KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back.

by Max Hawthorne

Spewing forth a barrage of profanities, punctuated by an animalistic scream of rage, the enraged merc forgot his Glock and charged Jake. His well-used blade wove a lethal web of steel as he swung it in deadly arcs, intent on decapitating the lawman.

  His face impassive, Jake waited motionless. At the last moment he moved, so quickly it was virtually impossible to see. He ducked under Markov’s intended death stroke, sidestepping him and simultaneously lunging forward. It was a clothesline maneuver that caused the sheriff’s right shoulder to smash into his adversary’s torso with bone-jarring force. Jake continued hobbling on.

  Behind him, Markov remained where he was, his mouth foaming and dark eyes bulging. Ignoring him, Jake knelt to check on Amara. She was propped against a nearby bulkhead, her legs pinned beneath Willie’s bled-out corpse. A wet, gurgling sound drew his attention and he glanced back over one shoulder.

  Markov stumbled drunkenly to one side, his silhouetted back turned. As he staggered sideways, Jake’s eyes hardened. His harpoon was buried to the hilt in the merc’s chest, its crimson-coated iron point protruding two feet out his back. Markov blinked in disbelief and crashed to his knees, his blood-filled mouth opening and closing like a beached fish’s. A moment later, his hateful eyes glazed over and he collapsed onto his side and died.

  Jake turned back to Amara and gave an involuntary start. Her head lay limp to one side, her eyes closed. Except for the split lip and purple mouse surrounding one eye, her skin was the color of milk. It looked like she wasn’t breathing. At first, he thought she’d fainted, but as he leaned closer he gasped at all the blood. Her throat and forearms were practically airbrushed with it, her blouse soaked through like a hemorrhaging dishrag.

  Jake felt a spike of panic. He reached over to check Amara’s pulse and breathing, then cursed as his battered hands trembled so much he couldn’t feel. His own heart pounded so hard he could hardly hear. A momentary vision of Samantha lying dead on the diving platform danced before his eyes: her cold, pale skin and lips, her lifeless expression. Desperate, he ran his hands over Amara’s abdomen, checking her stomach and chest, feeling for wounds. He felt nauseous as his world started to spin.

  “Um . . . Jake, what are you doing?” Amara moaned through half-opened eyes.

  Jake stuttered as he realized he was cupping one of her breasts. “Oh God, I’m so sorry!” He yanked his hand back as if he’d touched a live wire. “I thought you were–”

  “You thought . . . what?” Amara panted and tried to sit up. Her eyes rolled white for a split-second as her head lolled back. She groaned and tried to prop herself up, with him helping. Eyes open, she rested her head in her hands, peeking groggily between splayed fingers.

  Jake’s expression grew grim as he realized she was still pinned beneath Willie. He relaxed his grip on her shoulders and took careful hold of her friend’s body, shifting his own weight to his uninjured leg to gain leverage. “Here . . . let me help you.”

  Amara didn’t budge. Instead, she started shaking all over. She looked wildly around the room, her eyes huge and seemingly unable to focus. Finally, she looked down. She uttered a huge sob and grabbed onto Willie, clinging to him with desperate strength.

  “It’s okay . . .” Jake soothed. He cautiously caressed her blood-spattered cheek with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry, doc, but you have to let go.”

  A tremendous shudder shook Amara’s already trembling frame. She sucked in a huge breath, then tentatively released her grip. Her jaw hung as he carefully lifted Willie off her. “Oh God . . .” She threw her arms around Jake’s neck as he helped her to her feet. “I saw you stumble and heard your ankle go. I thought he was going to kill you, too! What happened?”

  “I don’t know . . .” Jake mused. The smell of blood and excrement permeated the room, and he glanced contemplatively at the body of the only man he’d ever killed during swordplay. “I guess I remembered who I was.”

  Still shaking, Amara wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight. Jake felt his face grow hot and he found himself staring at the floor. Her hot breath panted in his ear, and his blood pumped harder in response. He lifted his head and saw his own confused and elevated state reflected back at him. He realized suddenly that, despite the waking nightmare he found himself in, this woman was keeping him grounded. It had been a ferocious struggle, but he hadn’t lost her like he had Sam. He’d protected her, and would continue to do so.

