Kronos Read online

  She had yet to look back at the two men following her. She didn’t want them to realize she was aware of their presence. But she could narrow down their identities to a handful of people. She’d met many unsavory people in the last year, socializing with large groups of teens who hung around downtown. Most were rich kids playing tough, wearing ratty clothes while clutching their iPods and smoking pot. But a few were the real deal, nasty people best to be avoided—something Giona typically excelled at. But friends of friends had made introductions, and she’d found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  To look at her, with her purple-dyed hair, jet-black clothes, and array of ear piercings, she fit right in. But her pleasant smile and charming wit set her apart. More than that, her genius-level intelligence allowed her to talk her way out of trouble. It was her stance on drugs that really made her stand out. She was well-known for attending antidrug meetings at the high school. While many of her in-town friends were petitioning their local senators to legalize marijuana, she was testifying before a New Hampshire Senate subcommittee about how it, and even alcohol, should be banned. She wasn’t a Holy Roller or ex-user, just someone who had seen too many friends’ crisp minds rot and slow. Conversations that once involved quantum singularities or deep-sea creatures instead focused on Zippo lighters, Twinkies, bowl-packing procedure, and who had taken a hit from the longest bong.

  Her friends had tolerated, even encouraged, Giona’s antidrug crusade—drug users were easily impressed with anyone doing something more than sitting on a couch. One had even said with a slur, “You even think about…doin’ drugs…and I’ll kick your ass.”

  But not everyone within her circle appreciated her opinion, and a nickname had cropped up—nark. Everyone knew she’d never said a word to the police about who did drugs, but a few nights ago she’d found herself sitting in one of Portsmouth’s alleys. Unlike many cities, Portsmouth’s alleys were nicely decorated and home to frequently visited shops. But it would seem that alleys everywhere, even those with an attractive décor, invited trouble. She had been sitting on a bench, writing down the details of a strange dream from the night before. Whispered words took her attention from the page just in time to see a large cellophane-wrapped object being handed from a stranger’s hand to one of the local dealers she’d done so well avoiding. The dealer went by the name Bazooka Joe, in part because of his penchant for chewing gum but also because of the large bazooka-wielding figure shooting a rocket, which trailed from his biceps to his forearm.

  She instantly recognized the wrapped object as a brick of marijuana and was quick to her feet. Wrong place, wrong time. But in her haste to retreat, she tripped and fell to the sidewalk. As she quickly picked herself up, she gave a glance back, meeting the deep-set eyes of the dealer. He was rubbing his hand over his shaved head and staring at her, seeming indecisive about what to do. The man selling the brick said a few words, distracting Joe for only a moment. When he looked up, Giona was gone. But he’d already seen and recognized her face. He knew who she was…and what she believed.

  The footsteps were sounding louder behind her, more frantic. Then she realized why. She was about to pass the entrance to one of Portsmouth’s parking garages. Odds were that the stairwell was empty. She glanced across the street, looking for somewhere to go, but on Sunday afternoon, all of the shops were closed. Out of options, she began to run.

  She’d taken three strides when two viselike arms wrapped around her waist, hoisted her into the air, and heaved her sideways into the stairwell. She caught herself just inches from cracking her skull on the concrete steps. As she turned around to face her attackers, she momentarily wondered if she’d have been better off being knocked unconscious. Having no memory of what was to come next might be a blessing.

  Bazooka Joe and a man she’d never seen before were smiling widely. Their yellow tainted teeth seemed more like wolves’ fangs than human teeth. As Joe leaned closer, she realized that his teeth were in fact far from normal. They’d been filed to sharp points. As he opened his mouth to talk, she felt as though she was staring into the jaws of a shark.

  Joe noticed her focus on his teeth. “I won’t bite if you’re good.”

  Giona kept her mouth shut. To speak at all would only incite the man.

  Joe turned to the other man, whose filthy clothes and rank odor spoke more of a quickly hired homeless man than a true compatriot. “You watch the upstairs door. No one comes through.”

  The man nodded nervously and ascended the stairs. Joe turned back to Giona, rubbing his hand over his shaved head. “You know why we’re here, right?”

  Giona nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  “I saw your deal the other night.”

