He pulled the stick back, lifting the gunship fifty feet above the roof of the concrete bunker. Then he flew out over the folded Gorilla and the orderly stacks of material. As he came to the end of the stacks, he pulled the nose of the ship back, aimed it at the mountain ridge, and throttled on, shooting out of the small valley. He leaned the gunship left and looked down on the Jules Verne. The footprints of the Gorilla lay all around the crash site. Where sections of wreckage had landed, now only circles of footprints surrounded empty craters. The main body of the freighter lay out on the lakebed like a decapitated beast, ending in a flat bulkhead just past the engines.
Jeffrey dropped the right wing down, turning the gunship due west. He leveled off and slid the throttle forward to its stops, heading for Ramona, California.
…
As he approached inhabited areas, he throttled back and kept the gunship just below the speed of sound. When he arrived at the Ramona airport, the surrounding mountains threw long shadows out across the runway. He turned the ship in and set down on the tarmac. Unstrapping himself, he walked into the darkness of the troop area, his boots thumping on the metal decking. He pressed the switch, and the ramp opened, hissing as it lowered. He stepped out on it, riding it down to the blacktop.
He did not see Leif’s car in the parking area, and he scanned the road. Finally, he caught sight of the car coming up between two hangars. Jeffrey stepped off the ramp and walked across the tarmac. As he walked around the chain link fence to the parking area, Leif’s car pulled into a parking space. The driver’s door opened, and Leif got out. Leif had the same thin frame and loose t-shirt. Yet, he had changed, grown bolder. When they made eye contact–instead of glancing away–he stared longer, searching his father’s face.
“Where is she?” Jeffrey asked.
“It’s good to see you too,” Leif said. “At least I know where your allegiance is.”
Jeffrey opened his mouth to reply, but the passenger door of the car opened and a cane came up out of the car, clanking on the window frame.
Jeffrey moved around Leif, but Leif grabbed his arm and said in a quiet voice, “Let her alone, she wants to do things herself.”
Jeffrey nodded.
Stacy gripped the window frame with one hand, pressed on the cane with the other, and stood up out of the car. As she came around the car, Jeffrey noticed that she had even less of a limp than the last time he had seen her. Her hair had grown longer as well, almost to the length it had been when they first met.
He walked over to her and said, “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself.”
She propped the cane on her hip and wrapped her arms around him. Jeffrey gripped her in his embrace and kissed the top of her head. He loved her as if he had known her from the day she was born. The aliveness of her, her warmth, welled tears in his eyes. It had been this way each time he had seen her during her recovery. The first several times, he couldn’t touch her hand or arm without breaking down entirely. But lately he had done better.
Stacy let him go and, looking up at him, smiled.
He took hold of her chin and tilted her head. The surgeons had shown their skill, rebuilding the bone structure and removing all the scars but one, which ran across her cheek. Aside from the one scar and her limp, she showed no signs of what she had been through. That included her attitude, which had been fiercely positive from the moment she regained consciousness. Yet, her smile did not shine in her eyes.
Jeffrey had watched the grief from the loss of her father darken each moment of her recovery.
It may be difficult for her to believe right now, but it will get easier.
“How’s your mother holding up?”
“She’s okay… not very good really. Losing him has been really hard on her.”
Jeffrey could only nod at that.
He touched her cheekbone. “Why don’t you let them remove that last scar?”
She pushed his hand away. “What? The one you gave me with your crappy stitching? Never. It’s mine.”
He touched the scar again, and tears overwhelmed him. He lifted the collar of his t-shirt and pressed it into his eyes.
“Oh my God, Jeffrey,” she said, in a mocking but tender way, “you’ve got to get over this. It’s water under the bridge. I’m okay now.”
“I know,” Jeffrey said, his voice still a bit unstable, “I know.”
Leif pulled two suitcases from the trunk of the car, set them down beside Jeffrey, and pushed the trunk closed. Jeffrey picked up the bags.
“Dad, leave me something to carry.”
Jeffrey smiled and said, “I’ve got a metal spine, kid. Back off. Help Stacy.”
“I can get there myself,” Stacy said, and began limping toward the gate.
“Sure you can,” Jeffrey said, “but I’m not going to wait all night watching you hobble your short self all the way over there.”
Leif came up to her and took hold of her arm. She scowled at him.
“You heard the man,” Leif said. “He’s old and short on time.”
“Not exactly how I put it,” Jeffrey said, as he pushed open the gate and walked out onto the tarmac, toward the gunship.
…
When Jeffrey had himself settled into the pilot’s seat, he asked, “You folks strapped in?”
“We’re almost ready,” Stacy said from the back. “What’s in this crate back here?”
“A boat,” Jeffrey said.
“A boat?”
“Make sure to strap in tight,” Jeffrey said over his shoulder. “I feel like having some fun tonight.”
“Be nice,” Stacy said. “I would like to live through a weekend camping trip.”
Jeffrey smiled and said, “Have a little faith.” Pulling the gunship off the tarmac smooth but fast, he shoved the throttle on, leaving the airport in a wall of thunder that shook the hangars.
