Kronos (5 page)

“That was our first guess. It’s certainly big enough…but it’s moving…look, just get out of there.”

“How deep is it?”

“Will you just listen to me and get the hell out of there!” McCabe was speaking as a friend, she knew that, but it was totally unprofessional on a rescue op to break down. She wasn’t leaving until the woman was secure. McCabe’s forty-five seconds were up. She switched back to channel one.

“Reilly, what’s your ATI?”

“Ten seconds.”

“Get ready for a fast—”

Vincent’s voice caught in her throat. She’d seen something moving beneath the water, about a quarter mile out and closing—a shadow of something. Moving fast. She put on UV-coated, antiglare sunglasses, and the shape became clear. It was dark beneath the blue waters, and its shape was undulating wildly, up and down. It would be on top of them in seconds.

The panic that filled the voices of her colleagues just moments before took hold of her. “Reilly, hold on to the woman! Emergency evac in two!”

She gave Reilly two seconds to do what he had to, then shoved the winch into high gear. The pilot had heard her order as well and, without any questions, pulled the Jayhawk into a vertical climb. Vincent looked out the bay door just in time to see Reilly, clinging to the woman, rise from the water. The black apparition passed right below them, leaving massive smooth footprints—typically created by the rising and descending of large whales—in its wake.

Reilly was up a few seconds later. He released the woman into Vincent’s arms. “What the hell happened?”

Vincent quickly checked the woman’s vitals and strapped her into a seat. When she turned to Reilly, she realized that she must have gone pale. His concerned eyes spoke volumes before he said anything. “You okay, Cap?”

She nodded. “Watson. Did you see that thing?”

“Yup,” the pilot replied. “I’m on it.”

Watson was a real hotdog pilot. Even a brush with a massive sea creature couldn’t ruffle his feathers. The Jayhawk banked sharply and bolted south. “Almost on top of it.”

The whine of the helicopter blades told Vincent they were moving fairly fast, maybe eighty miles per hour. That’d be seventy knots in the water. Nothing natural moved that fast! She was at the window, glaring down at the water. It came into view seconds later, still moving like a missile, just beneath the surface. Reilly was next to her. “Good God…thanks for pulling me up.”

She glanced at him. His face had gone as white as hers must have been.

When a face appeared next to Reilly’s, they both shouted and jumped back.

The Frenchwoman was staring wide-eyed down at the ocean. She was obviously in shock, but at least part of her mind comprehended the sight below. “
Mon Dieu! Qu'est-ce que c'est? A-t-il mangé mon mari?
”

Vincent and Reilly ignored that the woman they’d rescued was out of her safety harness. They looked back out the window. The black shape suddenly sank away, going deep and leaving a massive forty-foot-wide footprint behind. Vincent looked at the Frenchwoman. “I have no idea what you said…but you said it.”

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.