Authors: Alex Archer
When Annja awoke, darkness shrouded the cabin. Mercifully, her head had ceased throbbing and her stomach seemed to be relatively stable. Her throat was dry, however, and she wanted to get some fresh air. Cole was sound asleep beside her.
She made her way to the door without fainting and opened it slowly. She was unsure what to expect on the other side. The boat was quiet and lolled gently, anchored as it was.
Dim red lights illuminated the hallway leading out to the stairs. Annja padded down the walkway until she came to the steps and started up them. She could already feel the wind washing over the boat and her skin. Goose bumps broke out along her hairline and she shivered slightly as she crept higher.
Her stomach didn’t hurt and Annja felt somewhat secure as she crept along the walkway toward the wheelhouse. The salt air refreshed her. Waves lapped at the sides of the ship and she felt some of the spray wash up on her skin.
Annja felt good. She kept her hands along the railing, however, just in case she felt faint, aware that she was still recovering from the concussion she’d received earlier.
A weak yellow light came from the wheelhouse. Annja moved toward it. Maybe she could have a word with Jax about what happened earlier. Annja didn’t like bad blood if she could avoid it. But if she couldn’t, then she’d just have to deal with it another time.
She took a deep breath and swung the door to the wheelhouse open. But Jax wasn’t there.
Hunter was.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey.” Annja glanced around. “No Jax?”
Hunter smiled. “Even the captain needs sleep sometimes. I gave her the night off so she could crash. She’s been pulling hard since the attack.”
“She close with the victim?”
Hunter shrugged. “Don’t really know. Jax has a way about her. She can get guys if she wants ’em. Or she can turn ’em off like a light switch. I’m not sure how she felt about Jock. Or how he felt about her, for that matter. Not that that would have been an obstacle per se. Jock had a thing for anything with breasts.”
“Nice.”
“Sorry.”
Annja shrugged. “Forget it. I know how guys think. You’re honest and I appreciate that.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.” Annja glanced around the wheelhouse. “I thought I’d come topside for a little air.”
“Always clears my head, too,” Hunter said. “You want a drink?”
“What have you got?”
Hunter handed her a flask. “A little whiskey. It’s aged. Got a taste of peat in it, if you like that sort of thing.”
Annja took a sniff and then a sip. The smooth whiskey flowed down her throat and she took a deep breath. “Wow.”
Hunter took the flask back from her. “Don’t tell Cole. He’ll kill me if he finds out how much this stuff runs me. But why waste money on crap if you have a chance to get the good stuff, right?”
“I guess.” Annja felt the whiskey hit her hard. “That’s some potent stuff.”
“Keep you steady, it will,” Hunter said. “And I’ve used it to do just that on some stormy nights at sea.”
“You had many?”
Hunter nodded and took a deep drag on the flask. “Once or twice. We were off the coast of Florida when a gale blew up and knocked us sideways. We were cresting fifty-foot waves, crawling up one side and diving down the other. They were like mountains, you know. Fifty feet doesn’t sound like much until you actually get out in the thick of it in a twenty-foot boat.”
“You were in a twenty-footer?”
Hunter grinned. “First and last time, mind you. I came back and resolved never to sail anything less than a hundred foot.”
“Those waves must have been terrifying.”
“They were. I had to keep the ship on course because any mistake meant we’d have been swamped and gone before anyone knew we were there. A storm like that, they don’t roll up all that often.”
Hunter switched the radio on and Annja heard smooth music roll out of the speakers. He adjusted the volume, then took another sip and offered the flask back to Annja.
Annja shook her head. “I should stop. The booze and my concussion probably won’t get along that well.”
Hunter took the flask back. “Good point. Hang out, though. I can use the company.”
Annja leaned back against the wall and watched him. He had the same type of chiseled face that Cole had. But Hunter had strong limbs that seemed longer than Cole’s. Cole’s upper torso was more compact while Hunter’s reminded her of a languid jungle cat stretched out on a rock in the sun.
“How’d you get into treasure hunting?” she asked.
Hunter shook his head. “Not exactly the type of thing you go to school for, is it?”
“Nope.”
Bars of music filtered out of the speakers, while Hunter closed his eyes in appreciation of it. After a moment he looked at Annja. “I could say it’s all because of a girl.”
Annja smiled. “Oh is it?”