  Smiling nervously, Amara slowly pulled away. She inhaled sharply as her eyes fell on Markov’s remains. She shuddered, averting her gaze. Even sprawled lifeless in a pool of blood, the sadistic merc still looked dangerous.

  Jake felt a slight pinch inside his tattered shirt pocket. He extracted the disc he’d concealed earlier. It was in two pieces, halved by one of Markov’s ferocious blows. He opened his fingers, allowing the bloodstained fragments to clatter to the floor.

  Amara watched the pieces settle. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks and she dropped to one knee. She caressed Willie’s cheek with her fingertips.

  Jake busied himself tearing away a strip of his shirt to make a dressing for his injured bicep. He shook his head regretfully. “I’m really sorry about Willie, doc. He was a great guy. I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

  “Me too.” Amara sniffled, wiping at her nose with the back of her index finger as she forced back fresh tears. “That’s okay. I’m going to make sure Dean Harcourt pays for what he did. He won’t be so arrogant when he’s rotting on death row, waiting for his turn.”

  Suddenly the floor shuddered beneath their feet. The Harbinger’s frame emitted an eerie groan that sent shivers up both their spines.

  “Speaking of which, I think we better get the hell out of here.” Jake shifted position, grimacing as the pain of his ankle made maintaining his balance on the sloping deck nearly impossible. “The Harbinger is sinking, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Jake puffed out his cheeks. “Well, that’s great. I’d say it’s time for an SOS, don’t you think?”

  Amara shook her head. “That bastard, Stitches, destroyed all of our communications equipment – even our longboats.”

  “Figures. So, now what?”

  Amara’s opalescent eyes narrowed, then dilated. “Well, it’s a long shot, but I may have something up my sleeve.”

  “Like what?”

  “Give me a hand moving this stuff.”

  Amara gestured at a series of small crates, piled like children’s blocks. Jake checked his injured bicep, then dabbed at the shallow slash that ran across his chest. His fingertips came away sticky. He frowned, then hobbled over and began helping as best he could. Within minutes, they were staring at some kind of antiquated, military-style footlocker.

  Amara wrestled open the oversized trunk, extracting a trio of yard-long, gray and black metal devices with jagged spikes at one end. To Jake, except for the cable connector ports and heavy-duty batteries, they were jumbo-sized versions of the solar powered lights people line their driveways with.

  “What the heck are those?”

  “Old-style marker buoys.”

  “Markers for what?”

  “Long story. Here, let me show you how to activate them . . .”

  A few minutes later, as the two of them were carrying the devices out of the storage room’s portside door, Stitches spotted them and opened fire.

  Its face wracked with pain, the pliosaur circled, gnashing its teeth in silent fury. It realized that ramming the ship was causing it more harm than its enemy, and decided to hang back and play the waiting game. From the peculiar noises the Harbinger was giving off, coupled with its angle in the water, the oversized vessel was dying. Soon, it would capsize and plunge into the abyss. Once that happened, the surviving mammals would be thrown helpless into its domain. It could feed upon them at its leisure.

  A moment later, the staccato noises that preceded its injuries repeated themselves. The sounds were unmistakable, even from two hundred yards away. Curious, the scaly titan cr
uised back to investigate.

  “Son of a bitch!” Jake bellowed. He dropped the buoy he carried and yanked Amara back from the doorway. A second barrage of high-velocity rounds tore into the storage room’s thick doorjamb and surrounding bulkheads. He cursed and pointed one thumb at the room’s starboard entrance. “Toss them out there instead!”

  Crawling over to Markov’s lifeless body, Jake removed the dead merc’s sidearm from its nylon holster. He crept back to the doorway, doing his best to ignore the throbbing pain of his assorted injuries. Using the heavy frame for cover, he took aim and fired three rapid-fire rounds from the dead man’s gun in the direction of the retreating Sycophant.

  “You’re really out of your fucking mind, Harcourt! You better pray to God the Kronosaurus gets to you before I do!”

