Remo succeeded just as the closing waters met along the dorsal spine of the submarine. The sail was slipping under the waves like a retreating deity of black steel.
Remo stayed with the power boat as long as he could. He felt the undertow drag and clutch at it. A vortex began to take shape.
In the end he was forced to face the same choice as seamen in distress face. Abandon ship--or go down with it.
The boat was sucked under the waves. Remo was, too. He allowed the cold waters of the Atlantic to close over him, then kicked with all his strength. Not up, which was impossible now, but sideways, out of the vortex.
Like an elastic band snapping, the downward tug relaxed, and Remo shot to the surface.
Reaching breathable air, he treaded water.
Then and only then did he realize he had made the mistake of his life.
"I should have stayed with the sub."
In the immensity of the black night, with the uncaring sea holding him in its frigid grasp, and the familiar New England stars looking down from their remote stations, Remo's own voice sounded surprisingly small in his ears.
Chapter 7
The cold of the North Atlantic felt like bands of cold steel squeezing Remo Williams's chest. The air coming in through his nostrils, warmed by nasal passages and throat, was still too cold when it reached his lungs. They burned. It was a cold, life-draining burning.
He was losing body heat rapidly. His nerves were shutting down.
Yet somehow Remo was able to sense the upward ripple of the icy ocean water being pushed by the blunt snout of the shark.
Expelling the remaining air from his lungs, he slid under the waves. If a shark wanted to eat him, it was going to have to fight for its supper.
Under the water Remo's night vision came into play. He made out a blue-gray shape rising to meet him. Jackknifing, he went down to meet it.
Predatory eyes glinted toward him. A mouth like a grinning cave filled with needles showed dim and deadly. It yawned. Teeth revealed themselves, ragged and overlapping but wickedly sharp. Teeth that could snap off an arm or a leg cleanly, Remo knew.
The gap closed. Remo twisted his back to create torsion in his spinal column. He could no longer see the shark, but he could roll out of its path-if he timed it to the last second and the shark cooperated.
At the last second Remo felt the lack of oxygen and knew the maneuver was doomed. He was too weak. His nerves were like spidery icicles that would break under the simplest strain.
Sensing the weakness of its prey, the shark gave an eager, convulsive wiggle of its sleek body and lunged for Remo.
In that moment, with ugly teeth straining for his flesh, Remo noticed a loose shark tooth and remembered something.
Shark teeth are like baby teeth. They come loose easily and regenerate later.
Making a spear with one hand and a fist with the other, Remo kicked like a frog and made for those rows of ugly teeth.
A short-armed punch connected with the blunt snout. The shark recoiled under the unexpected blow. It rolled, twisted and Remo went for the gaping maw of teeth.
With a sweep of his hand, he cleared the upper gums of teeth. The maw snapped shut, squirting a mixture of blood, triangular teeth and angry bubbles. Too late. Remo's hand had already retreated.
On the return sweep he got most of the lower set. A few remained here and there. The lower corner was still heavily toothed.
Threshing about, the shark fought to regain its orientation.
Remo got under it, curled his body into a ball and, with the last atoms of oxygen still burning in his lungs, gave it an upward kick.
Shocked, the shark shot to the surface-as much from panic as from the unexpected blow.
Remo surfaced behind the shark, drew in air and got his mitochrondria-the part of his cells that functions like tiny energy furnaces--charged again.
The cold air felt like the cold water around him. He couldn't tell one from the other. His skin was cold and blue and unfeeling. In the moonlight he saw the skin under his fingernails turning a purplish black.
Kicking, Remo got to the shark's side, took hold of its sturdy dorsal fin and pulled himself on board.
The shark didn't resist. It was stunned.
Its tough bluish hide scraped skin from Remo's bare arms. But that hide could provide warmth by acting as a wet suit. Wrapping his legs around the shark's tail, Remo hugged it tightly, its fin nudging his crotch.
Gradually a bit of warmth was restored in his body. It wouldn't be in time. It would not save him. But as long as he breathed, Remo still had a chance.
Even if he couldn't exactly see that chance. Or where it would come from.
Time passed. The shark began to switch its muscular tail. Remo clamped down to inhibit its forward movement. Once the shark dived, it would be in its element. And it would be all over for Remo.
As they struggled, Remo focused on the will to live. A man fought for his life when his life had meaning. Remo's life had meaning to him. He wasn't always satisfied with it. Often not satisfied with it at all. But it was his life, and he intended to hold on to it.
He thought of Chiun, and how his life had been transformed and redirected through the training of the last Korean Master of Sinanju. He thought of the House of Sinanju, and the villagers who had survived for five thousand years because the Master of Sinanju had gone out into the known world to ply the trade of assassin, feeding the village that could not feed itself because the soil was too rocky to till and the waters too cold for fishing.
Remo saw the impassive faces of those villagers, unchanged down through the ages, with their suspicious eyes and alien faces.
On second thought, maybe staying alive for the sake of those people wasn't the way to go.
He thought of his own life. Of the women he had known and loved and mostly lost. He thought of Jilda of Lakluun, a Viking warrior woman with whom he had had a daughter, a laughing-eyed little girl named Freya. Over a year ago Remo had been visited by the spirit of his own deceased mother and was told by her that a shadow had fallen over Freya. The danger was not yet great, but it was growing.
Since then Remo had been on Harold Smith's back to find Freya, but even Smith's far-reaching computers couldn't locate a teenage girl whose last name was unknown and unguessable.
Shifting position to warm his left side, Remo recalled the image of little Freya. When he had last seen her, she was seven. Now she would be thirteen. A very young lady. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine what her face would look like today. His imagination failed him. He couldn't envision the daughter he had seen only once in his life; he could only remember her as she was on their last meeting.
Over the lap and gurgle of water, he thought he heard her tinkling laugh. It came again. Clearer this time.
"Freya?"
"Daddy. Where are you?"
Remo's eyes snapped open.
"Freya!"
"Daddy, don't die. Live for me. Live for meeeeeee."