Vincent glanced down. The woman was holding a digital camera—a waterproof digital camera, attached to a cord wrapped around her neck. She hadn’t seen the woman take any pictures, but she hadn’t been looking either. She motioned to the camera. “May I?”
The woman understood. “Oui, oui, naturellement.”
Vincent turned the playback screen on and scrolled through the pictures. There were several of the Frenchwoman and her husband enjoying a cruise on their catamaran. What happened there was a mystery she’d figure out later. She kept moving until she found a blurry aerial shot of the ocean. She scrolled through three more, all blurry. Damn. The next came shockingly clear, and Vincent felt the blood leaving her face yet again. There it was. The black shape, just beneath the surface, was like…like nothing she’d ever seen. If not for this photo, she probably wouldn’t have bothered even to report it. The thing was so unbelievable. The next picture was of the colossal, unbelievable footprint left behind. But the evidence she held in her hand…people would believe that.
6
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The man who had attacked his daughter screamed like a little girl with every slice of the blade Atticus wielded. When Atticus finished, the man and his crony were heaped on the stairs, weeping and afraid for their lives.
Good, Atticus thought. If the justice system failed, and the men walked, they wouldn’t soon forget the lesson he’d just taught them. Not to mention the humiliation they were about to face.
As the sirens grew louder, Atticus closed the knife and opened the garage door. Four officers were headed his way. Giona was standing nearby. She looked petrified, probably more from hearing the men scream than from surviving her own ordeal. He gave her a wink and a smile, then greeted the police officers, handing them the knife and giving a brief explanation of what had happened. The officers gave one look at Giona, her frightened face, and peeked in at the men in the stairwell. They snickered.
“You did this?” one of the officers asked.
Atticus nodded as he wrote his contact information on the back of a business card he’d had in his wallet.
The officer had trouble hiding his smile. “You know that was probably a bad idea.”
Atticus nodded again and handed the officer the business card. “They had it coming.”
It was the officer’s turn to nod. “Of course, now we’re going to have to charge them with indecent exposure.” He smiled then straightened his face. “We’re going to need a statement. Down at the station.”
“Absolutely,” Atticus said, then thumbed toward Giona. “Mind if I take care of her first?”
“Do what you need to do. Come down today or tomorrow,” the officer replied.
Atticus walked to Giona’s side, her face still a mask of fear.
“What did you do to them?” Giona asked.
“Poetic justice,” was Atticus’s reply. “Watch.”
The police exited the parking garage, moving the men in front of them. Both men had their hands cuffed behind their backs, but what was most striking about the image was that their clothes had been cut to ribbons. A group of teens burst out laughing. Others snapped pictures with their cell phones. A few older women covered their mouths and shook their heads in disgust, but watched the spectacle just the same. While Atticus had left their front sides covered, he had totally exposed their rear ends and shredded the rest of their clothing along with whatever small amount of dignity they might have had.
“I doubt they’ll even set foot in Portsmouth again,” Atticus said. “Not without being laughed at, anyway.” He looked down at Giona. A bright smile was on her face—a rarity these days. That it had taken such a violent act to put it there disturbed him. Who had his daughter become? Would they ever be close again?
After the news he would soon deliver, he doubted it.
***
Sitting in the Ford Explorer, an uncomfortable silence fell between Atticus and Giona. She had her arms crossed over her chest, where just an hour earlier a man had held a knife. He looked at her throat and saw some light bruising.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Fine.”
“You’ve got some bruises forming on your neck. How hard was he squeezing?”
Giona pulled down the visor and popped on the mirror. She inspected her neck, then slumped back in her seat. Tears welled up in her eyes despite her best effort to hide them. A sob escaped her lips, followed by another and another. Atticus pulled over, slammed the car into park, and, their relationship be damned, he was going to hold his baby.
He thought he’d have to undo her seat belt and yank her over, but as soon as they were stopped, she crawled across the seat and into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. “I love you, baby. I love you.”
Giona’s sobs grew louder, and Atticus felt that she wasn’t just crying because of what had just happened. She was letting out two years of pent-up grief. When he had told her about Maria, about her death, she hadn’t shed a tear. A month later her hair was bright red, and a wall had been erected between them. That wall, it seemed, had just crumbled. At least Atticus hoped it had.
Ten minutes passed before either said another word. Giona’s crying had subsided; she wiped her face clean, shifting back to the passenger seat. Atticus feared the wall was coming back up, but then she spoke.
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Atticus’s heart broke. He paused before speaking less his voice crack. “Daddy, huh?”
Giona gave him the smile he’d waited two years to see. “Thanks for saving me.”
Atticus shrugged nonchalantly. “I was in the area.”
She slapped his shoulder. “I mean it.”
Silence filled the parked Explorer again. He desired to break the silence so badly, to continue the healing process, but what could he say to a daughter who had nearly been raped, with whom he had rarely held a conversation in two years…whose eyes looked just like Maria’s and whose nose was his own. The truth, Atticus decided.
He opened his mouth to speak, but it was Giona’s voice that broke the silence. “I know about Ann Arbor. I know we’re moving.”
