-catatonia to pure malevolence. An animalistic sneer crinkled his heavy features and his fingers curled shut on his empty tumbler.
There was a sharp, cracking sound and shards of glass spilled out from between his fingers, along with a steady stream of blood. He stared at the shiny droplets. Ope
ning his hand, he studied the ragged lacerations that decorated his thick-skinned palm. He watched the blood continue to trickle onto his desk, running like ruby-colored quicksilver along the plastic-coated sleeve of an opened photo album. It collected at the bottom of one page, forming a viscous puddle that trembled as it continued to be fed.
“Life shall go for life,” he muttered. His eyes gleamed as he ran bloodied digits across a yellowed newspaper article featuring a high school graduation portrait of Brad. His fingertips traced the dead teenager’s face, leaving a dull crimson trail. He reached over, grabbing the paper and crushing it into an unrecognizable ball of wood pulp and plasma.
“Oh, yes . . . life shall go for life.”
EIGHTEEN
From the shelter of the Harbinger, Jake and Amara stared in stunned silence. Below them lay the smoke-obscured desolation that was once Harcourt Marina. Paradise Cove had been gutted before their eyes, the pliosaur’s reemergence and second attack so abrupt and overwhelming, there was nothing anyone could do.
The docks were gone, their fragmented deck boards dotting the surface like waterlogged Popsicle sticks. Only the sections closest to shore remained intact. Here and there, strings of shattered pilings jutted up, breaching the water like the vertebrae of some fallen giant. Impaled upon them or settled onto the sandy bottom was the pride of Paradise Cove’s fishing fleet, their shattered hulls belching thick clouds of black smoke that smudged the normally pristine skies.
The marina was obliterated. What the creature failed to annihilate during its assault burned in the fires of its aftermath. Harcourt Marina’s high-capacity gasoline pumps – their casings fractured by a nineteen-foot speedboat the beast flung into the air like a boomerang – had exploded, immolating everything within a hundred yards.
The destruction was astonishingly complete.
The impetus behind the creature’s second attack occurred thirty minutes earlier, less than a mile from shore. Word had spread like wildfire of its appearance and initial assault. A group of camera-wielding fisherman, eager to see the thing for themselves, motored directly over the slow-swimming leviathan as it lounged beneath the surface. Fearfully gunning their engine when it rose up beneath them, they inadvertently tore a jagged groove in the creature’s dorsal region with their stainless steel prop.
The pliosaur breached the surface and retaliated. Rearing back, it released a deafening roar and pounced on their boat. The astonished sportsmen screamed in collective terror as their twenty-foot Boston Whaler was hoisted out of the water and bitten in two.
With fiberglass spewing from its jaws, the creature directed its attention to the three survivors flailing in the water. Surging forward with jaws wide open, it crushed them all in one monstrous bite. Seconds later, it emitted a bloodcurdling bellow and began thrashing its head back and forth, frothing the surface of the water and gnashing its reddened teeth loudly together. It whipped its huge head around, focusing its eyes on the dozen fishing and pleasure boats still shadowing it. It uttered a dampened roar, and attacked.
The rubbernecking charter captains and their crews spotted the infuriated behemoth’s approach and scattered in every possible direction. The creature somehow sensed their plan and utilized its superior speed to cut off their escape. Herding them like sheep, it accelerated and picked them off one by one. Within minutes, the surface of the harbor was strewn with broken vessels. For those entrapped within the cove, escape was impossible.
Some tried.
The Travelin’ Man, a forty-foot Albemarle fishing yacht running full out, made for the safety of the sound. At fifty miles an hour, the pliosaur rose up beneath it like a vengeful shadow. Crashing into the big charter boat from below, it fractured it amidships, causing it to flounder and break apart.
A forty-five foot cigarette boat named the Later Gator nearly escaped amidst the chaos. At a blinding seventy miles an hour, its velocity was more than a match for the fast moving predator. Unfortunately, the boat’s frightened captain was so focused on the prehistoric horror chasing them, he ran full-bore into a passing schooner. There was a tremendous thump as both ships erupted into a huge fireball. The shrieking survivors leapt desperately overboard to escape being burned alive, only to be greeted with an equally gruesome end in the water.
The attack continued for over thirty minutes. Horrified witnesses the world over remained glued to their television screens, watching in utter fascination as the live feed from hovering news choppers documented the disaster. Finally, the giant carnivore swerved back in the direction of the marina. A half-dozen craft still cowered within, hoping to escape its wrath by hiding within the battered waterfront. Its rage unabated, the pliosaur cruised undeterred into water barely deep enough to maneuver. Hissing repeatedly, it pierced the heart of the marina, searching for something to vent its wrath upon.