…
The three-pronged volcano rose up out of the South Pacific. At the volcano’s base, the water in the cove glittered with moonlight. The sounds of breaking surf and wind flowing through the palm and sandalwood trees had been uninterrupted for many years. From high up, strobing red and green lights approached the island. Landing lights burst from between the red and green lights and illuminated the beach, throwing unnatural shadows into the forest. The roar of jet engines overwhelmed all other sounds. The lights spun above the beach, and the gunship made its final descent, touching down. The brilliant-white landing lights and strobing marker lights shut off, leaving the beach in darkness. As the engines spun down, the sounds of the surf and breeze returned. The gunship’s rear ramp opened, spilling light across the beach.
As the ramp descended, Leif walked out onto it, riding it down. Stacy followed him with her cane. Jeffrey stood in the opening, waiting for Stacy to make her way to the sand. Then he switched off the interior lights. As his eyes began adjusting to the moonlight, he walked down the ramp. He sat on the end of the ramp, unlaced his boots, pulled them off, and removed his socks. Setting them aside, he stood and wandered out onto the beach, the cool sand contouring to his feet. Along the eastern horizon, the afterburn of the sun still hung in a violet swath.
“The sun didn’t set that long ago here, but we were in the air four hours,” Stacy said.
“Yep,” Jeffrey said.
“You’re proud of your little gunship aren’t you?”
“My only regret is that it isn’t the one that kept us alive.”
In the distance, thundering waves broke along a reef, their tumbling crests streaked with white foam.
“Well,” Jeffrey said, clapping his hands together, “we should get some sleep. A big day tomorrow.”
“I don’t know about you,” Stacy said, stabbing her cane into the sand, “but tomorrow I’m going sit on this beach, in the shade of that palm tree over there, and forget about the world.”
…
Stacy woke the next morning just past dawn. Jeffrey’s tent hung open, empty. She found Leif standing on the beach looking out acros
s the water. Over his shoulder, she saw an inflatable, black Zodiac spraying a rooster tail as it hopped over the distant breakers. She could still make out Jeffrey’s gray-white hair at that distance.
“What do you suppose he’s up to?” she asked Leif.
“I have no idea.”
…
After Jeffrey pulled beyond the reef, the ocean went into a smooth roll, and the Zodiac ran out across the water fast. The air, still cool from the night, coursed over him, lifting his shirt up in a dancing flutter. He cut the motor, and the boat slowed and sat down in the water. As it came to a stop, it rose and fell with the calm ocean. The rising sun sparked out above the volcano in a clear blade of light. Jeffrey inhaled the air, purified by ocean storms.
He reached out and grasped a yellow, plastic case and dragged it to him. Releasing two catches, he flipped the lid over on its hinge. He clacked a knob and the monochrome-copper screen lit up with an image of the ocean floor. Forty feet down, coral mottled the sandy floor. Jeffrey set the sensor to pick up on dense traces of carbon fiber as well as titanium. The image went dark, nothing found. He twisted the motor’s throttle, and the boat moved forward.
He crisscrossed the ocean like this for several hours, staring at the screen and seeing nothing. The sun climbed up in the sky. As the heat of the day came on, he shut off the throttle and let the boat stop. Then he sat on the side and allowed himself to fall backward into the water. The bathtub-warm ocean wrapped around him and, when he pulled himself back into the boat, the breeze cooled his wet shirt and skin.
He looked at the monitor. Nothing. This is where it should be, but he couldn’t be positive. He remembered coming in at a steep angle and watching it strike the water to the southwest of the island as he hung from his parachute cords. It had to be out here; it should be right under him.
He pulled farther away from the island and the sandy bottom rose up at him, now twenty feet deep. As he turned the boat away from the rising sand, something on the screen caught his eye, a shimmer of light. Had it been the sun, or his tired eyes? His neck ached from bending over the scanner, and his hand tingled with numbness from the buzzing outboard motor. He had already swapped out the battery pack with his spare, and now its indicator tilted toward empty. He would have to return to the beach soon.
He turned the Zodiac and came back around. Traces of something illuminated the screen. He shut the motor off and leaned over the screen, holding his hands up to block the sun.
Scattered traces of carbon fiber.
He felt excitement course through him. He throttled the motor, head still down, and aimed the Zodiac in a tight circle, each lap larger than the first. He saw the pattern now, a trail of carbon fiber moving east. He turned the Zodiac to follow the trail, and a large delta shape of titanium came onto the screen.
Can that really be it?
As he came closer, he turned the magnification up. Sure enough, the skeletal outline of a Phantom-class fighter glowed on the screen. Jeffrey could even see the bladelike forward canards extending from the nose.
He came right over the shape of the fighter and shut off the motor. Looking over the side of the boat, he saw coral and sand warping under thirty feet of water. He threw out a black-coated, steel anchor. The Zodiac floated in the current for a moment, and then the anchor line pulled tight.
He took off his shirt, exposing the grinning hammerhead on his shoulder and the wealth of scars across his torso. He tugged diving fins onto his feet and strapped on a buoyancy-compensator vest with a thin, backpack re-breather. He put on his mask, checked the regulator, fitted the mouthpiece, took a few breaths and then, pressing his mask to his face, slipped backwards off the rubber side of the Zodiac.