Atticus stared are her, mouth still hanging open. She answered the next obvious question.
“I’m Generation Y, Daddy. You’re generation…old. I grew up with a computer, and you don’t cover your tracks well. Ever heard of deleting your history? Clearing the recently viewed documents list? I thought you Navy SEALs were supposed to be stealthy.”
“There’s a big difference between an M-16 and Windows XP.” Atticus put the SUV in drive and pulled out onto the road. He was impressed that Giona had discovered their moving plans, but she was right. He was getting old, slow, and sloppy…not physically…but he feared the mind was dulling. He sometimes missed his exploits with the SEALs, risking his life, serving his country…firing a gun. Maria had changed all that in him, gave him something deeper to believe in—a wife, a daughter.
He’d been pacified and domesticated. He didn’t resent the change, not for a moment, but he did miss the rush of an underwater insertion, how alive he felt when bullets were seeking him out but not finding their mark. It had been his life for ten years.
“Uncle is excited we’re moving. He—”
“You talked to my brother about it, but not to me?”
Giona’s faced flush with guilt. “Well, you obviously didn’t want to talk to me about it either. You could have asked my opinion. We could have planned it together.”
“We hardly do anything together.” Atticus’s voice was rising. He took a breath and spoke more softly. “Look. I’m doing this for us. I have a job at the Detroit Zoo, caring for the seals. I won’t be gone for months out of the year. We can spend more time together—fix what’s been broken between us. Okay?”
Giona nodded quick, little agreeing nods. “Okay…When are we moving?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
Giona smiled. “I can read a hard drive, but
not your mind.”
“Three days.”
“Wow …”
“Yup.”
“Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
A pause filled Atticus with a surge of anxiety. Had he just undone the bond newly forged between them? Giona’s next words erased his fears.
“You’re going to miss the ocean.”
Atticus nodded, relieved and surprised that her reaction to the news was concern for him. “Yup.”
Giona looked out the windshield, paying attention for the first time. They’d just pulled into Rye harbor.
“We’re going to say good-bye,” Atticus said. “Look in the back.”
As he parked the car in the dirt parking lot and gave Pete the attendant a friendly “hello” and a five dollar bill, Giona looked in the back of the Explorer. Two sets of dive gear were there. Wet suits, oxygen tanks, everything. “We’re going diving?”
“We’re going on the dive.”
Giona’s eyes flashed with excitement. It had been Giona’s dream to dive with whales. She’d said it would be the closest thing to a supernatural encounter a human could experience. That was a few years ago, before Maria died, but he was sure she still felt the same. The look on her face confirmed it.
“There’s been a lot of humpback activity in the area. They’re migrating north right now.”
Giona kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Suddenly we’re best friends,” Atticus said with a smirk. He loved making his daughter happy. He hoped he could continue to do so in Ann Arbor. They’d be with family, and he’d be around a lot more. He would certainly miss the ocean, but he could already feel his life changing for the better.
“Listen, I know you’re a good diver,” he said, “but you’ve never dived with whales. They’re gentle, but they’re still wild creatures. They can be erratic at times. The ocean in general is unpredictable. We’ll be using full-sized masks with headsets, so we’ll be able to talk and see each other’s faces. Just do exactly what I tell you, okay?”
“Your word is my command.”
“Good.” Atticus flashed a smile. He was as excited as she was. He’d swum with whales many times before, but the thrill was always the same. Giona was right. It was a supernatural experience. “Let’s go find some whales.”
7
Jeffrey’s Ledge—Gulf of Maine
Atticus shut down the yacht’s twin diesels. He listened to the water slapping against the fiberglass hull, felt the gentle rise and fall of the ocean beneath, and breathed deeply of the salty sea air. He was home…for one more day. Leaving the sea behind pained him, but strengthening his relationship with Giona was more important, and that couldn’t be done while he was away for months at a time.
The boat, on loan from a friend who owed him a favor, was sleek and fancy. It had taken Giona some time to believe that they had the seventy-foot-long, eighteen-foot-beam vessel all to themselves. Built as a ship for megasport fishermen, the Bugaboo also worked well as a pleasure boat, or in their case, a diving platform. The white hull gleamed in the afternoon sun, a white speck on the blue ocean.
Atticus’s mind turned to the ocean beneath. On the way to Jeffrey’s Ledge, they’d seen several plumes of mist ejected from swimming whales. The temptation to give chase and jump out after them was strong, but he knew whales in the deep water would be moving fast, impossible to jump in with. But at Jeffery’s Ledge, a glacial deposit that created upwelling currents, the water flourished with plankton, herring, cod, and the giants of the sea that fed on them—the whales…especially the humpbacks.
Atticus left the cushy seat of the Bugaboo’s air-conditioned bridge and headed for the stern deck. He opened the door into the eighty-five-degree air and found Giona all geared up and eager to enter the water. She lobbed the dive buoy into the water and turned to him, face beaming. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
He wasted no time sliding into his wet suit, weight belt, buoyancy-control vest, and air tanks. Before donning the face mask, he double-checked Giona’s equipment, then his own. SEALs were known for entering the most dangerous environments on the planet, but they were always well prepared first. That was why so few of them came home in body bags. When Atticus felt they were ready for anything, he gave Giona a thumbs-up. She was beaming.
