“Um . . . are you sure?”
Jake gave her a friendly nod and slowed down. “I insist. You might as well be comfortable. I have a feeling we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”
“Okay,” Amara smiled. She held onto a nearby handrail and eased herself down to open the compartment, gritting her teeth as she reached for the cooler. She extracted the hero and a bottle of spring water, then pulled herself upright and made her way back to his side.
“Thanks for the sandwich, big guy,” Amara said. “You want the other half?”
“No thanks, maybe later. Hey doc, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
Jake hesitated, running his tongue over his teeth before he spoke. “Were you injured recently?”
Amara’s head snapped in his direction. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve noticed your gait is a little uneven, and I saw you wince just now when you stood up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really . . .” Jake drawled. “Sorry, doc, but I’m not buying it. A minute ago, you weren’t going to admit you were starving. So what do you say we skip all the mock swordplay and you tell me what’s wrong?”
Amara studied him through her eyelashes. “Fine. I got attacked with a hakapik a few years ago, and spent three months learning to walk again.”
“Holy shit!” Jake sputtered. “What the hell is a hakapik?”
“It’s like a pickaxe, but with a hammer on one side. Seal hunters use them to crush the skulls of baby Harp seals.”
Jake shook his head, his mind reeling. “I don’t get it. Were you wearing a white fur coat and running around on all fours at the time?”
Amara shot him a withering look. “No . . . and I don’t think they give the mentally disabled hunting licenses.”
“Seriously, what the hell happened?”
She hesitated. “I was with Sea Crusade, on a mission with my . . . Look, it’s really not all that interesting.”
Jake pursed his lips and turned back toward the horizon. “Sorry, doc. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I normally don’t . . .”
Jake turned to her and nodded. “You’re a private person. I get it.”
Amara cleared her throat, her eyes boring a hole through the deck. “Something like that.”
“I can relate. If I had a nickel for all the things I didn’t want to talk about, I’d be rich. There are some parts of my life I just don’t like discussing.”
Amara nibbled her lower lip and nodded. “Yeah . . . I guess. Sometimes it’s good to talk, though.”
Jake shrugged, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Only if you’ve got someone worth talking to.”
“Are you worth talking to?”
“Depends on the day.”
There was a long moment of silence that seemed to last forever. “Okay, Jake Braddock. You win. I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes version of my accident. Maybe you’ll understand why I do the things I do. But I’m telling you now, I don’t want to be judged, and I sure as hell don’t want any sympathy.”
Jake glanced down at his worn wedding band and sighed. His eyes lifted, focusing once more on the sea before them. “Believe me, doc. Of all the people in this world, I’m the last person who should go around judging . . .”
Her eyes on the horizon, Amara’s mind raced. It felt good to unburden herself to someone. Except for Willie, there was no one onboard the Harbinger she could really talk to. But she felt strangely unsettled as well. She didn’t understand why she’d opened up to Jake, especially about her accident and what happened to Robert. It didn’t seem . . . appropriate. Sure, the town sheriff was likable – and then some – but in truth, she hardly knew the man.
She felt a strange little chill run through her and distracted herself by focusing on the identity of their mystery predator. The scientist inside her was bursting with excitement. Although she had little to base her notions on, she was betting they’d unwittingly stumbled upon a new species. It was a fantastic discovery. True, there were several small baleen whale species discovered in recent years. But if tooth size was any indicator, Amara’s find would replace the sperm whale as the largest living predator on the planet, perhaps of all time. It was mind-boggling to conceive of a breeding population of animals that size existing and never being seen, let alone documented.
Jake cleared his throat loudly. “By the way, any info you can give me on what happened will be very helpful, even theories. I’m going to have to speak with Captain Phil’s family at some point, and they’re going to have a lot of questions.
Amara felt her anticipation evaporate. “Of course. Listen, I know it doesn’t help any, but I’m really sorry about your friends.” She touched him tentatively on the shoulder.