  Seventy-five yards from the listing Harbinger, the Zodiac idled. Standing by the helm, Stitches shook his head and cursed. The last thing he needed was his ride home getting shot full of holes. He waited another minute to see what Braddock would do, then lowered his smoking rifle and resumed his preparations.

  “Well, I’m assuming from what we just saw that Markov is either dead or incapacitated.”

  “He’s dead,” the burly senator responded with surprising casualness. He turned in his makeshift seat and directed his calculating gaze away from the dying ship, toward the windswept sea. “Trust me.”

  “Well, in that case, we better get going,” Stitches said. He reached for the throttle of the big outboard. “It’ll be dark soon, and considering what inhabits these waters, we don’t want to be floating around out here.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Harcourt gestured at the motor.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, you’re liable to draw his attention to us.” He inclined his head toward a dark disturbance, some fifty yards off their portside bow.

  Stitches’ eagle eyes popped as he followed the senator’s gaze. “Son of a bitch . . .” The pliosaur was cruising silently along beneath the surface, the top of its enormous head breaking the troughs of the overlying whitecaps as it circled the wounded Harbinger. As if it heard them, it altered its direction.

  “Holy shit!” Stitches shrank back from the approaching monstrosity until the back of his legs collided with their vessel’s rubberized transom. He looked around in alarm. There was nowhere to go.

  “Actually, now might be a good time to start that engine, soldier,” Harcourt remarked. He was on his feet, eyeing his enemy as it drew steadily closer.

  “Screw that,” Stitches snarled. He yanked one of the grenades off his belt and held it up. “I’ve seen how fast that thing can swim. I’m gonna frag his overgrown ass!”

  Waiting until the giant reptile was within twenty yards of their position, Stitches pulled the pin on the ball-shaped grenade and lobbed it straight toward the creature’s misshapen head.

  “Is it safe to come out?” Amara whispered in Jake’s ear. She was on her tiptoes, peeking over his shoulder, as the lawman emerged warily from the dusty storage room, pistol in hand.

  “Looks that way,” Jake said. He slid the confiscated Glock into his vacant holster, checked the tightness of the makeshift pressure-bandage he’d applied to his arm, then tried some weight on his swollen ankle.

  Definitely sprained or strained, but not broken. Thank God.

  He took in the scene below him and gave a derisive snort. “Well. It appears they’ve got more pressing matters to attend to than dealing with us.”

  “What do you mean?” Amara moved to the railing next to him.

  A muffled roar vibrated the ship’s thick hull. “That’s what I mean,” Jake said with some satisfaction. He pointed first at the geyser erupting fifty feet from the idling Zodiac, then at the fast-moving shadow angling sharply away from the blast.

  Amara watched in wonder as the pliosaur turned back and made another run at the Sycophant, parting the waves as it careened toward it at high speed, then wheeled away again as another detonation forced it to withdraw.

  “They’re using grenades,” Jake said. He watched as Stitches hauled back once more and tossed something high overhead. “Or rather, they were . . .” he corrected himself, as Harcourt’s sole-surviving mercenary bent down to light something.

  “They’ve switched to dynamite,” Amara concurred, gazing in fascination as the bizarre standoff continued. “God . . . being an echolocator, those explosions must be incredibly painful. Do you think they can stop it?”

  “Doubtful.” Jake shook his head. “The timing with dynamite is even harder to predict than it is with a grenade, and that thing’s a fast learner.”

  “Should we do something?” Amara looked questioningly at him.

  Jake blinked twice. “Are you kidding me? That asshole just tried to shoot us, and five minutes ago Dean Harcourt murdered Willie right in front of you!”

  “You’re right,” Amara said icily. She moved close to him and rested her uninjured cheek against his chest. “God forgive me, but they deserve whatever happens.”

  Stitches couldn’t believe the mess he was in. Their resident serial killer was gone, and the prehistoric monstrosity he and his comrades came looking for had systematically chowed down on everyone else. Barker, Diaz, Gibson, Johnson and Stubbs were all dead; even the seemingly indestructible Karl Von Freiling didn’t make it. In the process, the monster had destroyed a state-of-the-art attack sub, and ripped the guts out of a steel-hulled ship five times its size.

