The Black Silent

CHAPTER 44

Ben pointed a finger at the coast guard helicopter-a message for Frick to back off.

Instead, Frick motioned for them to stop. Without warning, Sam fired a shot into one of the three big outboards on Flick's boat. For a second it raced; then, with an ugly clunk, it died.

Now Frick's boat was crippled. Frick shoved the throttles on the two remaining engines forward and peeled off to the side. Sam saw the left-hand motor tip forward and the idle prop come out of the water. This made the two boats more equal in speed, but Frick's still had more horsepower and a more hydrodynamic hull form with less weight.

Sam turned sharply away, but Frick followed-and with slightly more speed, he was able to stay right on his tail.

Frick lifted what looked like a green tube. Sam knew it was a rocket launcher.

"Duck!" Sam shouted, turning the boat so abruptly that it almost spilled Glaucus's tank.

He heard a rushing sound, but Frick's rocket passed above them. Before their eyes the tail boom of the helicopter exploded and the copter whirled crazily, dropping abruptly into the ocean.

"Oh, my God," Haley breathily observed.

Sam reduced the throttles and turned the boat hard again, attempting a 180-degree turn back to the copter. There was another whoosh. A muffled, wet explosion sent Sam flying, and he realized that a rocket had struck just beneath the water, blowing the motors off the stern of the boat and exploding the structure beneath the pilothouse.

His body, lying over the gunnel and half out of the boat, screamed in pain. Something in his shoulder and something in his leg burned. Haley, just forward of the helm superstructure, looked dazed. He rolled to her, holding her for dear life. Behind him, Ben was groaning and barely conscious. He would be out of commission.

Frick's boat roared up close. Maybe thirty yards off, Sam raised his eyes above the gunnel. Frick looked like a hungry animal, rocket launcher at the ready. The tall man rose with a pistol. Sam fired four times, hitting him square, once in the side of the neck, and Khan went down, probably for good.

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.