Flabbergasted, the frustrated fisherman remained immobile for a moment, his projecting brow furrowing up. Then, with a sigh and a shrug of futility, he turned and trudged away.
“What a jerk,” Chris said, interrupting the silence. “Can you believe the prick offered you a bribe?”
“Technically he didn’t,” Jake remarked, “just some crustaceans.”
The sound of a vessel’s underway horn interrupted their conversation as it echoed across the marina. Looking up, the two men watched as the Harbinger chugged its way out from its deep-water mooring, adjusting its course as it headed out to sea. Jake contemplated the big whaler for a moment, then turned back to his deputy. “Forget about Stillman, kid. We’ll deal with him when the opportunity presents itself. Like I said before, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that people like him usually end up getting what they deserve.”
Chris nodded. “Say, boss, we’re not going out to the Cutlass, are we?”
“Absolutely not,” Jake said, looking up from the Infidel’s console as he spoke. He tapped on the fuel gauge a few times. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Now, start her up, and let’s get this show on the road.” He patted Chris on the shoulder, then smirked, “Oh, and you’re driving.”
“Yes, boss,” Chris said. He turned the ignition key. The big Yamaha sputtered loudly, tried to take, and then died.
Jake shot his deputy a pissed-off look as the teenager nervously turned the key again and again, causing the engine to make loud revving noises as it struggled to start. After the fifth attempt, the outboard finally caught and turned over, a cloud of acrid smoke billowing out as it did.
“Don’t look at me like that, Jake,” Chris protested. “I took her in, just like you said. Sal’s partner had her there for hours. She’s supposed to be fixed.”
“Right,” Jake drawled. He sat back in his chair and interlocked his hands behind his head. “You know what kid, one of these days I think you’re going to be the death of me.”
“That’s not funny, boss.”
“No, it’s not.”
SEVEN
Standing high atop the Harbinger’s bow, with her hands gripping its railing, Amara surveyed the seas passing beneath her feet through half-closed eyes. She could feel the deck of the old whaler surge up and down as its prow cut through the waves, its rise and fall a hazardous lullaby to one in her line of work.
She’d snuck off to the ship’s sun-drenched forecastle in an attempt to find some inner solace, and for some much needed brooding. Much had happened of late, from the butchered blue whale, whose drifting remains she saw on the news, to the fore end of the prehistoric titan she’d secreted in her vessel’s freezer. Then there was Jake . . .
Amara felt a sudden pang of guilt as thoughts of Robert unexpectedly popped into her head. He’d been gone so long – nearly a decade now – yet at times the loss still felt like an open wound. She wondered what Robert’s reaction would have been to the Xiphactinus. She smiled at the thought – he was never one to hold back when it came to voicing opinions. Her smile faded a bit. She could only imagine how he would have reacted to . . .
Damn. Jake again.
Amara sighed, shaking her head and lowering it in the hope of espying some dolphins or porpoises hitching a ride on the pressure wave created by the Harbinger’s bow.
Oh, well. Sometimes it’s good just to be alone.
Amara glanced to one side, her peripheral vision picking up the menacing form of her ship’s decommissioned harpoon cannon. It was lurking behind her as always, its rusted sights locked on the horizon, its deadly projectile welded in place, never to claim another life.
The wind began to bluster. Before long, it was shrieking across the ship’s bow, its shrill cry escalating as it ricocheted off the oversized gun. Amara’s hair straightened out from the gusts’ pull, her black locks flagging out behind her like the proud mane of an Andalusian stallion. The bobbing motion of the water, coupled with the whipping wind and the shadow of the metal monstrosity, brought on an unwelcome deluge of images. She clung tightly to the railing as she remembered.
She was twenty-one and seated in the foam-coated bow of a fast-moving inflatable, the frigid air burning her nostrils as she sped along the coast of Greenland. It had been three years since the accident with a seal hunter nearly claimed her life, and eighteen months since she regained full use of her leg. She shifted in her bouncing seat to improve circulation. The pain of the five operations she endured paled when compared to the regimen of physical therapy she put herself through.