He nodded. “Thanks. We were very close. And I’m privileged that you felt comfortable talking to me.” He cleared his throat. “Back to the matter at hand, are you absolutely sure that tooth isn’t from a whale?”
Amara stalled by taking a bite from her leftover sandwich. She stared at the floor as she chewed, then swallowed. “I don’t think so, Jake. But we’ll know more after I give Archimedes a chance to look at our discovery.”
“Archimedes?” Jake repeated. “Who’s that, one of your scientists?”
“Not exactly,” Amara chuckled, brushing a few strands of hair from her eyes. She raised her voice to be heard over the Infidel’s engine. “Archimedes is our analytical archive system. It’s a multi-million dollar program containing bio-schematics on every documented life form on the planet: fish, birds, reptiles and mammals. All of them, past and present.”
“And this system you’re speaking of, it will identify the animal responsible from just one tooth?”
“Hopefully,” Amara said.
“Interesting. But if this animal happens to be a completely unknown species, then your computer system won’t have any data on it, anyway.”
“True,” Amara admitted as she leaned back in her seat. “If that’s the case, we’ll end up with an unknown listing. An anomaly, if you will.”
She closed her eyes. An anomaly would be just fine by her. By process of elimination, she would know for certain whether they’d discovered a new species of whale or not. And if she was going to be credited with the discovery.
His lips pursed, Jake mulled over Amara’s tale. He was very impressed by their earlier conversation, and what he’d gleaned from it. She possessed an appealing timidness, yet was by far the bravest and most outgoing woman he’d ever met. Anyone who would take a blow from a pick-axe to protect a baby seal must have balls the size of honeydews.
He realized he found the marine biologist admirable and adorable at the same time. Despite everything she’d been through, she was one hundred percent dedicated to the preservation of marine life, and whales in particular. She would do anything to protect them – even one that went rogue. Which meant, unfortunately, her reliability when it came to their current situation was dubious.
His ruminating was interrupted by a static-strewn message blaring out of his radio. He turned the volume up but still couldn’t decipher the transmission. Annoyed, he killed the engine and picked up the hand mike.
“This is Sheriff Braddock onboard the Infidel. Repeat, Sheriff Braddock onboard the Infidel. Please repeat your broadcast.”
Jake waited for a response. Beside him, Amara moved toward the fish finder, her long legs showing as she bent to study its liquid crystal screen.
“Jake, it’s Chris!” His deputy’s panicky voice blurted out of the speaker. “You better . . . back to the marina, ASAP, chief. Something’s happened . . . Brad Harcourt!”
Jake held down the talk button. “What do you mean, ‘something’s happened’ to him? What’s going on, Chris?”
There were almost ten seconds of garbled sound before Chris’s nervous response.
“Sorry, a lot going on here. I don’t think we . . . talk about it on the radio,
chief. I don’t . . . who is listening. There are reporters crawling all over the place . . . for a story. It’s getting ugly! How soon . . . you get here?”
I’m on my way, Chris,” Jake said. “Be there in ten. Don’t say anything to anyone. And I mean it. Braddock out.”
Returning the microphone to its cradle, Jake was about to restart the Infidel’s engine when Amara motioned excitedly to him.
“Jake, what do you make of this?” She removed her shades and pointed at the boat’s sonar unit. On the bottom of the LCD, a large sonar echo was rising up from the ocean floor.
“I don’t know, doc,” Jake said, staring at it. “You’re the marine biologist. Maybe it’s one of your whales?”
“I’m not too familiar with your little gadget here, but that looks like a pretty big signal to me.”
“So what?” Jake shook his head impatiently. “Whales are huge. Everybody knows that. Anyway, what’s the big deal? It’s just a sonar reading. It could be anything: a strand of kelp, some floating debris . . .”
“Well, your ‘strand of kelp’ is building up speed,” Amara said. “And, it’s heading straight for us.”
Jake reached over and swiveled the sonar unit’s screen around. He swore silently. She was right. The sonar reading was very large and moving very quickly. And it was coming right at them. “Hold on.” He reached for the ignition. “I’m getting us the hell out of here.”
