Kronos

10

Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean

The knife pierced oozing red flesh, then struck bone and fell from the wielder’s hand.

“Oh, bloody hell,” blurted Trevor Manfred. With stark white hair that flared out like Andy Warhol’s and a lanky body clothed in black-leather pants and a dark gray turtleneck, he didn’t look like a man whose every need was tended to. But when the sterling silver steak knife had finished rattling on the deck, he made no move to pick it up. Instead, he merely let out a sigh while a servant dressed in a white Armani suit accented with gold cuff links bent down, picked up the knife, and, using a fine violet-silk napkin, wiped down the deck where the knife had fallen. Only moments after the knife had fallen, the glorious sheen of the oak deck had been restored and all traces of the accident erased. Simultaneously, a similarly dressed second servant offered Trevor a new blade, sliding it handle first over his sleeve toward his employer.

Trevor looked at the half-eaten well-marbled T-bone steak, cooked rare, oozing red juices, and lined with thick strips of fat. The steak’s accompaniments, deep-fried onion rings and a tall bottle of dark lager, served as a stark contrast to the otherwise opulent surroundings. “Take all but the beer. Next time make it steak tips. The only bones I want to see from now on are in the collection. Understood?”

With a nod, the silent servant made his retreat, taking the tray table, food, and utensils with him. The second servant followed, carrying only the soiled silk napkin and dropped knife. As the two men left the foremost bow deck, Trevor stood from his plush lounge chair and approached the front rail. He grasped it with one hand and downed the beer, chugging it like his chums on the college rugby team used to. The beer emptied, he wound up and sent the bottle sailing over the deck. He watched the brown missile spinning end over end, falling for a quick three seconds until it splashed into the ocean and disappeared, far, far below the forward deck of Trevor’s mobile mansion on the ocean.

The Titan, five hundred feet long and seventy-five feet wide, was the world’s largest megayacht-Trevor’s megayacht. Its design was trendsetting, sporting a loggia that stretched over the whole width of the yacht, linking the fully stocked salon with the resplendent dining room. At the stern of the ship was a round room featuring a three-hundred-degree view. A garage that opened to the ocean below held a submersible at the lowest point of the ship. A black Sikorsky VH-3D helicopter (the same helicopter that transported the president of the United States) sat on the helipad at the highest point of the ship, just behind the pool.

Every piece of decor had been purchased, or otherwise obtained, by Trevor and placed specifically where he indicated. Banisters were topped with gold gargoyles or naked women…sometimes both. The pool on the Titan ’s top deck was shaped like a Chinese dragon, undulating up and down and curving around on itself. The bow, like those of ancient ships of old, was adorned by a beautifully sculpted and scantily clad woman bearing a trident and shield, and wearing a horned helmet. Statues, pilfered from the ancient cultures of many nations, decorated everything from bathrooms to the grand library, which contained thirty thousand books. The centerpiece of the ship was the collection. Trevor’s pride and joy. Put simply, it was a huge accumulation of art, relics, and natural phenomena over which the Museum of Natural History would salivate. The entire ship, from bow to stern, reflected the taste of a man obsessed with mythology and ancient history. But for Trevor, it wasn’t enough to satiate his need to explore the unknown, to experience fresh new ideas or ancient wonders.

The bottle resurfaced and bobbed in the five-foot swells. Trevor realized that while he was the fifth richest man on the planet, who had all the world’s oceans as his playground, he had been reduced to watching a floating bottle as entertainment.

“Bored, sir?” The voice was firm yet subservient, like a pit bull barking at its master.

Trevor didn’t turn around. He simply looked across the endless blue expanse stretched out before him. For a brief moment Trevor understood how humanity had once believed the world was flat. From his high perch, it certainly looked as though one could simply fall off the edge of the world. He shrugged and spun to meet Remus, his head of security, who was dressed as though he were on a pleasure cruise-khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “Bored doesn’t begin to do justice to the drudgery that has become my existence…nor to the lack of imagination implicit in your outfit. Good God, man.”

Remus smiled, ignoring the jab. “There is always Shanghai, sir.”

The thought brought a smile to Trevor’s face. The pleasures of Shanghai were always enticing, but Trevor was not in the mood for wine and women. “I crave an adventure, Remus.”

“A whale hunt perhaps?”