  Joe made a loud buzzing noise. “Wrong. Everyone knows you’re not a nark. But you dropped something when you ran away.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-by-six sheet of paper. Giona knew what it was before he turned it around. Taken a month before while she and her father were snorkeling…the one and only thing they’d done together all year, Giona had posed for a picture with her father. The camera, set on the captain’s chair, had captured a photo that none of her punk friends would have believed. Under the dark, baggy clothes there was a bronze-skinned, fit body that could have belonged to any number of Hollywood starlets. Her body and smiling face were in stark contrast to the shaggy purple hair, but there was no denying she was a hidden beauty.

  “A real diamond in the rough,” Joe said, spittle flinging from his mouth. The man was all but drooling.

  As Joe unbuckled his belt, she realized what was going to happen next. Her mind raced for some kind of plan, some way to escape. Joe removed his belt and looped it around the door handle and a nearby pipe, fastening it tight. Her only chance was to head up the stairs and take the other man by surprise. She began to shuffle up, ready to run, but Joe sensed the movement and lunged.

  Giona struggled for a moment, but was pulled back down, landing hard on the stairs. Joe’s strong right hand, which featured the projectile flung forth from the biceps bazooka, wrapped around her throat. “Make a noise, and I squeeze. Fight, and I’ll gut you quick.” He punctuated his last words with the flick of his left hand, revealing a switchblade.

  Her body went rigid; she couldn’t fight, but she could resist. With every ounce of strength in her body, she would not allow the man to take her easily. Her only hope was that he would tire and give up, but the sculpted muscles on his exposed arms told her the effort would be futile.

  Joe placed the knife under her shirt and moved it up her body, allowing his hand to graze across her flesh. He was going to cut her clothes off.

  Before the blade could be pulled back, a loud thump sounded from above. Joe hesitated. “Zack. What’s going on?”

  When no response came, Joe withdrew the knife but kept his hand planted firmly on Giona’s neck. “Zack, what the hell are you doing, man?”

  Shuffling footsteps made their way down the stairs. A man, sniffling and wheezing, was coming down the steps. As he came into view, Giona saw a withered-looking form in disheveled clothes and sporting one of the most scraggly beards she had ever seen. Despite his scruffiness, she had to work hard to hide a smile.

  “Who the hell are you?” Joe shouted. “Zack! You have about five seconds to—”

  “Zack took a break man…I’m taking his place.”

  Joe seethed. He was clearly going to hurt Zack at some point in the future, but his options at the moment were few. “How do you know Zack?”

  “Used to fish together.” The words came out slurred and breathy.

  Joe seemed satisfied by the answer. Apparently Zack had once been a fisherman. Joe shook his head and pointed the knife blade at the scraggly drunk. “Anyone gets by you, you’re dead. Got it?”

  The man nodded, then tripped, descending several stairs at once so that his feet were next to Giona’s head and his face only a foot from Joe’s blade. “Whoa…close one.”

&nbs
p; Joe was about to shout something when, like a blur, the drunk’s hand latched on to Joe’s wrist. A quick twist brought about a loud crack, which was followed by a ferocious scream. Joe followed the scream with, “You f—”

  But before the flow of obscenities could issue forth, a rigid hand chopped through the air and caught Joe in the Adam’s apple. The once-savage attacker was instantly reduced to a sad little man, writhing on the floor, gasping for breath. With Joe on the floor, clearly incapacitated, the drunk stood straighter, descended the remaining stairs, and pulled out a cell phone. After a quickly dialed call and brief discussion with a 911 operator, the man turned around, clearly relieved at the girl’s safety.

  “You okay?” Atticus asked.

  Giona longed to run to her father’s arms and be held within his safe embrace, but charade or not, the tough exterior she had built over the past two years forbade it. She wouldn’t show weakness, especially not to her father. “Fine,” she said, picking herself up and straightening her shirt.

  It was obvious her father longed to hold her as well. He must have been petrified. The best he could muster was a pat on her shoulder. “Lucky I came by.”

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You called the cops?”

  “Yes.”

  Giona sighed. She’d be marked as a real nark from here on.

  “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  The relief Giona felt when she’d first seen her father was being consumed by years of barriers built between the two. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure,” Atticus said, a tinge of sarcasm entering his voice as he grew impatient with his ungrateful daughter. He quickly undid the belt around the door, and with a seriousness that could not be ignored--even by an angry seventeen-year-old--said, “Wait outside.”

