Kronos

14

Gulf of Maine

Atticus looked down at the ocean, seventy-five feet below. The shadow of the Sikorsky VH-3D helicopter rose and fell with the waves…waves that concealed a great creature, which he was sure could pluck them out of the air even then. He’d been part of several airborne insertions in his SEAL days, but none felt nearly as dangerous as the particular mission he found himself on the verge of undertaking. None had held as much personal meaning either.

The two men seated across from him, O’Shea the priest and Remus the thug, did little to ease his nerves. They were a dichotomy. The priest clearly had brains, but lacked any kind of physical prowess that might suggest he was accustomed to action. He was a priest, after all…but not every priest was a stick-in-the-mud. Then there was Remus. He was a brooding man, whose chiseled smile appeared more like a jackal’s snarl than an honest man’s grin. His pockmarked face didn’t help his grim appearance, and the jagged scar across his forehead was simply a nightcap after drinking in his ugly mug. The bright-colored Hawaiian shirt he wore seemed like a pitiful attempt to pull attention away from his face, but his nonstop chatter about the fiftieth state to join the union revealed a true passion for the culture there.

“Why the obsession with Hawaii?” O’Shea asked, interrupting Remus’s minilecture about how slow-moving lava fields destroy houses, roads, and crops. “Isn’t it just becoming a tourist trap? I read that the scads of new million-dollar homes were raising taxes and that the high-paying jobs were being given to mainland Americans, pushing native Hawaiians and their culture to the mainland. It won’t be a paradise much longer.”

Remus glared at O’Shea. These two are not friends, Atticus thought. He tucked the observation into a pocket of his mind and listened as Remus gave the answer. “ Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. ”

Both O’Shea and Atticus looked at him queerly. He heaved a sigh that was supposed to demean the other two men and make them feel like fools for not knowing what the saying meant.

“The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness,” Remus said. “When land is holy, its essence cannot be destroyed.”

Obviously, the man had not been to Jerusalem, Atticus thought. While it was still an impressive place, the city’s holy sites were a far cry from what they had once been. He and Maria had gone on a tour of the Holy Land before Giona had been born. It was Maria’s idea, and was fascinating, but the state of the region’s holy sites had made Atticus realize that history had taken its toll on the land. But he felt that the people there, both Jew and Muslim, had deep convictions that found meaning in the very soil of the place. Thoughts of the night he and Maria had spent in Jerusalem began creeping into his mind. Giona had been conceived there.

“Sounds like a state motto,” O’Shea said with a smirk.

Remus didn’t hear the sarcasm and smiled proudly. “It is!”

Atticus clung to the conversation, joining it to avoid fond memories. They’d do him no good under the circumstances. “I did some work in Hawaii once,” Atticus said, the first words he’d spoken since the helicopter had left his home… “Tagging humpbacks. To track their migration and numbers.”

Remus nodded, smiling. “The state animal.”

Atticus wondered if Remus had simply memorized the encyclopedia entry for Hawaii, just to make people believe he knew what he was talking about.

“What did you think?” Remus asked.

Atticus knew to the core of his being that he should befriend the man. Remus was dangerous and untrustworthy. Getting on his good side could only help. There were a number of answers to the question, any of which would have done the trick. Atticus was surprised by his quick answer. “Overrated.”

It was an honest answer, but the effect was profound. Remus frowned, squinted his eyes the way seventh-grade girls do when they are teased.

The priest was smiling ear to ear. “A man of few words speaks the truth powerfully.”

At least he’d made one friend, though he doubted a priest would be useful…unless he could pull him back out of hell…because that’s where they were headed-and a confrontation with the devil. Only hell wasn’t beneath the earth, brewing with boiling magma. It was found beneath the seas, cold and remorseless.

The helicopter fell silent again, except for the whup whup whup of its long rotor blades. After ten blessedly quiet minutes, Remus ended the reprieve with a strained, “We’re here.”

