Kronos (11 page)

“Funny,” a friendly yet masculine voice said, “I thought that would be my job.”

Andrea turned quickly to the voice. A man whose eyes were Atticus’s yet whose pudgy body revealed a life more adapted to sitting behind a computer rather than that of a former Navy SEAL, stood in the doorway. His brother, older and rounder perhaps, but she still recognized him.

“Been a long time, Andrea,” he said.

“Hello, Conner.”

He smiled, stepping into the kitchen, and shook her hand. “So, Coast Guard, huh? Isn’t this a little out of your jurisdiction?” He motioned to the empty frame on the table but didn’t let her respond.

“He never did stop pining for you, you know.” He sat down next to her and pointed at the photo still in her hand. “Not until he met her, anyway. And that was after he left the Navy. I always wondered if he’d try to find you again after Maria passed; looks like he did. How long has he been keeping you a secret from us?”

Andrea’s stare was a mix of confusion and guilt.

Conner’s eyebrows rose high. “You’re not together, are you?”

“No,” she replied. “Is he with...someone?”

“No, no. Not that I know of anyway. I thought he might be holding out on me, but if you’re not his girlfriend, then he’s been telling the truth. Not that he doesn’t need one; mind you…the job’s open if you want it.”

Andrea smiled.

Conner’s eyes returned to the photo in her hands. His lips suddenly turned down, his voice grew cold. “I was behind the camera in that picture. I’m no photographer, but that’s the best shot I ever took. I have the same one hanging on my wall at home. There’s just something about it. He had everything, you know?” Conner sighed. “I have a family. I love my wife. My kids are great. But that”—he pointed at the photo—“is something I’ve never experienced.”

Andrea felt a twinge of guilt take root in her gut. She handed the picture to Conner. “I was going to give it to him when I found him.”

In that instant, Conner seemed to forget about the photo. “He’s not here?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

Andrea wasn’t sure how to respond. She had just returned to Atticus’s life and wasn’t even sure if she was welcome. She didn’t know how he’d feel about her divulging what she knew—what she suspected, but this
was
his brother. Her memories of Conner included a lot of teasing and arguing. But they were brothers…and Conner had come to Atticus’s aid. Before she could utter a syllable, Conner spoke up.

“He went after it,” Conner said. “Damn it.”

It wasn’t a question. He simply knew, just like that, just as she had.

“How did you know?”

He shook his head. “It’s always been a weird thing with Atticus. People who love him can read him like a book.”

Andrea remembered the hospital. She’d had the same feeling. She had known he intended to go after the creature.

“I don’t know the details yet,” she added, “but I’m going to try tracking him down. He was picked up this morning by a helicopter. They headed out to sea.”

“The man moves fast. Was it Navy?”

Andrea shook her head. “No, but I’ll find out who owns it.”

“You’ll bring him back?”

“If I can.”

Conner handed the picture back. “Give this to him when you find him.”

“I will,” she said as she stood, suddenly more resolute about finding him right away. “Will you be here?”

Conner smiled again, forcing back his good nature. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

Andrea smiled and headed for the door. Conner stopped her with his voice.

“You know…it’s a rare woman who will drop everything and search the high seas for an old friend. Even if it is her job.”

Andrea’s face heated as her embarrassment grew.

“Your picture was in the paper and on the news,” he said, with a knowing smile. “Thanks for going to his rescue. Thanks for going now.”

Andrea nodded, surprised by the kindness in Conner’s voice. He knew who she was—an old friend, almost something more, but really just a woman who by chance was on the job when his brother needed help. Any number of people could have got to him first. She might have had a cold, and it would have been someone else giving him mouth to mouth after he’d thrown up while unconscious and choked on his own bile. She knew Atticus had no idea she’d resuscitated him, that he’d been dead, if only for a moment. She wondered if he might even resent being brought back. His brother had no idea either, yet there he was, acting as though she were…

“Andrea,” he added, interrupting her thoughts, “welcome back to the family.”

With those few words, Andrea’s thoughts cleared. For eight years she’d spent every waking moment with Atticus, and many of them with his family as well. They’d eaten, played, laughed, and adventured together. Inseparable. Kindred. Family. Those memories formed the bond that motivated her now, regardless of their broken past or feelings about what might have been. They were family. And that was enough.

