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“How so?”
“On my first dive I lost two people. Couldn’t be helped. The wreck we dove on shifted and crushed them. There was no way to help them. You’re not moving tons of rusted steel no matter how strong you think you are.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. And that venture cost me a lot more than I thought it would. I came back to the States and found myself facing a lawsuit from the families of the deceased. That pretty much wiped me out.”
“But you kept going.”
Hunter smiled. “You know what it’s like to want something so bad that you can’t even fathom it ever being wiped out of your soul?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s how it was. I just couldn’t give it up. As much as I tried—and I did try. I went back to school and even did a year of law before I bugged out. I just couldn’t get that image out of my head of the diver breaking the surface with the gold coin in hand. I’d wake up in a sweat and know that it could be me.”
Annja shook her head. “You’re obsessed.”
Hunter grinned. “Some guys, they obsess over women. Some over work, some over other things. For me, it was the dive. The lure of the treasure wouldn’t let me go. I was caught in the spell.”
“So you went back.”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah. I did a lot more research than I’d done before. I found some smaller wrecks, thinking that if I could get started on something more in line with my limited experiences, then maybe that would be the best way to go about it.”
“Did it work out?”
“My second dive was better. It still wasn’t great, but at least I was getting my feet under me. I had only a little bit of money but I managed to make back my investment by scavenging the bits I was able to bring up from the ship.”
“What sort of ship?”
Hunter laughed. “It was an old landing ship that the Navy had scuttled years earlier. I found someone to buy the scrap metal off me. It wasn’t much—most of the metal had rusted away—but I made back the investment. And it helped fuel my desire even more. While I was doing that salvage job, I was already planning my next outing.”
Annja took the flask from him and helped herself to the whiskey. She could taste the peat now, and Hunter was right—it was very good whiskey indeed. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I heard about a Dutch trading ship that vanished along the coast of Brazil. I went after it.”
“Brazil? Did you have to wrangle permits?”
Hunter shrugged. “I was still making mistakes back then. And one of them was the idea that I felt I could operate outside the law. I hooked up with a local criminal type who insisted that the permits would be arranged with a simple bribe.”
“Something tells me that wasn’t the case.”
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Who’d have thought it? I flew into Rio and found myself under arrest for piracy of all things.”
“The guy double-crossed you.”
“I was carrying ten thousand in cash,” Hunter said. “All part of the bribe, of course. They busted me on that. I had to do six months in jail down there.”
“Wow.”
Hunter took a deep breath. “You know what jail’s like in Brazil?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure. No.”
“It’s hell,” Hunter said. “The prisons are run by the gangs, and just trying to survive takes every ounce of courage and endurance you have. I was one of the lucky ones. They thought I was a fool and didn’t bother with me. And by the time they realized that my family had money, Cole had figured out a way to get me out of there. Thank God.”
“He never mentioned that,” Annja said. “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, I suppose that’s one of the things he’s not very proud of his brother doing, you know? No one likes to talk about the troubled child gone astray.”
“You weren’t astray,” Annja said. “Just trying to find your way. It could have happened to anyone.”
“But it happened to me,” Hunter said. “I’ve been trying to live it down ever since.”
“You’ve got Cole helping you now, though.”
Hunter nodded. “And it’s great that he is. His money has helped make this operation profitable. But I guess I’ve always regretted not being able to do it all myself.”
“Isn’t it better this way?”
“Maybe.” Hunter switched off the radio. “But there will always be a part of me that wonders if I could make it on my own. I would have gotten out of that jail eventually.”
“The guy who double-crossed you would have had you killed before you were free.”
Hunter looked at Annja. “You think?”
Annja tried to smile but it came out wrong. “I’ve met men like that before. They operate on strict rules and one of their rules is that you never let someone you victimized live. It just means they’ll come back for you. No one wants to spend their life looking over their shoulder.”
Hunter stared at Annja. “Maybe you’re right.”
Annja’s response died when the sonar scope suddenly started beeping. On the scope, Annja could see the outline of a huge shape in the water.
9
“Is that it?”
Hunter leaned over the display. “I don’t know.”
“It looks like what was on there earlier.” Annja watched as the line swept around the scope, and every time it reached the nine-o’clock position, it revealed the huge shape in brilliant orange.
“Doesn’t seem to be moving all that fast,” Hunter said. “I would have thought it would be.”
Annja shuddered as another breeze swept in through the open window. “Maybe it’s just cruising around.”
Hunter nodded. “I suppose that could be it. Sharks like to hunt at night. Maybe it’s down there tracking something.”
“How do they see?”
Hunter shrugged. “Better ask Cole that one. I think I saw a television special last year that mentioned they could use tiny amounts of ambient light to spotlight things against the backdrop. This guy did some research down in South Africa and found the ambient glow of city lights on shore helped great whites hunt seals at night. Pretty wild.”
“And you think that thing might be using our running lights as help in this case?”
“Like I said, you’d have to ask Cole. But I suppose it’s a possibility. Sharks haven’t evolved over millions and millions of years just to be thwarted by something as rudimentary as the darkness.”
