The Black Silent (53 page)

There was a second explosion. It was hell, packed into a moment, a blinding fireball rolling over him at the same time the concussive shock wave seemingly flattened his head and nearly punctured his eardrums. For a second his mind was like an empty neighborhood—quiet, lifeless, suspended. Then sound and color returned: Haley was screaming about Ben. The bang of a bullet puncturing the aluminum hull. Sam took a hit to the shoulder. It was a flesh wound, but he played dead because his gun was empty.

Haley struggled beneath him to get to Ben.

Venture Too
bobbed about, mangled, burned, and listing badly.

"Be still," he whispered in Haley's ear. For once, she didn't argue.

Frick rammed the
Venture Too,
putting the sharp bow of his craft right on top of the workboat. Frick's boat stalled and he leaped aboard like a pirate, a side arm in his hand.

He met the boat's largest occupant head-on. Glaucus was out of the tank; his grasping red tentacles were everywhere.

Frick stopped for a moment, his mouth and eyes wide. Sam quit playing dead and grabbed Frick's gun hand. Pulling himself up Frick's arm, Sam swung his gun hand into Frick's jaw.

The wound in his right shoulder impeded Sam, rendering the punch indecisive, but Frick lost his footing. Sam wrenched the gun free, throwing it overboard.

Frick wheeled, a long knife in his hand. Sam feinted a left-hand punch as Frick slashed with the knife. The blade caught only air. Sam followed the slashing motion, getting behind the knife, driving it into Frick's own leg. Frick screamed and Sam turned the knife in the man's flesh. Frick went crazy with the pain.

Sam felt wet tentacles feeling his legs, moving around him. Frick was in Glaucus's grip as well, suction cups over his bloody leg—tasting.

Almost too late, Sam saw a new gun, attached to a shaking, bloody hand in the boat above them. A deafening shot and barrel blast rocked Sam as the bullet slammed into the meat outside his right clavicle.

Khan rolled his eyes and fell.

Frick pulled the knife out of his leg, grabbed Haley by the hair, and put it to her neck.

She sank her teeth into his hand in desperation. The blade parted skin on her throat as Sam lunged, using his left hand to get at the knife. The three of them struggled, blood running down Haley's neck as she ducked and pulled out of the scrum.

Sam found himself eye to eye with Frick, blood-slippery hands competing for the knife.

With a sudden motion Sam used his head for a massive butt to Frick's forehead. It staggered Frick. The knife clattered to the deck and Sam sank hardened fingers into Frick's neck.

Frick gouged for Sam's eyes. Sam ducked and dug deeper into the neck. He found the Adam's apple and closed his fist.

When Frick couldn't find Sam's eyes, both hands went around Sam's neck and squeezed.

Sam felt light-headed, but Frick was making a wheezing sound, weakening as Sam's hand assumed a death grip on Frick's trachea. Sam felt cartilage pop. Frick screamed and squeezed, then released Sam, who shook Frick like a rag doll.

Sam felt himself falling.

The shock of hitting the wet deck brought him back to semiconsciousness. His neck still felt as if Frick's hands clenched it. But that was impossible—Frick lay next to him, fish eyes opening and closing as the man tried to draw oxygen through his ruined windpipe.

Frick's hand spidered across the floorboards and grasped the knife. To Sam's surprise, he drew the blade to the base of his own throat.

Sam had just enough energy to stop him. He knew what Frick feared and it wasn't death.

"They'll put you in a cage," Sam said as he pulled the knife away. Frick passed out, probably imagining the headlines announcing that a discredited female scientist had taken him down.

Sam felt fingers pressing down on the wound at his shoulder. It was Haley, blood seeping from the wound in her neck. Ben lay beside them on the deck, two bullet holes in him. He struggled to breathe, and it didn't look promising.

Haley sobbed as the last of Glaucus's tentacles slipped noiselessly over the side.

"Don't worry," Ben said. "I've lived a very good life."

"You're not going to die," she sobbed.

"Haley," Ben whispered

She put Sam's fingers in the hole under his clavicle and moved to Ben, taking his head in her lap.