Atticus looked out the window and took in a ship the likes of which he had never seen in all his years at sea or in the Navy. It was massive, the size of a U.S. destroyer, and gleamed bright white in the morning sun. The pool on the top deck appeared to be shaped like a Chinese dragon. A hardwood carved masthead of a beautiful, but thoroughly dangerous-looking Viking woman graced the bow. The decks were staggered up from the main deck, each oval and lined with tinted glass. Atop the bridge, a mass of antennae and satellite dishes rose toward the sky. It was a ship obviously designed to stay at sea for long stretches…if not indefinitely.

The helicopter set down gently. “Follow me,” Remus said as he opened the side door.

To Atticus’s surprise, no one asked him to relinquish the sidearm still hanging on his hip, though two servants, dressed to the nines, asked to carry his duffel bag to his room for him. He declined the offer, preferring to keep his belongings, not to mention his arsenal, close by. Once on board, O’Shea went his separate way, while Remus took the lead, taking him through one hallway after the next. But they weren’t headed to the upper decks, where he’d assumed most billionaires would prefer to be; instead they were headed down. They descended three flights of stairs, all carpeted in maroon and lined with ivory supporting posts and gold banisters. The smell of the boat was pleasant, clean but not sanitized like the hospital. At the base flight were long hallways, all decorated with expertly carved statues of marble, rough stone, and wood-all originating from a variety of cultures. The fourth floor down brought with it an extended staircase that revealed the floor’s cathedral ceilings…on a boat. Atticus was impressed by the engineering and beauty of it all, though it did little to calm his nerves. His reason for being there was still ominous.

At the base of the stairs, where they flared out onto a marble floor, Atticus was greeted by an amazing sight. Positioned at the center of a large atrium was a full-size rendition of a statue on Easter Island. He had never been to the island, but there were few people in the modern world that wouldn’t recognize the megaliths. “That’s an amazing replica,” Atticus said, more to himself than to Remus.

But the man snickered anyway. “It’s real.”

Atticus placed his hand against the statue and felt its cold surface, as bleak as the once-lush island that had been its home. To obtain such a magnificent artifact meant that Trevor Manfred was either extremely well connected or extremely cunning. Either way, he’d soon find out.

Remus opened a door engraved with the words, sitting room. It sounded innocent enough, but when Atticus stepped through, he entered another world.

“You’re on your own now,” Remus said. “Try not to say anything stupid. Aloha. ”

With that, Remus closed the door, leaving Atticus alone in the room. Atticus knew Remus’s final word was a warning. Aloha. Don’t mock Trevor Manfred like you did me.

Atticus took in the fifty-foot, rounded room. An amazingly realistic underwater mural covered the vaulted ceiling; the realism of the artwork was astounding. The walls were similarly painted, featuring whales, sharks, seals, and assorted other creatures. Atticus felt at home in the room, though unnerved to be standing, rather than swimming. The floor was an illusion as well, painted dark blue, just as the depths looked from above. The only break to the illusion was the presence of two elegant chairs-thrones really-rimmed with gold and cushioned by red velvet, and a gold-legged, glass-topped coffee table.

“Come in,” came a loud, cheerful voice from across the room. “You’re just in time for tea.”

Atticus could see a hand waggling him over to the chairs. After placing his duffel bag on the floor, Atticus made his way over. The man sitting there was not what he’d expected. His eyes gleamed with excitement. His hair sprang up, white and wild in a way that Giona would have loved. His clothing was all black, his skin nearly as white as his hair, though clearly not albino. His eyes shown bright green and alive. “Dr. Young, welcome to the Titan. ”

Atticus decided in that moment that he liked the eccentric man who sat in the deep-sea illusion, surrounded by ancient artifacts and mysteries from around the world. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, Atticus thought, remembering Churchill’s description of World War II’s Russia. He was instantly as interested in this man as Churchill had been with Russia’s role in the war. But Atticus felt that the diminutive man posed far less threat than Stalin’s gulags and certainly much less than Remus would have had him believe.

As Atticus opened his mouth to speak, the corner of his eye caught movement. The wall…the outer hull to his left, was not a painting at all! And something very large was swimming just outside, watching them.