“One last thing,” he said. He opened a storage compartment and pulled out two cameras encased in waterproof shells. “I thought this might be a Kodak moment. Yours is a still camera. The flash will work up to fifty feet. It’s bright as hell, so don’t take any pictures of yourself. Mine is a video camera. I’ll get everything on tape…” He smiled. “Maybe you can show it to your kids someday.”
Giona had no words. She simply accepted the camera with a wide smile.
Two minutes later, they splashed into the water. While Atticus was a master scuba diver, Giona wasn’t a novice by any means. They both equalized the pressure in their ears and silently descended to fifty feet. The deep blue waters surrounded them endlessly on every side. It was as though they were floating in limbo, weightless, neither hot nor cold, where the trappings of the world, both good and evil, seemed irrelevant. Not limbo, Atticus thought, Heaven.
Then the waters spoke. A ghostly tune. The long, sad note carried through the water, passing the two small divers and continuing for thousands of miles beyond. It was answered by another. “Where are they?” Giona’s voice was just a whisper in Atticus’s ear.
“They’re coming.”
“Where?”
In fact, Atticus had no idea where they were. He could tell by the singsongy sounds that they were humpbacks, the most playful, and in his opinion, beautiful of all the whales. They were close. That was all he knew.
Atticus filled the silence with his voice. “Did you know that whale songs actually follow rules of musical composition?” His voice was filled with wonder, and he didn’t wait for Giona to reply. “They learn the song from their parent…from their family, and pass it down from generation to generation, elaborating on it…improving it.” He paused for a moment to listen. “I hope…I want to do that for you too, Gigi. I want to be a good dad for you, to teach you things you might find worth passing down to your kids. That’s why—”
A loud, bellowing song rolled through the water all around them. The song was so loud that Atticus knew he should be able to see the creature. He spun in circles, looking everywhere. As he spun, the water below him began to lighten. He looked down and saw the belly of a massive humpback arcing below.
“Wow!” Giona had seen it too.
Then the rest of the whales came into view, one at a time, an entire pod of humpbacks, lazily swimming and spinning, enjoying the freedom of the ocean. They were moving slowly, obviously curious about the small humans keeping pace with them. Their forward movement ended, and they began circling, diving, churning, approaching, and rising to the surface for air. A curious calf approached Giona, who held her hand out to touch it.
Atticus grew nervous. If the mother sensed a threat, they’d both be in trouble. But his fear was groundless. The mother gently nudged the calf toward the surface, reminding the little one to breathe. Giona had held her breath too, and now Atticus could hear her heavy respirations over the headset.
“Steady breathing,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”
“Did you see that?” Giona said excitedly, ignoring her father’s worried voice. “It was right there. I almost touched it.”
He could see her smiling face through the mask. He couldn’t resist. “Follow me,” he said. “Stay close, and move slowly.”
A large bull had been swimming lazily around them, clearly comfortable with the tiny creatures who, it knew, posed little threat. When Atticus and Giona swam up next to the forty-five-foot whale, it simply glanced at them and kept moving. A good sign. Atticus moved in closer so that he was swimming directly over the whale’s back. He reached down and rubbed his hand a
gainst the smooth whale skin, just behind its dorsal fin. Giona followed suit. The whale let out a gentle, bass call. It apparently enjoyed the attention.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Thank you.”
Before Atticus could respond, the calmness was shattered by a loud shrieking call that hadn’t come from this group of whales. Atticus could tell it had come from another pod, not far off. He reacted instantly, pulling up and away from the bull. “Giona! Get away from the whale!” He knew what would happen next.
Flukes pounded water, churning the sea wildly. Atticus could feel the currents swirling all around him, spinning him like a top. The whales had bolted, all of them. The incoming call was a warning. Something had them spooked.
When a second high-pitched cry reached them, Atticus knew that their troubles had just begun. The whales were closing on their position. Something was driving them. Atticus swallowed. He and Giona were in the direct path of a runaway freight train.
8
Jeffrey’s Ledge—Atlantic Ocean
As Atticus scoured the water in search of charging humpbacks, he fought the urge to ascend with Giona at top speed. They were too deep and would risk decompression sickness, otherwise known as “the bends,” if they charged to the surface. It was easily avoided. A simple slow ascent of seventeen feet per minute with a pause fifteen feet below the surface did the trick. The cause was equally simple. During a dive, large amounts of nitrogen are taken into the body because the diver is breathing air at a higher pressure than they would be at the surface. The extra nitrogen in the body poses no threat as long as the diver stays submerged. When the diver heads for the surface and the pressure decreases, the nitrogen is released from the body via the lungs. But if the diver ascends too rapidly, the nitrogen isn’t released quick enough, and, like a newly opened bottle of soda, the diver’s blood bubbles within the body’s tissues. Headache, vertigo, and fatigue are common symptoms, but severe cases lead to unconsciousness—sometimes death.
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