I wonder if they could handle my sword, Annja thought. She kept watching the sonar sweep around. The shape in the water seemed to have drifted more to their port side. “It looks like it’s searching for something.”
“Yeah.”
“Should we go get Cole?”
Hunter checked his watch. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s after midnight and the guy probably needs his sleep.”
“Yeah, but he might get upset if he finds out he missed this.”
Hunter eyed her. “Or he might jump into the drink without a second thought.”
Annja nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
Hunter smiled. “My brother doesn’t let things like the dark stop him, either. And he probably should in this case. Maybe we’ll just keep this sighting to ourselves, huh?”
Annja watched the scope. “Sure would like to know what it’s doing.”
“Probably looking for a midnight snack.”
Annja had watched some shark specials on television, but she couldn’t remember seeing anything that came close to this size. The creature was huge. And yet, there seemed something almost unnatural about it. Maybe it was the overall size of the shark or maybe it was because Annja hadn’t seen any shows that did night research on sharks, but the whole event left her chilled.
Suddenly, she had an idea. “Do you have a flashlight?”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
“You mentioned that sharks would use ambient light to hunt. Maybe I’ll give this thing some extra light and see if its behavior changes.”
Hunter handed her the flashlight from the instrument panel. “How are you going to do that?”
Annja took the flashlight. “Keep an eye on the scope and tell me if anything changes.”
“Annja—”
She grinned. “Relax, I’m not going in the water. I’m not nearly that suicidal.”
“Okay.”
Annja stepped outside the wheelhouse and found her way to the steps leading down to the main deck. She followed the port side toward the stern and then stood staring out at the inky sea.
Waves lapped against the side of the boat, but from her vantage point, she could see nothing to indicate that a huge shark was cruising nearby. She smirked. This was probably how it was all the time. Nature had crafted these incredible creatures and humans were, by and large, oblivious to when they were close by.
She switched on the flashlight and its bright beam cut through the swath of darkness, illuminating the waves nearby that foamed white as they slapped into one another.
Annja swept the beam across the surface of the water and waited. She hoped this would provoke some sort of reaction from the shark. If Annja could get it to surface, then maybe she could get a decent look at the thing.
Maybe.
She glanced up at the wheelhouse and could see part of Hunter’s body still leaning over the scope. She whistled softly and he leaned out of the window.
“Yeah?”
“Anything yet?”
“Not a thing. It’s still moving at the same pace and on the same course. Maybe it doesn’t see the light.”
Annja frowned. If a shark could use the ambient city lights miles away, then surely this shark could see a bright white beam on the surface of the water.
She looked out at the waves. She needed something else to help attract the shark. Something it wouldn’t be able to ignore.
Annja checked to see if the crew had left anything nearby that she could use. But the stern of the boat was remarkably absent of clutter. The dive platform hovered a few inches below the surface of the water and, before she could think things through, she sat down and pulled her socks off.
Maybe I am crazy, she thought.
“Annja?”
Hunter’s voice drifted down to her, but Annja ignored it as she stepped off the back of the boat and onto the dive platform. The water felt cold and she shuddered as her feet went into the water. She was standing in it up to her ankles.
She felt a wave of fear wash over her. Now she was actually in the ocean with this thing, even though she was technically still on the boat. If the shark rammed hard enough, she might lose her footing and that would be it.
Annja swallowed and used the flashlight beam again, aiming it just off the stern of the boat, closer to where she stood. With her other hand, Annja held the back railing for dear life. It would be her only link to the ship and she didn’t want to lose it.
“Annja!”
She glanced back. Hunter had come out of the wheelhouse and stood halfway down the stairs leading to the stern. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’ve got to see if I can get this thing interested in me or if it’s doing something else.”
“I can’t help you if it attacks.”
“Just keep watching the scope and let me know if it starts to change course. Give me as much warning as you can.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Hunter vanished back up the stairs, leaving Annja alone on the lolling platform. She felt cold and her legs wanted to carry her back up onto the boat proper. Psychologically, she knew that she would feel a lot safer with the deck between her and the ocean. Right now, all that separated her from the deep was a few inches of steel.
The flashlight beam cut into the darkness and then died only ten yards away from the boat. Annja could see the frothy white caps cresting in time to the sway of the boat. A stronger breeze blew and she shivered again. Her left hand ached from holding the railing so tightly, but there was no way she’d loosen her grip.
Annja’s stomach cramped slightly and she realized that if the shark did indeed decide to check out the light, she had no way of summoning her sword if necessary. Both of her hands were fully occupied.
She couldn’t very well risk using one of them to hold the sword. Plus, its appearance would mean an uncomfortable amount of questions from Hunter and who knew who else? How would she explain that she somehow possessed the sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc and that she could summon it at will?
No, the time for the sword would be later. If it got to that point. If this was just a shark acting like a shark, then Annja didn’t see any real need to fight it. Jock’s death notwithstanding, there was already enough shark slaughter happening elsewhere in the world and Annja didn’t want to contribute to it any further.
She frowned. There should have been some reaction to the presence of the light by now. She glanced back at the wheelhouse, but her view from the stern of the boat was limited and she didn’t know what Hunter was up to.