He sank down, watching the bottom of the Zodiac tilting above him. The surface of the water fractured the sun in a brilliant kaleidoscope. He turned over. Below him, tendrils of bending sunlight ran across the ocean floor. He swam down to where the anchor rested in a coral outcrop. He swam around the coral. This was not it.
He looked around and saw, about fifty feet away, where another coral outcrop had the shape of a long diamond. The frame of a windscreen extended from the berm of pink coral like a hand from a grave. He kicked his fins and drifted toward the outcrop. As his shadow passed over the windscreen spars, several silver fish darted away.
He drifted over the open hole of the cockpit and saw that coral had overgrown the instrument panel. Taking a pick from his belt, he pried at the coral, breaking several sections away. Detritus floated up in a cloud and then settled away, exposing a tarnished silver chain hanging off the encrusted knob for the landing lights. He pulled on the chain and it snapped. He let the broken section of chain go, and it dropped down into the darker region of the cockpit. Hooking the end of his pick under the coral, he pried a lump off.
He put the lump of coral into a mesh collection bag and swam up to the surface, tossed the bag into the boat, and pulled himself up and in. Taking off his mask, he tossed it to the bottom of the boat and spit out his mouthpiece. With fins and re-breather backpack still on, he opened the bag and removed the lump of coral. He took out his pick and tapped and pried at the lump. It cracked away exposing a golden coin with a square hole in the center. The exposed side had four Chinese characters on it. He turned the coin over. There he saw a curled dragon.
Having it back in his hand shook him, but not in the way he had expected. It brought him back to the night his future wife had handed him a wooden box as they sat on the hood of his car. Jeffrey opened the box and found the coin.
“What’s this for?” he asked, taking it from its mount and turning the coin over in his hand.
“Good luck,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
“I don’t need luck,” he said in his youthful arrogance.
“That’s why I chose this,” she said, as she took the coin from his hand. She turned it over and ran her finger over the dragon. “This is who you pretend to be,” she said with a smile, “but,” and she turned the coin over to the four characters, “this is who you really are.”
“What are those?”
She put the coin back in his hand, took hold of his head, and drew him toward her. She kissed the bridge of his nose and said, “Those are the four elements. You can pretend to be tough and angry, but I know you better. You’re a very complex and wonderful man, Mr. Holt, full of all different kinds of possibilities, and I love that about you.”
Sitting in the boat, rocking with the ocean, Jeffrey felt sorrow burn through his chest. His stomach fluttered. Tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision. Then, when the tears ran down his face, the coin came back into focus. He breathed in, and the breath caught in his belly. He looked away from the coin, back toward the island.
“You’re gold to me Jeffrey Holt,” she had said to him. “You make sure you make it home.”
He had promised her he would, and felt he had lied when he said it. But, despite everything, he had kept the promise.
Now, so many years later, she could not do the same for him. When she died, he had been furious with the world, felt cheated.
The impulse to toss the coin back in the water overwhelmed him for a moment. Gripping the coin, he let the feeling pass. He did not want to escape the memory of her; he simply wished the pain of losing her wasn’t so indelible. Then, as now, his grief subsided somewhat, allowing him to move on.
He opened his hand, looked at the coin, and sighed. He brought himself back to the purpose of the wreck, and what the coin confirmed. There had been no lies, no false memories implanted. All the battles, his scars, and the memories of his close friends screaming to death over the com had been real.
He slipped the coin into his pocket and looked into the water, down to the blurred forms of coral. There lay the physical evidence of one of the many moments death had scraped its claws down his back. He did not want to turn away. He felt closer to the younger man he had been and closer to her.
He pulled his gaze away, looking to the island. Th
rough the spray of the breakers, he could see two figures on the strip of beach. Yanking on the rope, he unseated the anchor, drew it in, and sat in the back of the boat as it drifted away from the crash site.
He scrubbed his fingertips in his white beard, then reached back, and twisted the motor’s throttle. As the Zodiac leapt out toward the island, he offered no final glance at the wreck. His eyes remained on the beach. There the two small figures stood close to one another. He contemplated what their futures might bring, but then considered that it didn’t matter. Right now, those two were alive and well. In that, Jeffrey Holt found a deep sense of peace.
THE END
Author Jason Andrew Bond grew up in Oregon and currently lives in Washington State with his wife and son. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Oregon and an MBA from the University of Colorado. Writing has been a lifetime dream, which–after many years lying dormant–has taken form in Hammerhead, his first novel. He is currently in the process of editing his second novel, and has begun to break ground on his third. Outside of writing and his family, martial arts is an important part of his life. At 18 years of age he entered an Aikido dojo for the first time, and has since trained in Jeet Kune Do, Tae Kwon Do, Shudokan Karate, Goshin Jutsu, and Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu.
For more about the author, future novels, and events, please visit:
www.JasonAndrewBond.com
Table of Contents
HAMMERHEAD
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
Hammerhead Page 25