Amara nodded and sank into her co-pilot’s chair.
Jake twisted the starter key, his free hand on the vessel’s throttle lever, ready to shift into gear. There was the same high-pitched shrieking sound as before, then nothing. The motor wouldn’t start.
“Damn it!” Jake snarled, twisting the key again and again. Amara’s head swiveled in his direction, her ice-colored eyes wide with alarm. On the screen below them, the enormous reading drew closer, moving from three hundred feet to two hundred and climbing rapidly.
“Uh . . . Jake?” Amara stared fearfully at the screen.
“I know, doc, I know,” he said, turning the key repeatedly. “Well just think,” he remarked, “you may get the chance to examine your ‘new species’ a lot sooner than you thought!”
“That’s not funny, Jake!”
The signal was less than a hundred feet below them.
Amara was sweating. “Can’t you do something?”
His eyes dangerous, Jake released his hold on the boat’s ignition key. He glanced at the reading one last time, then drew his pistol and stepped to the portside gunnels. He chambered a round, then grabbed tight onto a nearby railing and pointed his weapon at the water.
“Hold on tight, doc,” he said. “You might want to close your eyes. This may not be pretty.”
The surface of the ocean around the Infidel began to bubble violently. Jake sucked in an anticipatory breath and held it. Whatever was coming had to be enormous to move so much water.
He saw a dark shadow directly beneath them. Then there was a tremendous crash, and the center console was lifted completely out of the water. Jake’s cry of astonishment was cut short as he made a desperate grab for the sturdy side rail. Hanging over the side, he heard Amara screaming. He caught sight of a dark-hued shape as big as a tractor-trailer pushing violently up against them. He saw teeth as thick as his forearm everywhere he looked, prepared to shear through their fragile hull and crush them both to death.
He was looking at the creature that killed Phil and Stevie.
Jake’s heart could barely handle the adrenaline-fueled rage that pumped through his bloodstream. He twisted wildly and managed to regain his footing on the slippery deck. Holding onto the railing, he leaned over the side of the boat and let out an animalistic roar of defiance. The deafening sound of gunfire echoed across the water as a stream of jacketed hollow points slammed into the monster. Then, there was an uncanny silence.
His ears ringing, Jake realized he’d emptied his weapon of all seventeen rounds. Behind him, Amara was still shrieking, her eyes shut and hands clamped over her ears. Shaking his head to clear it, Jake reloaded and waved his hand back and forth to clear the cloud of gunsmoke.
He could see the creature. It was immobile and stretched out like a blue-gray mountain. A cloud of seabirds began to circle overhead, their hopeful cries a reassuring din. Based on the amount of blood in the water, Jake figured the thing was dead. He holstered his sidearm, then reached down and took Amara by the arm, helping her to her feet. “It’s okay, it’s over. I killed it. Whatever it was.”
Amara waited for her legs to stop shaking before she edged her way to the Infidel’s portside. Gripping Jake’s bicep for support, she peeked fearfully at the enormous carcass. Her jaw dropped in astonishment. “Oh my God, Jake . . .” she shuddered, slipped, and lost her footing.
Jake grunted as he caught her. “What is it?”
Amara shook her head in disbelief. “That’s Elvis!”
“Elvis?” Jake stared at her, wondering if the strain took more of a toll than he thought on the girl’s mind. “What are you talking about?”
“Elvis! He’s one of our whales – one of my whales!”
“One of your–” Jake studied the dead animal more closely. He could see the rectangular shape of its head beneath the surface and its narrow lower jaw with its conical teeth . . . Amara was right.
“This is Elvis, Jake,” Amara said, placing her hands on the gunnels and leaning over to get a closer look. “I know his markings. He’s been the dominant bull in this region for a decade. He’s the alpha male. And now he’s dead!”
“I’m sorry,” Jake said. He stared bleakly at the ragged bullet holes he’d inflicted on the giant mammal. “I didn’t mean to kill it.”