In the end, she proved all the doctors wrong. Not only did she show them she could walk again without an aid, she proved she could fly. She completed her master’s degree from the isolation of her hospital bed, and was moving on to her doctorate like there was no tomorrow.
Up ahead, she could see the whale killer Nagata as it closed in on its quarry, its mechanized bulk a foreboding sight as it cut through the frigid waters of the sound. Its target surfaced with a blast of compressed water vapor and carbon dioxide, two hundred yards off the ship’s starboard side. It was a young bull sperm whale – a decent-sized male, measuring nearly sixty feet in length and weighing over sixty tons.
The Sea Crusade team got word a week earlier that the Japanese brought a whale killer into the area, with the intention of targeting the local sperm whale population. Incensed by the news, they rushed in immediately to defend the whales, and invited the press for publicity. Sperm whales were a threatened species, so the slaughter of a pod was controversy ripe for media coverage.
When they arrived, the activists expected to find an entire fleet of whale killers and support ships; but after calling on a news helicopter to do surveillance, it became apparent the Japanese weren’t equipped to kill multiple animals. They brought only a single vessel, not the two or three they typically used. Nor was that vessel accompanied by one of their horrifying factory ships: floating furnaces that reduced the sea’s greatest animals to steaming piles of gore, before packaging them for consumption.
After shadowing the whale killer for several days, the confused Sea Crusade team and accompanying news crew found what the Japanese were really after. They’d been hired for a hunt, like some oversized fishing charter, and they were targeting one specific animal. They were stalking a bull cachalot. His name was “Avalanche,” and he was a rarity. Unlike all the other sperm whales in the world, Avalanche was pure white.
Since his surprise birth, two decades earlier, the press periodically followed the bull’s travels. Heralded as a true life Moby Dick, the majestic, ivory-colored mammal was not simply a pigment-deprived albino. Avalanche was a naturally occurring, snow-colored mountain of teeth and muscle, well-suited to rule the ice-capped oceans he prowled. Despite an irascible disposition – one he’d displayed several times by charging whale watching boats – the public couldn’t get enough of him. His pictures were featured in assorted natural history magazines, and his poster hung in grade school classrooms worldwide. He was considered an ambassador for cetacean preservation across the globe, loved by parents and children of all ages.
“Get us over there quick!” Amara shouted over the outboard. She blanched as she swallowed a mouthful of salt spray and glanced back to make sure the pilot heard. There were five of them, huddled together aboard the fast moving inflatable: Amara, two chatty British naturalists whose faces and names were so similar she could never tell who was who, Willie, a tall Jamaican fellow who never stopped smiling, and Francis, the stern-faced Korean woman with the military haircut, who was manning the helm.
Suddenly, Francis waved frantically to get Amara’s attention. She pointed at the Nagata as it shifted course to close on Avalanche’s position.
Amara gave a confused gasp. For some reason the white bull just bobbed on the surface instead of sounding to escape. Amara gnawed her lower lip and reached for her binoculars.
A quick glance through the optics confirmed her worst fear. There was a small, black sq
uare fixed high atop the big sperm’s humped back. She squinted hard to make sure, then cursed aloud. It was a satellite tracking device.
Somehow, the whale killer’s crew managed to attach a transmitter to Avalanche during their pursuit. For days it allowed them to track the wily whale’s position, finding him over and over again, forcing him to keep moving until he wore himself out. The bull’s frozen breaths were coming in gasps, his flanks shuddering as he desperately sucked in air. He was completely exhausted and easy to kill.
Amara immediately radioed their mother ship Sea Green III for assistance. Faster and more powerful than its predecessors, the pride of the Sea Crusade fleet was already closing rapidly from their starboard side, preparing to place its welded steel hull between the Nagata’s weapon and Avalanche’s vulnerable form. And her fiancé Robert was in command.
As she watched Sea Green III draw near, Amara’s calculating eyes bounced repeatedly from the whale killer to its pending victim, then again to Sea Green III. Her lips drew back, revealing clenched teeth. The Nagata was too close.
“Sea Scout to command. It’s no good, you’re too far!” she shouted, realizing how tiny her voice sounded on the open sea.