16

Gulf of Maine—Aboard the Titan

Serrated teeth tore through flesh, rending sinew and vessel, crushing bones and doing a precise job at what they were designed to do—kill.

Atticus watched in amazement as white membranes slid over the obsidian eyes of the great white shark tearing into a tuna. He’d seen great whites feeding, as well as many other sharks, but never…
never
in the Gulf of Maine, nor a shark so enormous.

“It’s at least thirty feet long!” Atticus stood at what he now knew was a pane of glass looking out at the undersea world below the waterline.

“Twenty-eight, actually,” replied Trevor, who was now standing beside Atticus, watching the shark.

“You’re feeding it?” Atticus had seen the live tuna fall into the water, dazed and tired. It hadn’t stood a chance against the ocean’s greatest predator.
Second greatest predator
, Atticus reminded himself.

“Indeed. The little beastie is something of a pet, really.” Trevor placed his hand against the glass as the great white tore the fish in half and gulped it down. “Good girl, Laurel.”

“Laurel?”

Trevor smiled. “Named after a flower actually. Sheep laurel, a nasty little flower also known as Lambkill. It’s extremely poisonous and kills scores of sheep to be sure, and should a human ingest the flower, or worse, honey made from the flower, it is quite deadly. We’re lambs to the slaughter when it comes to Laurel,” he finished with a snicker.

Atticus watched as the massive shark polished off the tuna. He nodded. “A fitting name. But how is this possible…and why?”

“We spotted Laurel five years ago, in deep Pacific waters. She was quite big, even then, and for our amusement, we fed her. Her appetite was, as you’ve seen, voracious, and she followed us. We’ve been feeding her ever since.”

“But why would you want…”

“Protection, good doctor. This boat contains a wealth greater than that of many nations, and there are many who would love nothing more than to pilfer what is mine. Laurel does a nice job of stopping anyone who might attempt an underwater insertion.”

“I would imagine so,” Atticus said, picturing how he would feel encountering this giant underwater. “Does it work?”

Trevor smiled wide. “There have been a few times when she refused her breakfast. I can only assume she had her fill the night before. I cannot say whether she ate some poor fellow or not, but she has grown accustomed to her slow-moving meals. She never gives chase to healthy fish. If it moves fast, she won’t bother.”

Atticus made a mental note to not fall overboard, then turned his attention to Trevor. “What interest does the fifth richest man in the world have with a marine biologist?”

“I thought that would be very clear, Dr. Young.”

“Atticus will do.”

“Very well,” Trevor motioned to the chairs. “Please, sit.” They sat in the chairs, which were very comfortable. Atticus felt his body sink in, and, for the first time in days, his muscles relaxed. There was something about the room, being underwater yet not, that filled him with wonder while allowing him to lower his defenses.

On the coffee table, Atticus smiled upon finding two Sam Adams resting in a silver wine cooler, packed in ice. Based on Trevor’s invitation to tea, his thick British accent, and his almost feminine hand gestures, he expected to see a set of bone china with Earl Grey and crumpets.

Trevor read his expression. “I may be a Brit, but American cuisine tickles my fancy. Please, help yourself.”

Atticus pulled a bottle from the ice and popped the top with his teeth.

“Oh ho!” Trevor clapped. “A real man’s man!” He then produced a bottle opener from his pocket. “A much more civilized approach, don’t you think?” Trevor took the second beer, popped the top with a grunt, and drank greedily from the bottle.

Atticus wondered how such a diminutive man could drink like a college frat boy. Trevor was a living monochrome, black and white, day and night. Further study of the man would have to wait. There were more important issues at hand. “You were about to tell me why I’m here?”

Trevor placed the now-empty beer on the coffee table and sighed. “Ah yes.” He crossed his legs and placed his hands delicately on his knee. “Well, quite frankly, I’m bored.”

Atticus raised an eyebrow.

“Not right now, mind you. I meant to say I
was
bored, until I heard about your predicament. …In no way do I mean to overlook your tragic loss, but this creature has stirred feelings in me I have not felt since I first laid eyes on the ocean as a child. I want to find the creature, Dr. Young. I want to find it and kill it.”