“Kill it? What are you talking about? This whale’s been dead for a half a day, if not more. Its body’s been traveling with the current. It must have risen to the surface from the build-up of internal gases.” She shook her head from side to side. “You didn’t kill anything. But something sure as hell did . . . look!”
Jake’s nostrils twitched from the sickly sweet odor of rotting meat. He looked at the region of the whale Amara was pointing at.
“Holy Christ . . . “
“Amen to that.”
There was a wound bitten clean through the whale’s left flank. The fleshy crater was enormous – a gaping hole the size of a king-size mattress. Overhead, the seagulls multiplied, with several swooping down on floating scraps of skin and blubber.
Amara took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay . . .” she said. “Now, we need the Harbinger. I’m going to order her into the vicinity, to document the damage to this animal.”
“Sounds good.” Jake handed her his radio. “But, we can’t wait for them. I’ve got to find out what all the commotion is about at the marina.”
“You’re right,” Amara said. She stared in disbelief at the dead whale. “Because I have a feeling that things in the tranquil waters around Paradise Cove are about to become a lot less tranquil.”
“Me too, doc. Me too.”
His face grim, Jake eased the ignition key clockwise until the outboard caught, then shifted hard into reverse. After a few attempts, he began backing the Infidel’s bow section off the whale’s body, gunning it until they were floating freely. He spun the wheel hard and began to move away, keeping his velocity down until Amara finished her call.
Moments later, they were cruising for the marina. Behind them, the mutilated remains of one of history’s greatest carnivores floated lifeless atop the swells, its broad back dotted with scavenging seagulls pecking furiously away, squabbling over loose scraps of flesh. As he glanced back, Jake felt sorry for the old bull. He began to ponder the identity of its killer, and what kind of creature could slay such an immense predator.
The concept was mind-boggling.
He considered the awful possibility that whatever killed the giant cachalot might be linked with Chris’s desperate call about Brad Harcourt. If something had happened to Dean Harcourt’s son, it wou
ld bring the mother of all shit storms down on Paradise Cove. And he would end up getting caught in the middle of it.
Shuddering at the thought, Jake continued in silence. Then a strange sensation came over him, and he chuckled at the realization he was wishing a spoiled-rotten punk like Brad Harcourt good health.
Now that concept was mind-boggling too.
ELEVEN
It was late afternoon as Jake maneuvered the Infidel into Harcourt Marina. From a hundred yards out, he studied the media storm that had settled over the normally calm waterfront. There were hundreds of people on the main landing, weaving to and fro like foraging leafcutter ants, with droves more on the narrow docks. Although the majority was curious townsfolk and local business owners, there was a fleet of news vans – some local, a few from the national networks – lined up like soldiers across the wharf. Every available parking space was taken, including those reserved for the handicapped. While camera crews and lackeys invaded the landing proper, reporters aggressively interviewed anyone who would speak with them.
As the Infidel drifted into the nearest slip, Jake’s face grew grim. Fifty yards away, the battered hulk of the Sayonara loomed into view. Visibly listing to one side, the blood-spattered Bertram was the focal point of several reporters, who took pictures despite protests from the forensic team examining it.
Jake hated the media. Early in his career he’d learned to be wary of those vultures. Their tabloid-style articles were an incessant source of irritation. Far worse were the weeks following Samantha’s death, when their fabricated stories proved an endless source of misery for the newly crowned saber champion. He’d loathed them ever since.
Discretely concealing the tooth fragment within a canvas shoulder bag, Jake placed one hand on the starboard gunwales of his boat and vaulted onto the dock. He turned to lend a hand to Amara.
“Hmm, pretty athletic, aren’t we?” she said, observing the burly sheriff with newfound admiration. “I imagine you must work out a great deal.”
“A practical necessity, doc,” Jake said. He took in the scene. A fleet of ambulances, police cars, and a coroner’s truck were drawn up, their flashing lights creating a strobe light display bound to give one a headache. “Wonderful. This should be pleasant.”
KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back. Page 21