Trevor looked down to the deck, at a three-foot-wide, six-foot-long rectangular seam. Hidden below the two men was a powerful harpoon gun, containing a razor-sharp, titanium-tipped projectile capable of piercing solid steel. “The end is predictable. No creature in the ocean can outrun the Titan. ”

“Perhaps violence is not the way to satiate your earthly hungers?” A third, more melancholic voice added. The man approached, wearing a broad grin on his young face. He wore the garments of a priest, but walked with the cocksure gait of a movie star. His worldly gray eyes revealed he had been party to more sin than the average priest, and his wrinkled brow showed that he had yet to pass the burden on to God or anyone else.

“Ah, Father O’Shea, to what do we owe the pleasure? Mass isn’t until Saturday, and alas, today is but Monday. You absolved me of my past trespasses only two days ago,” Trevor said.

Remus snorted. “Come to thump your Bible early, O’Shea?”

“Hardly,” he replied.

“You going to reveal the answers to all of life’s problems?”

“That would take a long time for you, wouldn’t it?” Ignoring Remus’s glare, O’Shea approached Trevor. He held aloft a computer printout as though it was a long-sought-after prize. “The answer to your dilemma, Trevor.”

Father O’Shea was the only member of the Titan ’s crew who dared to call Trevor by his first name; and, for reasons unknown to the rest of the crew, he was the only man Trevor would allow to do so.

“The Pope is dead?” Remus quipped with a chuckle.

“Remus…” Trevor’s voice contained just a hint of rebuke, causing Remus to clamp his lips shut tight. “His Holiness is to be respected. He has the ability to clear the taint from a man’s soul, a service which you and I benefit from more than most.”

“Yes, sir,” Remus said.

Trevor took the paper from O’Shea. Placing his black-rimmed oval reading glasses on the tip of his nose, he scanned what appeared to be an article from that morning’s online edition of a small newspaper: The Portsmouth Herald. He read the headline with widening eyes, then virtually devoured the entire article.

RYE MAN’S DAUGHTER EATEN BY SEA MONSTER

Scuba diving at Jeffrey’s Ledge yesterday, Atticus Young and his daughter, Giona Young, both Rye residents, are believed to have been in search of whales. They found tragedy instead. Young’s daughter disappeared after what is being called an “animal attack” and is believed to be dead.

Young, 41, ex-Navy SEAL, prominent oceanographer, and author of Oceans in Peril, had first been seen earlier in the day after roughing up two men who had attacked his daughter. The men’s clothing had been cut to ribbons in an apparent attempt by Young to teach the two a lesson in humiliation. But it was later in the day when horror struck the man who had so well protected his daughter that morning.

At 3:45, a distress call was placed from a boat anchored at Jeffery’s Ledge, a shallow portion of the Gulf of Maine in which whales congregate to feed in the nutrient-rich waters, where Young and his daughter were diving. Here is the transcript of that distress call:

“Oh God. Someone help. God, please. It took my girl! It took her! So big…Like nothing I’ve seen before…no record of this thing…Someone…please, help. Help…”

The distress call, which was heard by more than one hundred individuals, including the Coast Guard, who later pulled Young from his boat, has set off rumors of a giant sea creature roaming the waters of the Gulf of Maine. Local fishermen…

The article continued for another page, but Trevor knew it was all speculation from that point on. He looked up, his green eyes wide above his low-perched glasses. “Remus, instruct the bridge to take us to New Hampshire. I want to be there before the night is through.”

Remus nodded.

“And get me every bit of information available on this Atticus Young of Rye, New Hampshire. I want to know the most intimate details, including his record with the Navy.”

A nervous twitch appeared at the corner of Remus’s lips. Then, with assurance, he said, “Consider it done,” and walked briskly toward the bridge.

Trevor turned to O’Shea and stuck out his hand. O’Shea took his hand and shook it. “You may be a man of God,” Trevor said, “and money may be of little use to you, but consider your bonus this year doubled. Even if this turns out to be a hoax, you have cured my sad reverie, if only for a few days, something the rest of this motley crew has rarely done without having to spend my money. How is that possible? Hmm?”

O’Shea smiled and answered the rhetorical question. “God works in mysterious ways.”

“Ha!” Trevor belched a laugh and slapped O’Shea hard on the back. “Indeed he does!”