called this portion of the hunt, ‘The Chase’”
“That was at the end of the book,” O’Shea said.
Trevor smiled. “I’m an impatient man.”
White foam burst from the back of the Titan. It lurched forward and churned through the water. “There they go!” Andrea shouted.
Standing in the bridge of the cutter alongside the captain, her shout was unnecessary but understandable. From the moment they’d realized what was happening, the crew had been on alert and ready to move.
“Set a course to follow,” the captain said. “Bring us alongside, but keep a safe distance.”
Andrea braced for sudden movement as the cutter’s engines roared to life. The propellers dug into the water and pushed them forward in pursuit of the Titan. While the captain and crew had their minds set on the chase and the possibility that the sea monster they’d all been joking about was real, Andrea’s thoughts were on the man she’d been pursuing from the moment she’d brought him back to life. She knew Atticus was on the Titan. But as she watched the megayacht pounding through the water, a glint of metal rising from its bow, she realized it might be too late to save him.
While his life might not be at risk while aboard the Titan, he was going to lose himself in the fight. She feared he’d become as much a monster as the creature he sought to kill.
A reassuring hand gripped her shoulder. She turned and found the captain looking at the photo. “He’s why we’re really here, right? He’s the man you pulled from the water, the one who lost his daughter?”
She nodded.
“He’s on the Titan?”
She nodded again.
He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll get him back.”
“How long have you known?”
“I’ve been a sailor long enough to know what a woman looks like when she’s waiting for a man to return from sea.” The captain smiled. “You’ve been standing on that deck watching that ship with the same look in your eyes I see in my wife’s every time she greets me at the dock.”
Andrea smiled. She’d been found out after all, but, amazingly, it didn’t seem to matter. The captain was a good man. Only then did she realize she had yet to learn his name. “Captain, what’s your name?”
“Nathaniel McCormick,” he said.
“Well Captain McCormick,” she said, “thank you.”
25
The Titan-Gulf of Maine
As the Titan began its charge through the ocean, its girth surged up and down as it cut through eight-foot swells. At full speed, the ship simply bored a path through the water. Atticus found himself enjoying the slight undulation of the deck beneath him. He felt more at home at sea than on land.
As he headed for the foredeck, following Trevor, with O’Shea close behind, he saw something large rising out of the deck where just the night before he’d been weeping for his daughter. Its polished surface glowed in the sunlight. He recognized it instantly-a harpoon gun.
Remus greeted them as they approached. “Almost ready, sir.”
Trevor nodded and looked to Atticus. “Impressive, is it not?”
Atticus loathed the killing of whales. It drove him nuts that several Japanese fleets still slaughtered the beautiful creatures. “For scientific research,” they said. Only fools believed that as the meat, oil, and fins found their way to Japanese markets. And he knew the only reason anyone would have a harpoon gun strapped to the front of a ship was to hunt whales. He wanted to ask if the harpoon gun had been used on a whale, but the answer was clear. Of course it had. Atticus felt a twist of revulsion inside him. What am I becoming, that a man like Trevor Manfred could become such a close friend so quickly? Are we really that much alike? Could I join this crew and watch as this harpoon gun kills a defenseless whale? How different is what I intend to do now?
Atticus shoved the questions from his mind. The plan wasn’t about sport. He took no pleasure in the act. If an alligator in Florida ate a child, it would be killed. If a bear savaged a family, it would be hunted down. This is no different, Atticus told himself. This is nature.
No, a voice shouted from deep within. When a lion takes a calf from a herd of buffalo, they don’t seek revenge; they don’t hunt down the lion. They mew for the baby animal, mourn its loss, and move on. That’s nature!
Fine, Atticus thought, this is humanity. He could live with that. He’d killed for his country in the past. He could kill for his daughter. With his resolve reinforced, Atticus focused on the harpoon gun with renewed interest. Remus carefully looped a thick rope onto the deck, which was attached to the sinister-looking four-pronged harpoon jutting from the front of a cannon that looked like an oversized, futuristic laser gun.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Trevor said. “Every part is titanium. Overkill, I know, but it will never fail me and never dull. Cost a fortune, but it serves me well. The four flukes are razor-sharp on the outside and barbed on the inside, so the harpoon grips after it pierces. Once inside the beast, the flukes will extend and hold tight, while this…” Trevor waved his hand over the tip of the harpoon, which had an opening between each of the flukes. Inside the opening was an unlabeled cylinder. “…explosive charge finishes the job. Most people don’t know this, but harpoons carry explosive heads that explode after impaling the target, inflicting a mortal wound that slowly kills the animal.”
“And makes one hell of a mess,” Remus chimed in.
“I know,” Atticus said through gritted teeth.
“Of course you do,” Trevor said, “And regardless of your past persuasions about the use of a weapon such as this, I think you’ll agree that in this case, the slow death brought on by Excalibur here is well deserved.”
Atticus nodded, centering his mind on the task as hand, trying not to think about the whales killed by the device he would soon wield. “I’m not sure this will be enough. This thing is bigger than any whale.”
“Indeed,” Trevor said. “But we’ve doubled the explosive charge. The beast may take some time bleeding to death, but no amount of white blood cells will be able to plug the hole this creates.”
“Off the port bow!” The voice from the bridge was ragged. Atticus followed the captain’s pointing finger out to sea, where he saw a cloud of shimmering silver, just beneath the surface, and below that, an ominous shape rising from the depths.
He turned to Trevor. “Is it ready?”
“Have at it!”
Atticus stood behind the large harpoon gun, taking its handle with both hands. He swiveled it quickly from side to side and up and down, getting a feel for how quickly it could be maneuvered. It handled like a charm. “Get us on top of that thing.” Atticus’s voice rang with rage as his thirst for vengeance reached a crescendo. “I will not miss.”
“You heard the man,” Trevor said to Remus. “Take the helm and show those lollygaggers how to pilot this ship!”
“Yes, sir!” Remus beamed with pride at being given the station normally occupied by the captain. He stormed off to the bridge, shouting orders the entire way.
Atticus gripped the harpoon gun tightly; bringing it around toward the cloud of herring, now thrashing at the ocean’s surface, panicked and mindless, just as they had been…that day. The boat turned to port and thundered toward the herring. Atticus roared like a man possessed, feeling the thrill of the hunt, the moment of revenge at hand.
Trevor stood beside him, his eyes wide, his lips spread thin in a smile. He was clearly eager, brimming with excitement. And beside him stood O’Shea, taking everything in and doing little to hide his nervousness. While his eyes moved from the ocean to Atticus, his hands clasped together tightly in anticipation.
The herring lay dead ahead. In an explosion of movement, they launched from the water, trying to swim into the sky. This was it. The beast rose. Its prey fled.