Robert’s reply was instantaneous. “Don’t do anything foolish or risky, Amara. Just hold tight, we’re on our way.”
She shook her head, exchanging doubtful glances with her teammates. She exhaled heavily, her frozen breath fogging up her sunglasses. “Get us over there. We’re going to buy Avalanche some time.”
As the rest of her crew grabbed onto any available handholds, the helmswoman swallowed hard, nodded, then twisted the throttle open. Within seconds they were up on plane, skipping across the arctic whitecaps, their fleet vessel eating up the blue-white water between them and Avalanche. From her position in the bow, Amara could see the Nagata’s gunner manning the ship’s harpoon cannon. Within moments, his helmsman would have the sperm in perfect position, enabling him to discharge his explosive-tipped weapon directly into Avalanche’s exposed side, blowing open his ventral cavity and killing him instantly.
“Not on my watch,” Amara swore.
Ignoring Robert’s impassioned pleas as they reverberated from her handset, Amara set her jaw and held on as they executed an organ-wrenching turn and decelerated, depositing themselves between the whalers and their intended victim. The Nagata was seventy yards ahead and Avalanche twenty yards behind, with Sea Scout smack in the middle.
“Keep us between them!” Amara exclaimed. She glanced back at Francis. “Don’t let them get a shot!”
The helmswoman gritted her teeth and gunned her outboard in reverse, back-trolling hard as she fought the current and swells and did the Secret Service thing with an armed vessel a thousand times their size. She turned fearfully towards Amara as she watched the whaler’s gunner repeatedly try to get a bead. Her face was the epitome of panic. “That thing’s got a fucking grenade on it! If he fires, the explosion will kill us all!”
Amara shook her head defiantly. “They won’t. Not with that chopper filming every–” Her words ended in a throttled gasp, her eyes widening as she scanned the surrounding skies. The network helicopter was gone.
“Dey must have gone in ta refuel,” the big Jamaican announced. “Dat being said, dis may not be da best place ta be sittin . . .”
To punctuate his words, the Nagata’s oversized diesels roared to life, their deep-throated growls drowning out the sounds of Amara’s engine. A moment later, the huge ship surged straight toward their position.
“They’re going to capsize us!” Amara shouted. She glared angrily up at the approaching helm, striving to meet her captain’s gaze. “I can’t believe it.”
“I can,” Francis replied grimly. “He’s bound for hell, that one. I’m sorry, Amara.”
Amara opened her mouth as if to speak, then said nothing; her eyes were locked on the rust-tinged wall of steel that was fast approaching.
Onboard the Nagata, Captain Haruto Nakamura lowered his binoculars. “Helmsman, prepare to change course,” he said irritably.
“Belay that,” a deep voice interjected.
Haruto saw his pilot hesitate. His face darkened as he whirled angrily on the speaker. “That is a member of my family out there.”
“Well then, I guess she must be from the shallow end of the gene pool if she doesn’t have the sense to get out of the way,” his visitor answered smugly. He cricked his black-maned head to one side and rolled his shoulders back, powerful muscles bulging even through his winter gear. “Regardless, my backers are paying you what this tub is worth to nail that trophy, so unless you want to piss them off royally and jeopardize your career, Captain-san, I suggest you give the go ahead.”
Haruto’s eyes grew hard and dangerous. The whole “Captainsan” routine was just one more thing about his arrogant visitor that was sawing away at his nerves. As he sized up the figure next to him, he cursed himself for accepting their current charter.
The scar-covered European was nearly a head taller than most of his crew and half again their weight. Far scarier was the scent of death that radiated from him. It hung around like a lungful of dank and fetid air, seeping from the portals of a dilapidated mausoleum.
Haruto’s jaw tensed and he exhaled hard through his nostrils. He was no stranger to killing. All the creatures of the sea were fair game to him and his crew –if the price was right. The man standing beside him, however, was no sea farmer. He was a murderer. People and animals had the same value to him. Haruto could see it in his anomalous eyes. What lay behind them was a terrifying glimpse into the torment that awaited them all.