“Why kill it?”

“Well, you obviously have your reasons…but mine, I’m afraid, are much more selfish. Please, come with me.” Trevor stood with a grin. “To fully appreciate my goals, it would be best for you to see the collection.”

Atticus polished off the beer, retrieved his duffel bag, and followed Trevor to the door. He was led past the Easter Island sculpture and down a long hallway. The hallway, which wound in a wide arc, had doors along the right side, but the left was blank. Trevor led the way, humming joyfully to himself. Then the hall widened and opened into a grand foyer. Double staircases led down from the deck above and ended at three sculptures of hauntingly beautiful women. In every way the women were perfect, clothed only in formfitting robes. Their upper torsos displayed firm-looking breasts. Their slightly agape mouths showed full lips and supported high cheekbones. But their hair…snakes, coiled and twisting. And below the waist, where there should have been long, sumptuous legs, tightly coiled serpentine bodies reached the floor. “Medusa,” Atticus whispered.

“Only one of them,” Trevor said as he unlocked a pair of double doors with a skeleton key.
Another oddity,
Atticus noted. Most of the security on the ship thus far had been top-of-the-line stuff—voice-, retina-, and fingerprint-activated. Yet here, in the man’s most prized room, the contents were protected by a simple skeleton key. “The other two are named Stheno and Euryale; quite attractive really. They guard the collection.”

With fervor, Trevor pushed the two doors open, revealing a massive room beyond. It stretched for one hundred feet in either direction and stood four stories tall. But it wasn’t the size of the room that was most impressive. It was the absolute beauty of what it contained.

Atticus entered with wide eyes, taking in every morsel. Hanging on the walls were paintings he recognized from Monet, van Gogh, Rembrandt, da Vinci, and Picasso—famous paintings—the sort that hung in the Louvre, yet there they were, displayed as though they were the real thing. Again, Trevor seemed to read his thoughts, though Atticus imagined that everyone who saw the collection thought the same thing.

“They’re all real, I assure you,” Trevor said.

Atticus stood in front of Da Vinci’s
The Last Supper,
beautiful in every way, even more impressive than the version the world adored. Atticus felt dwarfed by the fifteen-by-twenty-nine-foot painting. “The other is a fake?”

“Oh no,” Trevor said, clearly tickled to be able to explain, “They’re both quite real. But the one displayed at convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie is merely a practice run for the real thing…a very detailed practice run, mind you, but not the final product. Da Vinci would have known that tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic wouldn’t last. This final version is oil on canvas, a much more durable…and vibrant medium. Don’t you think?”

Atticus nodded, his jaw slightly slack. He’d seen photos of
The Last Supper
and had never been that impressed, but this…this was a true masterpiece. He turned his attention toward the rest of the room. There were statues—Roman and Greek gods. A miniature version of the Sphinx, yet more complete than its famous companion in the Egyptian desert and sporting a lion’s head, stood alongside an ornately engraved obelisk. A variety of smaller artifacts from all over the world, the greatest treasures of mankind, lined the insides of several long glass cases. An entire portion of cave wall, covered in primitive pictographs, stood mounted, dark and brooding. Atticus stood before it, trying to decipher the meaning, but the images jumbled in his mind, impossible to glean any meaning at all.

“It’s quite possibly one of the earliest pictographs in the world.” Trevor stood next to Atticus.

“What does it mean?”

“Not a clue.” Trevor smiled. “Everyone who looks at it regardless of education and experience, is immediately confounded. O’Shea believes it was written when the Tower of Babel was built. God jumbled the world’s languages at the time and apparently its artwork as well. Can you imagine if everyone you spoke to was as confusing to hear as this wall is to gaze at?”

Atticus had seen more amazing things in the room than most men would in a lifetime, and yet Trevor had said he was bored. Could the man really have exhausted his interest in what he’d already collected? Rather than ask, Atticus moved to the center of the room, where the oldest, most unusual figure, the centerpiece of the space stood. A skeletal Tyrannosaurus Rex and a triceratops locked in battle. The scene looked like something straight out of a children’s dinosaur book, except that the animals were real.