  And now it was after him.

  The creature was proving itself both relentless and cunning. It wouldn’t just sit there mindlessly and be blown up.

  Stitches scanned the surface, trying to anticipate its next angle of attack. He felt himself start to shake and took a deep breath, fighting to steady himself. It was getting hard to hold it together. His hand trembled as he accepted another stick of dynamite from his employer. “Hurry up!”

  “We’re running low.” Harcourt’s dark eyes were cold and calculating as he held his lighter to the explosive’s fuse. “There’s only seven or eight sticks left.”

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Stitches shook his head as he hauled back, flinging the makeshift weapon almost a hundred feet. The dynamite landed with a splash directly in the monster’s path. The pliosaur veered off before it hit the water. Its flippers stroked powerfully as it put as much distance as possible between itself and the sputtering explosive.

  Whoomp!

  “Damn it, he took off again!” Stitches removed his hands from his ears as the detonation faded. “I think he’s on to us, senator!”

  “You may be right, soldier,” Harcourt said, studying the beast’s powerful wake.

  Stitches reached for the outboard’s tiller. “We should make a run for it.”

  “Hmm, I’ve got a better idea.” The politician held up a hand and rose to his feet. He reached inside his dilapidated suit jacket, fumbling about. “We need to lure him in close and keep him here. That way, if we use a shorter fuse, he won’t be able to swim away in time.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Stitches shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare with one hand as he held a stick of dynamite in the other. He watched as the creature closed on them for the sixth time.

  “By using bait.”

  “Bait?” Stitches wore a befuddled look as he turned around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we going to get . . .”

  He stopped talking when he saw the pistol. “What the fuck?”

  “Call it a sacrificial lamb,” Harcourt said. He stared with intensity. “Sorry, son, but the Lord’s work needs to be done. Don’t worry though. I’m sure you’ll be rewarded in heaven.”

  “Are you fucking with me?” Stitches yelled. He could see his M-16 rifle out of the corner of one eye. It was resting against one of the Sycophant’s cylindrical air chambers, only three feet away. He shifted his weight and tried to stall. “What, you expect me to jump over the side and start flailing around for you?�
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  “That would be perfect,” Harcourt nodded. He pointed his weapon at Stitches’ unprotected chest and smiled. “That is, if you don’t mind, of course.”

  “Why you . . .” The little merc cursed and dropped low, lunging sideways for the gun. A microsecond later, he realized he’d underestimated Dean Harcourt’s reflexes, as well as his aim. The first jacketed hollow point caught him mid-point in the left shoulder, tearing an inch-wide tunnel through flesh and bone, causing him to lose his grip on the heavy-barreled weapon. The second struck him square in the chest.

  His hands still grasping, Stitches Anderson collapsed to the dinghy’s floor, wheezing for air and spitting up blood, with the world turning topsy-turvy around him. As his blurred eyesight began to fade, the last thing he was able to contemplate was how truly fortunate he was that he was almost dead when his deranged employer tossed him over the side, wearing nothing but a rope tied about his ankles.

  Jake exhaled through flared nostrils. He turned away from the murder scene, just in time to see Amara grimace and avert her eyes.

  “Jesus . . .” She clutched at her stomach. “I can’t believe it!”

  “I can,” Jake said.

  “God, I can’t look. What’s he doing now?”

  Shading his eyes with both hands, Jake studied the Zodiac’s sole remaining occupant. “It looks like he’s preparing more dynamite.” A darkly malevolent but highly appealing thought came to him. “Hey, maybe he’ll do us both a favor and blow himself up.”

  “And take the pliosaur with him?”

  “Amen to that.”

  Onboard the Sycophant, Senator Dean Harcourt waited for his dinner guest, his lighter gripped tightly in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. He’d bitten clean through the explosive’s fuse, shortening it to a length of less than half an inch to ensure it would detonate almost immediately. His already frenzied breathing grew more labored as he watched Stitches’ bleeding body bobbing up and down like a topwater lure. The dead merc was kept afloat by a life preserver and tethered to the Zodiac by a twenty-foot length of rope.