Shock Wave (Dirk Pitt 13)

"You'd shoot a defenseless bird?"

Pitt looked at her. "Only because I have this strange aversion to starving to death."

While Giordino pumped air into the flotation tubes before working on a canopy, Pitt examined every square centimeter of the boat, checking for any leaks or abrasions in the neoprene floats and structural damage to the fiberglass hull. He dove overboard and ran his hands over the bottom but found no indication of damage. The craft appeared to be about four years old and had apparently been used as a shore boat when Dorsett's yacht moored off a beach without a dock. Pitt was relieved to find it slightly worn but in otherwise excellent shape. The only flaw was the missing outboard engine that no longer hung on the transom of the boat.

Climbing back on board, he kept them busy all day with odd little jobs to take their minds off their predicament and growing thirst. Pitt was determined to keep their spirits up. He had no illusions as to how long they could last. He and Giordino had once trekked through the Sahara Desert without water for nearly seven days. That was a dry heat; here the heavy humidity sucked the life out of them.

Giordino rigged the nylon cover as shield from the burning rays of the sun, draping it over the paddle he had mounted on the control console and tying it down over the high sides of the flotation tubes with short lengths cut from the nylon line. He sloped one edge so that any rainwater it caught would flow and drop into an ice chest Maeve had found under one seat. She cleaned the grime from the long unused ice chest and did her best to straighten up the interior of the boat to make it liveable. Pitt used his time to separate the strands from a section of nylon line and knot them into a fishing line.

The only food source within two thousand kilometers or more was fish. If they didn't catch any, they would starve. He fashioned a hook from the prong of his belt buckle and tied it to the line. The opposite end was attached to the center of one of the wrenches so he could grip it in both hands. The quandary was how to catch them. There were no earthworms, trout flies, bass plugs or cheese around here. Pitt leaned over the flotation tubes, cupped his hands around his eyes to shut out the sunlight and stared into the water.

Already, inquisitive guests were congregating under the shadow of the raft. Those who plow through the sea on ships and boats powered by big engines with roaring exhausts and thrashing propellers often complain that there is no life to be seen in the open ocean. But for those who float close to the surface of the water, drifting soundlessly, it soon becomes a window, opening on the other side on citizens of the deep, who are far more numerous and varied than the animals who roam the solid earth.

Schools of herringlike fish, no larger than Pitt's little finger, darted and wiggled under the boat. He recognized pompano, dolphins, not to be confused with the porpoise and their larger cousins, the dorado, with their high foreheads and long fin running down the top of their multicolored iridescent bodies. A couple of large mackerel glided in

circles, occasionally striking at one of the smaller fish. There was also a small shark, a hammerhead, one of the strangest inhabitants of the sea, each of his eyes perched on the end of a wing that looked like it was jammed into his head.

"What are you going to use as bait?" asked Maeve.

"Me," said Pitt. "I'm using myself as a gourmet delight for the little fisheys."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Watch and learn."

Maeve stared in undisguised awe as Pitt took his knife, rolled up a pant leg, and calmly carved off a small piece of flesh from the back of his thigh. Then he imbedded it on the improvised hook. It was done so matter-of-factly that Giordino did not notice the act until he saw a few drops of blood on the floor of the boat.

"Where's the pleasure in that?" he asked.

"You got that screwdriver handy?" Pitt inquired.

Giordino held it up. "You want me to operate on you too?"

"There's a small shark under the boat," Pitt explained. "I'm going to entice it to the surface. When I grab it, you ram the screwdriver into the top of his head between the eyes. Do it right and you might stick his pea-sized brain."

Maeve wanted no part of this business. "Surely you're not bringing a shark on board?"

"Only if we get lucky," Pitt said, tearing off a piece of his T-shirt and wrapping it around the small gouge in his leg to staunch the bleeding.

She crawled to the stern of the boat and crouched behind the console, happy to get out of the way.

"Mind you don't offer him anything to bite on."

With Giordino kneeling beside him, Pitt slowly lowered the human bait into the water. The mackerel circled it, but he jiggled the line to discourage them. A few of the tiny scavenger fish darted in for a quick nibble, but they quickly left the scene as the shark, sensing the small presence of blood, homed in on the bait. Pitt hauled in on the line every time the shark came close.

As Pitt worked the hook and bait slowly toward the boat, Giordino, his upraised arm poised with the screwdriver held dagger-fashion, peered into the deep. Then the shark was alongside, ashen gray on the back, fading to white on the belly, his dorsal fin coming out of the sea like a submarine raising its periscope. The screwdriver swung in an arc and struck the tough head of the shark as he rubbed his side against the flotation tubes. In the hand of most other men, the shaft would never have penetrated the cartilaginous skeleton of the shark, but Giordino rammed it in up to the hilt.

Pitt leaned out, clamped his arm under the shark's belly behind the gills and heaved just as Giordino struck again. He fell backward into the boat, cradling the one-and-a-half-meter hammerhead shark in his arms like a child. He grabbed the dorsal fin, wrapped his legs around the tail and hung on.

The savage jaws were snapping but found only empty air. Maeve cringed behind the console and screamed as the bristling triangular teeth gnashed only centimeters away from her drawn-up legs.

As if he were wrestling an alligator, Giordino threw all his weight on the thrashing beast from the sea, holding down the body on the floor of the boat, scraping the inside of his forearms raw on the sandpaper like skin.

Though badly injured, the hammerhead displayed an incredible vitality. Unpredictable, it was aggressive one minute and oddly docile the next. Finally, after a good ten minutes of futile thrashing, the shark gave up and lay still. Pitt and Giordino rolled off and caught their breath. The writhing fight had aggravated Pitt's bruises, and he felt like he was swimming in a sea of pain.

"You'll have to cut him," he gasped to Giordino. "I feel as weak as a kitten."

"Rest easy," Giordino said. There was a patience, a warm understanding in his voice. "After the beating you took on the yacht and the pounding from the storm, it's a wonder you're not in a coma."