She closes her eyes, her body no longer hers, her mind in a fog, the sea ready to squelch the flames in her lungs.
Something enormous sideswipes her face. Her eyes burst open against the tremendous impact, its brutality jolting her with adrenaline.
A cloud of buoyant debris races up from the sunken carrier.
Willing her arms to move, she reaches for the closest object, misses the first, then the second. She twists her torso, close to passing out as she aims for a large object rising from below … waiting … waiting … her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as the object suddenly slams into her gut, her chest exploding as she latches on to the bucking bronco, her nose inhaling seawater, her mouth vomiting it back out.
And still, she refuses to let go.
The object twists in her grip as it pushes her higher, the helicopter tire somehow settling beneath her, driving her to the surface, spinning her as it rises.
Rocky loops both legs and the crook of one arm around the tire, pinching her nose with her free hand as Death’s pressing blackness continues pushing in on her peripheral vision. A warm feeling fills her chest as she rises higher, the residual molecules of air in her lungs expanding, easing the scorching pain. With newfound strength, she grips the wheel’s strut tighter, gently expelling air to prevent her lungs from bursting and to keep dissolved nitrogen from forming deadly bubbles in her blood.
The life vest reexpands, nearly pushing her from the tire.
And then the incredible sound of life returns in one mighty swoosh as her body is literally launched from the sea. Thrown from the tire, she haltingly inhales a lungful of blessed air, her salt-burned throat heaving with the effort.
Moaning involuntarily, she swims back to the tire and climbs on, hugging it as feeling slowly returns to her oxygen-deprived limbs.
Rising.
Falling.
Hills of water toss her insides about. She vomits seawater, then closes her eyes, her head pounding, her body shivering from the cold. The sound of circling fighters grows louder.
And then she is moving.
Rocky looks up, disoriented.
The tire is caught in the wake of a great beast, its dark, imposing head plowing the surface somewhere up ahead. The brutish silhouette is circling, and now she can see what looks like its eyes, glowing crimson beneath an enormous wake that washes over the monster’s face.
The mountainous bow wave tosses the surviving crewmen of the
High above, an air wing organizes. Four fighters plunge toward the monster, each enraged pilot intent on slaughtering it. Eight JDAM missiles launch as one, the wave of projectiles homing in on the brute’s exposed back.
From the creature’s spine, a dozen surface-to-air missiles zoom skyward, blasting apart the Joint Strike Fighters in the blink of an eye—even as the evening sky erupts with the metallic whine from two antimissile guns, positioned behind the sea creature’s head like horns on a devil. A sheer wall of steel—four thousand 20-mm shells —meet the JDAMs head-on.
Rocky instinctively ducks, registering the heat from the explosions as she shields her eyes from the inferno.
The remaining fighters race out of range, clearly outmatched.
Unchallenged, the steel nightmare laps its killing field one last time before disappearing beneath the waves, leaving little more than a ripple.
Rocky presses her face against the cold surface of the helicopter wheel, her shattered mind screaming a single thought.
Like a tortured animal in a trap, she is gripped by a wave of anger. Purple lips whisper the cursed name of Gunnar Wolfe, her voice rising until she is yelling like a banshee, screeching her venom into the deepening twilight.
CHAPTER 2
2 October 2009
State College, Pennsylvania
The main campus of Pennsylvania State University and its bordering town of State College lie in the Nittany Valley, a serene countryside of flowing hills, rural neighborhoods, outdoor malls, and dairy farms, enveloped by the mountains of central Pennsylvania. The name “Nittany” comes from the Indian words meaning “protective barrier against the elements,” and may have originated from the tale of a mythical princess, “Nita-Nee,” who led her people to safety within the Pennsylvania valley. Upon her death, Mount Nittany itself is said to have risen to mark the princess’s grave.
Gunnar Wolfe shuts down the lime green tractor and stares at the mountain range stretched out before him on the distant northeastern horizon. The fading afternoon sun has bathed the sloping landmark in shades of purple.
Closing his eyes, he draws in a deep, intoxicating breath.
The serenity of the mountains soothe Gunnar’s soul as the sea once had, long before it had become a battlefield. Resting his arms on the wheel, his chin on his forearms, he gazes at the hills, imagining them to be a series of majestic tsunamis, their cresting fury threatening to wipe out the valley—and what little sanity his existence has been clinging to over the last seven years, four months, ten days, fourteen hours … .
Gunnar had grown up on the dairy farm back when its borders encompassed more than a hundred acres. He and his cousins had milked the cows by hand back then—sixty pure Holsteins—each animal twice a day. Looking back, he sees it as a happier, simpler time—long before his father had purchased the milking machines—long before his mother had died. Gunnar closes his eyes, refocusing his mind, this time counting the years since the accursed drunk sophomore had run into her as she walked home from church.
During his years in prison he found he could not remember her face, but then he had returned to the farm, and the memories came rushing back.
A cold autumn breeze clears the tractor’s exhaust, bringing with it the smell of hay and manure and, atop them, the indefinable air-flavor of the coming of a long Centre County winter. The leaves have already begun turning, welcoming back the Penn State alumni, whose presence on the eve of a football weekend is already