The state police were assembled and waiting – a tiny island of gray uniforms, clustered together like tin soldiers on one of the few remaining sections of dock. The pliosaur spotted the group and cruised deliberately toward them. As it drew closer, it slowed. Its torn dorsal scales became visible above the waves, and its armored belly started to drag along the bottom. It hesitated, its ruby eyes narrowing. Then it gave a great shudder, its monstrous body swelling with pent up rage. It uttered a terrifying growl and lunged violently forward, casting up huge showers of silt and sand as it determinedly squirmed its way through the shallows, trying to use its flippers like legs.
The troopers exchanged nervous glances but stood their ground, bracing themselves as it loomed closer. The wheezing creature’s misshapen head broke the surface and it reared menacingly back, its eyes glaring downward as it prepared to strike. Faces taut, the troopers raised their weapons and waited. Not until its slavering maw was ten feet away, with its foul breath washing over them in noxious billows, was the command finally given.
They fired simultaneously, the thunder of their combined firepower competing with the creature’s bellows. It reeled back in pain and confusion as the barrage of bullets and buckshot tore into it, then attacked. Its giant jaws descended with rattlesnake speed, pulverizing the section of docks upon which the troopers stood and engulfing three of them in the process. The survivors shrieked in terror, leaping headlong into the water in an effort to save themselves.
Infuriated, the pliosaur made for the huddled boats, smashing its way past any remaining pilings with violent twists of its gigantic body. Like oversized log cutters, its foaming jaws snapped from side to side, seizing anything that appeared to move, tearing it to pieces. The screams of its victims could be heard a half mile away. All around it, the remaining portions of the docks were engulfed in smoke and flame.
Jake grimaced and closed his eyes. The centerpiece of the town he’d protected for the last three years was being systematically destroyed. Helpless before the creature’s primordial power, all he and the surviving residents of Paradise Cove could do was stand by and watch as the financial hub of their quiet coastal community was torn down around them.
Haruto Nakamura sat rigidly upright, alone in the austerity of his quarters. His aching ribs unerringly relayed the Oshima’s sway to him, spasming left and right as the ship lolled lazily back and forth. He could tell from the sensations shimmying through her decks she was running heavy. Her draught was increasing as her freezer holds steadily filled. He nodded his approval. Fortune continued to shine on them. His gaze shifted, becoming intense and unblinking as his hands hovered above his laptop.
He was studying the news footage he found on the web a few minutes earlier. The current reel was pure pandemonium: live footage of an attack on a small town on the Floridian coast. The media was identifying the culprit as some sort of prehistoric reptile that once hunted dinosaurs.
Haruto winced as he watched the creature bulldoze its way through a section of the town’s boat docks, its massive back snapping deck boards like matchsticks. People caught in its path were catapulted into the air, their fragile bodies slamming like rag dolls
against nearby boats and pilings.
Out of nowhere, Sagato’s shade materialized unbidden before him, his mangled remains a frightful specter as he took up position once more at his captain’s side. Haruto shuddered and averted his eyes. He’d visited his dead first mate in the forward hold an hour earlier to pay his respects. His frozen corpse was propped up in one corner, encased in a shrink-wrapped shroud. His lifeless eyes peered through the translucent plastic, his mouth open, railing against his unjust fate.
Haruto ignored Sagato’s presence and focused on the footage. There was a particular segment that interested him – an exhausted man emerging from the surf after surviving a face to face encounter with the beast. His side was bloodied and he was carrying a badly injured girl. Haruto absentmindedly touched the layers of tape that protected his own injured ribs. He watched as the man laid the girl down, quickly and expertly administered first aid, then attempted to restore order to the disaster unfolding all around him.
Haruto zoomed in on the man, scrolling forward frame by frame as he studied him. His face and physique were strong, his gaze intense. He was bold and fearless, someone born to lead men into battle. Haruto nodded in silent deference to what the man was – the quintessential warrior.
The warrior forced his way through the crowd, grabbing the arm of a nearby woman and guiding her to safety. She sported a dazed look as she turned toward the camera.
There was a knock. Haruto frowned and clicked the pause button. He looked up. “Come in.”
Watch Commander Iso Hayama entered, bowing hurriedly. He had a clipboard tucked under one wiry arm and his eyes were bursting.
“Please excuse the interruption, captain-san,” he said, moving to stand in front of the captain’s desk. “I have our final tallies.”
A wave of surprise filtered the pungent smell of shark’s blood accompanying Iso, and Haruto arched one eyebrow. “Did you say our final tallies, commander?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve done it. We’re filled to capacity and beyond. It’s a new record, sir!”
KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back. Page 34