  Giona headed for the door and paused before leaving. “You’re not going to…”

  “In another life I would have. But not today.”

  Giona stepped outside, and the door clicked shut behind her. A few moments later she could hear the wheezing screams of Joe. She had no idea what her father was doing, or even what he was capable of doing (though she had her suspicions), but it was clearly something Joe would not forget. Good, Giona thought, the bastard deserves whatever he gets. But then she regretted that in some roundabout way she was responsible for bringing out demons her father had long ago buried. She crossed her arms, leaned against a mailbox, and waited for the screaming to stop.

  5

  Portland, Maine—Ten Miles Out

  The water below was whipped into a frenzy as the U.S. Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter’s blades chopped through the ocean air. Below, Petty Officer Ryan Reilly dangled from a wire. The rescue effort was going great except for one thing—the PIW (person in the water) was unconscious. Two days of not eating and exposure to the elements had taken their toll. An hour previous, when a C-130 Hercules had spotted the woman’s bright orange life jacket and deployed rescue equipment via parachute, the woman moved sluggishly.

  She’d evidently been able to inflate the life raft, but she’d lacked the strength to pull herself fully in. Her face, matted in wet blond hair, and the right side of her body were dangling inside the raft, while her left arm and leg were still submerged. She hadn’t even twitched when the Jayhawk rescue team had arrived, which made the men and woman in the chopper move that much more quickly. They could see the life draining out of the woman as they hovered above her.

  Little was known about her. A mayday had been sent out, in French, from a desperate- sounding man. He’d had the common sense to give coordinates in English so the Coast Guard didn’t have to waste precious time translating. The search had been going on for two days, and finally, the woman, presumably the man’s wife, had been found. Two C-130s were still flying patterns over the area in an attempt to locate the man, but hope was running out.

  Petty Officer First Class Andrea Vincent looked down from the Jayhawk, toggling the winch controls that lowered Reilly toward the PIW. She’d been with the Coast Guard for six years and taken part in hundreds of rescues. Though people often doubted that the woman with wavy black hair and such a petite frame was capable of plucking waterlogged bodies from the water, it was usually her dangling from the cable. But Reilly needed the experience. He was doing a good job too.

  The plan was simple. Reilly would be lowered slowly rather than jumping in. If the woman woke and was startled, she might reenter the water and take in a mouthful of water. Reilly could handle CPR in the water, but there was no reason to risk it. Vincent looked down. Reilly had entered the water. His voice came through her headset. “I’m in. Heading for the PIW.”

  “Copy that,” Vincent said. “Go get her.”

  She watched as Reilly sidestroked toward the woman. All he had to do was pull her into the water slowly, wrap a second harness around her arms, connect it to his, and they’d be pulled up together.

  Vincent noticed the copilot flashing her a hand signal. He pointed to his headset and flashed two fingers. He wanted her to switch to channel two. She, Reilly, and the pilot were on channel one for the rescue effort, while the copilot remained on channel two to communicate with the C-130s searching the area. It was abnormal for her to change channels during the rescue; if Reilly needed her, she’d have no way to know. But the copilot realized that, so it was probably a matter of some urgency.

  “Reilly, I’ve got to switch over to two for a minute. You all right down there?”

  “Copy that, Cap. She’s out like a light. I’ll have her ready to go in forty-five.”

  Forty-five seconds. That was all she’d give whoever was on channel two. She switched over and flinched as a chorus of shouting voices issued from the headset. The normally calm-sounding crew’s of both C-130s were frantic. She couldn’t make out a word of it, so she shouted, “Everyone shut the hell up, then one of you tell me what’s going on!”

  Her voice, though feminine, commanded attention like a Marine drill sergeant’s. The line fell silent. Then the voice of Charley McCabe came back on the line. Vincent had known McCabe for the past five years. They were friends, but while on mission were all business. She knew something was wrong when McCabe spoke.

  “Andrea, it’s Chuck. Listen…” His voice was quivering. “We’ve, ah, we’ve picked something up, and it’s coming your way.”

  “How far out?”

  “About a mile.”

  “Submarine?” Vincent knew that submarines could pop out of the water suddenly, especially if something had gone wrong, but the odds were remote.

  “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 footpr
ints—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.”