“Helmsman, take us around the inflatable,” he ordered, ignoring the sharp glance he received from his guest. “Tell our gunner to prepare to fire. We’ll jog around them to give him a clear shot.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“They’re forcing their way around us,” Francis said.
Amara’s eyes popped as she saw the Nagata’s massive bow wedge itself between them and the still floundering Avalanche. Their captain was using the same technique she used on him – putting his hull between them and the hapless sperm whale to gain a clear field of fire.
Out of the blue, Avalanche righted himself and began to move. Still too weak to sound, the big bull’s fourteen-foot flukes rose slowly up and down as they propelled him forward. It was the exhausted warrior’s last ditch effort to escape his pursuers.
The Nagata charted the whale’s path and rumbled past the Sea Crusade inflatable, its towering hull a rampart of blackened steel as it barreled along in pursuit. Amara calculated they would arrive at their slow-moving target in seconds. She needed a plan.
“Hard to port,” she called to Francis.
The tenacious helmswoman gunned her outboard to the max and commenced an intestine-straightening maneuver toward the shrinking stern of the Nagata.
Amara felt herself stiffen as she gauged the distance.
Just then, Sea Green III made its move. As huge as the Nagata, the conservationist mother ship’s diesels roared like a lion as it kept pace with the whale killer.
As her inflatable drew alongside the Nagata, Amara could see over its hull. She spotted her own vessel’s bridge and her fiancé, personally gripping the wheel. His face taut and his dark blonde hair damp with sweat, Robert began to play a risky game of cat and mouse, forcing the opposing vessel off course by threatening to run into her. The distance between the two vessels was miniscule, only a dozen yards and closing. Angry shouts and profanities could be heard from the whaler as alarms began to resonate from both ships.
Seconds later, the Nagata faltered and began to give ground. Sea Green III kept up the pressure, herding the whaler to port like a cowboy rounding up a wayward steer.
“He’s doing it!” Francis cried out.
“Oh God, look,” Amara gasped. Avalanche had stopped moving. Drifting helplessly on one side, the magnificent bull was dead in the water. She realized why the Nagata had given ground so easily.
Robert’s attempts to push them off course were inadvertently guiding the whalers right to their quarry.
“Get us over there!” Amara demanded.
“What are you going to do?” Francis yelled as they sped along. They raced past the Nagata, into the open water between the dark-hulled whaler and Avalanche. The din of the two dueling ships continued to shake their tiny craft.
“We’re getting between them and that whale if it kills us!”
The two Brits spoke as one. “Are you daft, woman? That’s exactly what will happen!”
To her dismay, Amara felt the inflatable slow. She shot Francis a deadly look.
“Sorry, girl, but my life’s worth more than some whale’s,” the helmswoman announced as she shifted into neutral.
With a cry of fury, Amara sprang the length of the inflatable’s rigid floor. Her expression was pure rage. Easily overpowering her astonished helmswoman, she flung her to the floor and seized the outboard’s tiller. The two Englishman moved determinedly toward her but Willie rose and barred their way, his jaw and expression set in stone. He glanced over his shoulder at her as he fought to keep his balance on the rough water.
“Do what ya got ta do, mon.”
Amara nodded and kicked the inflatable into gear. Skimming the surface, she pulled ahead of the Nagata, causing the larger vessel’s engines to pull back noisily from the sudden stop. She drew near to Avalanche, momentarily taken aback by the size of the big male. Her outboard sputtering, she turned toward the Nagata, her bow pointed defiantly at them. Up on their foredeck she saw the ship’s gunner, his hands gripping the trigger controls of their harpoon cannon, its armor-piercing point aimed at her position. To their left, Sea Green III was also slowing; Robert was waiting for some signal before choosing his next course of action.
“You’re crazy,” Francis spat through bloodied lips. “They’re going to kill us!”
Amara’s eyes shimmered with anger, her jaw muscles knotting up. She lifted her chin to see the face of the Nagata’s captain through their tinted windows, but couldn’t. Still, she knew he was looking at her. All of a sudden, a disturbing chuckle emanated from the whaler’s overhead speaker.
KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back. Page 13