"I loved you more than my dream. That's why I kept you out of it," he said. "The world isn't ready, but maybe it's like a new mother. . . never ready."

"Stop talking," she said.

"You understand I love you more?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Hide it from all the Fricks and Sankers of the world. . ."

"No. No. No," she said, trying to quiet him, uninterested in the Arcs for the moment.

Ben rested a moment, catching his breath.

"Save your energy," she whispered, trying desperately to somehow hold the blood in his body. Sam understood her desperation.

"The flask," he gasped.

"It's gone," she said. "Blown away over the side." She cradled his head. "We don't get to choose." She kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair.

Ben managed the slightest smile. Then he sighed and looked up at the sky, his face growing peaceful, content.

"I want you to have babies," Ben told Haley, his mind clearly wandering. "And if some fishermen catch a giant octopus, tell them it's not Glaucus and let them make sushi."

"I said quiet, old man," Haley chided, tears in her eyes. Ben managed another smile. "I have loved you as much as I could love anyone," he said. "And if I could, I would see your children."

Ben closed his eyes and Sam's heart shrank within him. The weariness of death was overtaking him as Haley's racking sobs filled his ears. He'd lost another fellow traveler.

S
am sat on the veranda above the ferry, with the turquoise of the water against the blue of the sky and the breeze washing over his mind like the waves on the rocks. The orcas made their rounds, looking for foolish seals, the salmon having mostly passed to the rivers. Food was already a bit sparse for the bald eagles and they were flying about hunting and generally looking magnificent.

After all the hysteria about youth retention, Sam occasionally found himself looking in the mirror, wondering about the coming of the age spots and wrinkles. He was too young to think about such things, about which kind of bypass surgery worked best, what diet might keep his prostate reasonably small and his hemorrhoids under control. Despite the aches and pains of aging and not-so-old injuries, he felt better than ever. Felt comfortable with getting older (unless Haley could make him a deal). Felt happy to take his place in the order of things, content to breathe the sea air and listen to the blow of the whales. Life brimmed inside him, and, for the first time since his wife, Anna, had died, his joy was unmitigated. He hadn't yet decided why the fullness of his spirit had returned, but he thought the reason might have been buried in a conversation with Haley about measuring life by whom you loved and who loved you—and not by what you thought you did or did not do. Anna was a terrible loss, but now he knew that they had agreed in a moment that she should go on ahead.

Ben had been right. The older Sam got, the more surprised he was by the shortness of his days on earth. It was important to get to wherever you were going before you went out of this life. Anna had done that.

Haley had her own lab at the university compound and was desperately trying to figure how she might extract microbes and mud from the deep parts of the sea and keep it under pressure. Sam had been there when they gave her an award and had reveled in the gleam in her eye when her shame became just a memory.

Finding the magic Arc was a grail quest she undertook willingly—largely, Sam thought, because she thought humankind was meant to have it, to use it, despite men like Garth Frick. Frick himself awaited a death sentence or, if unlucky, life in prison.

Sanker and Rossitter were fighting charges of conspiracy to commit murder, and Sanker had the largest criminal team ever assembled. Sam figured having to deal with all the lawyers was in itself some punishment. Of course, Sanker and Rossitter had turned on each other. Everybody figured they'd both end up with life terms, which in Sanker's case wouldn't be long.

Frick's rocket had melted the Arc container, effectively disintegrating it. Whatever was left of the genetically engineered Arcs had been blown over the side by the explosion.

The obstacles to rediscovery, given the luck of the first find, were turning out to be enormous. Somewhere down in the depths of the sea, under the mud—maybe a thousand feet down into the earth or even deeper, or perhaps under a brackish freshwater pond—

lived a particular Arc with a particular gene with a certain codon. No one knew exactly where and no one knew how many of this Arc subspecies existed.

Perhaps people could handle the prize, given a second chance and armed with the knowledge of the mistakes of the past. It was a decidedly optimistic view. Haley slipped up behind Sam, but not unnoticed. She came around him and sat across the table, a little short of breath. She must have been running to keep from being late. One of the many things Sam had learned about her was that Haley considered lateness a subtle form of arrogance.

