“Closer, Jim Hilton,” he said in his high-pitched thin voice.
The devastation wrought throughout the continent—and throughout the entire world—had made it close to impossible to function with the kind of efficiency that had been taken for granted before Earthblood. Gas supplies were minimal, which meant electricity depended on water or wind. Fortunately Aurora had ample supplies of both.
Operation Tempest, as it had been christened, also had some of the finest minds from both the civil and military arms of government. Men and women had been called together under the ultimate control of Zelig to try to help found a better world and sustain it against the gathering powers of evil and darkness.
The general made a hasty note on a pad in his left hand, in the neat, angular writing that had become famous throughout his command. In a leprous green ink.
“How long before Hunters move after Aquila survivors? Not long?”
He stalked back to his desk and sat down, wincing slightly and rubbing at his left knee. He still suffered in cold, damp weather from an overtime injury sustained when he played running back at West Point.
“Eureka,” he muttered. He had a vague memory of having been there on a hiking vacation, back in the 2020s. A gray place, close to the gray Pacific.
The quakes had caused terrible devastation, interrupting his fragile lines of communication all down the West Coast. And the winter weather had brought blizzards farther inland, closing off the tenuous highways for weeks on end.
The word from Dorian Langford indicated that the stolen boat and the sailing ship were probably taken by some residue of the Aquila’s crew.
Zelig looked out of one of the windows of his hut, seeing that it had begun to snow again. The thought of being on the ocean in a small rowboat didn’t sound like the very best fun in the whole world.
He hoped it was going well.
Chapter Fifteen
The December cold had bitten at Jim Hilton’s fingers, blurring his coordination.
He snatched at the butt of the GPF-555 Ruger, fumbling at the blued steel, nearly dropping it into the bottom of the rowboat. His eyes seemed mesmerized by the silent approach of the huge shark, now within spitting distance of Carrie Princip, who was still trapped deep in sleep.
His mind was also numbed, and he felt confused by the imminence of the danger, unable to try to decide what he should be doing. Shout or shoot?
The Blackhawk Hunter was finally in his fist, the spurred, checkered hammer clicking back, the wide trigger smooth under his index finger. The .44-caliber full-metal-jacket round exploded down the six-inch barrel. The cushioned grips with the walnut inserts absorbed some of the kinetic energy as he fired at the looming shark.
Jim put two bullets through the middle of the triangular dorsal fin, aiming as near the water as he dared for maximum effect. Ragged chunks of flesh splattered in the calm sea. The shark veered away from the boat and dived suddenly, its monstrous tail rising from the ocean and pounding down with a resounding slap, sending a wave of spray over everyone.
Sly Romero screamed out in fear at the double boom of the handgun and the fountain of salt water, holding his hands up over his face, while Heather Hilton was jerked out of sleep by the freezing shower.
Carrie also came awake, instinctively pulling her hand back into the boat. “What the fuck was—”
“Shark,” said Jim, carefully standing up, keeping his balance as the frail vessel rocked backward and forward in the turbulence caused by the creature’s dive. The moonlight danced off the waves, and he couldn’t see a thing.
“Where, Dad?” The girl also standing, agile, staring all around them. “Was that the water?” It had pasted her short blond hair flat against her skull, reminding Jim for a heart-stopping moment of how much like her mother the girl was.
“What kind?” asked Carrie, moving to comfort Sly, putting her arm around his broad shoulders and whispering in his ear.
“Great white, I think,” he replied. “About three times the size of the boat.”
“Could be under us,” said Heather.