“Yep. I fell in love with a girl in college and flipped out of my mind over her. Spent the summer chasing her all over the Caribbean. We jumped from island to island on my dime, just having a blast. Sleeping on the beaches, making love, drinking our brains into a permanent pickled state. Youth’s a crazy thing, you know?”
“I guess.”
Hunter eyed her. “Yeah, I don’t suppose my experiences as a kid are universal or anything. I can see that.”
“So go on.”
Hunter shrugged. “I came across this boat anchored in the blue of the Caribbean one day. There were a couple of guys in the water. Real island dudes. The boat represented every dime they had in the world and they were out there diving off this patch of sand. We happened to sail up at just the right moment.”
“Right moment?”
Hunter took another sip. “You believe in serendipity?”
“Depends, I guess.”
“Well, these guys had come across a sunken Spanish galleon filled with chests of gold. I was there when one of the divers broke the surface of the water holding a single gold coin in his hand. I’ll never forget how the sun caught that gleaming yellow coin and made it look as brilliant as the brightest star in the sky. It blew me away. I wanted that joy of discovery. And I wanted all those riches.”
“So, that was it? You shelved the college life and threw your lot in with those guys?”
Hunter chuckled. “Those guys wanted nothing to do with me. Right after we came upon them, one of the guys still on the boat pulled a pistol and told us to sail away or they’d kill us. Treasure hunting’s a dangerous gambit sometimes.”
“Certainly seems to be.” Annja shivered as a cold breeze blew through the wheelhouse. “So, how’d you get started?”
“I spent a lot of my own money—hell, all of it—on a boat and top-of-the-line equipment that I had little clue how to operate. I was a fool and a cocksure one at that. I thought that my money could make everything go right when all it did was foul it up even quicker than if I’d been broke.”
“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.
“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.
She heard him coming down the stairs a moment later. “Annja?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“I’m wondering why this shark hasn’t responded to my presence or to this flashlight beam.”
“You thought it would?”
Annja frowned. “Hell, I don’t know what I thought. It was more of an experiment than anything else.”
“The scope isn’t showing much. It’s still there, but its movement is as slow as it was before. It’s like it either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that you’re there.”
Annja frowned. “I could go for a swim.”
“Don’t you dare!” Hunter’s voice grated across the darkness. Annja smiled at the reaction.
“Relax. I told you I wasn’t suicidal. And even if I was, I wouldn’t do it like that.”
“All right. Don’t make me haul you back aboard against your will.”
“Like you could.”
Hunter started to laugh, but then they both stopped.
Something splashed out beyond the range of the light.
Annja’s heart started beating faster. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.”
She could tell Hunter was coming closer to her. “Annja, why don’t you get back on the boat now?”
“Hang on a second.”
She could hear more splashing. It sounded like something was almost on top of the water. She swept the flashlight beam as far as she could but the inexorable darkness simply swallowed it up beyond ten yards.
“I can’t see a damned thing.”
“Neither can I. But I think you should get back on the boat,” Hunter said.
“Get back to the wheelhouse and tell me what you see.”
“I’m not leaving you alone out here.”
“I’ll be fine. Just do it, okay?”
“Annja.”
“Hunter. Just do it. I need to know if this thing is coming at me or not.”
“Fine.”
She heard him stomp away and then turned back to look out at the ocean. More wind blew up and she felt her fear rising with it. The shark might be heading right for her and she wouldn’t know it unless her flashlight beam cut across its shape in the dark. “Annja!”
“What?”
“It’s coming at you. But still slowly.”
“How far?”
“Maybe fifty yards.”
Annja frowned. She wouldn’t see it yet. She just had to keep the beam on. She flashed the light across the waves.
And then the glow dimmed.
“Oh, crap.”
The light beam vanished, plunging the area into total darkness. Annja sighed. In all of her adventures, there seemed a constant she could always count on—poorly charged batteries ruining something.
She heard another splash and suddenly felt a lot more exposed without the aid of the flashlight.
Time to get back on the boat.
Annja turned and stepped back onto the rear deck. As she did so, something large slapped down against the waves far out from the boat. Annja turned and tried to see, but she couldn’t.
“It’s gone.”
She looked up at Hunter. “What did you say?”
“Gone. One moment it was headed right at you. The next, it vanished.”