She looked at his sling and then at his eyes, and she seemed to enjoy the way they held hers.

"You're not going. You aren't better yet—you've had holes blown through you. Don't tell me you called me here to say good-bye."

"The muscle's knitting well enough. Besides, I'm just supervising."

"You're going into a war zone."

"Not technically. We're just gonna get some food and some medicine to people who need it."

"We're not discussing this. I'll fight you."

It was hard not to chuckle, but she wasn't having any of it. Haley was angry, determined, and utterly sincere.

"I more than appreciate your concern."

Her face softened and she stood, came back around the table, and sat in a chair close beside him. It was rather pleasant.

"I'll sit on you until your flight leaves," she said matter-of-factly.

"I'll be back."

"How would I know that? You've been all over the world. The rest of your family is from California."

"Ernie is going with me. I don't have to stay for the whole thing."

"Ernie, of the FBI?"

It had surprised Sam too. "Yeah. He's taking a little leave from the FBI to celebrate his hero status and he wants something worthwhile to do. I won't be doing it all myself, Haley. As soon as Ernie gets the hang of this private contractor work, I'll leave. They just need someone to follow."

"You really have to go, all broken up like this?"

"I gotta go."

"You're a wonderful idiot." She kissed him on the forehead.

He paused, working up his courage.

"I let you down all those years ago. I let you down bad." The words came from his soul.

In her eyes he saw the flood of pain. Then tears poured. It was almost more than he could handle. She said nothing, waiting.

"The day on the dock when I was touching you, we both know I was trying to say that I loved you. Of course, we both knew I did. I whispered it so quietly you weren't sure what I said." He waited, wishing there was an easy way to do this. "If you want, you can say you don't know what I'm talking about." Judging from the increased flow of tears—

she knew what he was talking about. "I promised you I would call you. I said I'd call you the next day. We both figured that on the phone I might be able to say more about how I was feeling. But I didn't call. Not that day, not the next. You probably went the first week, making excuses for me, telling yourself there would be a letter or something. I know this sounds ridiculous. It does to me. We talked so little about our feelings."

"It's not ridiculous," she said, sniffing and coughing through the tears.

"I'm sure you called yourself foolish for even imagining that we were in love," Sam said, choking up himself. "That's maybe the worst part. You thought you were a fool, and then you figured that I never cared, or if I did, I was some kind of weird guy with a personality disorder."

Haley laughed despite herself.

"Then,
to add insult to injury, I never even brought it up. I pretended that it hadn't happened, that it was the folly of youth. We had cousinly love or something of the sort."

"And then you married Anna Wade and said nothing," she said. "Not a word."

"I need you to forgive me, for not calling the day after we sat on the dock."

"Why?"

"I was going to save the world from some very bad people. I was pumped up. The next day I was going underground, to Europe, to try to break a big case. It was for a government and a corporation. It just possessed me and I knew I could never do right by you. Your life with me would have been hell. But I should have said something. I should have given you a chance."

"So now what do you want?"

"Another chance. I want you to open yourself and give me a chance. Run the rock pile.

Take a risk."

"You know that I loved you ever since that day," she said.

"I know that."

She looked sheepish for a second. "I even practiced how I'd tell you off if this ever came up. In my head, at least."

He chuckled, and she laughed too.

"You wouldn't seduce me," she said. "I hated you for not even trying. Of course, I really wanted you to mean what you said, you jerk."

"I am sorry," he said, meaning it.

"That's it?" she said.

"I didn't know exactly how much I loved you in the let's-get-married sense until I saw you in your tam-o'-shanter hat the day all this started."

"You didn't tell me that either."

"We were a little busy," he joked. "And I did have that thing about people I cared about dying all the time." He grew slightly more serious. "I couldn't remember about Anna, and I guess I couldn't be at peace."

"Are you over that?"

"Enough to run the rock pile one more time," he said. "How are things with your mother?"